Dave's Blog

St. Anthony Falls

St. Anthony Falls is the reason for Minneapolis. It's ultimately the sole reason that there is a city, and therefore that we live, in this particular spot. That's the simple but (literally) powerful message we got on a field trip to the spectacular Mill City Museum last week with my son's 4th grade class. The kids are considering the question right now, "Why am I in this particular place? How did I, and my family, get here?" It's a big question, one that many adults have never seriously entertained, and it's fun to see (again, literally) the wheels turn as the kids take it on.

In the late 1800's, before electric motors, this unique geographic feature, situated conveniently on the mighty Mississippi right on the edge of the American wheat belt, turned scores of turbines that ran machines that ground wheat into flour that was shipped all over the globe. For 50 years, Minneapolis produced more flour than any other city in the world. This picture looks down from the top of the ruins of one of the many mills, the Washburn A.

A good museum is (yet again, literally) a place that invites the muse, helps us to wonder about stuff, and partially satisfies our curiosity with information. Personally, I think that's ultimately the job of education as well. It's just as important to kindle curiosity as to impart knowledge.

And to come back to that question, "Why am I in this place?," and relate it to Magnetic Poetry and my own place in the world as an inventor and business person, I would say this: Magnetic Poetry products help people invite the muse into their lives. And I am here typing these words because of that.

Just When I thought I'd Seen Everything...

...a couple of hurdy-gurdy-toting Swedes proceed to blow my little mind! These guys are Stefan Brisland-Ferner and Hallbus Totte Mattsson, playing at the Nordic Roots Festival here in Minneapolis at the Cedar Cultural Center. The mind begins to reel when you first see their instruments, which look like something devised as props for a Star Wars cocktail lounge scene, and cranks (literally) into a new dimention when they start to play. I will lamely describe the sounds they make as mysterious sitar drone symphonies punctuated by angry-Nordic-god insect storm melodies. These two further trip things out by jamming their fingers into the guts of their instruments and fiddling around with who-knows-what to produce various caterwauling screams and yowls, intermittently feeding their signals through electronic processors, and laying the whole mix on top of pulsing synthesized rhythm tracks to really take the music to hypnotic places. I find myself imagining belly dancing valkyries! Yow! If you'd like to go on your own little sonic adventure, buy their CD, Hurdy-Gurdy PROTOTYP at: www.noside.com

Blue Uniforms

In our society, many tacitly agree that it's best to grow up quickly. Start reading at three, music lessons at four, specialize in a sport by five, the solid beginnings of a career track in place by mid grade school. It's a race to success. Whether it works is debatable.

Here's an alternate theory: Kids should grow up slowly. They should live in a world of magical imagination and play until they are, say, eight, and then gradually start into more adult-like, disciplined skills like reading and writing and math and responsibility. And even then, they should be treated like kids. They should be protected, as much and as long as possible, from the complexities and brutalities of the adult world. They should, in other words, be given ample time to have a fully realized childhood, in order to move fully and confidently on to the next stage. Serve no wine before its time, as it were.

That's sort of the idea behind Waldorf education. If you've got a young kid, you might want to consider it.