Author: rakemag

To open its 2003 season, Soap Factory presents a series of video, film, and visual art that’s all about finding and crossing the line between fiction and reality—more specifically, how we use fiction to assemble our reality. Projects include a trading post where you can swap one of your own mixed-tapes with one of Conrad Bakker’s carved wooden replicas—an excellent way to get rid of those old Whitesnake cassettes. Two fascinating documentaries also get local premieres. Hell House takes us behind the scenes of a Texas scare-the-teens-straight Pentecostal haunted house. And The Battle of Orgreave, directed by Leaving Las Vegas’ Mike Figgis, chronicles artist Jeremy Deller’s painstaking historical re-enactment of a bloody 1984 clash between British riot police and striking miners. Soap Factory, 2nd St. S.E. & 5th Ave. S.E., (612) 623-9176, soapfactory.org

The MIA teams up with Britain’s Tate Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for this 150-work exhibit, a major collection intent on revealing the creative give-and-take between painters on either side of the English Channel during the tumultuous decades of post-Napoleonic Europe. Crossing will feature plenty of rare treats for us Yankee audiences, including masterworks by artists like Eugene Delacroix and J.M.W. Turner rarely shown outside their home museums. The flagship here is Theodore Gericault’s massive “Raft of the Medusa,” the scandalous 1820 work capturing the survivors of a real-life shipwreck just at the moment of rescue, but too late to save them from cannibalism—sometimes considered the definitive painting of its era. It also showed up later as the cover of a Pogues record, which can only be an added bonus. (We won’t be seeing the original painting, too fragile and too jealously guarded to leave the Louvre, but the Tate’s 1859 reproduction has been called “spine-chilling.”) MIA, 2400 3rd Ave. S., (612) 870-3000, artsmia.org

That “Spoonbridge & Cherry” sculpture has become so iconic of Minneapolis in our minds, we’d nearly forgotten that the Walker’s outdoor annex has only been gracing our city for a decade and a half. The museum’s celebrating the occasion with a two-part weekend fete. On Friday, critic’s-darling Americana combo Wilco headlines a concert backed up by power-jazz trio the Bad Plus, local boys who’re making quite a splash in national jazz circles. Saturday’s free garden party looks like a great day for the kids, with plenty of make-it-yourself art projects and winding up with an end-of-day parade.

Seven years, sixteen cities, and up to a million theatergoers later, Triple Espresso’s caffeine high refuses to wear off. This three-man vaudevillian cabaret act, in fact, is among the most successful shows our town’s ever produced, still getting sellout crowds night after night for the laugh-a-minute antics of the has-been trio Maxwell, Butternut, and Bean. What’s the big deal? Simply put, it really is that funny. Oh, sure, it’s theatrical comfort food, occasionally naughty but never crossing the line into grandma-shocking. But if it doesn’t ask you to think, it does ask you to laugh—and you will laugh. The plot is a piffle, really, a mere skeleton for the complementing talents of Espresso’s three originators—the wry, Newhartesque Bill Arnold and his mock-incompetent magician’s tricks, Michael Pearce Donley’s smarmy lounge-lizard, and the goofy dumb-guy antics of Bob Stromberg, whose inspired gorilla imitation is one of the show’s highlights. Next on the Espresso agenda is a full-scale European invasion, starting with Hamlet’s turf—three Danish actors just finished rehearsing here in Minneapolis and are set to open the first-ever foreign-language version of the show later this summer in Copenhagen. Music Box, 1407 Nicollet Ave., 612-874-1100, tripleespresso.com

We noticed about a year ago that Jeune Lune just goes from strength to strength—and being, you know, attuned to classical tragedy, we wonder if hubris will bring them back to Earth anytime soon. It seems nothing is too ambitious for this brilliant company, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to a Cirque du Soleil tribute to an honest-to-goodness knighthood bestowed by the French government a few weeks ago. Well, what else is there? Opera, of course—and why not go after the biggest and best known? (No, not Wagner. Please.) Can they pull it off? We’re not betting against them. Jeune Lune, 105 N. 1st St., (612) 333-6200, www.jeunelune.org

The menu at Bobino founder Chris Paddock’s latest eatery ranges widely over central and South America, but the central organizing concept comes from Brazil’s churrascaria steakhouses, slow-roasting beef on open-flame skewers. On our recent visit we sampled the picanha—one of Mojito’s signature fire-roasted meats rubbed with garlic—and the feijoada, a tasty stew of pork sausage, black beans, and orange. The wine list is replete with South American vintages, or you could quench your thirst with the restaurant’s namesake cocktail, the minty-sweet Cuban mojito. Price, while not unreasonable, are what you’d expect from a steakhouse, but those looking for a cheap date should try the specialty pizzas, which feed two for $9 to $10

The war with Iraq, combined with the SARS epidemic and the release of a pretty tough 2003 Vikings schedule, has left us all a bit weary. Thankfully, in the true American spirit of making fun of inappropriate situations, we’ve found a comedic port in the sandstorm, thanks to Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. He’s the guy who resembles that actor whose name you can’t think of, only without the mustache, whose job during the three-week campaign was to put the best possible spin on an old-fashioned butt-whuppin’. Notable quotes (many delivered with the muffled sound of U.S. artillery fire in the background) included, “Today I have visited whole Baghdad city, no invaders found. They are crying outside and waiting to receive bullets. They will be killed shortly.” And our personal favorite, “They think we are retarded—they are retarded.” If he’s not already working for the Republican National Committee, al-Sahaf is most likely polishing up that resume. We thought in the true spirit of global kinship, we’d assist the minister in his quest for new employment in a field best suited to his talents: marketing.

Spokesman, Northwest Airlines
“The Wall Street always depends on a method what I call stupid. They are stupid and condemned. NWA stock up 3 points next quarter!”

Color commentary, the Minnesota Twins
“We are not afraid of the Yankees! The bases are loaded, but I am not scared and neither should you be. My initial assessment is that the devils will all strike out … and are all condemned, Allah willing.”

Customer service, Orkin
“I have visited the Johnson residence. No invaders found. You go and see how we have ousted the cockroaches from this Johnson home. Our estimates are that none of the infidels will come out alive unless they surrender to us quickly.”

Pitchman, Famous Dave’s
“We’ve thrown our ribs in a quagmire, a quagmire of delicious honey-barbecue sauce, from which they can only emerge … delicious!”

Eddie Murphy’s agent
“I can assure you that ‘Daddy Day Care’ will be the subject of laughter around the world. I always ask you to verify what I say, and I say ‘Daddy Day Care’ opens on May 9th. Heavy doesn’t accurately describe the level of comedy Eddie will inflict.”

Host, QVC
“I would like to clarify a simple fact here: I triple guarantee you, these earrings are 18 carat gold! Those who do not buy them will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place.”