Lifetime Achievement

Bar
If The 400 Bar was in any other business but rock—say dining or theater—the label institution would have been thrown around long before. But for the last ten years under the Sullivan brothers—and before that, when it was home to West Bank legends such as Koerner, Ray, and Glover—The 400 has been the hardest-working little bar on the local music scene. There are hipper spots now, including just up the street, but the Sullivans, with their impressive legacy (Bill managed the Replacements and Soul Asylum before managing Cat Power and Bright Eyes today), continue to live up to the room’s scruffy pedigree, bringing in cool roots musicians that nobody else touches, from Bobby Bare Jr. to Joe and Vicky Price to Joe Holland. 400 Cedar Ave., Mpls., 612-332-2903 [top]

Booster
Barbara Flanagan loves sidewalk cafés, pedestrian malls, and the city of Minneapolis, whose praises she’s been publicly singing for nearly sixty years. Before she was the bold-faced-name-dropping Star Tribune columnist, however, the feisty Des Moines native was one of the Twin Cities’ first and best female reporters, covering the infamous Axilrod and Thompson murder cases and other gritty headline stories as well as frothy celebrity visits and Princess Kay coronations. What’s more, with her inimitable flair, she’s still at it, writing once a month in the Strib, highlighting the best of our town. [top]

Creative Source
Before the Walker and the MIA, there was the Minnneapolis College of Art and Design. In the 120 years since MCAD welcomed its first students, the school has produced a long list of impressive graduates, including designer Charles S. Anderson, whose company, CSA Design, has developed packaging and product design for the likes of Williams-Sonoma, Nike, The New York Times, and Paramount Pictures; Harry Potter illustrator Mary GrandPré; and photographer and 2006 Whitney Biennial artist Angela Strassheim. 2501 Stevens Ave., Mpls., 612-874-3700 [top]

Franchise
Remember when the Kid, now (unbelievably) thirty, played with such youthful exuberance that we worried he would burn himself out before the end of a game? Well, it’s now the fourth quarter in Kevin Garnett’s career as a Timberwolf. He has scowled through the last two seasons, toiling for an organization whose  incompetence and parsimony has finally run down its once-in-a-lifetime talent. The one season—2003–04—when management did manage to provide some help, in the form of Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell, KG won the MVP and took the Wolves to the conference finals against the Lakers. By this season’s All-Star break in February, we expect the greatest athlete ever to play in Minnesota to be traded to a contender—with our rueful blessing. [top]

Impresario
As the owner of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres since 1989, Thomas Scallen has produced dozens of toe-tapping musical extravaganzas. But he was a busy and productive impresario long before Chanhassen. After a law and business career in the 1950s, he owned the Ice Capades, Harlem Globetrotters, and Vancouver Canucks, produced numerous TV shows (including Donny and Marie Osmond’s) and Hollywood movies, and ran a circus. Currently, he also owns St. Paul’s legendary Lexington Restaurant, is planning next year’s world-premiere staging of Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade, and is enmeshed in negotiations for an all-new Chanhassen Theatres complex, possibly at the Mall of America. The only question for Scallen is, What’s next? [top]

Landmark Lost
By the time you read this, Ralph Rapson’s Guthrie Theater will be a memory—not a parking lot, but a wasteland that its landlord, the Walker Art Center, will transform into a needless extension of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. But the gem of Minnesota’s greatest architect, the brainchild of Tyrone Guthrie, the stomping ground of Hume Cronyn, Len Cariou, and Barbara Bryne, and, most important, the venue in which most living Minnesotans learned to love Shakespeare,  Chekhov, and Tennessee Williams will never be replaced. Its loss is ours. [top]

Man of the People
Never mind that fewer than one in ten constituents (according to a depressing recent survey) could identify him as their congressman of the past twenty-eight years. The Fifth District owes Martin Olav Sabo its gratitude, big time. The soft-spoken, self-effacing Sabo, who’s retiring in January, has given Minneapolis a total of forty-six years of conscientious and productive public service (as a representative and house speaker in the state legislature prior to Congress), plus millions of dollars in federal funds for a dizzying array of worthwhile local projects, causes, and institutions, from light rail and parks renewal to law enforcement and Indian health. His clout as one of the U.S. House’s twenty-odd most senior members will be sorely missed.  As will his role as an upright and honorable public servant. [top]

Restaurateur
Would life in the Twin Cities be tolerable without The Oceanaire, Manny’s, Buca, Figlio, or Chino Latino? Sure. But not nearly as surprising and satisfying. We owe that to Parasole Restaurants’ longtime impresario Phil Roberts, who birthed the concepts with the help of Peter Mihajlov and continues to tantalize our senses with new ones. Nearly a decade of provocative Chino Latino (and now Salut) billboards are by themselves worth a tip of the hat. Here’s to the guy who showed us that eating out can be good and fun at the same time and is willing to bite the hand that feeds him in the name of not taking himself (or us) too seriously. [top]

Stage Presence
When Lou Bellamy founded Penumbra Theatre thirty years ago, it was anybody’s guess how the organization—and its focus on African American work—would fare in our white-on-white twin towns. But not only did Penumbra survive under the artistic direction of Bellamy, it became the foremost African American theater in the nation. In addition to producing many of August Wilson’s plays and nearly two dozen world premieres, Penumbra is committed to the local community through its extensive outreach programs. Earlier this year, the McKnight Foundation recognized Bellamy and his work by giving him the 2006 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award. [top]