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SOUNDSMINNEAPOLIS, ST. PAUL, and their environs. Hidden treasures, little-known locations, and strange history by Max "Bunny" Sparber.
GOOD EATSALL THE MILK YOU CAN DRINK: A Minnesota State Fair tradition that delights and perplexes.
THE BAND BOX DINER: One of the Twin Cities' finest classic diners.
THE COSMOPOLITAN: This locally invented cocktail was the favorite of the characters on
Sex and the City, but we won't hold that against it.
HOBO SOUP: A minnesota-produced epicurean visit to the food of yesterday's yard dogs.
THE JUCY LUCY: Minneapolis's gift to world cuisine, although, it seems, world cuisine doesn't want it.
MANCINI'S CHAR HOUSE: It's old school swank elegance in one of the Twin Cities' best steak houses.
PEARSON'S SALTED NUT ROLL: St. Paul provides one of the most deliciously distinct confections in candy market.
GOOD LOOKSALIVE FROM OFF CENTER: A television show documenting a time when the Twin Cities were an unlikely hub for an international community of avant-garde artists.
CHANK DIESEL: You've seen the fonts of Chank Diesel, even if you don't know it.
THE EARLY CARTOONS OF RICHARD GUINDON: Richard Guindon, who was best known locally for drawing Minnesotans as potato-shaped weirdos, had an earlier, and less remembered, resume as a savagely political illustrator for
The Realist.
KING MINI INTERNATIONAL: Cartoonist Vincent Stall's self-produced, strange, and oddly moving miniature comic books.
NUDIE'S RODEO TAILORS: One of Hollywood's most famous cowboy costume designers had an unexpected relationship with Mankato, Minnesota.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF WING YOUNG HUIE: Two Twin Cities' thoroughfares get profiled in two engrossing monographs.
PREFAB: Two local architectural firms create glorious, modernistic prefabricated houses for a fraction of the cost of traditional housing.
SEED ART: The unofficial folk art of Minnesota.
WALLY WOOD: Minnesota produced one of the legends in comic book illustrations, a man who was one of the most beloved characters at both EC Comics and Mad Magazine, and bridged the gap between 50s comics and the underground press of the 1960s.
WILD ART AT THE WALKER ART CENTER: The Walker Art Center's massive collection of modern art contains some pieces that are titillating, or ambiguous, or just plain weird; here is a sampling.
INKALL THE CAKE I WANT: A look inside the St. Cloud Reformatory by Jim Adams, a former inmate.
BAREFOOT BOY WITH CHEEK: Max Shulman, creator of Dobie Gillis, authored this puckishly comic coming of age novel, set at the University of Minnesota.
CITY: By day, Clifford D. Simak may have been a Minneapolis newspaper editor, but by night he wrote some of the most unusual science fiction ever published.
THE CROWDED BED: He was never a great writer, but with a trilogy of books about group marriage, Harold Kahm was one of the Twin Cities' most interesting.
DIRECTORY SERVICES, INC.: This 60s-era and Minneapolis-based publisher of naked beefcake photography was at the center of a trial that made the case that even sexual minorities have First Amendment rights.
DOWN AND OUT: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MINNEAPOLIS'S SKID ROW: There was a time when downtown Minneapolis was mostly one big skid row; this collection of photographs revisits that time.
THE EVENING CROWD AT KIRMSER'S: A hard-boiled memoir of a gay bar in St. Paul in the 1940s.
GREAT MOMENTS IN ROCK 'N' ROLL: Joel Orff's long running, audience-written cartoon about one of America's greatest contributions to popular culture.
THE JOHNNY FLETCHER MYSTERIES: Tough pulp fiction from a Minnesota native.
THE MINNESOTA CONNECTION: An ultra-sleazy, nonfiction look at prostitution in Minnesota in the late 70s.
ONE BAD DUDE: Harrowing tales of drugs, crime, and redemption in north Minneapolis.
STRANGE DAYS, DANGEROUS NIGHTS: Photos from the morgues of St. Paul newspapers showing murder and mayhem from the middle part of the 20th century.
LOCAL COLORBOWLING: Other places can claim more bowlers and better bowlers, but no place can claim a weirder relationship with the sport.
BURMA SHAVE'S GREATEST HITS: A Minnesota company changed the face of the American highway with their unique advertising campaign.
A CANNIBAL FOUNDED MY TOWNSHIP!: The failed township of San Francisco, about an hour southwest of Minneapolis, had an unusual founder. His name was William Foster, and, as a member of the notorious Donner Party, he had murdered men and eaten their flesh.
HAMM'S BEER BEAR: The Twin Cities has produced some great beer, but only one really great animated beer advertising mascot.
HAUNTED TWIN CITIES: Like anyplace where people have lived, and died, for any length of time, the Twin Cities has its ghost stories; here are a few of our favorites.
OREGON TRAIL: Minnesota's greatest contribution to educational video games, and one that to this day leaves people smiling at the words "you have died of dysentery."
THE ORIGINAL NAMES FOR THE TWIN CITIES: They weren't always called Minneapolis and St. Paul; a look at our cities' more picturesque early names.
THE PAVEK MUSEUM OF BROADCASTING: The Twin Cities largest collection of vacuum tubes; also, one of the coolest museums you'll ever see.
PERMANENT RESIDENTS: A sampling of Twin Citians who have taken up residence in our many cemeteries.
PERFORMANCE ODDITIES: Although the Twin Cities are home to the Guthrie, as well as a robust regional theater scene, in their early years Minneapolis and St. Paul seemed to be a nexus of bizarre and bewildering performances. Here are some of the highlights.
ST. PAUL PROSTITUTION PHOTOS: A Web page that displays photos of people recently arrested; a guilty pleasure.
THE STRANGE TALE OF DR. TANNER, THE MAN WHO FASTED: The true story of a Minneapolis doctor who didn't eat and apparently couldn't die.
TILT-A-WHIRL: The perennial fairground ride is a Minnesota invention.
LOCAL HEROESDR. DEMENTO: The world's greatest advocate of novelty music hails from Minneapolis.
GORDON PARKS: The photographer and filmmaker -- who gave the world
Shaft -- had many of his defining experiences as a child in Minnesota.
THE HANSON BROTHERS:
Slap Shot's trio of goony, ultraviolent brothers was based on -- and played by -- hockey playing brothers from Minnesota.
LESTER YOUNG: The porkpie clad titan of jazz saxophone had his early roots in the Twin Cities.
LILI ST. CYR: One of the legends of Burlesque, known as much for her offstage romances and her onstage disrobing.
MITCH HEDBERG: St. Paul's greatest contribution to oddball standup comedy.
SCREENGEORGE AND GORDON BAU: Two brothers from Minnesota created a technique of special effects makeup that allowed them to tear Vincent Price's face off, and also transformed the industry.
HAYWIRE DIALOGUE FROM THE COEN BROTHERS: Minnesota-born filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have put some of the oddest dialogue ever concocted onto the silver screen; here is a sampling.
MINNESOTANS AND NOIR: We seem like such a mild-mannered state, and yet Minnesota produced some of the most significant actors in Hollywood's cruelest genre.
MINNESOTANS IN HORROR FILMS: When the screaming starts onscreen, you can be sure a few locals will show up to join in.
THE RIVERVIEW THEATER: Moviegoing -- and popcorn -- is never better than at this classic Minneapolis theater.
TWO MAD HORROR FILMS DIRECTED BY MINNESOTANS:
Quarantine and
Deep Rising aren't simply genre exercises; they actually seem to have lost their minds.
WHAT WOULD HOLLYWOOD BE WITHOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA?: Many of Hollywood's greatest character actors and movie stars got their educations at the U.
THE WRESTLER: A 1974 film, financed and lensed in Minneapolis, about the local wrestling scene, scripting by and starring AWA world champion and president Verne Gagne.
SHOPPINGAX-MAN SURPLUS: You may not know what to do with what you find at Ax-Man, but you're going to want to figure it out.
VINTAGE MUSIC COMPANY: A hidden store sells forgotten musical treasures.
SOUNDS"BALDIE STOMP/BALDIE BEAT" BY THE DEACONS: Two typically raucous TC garage band songs celebrate a perhaps semi-mythical street gang.
"THE CRUSHER" BY THE NOVAS: This garage band ode to a wrestler may be the greatest wrestling-inspired song ever written; then again, it may be one of the most awful things ever put to vinyl.
"DO I DO RIGHT" BY LOU & GINNY: A great, near-forgotten piece of Twin Cities rock and roll.
EDDIE COCHRAN'S GUITAR: Minnesota rocker Eddie Cochran lived fast and died young; he influenced everyone from The Beatles to The Ramones, and, on the tour of England that killed him, his guitar wound up in the hands of two young men who would shape the course of British rock.
FIVE WILD PLATTERS FROM THE ANDREWS SISTERS: Minnesota's most famous contribution to the world of close-harmony swing trios produced a number of very odd novelty songs; here are five of their oddest.
"I WANT SOME OF THAT" BY KAI-RAY: The lost link between rockabilly and garage music, at least as far as Twin Cities music is concerned.
THE LOST ROCK AND ROLL OF AUGIE GARCIA: And introduction to Minnesota's almost-forgotten godfather of rock and roll, the Bermuda-shorts-clad Augie Garcia, and a sampling of his unjustly obscure platters.
SONGS ABOUT BIRDS: It began with "Surfin' Bird," but ever since the Minnesota music scene has been obsessed with our fine feathered friends.
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Max "Bunny" Sparber establishes, at age 41, that he is an Irish-American, and sets out to explore what this means.
Bunny Sparber spends a year at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis's contemporary art museum; an experiment in new forms of arts criticism.
Max "Bunny" Sparber documents the process of writing a one-man show about performer Tiny Tim, including posting his rough scratch demo recordings of original songs, his early drafts of the script, and his research for the project.
A free full-length album of original music by America's favorite drunken sailor puppet, available for download here. Songs include "Pour Me Another Box of Wine," "One Million Frogtown Whores," and "Why Are Women So Afraid of Seamen?"
