rakemag This tiny shack on a frontage road in St. Louis Park has been around for some forty years, but only during the last four has it begun kicking out truly tasty burgers. Since the former owners of Franks A Million and the Wienery took over the retro spot, they’ve revived that twentieth-century marvel: the window … Read more
If restaurants starred in teen movies, the Longfellow Grill would be the smart and sassy new girl who’s had the makeover, but still knows who she is. Featuring roughly the same menu as her sisters, the Highland Grill and Edina Grill, Longfellow is a little sexier and a little more amped, thanks to a bold … Read more
Libraries have become boisterous “information centers.” Churches offer rock-n-roll services. Art galleries encourage interaction with the art and with other patrons. Where has all the silence gone? To Patrick’s Bakery. One look at that shimmering pastry case seems to render people speechless. Patrons of this most authentic French bakery behave as if they’re in a … Read more
You drink chai and attend yoga classes, you dine on curries and masalas, you even watch the occasional Bollywood flick. But let’s admit it: There’s still an enormous amount of Indian culture that’s exotic to us Americans. Take Kathakali, the ancient and visually dazzling form of theater from the country’s southwestern region, which employs dance, … Read more
For all its whimsy, this production of King of Hearts might be tricky to laugh at. Latte Da artistic director Peter Rothstein made the bold move of casting performers from Interact Theatre, a troupe of artists with disabilities, to perform alongside his company members. That move isn’t unusual–Interact artists perform all the time–but in this … Read more
In its dedication to adapting literature for the stage, Hardcover Theater is usually narrative-driven. This production, however, is a hallucinogenic journey as told by Georg Trakl, a German soldier-poet who fought in and ultimately took his own life during World War I. Trakl’s dreamy, drug-induced imagery is reminiscent of Arthur Rimbaud, whom he admired, yet … Read more
Only a handful of North American operas have managed to muscle their way into a classic repertory already crowded with European works; count Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Bernstein’s Candide, and Nixon in China, by John Adams, among them. Imbued with the kind of quirkiness that only opera (and, arguably, the Nixons) can provide, Adams’s music, … Read more
“Laugh to keep from cryin’” was a maxim often employed by black vaudeville performers in the 1920s to endure racism, long hours, and atrocious pay, not to mention performing in humiliating productions. Things were even tougher on the traveling circuit, and yet amazingly, these vaudevillians still managed to bring warmth and quick-witted humor to audiences … Read more
Maybe it’s partly due to technology, or the global proliferation of biennials, or even a newish style of exhibition that the art critic Peter Schjeldahl dubbed “festivalism,” but more and more artists have been producing work on an extremely large scale. Given its own cavernous galleries, how could the Soap Factory not offer its own … Read more