Sex. Drugs. Corruption. Misunderstanding. In her debut novel, Lindsay Ahl explores these themes through the eyes of 35-year-old Elena Monroe, a confused individual who has occasional cravings for grape juice. Elena stumbles through a web of the past and present, trying to work out her relationship with her mother. Ahl’s vague and ethereal writing style … Read more
Meticulous detail, natural poses, and—most startling—life-sized renderings made John James Audubon’s Birds of America a groundbreaking work in the formerly staid world of nineteenth-century ornithology. Today, William Souder’s biography of Audubon, Under a Wild Sky, paints the larger-than-life portrait of the man behind the famous illustrations, who was far more interesting than his role as … Read more
Rock criticism has never mattered less, probably because it has never really evolved beyond the canon of its best, exhausted practitioners—Christgau, Marcus, and Meltzer. Whereas those old duffers should have grown up a long time ago, into broader social, political, even pop-cultural criticism—hell, how about a novel, guys?—they keep churning out increasingly remote ruminations and … Read more
With seminars on everything from poetry to quilting, along with teachers from such faraway places as Korea, the Split Rock Arts Program’s summer workshops at the University of Minnesota make for a tasty arts buffet. Each Tuesday brings a fresh set of writers reading and visual artists showing slides. This year’s teachers include local stars … Read more
They’ll be murdering, stealing, and backstabbing all month down at the Oak Street, which sounds like fun to us. July’s repertory slate is a good mix of the titles long recognized as noir royalty (Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Chinatown) and enough lesser-known beauties to pique the interest of hardened criminophiles. Good bets include Burt … Read more
Fresh off his box-office success with School of Rock, director Richard Link-later’s returned to his low-key, high-concept indie roots. Sunset picks up on his 1995 romance Before Sunrise, catching up with the characters played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy nine years later. The two of them wander around Paris, talk, visit a coffeeshop, talk, … Read more
After making a splash on the U.S. film-festival circuit (including our own local fest), this German documentary’s making a welcome solo return to arthouses. If you’re up for something in the vein of Winged Migration or The Saltmen of Tibet, don’t miss it this time around. It’s about a family of Mongolian camel-herders who face … Read more
The unavoidable compression needed to turn this medieval-monastery murder mystery into a two-hour film makes Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1986 adaptation both less rich and less strange than Umberto Eco’s triumphal novel—and yet still, it’s a nearly perfect palimpsest, enjoyable both on its own terms and as an adjunct to the book. Annaud invests the film with … Read more
He’ll certainly never make a better film than Manhattan, especially considering his output in the last few years. But for pure entertainment, we’ll take Woody Allen as goofy joke-schlepper any day—the Woody in his New Yorker essays, his Standup Comic album, and his first half-dozen films, including this terrific 1969 mockumentary. His first full-fledged directorial … Read more
We’d have an easier job if Leo Kottke would stub his toe just once so we could qualify our praise. But our favorite picker has reduced us to fawning again with yet another masterpiece. As usual, his delightfully obtuse liner notes have virtually nothing to do with the content. What’s changed is that his cover … Read more