RN: You're in an uncharacteristically good mood.
CP: Surely you mistake me for another. I'm my usual self -- peevish, out of sorts, ill at ease. What has you so filled with glee, besides "Glee"?
RN: I am loving the show's new season, I have to say. But my favorite new mood elevator comes courtesy of Walker Art Center. I don't know who's responsible for restoring Calder's "The Spinner" to the museum's prominent Hennepin Avenue sculpture pad, but I feel as if I should send them an FTD keepsake mug to express my gratitude.
CP: Yeah, nothing expresses gratitude like a mauve mug stuffed with mini-carnations. Still, Calder's splash of color and intelligent whimsy is just the thing for that busy corner, where it may bring a shot of joy to the 17,000 motorists who see it daily.
RN: My other new daily dose of urban color is the ongoing De Stijl- style paint job at Riverside Plaza, née Cedar Square West. Have you seen it? Depressing flesh-tone and gray panels -- out. Jaunty pops of red, blue, yellow and white -- in. It's fabulous, and I'm convinced that Piet Mondrian and Ralph Rapson are looking down from the design heavens and smiling.
CP: Mary Richards, the character who once lived in those apartments, would also be beaming. Lou Grant should fire the guy who agreed to painting over those panels in the first place.
RN: I'm also loving Opus Development's proposed 33-story, $100-million-plus apartment tower on the dreary parking lot at 5th Street and Nicollet Mall. It can't go up fast enough for me.
CP: That and other signs of an economic pulse downtown -- a new Lunds, a new mixed-use thingie at Washington and Hennepin -- are sites for sore eyes. But the luxury high-rise development may end up like others: trotted out, then forgotten.
