john and hiroe: June 2006

Opening day at the new Guthrie 6/25/06

It was a sunny, windy day in Minneapolis today...

... a good day to check out the opening celebration for the new Guthrie theater.

Of course, everyone has their priorities, and this was priority one. That's a corn dog in Hiroe's hand.

Now on to the new Guthrie. There are many, many details to the place. I think it would take several visits to just to notice even some of them. See the silhouette on the exterior?

They tried to make today's celebration as festive as possible. These dancing entertainers were happy and yet strangely intimidating.

This one was the most suspicious, as there were two sets of legs showing. Fishy, fishy.

It clearly takes just one to operate the costume.

Anyway, they had several other entertainers there including this energetic band.

And this puppeteer, along with a few other musicians and performers scattered throughout the building.

More exterior details.

Once inside the building, there were all sorts of interesting "port holes" looking out toward the river and the city.

This was probably our favorite relaxation spot. One can order a cocktail from the bar directly behind this chair. However, we didn't actually get to try it as this couple didn't seem to want to move.

This is one lounge located in the long "finger" extending from the building.

There are many color themes scattered throughout the building. This is a view from one of the stages. Red.

I didn't get a shot inside the main theater. It's very reminiscent of the old Guthrie, albeit smaller (200 seats less). The seats surround the stage and even the colors seem similar.
Next we headed up to the 9th floor. Yes, yellow. The tall man and girl standing just to the right of center in the photo are standing a on glass floor looking down to the sidewalk below. Probably 100 feet down. It was hard to get yourself to step on it.

There is a studio on this floor where they were practicing motion exercises to music. The sound was great and the creativity entertaining. Excuse the woman's head in the photo. I couldn't get a clear shot...

Lastly we went out to the end of the "extrusion" from the building that is cantilevered over the river road. There was stadium type seating and great views of the Mississippi. Decidedly a great place to watch the fireworks that are going on - in - oooh about a half hour from now.

friday 6/23/06

We stopped by one of Hiroe's favorite shops on the way back from dinner tonight...

Today Hiroe received a special package containing her birthday present. She's still smiling. Thank you Kana!!!

Started working on the rock. Barely made a dent in the pile.

weekend 6/18/06

Last weekend was really more interesting than the pictures I have. We did so much more than just entertain Soba with the laser pointer. O.K. so it was really for our entertainment. Have you ever tried it? Having a dog chase the imaginary "being" under the bookcase. Around in circles. Up the wall. Hours of entertainment I tell you.

Friday night we went to the Diane Arbus exhibit at the Walker. It was opening night and very crowded, but I thought it was fantastic. So inspirational. So many questions on photography were both asked and answered. She had a tremendous talent for catching people at the right time and illustrating who they are. Couples, old people, kids, circus performers, nudists, street people, etc., etc. I also found it interesting to see the many attempts she took before capturing the perfect photograph. Different poses. Different expressions. Subtle changes. I could also feel her passion for photography. She decided on "the latest" camera that she had to have. To earn the money for it she took on teaching additional classes.
What was diffecult to discern was how she was able to get so many people to pose for her. They seemed to volunteer displaying their weakest or most private moments. The best reasoning I can think of is a combination of the right level of assertiveness coupled with a time in the past that people were fascinated with the photographer (40 years ago). The difficulty of current times is the level of suspicion people have of strangers, and more specifically strangers with cameras. I've been reading about current day photographers and their experiences doing street photography. For the most part it's easy, but there are the occasional extreme reactions - in a bad way. I also have been learning that the truly intersting photographs have people in them. You may be able to see what they're doing. You might not. But it adds a level of perspective to the photo that you can't get out of a photo of a building or a sunset. I should say that photographs of very specific objects, cropped very tight, can be successful without people. But general photographs are just bad photographs. At any rate, there is so much to learn.

And Hiroe loved the exhibition too.

On Saturday we went to a local landscaping shop and ordered some crushed rock for the backyard. It was delivered on Monday.

It's not that either of us are exceptionally fond of rock. It's a cleanliness thing, i.e. dogs and mud. Whenever it rains, and for that matter all spring during the thaw, there is mud around our trees and anywhere there isn't grass. Even where there was grass there was mud, but I've been working on that one too. Whenever the dogs go out and it's wet they are due for a bath.

On Sunday night we went to our favorite local Indian Restaurant for our 2nd aniversary. Very nice.

Lake St project started 6/12/06

Tonight I finally started my Lake St project. Immediately I discovered it will be a lot more work than I originally thought to create what I have in mind. But that's half the fun of a new project, right?

I'm going to enjoy this.

Birthday dinner 6/11/06

Had a family birthday dinner at our house on Sunday night. Appetizers outside then dinner and cake inside. The photos catch everyone who was there... and of course there are plenty of gratuitous photos of our lovely little niece Sofia.

Birthdays are a good time to lean.

This was another fabulous Hiroe creation. They just keep getting better and better!

last day of the birthday week 6/10/06

Author's note:

We have received comments that the blog is taking much longer to load for some people. Recently, I switched to posting higher resolution images with files sizes that are about 10 times larger than before. To speed things up again I'm switching back to posting in the old low resolution format. I may occasionally use a high resolution image only if it seems appropriate.

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Yesterday was my birthday. It was a lovely day of gifts (cheese cutting boards), a cool birthday card (a camera!), fudge, a looooong afternoon nap (I haven't done that for years), sushi at Sakura in St. Paul, and the Science Museum. We saw Gunther von Hagens' BodyWorlds. It was pretty amazing to see human skeletons with just the muscles or the nerves, or the arteries, or.... There were slices of the body, individual organs, fetuses, and lots of commentary via the headset. Of course, no cameras are allowed so you'll just have to see for yourself.

midtown global market 6/9/06

Friday night we decided to find a new place for dinner on Lake St. We had set out to stop at one of the many non-suburb (i.e. the polar opposite of Olive Garden) restaurants there. However we decided to first visit the new Midtown Global Market in the old Sears building at Lake and Chicago. Hiroe is in this picture.

We had planned to shop there then eat elsewhere, but quickly realized we'd eat there too. The place is not yet full, and it was not very busy, but you get a feeling of diversity and opportunity there. Decidedly, we felt we could open a Sushi or Soba restaurant there.

United Noodles has opened a second shop there.

I found a place that has excellent chocolate chip cookies (my weakness), Hiroe found excellent three milk cake, we ate a nice spring roll appetizer, and we had a lovely mexican dinner... not in that order.

Did you find Hiroe in the first picture? If not, here's a hint.

I have this plan to start photographing Lake St from Lake Calhoun to the Mississippi. There's more diversity and intriguing shops and restaurants than I think most people realize. I just need to more time away from work to take advantage of the bright sunny days. But then again, who doesn't need that.

Children's Festival 6/3/06

Saturday we were invited to join in a children's parade in St. Paul's Rice Park. That's a parade for children, not containing children. I think. Not by coincidence, most of the participants in our group own American Eskimos. The theme of the parade is Art in Motion, so they painted their dogs. Soba was invited too and was presented with this fashionable white suit so as to join the color themed event.

Reminiscent of the sheep in Wallace and Grommit.

The coloring is halloween hairspray... safe on humans so it must be safe on the puppies, right?

Sometime's it's tough to coordinate a group photo. Funny, the guy on one knee is like that in every attempted photo. The perfect photographee.

So cute. You probably see this everyday in Beverly Hills.

Dogs were only one small part of the parade.

Saphire the jumping American Eskimo. If we had brought the fence from our yard, Gnocchi, our American Eskimo, would have happily jumped that.

It's not often that you're really proud of a photo. This is one of them. Partly because of the colors. Partly because of the flow of it. Partly because he's looking a the camera. Partly because of his shadow. Partly because he's completely off the ground. But also because I only had 3 tries at this photo. I had set the camera to catch individual events, not sequential. No idea who this is. I'm sure he'd enjoy seeing this one though.