The Rake Magazine

Category: Article

  • Out There 18: Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty

    Maybe the idea of a live puppet rock opera doesn’t catch you–but a live puppet rock opera as conceived and produced by Dan Graham, Tony Oursler, Rodney Graham, and Paul McCarthy? We can’t think of a more alluringly odd quartet of art stars to get together and do a disillusioned send-up of the hippie era that they all lived through. Dan Graham is the sixties rock critic turned conceptual artist who makes tricky glass-and-mirror sculptures. Tony Oursler’s the one who projects onto various objects videos of eerie faces uttering strange and funny things. Then there’s Rodney Graham, who appears in a video riding a bike on acid, and Paul McCarthy, who is just plain nuts, and naughty to boot. The wildly multidisciplinary production also involves live music by postpunk hipsters Japanther and puppets by Phillip Huber (of Being John Malkovich renown), kicking off what is sure to be a memorable Out There series. 612-375-7622; www.walkerart.org

  • Soundtrack to Mary

    Want to see me squirm and duck for cover? Try one of these conversation starters:
    1. “I met someone who knows you.” What possible good can come from a sentence that begins this way? It’s never followed up with, “It was someone whose life you saved a few years ago and then selflessly asked for nothing in return.” It’s usually more like, “He said you two went out once and then you lost touch. He’s on parole now and says you should give him a call. Also, his band has a new disc coming out that he’d love for you to give a listen to.” Then the real challenge begins. How do I explain to this well-meaning messenger that I’d rather have elective gum surgery than get in touch with someone who knows me?
    2. “Would you be available … ?” Never is this starter followed up with anything you, me, or your Aunt Marie would ever consider doing at gunpoint. The following words are usually involved, “host,” “judge,” “emcee,” “panel,” or “intro.” This one is particularly sketchy, as I’ve made a semi-career out of doing all of the above. But once you’ve been seen doing something, the assumption is it’s got to be something you love doing. Also, you love doing it for free.
    Come to think of it, I could add many more cringe-inducing sentence starters to the list:
    “Is it true…?”
    “Dont take this the wrong way…”
    “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you used to… ?”
    “When you get a chance…”
    Leonardo da Vinci said it best when he said you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. The facts of life.

    Email Mary at popularcreeps at yahoo dot com.

  • Kimberly Joy Morgan

    Hair color, style, degree of curl–according to Kimberly Joy Morgan, these define black women more than any white girl contemplating a box of blonde hair dye will ever know. Morgan, who styles her own locks in sassy faux dreads, was a winner at the Twin Cities’ first-ever Ivey Awards for her performance in Hot Comb: Brandin’ One Mark of Oppression, the one-woman show she also wrote. The enthusiastic response to Morgan’s passionate, vivid, and funny characters–ten of them, ranging from six to ninety years old, each with a different hairstyle–encouraged a reprise of the show this month. In a season of short days and dirty snow, we’d be surprised if Morgan didn’t want to be stranded on a warm and sunny desert island–as long as she had the right hair product. Here’s what she’d bring along:

    1. I start every day off by reading the Bible, and I can’t imagine going anywhere without it. It also affects the work that I do as a writer and an artist. Sometimes it’s good to just be entertained, but I also think that it’s important to give people art with some substance to it, and the Bible helps guide how I do that.

    2. I use shea butter to re-twist my hair, because I have dreadlocksÑI really need an endless supply.

    3. My laptop, because I hate to write longhand. When I write people letters, they come off as so impersonal, because I canÕt engage my thoughts in the same way with a pen in my hand that I can when I’m at the keyboard. The computer helps my brain work better.

    4. An endless supply of oranges and watermelons. When I was little, my mom said, they were the first fruits that made me happy. They still do.

    5. Since I’m not going to be able to see them anymore, I need a photo album of all my friends and family–the people who have made me who I am today.

    Hot Comb returns to the Pillsbury House Theatre on January 20 and closes February 18. 3501 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-825-0459; www.puc-mn.org/theatre.html

  • Salut Bar Amèricaine

    Some people attempt to spite the French by pouring out red wine and voting against John Kerry. Other people believe that a little smirk while enjoying an American version of coq au vin is just as effective. Salut Bar Americaine in Edina celebrates the French and sticks it to them at the same time. Warm, Gruyre-filled gougres appear on the menu as Les Cheesy Puffs, next to the more traditional and buttery escargot bourguignonne. If you prefer your French food more recognizably Amricaine, choose a rich and hearty duck a l’orange or Le Cheeseburger Royale, served beautifully on a ciabatta roll with a side of the classic steak frites. Sunday brunch features a creamy, custardy quiche Lorraine, which reminds us how long French cuisine has been part of the American diet–how can even the most reactionary of diners not enjoy it? 5034 France Ave. S., Edina; 952-929-3764

  • Jonathan Rhys Meyers

    Woody Allen has made a few changes to the patented Allen formula, which may be why his latest film, Match Point, is better than anything he’s done in ages. For one thing, he’s replaced New York with London, albeit for financial, rather than creative, reasons. For another, there is no neurotic Jew shambling through scenes of painful self-absorption and improbable romance. Instead, there’s Chris Wilton, a sleek and calculating Irishman who slips greedily between two women who offer very different attractions. One promises money and a lavish lifestyle, the other offers steamy and illicit sex, and Wilton wants them both. Played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, this anti-Woody (or uber-Woody, as wry observers of Allen’s own most recent romantic machinations might say) cuts a shocking and sinister figure. It turns out Rhys Meyers, whose work ranges from a glam rock chameleon in Velvet Goldmine to an amiable coach in Bend It Like Beckham, is quite comfortable playing sinister.

    You seem to play a lot of rather dark leading men. Why?
    It has to do with my physicality. There is a certain darkness to the way I look; I look slightly morally ambiguous. Also, my life experiences position me well to play characters with a lot of depth to them. For instance, I had an opportunity to be in an interesting film about a young man who has never had sex. But I couldn’t really convincingly play that role, because there’s a look in my eyes. I clearly know what it’s like to be in bed with a woman.

    So you bring a lot of yourself to your roles.
    Yes, of course. I’ve seen very few of the films that I’ve acted in. Unless I have to go to a premiere, I won’t watch them. See, I live with this actor every day, and I’m kind of bored with him. I’m a different person in every film, but it’s still me.

    In Match Point, you’re a murderer. Was that a difficult part of yourself to bring out?
    Well, in the confines of the script, I don’t have any moralistic values. So, no, I just called on a different facet of myself. It’s all in there somewhere, in all good actors. You just have to be willing to share everything for a role, and not everyone will do that. For instance, I really get annoyed with actors who won’t strip off their clothes to do a film. If the script says, “naked walking past the room,” do it. But people are like, “I don’t want to show this, or I don’t want to show that,” and usually it’s a financial thing, because they can get an extra two or three hundred thousand dollars showing their tits in Playboy.

    Was it a thrill to work with Woody Allen?
    I like Woody Allen, but I don’t idolize him the way other people do. I couldn’t work with him if I did—I had to equalize myself with him. He was very good and easy to work with.

    Are you easy to work with?
    Some people find me maddening. For instance, I didn’t have the greatest experience with Oliver Stone [in Alexander], but I’d work with him again. I don’t have to like everyone I work with, just respect them. And I do.

    Most of your films have been rather art-house in nature. Do you shy away from commercial films?
    No, I love commercial films! I love seeing things like Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, because they’re fantastic. My DVD collection is filled with popcorn films. I don’t sit down and watch Francois Truffaut or Pier Paolo Pasolini movies. Too heavy for me. I like Jerry Maguire, things I don’t have to invest too much intellectual property into.

    Speaking of Jerry Maguire, you’ve just spent five months in China with Tom Cruise, working on the sequel to Mission Impossible. How much of the strange scuttlebutt we hear about this guy is true?
    I haven’t read one single word of truth about the man yet. No one has any idea what he is really like.

    So give us an idea.
    No. He’s my boss.

  • Yum! Kitchen and Bakery

    This bright and airy space in St. Louis Park has a fresh take on takeout. Its menu changes weekly and focuses on homemade, seasonal fare that can be eaten at one of the few tables or taken home. There are four daily soup options (the gumbo is especially delicious) and star entrees like a perfectly crispy and juicy roasted chicken (that wasn’t made twelve hours ago). Morning brings soon-to-be-legendary caramel pull-apart rolls, and desserts are a delight any time of day; if you can avoid the just-baked chocolate cakes, you are supernatural. 4000 Minnetonka Blvd., St. Louis Park; 952-922-4000

  • Bad Waitress Coffee Shop and Breakfast Joint

    It’s as if all the weary waitresses of the Twin Cities banded together, threw down their aprons, and said, “Fine, just do it yourself if you think you’ll be any better!” Bad Waitress is a self-service joint that puts you in your place. Sit down, fill out your order on a pad, and submit it to the kitchen. Nicely priced, classic yet snappy breakfast items (pancakes, omelets, baked goodies) and savory, hearty sandwiches (paninis, burgers, BLTs) make up this all-day menu. The slick and modish surroundings work just as well as a nighttime gathering spot; beer and wine help the transition. Come spring, when they roll up the garage-door-sized windows, this place will be unbeatable. 2 E. 26th St., Minneapolis; 612-872-7575

  • Heavenly Drinking

    Heaven, said the Regency wit Sydney Smith, is eating paté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. It sounds pretty piggy if you ask me, all too like the fellow who said that you should decide what to do in life by following your bliss. And rather odd doctrine for S. Smith, who made his name as a book reviewer but had a day job as a canon of S. Paul’s Cathedral in London. I have naturally no grudge against Canon Smith himself, but his apolaustic attitudes are a bit emetic. Were his sermons, one wonders, wholly concerned with the austere and lofty spiritual discipline of feeling good about yourself?

    Which was hardly an option for the geese from whom the paté came. I cannot imagine paté de foie gras without also imagining how it is made. The reverend canon was able to fill his face with the noted French delicacy because geese had been filled with grain till their livers reached the bursting point. However much you resent the mess wild geese make around the lakes, such bloating seems a pretty unpleasant fate. Their consumerism was involuntary; that of S. Smith was a matter of choice.

    Come to that, unmitigated trumpets might also get a bit trying, even if, like an earlier (and considerably more interesting) cleric from S. Paul’s, you posted the angels blowing them at the round world’s imagined corners. One must, I suppose, give Canon Smith credit for taking the trouble to be a hedonist. Any preference is better than none. But still, one asks, where is he in the heaven which he projects? In the Smithian assertion (or should it be “Smithic”?), “eating” is simply a gerund, or possibly a participle; it has no subject, and the person is absent. He makes it sound as if there is action occurring apart from the existence of the actor. In fact, you could say that the receptacle into which the paté de foie gras goes is less a Blessed Spirit than a Bottomless Pit. (Why does this all remind me of Christmas?)

    I guess the first step toward personality, and away from being simply a Black Hole of consumption, could be to discriminate between pleasures. Even a sensualist may refine his appetite; Lucretius, the most materialistic of Roman poets, is notable for the sheer sharpness of his physical observation. I would commend to Canon Smith—and to you, benevolent reader—claret, the red wine of Bordeaux, the thinking man’s wine (though, as a Whig, Sydney Smith probably preferred port).

    Specifically, try Château Greysac from the fine vintage of the year 2000, available around here for less than twenty dollars. The process of discrimination starts even before the cork leaves the bottle. This is French wine in a bottle with proper shoulders, so it is going to be from Bordeaux rather than from Burgundy or the Rhone (which have sloping shoulders, like your pin-headed correspondent).

    Now note the words Appelation Controlée. These are not an assurance that a wild man from West Virginia has been caught by the sheriff but official notice that the wine is part of a quota permitted to bear a particular name and that it has been made in a particular way from grapes characteristic of the region—in this case mostly Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc.

    The word that comes between Appelation and Controlée tells you which region it is. The lesser wines of Bordeaux will say simply Bordeaux or Bordeaux Supérieur (the latter merely indicates a slightly higher level of alcohol). Château Greysac, however, says “Médoc,” which is the area on the left bank of the river Gironde where many of the most famous Bordeaux wines come from—and yet not all wines made in the Médoc are allowed that appellation. It also says “Cru Bourgeois,” a title of honour Château Greysac acquired in 1978, only a few years after modern winemaking began there.

    Having exercised the mind on the wine label (and wished one were striding along the vine-clad gravel ridges of the Médoc), one can then exercise it on the wine itself. One encounters a clear bright red, a pleasing sharpness, and then a concatenation of tannins (the woody hardness) and the taste of oak (the pleasing sweetness redolent of turpentine). You can take mental exercise tasting this wine by racing these two tastes against each other, before swallowing and then maybe sipping a little more. The strength of the tannin shows that it has time on its side. Drink some now and keep some for later. Maybe it will make you a thinking drinker.

  • One By One

    If the comics do not appear above, click below to download the PDF!

  • Love of Country

    Sure, Minnesota’s not the Old West, but we do have plenty of cattle, and some prairie, too. Nor are steel-toed boots, Wranglers, and Stetsons a rarity—it’s just that cool cowboy duds became a bona fide fashion trend once hipsters began putting them on with an ironic touch. These days, Western gear can be spotted at any number of Twin Cities galleries and nightclubs. We admired a refreshingly genuine pride for bolero ties and chunky, pewter belt buckles just the other day at a local nightclub.