The Rake Magazine

Happy freakin' Fourth. I always get so depressed after this holiday, knowing that summer's about half eaten up. So, while I don't exactly look forward to this occasion, I do tend to make the most of these final days of sunny summer moods. I will be enjoying a much-needed, four-day hiatus... If you need anything from me in the meantime, try the rooftop of my uptown area brownstone. I'll be the pasty-white thing fanning myself, slathered in 55+, beckoning to my houseboy (uh, boyfriend) to fix me up some pina colada.

In any case, je vous presente the template social calendar for my fellow pessimists out there, anyone who'll be weathering the dog days of winter dread come July 5:

On Saturday, check out Electropolis (with bonus, Alva Star!) at the Nomad. Apparently, there have been some booking problems with other Electropolis shows, and so this will be the last of their shoes in a while. Get your fix!

There's also the ARTSOURCING opening night party at the Soap Factory.

Or, if you're not that hip, try the Minnesota History Center, where there's a Red Wing Pottery retrospective opening tomorrow.

On the big day itself, the most dignified thing to do is to check out the free Minnesota Orchestra concert in Excelsior, set on the banks of Lake Minnetonka. There's also the very popular Ten Second Film Festival happening down at the Soap Factory, just after the grand finale of fireworks over downtown Minneapolis.

You know you're getting old when, if left in charge of suggesting happenings to the general populace, you end up plugging panel discussions two days straight. But there are many reasons why the WARM and the Feminist Art Movement talk--again, at the Weisman--is of interest to me. First, the old Women's Art Registry Gallery in the Wyman Building is mentioned in one of this month's feature stories (that collective being a precursor to WARM)--but the writer never goes on to say what exactly became of these artists. There's also a concurrent exhibition running at the Weisman, WARM: 12 Artists of the Women's Art Registry of Minnesota, which takes a look at feminist art from here and beyond. And finally, with the boom of starchitecture that's been cropping up across town as of late, I figured why not take a step back to appreciate The Fred, which remains one of the most gorgeous structures in the city, far as I can tell.

Celebrating the tenth (or twelfth) anniversary of my exercising the right to abstain from animal dissection in high school biology class, I present to you a discussion at the Weisman Art Museum called "Why We Dissect." All right, all right... The expert panel won't be talking grasshoppers and frogs here. (I still gag.) Rather, they'll specifically tackle the ethics of the Body Worlds exhibition. Is it cool with you that human corpses be sliced like loaves of bread? And what about those fetuses who haven't filled out consent forms?

What is with all these twenty-four hour, speedy art projects? By this, I am referring to such things as the 24-Hour Play Project, even this, the "24-Hour Collaboration," a slumber party involving several University of Minnesota composers, most of whom live in the same ramshackle in south Minneapolis. It's not that I oppose the application of such time restraints. It's just that, for the life of me, I can't fathom the compulsion to stay up all night while slogging through the creative process with others--or worse even, without the luxury of slogging. But maybe that's because I'm but a lowly, solitary writer. When I stay up all night working on a deadline, there's seldom anyone else around to get barked at.

But there are apparently plenty of art-makers wanting to participate in these 24-hour collaborations, because I've noticed several such speed-art events cropping up.

At least they double the allotted time for making film--and by this, of course, I am referring to the 48-Hour Film Project. There is a best-of screening at the Riverview Theater tonight. Check out the website for the lineup.

By the way, there's a free Fringe Festival preview tonight at Theatre de la Jeune Lune--thirty playlets done in tasty, three-minute bites.

Ah, how I love the Fringe for all its quirky, lo-fi virtues. But do you know what I love the most about it? Those campy, most often amateur photographs the Fringe performers put on postcards or otherwise use to promote their shows. An early sample:

From Janet And Tina (Hard Up And Landlocked), "a comedic dance theater piece about two disgruntled co-workers":

From Wrapped in Plastic, a teen show about body image:

The ultimate in Fringe Fest geekiness--the image below, while not all that entertaining in and of itself, is from Carpe the DM, a show put on by a bunch of "Fridley and Columbia Heights residents" who introduce a lovely lady to "their favorite fantasy role-playing game." (In unision, here's where we go sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)