Month: August 2006

If you work downtown, this place is the ideal escape for lunch. Tucked into the fabulous new Guthrie Theater, Level Five’s long, narrow room with dark glass walls is like a tonic for those subjected to fluorescent office lighting. And then, just as your hunched shoulders begin relaxing, the food comes. The local, seasonal menu has been designed by Chef Lenny Russo, his ambition being to deliver perfectly satisfying, lightly balanced meals for theatergoers and meandering downtowners alike: young hen with a red quinoa cake; lobster salad with heirloom tomatoes. The nicely proportioned sandwiches are plenty flavorful as well, but it’s their accompanying polenta fries that steal the show. These thick, long blocks of warm cornmeal are crispy on the outside and softly herbed on the inside. Dip them in the aioli and consider the work day eased—three martinis are optional. 806 2nd St. S., Minneapolis; 612-225-6499; www.cueatguthrie.com

Walk into this cavernous Chinese restaurant in Richfield and you’ll lose all sense of self-importance. There’s no prime seating for players, no celebrity chef to beckon—you are just one among the lucky masses. Sitting down, you’ll be further humbled by the quantities of dim sum brought to your table by smiling and friendly servers. Shrimp dumplings, bao buns, steamed pork shaomai, chow fun noodles, spring rolls, the carts keep coming. The chicken feet might not appeal to all, but who can deny the flaky and creamy egg tart? If you choose to refuse a third or fourth helping of the dim sum (be prepared to do so again and again), you can order from a menu featuring both traditional and American versions of Cantonese dishes. 7717 Nicollet Ave. S., Richfield; 612-866-6888

Life in Russia has always been the best of times and the worst of times, inspiring a national malady of excessive melodrama. On the bright side, this sadness-as-a-way-of-life inspired generations of composers to turn political turmoil and social strife into richly layered music shot through with adrenaline and a surprising, resilient joy. Violin superstar Joshua Bell may not bring his own angst to this program of Russian composers (he enjoyed a comfortable, all-American boyhood in the Midwest), but his bold strokes are perfect for this selection of works by Tchaikovsky, as well as Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff. 651-224-4222; August 24, 2006

Rollins turns seventy-six this month, but he’s not one to spend his golden years reminiscing; he’ll leave fans and scholars to ponder over his younger days, when he created the definitive sound of 50s jazz with Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Max Roach. Instead, he’s on to new things, including an album, Sonny, Please, that is as eloquent as any of his mid-century work. And luckily for us, he’s taking the show back on the road. It’s a rare privilege to witness one of the giants of jazz working out exceptional new material (and one that can’t be repeated many more times). 612-624-2345; August 24, 2006

To celebrate its twentieth year of craft-brewing quality barley pop, the esteemed St. Paul brewery is serving the best brew in town and inviting a bunch of great homegrown bands out to Harriet Island to watch you drink it. Worth the price of admission alone is a rare Suburbs reunion and an appearance by Richard Thompson, whose “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” has been covered so much as of late. That Thompson must get a nickel every five minutes. Also on the docket: Soul Asylum, Tapes ‘n Tapes, the Alarmists, Big George Jackson, and headliner Cake. www.summitbrewing.com

A whole day of live, outdoor, Django Reinhardt-style gypsy jazz? Used to be such things simply did not happen around here. More unusual still, Uptown Row is not a new music club, but rather one of the upstart retail/residential developments changing the face of West Lake Street. Gypsy jazz, which blends American swing and Parisian café jazz, is enjoying a renaissance through the hot club movement, with ensembles paying homage to the name and work of Django Reinhardt’s 1930s-era band, the Quintet of the Hot Club of Paris. At this festival, the Hot Club of Sweden with Connie Evingson, Clearwater Hot Club, Parisota Hot Club, and the Twin Cities Hot Club will all carry the style into our Cities. 1221 Lake St. W., Minneapolis; 612-824-7000

Personality conflicts and petty infighting have killed so many great bands that Doug Martsch was probably on to something when he decided to form a group that would occasionally shed its members, like a molting snake. With his revolving cast of players, the founder of Built to Spill created a consistent sound marked by spaced-out, anxiety-driven guitar jams that have reverberated throughout the indie-rock world. But—surprise—Martsch eventually settled on a crew that he just couldn’t let go, and they are touring after releasing their first new album in five years, You in Reverse. Though this recording is friendly and more melodic than previous efforts, Built to Spill hasn’t mellowed much; Martsch and his band have merely perfected the beautifully tense sound of things about to go haywire. 612-332-1775; www.first-avenue.com

BReaders captivated by Lost in the City, Edward P. Jones’ 1992 collection of spare, mostly contemporary stories of life in some of the bleakest neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., had to wait more than ten years for a followup. While The Known World could hardly be called a disappointment—it did garner Jones the Pulitzer Prize—as a fat historical novel, it was, nonetheless, a spectacular departure. Now, with All Aunt Hagar’s Children, Jones returns to his native city and the experiences of its African-American residents over a broad swath of the twentieth century. He’s a master at cementing characters with sparse, telling details and life-changing moments. Four of the fourteen stories here originally appeared in the New Yorker, providing readers with a small taste of the pleasures offered by this collection.

It seems impossible that Cormac McCarthy published his first book more than forty years ago. And even after ten novels, there may be no other American writer who has forged such an inimitable style (even if the Faulkner influence has always been apparent) and honed it to such a spare, violent vision of American history and myth. Even when he seemed to be working on a sort of auto-pilot in No Country for Old Men, his last novel, McCarthy was still capable of writing dark, tight rings around most of the competition. He’s been hurtling toward the apocalypse almost from the beginning of his career, and in The Road he finally gets there. A short, grim kick in the teeth, The Road finds McCarthy back in the terrifying, biblical, hair-shirt-wearing (and hair-raising) territory of Blood Meridian.

“Astonishing” doesn’t begin to describe the achievement of Octavian Nothing, which is ostensibly, purportedly, and quite incredibly being marketed as a young-adult novel. The latest from M.T. Anderson, whose previous novel Feed was a National Book Award finalist, is as challenging, brilliant, technically ambitious—and, let’s not forget, jaw-droppingly good—as any book you’ll get your hands on this year. God knows what some fifteen-year-old will make of Anderson’s novel, which is chock-full of startling images, big words, and even bigger questions, but it’ll likely boggle the mind of any reader. Told in what feels like pitch-perfect eighteenth-century prose and set against the tumult of Revolutionary War-era Boston, the plot of Octavian Nothing beggars description. Read it, though, for the pure pleasure of experiencing an incredible imagination at work. If this is the sort of thing teenagers are reading today, well, damn if that isn’t some kind of good news for all of us.