Hot Afternoon

Yesterday the Lowertown Roots Music Festival began with Mariachi Flor y Canto at one in the afternoon. The temperature and humidity was fierce but folks with lawn chairs in hand began to filter into Mears Park in spite of it. Several songs into their set they began to sing La Cigarra a song that sounds like it should be about smoking cigars, but is really about the cicada, the grasshopper with the unusually long life and known for the sound that the male makes when it beats its belly like a drum. I first heard La Cigarra on Linda Ronstadt's 1987 album of mariachi music dedicated to the Mexican heritage of her father. I remember hearing her sing that song and others with Mariachi Vargas on one of the morning shows when the album debuted....and I've loved it ever since. Flor y Canto did an impressive rendering of La Cigarra....and they sang it in the hot sun decked out in traditional mariachi suits. That means long skirts and jackets for the three women singer/violinists and full suits for the 3 guitarists and 2 trumpet players. At one point the lead singer complained about her attire and the polyester fabric of her costume. I wanted to shout out "summer weight wool will breathe honey"......maybe I'll post something on their facebook wall. The afternoon continued with a variety of roots traditions like gospel and bluegrass, but I left the park and didn't return until headliner Greg Brown took the stage at eight. It was still warm out and there must have been close to a thousand folks in the park by then. I'm not very familiar with his music but I had the feeling that most of the fans in the audience had heard him sing songs about flying his freak flag and fat boy blues before. He didn't seem like he had a weight issue and I thought he looked pretty trim in his cool wifebeater shirt. The evening ended a few minutes early when the festival organizers warned the audience of approaching thunderstorms to the north. The fans did not want to leave until Greg played one more song and he agreed. Warning sirens went off about twenty minutes later and finally lightning arrived to end what was a great beginning for the first annual Lowertown Roots Music Festival.

Mrs Peabody Nearly Melts

Mrs. Peabody who had nearly melted away yesterday is beginning to recover nicely thank you. I won't go into all the statics associated with our recent heat wave like dew point, heat indexes, record breaking stuff and all that. It is enough to just record it as hot and set it in your mind so that you can retell it in twenty years. But that is over now and downtown residents can actually walk outside. Children can play once again outside. Not only that but ovens can be used. The faint smell of warm chocolate chip cookies wafting through the breeze up to my balcony as I sat outside enjoying my third cup of coffee tells me that things are back to normal. Praise the whatever that our collective misery has passed.

Littering Butts???

Someone is a little pissy about the cigarette butt litter on our downtown streets. I noticed this stenciled sidewalk graffiti by the Union Depot several weeks ago and now there are several more around town. This one is labeled 1.1 so maybe others are 1.2 and so forth. I was contemplating the cigarette butt issue myself about a month ago as I was entering a door on Minnesota Street leading to the skyway. There are always folks smoking there since we turned them out of buildings a few years ago. There is no receptacle there for butts and I doubt that many smokers feel compelled to hang on to it until one can be found. Some businesses put out containers and I wonder if their outside areas are a little cleaner. One winter at this same skyway entrance I came across someone urinating on the sidewalk where I wanted to walk. As I recall I made somewhat of a negative comment to the gentleman and he responded "well....ah, you're fat". I guess he told me. Perhaps this downtown artist whom I shall call "The Squirrel" also does not want to risk direct confrontation by the offending butts in town.

Summer Read

Marcie Johnson, the conscience of Peppermint Patty sits quietly reading in Rice Park while her other friends like Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and Schroeder strike playful poses in nearby Landmark Park. It seems fitting that Marcie should be located nearer to the downtown Central Library just across the street. The downtown library is one of our great assets and an easy way to find that great summer read. A few weeks ago I began to contemplate (again) that I should read some of those books that "the experts" say I should. I could call it my book bucket list....and so I hit the fiction section under A's and B's. A for Austen and Pride and Prejudice and B for Buck and The Good Earth. I finished The Good Earth easily and treated myself to The Lovely Bones by Sebold before beginning my first Jane Austen novel. I have to admit I'm struggling a bit and maybe I'll just pop in the movie....I think I can get that at the library too. I'll take the 6 part mini series staring Colin Firth. Sometimes we forget that the library is not really free. We pay for it in our property tax so you pay whether or not you use their services. This week I brought home a selection of magazines too....got to get my money's worth. I picked out an assortment of 2011 issues of The Atlantic, The New Republic, Smithsonian, Bon Appetit and Rolling Stone. I can get tips on baking best-ever brownies while trying to understand an article on democracy and why the world is becoming less free.

Closed Until Further Notice

The state government is shut down as of July 1st. As I walked to the library Friday morning I noticed there were definitely fewer folks in the skyway, but I suppose some of that was due to at least many people starting a long 4th weekend. The coffee shop in the Golden Rule building was closed. I guess they have too many state workers in that building to bother staying open. Business for them and others will suffer if the state doesn't settle soon. A few folks continued to work on street projects connected to the light rail project. I felt sorry for them because Friday was dangerously hot. I suppose they work for one of the utility companies associated with the project or perhaps the city....they are still working. The workers seemed intent on the large brick lined hole they had uncovered that looked like an entrance to the vast underground network of tunnels underneath St. Paul. Perhaps they will find some extra $$$ in there to solve the state budget problems. Passing by on Saturday night the hole was gone. I guess the state will have to look elsewhere for the extra money we need. I continued walking to Kellogg Park to the overlook to view Harriet Island...pretty quiet for a holiday weekend. The city should be crowded with people enjoying the Taste of Minnesota event....but that ended last year when the private sector that took it over screwed it up by thinking we wouldn't notice that the once free event was now $30 per person. I like free stuff so that didn't sit well with me. Luckily we will still have fireworks on the 4th and although there may be fewer people it should still be a spectacular sight along the backdrop of the Mississippi River.