ItemWorld: Phillips corner gets a face-lift

The blighted corner of Lake Street and Bloomington Avenue in Minneapolis just got a giant pick-me-up in the form of a 3,000-square-foot mural adorning La Mexicana Grocery. Titled "Juntos Crecemos" ("Together We Grow"), it's the latest beautification effort from the Semilla Community Arts Program of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, a Spanish/English congregation that has overseen 18 other murals. Led by artist Greta McLain, the project enlisted 300 volunteers to put up thousands of tiles and pieces of glass salvaged from thrift-shop mirrors and old stained-glass windows. Butterflies and an eagle spouting a line from a Spanish poem (translation: "Traveler, there is no path. A path is made by walking") represent animals important to various cultures. Inside a pattern of spiraling swirls, volunteers added images of things they'd like to see in the neighborhood — a basketball for more play areas, flowers for more green space, two hands of different colors grasping each other. McLain, who grew up nearby, studied and painted in California, Mexico and Argentina before returning home to work in community organizing. "This neighborhood is so diverse, but the different communities are segregated from each other," she said. "So all around the seeds we put these little pollinator bugs." The $30,000 project, funded primarily by the State Arts Board, will get finishing-touch painting in the spring.

Kristin Tillotson

Performing at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts has its perks, Soul Asylum co-founders Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy made clear this week as they remembered their 1995 gig backing Lou Reed at the hall's grand opening. By coincidence, Pirner found out about Reed's death on his way home from another Hall of Fame show, where he sang "Happy" and "Dead Flowers" with an all-star band timed to a new Rolling Stones exhibit. "I got to hold Elvis' gun," Pirner rightfully bragged of a behind-the-scenes tour, where he got in trouble for handling one of Bo Diddley's guitars without protective gloves. "What's the point if you have to wear gloves?" he wondered. Murphy had a great memory of touring the archives with Reed, who marveled at Chuck Berry's scrawled lyrics: "He said it was just like his guitar playing: precise, but in stabs and bursts."

CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

Tim Olstad is extending his stay in Los Angeles. The Winona native snatched one of 12 finalist spots on "The X Factor" Tuesday night with his rendition of Bon Jovi's "Always." It was another night for Olstad to sweat as mentor Paulina Rubio made him wait until the very end. Meanwhile, both Minnesota singers on NBC's "The Voice" were eliminated in Monday's knockout round. St. Paul native Ashley DuBose delivered a spirited version of Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" while Hopkins High grad Holly Henry took on the tricky Radiohead hit "Creep." Later, both tweeted a similar message to fans: This is not the end.

NEAL JUSTIN

According to legend, "Fiddler on the Roof" was the show that "saved" Chanhassen Dinner Theatre from financial ruin back in the early 1970s. "Fiddler" recently opened a new production and history is repeating itself. Not that the place now needs saving, but artistic director Michael Brindisi reports sales have hit three times the daily norm for Chan. The show, starring Keith Rice as Tevye, runs into February so there is still plenty of inventory, but it's good to see that the old place can still draw a crowd.

There's Delta Rae and Alpha Rev, the Kopecky Family and Family of the Year, Matt Hires and Matt Nathanson, and Walk the Moon and Walk Off the Earth. If you can't tell those acts apart, you will get a primer come Nov. 21 when the 25th installment of Cities 97's "Sampler" CD goes on sale featuring those performers and two dozen more, including four local names: Farewell Milwaukee, Chastity Brown, Bomba de Luz and Cities morning show co-host Keri Noble. The two-disc set will be available at Target stores around Minnesota for $32.97, which goes to a wide variety of local charities. There are murmurings this could be the last year for the "Sampler." That's after Clear Channel's dismissal in August of longtime Cities program director Lauren MacLeash, who spearheaded this year's collection and most of those in prior years. True or not, MacLeash and Clear Channel can boast of raising more than $11.5 million for Twin Cities charities with the "Samplers," counting the $1.2 million expected off this 25th edition — a record.

C.R.

Guy Eggers might have said it best, or at least most succinctly, when he told the crowd this week at Micawber's Bookstore, "You want good content — good things to read." Eggers, co-editor of Thirty-Two Magazine, and several other bookish people were addressing the issue of how reading habits have changed in a digital world. The consensus seemed to be that we are still reading avidly, and print is doing fine. The panel moderator, MPR arts reporter Marianne Combs, asked the crowd, "How many of you read predominantly from a digital device?" Not one hand was raised.

LAURIE HERTZEL

Even though he had some blurry habits back then that have since come to light, newly rehabbed Alabama rocker Jason Isbell showed a surprisingly clear memory of what the Varsity Theater looked like in 2008 when there wasn't a sold-out crowd like the one he wowed there last weekend: "It seemed like there was a lot more carpet in the place. Seriously, it was weird." Even sober, though, the former Drive-by Trucker — who just got booked for a return concert Feb. 8 at First Ave — can be forgiven a mental lapse or two. Like when he accidentally skipped a verse in the epic new song "Live Oak," but covered it up beautifully. "I did it on purpose," he claimed, "so now you'll have to go to the merch stand and buy the album to hear the rest of the story."