Events

If you’re thinking of enjoying some outdoor dining, tonight’s the better bet for the weekend – high of 70 and no call for rain. The May Entertainment Guide lists all the outdoor options within a contest on page 23 – a chance to pick up a gift certificate to boot!

Otherwise – Friday finds Pigs in a Pen (bluegrass) at the Cow and Kevin Steinman (acoustic guitar) at Hogan Brothers. Jeff and Sabrina are at the Tavern and Whiskerfish returns to Dawn’s Corner Bar. Carleton presents the Choir and Chamber Singers and the theatrical “Waiting for Godot” at 8.

Saturday you’ll find Celtic Cat and Prairie Dog at Hogans, Dana Drives at the Cow, Joe Paulik at the Tavern and Whiskerfish is still holding court at Dawn’s. There are also dance and senior recitals on the latter part of the weekend. Download or pick up a copy of the Northfield Entertainment Guide at key spots around town for details on these and other happenings throughout the month of May.

Enjoy the weekend!

Left: Northfield Liquor Store's Steve DeLong and Just Food Co-op's Stuart Reid were two of the managerial beauties on duty at tonight's "Drink Global, Shop Local" spring wine-tasting event at the Grand. Click the photos to enlarge and see the Flickr photo set or the N.org old style album for a dozen more.

We just pulled this PDF (click the image to open it) from the city website, announcing the Spring Safety Fair from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Saturday at Northfield High School. It's sponsored by the Northfield Hospital Emergency Medical Services, Northfield Police and Cram Chiropractic.

The event will include:
•  Bike registration and rodeo for adults and kids
•  Tours of a police car, fire truck and ambulance
•  Appearance by police K9 unit
•  Medical helicopter landings
•  Health tips from Rice County Public Health Department
•  Blood pressure checks
•  Car seat clinic and more
•  Bike helmets for sale 
•  Registration for drawing for a FREE bike
•  Demonstration of fatal vision goggles that simulate the dangers of drinking and driving
•  Free stickers, pencils, magnets, coloring books, and lots more!

Northfield Downtown Development Corp. boss Ross Currier posted this information on the NDDC blog:

This Third Thursday—TONIGHT!—at 7 pm at the Grand, the Northfield Wine Club is throwing open the doors to the public for wine tasting, cheese tasting, and (this is Northfield after all) spirited conversation.

The guiding themes are Shop Local, Reinvest in Your Community and Support Northfield Businesses.

So come on down(town) and join your friends and neighbors for an evening of wine, cheese and conversation. The Northfield Liquor Store is bringing the wine, Just Food Co-op is bringing the cheese and the NDDC is bringing the...shameless promotion. Admission is free.

Ross also mentions our ISSUES List discussion of potential sites for a new proposed movie theater in town. Check out the NDDC blog or go straight to the ISSUES List for more.

Local groups team up to offer coffee and sweets in Bridge Square

Peggy Prowe rides her bike a lot. She rode it to this week's City Council meeting to advocate for better downtown trails.

Whether you ride or walk every day or you're just needing some motivation to get started, you are invited to join commuters around the state Friday, May 19, for Bike/Walk to Work Day.

Northfield.org, RENew Northfield, and the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation are teaming up to support this effort—and reward participants for their efforts. Northfield is one of a number of communities statewide hosting events to encourage alternatives to solo driving to work. Biking, walking, mass transit, carpools, vanpools and telecommuting are all viable local options which can save money and energy and ease traffic congestion. Bikers, walkers, and others using transit alternatives are encouraged to stop at Bridge Square between 6:15 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. for free coffee, juice, water and pastries.

If you want to learn more, go to www.renewnorthfield.org for more details.

The Ole Store will feature the music of Nordic Jam on Wednesday, May 17 to celebrate Norwegian Constitution Day, or grunnlovsdag, commonly known as "Syttende Mai." Syttende Mai (literally, "17th of May") is a celebration of the day in 1814 when Norway's constitution was signed in the town of Eidsvoll, Norway. Nordic Jam will play in the Coffee House from 7:30 to 10 p.m.

Northfield's Nordic Jam is a group of local musicians who gather weekly to play and learn music from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their American immigrant communities. This is the group's first appearance at the Ole Store.

Just a reminder that on Friday, May 19, Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, will present a convocation titled “The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America” at 10:50 a.m. in the Carleton College Skinner Memorial Chapel. Suarez has worked for public television’s The News Hour since 1999. As one of their senior correspondents from Washington, he is responsible for discussion and debates in the studio, reporting from the field, serving as a backup anchor and conducting newsmaker interviews.

The event is part of the college's weekly convocation series. You can learn more at http://apps.carleton.edu/events/convocations.

This story was submitted by Kilang Yanger (Carleton class of 2006), an international student from India.

Smelling the potent Ghanaian spices of Accra, hearing the powerful strums of the Chinese pipa, watching Filipino dancers dexterously weave their feet around clashing bamboos, having the touch of cool Indian henna dye designs on your palms and last but not least, tasting mouth-watering Danish æbleskiver desserts are but a tiny preview of what happens at the International Festival.

The International Festival has been a very successful ongoing tradition at Carleton for many years. This year’s festival, entitled ‘Kaleidoscope,’ proved to be the same, if not better. It is a multifaceted event that incorporates not only food and entertainment from all over the world, but promotes exposure and learning of other cultures through various workshops set up to engage guests and students. This year’s event, the ninth annual festival, brought Chinese calligraphy booths and Japanese origami tables, along with entertainment such as a fire-knife dance from Samoa. The festival, more importantly, is an event to raise awareness and monetary support for charities. This year’s donations went to the Center for Children’s Happiness, a non-governmental organization that provides a home and education to Cambodian orphans.

All in all, it was truly a kaleidoscopic event one got to experience on a Saturday afternoon right here in Northfield.

David S. Chapman, Carleton College Bernstein Geologist-in-Residence, will present a lecture titled “Global Warming: Just Hot Air?” on Tuesday, May 16 at 7 p.m. in the Carleton College Olin Hall of Science, room 149. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Chapman is recognized as one of the top solid-Earth geophysicists in the world measuring and interpreting heat and mass transfer in the geologic environment. Most recently Chapman developed methods to assess the amount of global warming since the time of the Industrial Revolution by measuring temperatures in drill holes.

Chapman will address the questions of What do we know? What do we not know? What can we do? What should we do? He notes that global trends suggest that allowing “business as usual” is a risky path. Chapman outlines what we know from weather station records and the questions still to be addressed in understanding our complex climate system.

Related links:
Event Description on Carleton's Geology Department Website
David Chapman's Homepage at the University of Utah

There's all sorts of great art on display around town at all sorts of galleries. Today's Art Crawl is from 3-6 pm at the following locations:

• Art and Frame
• ArtOnWater
• ArtOrg
• Carleton Art House
• Carleton College
• Circa Restoration Studio
• Northfield Arts Guild
• St. Olaf College
• Swag
• The Ole Store

Click the poster image here to view a PDF that shows the details, or visit www.artcrawl.info for more information.

“Kaleidoscope,” Carleton College's Ninth Annual International Festival, will be held on Saturday, May 13 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Sayles-Hill Campus Center. The event is free and open to the public.

The festival—which aims to showcase ethnic diversity at Carleton through food, performances and activities—represents 111 international students from 38 countries. As was true at last year’s festival, donations will be accepted for the Center for Children’s Happiness, a non-governmental organization that provides a home and education to Cambodian orphans.

Kaleidoscope will feature 25 performances, including demonstrations of kendo, a Japanese form of fencing using bamboo swords. Other performances include African and Irish dancing.

The wide variety of food choices will include Indian curry, Russian desserts and Chinese dim sum. In addition, students will offer activities throughout the event, including salsa dance lessons and origami instruction.

Northfield, as always, has a weekend full of activities ahead! Details on everything listed here and so much more for the rest of the month can be found in your monthly Northfield Entertainment Guide (NEG) – free at several hot spots around town and as a downloadable PDF here.

Read the rest of this entry for the details...

NORTHFIELD READS! Meet Minnesota author Lorna Landvik Friday, May 12 at 7 p.m. downtown at the Northfield Arts Guild, 304 Division Street. The featured title will be her new paperback Oh My Stars.

Lorna Landvik is the author of the bestselling novels Patty Jane's House of Curl, Your Oasis on Flame Lake, Welcome to the Great Mysterious, The Tall Pine Polka, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons and most recently Oh My Stars. She is also an actress, playwright, and proud hockey mom.

While growing up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Lorna's passions were writing and theater. After graduating from high school, she and her best friend traveled across Europe and settled briefly in Bavaria. Upon returning to the States, Landvik attended the University of Minnesota and then moved to California, where she performed stand up comedy at the Comedy Store and at the Improv. During this time she also scouted bands for Atlantic Records.

Local political junkies and policy wonks should be flocking to campus in the next few days as Carleton College showcases two nationally-known media stars in its free weekly Friday convocation series.

Here are the highlights from the college's press releases:

This Friday, May 12, Eric Schlosser, author of the best-seller “Fast Food Nation,” will present a convocation titled “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” at 10:50 a.m. in the Carleton College Skinner Memorial Chapel. The fast food industry has interested Schlosser for years. He studies America’s infatuation with fast food and the flavor labs where scientists re-create tastes, as well as fast food’s effect on the economy and the American diet.

Next Friday, May 19, Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, will present a convocation titled “The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America” also at 10:50 a.m. in the chapel.

The St. Olaf Orchestra will present a concert featuring senior student soloists and a work by a senior composer Friday, May 12, at 7:30 p.m. in Skoglund Center Auditorium. The concert is free and open to the public.

"For many members of the St. Olaf and Northfield communities this concert has become one of the highlights of the school year," says Steven Amundson, conductor of the St. Olaf Orchestra. "It's great to have the opportunity to work with some of our finest senior performers."

This year's concert will feature six senior soloists: Kristin Clark on marimba, Karin Hancock on piano, Claire Kelly on violin, baritone Eric Neuville, soprano Sonja Tengblad and Micah Wilkinson on trumpet. In addition, the orchestra will perform Rage by senior student composer Matt Peterson.

Pictured here are: (front row, l-r) Sonja Tengblad, Kristin Clark, Claire Kelly and Karin Hancock; (second row, l-r) Micah Wilkinson and Eric Neuville.