rakemag

Stereolab’s fondness for Moog synths and vintage Vox and Farfisa organs blur the band’s lineage. This could be fifties post-jazz or nineties post-rock; the only thing that’s clear is that they are French. They are also hazy, moody, sexy, offhandedly cool, and dislocated from pop culture, which is to say that Stereolab’s music is more … Read more

Our favorite self-loathing performer/writer from the Minnesota Fringe Festival is back for another helping of self-humiliation. Amy Salloway may be riddled with insecurity, but her writing is loaded with so much skill and good humor that her pain winds up being our pleasure. So Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz! harks back to the days when … Read more

Jeune Lune has gotten so good at opera that almost everything it does in the genre deserves mention. The company’s strategy involves stripping away layers of orchestration from the score, because it can neither afford a full orchestra nor fit one into its space. The result has been opera productions that are short, punchy, and … Read more

It’s heartening to note that this annual event has added themes in recent years–perhaps it means that so many women are now making films that the focus has been narrowed. In its thirteenth year, the Women with Vision festival showcases filmmakers from Chile, Iran, Kenya, Cameroon–as well as Europe and the U.S.–who have faced political … Read more

Fiery, doomed love isn’t just for gay cowboys; prairie girls can get it real bad, too. In this play by local writer Melanie Marnich, a young, small-town wife succumbs to a crush on a handsome neighbor, and becomes entangled in a dangerous constellation of personalities and tempers. Based loosely on the 1622 play The Changeling, … Read more

There really is only one thing that can melt through our puritanical will to stay home and hunker down through the cold months: barbeque. Now that we have a Baker’s Ribs in Eden Prairie, we’ll brave any weather to bask in the inner heat that only good sausage can kindle. The smoky barbecue links at … Read more

The proof that Minnesota has soul lies in Jackie Williams’ sweet potato pie. Or perhaps it’s in her rib tips, smothered pork chops, or fried green tomatoes, which warm your belly and your disposition. Williams has been a chef-around-town for years, and she’s occasionally even catered for stopover celebrities before opening Abundant Bistro, her own … Read more

For years, photographer Greta Pratt considered herself a New Yorker. As a Pulitzer-nominated documentary photographer whose works hang in museums including the Smithsonian and the National Museum of American Art, she was thoroughly enmeshed in the East Coast art world. And then she went to a hog-showing competition in Nebraska. “I looked around me and … Read more

Enough already with the fat, bearded, balding guys playing Hamlet! The Prince of Denmark is twenty or so years old. While we certainly understand that anyone cast in the role–perhaps the most storied in all of English-language theater–should have something of a track record, Hamlet just doesn’t work when its titular character is middle-aged and … Read more