Last night my sister Lisa and I visited The Times, a stately old bar in downtown Minneapolis. She'd heard the Cafe Accordion Orchestra before and wanted me to experience their quirky music. We got a table right next to the dance floor, and it was inspiring to see couples of all ages, straight and gay, in dress shoes and sneakers, doing the tango, cha cha, polka, fox trot and waltz. I'm not a big fan of "Dancing with the Stars" or "So You Think You Can Dance," but seeing all these folks laughing, hugging, and cutting loose makes me think it's a good thing for the world that more people are dancing these days,
The band has performed at Lincoln Center among other places. The naivete of the music is enchanting. It's so unhip it's hip.
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Today I helped my neighbor Bre get some papers faxed at Kinko's, then took her to lunch. Bre's fiance is coming in tonight to pick her up and bring her home to Milwaukee.
Later, we got her room packed up. If you think I'm not traveling light, you should see this girl. A fridge, a microwave, a Wii, Guitar Hero, more shoes than I've owned in my lifetime, a Mini-Me sized teddy bear. She's renting a storage unit for hte rest of the summer.
Bre's friends (Cheryl and Lance) invited me to have dinner with them in the dorm. It was unusual for me to be part of such a raucous group. We were even shushed by someone, and the shushing was met with catcalls and profanity, which made conflict-averse me really uncomfortable, so I did the "middle child" thing and tried to get everyone to play nice.
On the way back to our wing of the dorm, we took a shortcut winding through the basement past ping pong, foosball, and pool tables and a play pit area with a plasma screen tv.
No one on staff had bothered to show me these amenities when I moved in. I think the front desk crew dispenses this information on a "need to know basis." It always troubles me to meet young bureaucrats. How do they acquire these uncooperative skills at such a young age? (A tour would have been nice.)
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I've been making some progress in understanding PhotoShop, but not before a frustrating episode during which my desktop looked only vaguely like the image in the tutorial. After a couple hours of pounding my fist and muttering Yosemite Sam-type strings of cuss words, it dawned on me that I had the wrong version of the software open on my laptop. Once the user error was corrected, things made a lot more sense.
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3 comments:
My first comment got lost because I was too dumb to know how to post it.
I said, I love that accordion band. Those guys are definitely the "Sultans of Swing" of Minneapolis.
Your blogs continue to be wonderful!
I only hope some of the people I've sent the link to go there.
Talk to you tomorrow,
Love, Schmoop
This blog entry raises some questions:
1. Why is Nordeast Minneapolis such a haven for accordions? Last time we were out there, we saw a bumper sticker that said "Start Seeing Accordions."
2. Didn't the Jacksons own one at one time? Where might that be now?
3. Does the U offer accordion lessons?
I almost forgot my best accordion story. In the 80's, the area around Duluth was represented in the state legislature by Florian Chimelewski, a representative who also was famous for the Florian Chimelewski Funtime Polka Band.
One year, when the legislature was involved in very lengthy sessions that often went for 18+ hours per day, Florian brought his accordion into the statehouse and up to the balcony which served as the visitors' gallery for the House of Representatives.
He then proceeded to interrupt the session and play a lengthy version of "Please Release Me."
Gotta love that Iron Range sense of humor.
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