The Literary Review of Canada gives us “The Rise of the Pyjamahadeen: Who says blogging in your parents’ basement is unhealthy?” — Warren Kinsella’s review of Blogosphere: The New Political Arena
Month: September 2007
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Blogging in Your Parents' Basement
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Political Sex Scandals
Larry Craig isn’t the only one. Check out Maxim’s Top Political Sex Scandals.
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TC Spamalot
hang in there little buddy….During last night’s Top Chef, I seriously had no idea who was going home. It could have been anyone.
But first … LOOOOVED the quickfire challenge. The chefs got $10 and 10 minutes to buy something from one designated aisle at the market. I feel this all the time, when the kids are firing 50.3 million questions at me and I’m under the gun to be somewhere else in 5 minutes, I sometimes make a crazy grab for something for dinner that night. It’s only when I get home that I realize that I have to somehow work pickled beets into the meal.
Casey and Hung were the extremes: she went with an ultra-safe and boring pudding parfait while he went for psychadelic cereal wonderland. The best part was that he was actually pissed that they didn’t go kookoo for his cocoa puffs, literally scoffing at their lack of vision for his freakishly unappetizing egg and cereal mess. CJ could’ve been a contender, had he not mixed up his salts and sugars. I was ecstatic that Brian turned his back on the canned seafood and went for SPAM. It was a brilliant move, surprising and strangely appetizing. Maybe he was channeling our local SPAM master.
And Howie. Oh, Howie.
Didn’t it seem that everyone was a little slap-happy that morning? More on that….
So Brian wins and nominates himself as head honcho. Good for him. They’re told that they have to cater a fashonista party for Esteban Cortazar. Note Padma’s look of excitement and everyone else’s look of “meh”. But who cares who the little dude is, they have to throw together a fabulous party for $350. On a boat.
Menu is planned, ingredient choices are made, the team seems to be getting along, yada yada yada. Hello, did someone forget to light the fire … under the chefs?
Truth is, their menu was boring (which was the main complaint of the judges) and they spread themselves too thin. They could have each done a singular WOW dish instead of a few average dishes. All this was said by the judges, of course. The funny thing to me is how shocked the judges seemed by the performances of the final seven.
To me, it was quite evident from the quickfire challenge that the “cast” is a little crispy. While we, as viewers, had a break from Top Chef last week with a re-run, the kids are on it 24-7. It’s every day for them, and they weren’t allowed to bring cell phones or make contact in any way with the people in their real lives. Is it any wonder that they’re all a little fried?
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Did Hung use up all his ideas in the first few days? Can the little speedster make it to the finish line? Howie couldn’t. Tired of working to figure out what the judges want, he’d had enough of trying to be something he wasn’t: namely, anything other than an old-school kitchen curmudgeon.
Only time will tell who is best suited for the bright lights and big demands of celebrity chefdom, who in the end will be able to dig the deepest and pull out a brilliant menu and a final win. It’s anybody’s game now.
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Rybak Officially Departs Star Tribune
Deborah Caulfield Rybak, the Star Tribune’s media reporter officially resigned Tuesday after months of deliberations. Rybak took on the media beat in 2004, after coming to the paper in 2001. Earlier in her career she spent 10 years at the Los Angeles Times.
When the Strib announced its most recent round of buy-outs this past May, Rybak was on family leave in California. To be euphemistic in the extreme, “confusion” ensued as to whether the paper was offering her job back, putting it up for grabs or eliminating it.
Nominated by the Strib for a Pulitzer for her work with Dave Phelps on how the state’s tobacco money was being spent, Rybak has a pretty good idea of who is zooming who. She felt frustrated by the previous Strib administration and, in the end, couldn’t see her situation improving with the steadily thinning Strib of today.
“In the end,” she said Wednesday, “I decided to reassign myself out of management’s reach.”
It is no secret she has been approached by incipient on-line news sites and other local periodicals.
“I’m like a prisoner who has just been released from the Gulag,” she said. “I want to be a spectator for a while before I jump back in with another work crew.”
Having been admonished to always stay above the self-pitying fray, I will leave it to others to note the de-flavorizing and red-lining of local media coverage at Par Ridder-run newspapers.
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A Day of Learning and Reckoning
ART
Practice What You Preach
With so many great art galleries and artists in town, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the high-profile exhibit spaces and lose sight of some of the most productive and interesting venues — the colleges. While we occasionally make our way to one or two of the numerous (and often underestimated) student shows, we so often forget about the molders, the authorities, the mentors, those who choose to dedicate their lives and art to inspiration and guidance, rather than surrendering themselves to the competitive world of selling, of turning their art into a business. Is this a romanticized notion of the art educator? Perhaps. But as a former teacher, I have to believe that at last some percentage of us do it for noble reasons. Regardless, you have an opportunity tonight to indulge this romanticism, and to experience how an artist stands behind his own words, how he honors the art of teaching. It’s an awfully vulnerable state for an educator to put himself in — exposing his own work to analysis, rather than simply sitting back to analyze. Will they live up to their own demands? Find out for yourself. The College of Visual Arts (CVA) begins its fall semester with the Annual Faculty Exhibition. Head out tonight for a public reception, and view faculty 2D and 3D artwork in the college gallery.6 – 8 p.m., College of Visual Arts Gallery, 173 Western Ave. at Selby Ave., St. Paul; 651-290-9379; free.
FILM
It’s Thursday, so if you’ve been an avid Secrets reader, you should be expecting me to send you off to the Bell Museum Courtyard for the latest, and the last, of their ’50s sci-fi horror movies. This week’s movie is The Giant Gila Monster, so help yourself to a dose of teenage heroism against a 50-foot monster, if you like. Or choose from two slightly more “highbrow” options.Conquering Ozymandius
You’ve seen this image before. Of course you have. If nothing else, at least a cheap print in a college dorm. (I had one myself. I mean, it’s beautiful, albeit cliché at this point.) It’s Gustav Klimt’s Gold Portrait, stolen from Viennese Jews in 1938 and now the most expensive painting ever sold — and the opening subject of The Rape of Europa, an “epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction, and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during World War II.” Have you heard of the Venus Fixers, the Monument Men, the Roberts Commission, the MFAA? They were essentially a pared down Secret Service of the art world through the 1940s — young museum directors, curators, art professors, and architects who volunteered to protect Europe’s strong artistic cultural history by policing looting, theft, destruction, and artistic loss of any kind. The Rape of Europa maps out Europe’s artistic loss at the hands of the Nazis over the course of twelve years — the most savage theft and destruction of art to date. See the film this evening and carry the experience to full hilt with a discussion led by Corine Wegener, assistant curator in the Department of Architecture, Design, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Sculpture; and Erika Holmquist-Wall, curatorial assistant in the Department of Paintings and Modern Sculpture.6-8 p.m., Pillsbury Auditorium, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-870-3200; $5, free to MIA members.
Honesty and Illness Don’t Necessarily Equal Lifetime
After a reasonably successful short (Lena’s Spaghetti) in the Telluride Film Festival, Director Joseh Greco set out to make “a film about mental illness that was not only true to [his] experience, but also universal” — an emotionally honest look at schizophrenia. I’ll spare you all the plot details, which on paper (or screen) might inaccurately portray a typical Lifetime movie. I assure you, the schizophrenic mother is not played by Meredith Baxter Birney. Canvas is raw and real, telling the beautiful and painful tale of ten-year-old Chris Marino (played by newcomer Devon Gearhart), his dysfunctional family, and the bizarre and somehow admirable relationship that develops between the boy and his father in the midst of crisis.7:30 p.m., Oak Street Cinema, 309 Oak St. S.E., Minneapolis; $8 (seniors $6, members/students $5).
THEATER & PERFORMANCE
She or He?“In my wedding there won’t be a groom, there won’t be a bride. I’ll just stand, and everybody will come, shake my hand. Then they’ll go dancing, and I will stay standing,” writes former Israeli soldier and transgender playwright Ronny Almog. And I can only assume that after reading the last half of that sentence, you’ve completely forgotten the first part, the quote. Former Israeli soldier and transgender playwright? That’s enough to get my attention. He certainly must have something interesting to say, no? “In my wedding there won’t be a groom, there won’t be a bride.” But there is a wedding, right? How does a transgender person establish a balance between the established social needs and the need for new parameters? Somewhere In Between examines gender identity. What is a man? What is a woman? If you can answer these questions in any acceptable manner, you need to start writing. You need to share it with the world. But don’t expect a cookie-cutter answer from Somewhere In Between. Ronny Almog presents the questions, explores the resulting “distress, pain, confusion, rejoice, pleasure and enjoyment,” and leaves you to formulate the answers on your own — as all good art should do. And as all good art should do, the play presents itself in a manner truly representative of its time — “a multimedia assault.”
7 p.m., The St. Paul Jewish Community Center, 1375 St. Paul Avenue, St. Paul; 651-698-0751; $15 ($12 for St. Paul Jewish Community Center and Center for Independent Artist members).
If you miss tonight’s performance, you can catch it at the Center for Independent Artists this weekend.
MUSIC FESTIVAL
Concrete and Grass
St. Paul has had some especially bad luck with its outdoor festivities this year. True, some events have been spared, but I drove through there a couple weeks ago to find several different neighborhoods cordoned off and empty beneath the rain, a nullified pupa. Let’s make sure this doesn’t repeat itself this weekend. We’re drip dry. And as long as it’s not too cold (and we know cold), we can weather the storm — as long as it’s worthwhile. Tonight begins the first-ever Concrete and Grass: Lowertown Music Festival in Mears Park. The festival features an eclectic mix of twenty local groups spanning pop, classical, blues, country, world, funk, and soul music — including Reilly, The Alarmists (who play this evening at the Mill City Museum), Joanna James, and Maria Isa. Tonight’s acts include Jonathan Delehanty, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Chastity Brown and the Sound. If you can’t make it tonight, try to make it to Friday’s happy-hour concert, or Saturday’s thirteen-hours music fest. You’ll need a lawn chair for that one.5 – 9:30 p.m., Mears Park, Lowertown St. Paul; 651-292-3248; free.
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Conquering Ozymandius
You’ve seen this image before. Of course you have. If nothing else, at least a cheap print in a college dorm. (I had one myself. I mean, it’s beautiful, albeit cliché at this point.) It’s Gustav Klimt’s Gold Portrait, stolen from Viennese Jews in 1938 and now the most expensive painting ever sold — and the opening subject of The Rape of Europa, an “epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction, and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during World War II.” Have you heard of the Venus Fixers, the Monument Men, the Roberts Commission, the MFAA? They were essentially a pared down Secret Service of the art world through the 1940s — young museum directors, curators, art professors, and architects who volunteered to protect Europe’s strong artistic cultural history by policing looting, theft, destruction, and artistic loss of any kind. The Rape of Europa maps out Europe’s artistic loss at the hands of the Nazis over the course of twelve years — the most savage theft and destruction of art to date. See the film this evening and carry the experience to full hilt with a discussion led by Corine Wegener, assistant curator in the Department of Architecture, Design, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Sculpture; and Erika Holmquist-Wall, curatorial assistant in the Department of Paintings and Modern Sculpture.6-8 p.m., Pillsbury Auditorium, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-870-3200; $5, free to MIA members.
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Honesty and Illness Aren't Restricted to Lifetime
After a reasonably successful short (Lena’s Spaghetti) in the Telluride Film Festival, Director Joseh Greco set out to make “a film about mental illness that was not only true to [his] experience, but also universal” — an emotionally honest look at schizophrenia. I’ll spare you all the plot details, which on paper (or screen) might inaccurately portray a typical Lifetime movie. I assure you, the schizophrenic mother is not played by Meredith Baxter Birney. Canvas is raw and real, telling the beautiful and painful tale of ten-year-old Chris Marino (played by newcomer Devon Gearhart), his dysfunctional family, and the bizarre and somehow admirable relationship that develops between the boy and his father in the midst of crisis.7:30 p.m., Oak Street Cinema, 309 Oak St. S.E., Minneapolis; $8 (seniors $6, members/students $5).
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Has Anyone Seen My Nukes?
The Military Times is reporting that 6 Nuclear warheads were accidentally flown from North Dakota to Louisiana on August 30. The best part of the story is that no one noticed the warheads were missing until the flight landed. D’oh.