Item World: Local news and views for 4/27

The afterlife of a billboard

Most billboard art is big, bold and destined for oblivion. Then there's Leon Huscha's romantic tribute to Minneapolis nightlife. A colorful lineup of dancers, animals and stars, it loomed over a 1st Avenue parking lot 28 years ago downtown and reappeared this month on Excelsior Boulevard. Commissioned in 1984 by restaurateur Lowell Pickett, the billboard is the old-fashioned type that was hand-painted on 20 steel panels, each about 12 feet tall. When its time was up downtown, arts patron Billy Weisman bought and moved it to his Lake Street headquarters, where it hung outside for a couple of decades before heading to storage. Enter real-estate developer Stu Ackerberg, who wanted a landmark artwork to spark the parking lot of his Lake Calhoun Center. With Weisman's OK and Huscha's supervision, Ackerberg had the billboard's faded panels repainted and reinstalled this month on a steel retaining wall. Said Huscha: "It's changed from billboard to mural now." -MARY ABBE

Late-night tunes

Trampled by Turtles and Poliça owe Tom Waits a great big thank-you for their national TV debuts this past week. The two ascending Minnesota bands each picked up their TV spots from Waits, who postponed the gigs for reasons not explained. TBT performed its single "Alone" for "The Late Show With David Letterman" on Tuesday, exactly one week after the Duluth pickers performed in Manhattan at Webster Hall with (yep!) a representative from the Letterman show in the crowd. Talk about great timing. Poliça delivered a lively "Leading to Death" Wednesday on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," whose camera crew offered great angles of dueling drummers Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu going at it. They also caught Ivascu mouthing "Hi Mom!" afterward behind Fallon. Ben's mom was just one of many watching with pride this week. -CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

Can't give a book away

World Book Night -- when thousands of volunteers in the United States and Europe handed out free copies of books to random passers-by on Monday -- was, by most accounts, a success, but that had not been assured. People are naturally wary of anything free. Book-givers knew this, and prepared for it. Some dressed in costumes. Some made signs. Some brought their dogs -- anything to make it clear they were well-intentioned, benign and not handing out Eckankar pamphlets or "The Book of Mormon." Even two of the World Book Night authors -- Minnesota writers Kate DiCamillo ("Because of Winn-Dixie") and Leif Enger ("Peace Like a River") -- had some difficulty. Enger gave away John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany" on the streets of Aitkin, Minn., where people viewed him with suspicion. One woman, he said, looked like she might clock him. DiCamillo ran into trouble on St. Paul's Grand Avenue, where four burly firemen simply told her "no," and another guy wasn't interested in the title she was handing out. He said: "I was hoping for Tim O'Brien's 'The Things They Carried.' " -LAURIE HERTZEL

Into the Mystic

Bring your fiddle

Is there a fiddle in your background? Or a trumpet that you played as a youngster? The Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies is putting out a call for all alumni to dust off their bows and horns and join in the 40th anniversary reunion concert at 2 p.m. on May 6 at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. Actually, you don't even have to play. Just show up. The organization is trying to register as many of the 16,000 alums as possible so that former players can reconnect. Details are at www.gtcys.org. -GRAYDON ROYCE

Post your idea here

Want a say on the future of Minneapolis but too busy for a City Council meeting? A new art project will let you text your great ideas and maybe see them posted on digital billboards high above 7th Street and Hennepin Avenue, or elsewhere around Minneapolis. Called "Neighborland," the project is the brainchild of New Orleans artist Candy Chang, who pioneered it in her hometown as well as in Houston and Boulder, Colo. The interactive billboards will display questions about the city and ideas how it might be improved. A flock of city departments, neighborhood groups, arts organizations and downtown concerns are working on plans to revitalize Hennepin Avenue. "What's really cool about this [billboard] process is that it's getting input from people who don't typically show up at the table," said Mary Altman, public arts administrator for Minneapolis. "I think these ideas will help shape the Hennepin plan, but it's not a situation where any one idea necessarily will be recommended. They will look for key themes and what's viable and doable." The project is called Plan-It Hennepin. -MARY ABBE

Behind the Blue Door