Filming starts today in St. Paul on Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor’s new movie, “Prairie Home Companion.” Based of course on Keillor’s long-running radio show, the screenplay is by Keillor, with Altman directing. It’s not a documentary; rather, it’s the fictional story about a day in the life of a “Prairie Home”-like radio show whose staff has just learned they are making their last broadcast.

It will star, in addition to Keillor, Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, Lily Tomlin, John C. Reilly, Lindsay Lohan, Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, and Maya Rudolph. “Prairie Home Companion” listeners will also be happy to hear that radio show regulars Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith will also appear in the film, as will the show’s band. The movie will be shot at the Fitzgerald Theater, home of the real “Prairie Home Companion” and named, thanks to Keillor, after St. Paul’s F. Scott Fitzgerald.

It’s the biggest movie event in Minnesota since the Coen brothers filmed “Fargo” here. Filming will occur over a short 25-day period. See the Star Tribune article for more.

I grew up in a newspaper-reading family. Every day began with a perusal of the paper. Sitting at breakfast, we were each absorbed in our own section, swapping them as necessary. On Sunday mornings the paper would get strewn around the living room floor. When we traveled, we enjoyed reading the local paper wherever we were staying.

For a time we even got two newspapers, one in the morning, the Minneapolis Tribune, and one in the evening, the Minneapolis Star (both published by the same company, Cowles). But mostly I remember reading the Tribune in the morning, retrieved from the plastic tube beneath the mailbox.

Newspaper reading therefore became a habit. Following the news, opinion, sports, and comics just seemed like part of life.

Newspapers have changed since I was a kid in the 1970’s. Some of the more obvious changes include the use of less text and more graphics and photos, the addition of color, and the overall shrinking of the page size.

The names and ownership of the local papers changed too. The Star and Tribune were combined into the Minneapolis Star and Tribune in 1982. Then, in 1987, the paper became the Star Tribune, Newspaper of the Twin Cities. In 1998 Cowles sold the paper to the McClatchy Corporation, publisher of the Sacramento Bee. On the other side of town, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, published by Knight-Ridder, became simply the Pioneer Press in 1990.

Of course, newspapers are also becoming less of a habit as people increasingly rely on television and online news sources–many of the latter being the web sites of newspapers. As a result, the circulation of printed newspapers is declining. In early May National Public Radio aired a story about declining newspaper circulation in the United States. Their online article led me to the web site of the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), which has a list of the top 150 newspapers in the United States, by circulation. (There are some discrepancies between the NPR and ABC lists, for some reason.)

The Star Tribune is ranked 14th in the nation by ABC at a Sunday circulation of 655,000, about 16,000 less than the previous year–which seems like a large drop. Among the top 20 newspapers, only the New York Times and New York Daily News increased their circulation between 2004 and 2005.

Is it inevitable that we move beyond the costly, resource-intensive distribution of the printed newspaper? Why kill all those trees just to deliver the news?

I will admit to being attached to print, probably more so than younger people. I worry about losing easy access to a diversity of opinion and news. When you scan the sections and headlines of a newspaper, you get a wide swath of news. When you spread out the editorial and opinion pages of a good newspaper, you get a large “screen” containing editorials, letters, and opinions from all parts of the political spectrum. When you look at the opinion page of a newspaper like the Star Tribune, you’re likely to see George F. Will alongside Thomas Friedman, Molly Ivins sharing the same page with David Brooks. If newspapers die, will we only read the opinions similar to our own, the ones that are most comfortable to read? Will we each go to web sites that have been crafted for our own peculiar niche of opinions? Has the change already occurred?

My fears about a balkanization of the news-consuming public may be unfounded. There may still be a similar number of people who try to read a wide range of news and opinion–even opinion that challenges their own biases–as compared to the past. Online news is cheaper to distribute, so theoretically high-quality news sources could be distributed at a lower cost, making them accessible to more people–perhaps even free. Of course, getting online access requires some kind of device and connection in order to do so–neither of which are particularly cheap. We shall see what the future brings.

More on National and Regional Newspaper Circulation

The ABC ranking of the Star Tribune as the 14th largest newspaper in the country are slightly ahead of what one would expect given size of the population, particularly given the fact that many of the largest newspapers are national papers (such as USA Today, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal). The Star Tribune has a higher circulation than the San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution–papers that are in larger metropolitan areas. According to the Census Bureau, the Twin Cities metropolitan area is the 16th largest metropolitan area in the country by population, at about 3 million people. For comparison, the largest, New York, is 18 million. Chicago, the capital of the Midwest, is the third largest at nine million. Atlanta, the capital of the South, is 11th at 4.2 million. USA Today, by the way, has by far the largest circulation of any newspaper in the nation.

The Upper Midwestern papers in the top 150, with their national ranking and circulation, are below:

14. Star Tribune (Twin Cities) (655, 198)
26. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (411, 749)
48. Pioneer Press (Twin Cities) (247, 495)
50. Des Moines Register (239, 367)
86. Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI) (148, 292)
144. Green Bay Press-Gazette (82, 379)

I made a trip to our neighbor to the north last weekend. Tom, a friend from college, got married to Nicole, a tall, beautiful medical doctor. A native of Montreal who is now prospering in the financial world of Toronto, Tom has been my guide to Canada over the years. I’ve visited him once before in Montreal and at least twice in Toronto. We’ve been skiing in the eastern townships of Quebec, near Vermont, where Tom’s family has a country home in a beautiful valley with views of the Vermont mountains in the distance. The wedding was held there at Tom’s family’s place.

Going to Tom and Nicole’s wedding provides me an occasion to write a few brief thoughts about Canada and the Upper Midwest. If Mexico gives a certain atmosphere to the states bordering it–the tastes of salsa and cilantro, the sounds of Spanish and mariachi music, the bright colors of Mexican blankets, and, of course, millions of immigrants–the same is not true for Canada. Our modern cultures have a similar source, the British empire (for the most part), so the differences are not as great. Our livings standards are similar as well, so there is no rush across the border by immigrants.

I once heard the comedian Mike Myers, a Canadian, make a perceptive comment about his native country: “Canada is the essence of not being. Not English, not American, it is the mathematic of not being. And a subtle flavor - we’re more like celery as a flavor.”

Here in the Upper Midwest Canada’s influence is subtle, not strong, but wholesome nonetheless–a celery influence rather than a salsa influence. For people here, Canada is thought of most often as a wilderness destination, a place to catch large fish in abundance–a feat that is difficult in our more heavily fished lakes. But perhaps more importantly, Canada is also there as a quiet counter-example to some of the individualistic, violent, bellicose, nationalistic tendencies of our nation.

I first think of Canada’s system of national health insurance for all citizens as one of its most significant differences from our own culture. Most Americans know this difference exists, and it creates a slight gravitational pull in that direction for our own society. Our own regional newspaper, the Star Tribune, published several opinion pieces on June 12 calling for universal, single-payer health insurance similar to Canada’s.

There is also the much-advertised difference in prices for prescription drugs, which has caught the attention of Americans. Same-sex marriage is allowed in eight of Canada’s thirteen provinces and is likely to become legal nationally soon. And Canada’s rates for violent crime are several times lower than those in the United State.

Some might argue that on some measures the comparisons between our countries are not fair. The United States has ten times the population of Canada. One might argue that the U.S. has become the sole world superpower, and, with its military preeminence, has responsibilities to the world that are different not just in degree but in kind from the Canada.

Even if those arguments are true, I would argue that we should compare ourselves with Canada. We share the same continent, have many common aspects in our history and heritage, are both open to immigrants, and if one of us is suffering in some measure when compared to the other, then surely some correction is due.

Oh Canada, you present a picture of a quietly decent society, and only time will tell if you are our future or we are yours.

The longest day of the year, the summer solstice, is almost upon us. Here at roughly the 45th parallel of latitude, that is a long day. On June 17, a few days before the solstice, the sun rises at 5:26 and sets at 9:02–over fifteen and half hours of daylight, not counting dawn and dusk.

We are enjoying sunny, mild weather with highs in the 80s, what weatherman Paul Douglas calls a “romp under a royal-blue sky”–this after a long spring of cloudy, rainy weather. It’s a wonderful time to be living here.

The Upper Midwest is famous for its lakes. When the glaciers retreated from the region thousands of years ago, they left behind these wonderful bodies of water, from tiny ponds to great lakes with shores reaching beyond the horizon.

Since moving back to the region last August, I’ve joined my father in attending two meetings of the Silver Lake Association, which is made up of property owners on the lake in northwestern Wisconsin where my family has a cabin. Much of the discussion at the meetings has focused on concerns regarding the condition of the lake. These concerns include declining water quality, including clarity; prevention of exotic species such as milfoil; and high water levels in recent years, which have caused erosion and forced the removal of some buildings.

A $220,000 scientific study of the lake–funded mainly by the state of Wisconsin, with some funding from Barron County and the lake association–has been authorized to understand what is causing some of these problems. The study will look at fish populations, sediment, exotic species, bacteria levels, oxygen levels, and more. The United States Geological Survey is also studying groundwater monitoring wells to better understand the water entering the lake.

Lake dwellers are especially worried about the potential invasion of the exotic plant Eurasian water milfoil. If milfoil gets into the lake, it creates a dense mat of foliage over shallow water, forever changing the ecology and the recreational use of the lake. Since milfoil is difficult, if not impossible, to remove once it establishes itself, the best thing to do is to prevent it from entering.

During its meetings, the association has spent much time discussing whether to prevent the entry of milfoil by hiring someone to work at the boat launch at the county park. Such a person would talk to people bringing boats onto the lake and request that they remove any plant material that may allow milfoil to spread. Milfoil usually travels by means of boats.

Another worry is that if milfoil gets in the lake, it will make it difficult to pursue options to reduce the water level, including creation of a water outlet for the lake. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources would not be keen on sending water out of the lake if it would increase the spread of milfoil to other bodies of water.

It’s encouraging for me to see scientists working with the general public, and I expect lake dwellers will learn much about the lake and their impact on it. I look forward to following the study and learning about its results.

It’s been hot and stormy here, with dazzling displays of storm clouds that sometimes make the sky look like a bubbling cauldron. It got up to the low nineties early this week, with high humidity. All that energy in the atmosphere produced rain, of course. We continue to get lots of it–including almost three inches June 8.

The mosquitoes, deer flies, and ticks are out now. Ah, the joys of summer! My wife looked frazzled last evening when she reported that mosquitoes had been swarming around her; later she found a “spider” crawling on her shirt, which turned out to be a tick.

Over Memorial Day we made our second trip of the year to my family’s lake cabin in northwestern Wisconsin. It’s great to be living near the cabin again–or “the lake” as we also call it. I’ve spent about ten years–a quarter of my life–on the East and West Coasts, where I was fortunate if I could get to the cabin once in a year. Now we may be able to go up many times a year.

The cabin is a simple structure, smaller than the large vacation homes that have become the rule in the last two decades. My grandparents called it a “cottage”; both that and “cabin” seem appropriate. It was built in the 1950’s by my grandfather, father, and uncle. It’s a unique structure, designed by my grandfather and built of concrete blocks. The exterior, painted yellow, is nothing special, but the interior is beautifully done all in wood, even the ceiling. It has two bedrooms (one very small), a bathroom, and a large main room that serves as the kitchen, dining room, and living room.

My dad and I spent quite a few hours getting the dock out into the lake. The dock is L-shaped and has wheels on the deep-water end. This is an improvement over our previous docks, because two people can use a winch-like device called a “come-along” to let it down into the water; getting the earlier docks out required at least four people.

But the job isn’t as straightforward as it might sound, in part because the other end of the dock is not on wheels and is too heavy for two people to lift. The entire job involves lots of maneuvering, tying and untying of ropes, and placement of boards at key locations. We also had to move the dock down the steep, eroded bank at an awkward angle so that we could avoid large rocks. We probably took at least eight hours total to do the job.

We caught the tail end of one of spring’s great sights at the lake–the trillium flowers. There were only a few trilliums left last weekend. I’ve seen some years when everywhere you look you could see this white or pinkish woodland flower. I didn’t see any pink blooms, unfortunately. Perhaps next year.

Upper Midwesterners have stoically endured a long, cool spring. It rained 21 of 31 days in the Twin Cities in May, and many of us felt as if we were living in the Pacific Northwest. Fortunately, I managed to avoid the rainy weather blues, perhaps because I have a baby to keep me busy.

We had some warm weather in April, including one day when it reached 80 degrees here in Northfield, but we had to wait over a month to get over 80 again. That occurred yesterday, when the temperature in Minneapolis reached 84 degrees. Here in Northfield, excited by the newly mild morning air, I put on my shorts and took the baby for a joyous bike ride around town. We could smell the lilacs in the air and see the trees in full leaf, and I could feel the old possibilities of summer.

I’ve noticed that each change of seasons brings back memories. There’s something about that first touch of new air, that first sight of a new season. As I felt the summer air strike my body, I recalled some of pleasant memories of summer: bike rides, beaches, popsicles, baseball, tennis, and lying in the cool, prickly grass.

It’s a brief time, this period of the young season. As a time of possibility, it promises complete fulfillment and joy, even a return to the past, and it hasn’t yet been diminished by disappointment or unmet expectations.

No season can meet such a promise, but it seems impossible not to hope that it will. And so, I launch myself into summer.