Review of Minnesota Streets I Have Never Been On: Sunnyridge Lane
What do you think about when you are on a street you are not familiar with?
Author: Kyle Constalie
Reviews of Minnesota Streets I Have Never Been On: Woodland Circle
There is a street in Minnesota, just as surely as there has ever been a street in Idaho, or British Columbia, or Fiji. It’s a street that some person, at some point, is all but certain to have walked on, traveling away from one moment and approaching another. This person, by process of elimination, is […]
Celebrating the 1-year Anniversary of the streets.mn Climate Committee
On December 29, 2019, seven people met at Dual Citizen Brewery in St. Paul, and there we created the streets.mn Climate Emergency Committee. We had a few in-person writing meet-ups before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, and even though none of us could anticipate the events that followed throughout the year of 2020, we maintained […]
Rethinking “Rethinking I-94”
Despite its name, MNDOT’s project does not allow for “rethinking I-94,” it can only recapitulate I-94. And the community organizations’ letter, while we agree with its goals, does not push for the magnitude of change necessary. The urgency of our climate crisis requires more ambitious plans, and even the proposals by the community organizations will not manifest an I-94 corridor that has been sufficiently reconsidered.
Reviews of Minnesota Streets I Have Never Been On: Northern Road
In the town of Blackduck, Minnesota, not far from the Hungry Duck Restaurant, a stone’s throw from Bogarts Service Tire Shop, an easy walk (I expect) from the Cease Family Funeral Home, runs a street named Northern Road, a street I have never come close to having been on. My inkling is that this street […]
Dress Your Area with Violets
In our yard we are letting violets cover the ground. They have green heart-shaped leaves, and are an early flowering thing. I think this spring was the best year we’ve had with the violets so far. For a few weeks I was fascinated every time I walked by them. I can put my hand in […]
Prose Poem: Biking Under Helicopters
This morning biking under helicopters to get to work I practiced the meditation technique I made up where I pretend by pedaling I am the single source generating the happiness all living things feel, the way a bike would light a lightbulb. I avoid the buildings that are on fire, flow past objects graffitied with […]
Grieving the Life We Trade Away for Driving
Not long ago, I felt particularly invisible while crossing a street near where I live. A stop sign was to my left, and I was walking parallel with the busy, illegally fast right-of-way traffic. (Once, on the same street, on a corner where I walk at least a few times each week, a car careened […]
Bicycle Safety is Totally Rad, Dude!
One of my old roommates used to be in charge of quarterly safety drills at his workplace. He liked to say, “Safety is not just another word here on Friendship Street.” We lived on Friendship Street. When we gave directions to our place, we told people to look for the street where everyone was hugging. […]