Being the amazing, true-to-life adventures and (very likely) misadventures of a writer who seeks to take his education, activism and seemingly boundless energy to North Minneapolis, (NoMi) to help with a process of turning a rapidly revitalizing neighborhood into something approaching Urban Utopia. I am here to be near my child. From 02/08 to 06/15 this blog pushed free speech to the envelope, so others could take heart and speak unafraid. Email me at hoffjohnw@gmail.com
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Something Good Is Coming...ON VIDEO
Above, Jake proves he is "Lord of the Dance"
Word on the virtual street is Jake has completed production of the video about my adventures on "Johnny's Block" and...
...it will hit Minn Post soon along with a print story done by Brian, who also poured on the effort and was able to enlarge the story by talking with:
1.) Peter, the Vice President of the Hawthorne Neighborhood Association, wife of Joy and three children, who are holding the block on my "Western Perimeter," which I have dubbed "Peter and Joy's Block."
2.) Jeffrey Skrenes, of the Hawthorne Area Community Council, who has an important "straight job" as a Housing Director, yet much is revealed by the medallion he wears of Sol, the source of all life in our solar system. Jeff helped me on my block's "Northern Perimeter" by showing me a worrisome garage building needing to be secured, which I hadn't noticed due to its rather secluded location.
3.) Kevin Gulden, Project Manager of Housing and Development for PPL, Project Pride in Living and--I might add--a man with some money to throw around to obtain real estate for the visionary, utopian eco-village planned for my block, so a good man to know!
Kevin's businesslike demeanor can't quite disguise his tree-hugging nature, so I got a great picture of Kevin with what is certainly the oldest tree on the block...right next to that nasty, half-burned garage used by crack heads and winos, marked by graffiti including (but not limited to) the word "Crips."
Yeah, THAT'S going to change. Good things are coming, starting with some oil-based enamel paint I'm going to hit that garage with ASAP, though for now I got the door of the garage secured with some boards and nails.
But back to Jake...
Jake worked so hard on the video he did a little dance when it was done, which was recorded for posterity. Like me, Jake is always thinking of posterity...he just goes about it differently.
Check out Jake's dance on "Space Station 11" blog. Jake didn't complete the video production all by himself, of course. A guy named Dave was involved and competing for the "Lord of the Dance" title.
http://spacestation11.blogspot.com/2008/04/jake-and-dave-rejoice.html
(By the way, I looked all over Flickr.com for a good "Lord of the Dance" image, but I couldn't find a good one...so I finally had to settle for a picture of Jake)
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3 comments:
I cant get the blog link to work, even after typing it in manually.
Yeah, the link should work now. Sorry about that.
Great progress over there Johnny. Please be careful, though, painting over gang graffiti. I have a friend whose student was shot and killed while doing the same thing - in South Minneapolis. He was home from college on break and had motives similar to yours, and it ended in tragedy. Exercise caution, and good luck.
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