The Rake Magazine

Month: February 2008

  • The Band’s Visit

    "My inspiration can from an image I had in my head," said director Eran Kolirin. "I pictured a tough Arab man—a man in uniform—singing a song that had been trapped inside of him." There is no better way, really, to describe The Band’s Visit. It is a starkly beautiful work that carries all the tension of a trapped song. This tension and the awkward channeling of emotions by the characters is really what the movie is about. The plot is more of an afterthought, but in a good way.

    What happens is simple enough. An Egyptian police band (The Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra, to be precise), arrives in Israel to play at the inauguration of an Arab cultural center, only to discover that they have been completely forgotten. No one shows up to meet them at the airport, so they plow ahead by themselves and end up lost in a desolate village somewhere in the deserts of Israel. This is where they meet Dina, a woman with a personality much too big for the tiny town she lives in, and a smattering of other poignant characters.

    It is truly the characters that make the movie. We meet a hodge-podge of interesting personalities throughout the film, some of whom only have a few lines but are memorable nonetheless. There is the man who waits every night for his girlfriend to call him on the village pay phone, the young man who is so afraid of women that every time he is around them he "hears the sea" in his ears, and the frowning turtleneck-clad teen known to us simply as "gloomy girl." Then there is the colonel.

    Colonel Tawfiq Zacharya is the hardened, dignified leader of the Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra who stands up straight and demands order and discipline from his group of less-than-dedicated orchestra members. However, Zacharya is more of a poet than an officer. As the movie unfolds, we are introduced to the softer side of a man that has been plagued by hardships. Under his grizzled exterior, we find a man who is haunted by the deaths of his wife and son, a man worried about his nation’s increasing disinterest in music, a man who loves nothing better than fishing in the morning and listening to the symphonic sounds of his village waking up.

    Despite the heavy themes in this movie, there are plenty of awkward, Napoleon Dynamite-like moments that you can’t help but relate to as you laugh at their ridiculousness. My favorite scene was at the roller disco (yes, there is a scene at a roller disco) with "gloomy girl" and "scared-of-girls boy" as they awkwardly hook up. They provide a perfect illustration of the film’s recurring pent-up tension looking for release. The characters also lend a charm and a depth to the movie as we witness their painfully candid moments and uncomfortable encounters with each other. Not everyone speaks well, not everyone is sure of themselves, and not everyone is comfortable in social situations. They seem to be real people that Kolirin just happened to film. It is the believability and simplicity of the film that make it a superb production.

    It may be a bit difficult to find this movie in the United States, so be sure to catch it at the Edina Cinema, where it opens on February 29th. It will be well worth your while.

  • Hot Stupid Foreign Nannies

    It started like this:

    My 13-year-old daughter walked into a room where I was reading and my husband was opening a bottle of wine (which she would tell you is what we’re always doing, except when we’re working or yelling at her) and said, "You remember when I went to Karl and Julia’s when I was in third grade and their nanny let us slide down that huge dirt hill all afternoon and you got really mad because it was so dirty and dangerous?"

    "Yes," I said, without raising my head.

    "And you remember how you said she was stupid because we could have gotten trapped under the falling dirt and suffocated?"

    "Yes." This time I looked up at my daughter who is powerful and beautiful and full of metal: braces and piercings and rings.

    "She was from Iceland, right? The nanny?"

    "Yes." I was waiting for the point, which is almost always your best bet with a teenager. Assuming can be a minefield.

    "So, I don’t get it. What’s the deal with that?" She was looking perturbed, squinching up her nose.

    "What?" I asked.

    "Hot stupid foreign nannies. That’s what all men want: a hot, stupid, foreign nanny. Why is that?"

    I turned to my husband — poor guy — who was coming with the wine. "That’s what you want?" I said.

    "What?" He hadn’t been listening. He’d probably been pondering string theory or thinking about our taxes. Some ridiculous thing like that.

    "A hot stupid foreign nanny. All men want them. You’re a man. So by the transitive property. . . ." (He’s a mathematician, so I’ll often throw in some irrelevant proof and use it incorrectly, though he’s usually kind enough not to point this out.)

    "Women, too, Mom," my daughter broke in. "Now be fair. Older women just want hot, stupid, Brazilian pool boys."

    "But we don’t even have a pool," I said.

    "What was the question?" my husband asked, putting on his glasses as if this might help.

    "Never mind," the teenager said, rolling her eyes. "I’m going to bed."

    Which is too bad, because she brought up an important point. What is the deal with hot, stupid, foreign nannies and the men who love them? Also, what’s the deal with George Bush, whom I heard on the radio just the other day, talking about how we’re not in a recession — it’s a "slowdown" — when about a third of the people I know have lost their jobs, which feels pretty damn recessed to me?

    About that recession (sorry, "slowdown"), why is it that some of the restaurants and bars and coffeehouses I visit are like tombs, echoing and about to shut down for lack of human traffic, while others are booming — same as always, it seems — filled to bursting by people waving money who can’t wait to get in? It seems strange, but there are few places in the middle, only those on the verge of bankruptcy and those where a spontaneous late-planner still cannot get in.

    What’s the deal with Earl Grey Tea, which is full of overpowering, flowery bergamot, but ubiquitous? Why is the social service system hemorrhaging while we spend millions on a Middle Eastern war? How come we keep driving so much no matter how high the price of gas? And why aren’t more people excited (and thankful) that the writer’s union is back to work?

    Most important, what possessed anyone to bottle the swill called Old Moon Zinfandel? Granted, it was inexpensive — I bought it myself, for $6 — but a lot of good wines are these days. There are decent $5 Chiantis and passable $7 Bordeaux. This Zin, on the other hand, is vile stuff.

    It was just after my daughter departed that my husband handed me a glass. I took a sip and then another, because I couldn’t believe anything called "wine" could possibly taste so bad. It was not just flat, but sinister, containing a dead, clayey flavor I imagined turned my tongue a grayish-brown.

    So horrible was this wine, just those two swallows left me sickened for the rest of the night. I was up late, drinking lemon water, trying to get the stench out of my mouth and pondering the problem of Stupid Hot Foreign Nannies. The question, of course: What to tell the beautiful girl when she awakened. Because when you’re 13 — and when you’re 41, it seems — the world just makes no sense.

  • Return of the Great White Way

    The way it looks now, it’s hard to imagine that Hennepin Avenue was once a Great White Way of cinematic wonder, each downtown block blessed with at least one tempting marquee adorned with blinding lights. In my own early years of moviegoing, I was able to take my pick of many single screen palaces on the strip, all showing the hottest new releases — at least, "hot" in the eyes of a preteen horror buff. This included the State (where I saw Blacula), the Mann (Blackenstein!), the Orpheum (Godzilla Vs. Megalon) and, most prominently, the Gopher (Jaws, no less). Within a few years of my visits to these shrines, the State became The Jesus People Church, the Mann and Orpheum abandoned tombs for the homeless to flop in, and the Gopher accomodated a porn house before being crushed by the Godzilla of City Center.

    Such was the fate of all too many downtowns throughout the country, as multiplexes took over the suburbs and drew away patrons disturbed by the urban core’s crime, grime, crowding and, worst of all, lack of free parking. But, at one time, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, both in its downtowns and neighborhoods, were home to dozens of movie houses — many of them elegant art deco, atmospheric, or atomic age complexes that each offered one film, and one film only, projected on a screen larger than the average megamall wall. Dave Kenney’s new book Twin Cities Picture Show (Minnesota Historical Society Press, $29.95) offers an equally elegant look back at the history of Twin Cities theater exhibition, from its extravagant beginnings at the turn of the last century to its uneasy state in the first decade of this one.

    Kenney, who researched and wrote this general history for the Minnesota Historical Society over a two year period, is not, himself, a historian, but a freelance journalist who specializes in Minnesota history. He began the project when he was alerted to a mountain of photographs and documents on local movie theaters and exhibitors, left behind by two MHS staffers who had amassed them for a book that never came to be. "There aren’t very many books that deal with the moviegoing experience," he explained to me, "You do find a number of books that deal with the architecture. But what really gets me excited is finding something that you can see and experience right now, and go back in time and see how we got there."

    Many past and present comparisons can be made with classic theaters that still stand and bear most of their original design and light displays – even if most of them no longer show movies. Two dazzling examples are the Orpheum and the State, which each rose like Lazurus from desolation to become premier spaces for concerts and Broadway shows. Another is the Ritz in Northeast Minneapolis, whose structure was maintained and protected from the elements during the many years it was closed, so it could open as a solid home for various dance companies two years ago.

    Most impressive of all is the Heights in Columbia Heights, which still operates as a profitable first-run movie house. As Kenney tells me, current owner and operator Tom Letness, who reopened and renovated the building with partner Dave Holmgren, has "figured out who his audience is. There are enough people out there and there are so few places to go see movies in Columbia Heights. He also owns the Dairy Queen next door – and he doesn’t have extra rent to pay, because he has a studio apartment he designed himself above the box office and lobby!"

    The fate of most of the grand palaces of the teens, twenties and thirties, though, has not been so rosy. Saddest of all, not least because the water-damaged shell of the building still stands as a reminder of what it once was, is the Hollywood in Northeast. Kenney, himself, remembers going there in 1980, to see the Jamie Lee Curtis classic, Prom Night, and regarding the place at the time as an old dump. Twenty-five years later, he would discover during his research that the Hollywood was actually once a masterpiece of palatial design.

    Another long lost gem was The Minnesota on 9th Street in downtown Minneapolis, which was the largest single screen movie house in the cities’ history. "I’ve talked to people who remember going into that thing," recalls Kenney, "The enormity and the space, and to think that it was built to show one movie at a time for up to 4,000 people." This, on top of a hydraulic orchestra lift and a back lit ceiling dome, plus a lobby that was larger than most theaters. Needless to say, even in the heyday of film exhibition, this monolith never made a dime, and, after twenty years of on-again, offagain service, met the wrecking ball in the mid-fifties.

  • The Three Pointer: The Best Yet This Season

    (AP Photo/Jim Mone)


    Game #55, Home Game #30: Utah 100, Minnesota 111

    Season Record: 12-43

    1. The Beauty of Teamwork

    It’s been a long time–certainly a year, maybe two–since fans of the Minnesota Timberwolves have seen this kind of 48 minutes from their ballclub. There have been some really nice wins thus far this season: The roaring final 3 quarters that produced the 131 points versus Indiana, the two convincing wins over Phoenix, and the solid rousting of Philly just last week. And there have been enjoyably well-played losses to Boston (the one on the road), Atlanta (the one on the road), and San Antonio (last week). But Indiana and Philly are sub-mediocrities, the style Phoenix plays is prone to their occasional pratfalls, and the losses were ultimately losses, after all.

    Tonight the Wolves beat a very good team–19-4 in 2008 heading into this game–by mixing aggression and sound judgment, tenacity and tact, and, above all, a full-fledged sense of selflessness for the sake of the ballclub. Such teamwork is harder to describe than witness–it’s always easier to isolate what’s wrong with a car than why it works so well from ignition to muffler–but worth the effort if only to savor it. There are all the little things. Randy Foye jumping right in the middle of the paint to set a pick for Al Jefferson. Rashad McCants diving toward the hoop wide open and not receiving the pass, yet diligently circling back out to probe for other ways he can extend the play. Ryan Gomes rotating over to deter penetration and cover for his late-arriving teammate, then sliding to the other side of the lane to box out his own man after the shot goes up. Corey Brewer scrambling to the sideline and backhanding the ball in to save the possession, then getting back in time to tip in the subsequent shot less than two seconds later. Foye scrambling back hard enough in transition to be able to set his feet for a charge.

    Utah is a physical team, charter members of the Frequent Foulers Club, expert in rubbing out obstacles with back-door picks and other traffic-jamming Xs and Os designed to sap your spirit and bruise your muscles. They wait to seize the lapses that are the byproduct of fatigue. But the Wolves beat Utah at their own game. Wittman threw new man Kirk Snyder on Utah enforcer Matt Harpring and Snyder, who practiced against Harpring often his rookie year after being drafted by Utah, went shoulder to shoulder, toe to toe and more than once joined him on the floor in their mutual mania for the round orb. Theo Ratliff took the measure of another bench bruiser for the Jazz, Paul Milsapp, and, although it required 5 fouls in 12:31, helped flummox the second year player. By the third and early in the fourth period, many Utah shots were banging front iron.

    Muckers like Craig Smith and Ryan Gomes mucked, but so did Foye and McCants and Telfair, and Big Al. They gave little away for free to Utah, staying with their men by wedging themselves over picks or switching off smartly, alert to the entire court, vertical and horizontal, the breakaways and the back-door cuts. They kept their heads on a swivel and their hands up for deflections, grabbing 16 steals (one short of the franchise record) and disrupting at least that many other possessions. Utah did not execute poorly–the Jazz shot 46.4% and had 26 assists–but the Wolves also forced them into a season-high 24 turnovers. Three Wolves–Jefferson/Foye/McCants–had three steals and Telfair and Gomes had two.

    The offense was even more fun to watch. It brimmed with minor decisions that made already good possibilities just a little bit better. Telfair led the team with just 4 assists, and two big men off the bench, Smith and the newcomer Snyder had 3. McCants would have an open look for his jumper but see Jefferson sealing his man and already anticipating the double team, so he’d dump in the entry pass, watch Jefferson spin one-on-three into the lane and draw the foul. McCants gets the glow of feeling unselfish; Al the gusto of barging into the teeth of Sloan’s boys in the paint, a Jazz player is that much closer to foul trouble and Jefferson nails the free throws (he was 8-10 FT overall). Another time down, Jefferson has the ball and is crab-dribbling into the double until he push-passes a final dribble into the hands of McCants, swinging over five feet behind him and getting his feet in position, even as Jefferson becomes the de facto screen on his two men and the other McCants has just rubbed off him. Shaddy nails the open look (8-17 FG), Jefferson drops an easy dime (one of two tonight) and Utah knows there are legit threats being wielded at either end of this two-man game.

    Except that it’s a five man game. The three-headed monster Wolves fans have been pining for–Jefferson, McCants and Foye–all take their closeups, damn well linger in it, maybe for two or three possessions in a row if the matchups are right, abetted by the other four teammates in the little ways described above. But then, for one of the few times this year, the emphasis moves before it has to. Foye’s hot, but cedes to Shaddy, or Al, who goes and gets some, but doesn’t mark the territory for pecking order purposes. In the first half, Foye has 9 shots, Jefferson 7, McCants 8; for the game Foye has 16 shots, McCants 17, Jefferson 17. Jefferson and McCants tie for the scoring lead with 22, Foye a whisker behind at 20.

    And 20 from Ryan Gomes makes it only the second time in the last 10 years, and the first time since January 2004, that four Wolves go off for 20 points or more. Gomes, of course, is different. He is the best individual barometer for this team, because his game is glue, everything geared to teamwork, meaning his perceptive movements without the ball will get him a bushel of sly, easy looks at the hoop if others notice and feed him. Tonight he was 7-15 FG and grabbed team highs in rebounds (11) and offensive boards (4). When the Wolves play this unselfishly, he is probably the most emblematic, and will likely be among the most obscure, especially in relation to his contribution.

    2. Coming Out Party

    Hey, it’s Randy Foye, circa January or Feburary 2007. Those who have been counseling us Foye critics to wait until the guy was back in game shape can gloat a little off this performance. Too often in his first 11 appearances this season Foye wallowed in boom-or-bust mode, bent on arching up treys or taking his shakey wheels for a traipse through the lane. Tonight he threw in the deceptively tough stuff, the midrange game, the runners and the pull-ups and the dish on the move. It made a huge difference both in making the treys and the lay-up tries more unpredictible and in fostering the ball and player movement so much on display tonight. As I mentioned earlier, and am anxious to repeat, Foye, McCants and Jefferson passed the baton fairly regularly tonight. There were three go-to guys and nobody bitched/sulked/malingered or otherwise acted out if one of the other two was bogarting the crayons in the sandbox. And while Foye is not a point guard (16 shots, 2 assists), he is a buffer against the idea of either/or between Jefferson and McCants.

    "We’ve said we have to be patient with Randy," an elated Wittman cautioned after the game. "There’s probably going to be another down before there is another up."

    And when there is, I’ll describe it and probably criticize it. But tonight’s effort gave credence to the "still recovering from injury" feeling about Foye; there was physical confidence in this "up." Yeah, Foye missed a chippie or two, but the shot selection was light years better than the chuck-fests he showed previously. Maybe this won’t be so much of a "limbo" season for Foye after all.

    3. In Praise of Wittman

    With ten m
    inutes to go in the game and the Wolves clinging to a one point lead, Randy Wittman opted out of his big lineup, subbing in Ryan Gomes and Craig Smith for Ratliff and Jefferson, with Foye, McCants and Snyder filling out the rotation. For those breaking out the slide rules at home, that’s no player above 6-7 (if you believe Craig Smith is 6-7). As a stalwart big lineup guy, I sharpened the poison pen.

    But Wittman had noticed Utah coach Jerry Sloan sitting his best players, Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams, limiting the Jazz’s options on offense. And he knew a front line of Okur (6-11), Harping (6-7) and Millsap (6-8), might have trouble defending a quicker team in the 4th quarter.

    Boom. Foye nailed a trey off a feed from Gomes. Harping tried a jump-hook over Smith on the baseline that didn’t go. Foye missed another trey attempt but Gomes got the board. His shot was blocked by Millsap but Smith got the board. His shot was blocked by Harpring, but Smith got it back, and laid it in. Millsap missed a jumper from the side of the key and Foye rebounded, leading to a neat layup by Gomes on an assist from Snyder. Sloan hurriedly called timeout and got Boozer and D-Will back in the game, but, in just 1:54, the smallball Wolves had bumped a single digit up to 8, permanently changing the complexion of the game.

    Had it gone exactly the other way–smallball giving the Jazz a quick seven and swinging the tide–the anti-Wittman venom from me and others would have been righteous. Because he’s got a lousy won-loss record, he’s fairly bland, he stunk up the joint in his coaching stint last year, and he enjoys the support of McHale, Taylor and some others who have been incumbents of the downfall. We’re quick to criticize and slow to praise.

    So give the man his due for the smallball gambit–it’s not like that quintet had ever played a minute together before, and it may have been the difference tonight. Wittman also chose this game to showcase Kirk Snyder, who doesn’t know all the team’s plays but logged an effective 24:09 tonight because Witt liked matching him up with the beef of Harpring and Kirilenko at the small forward slot. He probably also knew Snyder had that stint in Utah and Sloan doesn’t change spots that much. Snyder, anxious to make a splash and mindful of his impending free agency, was the right feature at the right time. There was also the fabled Wittman discipline, but lower-keyed and effective this time. After the Wolves raced out to an 8-2 lead, Utah scored the next ten points, leading to a no-nonsense time out from Wittman. Smart move whether he said anything or simply broke the prevailing momentum–the Wolves scored the next seven points.

    PS–City Pages writer Jonathan Kaminsky has a nice, long, profile of Al Jefferson up on the citypages.com site. Worth reading.

     

  • Life is real! Life is earnest!

    WINE & DINE
    Join Us for Dinner

    While movies like Ratatoiulle might have us questioning how good a dinner partner a food critic might make, we have to remember it’s merely fiction (the animation helps). The truth of the matter is, a good food critic is simply someone who knows and appreciates good food (and can express the reasons why, of course). What better dinner partner than that? I would gladly have dinner with any food critic in town — and we have so many good ones. But frankly, dinner with Jeremy Iggers and Ann Bauer — together! — has to take the cake. Join them this evening for an equally wonderful meal at T’s Place. According to Iggers, "T’s Place offers a unique menu — a combination of traditional Ethiopian dishes, served on a tray
    covered with injera (a pancake-like flat bread), and some
    Malaysian-Ethiopian dishes that chef T Belachew invented when he was a
    chef-partner with Kin Lee at Singapore!" And if that’s not enough to entice you, then be sure to read the Twin Cities Daily Planet‘s review of tonight’s featured musician, Yohannes Tona — "the baddest bass guitar player in the Twin Cities."

    8 p.m., T’s Place, 2713 E. Lake St., Minneapolis, pay your own way.

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Chip Kidd

    This is apparently what we’ve come to: In an age when we’re reminded
    on an almost daily basis that nobody reads books anymore, one of the
    biggest celebrities in publishing is a guy who designs book jackets.
    That, of course, would be Chip Kidd, the graphic designer with a
    classic quarterback’s name. You’d think maybe the guy would be content
    with having designed fifteen-hundred covers and counting—his work is
    ubiquitous and, to his credit, almost always ridiculously stylish and
    unmistakable—but you’d be wrong. Turns out Kidd also writes novels, and
    on the heels of his debut The Cheese Monkeys
    (an art school yarn) comes The Learners (a novel with a lot of
    ruminations on graphic design). You certainly can’t accuse the
    ambitious Kidd of not writing about what he knows. The publisher says
    the new book also involves “advertising, electroshock torture, suicide,
    a giant dog, potato chips, and the Holocaust.” —Brad Zellar

    7-8 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.

    MUSIC
    Foo Fighters

    If
    you want to piss people off, claim that Dave Grohl has written and performed more
    great music than Kurt Cobain. It’s true: While his stuff may never be as
    transcendent as Cobain’s, the Foo frontman and ex-Nirvana drummer has soldiered
    on in superior fashion since Cobain’s ’94 suicide, delivering a remarkably
    consistent string of quality discs. (One by One is the lone clunker among the
    seven Foo records.) The latest, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, ranks
    with the first disc on In Your Honor as the band’s finest work, containing the
    Foo hallmarks of dynamic crescendos (a whisper-to-a-scream capability to rival
    Aerosmith); gritty, punk-pop hooks; underrated, passionate vocals; and the
    occasional affecting ballad. Plus, in whatever incarnation Grohl slaps
    together, the Foos have always been able to deliver the goods in an arena-sized
    venue. —Britt Robson

    7:30 p.m., Target Center,
    600 First Avenue North, Minneapolis; 612-673-1600.

    Also tonight — and tomorrow night — the Terell Stafford Quintet will be performing at the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant.

    And on the birthday of one of my favorite American poets (1807-1882), I’ll leave you with his words:

    Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
    Life is but an empty dream!
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
    And things are not what they seem.

    Life is real! Life is earnest!
    And the grave is not its goal;
    Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
    Was not spoken of the soul.

    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
    Is our destined end or way;
    But to act, that each to-morrow
    Find us farther than to-day.

    Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
    And our hearts, though stout and brave,
    Still, like muffled drums, are beating
    Funeral marches to the grave.

    In the world’s broad field of battle,
    In the bivouac of Life,
    Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
    Be a hero in the strife!

    Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
    Let the dead Past bury its dead!
    Act,–act in the living Present!
    Heart within, and God o’erhead!

    Lives of great men all remind us
    We can make our lives sublime,
    And, departing, leave behind us
    Footprints on the sands of time;–

    Footprints, that perhaps another,
    Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
    Seeing, shall take heart again.

    Let us, then, be up and doing,
    With a heart for any fate;
    Still achieving, still pursuing,
    Learn to labor and to wait.

    —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

     

  • Times Are Changing

    Well, everybody, there is a lot going on right now. Times are… changing.

    So, without further ado, here is my blog for the day:

    I am feeling guilt and sadness as the many writers who have worked so
    hard are out of their jobs, and yet my gut tells me that Mr. Bartel made a very bold and smart business move. So you can either sit on your butt and complain about everything, OR you can accept change and move forward.

    Change is frustrating and makes a lot of people angry, but this is
    America, my friends, and that means Freedom of Speech, so I am going to put MYSELF out there a little bit and let you read the personal e-mail that I sent Cristina Cordova yesterday BEFORE THE CONFIRMED ANNOUNCEMENT:

    I went to the MIA show on Saturday night and lasted, oh, about 15 minutes. My neighbor tracked down my husband and I and gave us the "you should join the Patron Club" speech. After Howard exchanged pleasantries with the neighbors, I got whiplash looking for my Mom in order to get the hell out of there before I ended up committing to another club that would involve me having to stick my nose up in the air and act interested.

    On another note, I finally figured out why Jack Nicholson always wears shades: It’s because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he is actually SLEEPING during awards ceremonies. 🙂

    The best part of the night was watching Diablo Cody hang on to her dress to keep the slit from rising above her navel. That was worth staying up for!

    I would be happy to write a quick blog and review about my
    favorite piece: the mini- Mickey Mouse Kimono. I know, Cristina: It’s very sad how sophisticated I am. 🙁

    I hope your day is going well, and I think what The RAKE is
    doing, to be honest, is smart.

    Make fun, and share your jokes, but this blog-a-drama-princess is willing and ready to get with the times.

    Last night I took the above picture of the family dog "Louie" after shedding a few tears. The look on his PRETTY face says it all. 🙂

    Happy Tuesday,
    Melly

  • Cuban Cooking – not as spicy as the culture!

    Common
    myth: Cuban food is spicy. Wrong! Savory and flavorful? Right!
    The Cuban culture is certainly spicy; the people, the music, the
    politics, you name it. But when it comes
    to cooking we leave the hot peppers for other cultures. We stick to the sweet peppers, fried
    plantains, meat dishes with salsita, and plates of rich frijoles negros con
    arroz (black beans and rice). Savory and
    flavorful, but not spicy hot. We spice
    it up with other flavors…

    The
    base for almost every traditional Cuban dish is sofrito, a sauté of
    onions, garlic, oregano, and bay leaves. Citrus based sauces like mojo (pronounced moho, not mojo as in Austin Powers), are very prominent too. Mojo is made with olive oil, lime juice,
    garlic, and lightly sautéed onions. Citrus
    flavors like lime juice and sour orange are very heavily used too, especially
    in the marinades. These have so much
    flavor, who needs the hot peppers?

    Cuban
    cooking, overall, is influenced by African, Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, and
    Spanish cultures. Our comida criolla, Creole food, is influenced by African and
    Spanish cultures and this is one of the strongest influences. That’s why creole sauce is used in so many of
    our dishes. When they hear the word "creole", many people jump to the conclusion (again) that it must be
    spicy. On the contrary, as I have
    already said, just full of flavor.

    Vegetales
    anyone? Most vegetables used in Cuban
    cooking are root vegetables like yuca.
    In English this word is spelled "yucca" and pronounced "yuckah". That sounds "yuckie" to me – especially for
    such a delicious vegetable root – so I prefer to go with the Spanish
    pronunciation of yuca, which is "yookah".
    Smother yuca in some mojo and you’re in heaven. Sounds much better doesn’t it?

    That’s Cuban cooking
    101 from Victor’s 1959 Café. Remember,
    spicy culture, savory food. Gracias!

  • Innocence Lost

    Since taking office in 2003, Tim Pawlenty has done an
    admirable job of holding to his conservative values and staving off those in the legislature who would pluck that last bastion of political innocence. From saying no
    to an omnibus higher education bill last May to drawing the line at the
    appointment of a state poet laureate, our fearless leader has never allowed the
    fumbling advances of the DFL to arouse his executive passions and cajole him
    into doing something rash, something he’d regret in the harsh light of the
    Minnesota morning, possibly even something that would fund bridges, highways and transit. His steadfastness in the face of judgment clouding sex
    pots like Sen.
    Tom "The Sex Hog" Saxhaug     has served us well, sparing us from what would’ve been a near
    certain call
    for a state mime    .

    Yesterday however, our pure and chaste governor’s defenses
    were finally ground down, the sultry cajoling of the assembled legislators
    laying our stalwart executive gently down as his few remaining objections were
    overridden in both the Minnesota House and Senate. Afterwards, Governor
    Pawlenty sat stunned and ashamed, calling the events of the day "Ridiculous in
    scope and magnitude," and fretting over whether the legislature would call like
    it said it would, or if Eagan
    would lose all respect for him    . Sen. Saxhaug was oblivious to the
    governor’s concern, joining the rest of the DFL in hailing the transportation
    bill’s passage as a great victory for the people of Minnesota, making somewhat
    dubious connections to recent disasters and feverishly penning his "I never
    thought it would happen to me, but…" letter to Penthouse Forum.

    Of course, what truly stands a chance of being lost as the
    governor attempts to find ways to cope, perhaps even standing in solidarity
    with other wronged public
    figures    , isn’t the fact that Minnesotans will be coping with the first hike
    in the gas tax in 20 years, or that Hennepin county residents may start to
    wonder just what they did to deserve the legislative application of the shocker as a quarter cent sales tax
    increase devoted to transit projects gets piled on top of last summer’s referendum-free
    sales tax increase aimed at funding the Twins’ newly Santana-free stadium. It’s
    the dictatorial ball-peen hammer to the huevos given to the six House
    Republicans who crossed the aisle and voted to override the governor’s veto
    that will likely get lost in the shuffle.

    You see, neither party enjoys when its members step out of
    line – especially when such antics result in a 91-41 legislative gang-bang that
    leaves the governor of our fair state wondering why he was subjected to such
    treatment when it’s patently obvious he hired Carol Molnau
    for just such an occasion. In this case, the Republicans who claim to have
    voted their conscience are being threatened with, according to Rep. Ron
    Erhardt, "loss of media privileges, staff members, and research resources." Maybe
    if we’re lucky, House Minority Leader Marty Seifert will be caught planting
    dead hookers and a small meth lab in Rep. Erhardt’s office. Regardless of the outcome, it’s good to know
    that even though Michelle Bachmann has left the building, there’s still some
    bat shit crazy left in the air.

  • And Life Goes On

    As many of you have probably already heard, The Rake is ceasing publication of its print magazine after this month’s issue (which hit the streets today). While this is extremely sad for all of us, and a great loss to our readers as well, we will, of course, continue online, as always — with daily Secrets, regular arts, sports, and food coverage, and great bloggers all around. In fact, we’ve just added Rich Goldsmith to our list of bloggers, so stop by and check out the Defenestrator. (He’s home working on his first post as I write this.)

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Framing Suzan-Lori Parks

    Things could get interesting when the English and Theater departments at the U of M embark on a joint investigation of Suzan-Lori Parks’s oeuvre.
    This Pulitzer- and MacArthur Genius Grant-winning playwright boasts a
    body of work that’s rich in poetics and historic awareness, yet
    audacious enough to confront issues of emotional brutality head-on. (In
    other words, beware of over-intellectualizing.) The series kicks off
    tonight when Frank Theatre, the local company with the most Parks plays under its belt, excerpts its productions of The America Play, Venus, and Fucking A (Rarig Center, February 26).
    Frank’s founder and artistic director, Wendy Knox, also joins a panel
    of experts next week to discuss what it’s like to direct Parks’s plays (Rarig Center, March 4);
    and the series culminates with Parks in the flesh at Ted Mann Concert
    Hall on March 26, where she will lecture, play her guitar, and “show
    her ass,” as she likes to (metaphorically) put it. —Christy DeSmith

    7:30 p.m., Rarig Center, Room Proscenium Stage,

    University of Minnesota, 330 21st Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-626-1528; free.

    MUSIC
    Sparks Fly

    I admit, when I hear talk of electronic music, I immediately think "rave." I immediately recall a young woman, many years ago — on a most beatific trip, perhaps — swaying in a gas station, crying out to me in her own defense, "It’s just… it’s just… electronic music takes me there." And I suppose a trip "there" — wherever that may be — may not be a bad thing from time to time, but somehow I doubted the utility of her destination enough to turn me off somewhat to the genre. That’s not fair, of course. And being back in Minneapolis has finally taught me otherwise. There’s some darn good electronic music around! In fact, it’s quite amazing now what we can do, what one man, one woman can do with the most simple (or complicated) equipment. Yes, seeing a whole band come together in some magical way will always seduce us; but we can now also enjoy the magic of one person, two persons, however many persons and a machine serving up layers upon layers of sound in utterly deliberate and strikingly creative ways. Of course, this is nothing but a ridiculously long introduction to an interesting event that begins today and continues for the next five days. The Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts features dozens of local creators and performers of new media arts. In reality this isn’t just electronic music, so my long-winded intro is even more scornful; the event showcases music, video, dance, theater, plastic arts, and whatever other fabulous creation someone has birthed. Get an initial glimpse tonight with works by Shield Your Eyes, Nic Buron: "Knee Bone", Beatrix Jar: Performance Set (in photo), and Mystery Palace (at the Whole Music Club at 7 p.m.), and Marcos Romero, The Push, Ryan Simatic, James Patrick (at Temple at 10 p.m.). Check the schedule to see what’s coming up. You’re sure to find great stuff for the weekend.

    7 – 10 p.m., Coffman Memorial Union, The Whole, 300 Washington Ave. SE, Minneapolis, 612-624-INFO; free.

    10 p.m., Temple Restaurant and Bar, 1201 Harmon Pl., Minneapolis, 612-767-3770.

    Or Hunt Unicorns

    If you’re not feeling quite that experimental today — still odd and quirky, but with a touch of pop flavor — then I’ve got another compelling act for you. Come on now; don’t be stodgy. Live a little. Sia is town, all the way from Adelaide, Australia; and though her website and her myspace page are just a little too colorful and esoteric — or perhaps we can do her the honor of crediting her with some kind of brilliant derisive jab at the whole myspace "thang" — a moment on that same ridiculous page will also reveal her estimable voice. She makes you want to listen — even if she does describe herself as being "born out of the butthole of a unicorn called steve." Don’t you just have to see this gal? Listen to the track she sent us. I’m guessing she’ll put on a show that’s equally skilled and amusing — with extra sass for good measure.

    9 p.m. (doors at 8 p.m.), FineLine Music Cafe, 318 First Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612-338-8100; $20.

  • What I Saw at the Food & Wine Show

    The convention center was predictably packed for the Food and Wine show this weekend. I managed to skulk through the aisles and saw some good stuff:

    Top Bite: the Hope Creamery salted butter on a cracker. One simply beautiful, creamy bit of elegance.

    Thousand Hills cooked up some crazy-good grass-fed beef hotdogs and burgers. You can seriously taste a light, grassy flavor and the amount of omega-3’s are out of this world. This might be the easiest way to introduce grass-fed to your fam.

    A few smart ladies have formed the Droolin Moose which puts some kicky packaging with snackabe snacks. The malted milk boulders are huge and thickly triple dipped in really good, secret recipe chocolate. Their website won’t be up until March 3rd, but they do have a retail outlet.

    Barebecue, bbq, whatever you want to call it … was everwhere! Two standouts: Willingham’s dressed some shredded pork with a kicky sauce and Big Jake’s gave me a stingingly good meatball bathed in their bold sauce.

    Sipping chocolate is all the rage, but Legacy Chocolate’s Mayan Experience was the best … dark and sweetly earthy, with a slightly spicy burn on the back end.

    The restaurant booths were mobbed…Fhima’s new Zahtar had a throng waiting for their Moroccan stew … Common Roots had a creamy, wonderful cheese spread for bagel chips … always dig the beef jerky from Dixie’s … nice little tuna roll from Midori’s Floating World … Vescio’s has the most welcoming, homiest red sauce around.