7 Minute Miles poster created at the Graphic Design: Now in Production exhibition, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Baby Marx Exhibition, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota

http://webtypographyforthelonely.com/

Spoonbridge and Cherry, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota

I haven’t had much desire to write lately, but lots of cool stuff happened last weekend that deserves at least a passing mention…

First off, we went to see the “naked Japanese dudes” at the Walker Art Center. Eiko and Koma’s Gallery 2 exhibit was truly unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. Eerie, reflective, damp and intimate, it really needs to be seen in person to fully appreciate it. Closes November 30, so move fast.

Second, I took a guided tour of the new clubhouse at Hazeltine National in Chaska last Saturday. I unfortunately didn’t take any photos and it appears that their website doesn’t have any yet either, so you’ll just have to take my word that the inside is just beautiful. I wasn’t wild about the exterior design during construction, but I think overall it turned out very nice (and it’s very unique – very Hazeltine). A few notes:

• The new building sits higher and closer to the ninth and eighteenth greens, so the views towards the course are spectacular.
• Wood beams from the old building were used throughout the new structure, giving it a nice historical (and green) storyline.
• The old putting green is gone, replaced by two new ones: a small one near the first tee and a much larger one located at the site of the old practice bunker.
• The driving range was rebuilt with a mock fairway that contains six target greens (three on each side).
• A new indoor practice area is being built in the basement that will include a 9,000-square-foot putting green, a Ping room with launch monitors and video analysis and a simulator bay that will allow play on a virtual Hazeltine.
• The locker rooms are beautiful – sloped roof with lots of windows opening towards the course, light wood lockers with vertical lines and understated handles with engraved member names, large shower heads and nice sitting areas. There is a row of lockers for past Hazeltine champions (Payne Stewart, Rich Beem, Y.E. Yang, etc.) and I felt the mens locker room had a very Zen rock garden feel to it (and a little Frank Lloyd Wright too).
• Like at Augusta, there is a mini “Crow’s Nest” at the top of the clubhouse accessed via a spiral staircase, but I didn’t get to see this.
• The new pro shop seemed smaller to me than the old one, but it reportedly has more display space.
• I loved all of the photos, paintings and historical items displayed throughout the facility, which included original drawings by Robert Trent Jones, Sr. and a lot of USGA and PGA memorabilia.

All of the on-course upgrades were completed before the snow hit, so the course is currently on schedule to re-open in June. The new grass took so well, in fact, that the grounds crew actually mowed on November 1 before placing the winter covers.

Finally, we took the kids to see the animated feature My Dog Tulip at the Edina Cinema. In hindsight, I’m not really sure that it’s an appropriate movie for younger children, but it was very cute. Based on the book by J.R. Ackerley, it starts with a great quote:

Unable to love each other, the English naturally turn to dogs

Lots of good English humour scattered throughout, it definitely merits a viewing when it hits Netflix – especially if you are a dog person.

OK, back to radio silence…

Colleen and I went to the Walker Art Center on Sunday to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary by watching a favorite of ours, the annual British Television Advertising Awards.

The 2008 edition had a number of ads that we liked a lot, but here is my favorite (semi-NSFW):

Many of the ads are funny, but as always, the PSA’s were hard hitting:

The best commercial of the year was a let-down, as we’ve seen it before many times. One other weird thing happened – during the show, the cane of a person sitting behind me slipped and hit me square on the back of my head. It scared me more than anything, but it was one of those canes with a brass duck head, so the impact was more than just a love tap. Ouch!

After nearly 17 years of not wearing a wedding ring, my wife decided this was the year she would give me one. I had a plain gold band when we got married, but that has long been too small for my finger and has resided in our safe all these years.

In general, I don’t like having anything on my hand or wrist, so I had some requests. I wanted to get something that was smaller, had smooth edges and would be compatible with my computer work and athletic hobbies. We needed a specialist.

Soren Priede is a wonderful custom jewelry designer from Saint Paul who has sold me items for Colleen in the past. We decided to work with him to custom design a new ring for me.

The process started in June with a request for all of the features mentioned above, plus a desire for a design that reflected the waves of the North Shore. The result, which we picked up yesterday, is pictured above.

I’ve very pleased and highly recommend Soren if you need custom jewelry.

Yesterday we went to the Rock the Garden event presented by the Walker Art Center and 89.3 The Current. Artists on the bill included Andrew Bird, The New Pornographers, Cloud Cult and Bon Iver.

The performances were good, but the setup was awful. They shut down Vineland Place and set up the stage across from where the old Guthrie Theater stood. It was pointed east towards downtown, but there were several problems with that: people in the street had to look right into the setting sun, most of the food vendors were also set up in that area and a large part of the crowd sat on the hill to the south, which had terrible sound.

We missed most of the Bon Iver set waiting in line – first to pay at the automated parking kiosk and then to get in to the actual performance area. Once inside, it was wall-to-wall people everywhere. This was made worse by a large fenced off VIP area that hardly had anyone in it. The only uncrowded area was the aforementioned hillside, which would have been perfect if they had any speakers pointed that way. I’m sure that was to appease the neighbors, but it would make the venue so much better.

Most interesting performance thing we saw (before we left early) were the two painters in Cloud Cult creating new artwork during the performance that they auctioned off afterward. Never seen anything like that before…

Last Friday I picked up a print we finally had framed after about twelve years in storage. We picked up this Frank Kozik print on one of our visits to London (I believe at the no-longer-open Vinyl Experience store off of Oxford Street). It’s a signed, limited edition (28 out of 75) print of the Kansas City band Season to Risk’s 1992 self-titled album cover.

Didn’t know that at the time–just thought it looked sweet…

Yesterday my wife and I went to see the 1pm screening of the 2007 British Television Advertising Awards at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. We’ve seen these a number of times the past few years, but this was only the second time we’ve seen them in the new(er) McGuire Theater, which has a really great interior design.

Before we went in the theater, we checked out the Frida Kahlo exhibit next door, as there was absolutely no line. The exhibit was great and I learned a lot I didn’t know about the artist. We saw all three of the actual paintings shown above, two of which had pretty twisted stories behind them. Ms. Kahlo was one interesting personality, that’s for sure…