reaching.

so nice. like a cool breeze.
the feeling I get when I see you.
your hair and your face and all I see.
your heart beating in your chest.

we walked so long that night.
stopping often reaching for the stars.
the moon fills the sky.
thank heaven time has stopped.

and then it hits me.
we are really here in this place.
on a night like this nothing else matters.
and we'll never be here again.

the morning brings rain.
a rain like we've never seen.
the walls of this place weep.
and the stars hide their shame.

a name like no other.
on a day we can't remember.
if it's always gonna be like this,
take me home another way.
sven.






san francisco california

space house.

beautiful space house on the great highway. san francisco california. may 2013.


if you live in a space house everything can be beautiful.

city and country.

   I had to go the big city yesterday, there were not too many people out and about. these are some of the skyscrapers there. below, see the hennepin co. library with several tall buildings behind, including the ids tower. the ids was the only tall building in minneapolis for many years giving the downtown area a very distinct look. it's definitely changed over the years...

   

   I worked for 2 years at the top of the ids, at the orion room / cleos. it was kind of a hassle to come and go, but it was a really cool place to work. years and years ago this was... there was quite the cast of characters working there at the time.

   cathy the dishwasher in the elevator after work: beautiful people who have just had very expensive dinner and drinks are now traveling with the person who's still sweating from washing their dishes. she was a little indifferent to the other passengers as she used to click her jaw madly to assuage the pressure in her ears from the ride down. 

   lori barbero: lori was a very nice girl and definitely tough. she would come to work dressed very punk and transform herself (as much as possible) for the floor. one night a british band, 'the lime spiders' came to 1st avenue. lori (and I, but not with lori) attended - and left with the boys on their bus after the show. no more lori. next thing I heard of her was that she was the drummer for 'babes in toyland'

   several other musicians, artists, actors and dancers worked in a tiny back of the house / kitchen, that I always thought of as like being in a submarine perched high in the sky. it was a very interesting place.

every once in awhile, late at night after work was done: mix a drink, turn on the 'oldies' channel, go into one of the smaller rooms, turn off lights, enjoy. beautiful.

   here's the armory. I saw a few concerts there. It's acoustics are not good but this is my kind of venue. I wish all indoor concerts were held at venues like this. I just much prefer the old school - industrial - utilitarian vibe of an old civic center, to these modern 'softeez toilet paper center' joints.

   70's concerts: $8-$10, mostly kids, a cloud of smoke fills the 'sky' for the evening. bottles and frisbees flying around. halls filled with colorful long haired kids in various states of buzzed. fire crackers and rock music blasting. fun. 

   in august 1978 I drove my '67 fury III from stacy to blaine, where I picked up greg marx. his father was a strict authoritarian and their family was run in a very unhappy manner. the family was basically doing homesteader stuff: big garden, everything home made etc. that day his father had ordered him to return a rabbit to the wild of my house before he could go anywhere else. he agreed and we set off, 15 blocks further and it was freedom for blinky the bunny into the nearest field we could find.    

   then we took off for bloomington to see my 1st concert: the eagles, steve miller band and pablo cruise at the old met stadium (current site: mall o' america), tickets were $10. the attendance for this show was a record 80,000 outside in the pouring rain that only let up towards the end of the night. I more or less purposefully 'got seperated' from greg at the beginning of the show and spent the rest of the night 'alone' with 80,000 other revelers... there's parts to this story that can't be told here, what with this being a family operation and all...     ...quite the introduction to concerts for me.

when I came back to the country this is what I saw:

a cardinal, perched in the blue spruce next to our house.

I like the city.

I like the country.

sven.

california frost.

san francisco.

afternoon rides. super sunshine.

left over.

sven.

peace.

come on in.

time for bed.

dreams of doing what I'm doing today.

(last fall prospect park minnesota) 

san francisco treat.

dear diary,   

   I did so many fun things today during my super cool visit to san francisco to see crosby stills and nash at the fillmore, and to visit my really nice family and to do so many other boss things - diary! one super fun place we visited was the corner of market and octavia, where I saw this trolley, out side of...

 ...grooves, a super fun record store! my brother doug was with me diary. he and I have been to a few record stores in our time as you know, and so we think we 'know the ropes'. it came as some surprise then, when doug attempted to 'carefully' remove and  look at a record hanging on the wall.

   the record store chap was having none of it and so, with out speaking he unceremoniously 'removed' the record from doug's hands...Walls Are Verboten!..and in one smooth gesture the record was safely home on the wall again. doesn't he know we know what we're doing? well, I do anyway...we enjoyed the rest of our visit none the less and chalked it all up to our ignorance of some local 'custom' (though I would think doug should have known - being local, diary?)

   I ended up purchasing a super cool book about california sunshine so I hope that made up for our faux pa. while searching the record bins I began to notice it was 'time for breakfast' so I suggested we go to the 'it's tops coffee shop' I had spotted next door...

...heaven...this is my kind of place diary. our server was nice to us and she made us glad to be there and the other customers were very interesting to be around too and there was good old 'rock 'n' roll' on the hi-fi. the food...

...was scrumptious! viva la 'it's tops coffee shop' in san francisco!

   there is one bad thing about these snapshots though, diary. they remind me of the case I made for my iphone which is in the picture of my breakfast. later in my visit I left it at a restaurant in tiburon. when I realized it I ran back to ask if they had found it. they suggested a seagull had likely stolen it off our table! a common occurrence they said. oh diary I just have to make another one soon! 

   but, at that time everything was ok with the world. I hope some day I'll be able to return to this neat little corner of san francisco with another hand fashioned iphone case to shop at grooves and eat at 'it's tops coffee shop'!

sven.

p.s. if you're ever in tiburon, watch out for the rude seagulls that live there.

it's tops coffee shop

north by north east.

emily's lebanese deli.

mistah and raw kibbi. (ground beef, cracked wheat and spices) uh...yes you can eat it raw, it's very good.

crema, yum.

(modern home, fridley)

back to north east today. saw some pretty cool homes and some weird ones too. dinner at emily's lebanese deli was awesome as usual.

emily's

snowed in.

trailer, lino lakes, minnesota.

modern home, virgin neighborhood.

modern home in a virgin neighborhood. coon rapids, minnesota.

February 2013.

north east brew.

   a journey to lovely north east minneapolis yesterday with a couple of friends. several nice brew pubs opened recently and we visited them. it was fun.

612 brew

dangerous man

fried bologna

indeed

barrio truco

shangri la.

   encountered this old trailer in my travels yesterday. I could definitely live here.

it's a pretty cool trailer, in a neat location.

february 25, 2013, hilltop, minnesota.

in a lonely place.

italian loaf. marino's.

in a lonely place. nicholas ray. the heights.

organist. the heights.

remember.

winter.

(february 2013)

nicollet island.

   photos from a recent drive around nicollet island. what a neat neighborhood. amongst other things - the home of the iconic grain belt beer sign (some day a picture? - ed.) a historic and 'kinda funky'  neighborhood of minneapolis. 

   the neighborhood holds some personal history for me as well. an occasional 'hang out' for me in the old days, was a decrepit secluded train bridge on the northwest side of the island. it has since been restored and is now part of the parks system. at the time it was more likely to 'transport' transients, and other malcontents. 

   to this off the radar hangout, I took my future wife on the day we met, more than 26 years ago. I ran across her not far from here, just across the river at bristols (no longer extant) (not more than a stone's throw from nye's, by the way) I invited her for a ride on my motor bike. we stopped at a liquor store, picked up a 6 pack of beer, and went to the bridge for some summer fun (very trusting she was - ed.) 10 weeks later we were married. as I said, historic.

one of the buildings on the island has an orb behind it. a space capsule or some kind of weird and wonderful art piece. mysterious. anyone? guess I'll have to investigate further. building looks pretty cool too.

nicollet island

grain belt

sentinel building.

the sentinel building located on columbus avenue and kearny street, in san francisco. it's owner is francis ford coppola and it's main tenant is his american zoetrope studio.

(sven - iphone, instagram filters, september 2012)

zoetrope