Manzo Dakota 
One of my outings while in Minneapolis this past summer was a visit to Minnehaha Falls with a hike along the creek at the bottom of the falls. I knew from hiking this path before that there were some interesting sandstone walls along the creek where people have used their hands or sticks to carve … Read more
As a kid growing up in Minneapolis, I spent a fair amount of time down and around Lake Harriet. There’s a rose garden there (not far from where my beer can collecting habits began, on the north side of the lake), where I can’t say that I spent much time as a kid, but the … Read more
It was getting down to the wire, only a few days before the 2024 Armory Show launched at the Javits Center in NYC, and I had a potential scheduling conflict. But everything worked out, and I was able to get a ticket and attend this massive art fair for the 13th time in the past … Read more
I signed up for a week long trial of “IndiePix,” an independent film distribution and online streaming service based in New York City and available through Amazon Prime. I was scrolling through the offerings looking for an art-related movie, and happened upon “Mondo New York,” a semi-documentary movie from 1988 directed by Harvey Nikolai Keith. … Read more
My girlfriend made me a breakfast sandwich the other day which struck me as a true “breakfast of champions,” because it’s so damn delicious. A toasted english muffin, with a spread of sheep/goat cheese, topped with sliced avocado and thinly sliced smoked salmon, and a squirt of lemon juice. Oh my, when I took my … Read more
I saw these painted bug sculptures, or folk art pieces, in the courtyard setting of a shop called “The Rainbow Man” in Santa Fe, and really like them. I made the mistake of not checking for the artist’s name when I was there, and looked under the Folk Art features on their website, but am … Read more
I’ve seen a couple stories recently that grabbed my attention as unusual animal stories, or a situation where an animal is clearly an outlier in relation to its species. The first was a story in the New York Times about a study that found traces of cocaine in a sample of sharks near Brazil. If … Read more
I was driving up to Rhode Island for the Newport Jazz Festival, and got off the highway to get some lunch near Clinton, Connecticut. But before I got a bite to eat, I found my attention pulled into the parking lot of the Key to the Past Antique Center. There were a lot of interesting … Read more
While making the drive through the Florida Keys (starting in Miami, with Key West as the end destination), day 2 of the trip found us getting hit with very hard rain, to the point where it was sometimes hard to see the road in front of us! As we were going through Islamorada, we saw … Read more
My girlfriend was in Miami and sent me this picture … when have you ever seen one bird (or duck, or goose) use another as a landing pad in the water? The term “sitting duck” can be applied to this passive goose who is providing a dry landing for his or her friend. Or maybe … Read more