Author: rakemag

We’re thankful that the Soap Factory hasn’t succumbed to the condo craze that’s underway along the riverfront–in fact, this beloved and off-beat art venue stands to take on a higher profile once it’s surrounded by posh lofts and the spiffy folks who dwell in them. Already the Factory is stepping up to the plate: Rumor has it that this will be the year that the space doesn’t have to close down entirely during the colder months. Either way, it’s opening its 2006 season with yet another sprawling and ambitious exhibition. 8x8x8 LON/MSP/NYC features twenty-four emerging artists from Minneapolis, New York City, and London; the Soap Factory is the first stop as it tours each city, with the intention of demonstrating that art of equivalent range and quality is coming from these very different places. The work in the show runs the gamut from paintings, drawings, and sculptures to sound, video, and performance pieces. Second St. S.E. & Fifth Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-623-9176; www.soapfactory.org

These days, Bob Dylan scorns the camera (or claims to–who can explain that freaky Victoria’s Secret commercial?), but once upon a time he gladly tossed his winsome curls for the historical record. John Cohen, whose folk band the New Lost City Ramblers achieved success in the same New York music scene that nurtured the young Dylan in the sixties, had unparalleled access to his friend Dylan and other musical luminaries back then, and his photos capture a moment of music history that crackled with electricity years before Dylan actually plugged in. In conjunction with the show, the New Lost Minneapolis Ramblers–featuring Cohen along with Spider John Koerner, Tony Glover, and Paul Metsa–performs at Mayslack’s Bar on May 11. 1500 Jackson St. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-788-1790; www.iceboxminnesota.com

Daniel Kaniess and Yang Yang raise questions about the future of creativity–how will it evolve within the generations of kids who are growing up in front of their computers? Both ply a steely and futuristic vision infused with the influences of computer animation, video games, and industrial collage. Yet they also press the memory of an off-screen world into their work. Yang’s drawings feature traditional Chinese human and animal subjects set in stark new worlds, and no computer would tolerate Kaniess’ organic and chaotic Jackson Pollack-influenced paintings and collages. These artists share an uneasiness with technology as they enshrine it, and that tension makes us glad these kids got to play outside before they learned to love the glowing screen. 612-870-3200; www.artsmia.org

One of our favorite things about Ian Frazier is his ability to sketch scenes with deft strokes that instantly put you in a Montana trout stream, a Manhattan canyon, or a New Jersey boulevard. That, and he reliably evokes at least one belly laugh per one thousand words. Last winter, Frazier published Gone To New York, a collection of stories set in and around his adoptive hometown. It includes one of our all-time favorite magazine stories–about his efforts to remove plastic deli bags from trees throughout the city, the device he created and patented to do the job, and the equal measures of appreciation and trouble he got into for indulging in his weird new hobby. Perhaps at this appearance he’ll read a more recent favorite, about the fine art of stomping acorns on sidewalks. 651-290-1221; fitzgeraldtheater.publicradio.org

The appearance of a new George Saunders story is always cause for excitement among his steadily growing cult. There really isn’t another contemporary American writer who has tapped so effectively into the absurdities that result from our current climate of cultural confusion. In the process, Saunders has carved out his own niche in unlikely places–the New Yorker, for instance, or Barnes and Noble–where his almost-inimitable style and sensibility remain as jarring as they are refreshing. His latest collection includes many stories originally seen in some of Saunders’ usual magazine forums, as well as previously unpublished work. Though he continues to make his trademark archaeological excursions into a subconscious cluttered with all manner of cognitive dissonance, Saunders is also increasingly willing to rein in the weirdness and deliver stories that are surprisingly straightforward and genuinely poignant.

Writing under the sly pseudonym Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler is the man responsible for the highly amusing A Series of Unfortunate Events, a string of bestselling tales for especially smart young readers–and for a large handful of slightly juvenile adult readers, the kind who take unabashed pleasure in bathroom humor and the satisfactions of revenge. Those adults should be charmed in a different way by Adverbs: A Novel, a set of sixteen little love stories that introduce a series of mostly unfortunate would-be lovers and lonely-hearts types, as well as indulging Handler’s love of the odd phrase and the even odder observation. 3225 69th St. W., Edina; 952-920-0633

Today’s open adoptions give birth mothers a degree of peace of mind, as well as provide their children with a sense of identity that so often proved elusive to previous generations. But for much of the twentieth century, pregnant women were spirited off to strange and sometimes cruel places where they delivered and relinquished their babies, often against their will. This engrossing study of the million and a half adoptions that occurred between World War II and Roe v. Wade features interviews with a hundred birth mothers. Their stories reveal the hidden world of unwed mother’s homes, the psychological damage that the experience caused many of them and their children, and the process by which many of these mother-child pairs have attempted to reunite.

Sean Penn and Madonna did it; so did J-Lo and Ben Affleck. For some couples, love and ego swell together in such a way that a cinematic collaboration is inevitable. Now it’s Matthew Barney and Bjork’s turn–and we’re happy to say that the results are stranger and more spectacular than anything Hollywood would turn out. Bjork supposedly swore she’d never act in another film after starring in Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, but apparently her antipathy for that director was subsumed by a desire to work with her artist spouse. For his part, Barney put away the creepy latex get-ups from his five earlier Cremaster films, appearing in Drawing Restraint 9 as a basically unmodified and quite attractive male human. The plot, such as it is, could be summed up as “Barney-n-Bjork’s honeymoon on a Japanese whaling ship,” although the real point of the film, given the heavyweight status of this pair in their respective art and music worlds, is to allow yourself to get lost in the bizarre and gorgeous world they conjure. 612-375-7622; www.walkerart.org; for Lagoon Cinema dates see www.landmarktheatres.com

Seven years in the making, Water has finally landed on our shores, and it was worth the wait. Shelved after its sets were destroyed by fundamentalist Hindis and the director Deepa Mehta’s life threatened, the production resumed years later in Sri Lanka with a new cast. Water is the story of Chuyia, a precocious eight-year-old who has just been widowed from a man she barely remembers marrying. Forced by ancient laws to mourn eternally in an ashram, the young girl rebels, bringing both hope and turmoil to a group of destitute widows.

Next time you have the opportunity to make a bargain with a genie, just say no. And yet, you’ll probably say yes, no matter how many fairy tales you’ve read, because those spell ladies are just so darn persuasive. In this stylized Chinese romance, a poor orphan girl negotiates with a sorceress to become a beautiful princess with whom men fall crazy-stupid in love, but should she ever love them back, they are doomed. Nice deal, kid. Said to be the most expensive Chinese film ever made, this feverish tale from director Chen Kaige (Farewell, My Concubine) presents three different men who fall for the girl’s killer charms as she fights to throw off the curse and live happily ever after–looks and princess status intact. Expect the kind of flashy martial arts, exquisitely choreographed battlefield scenes, and gorgeous sets and landscapes that made films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers so wildly popular on this side of the Pacific. 612-825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com