West 7th Fort Road

Tall and taciturn, Leo Bickelhaupt moseys among the tables in his classroom at St Paul’s Open School, tossing questions at his students.

“What did you think of the ghost?” “Yeah, why did the director do that?”

The 10th, 11th, and 12th graders of Leo’s Advanced English class had just finished a class period comparing different film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth as a way to understand how the script turns into a production. MORE »

by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet • 10/2/08 •

The buzz of coffee grinders drowns out the music of Jack Johnson, The Shins and old jazz artists every few minutes as the earthy smell of coffee drifts through the air at Fresh Grounds, a St. Paul coffee shop. Customers lounge on sofas, surfing the Internet on their laptops, or sit around small tables chatting with friends while sipping their drinks. MORE »

We have a new community calendar, and it is ready for you to use. You can find the calendar icon at the top of column 4 on the front page and in the middle of column 1 on all other pages of the Daily Planet. Click on any date in the calendar icon, and you will go to a page listing events for that date. MORE »

Protesters, journalists and old-style hippies were among the targets in the first 24 hours of police raids in preparation for the Republican National Convention.

Sheriff Bob Fletcher claimed that his operation targets only the RNC Welcoming Committee, a local anarchist protest group. However, police also targeted journalists from I-Witness video and a family traveling in a green bus and demonstrating environmentally-friendly practices such as solar panels, hydroponics and composting. MORE »

by Mary Kay Bailey, live.eat.play.twin cities • July 1, 2008 • While on the St. Paul Phototour website, I discovered that Joe Hoover has posted a bunch of neighborhood walking tour maps. They bring you into some pretty interesting parts of the city. Here’s the sampling along with the links:

Dayton’s Bluff Historic District:

You may have heard the buzz about it at coffee shops and eateries in Saint Paul’s West End, or seen “Call for Entries” flyers posted along West 7th Street. Now the West End Arts “Scene-and-be-Scene” visual arts showcase is rapidly approaching. At the opening night festivities on Saturday, July 12, you’ll have a chance to view a rich variety of art produced by people across the street and around the block from the gallery space. You’ll be able to mingle with painters, photographers, sculptors, digital media designers, and all-around creative movers-and-shakers in the West End community. MORE »

An underlying current of social justice and activism runs through the Tuesday night gatherings at the Mad Hatter’s Tea and Coffee House on West 7th in St. Paul. A core group comes weekly for the Pax Conversational Salons organized by Patty Guerrero. Attendance mirrors that of any local peace vigil—more than half are women and the majority are 50 and up. During introductions at a recent salon, a 60-ish man said he attended every week, and then promptly fell into a nap. But the variety of topics— ranging from the arts, to self discovery to international solidarity efforts—continually draw in new people who discover the salon through calendar listings in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Highland Villager, Twin Cities Daily Planet, local event list serves, and word-of-mouth. MORE »