The Rake Magazine

Author: Cristina Córdova

  • I Like to Watch

    Salon writer Heather Havrilesky examines what upcoming televised features suggest about the American ego.

  • Army of Dude

    The Washington Note cues us in to Army of Dude, an American military guy’s blog that the Pentagon has not yet shut down. Washington Note writer Steven C. Clemons actually suggests that the guy is on the scale of The New Republic. That ought to tell you what to expect.

  • Take Pride in What's Yours

    MUSIC
    Quirky and Hypnotic

    1497842221_m.jpgTonight the weird and wonderful Twin Cities jazz trio Hips Don’t Lie performs the first of a three-night gig at Rossi’s Blue Star. Though the group has the consistency of a traditional piano trio — Tasha Baron on keyboards, Liz Draper on upright bass, and Pete Henning on drums — their music is pointedly different from traditional jazz. Hips Don’t Lie’s songs (all of them originals, written by Draper and Baron) contain a good amount of the unexpected, with elements like sound effects and atonality; and the solos, though quirky and even challenging, can be downright hypnotic. –Danielle Kurtzleben

    8 p.m., Rossi’s Blue Star, 80 South 9th St., Minneapolis; 612-312-2828.

    Count on the Dakota for a Dinner Serenade

    monheit02.jpgI used to think the Dakota was over-rated. It’s true. I missed the old location in Bandana Square. As inconvenient a location as it was, it was a beautifully intimate setting, which made for some fantastic shows. The first time I went to the new location, however, I went for dinner. I was seated upstairs, behind a wall, where we could not see the show. Stupid. Of course, I used to the think the Dakota was over-rated. I was stupid. I know better now. The Dakota is under-rated. The place is amazing — and in our own backyard. (My own back yard, literally, as I live downtown.) The food is solid. The space is solid. The service is solid (just don’t ask them to slice up your steak and serve it to you as an appetizer). And the acts they bring in — both local and from out of town — are truly outstanding. Tonight’s performance is no different. Grammy-nominated songstress Jane Monheit serves up her buttery pop-jazz vocals. This is a beautiful date night — both for old and new loves. Who isn’t impressed by a spontaneous Monday night offering?

    7 & 9 p.m., Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; $35 & $25.

    MUSIC RADIO
    Listen. Share. Learn.

    It seems sometimes that just about everyone in the Twin Cities is or has been a musician at some time. Come on — remember that band you were in? If you ever took it seriously, you probably know the frustration of trying to get radio play. While anyone with a band and a half-way decent computer has the potential to record and distribute their music nowadays, artists still suffer the frustration of trying to get their voice out there. Even on the Internet — a seemingly “democratic” space that demands user-shaped content and customized consumption — we suffer the consequences of corporate control. Yet, as big media desperately grapples for digital real estate — and our total dependence — the little guy keeps creeping up with more democratic ideas, more idealist ideas, ideas that require others to help build; and when we don’t step up to build them, the ideas get squashed under some warped interpretation of it — scooped up and controlled by the very entities we set out to defy.

    Phew! What am I getting at here? There’s a new cat in town — a has-been musician is-now geek of sorts — and he has started an internet radio station, called Localtone Radio, to provide local artists of all kinds a platform where they can distribute their work, listen to other’s content, and learn about other Twin Cities artists. Any listener can add content to the system (anything from music, to poetry, to broadcast journalism), listen to samples of audio, and cast votes daily for the content that they like. And the votes determine the next audio to be played. It’s user contributed radio in its most open and free form — no big corporations dictating what media you can consume, just audio from your local artists and a community of listeners directly shaping the broadcast. The only problem — it’s takes us all to help build it. So build, my friends. Build. This is ours to be had.

    NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN
    Laughter and Poetry

    While new forms and styles of entertainment greet us daily, we mustn’t take for granted the possibilities that are more constantly offered. How long has it been since you’ve had a good laugh? This city is so full of options: The Brave New Workshop (Is it still Dudley Riggs?), Comedy Sportz, Stevie Ray’s Improv Company. They have shows just about every week, and we so seldom go. Let’s get out there. And let’s start tonight with the open mic at Acme. Think you’re funny? Put yourself to the test. Sign up for a three minute act. Otherwise, sit back, relax, have yourself a from-the-gut roar. I guarantee at least two or three acts will provoke it. (Perhaps it will even be yours.)

    8 p.m., Acme Comedy Company, 708 1st St. N., Historic Itasca Building, Minneapolis; 612-338-6393; free.

    If laughter is not your thing tonight, explore your poetic side at the Artists’ Quarters open mic. What I love most about their poetry open mic night is the jam session that inevitably ensues after the words. Your poetry can be in any form — words or music, and the evening always ends with what I deem to be among the most genuine jazz jams around. (Or at least it used to be so — I confess, it has been a while since I have been there.) If you feel like getting out of the house early, be there at 7:30 p.m. for the “burning post-pop quartet” Green.

    9 p.m., Artists’ Quarter, 408 St. Peter St., Hamm Building, St. Paul; 651-292-1359.

  • News Hole

    photo by Raffy Abasolo
    (Cover photo by Brian Hayes) 

    Strange and terrible things happen all over the world every day, of course, as well as wonderful things, things merely prosaically sad, irresistibly trivial, or urgently relevant to our lives. People suffer and die in far-away places and in neighborhoods where we live. Legislation is debated and passed; businesses change hands, people lose their jobs; the fates of criminals and innocents alike are determined in court; professional athletes triumph or flounder or change teams; celebrities suffer breakdowns or engage in appalling behavior. And amid all the clamor and the calamity there are always, unfolding all around us, poignant, miniature dramas and acts of quiet integrity and heroism.

    All of this boils down to news of one sort or another, and, unless we find ourselves directly affected by an event, that news comes to us secondhand, as stories. We depend on the media to assemble those stories, and to pass them along so that we can remain informed about the world beyond our immediate lives. But what happens when the stories don’t get told?

    Few people who live in the Twin Cities were unaffected by the stories and images that emerged in the wake of the rush-hour collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge into the Mississippi River. It was one of those huge news events that instantly became a galvanizing communal drama. The destruction of a bridge, after all, resonates on any number of levels; it’s a catastrophe that can be easily transformed into an all-purpose metaphor—emotional, logistical, structural, infrastructural—for the perils of life in a modern metropolis.

    The news media in the Twin Cities rightfully devoted all its resources to telling that story, and did a terrific job of quickly pulling together the myriad pieces and angles of a confusing and rapidly developing tragedy. There’s not much to criticize in how the bridge collapse was covered locally, but it did raise a question: what happens to the rest of the news when a major story breaks, particularly in your own backyard? We’ll push our metaphor a bit further: If the news media is increasingly our bridge to the world beyond our doors, what happens when that bridge gets swept away by a huge and legitimate breaking story?

    We’ll admit that we got as wrapped up in the bridge story as everybody else, and only after we’d had a chance to finally pull ourselves away from our televisions or delve deeper into the back pages of the newspapers did we get around to wondering what else had been going on—around the world, elsewhere in the country, and here in Minnesota—that day and in the days following the disaster. What became of the stories that would have been front-page news—or at the very least received prominent play—on any other ordinary day in the Twin Cities?

    In an effort to give you back that day, and the few that followed, we spent some time digging for the news that got buried or jettisoned in the aftermath of the bridge collapse. What we found was that, horrifying and eye-opening as some of those stories are, it was, sadly, a pretty typical news week.

    Just not, sadly, here. —BZ

     

    PAGE 2: AROUND TOWN
    PAGE 3: CRIME
    PAGE 4: BUSINESS
    PAGE 5: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
    PAGE 6: SCRAMBLE for bridge coverage
    PAGE 7: FALLOUT from the bridge collapse
    PAGE 8: CHATTER — or conspiracy theories

  • City Pages Drama Continues

    If it’s attention they want, they’ve got it. According to Minnesota Monitor, new City Pages editor Kevin Hoffman sent a memo to staff announcing the weekly is cutting long-time film editor Rob Nelson’s position. The Rake’s own Britt Robson (also a former City Pages writer), along with a host of others, immediately replied with harsh words.

  • Music Is but an Instrument of Poetry

    FILM AND MUSIC
    You’re Gonna Miss Me at Sound Unseen

    This weekend is really about Sound Unseen — no secret there. But there are definitely a couple of films worth mentioning. When a film is compared to Gus Van Sant’s Gerry and Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny, you have to stop and listen (if only for a moment). Daft Punk’s Electroma tells a whacked out story of two robots on a quest to become human. Watch a trailer. (Friday at 9:15 p.m.)

    youre-gonna-miss-me.thumbnail.jpgThe other Sound Unseen film this evening comes with another outrageous comparison — this one by the filmmaker himself. “I started out thinking I was making One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” says Keven McAlester, “but I ended up with something more like Being There.” I don’t know what’s more ballsy — setting out to make Cuckoo’s Nest, or thinking you ended up with Being There. Sure, I like to reach for the stars, but I never claim to have actually grabbed one. Nonetheless, with cinematographer Lee Daniel behind the lens, and singer-songwriter Austinite Roky Erickson as the subject, You’re Gonna Miss Me is certainly worth a watch. We all love a tragic rock star tale.

    Friday at 7 p.m., Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-623-7660; $7.

    FILM
    Film Will Never Fade Away

    Cindy-Isolated.jpgAlso on the film front this evening — and a bit more of a secret than any Sound Unseen event — is a local short film festival featuring the premiere of Fading Moment, directed by Howard Espinoza. “It’s natural to be paranoid,” reads the movie poster. Watch a trailer and begin your adventure with Cindy Smith, a nurse determined to help who she believes to be an innocent victim. Other shorts this evening include Christopher Michael Beer’s Fade trailer; The Feminine Mystique, by Ryan Taylor; Ziegler Productions’ Men of My Dreams, written and directed by Steve Carlisle; When Minimum Wage Isn’t Enough, by Adam Zuehlke; and Harry Putter and the Sorcerer’s Phone, produced by Matthew Feeney and directed by Jeremy Gustafson. (Of course, if you just spent an hour clicking through these links, you’ve pretty much seen it all.)

    Friday at 8 p.m., Oak Street Cinema, 309 Oak St. S.E., Minneapolis; $8 (seniors $6, students and members $5).

    BOOKS AND AUTHORS
    Nervous Poetry

    Stobb2.jpgFilm is truly lovely, but we mustn’t pass up opportunities to experience things in the flesh (or even of the flesh). And we mustn’t pass up opportunities to run our fingers across pages. And we mustn’t pass up opportunities to hear words formed into poetry — rather than the careless abuse they so often endure. This evening, Minnesota raised William E. Stobb leaves his current Wisconsin haven to grace us with his words. “Got to feeling like something someone just because / I like it doesn’t / mean it’s supposed to keep existing.” An unconventional poet (if such a thing as conventional poetry truly exists), playing with form and style, Stobb will read from his latest collection Nervous Systems. Joining him will be local poets Juliet Patterson and Paula Cisewski.

    Friday at 7:30 p.m., Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-822-4611.

    THEATER & PEFORMANCE
    The Erotic Space of Theater

    paradisehotel.jpgMore live performance: Paradise Hotel, written by Richard Foreman, opens at the Bedlam tonight. Did the title of this post get your attention? Sex sex sex sex sex. This stream-of-conscious play is far from common, far from boring, and far from the ever-prudish Minnesota character we try so hard to deny. “The theatre is about sex,” says Foreman, and his play clearly sets out to illustrate this. It’s rated NC-17, for crying out loud.

    Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7:30 p.m., Bedlam Theatre, 1501 S. 6th St., Minneapolis; 612-338-9817; $13 (students $10).

    MUSIC
    A New Tamborine Man

    Ezradbd3.jpgAll ye Dylan fans grab your coats. (That’s right. It’s going down into the 50s tonight.) Ezra Furman and the Harpoons are in town to help warm the soul, however. You won’t want to miss the blues harp riffs, the tales of life and woe, the poetry.

    10 p.m., The Kitty Cat Klub, 315 14th Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; $5.

    Think Inside the Box

    m_f04dd47e4cb66e83e1d93fdf0ae80d88.jpgMinneapolis-based band A Night in the Box’s MySpace page lists their genres as “Bluegrass/Folk Rock/Indie”…which is true, but their sound is more White Stripes than Nickel Creek. Night in the Box’s latest album, The Hustler, The Prayer, The Thief, features some of the rowdiest bluegrass you’ve likely ever heard, and has lately been getting serious play on The Current. Catch this local sensation Saturday at 11:15 p.m., but come early for the equally-promising opening acts — the country-tinged Jack Klatt and Spiritual Mansions. –by Danielle Kurtzleben

    Saturday at 9:15 p.m., Lee’s Liquor Lounge, 101 Glenwood Ave., Minneapolis; 612-338-9491; $6.

    Can I Have a Little Salsa with That?

    epk_get_band_pic.jpgMy boricua brother Tito Nieves was supposed to be playing at Trocaderos on Saturday night, but alas, no longer. (Maybe someone was just playing an evil joke on me.) Nonetheless, there’s another good show. While she certainly doesn’t have Tito’s fabulous ritmo, MJ Kroll serves up some formidable blues pop, reminiscent of Sheryl Crow. You might know her as the lead singer of Beta Lounge. Saturday she celebrates her solo CD release party.

    Saturday at 9 p.m., Trocaderos Nightclub & Restaurant, 107 Third Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612-465-0440.

  • Semi-Permanent Seeks Artists

    Been looking for a good excuse to go to Australia? Semi-Permanent, an annual design festival hosted by Design is Kinky, is looking for artist submissions for 2008. You have until October to submit your work.

  • Abandoned Spaces

    Véronique d’Entremont exposes America’s Forgotten Stories.

  • Sophisticated (and not so sophisticated) Comics

    Married To The Sea
    marriedtothesea.com

    Married to the Sea is a comic created by Drew and Natalie Dee.

  • A Helping Hand with a Mouse in It

    Volunteer work from the comfort of home — that’s right, online. Become a mentor at ICouldBe.org, or explore other options at VolunteerMatch.org and NABUUR.com.