Graphic Noise

Rock ‘n’ roll was always meant to be heard and seen. While Hip Art That’s Square, a show last year at Goldstein, examined the art of the album cover through the eyes of a local collector, this exhibit, organized by the Museum of Design in Atlanta, focuses on that more public and transient medium, the … Read more

Gary Baseman

Gary Baseman’s artwork is amazingly insidious: It’s part of the Cranium board game, corporate logos and ad campaigns for the likes of Disney and Starbucks, and the Teacher’s Pet animated television series and movies. It commonly includes elements like dogs leaking worms and cats dripping blood, with bones popping out, naughty skeletons, and other creatures … Read more

Cities

This tribute to the fleeting beauties of urban living includes the obvious (photographs of neighborhoods that face the wrecking ball, by Mike Melman, taken just before dawn), the subtle (an installation of teacups representing the teahouses of Japan, by Tetsuya Yamada), and the surreal (David Lefkowitz’s cityscapes built from Styrofoam packing materials)–plus work from seven … Read more

Open House: If These Walls Could Talk

Pedicord Apartments, the installation in which viewers/voyeurs to walk down the hallway of an apartment building and eavesdrop on the “tenants,” has always been one of the more popular artworks at the Weisman Art Museum. Now the Minnesota History Center takes Ed and Nancy Kienholz’s idea a few steps further. In the Railroad Island neighborhood … Read more

Talking Volumes: Kaye Gibbons

Kaye Gibbons took her own sweet time in getting around to writing a sequel to her debut novel, Ellen Foster–twenty years, actually, but who’s keeping track? The Life All Around Me catches up with Ellen Foster while she’s still in her teens, so if it’s been two decades for you as well, it may behoove … Read more

Philip Donlay

Phil Donlay’s Category Five is the sort of ripping good yarn that real guys are supposed to like. All the archetypal, Ian Fleming elements are in place: a hot-shot zipping around the world in hot airplanes and cars, a brilliant and beautiful love interest, and plenty of personal and political intrigue. And to keep things … Read more

Julian Barnes

The masterful Julian Barnes returns with an epic, complex, and fascinating tale of two men brought together by a third, fictional character: Sherlock Holmes. In the midst of grieving the death of his wife, Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is roused from a deep depression when he receives a letter from a man who … Read more

The New World

Some people are masters at creating their own mystique. Notable examples include Greta Garbo, J.D. Salinger, and, more recently, J.T. LeRoy, who may not even exist if you ask the New York Times. Terrence Malick would be high on such a list as well. A filmmaker who declines interviews and doesn’t like to be photographed, … Read more

The White Countess

Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, former grouse-beater for the Queen Mother, tries to drive an Oscar from the Hollywood moors by writing this original screenplay for the celebrated Merchant Ivory production team. Ismail Merchant’s death in May makes The White Countess the duo’s final production, and it’s a strange one. Against the backdrop of pre-World War II … Read more

Bash at the Bell: New Scores for New Year's

Enjoy the silence? Nah. Give us music anytime. On New Year’s Eve, the Bell Auditorium hosts Twin Cities acts Fog and Traditional Methods to respectively score the silent films The Naked Island and Tabu, A Story of the South Seas. Kaneto Shindo’s 1960 film The Naked Island follows the daily toils and trials of an … Read more