NewsNight Minnesota; 7054; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 12/02/1999; SD-Base

NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is a production of plenty see all the stations of Minnesota Public Television as the moment I've been waiting Polaroid to finally get the show all to myself power to the people that I'm just kidding can solve work getting married getting ready for all my next 50th anniversary show. So here's a little of the Harben all by himself here for Newsnight stick around. Tonight we're going to get a hoot out of some British bad skin show that's the largest relock home collection in the world and live music from the looks. Lol but first headlines coming right up. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blanton Foundation creating a stronger Minnesota vibe bridging rural and urban communities. And by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota families arts reporting on NEWSNIGHT is supported by a grant from the Dayton Hudson foundation on behalf of Dayton Mervyn's California and Target stores. Simply put Minnesota is rolling in dough. Today the state announced a 1 and a

half billion dollar surplus. What does that mean for you. Well it could result in a rebate as soon as next summer and another bigger rebate check in 2001 legislative leaders and Governor Ventura have a lot of details to work out. Being in the public sector in the job I do this is good news but it's good news with a headache. Because it's kind of like to put it into perspective it's like going to a funeral with all the relatives and you find out Uncle Ernie had a great wealth and now the family ends up not talking for two to three years and fighting because they're all angry over split the splitting up of Uncle Ernie's wealth. It was the only stop on the tour where Bruce Springsteen is saying Santa Claus Is Coming To Town and whispering to his right Santa Claus Is Coming To Town in the Twin Cities and the rest of Minnesota. Unbelievable numbers I think that's a good way to characterize this. I don't think

in all of the pools whether in the pressroom or in the caucuses anybody picked one and a half billion dollars. Now about one a half a billion or half a billion dollars of projected surplus is already in the bank. And that's the amount Ventura wants to send back to taxpayers next summer for rebates that would average about $250. Marilyn Hamer will have much more lawmakers and the governor has specific ideas on how to spend that surplus. Tomorrow here on act if you have to depend on prescription drugs this next story may make you tear up a bit. Yet another study shows Minnesota senior citizens are paying way too much for their medicines as much as 90 percent more than people in Canada and Mexico. A report was released today in St. Paul by Congressman Bill Luther. Now Congress is being asked to crack down on the pharmaceutical industry. Now several members of our congressional delegation including Representative Luther have sponsored legislation which will enable American seniors to purchase prescription drugs at the same

discounted prices drug companies give to government agencies like the Veterans Administration. Plain and simple. This is unfair and the word has to get out. Why would any society take its most vulnerable people its most hard pressed people and ask those people many seniors who built this country. Many working people who just don't have prescription drug coverage why would any society take those people and ask those people to bear the burden of cost of price discounts to HMO so insurance companies the government and even citizens of another country. It's clearly unfair and something has to be done about it. All right moving on it's Thursday it's our it's a media night and here are some headlines. Officials at the Walker Art Center don't sound like they're panicking but attendance has dropped sharply this year after sustaining growth in the 90s. A 9 percent drop

becomes a 17 percent drop. When you take out visitors to the sculpture garden garden visits are counter this. Anyone who passes through the greenhouse conservatory the Walker says the absence of a blockbuster exhibition in new galleries at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts are the cause for the decline. Now of course any attendance problems are going to probably be cleared up in just a moment when we preview the British awards and listen up opera lovers waltz this Saturday is your chance to catch some wouldn't be Caruso's and prices much better than myself. The Ordway is hosting district auditions for the Metropolitan Opera. There will be 19 singers competing to move on to regional auditions. From there winners will be off to New York's esteemed met for a chance to win a $15000 with the internationally acclaimed opera. Now Saturday's auditions start at 10 o'clock in the morning they are free and open to the public. At this hour the University of Minnesota officials are announcing a major gift the MARGARET And Ronald Hobbs foundation is giving the

university about $150000 to help catalog a large and rare literary collection. Ken Stone reports the collection is anything but elementary. I need your help. He may be the most filmed character in history Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes is just one of the more recent renditions of the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle more than 100 years ago. Tape of Brett's work is just one tiny part of the University of Minnesota's Sherlock Holmes collection. The largest in the world. Well I think one of the funny things you hear people say is you've got to be kidding you've got the world's largest Sherlock Holmes collection in Minnesota. Of course I have. Why not. Julie maturities president of the Norwegian explorers a local Sherlock Holmes club with about 200 members. She's only been a member for six years but she's been a Sherlockian most of her life. I was poor then as a child watching the Sherlock Holmes movies. I love the stories in the beginning I thought the character just so so unique

and he had his own unique sense of justice. And I read something a short time ago that I think maybe someday a lot of it up which is it's so good to see the smart person win. The club was founded by the university's head librarian in one thousand forty eight which explains how the you originally got involved. Few people have actually seen the collection. It's buried deep underground in the library's new archive library and Tim Johnson and the tourist took us on a tour. Here we have Shaw periodicals 76 80 90 93 for 25 years private collectors have been sending their material to the U and they use collection became the world's largest. And when Santa Fe businessman John Bennett Shaw donated his massive collection some of the historical value is obvious rare first editions dating back to 1982 when a copy of the Hound of the Baskervilles believed to have been Own by the Russians Arina. Alexandra. Some of the historical value is well let's say less than obvious.

Here we've got Sherlock Holmes meets the Penguin I think Sherlock Holmes umbrella. But if it had anything to do with Holmes shock elected it so he would just. Collect these different clippings put them in these notebooks buy years organize them and people would come to his house in Santa Fe when he still had the collection housed there. He had the largest private library of Holmes material and his house was a constant flow Sherlockian succumbing. To stayed not only for an afternoon but often for a few days or weeks. Your library and how many hours. Are we talking about. Putting this kind of stuff together I mean there's volumes and volumes and volumes. This is a lifetime passion. One of his mottoes was I think don't throw it away send it to me. Tim Johnson was hired a year and a half ago to oversee the collection. He has a master's degree in

library science but knew his degree would only go so far back right after I was hired. One of Julie's friends ex-PM called me and said we're having this big conference in August. All of these Sherlockian are going to be there. And so I thought well I better make sure I can talk the talk. And so I found a 1931 edition of all of the stories and so read them all through and when I came in August of 98 I was able to talk about the canon. And keeping green forever green the memory of the master the canon refers to the 60s Sherlock Holmes stories written by Doyle but sure Lothian's and assist Holmes is a real person not a fictional character. Doyle is referred to as the literary agent not an author an ensure a lock EON's maintain Holmes is still alive. A beekeeper in Sussex. Never mind the fact that would make him one hundred forty five years old. We're talking probably at least 60 languages that are represented in the collection. The most recent ones we've been getting are from Uzbekistan.

And there's one other I think from a stony lap one of the Baltic countries. But we've got a very active supporter in Japan who's getting material for us. Any of the Oriental languages Japanese Korean Chinese He's sending us material. We have an active Talmud and Chicago kind of his life's work to collect. Yes yeah. The trouble is there's stuff down here that's barely been seen by anyone in years. But that soon will change because the collection will be cataloged and put online so that anybody anywhere if they've got Internet access can go into the catalog can look up the title see if we have it. And so for us it's really exciting that the Margaret Hobbs family foundation has given us one hundred fifty thousand dollars now to catalogue the collection over three years and they'll take that long to get through the entire collection close to

20000 and some which will undoubtedly help serious researchers. And so this is a box it's a bit of a puzzle. It's. A plain wooden box and you can't figure out how to open it there are no latches. And it's only when you're going to play around or as I did read the instructions that you figure out that if you put your thumbs on the front. And press carefully. OK. We get Sherlock Holmes popping out. Complete with magnifying glass. And London newspaper. You know it's all over the map in terms of from the ridiculous to the sublime. In terms of what's here in the collection. Talk about that particular I mean is there anything that's not important as far as. The collection. I don't think so. I think everything in it is important there are probably things that we can say are more valuable than others whether it be financially valuable whether it be as

a research tool. But I think no matter which end of the spectrum some of these pieces. Inhabit. They still represent the fact of homes. Is an icon and homes of such an important part of popular culture. And just the fact that. Everyone recognizes the character of Holmes whether it be the Basil Rathbone figure whether it be Jeremy Brett whether it just be the little things that we associate with home do you see a magnifying glass. And you associate that with Sherlock Holmes. So. I can't think of anything in here that isn't important. And how about this for a footnote listen carefully this could be one of those questions someday on Do You Want To Be A Millionaire and Doyle's stories. Sherlock Holmes never ever said Elementary my Dear Watson. But.

So many. Voters that are your sense you call your people a lot of money we had a. Blow. Job with a fin for what I. Guess would. Be the government. Will buy their own daughter. But but. What good for a bun Belloni. He drinks and drinks. I want to fill in the the Menards guy Mr. Whipple the Eveready Bunny the green giant icons of American advertising many of you will remember. And now the British are coming their latest famous export power of all sometimes kooky and often very British ad starting Friday the 23rd annual British television advertising awards will be screened at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and here again we welcome back Peter big awards administrator thanks so much for coming down. Thank you. Tell me I'm flying in I should say you literally just got off a plane this afternoon.

Yeah pretty much thank you. What's the reaction you only get from folks here in the U.S. when you show the collection of ads. Well in the Twin Cities it's very good because it's been going for over a decade at the walk and we've been doing a show in New York for longer than that ought to be will demand and other places. We did a show in Anchorage last year for the first time. And they were right in a way they never seen anything like it at all whereas many afterschool International Airport that kind of stuff people are more used to the British way of looking at commercials. And there are some people in the twin cities you see the shows about quite expert and it seems like the British. Seem to take more chances in their advertising. We take different types of take different types of chance yeah we do them together. Britain is pretty much shut in the whole of Britain whereas in this country this thousand or so people in the necessary scene see the same as as an anti.

But some of the stuff is quite Chauncey's on the public service stuff we do. I think probably would be shot on the head. All right I would like to always show a lot of fun stuff we have something we're going to show that's very serious and the word powerful comes to mind as I look at it take a look at. Powerful indeed you like that. I love it I think it's great and I know you

travel here enough times do you think that could work here because sometimes people say well that's why you have to present it in that fashion. I don't see any reason why this imagines can show that. And here is what you like you've stations chosen to show that one out of. Rishon hundred two commercials we look at a lot of you know the whole of them and you've chosen a company that was once so if you and I don't see why it should work on our head. All right let me in on little things which is a message that we always talk about the good stuff. What about your bad commercials. Are the bad commercials there as bad as our bad commercials here. We have some pretty bad ones and I'm not going to show up tonight. We did see to be honest you're going to show for the showcase what we do as an award winning organization and there's some there's a lot of commercials that never entered into an awards show because they don't stand a chance of winning. And here we go. And if you had to say overall what's the trend What is the trend right now. This year the show is much more gritty and more hardworking less

human than it has been in the past. That comes and goes as it's pretty hard working load of commercials. They have to be hard working to sell something that's what the four of them exhibits in a museum. But for the hard working I think. It's getting of a grown up industry and it has to work really hard for what it does. OK now a man of contrasts you said there's a lot of less humor so I'm going to show you something humorous right now I really love this one this is funny. This will make you laugh take a look at. The.

Wonderful ad you had to like love that one so you can see there was no humor. It was like here there's a lot of humor in that but you know people tend to copy ads all around the world because I was told in my beginning broadcasting days in college when in doubt copy copy copy and if it works someplace I would think somebody would just kind of take it and run it. Yeah it's a creative industry there's no real new ideas they all boast what you've got in your mind that you're seeing someone else says a lot of plagiarism and from TV photos or movies or the style of this or that and even down sometimes with commercials being grown up even they plagiarize themselves now. Ok now I'm going to ask you to do me a favor and do you a favor here we go. First of all talk about the

Walker Art Center that comes up. OK well Chris show starts tomorrow. Two shows seven and nine and it runs through until December 22. It's the biggest show in the film because it will go all right. Hope you have a wonderful presentation to take in my favor I'm going to ask that you take a press release in a week and show it to people over there. I kind of get things like Thank you so much. A. Lot of candidates for the press release of the Week this week but the winner goes to a good idea gone bad. Something called the World Trade Organization is having a meeting in Seattle Washington this week I think it is going to be a bunch of boring bureaucrats talking about arcane trade policy that kind of thing so the folks at the Washington Apple commission last week sent us this press release talking about all the nifty stories we could do about Washington apples during those slow times in between the meetings at the

WTO. Fortunately. I am not going for your knee. Thank you. Well how do you like that now. It was one of my favorite songs. You guys did this one for it was Blue Christmas I love it the people who have seen

this band have told us all about them and now it's time to hear them for ourselves from the Luther Metro Lol has been making quite a name for themselves they are playing with Colonel Ray and Glover at first that next weekend and we welcome them in the spotlight tonight. Alan Sparhawk thank you so much for coming down. Thank you. And sort of a family affair you got here who'd you bring along. This is my wife Mamie Parker on drums and good friend Zach. Sally bass all right now how in the world do you come up with the name lo. Well we're fairly quiet slow kind of mellow and I thought the word kind of describe what we do. Pretty well so and your music overall haul far do you go. You know getting the country western to jazz you know where we're you know we're going to we're quiet and slow. That's all right tell me about your new quite new with the holiday CD I guess I should say.

Yeah we have a Christmas CD out now we have the last few years kind of as tradition we had. We do a couple record a couple songs. There were Christmas songs some of them we wrote. And this year we recorded a whole bunch and put together the ones for me and put it all together. All right we did mention. Yeah we're playing this. Let's see a week from this Saturday at 1st Avenue with lover and will be playing stuff from the Christmas CD and some of our old stuff. All right I love introduce you guys because I don't forget the name low but you know play for us now call a long way around the sea and it's kind of a song we wrote about the three magic day all right. Lo take it away. Yeah. So.

Far. So. Good. Crew.

On. Go.

Go. Right loan for it's not the next week and want to thank you all for joining us see you next week don't forget all night

tomorrow you're not excused until I get some more of that. Blue Christmas please. This time we'll sing it. Oh. But. NEWSNIGHT in Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blanton Foundation creating a stronger Minnesota by bridging rural and urban communities. And by the McKnight foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota families arts reporting on NEWSNIGHT is supported by a grant from the Dayton Hudson foundation on behalf of dangerous Mervyn's California and Target stores.