Bob Collins
Thanks to my long-time MPR colleague, Euan Kerr, I’ve come to realize there’s nothing ballet can’t do. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Arts & Culture
Roderick Cox, the associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, has gotten some well-deserved national attention, thanks to an extensive profile by NBC News. The 29-year-old made his subscription concert debut for the Orchestra this year. Read more →
Poor Sherry Tupa, of Champlin, Minn., was only doing what lots of fans of aging rockers do on Sunday: holding an album up from the artist’s best days. Read more →
Anna Gibbs has died and if you know any history of the Ojibwe in Minnesota, there’s a fair chance Anna Gibbs had something to do with it.
The Bemidji Pioneer reports she died of liver cancer on Sunday at 72.
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He made his name covering entertainment for the Pioneer Press for 53 years, changing the way pop culture was covered around here. He was the host of rock ‘n’ roll in Minnesota. Read more →
It will revamp its programming at the end of the month, City Pages reports, and end one of the quirks that’s made it distinctive in the time block: the ‘different radio station every hour’ format in the mornings using a rotating collection of hosts. Read more →
In his early years in the U.S. Senate, Al Franken tended to avoid comedy. When his book came out this year, Franken dared to be funny again, discovering that comedy is great storytelling and great storytelling is part of the art of politics. Read more →
The current contract between NPR and the SAG-AFTRA union ended at the close of last month and employees agreed to an extension while talks on a new contract continue. The extension runs out tomorrow night. Read more →
Maybe Brandon Rogers would’ve become a big star. Maybe not. We’ll never know.
He was trying to win the America’s Got Talent competition and had advanced past the auditions, but was killed in a car crash in mid-June.
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The minute Patton Oswalt announced his engagement last week, everyone pretty much knew what was coming. The internet commenters would not approve. Read more →
‘For me it was kind of like a moment of realizing that I didn’t have to just walk away,’ student Camille Denton said when encountering a vandalized civil rights memorial. So she and her friends fought back. Read more →
Ayaz Virji could be forgiven if he’d followed his instinct and moved his family out of Dawson, Minn. Virgji, the medical director of a local hospital, was upset that his community had voted for Donald Trump, spurred on by the candidate’s portrayal of Muslims as terrorists. Virji was the first Muslim to move to Dawson Read more →
Let’s go over proper etiquette at the concert.
You don’t clap between movements.
You do clap when a dog walks on stage and takes up residence with the concertmaster. Read more →
Marilyn Hagerty, the long-time Grand Forks Herald columnist and journalism treasure was lured to the University of North Dakota campus with the story that there was a meeting there with legal representatives of UND.
Instead, there was a ceremony to give her the UND Spirit Award and an honorary masters in community engagement. Read more →
These days, we’ll take a little hopefulness anywhere we can find it, and if you’ve been reading the comments since last week’s court decision in St. Paul, we can use a little hopefulness. Read more →