Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/culture/page/30/)
A week from Saturday, Billings Depot Inc. is throwing a black-tie Taste of Billings celebration that depot director Jennifer Mercer hopes will be “the most elegant, luxurious event Billings has ever seen.”
That’s quite a claim, and it’s all the more remarkable considering that the setting, the old Northern Pacific Railway Depot on Montana Avenue, was in wretched condition just 20 years ago, and had nearly been demolished 25 years ago. (more…) Continue Reading →
A week later than planned, Doc Harper’s martini bar had a “soft opening” Wednesday, throwing open its doors at 4 p.m. By 5, the place was jumping, with nearly every seat on the main level taken and more people sitting in the mezzanine. “I called some friends and texted some kids, that’s all,” Barb Harper said. “I’m amazed at all the people here.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Bruce Anfinson, a cowboy-country singer from Helena, has played music in Germany, Taiwan, Japan and Costa Rica, and a tune he wrote is the theme song for the Montana PBS show “Backroads of Montana.”
He’s played with scores of big-name musicians, jammed with Doc Watson and appeared on “Mountain Stage,” the American Public Radio program broadcast from Charleston, West Virginia. (more…) Continue Reading →
LAUREL—Next to the cash register at the Owl Café, there is a framed menu from the restaurant’s grand opening on Aug. 13, 1916. At the bottom of the menu it says: “Patrons will be entertained with music.”
Now, just shy of 100 years later, new owner Kathy Boyd can make the same promise, at least on Saturday mornings. She has revived the “bluegrass Saturday breakfast” tradition that made the Prairie Winds Café in tiny Molt, 25 miles northwest of Billings, so popular from 2001 until it closed in 2013. (more…) Continue Reading →
At the shoulder of a Wyoming county road, a stately cottonwood stands. In its time, this grayed monarch has seen cavalry and Indians; horsemen and homesteaders; dudes, dreamers, and sight-seers. Daily viewed but seldom noticed in the passing, this old tree carries a special story of its own. A huge scar mars its roadside bark, and therein lies the tale of the Purple Burp. (more…) Continue Reading →
When using and collecting wine gadgets, I follow my husband’s keep-it-simple principle. Though I am intrigued by all the latest tools for opening wine bottles, and for enhancing the taste of wine, I keep my everyday tools on the basic level. (more…) Continue Reading →
Editor’s note: The editors of Noise & Color, Billings’ independent monthly magazine of culture and entertainment, asked me to write them a piece expanding on my recent column about downtown Billings, and the intense reaction to a certain column about the downtown that appeared in the Billings Gazette. (more…) Continue Reading →
Downtown Billings ushered in the new year with the second annual Downtown Countdown under Skypoint Wednesday night. (more…) Continue Reading →
Nathan Blanding chronicled the construction of his Clark Avenue home on a blog he called “Mr. Blanding’s Dream House.”
The title was inspired by “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House,” a 1948 film starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. For Nathan Blanding, it really was his dream house: it was an infill project, multigenerational, handicapped-accessible and high-energy-performance. And he built it himself. (more…) Continue Reading →
“Spirit of Steamboat” and “Wait for Signs,” both by Craig Johnson. Viking. Shoppers for last-minute Christmas presents could do worse than to pick up one, or both, of these two quick reads by the creator of Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire, now the title character in a TV drama. (more…) Continue Reading →
