rakemag Odell takes up the sympathies of two mothers on opposite sides of the racial divide, who are connected by grief as they deal with the loss of their sons and watch the dawn of the desegregation era come to their small Mississippi town. Odell once had a successful corporate career. He tossed it, and almost … Read more
In the wake of the tsunami, some well-intentioned Americans looked into adopting orphaned children. Perhaps they should read Jan Jeong Trenka’s memoir, The Language of Blood, before buying a ticket to Jakarta. “Remember that your joy as a parent is a direct result of your child’s first loss,” Trenka cautions adoptive parents. A Korean-born child … Read more
Those darling DJs at the Current have been playing Nick Cave’s profane-to-profound music with such enthusiasm you’d think we’re in Australia, where he’s achieved elder statesman status among alt rockers. Hearing the dark-side crooner so often reminds us of what we like about him–his brooding intensity, his amazing gift for melody, his throwback lyrical style–but … Read more
It’s been ten years since the folks at the Schubert Club brought Minnesota its first gamelan, and in collaboration with the Indonesian Performing Arts Association of Minnesota, they’ve put it to good use ever since. For this concert, Midiyanto, an acclaimed Javanese puppeteer, will shape an evening wayang kulit, or traditional shadow puppetry performance, around … Read more
Al Green’s been boiling in our blood all along, his deep moans and hungry wails laying down soundtracks for everything from lost virginities to Viagra-assisted hook-ups. After that period in the eighties when Green went reverend on us, devoting himself full-time to gospel and God, he returned to R&B in the mid-nineties, but it was … Read more
Not every folksinger offers paeans to cornfields and chicken coops. Lucy Kaplansky is a purely urban soul, and her New York City songs tell stories with subway trains below and skyscrapers above. Nor do her curly hair, modern love songs, and psychology degree fit with your average folkie image, but she cuts to the heart … Read more
B.B. King is coming to town, and the man is turning eighty this year, so don’t put off today what you might not be able to hear tomorrow. Not that the reigning King of the Blues is slowing down any. With a world tour and a new album (The Ultimate Collection, twenty-one of King’s greatest … Read more
We’re eager to see the newest work from this Minneapolis photographer since his Sleeping by the Mississippi portraits sent his career into orbit. Soth’s vividness, like the doubletake we do to see our surroundings more clearly, often makes his human subjects appear to have been captured in the "happy place" of their imaginations. A boy … Read more
Mail doubles as works of art (postcard, painting, sculpture), in this exhibition. Each artwork, while it is stamped and addressed to the gallery, and bears a postmark tattoo, seems to have very little road wear. Sure, it would be pretty hard to damage the block of wood carved ironically to resemble a package, but it’s … Read more
A crank and a recluse, a seeker and an obsessive, Biederman was the kind of artist who made art simply because he couldn’t not do it! He was from a whole different era than the graduates turned out by today’s BFA and MFA programs, but he might as well have been a whole different species. … Read more