Freewriting, field notes, or autobiographical recollections

Scott writes...

(14-Sep-07) I begin this weekend without any concept of what Dinkytown really is. I know that people talk about "Dinkytown" and going for drinks, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. I check a map each day before leaving my house for campus, due to my poor memory. I use street and avenue numbers to "count" my way home, not recealling the buildings I pass each day. Learning the history would take a lot of repetition, so cut-paste procedures won't "teach me" about Dinkytown. I would need something I could read several times over a number of months.

I don't know most neighborhood names in the Twin Cities. I still struggle to understand the organization of communities, cities, and counties in Minneapolis. My wife and I will likely drive to the area so I can see it. We might also take some photos so I can associate them with the actual place. Any images I retrieve from the Web won't be meaningful if I cannot see the place in the physical world. Then again, time being a limitation could result in little more than cut-paste-forget. That would be a shame.

Candance comments...

Dinkytown has changed quite a bit for me through out my college career here at the U (undergrad, MEd, and now PhD).  I was originally a place to get coffee.  Then it became my place of employment working at Cummings Books for two years.  Now it is place I often go to get coffee, food and meet with groups for classes.  Besides my stint selling books, much of my interaction with dinkytown has been to consume goods.  I'm interested in looking at how dinkytown has changed throughout the years from some of the venders' viewpoints.

While this link may not qualify for feildwork artifacts (since I didn't take the photos myself) I feel that the photos are a good resource to view and use as visual archives, especially if anyone plans on making a video about dinkytown for their vlogs.  photos of dinkytown.

I especially like this snap of the old

Purple Onion which is now a shiny Pot Bellies

I buy a lot of coffee in Dinkytown, and some lunch. I've also spent some time in the Dinkytowner, seeing bands (and listening to them, too, I suppose). So I was happy when an initial Google search for "Dinkytown history" immediately brought some interesting topics to my attention. I thought I'd take advantage of this "freewriting" space to raise some potential topic ideas that might be interesting to pursue in greater depth. Here's what I found in just one first, broad sweep--please add or comment, if you like:

1) James Lilek's photographic memories of Dinkytown, which I have also linked from the "history" page, show just how dramatic a neighborhood's evolution can be. His "current" photos reveal that the changes in any neighborhood's landscape of places and memories are ongoing, making memories of lost places seem all the more poignant. Archives could be an ideal source for research in this vein, and digital media hold a lot of exciting presentation potential;

2) I had never heard of the Dinkytown "Red Barn protest"--I found this interesting article, which is apparently well-reported, but it's reliability as far as publication source isn't immediately apparent from the Web site. More research would confirm (or not) what's written here; and

3) a history class from last fall did a "public history" exhibit on the neighborhood; students or faculty from this course might be interesting subjects for interviews.