dreamshark

This is Incarnation Church, the architectural (and arguably spiritual) cornerstone of my neighborhood. It's not my church. I don't think I've ever been inside it. But my house probably wouldn't exist without it.

Early Wednesday morning a mysterious fire was ravaging the sanctuary, pouring flames out that upper window. I read about it on my phone this morning and had to walk over there to see how badly it was damaged. I'm relieved to see that it doesn't look too serious.

From where I was standing when I took this picture, I couldn't see any roof damage. But here's some interior shots that shows how inadequate my vantage point really was. Ouch.

Followed a link to Church of the Incarnation Historic District and learned that this magnificent edifice was designed by Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, the same guy that designed the St. Paul Cathedral and the Basilica of St. Mary. Hat trick!

I almost missed it. Richard was working in the backyard and noticed that our neighbors across the alley were "making music again" on their front porch (something they did about once a week last summer). We meandered over there and discovered that it was a component of Porchfest, an annual neighborhood event. Someone found Richard a chair, so he parked himself at 4007 Pleasant. I got out my bike and cruised around the immediate neighborhood for an hour. Such a great neighborhood event! I mostly took pictures of the performers, but the audience is the best part. Families pushing strollers, toddlers bouncing to the beat, flocks of bikers coming and going, a few familiar neighbors from the block (fun to run into randomly several blocks away from where we live).

The best Porchfest acts are crowd-pleasing bar bands, but there are many varieties of those. According to the online program, this one is probably Trilogy Road doing "Americana Blues." Or maybe one of the other bands listed for that part of the block. With Porchfest you never really know. A lot of the acts just don't show up, and others swap out so many friends that it is hard to keep track.

This one is clearly Mandy and the Backbar, a rocking lead singer and her lively backup band doing everything from "Jolene" to "I'm a Believer" (which sparked an amazing array of spontaneous dancing among the audience).

Four older guys with two guitars, a full drum kit, and a sax doing some kind of laid-back country blues rock, at least judging by their last two songs. Wish I'd found them sooner. Probably either Wilkinson James or The Melvilles.

Crossposts: https://dreamshark.livejournal.com/565832.html

At the Kingfield market on Sunday volunteers were handing out a green flyer humbly begging for support for the organization that runs these little neighborhood farmers markets: Neighborhood Roots. It's a volunteer run group that operates the Kingfield, Fulton and Nokomis Markets.

To make a long story interminable (as this flyer does, I'm afraid) they would really like it if you would go to their website and toss a little money their way. Because they are a harried volunteer organization they managed to spell the name of their own website wrong in the flyer, but I have given you the correct one. They take Paypal and don't insist on a phone number. Even if you don't shop at one of these, if you're feeling charitable towards neighborhood groups and small farmers, you might be moved to donate.

Again, the actual URL for donation is:
http://neighborhoodrootsmn.org/

So here's what we ended up with. I like it. The rainbow colored one can be seen from quite a distance, drawing attention to the other one which is rather self-effacing and easy to miss by itself.

The colorful sign came from Northern Sun Alliance on East Lake St. The plain and earnest one ("We Stand With Our Neighbors") was commissioned by Kingfield Neighborhood Association and made available for a suggested donation of $10 at a couple of neighborhood businesses. If you would like a similar yard sign, try checking with your neighborhood association. Northern Sun Alliance has a few other signs as well, but having trouble keeping them in stock.

Crossposts: http://dreamshark.livejournal.com/450461.html

One of my neighbors sent me an invite to Nextdoor, some sort of electronic bulletin board where neighborhood residents can post questions, announcements, and the like. Sounded like a nice idea, so sure, I signed up.

Next time I looked at my gmail account, the "Social" tab had about 100 emails in it! Turns out the default setting for this thing is "send me an individual email for every single item posted by everybody in EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD." Holy crap. Who wants that?? I changed the settings to "just my neighborhood, please," but it was still overwhelming. No political chat or anything, just an endless stream of "I put an old bookshelf out in the alley" and "Who knows a good babysitter?" and so on. Finally I realized that every day or so they send out a digest that just has subject lines/links to the latest batch of postings. I changed my settings to block all the emails except the digest. I think that will make this usable.

Anybody have experience with Nextdoor? Do you like it?

Crossposts: http://dreamshark.livejournal.com/447431.html

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Entries tagged with neighborhood

Early morning fire

Kingfield Porchfest - so fun!

Speaking of Farmers Markets...

Neighborly signs - PSA

Ay Caramba! Social Media strikes again!

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