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Catherine Sullivan, erstwhile dorm-mate of local dancer Dylan Skybrook (who collaborated on this show), now fields world-wide commissions to make her critically acclaimed video installations and films. For Triangle of Need, her latest project, Sullivan produced eight different works for simultaneous projection.

At the heart of these disparate strands of images are three locations: the Vizcaya Mansion, a Florida palace of excess built by the industrialist James Deering; a Chicago tenement that represents the dwellings of Deering’s workers; and an ice rink where the extraordinary local skater Rohene Ward dances to a reading of Baudelaire’s beautiful poem “Invitation to the Voyage.” It’s impossible to explain much about this eccentric and amazing work, but do plan on spending an hour or so in the gallery. Advance research into Neanderthals and their supposed language, Mousterian, will only enhance the experience. 612-375-7600; www.walkerart.org

Maybe this has happened to you. But it was my first time.

It was a Monday afternoon, and I’d made a date to meet C., a former colleague, for a drink. I was a little late getting to the restaurant, my head fuzzy from a summer cold. So I pulled into the first parking place I saw, glanced at the sign that said something like "One hour parking until 4 p.m.," checked my watch to confirm it was, in fact, a few minutes after five, and hurried inside.

Forty-five minutes later I emerged onto the brilliant, 90-degree street. I said goodbye to C. — thinking only of my air conditioned family room, comfy oversize boxer shorts, and an old episode of Medium — and took three steps toward the empty place where my car was supposed to be.

I went back into the restaurant, followed by C., and told the bartender, who simply shrugged. "You must have been in a no parking zone. Happens all the time."

"That’s right," a patron volunteered. "I heard the city is making money this way. Towing cars like crazy."

I called information on my cell phone and asked to be connected to the Minneapolis Impound Lot. A woman answered the phone promptly; she listened to about three sentences of my story, then read a license plate to me. "That one yours?" she asked. And when I said yes: "You can come down and pick it up any time. That’ll be $138 for the tow, plus $34 for the parking ticket."

"Goddammit," I snorted through thick sinuses. Though the truth is that I probably would have paid three times that if they’d just brought my car back to me and let me go home.

I would have liked to claim terrible luck or injustice. But there were these facts standing in my way: first, the sign — clearly posted above — promised one-hour parking until 4 o’clock and NO PARKING from 5-7 p.m. And it was bright red. Also, despite my sniffling and increasingly foul mood, C. stuck with me, putting her own evening plans on hold and driving me eight miles to the impound lot, a bleak wasteland off Colfax Avenue North, just blocks from the Minneapolis Farmers Market.

Inside, it was all cinderblock and vending machines, a huge TV overhead playing The Jerry Springer Show. In other words, Hell.

And the greatest insult of all? I had to wait in line for the privilege of paying $172 to reclaim my own car. And there were nine or ten people already waiting for the two workers who stood behind glass, calling us forward one by one. C. tried to make conversation; she was a really good sport. I only muttered.

The line seemed to stretch on forever. An older man who’d finally made his way to the window was paying in worn ten- and twenty-dollar bills, which he counted out with shaking hands. In front of me, there was a mother clutching the hands of three babies, two men speaking quickly in Spanish, a very tired-looking young guy in a torn t-shirt. Plus two girls in sequined bebe shirts and Britney sunglasses who looked totally out of place.

Finally, it was my turn. A regal-looking, black woman called me to her window. I gave her my name and license plate number, then wrote out a check and slipped it under the glass barrier between us. "Why did they give me a parking ticket and tow my car?" I whined. "Why not just ticket it?"

The woman glanced down at the paper in front of her. "Hold on just a moment; let me check for you." She looked at something I couldn’t quite see — a map or a table of some sort. "It seems you were parked in a rush hour lane," she said in a low voice. "The police couldn’t get traffic through."

"Oh, I guess that sounds reasonable." I was feeling pretty stupid at this point. "Outside to your right, there’s a van that will take you to your car. Just show this to the driver." She passed a piece of paper through the slot. "Is there anything else I can do to help you?"

"No." I backed away. "But thank you."

"My pleasure," she said. And then she smiled like she meant it.

When we entertain at home, we take for granted that we all partake in the same dishes, prepared in portions large enough to share. So isn’t it a bit odd, in this age of dining out as entertainment, for friends to gather at a restaurant and each order a different meal? It’s a very American way of eating, and it embodies those all-American values of freedom and rugged individualism—we each get what we want, without compromise.

But in other culinary cultures around the world, the gastronomical high points are dishes made for sharing: paella from Spain, Peking duck from China, and from Vietnam, a whole repertoire of dishes cooked at the table.

Peking duck is a rarity on Chinese restaurant menus, probably because it is so much trouble to prepare. One classic method, for example, involves inflating the bird carcass with a bicycle pump, then air-drying it for a day before roasting. It’s no surprise, then, that restaurants usually require customers to order a whole bird—enough to feed four—at least a day in advance. Before serving, the duck is traditionally carved into three courses: the skin, served with pancakes; the meat, stir-fried with vegetables; and the bones, either made into soup or sent home with the customer to use in homemade soup.

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I don’t know what shortcuts the chefs at Yummy use in their delicious version of this classic dish, but they offer a half-duck served as dinner in two courses, which can be ordered without advance reservations. (Whole ducks are served in three courses.) The half-duck makes an ample dinner for two, and at $17.95, it’s a steal.

The centerpiece of any Peking duck dinner is the crisp, flavorful skin and the fat pancakes of steamed dough. You brush the pancakes lightly with sweet hoisin paste, wedge morsels of skin and meat between the folds of the pancake, add a few shreds of scallion, and enjoy.

For the second course, Yummy offers a choice: a soup made with the chopped-up duck minus its skin, along with tofu and Chinese cabbage; or a stir-fry of boneless duck meat with Chinese greens. I strongly recommend the stir-fry, which puts the flavorful meat to better use—but note that ordering a whole duck gets you both courses.

Yummy offers another Chinese gastronomic specialty made for sharing: dim sum served from carts, seven days a week, in dozens of different varieties ranging from pork and shrimp dumplings to little plates of garlicky spare ribs or curried squid. You can order these all by yourself, of course, but the more companions you bring along, the more dishes you can sample.

Paella is Spain’s most celebrated culinary specialty, a garnished dish of saffron rice named after the flat-bottomed pan in which it’s prepared. It originated in Valencia, on the Mediterranean coast, and the official recipe, approved by the Head Chef’s Club of the Region of Valencia, is made with chicken, snails, and lima beans. But as paella’s popularity has spread, so have the variations. Locally Babalu, El Meson, Conga and La Bodega all offer versions—typically a paella a la valenciana, which combines meat and seafood, and most also offer an all-seafood paella marinera.

Babalu’s paella valenciana, made with chicken, mussels, clams, shrimp, and lobster, is a striking presentation: it arrives at table with a split lobster tail and a crisp-fried slice of plantain standing upright in a savory and aromatic bed of saffron rice. The quantities of mussels, shrimp, and clams are ample (and at $35.99 per person, including a salad, they should be). Babalu’s other attractions include a full bar, an extensive wine list strong on selections from Spain and Latin America, and a sexy nightclub ambiance that gets hotter as the night goes on. As we finished dinner there recently, the Monday-night crowd was just warming up for the weekly salsa competition, which the hostess explained with enthusiastic rotations of her hips.

The always irreverent and ever-theatrical indie-rock band Fort Wilson Riot created this five-part “indie-rock opera” (and album) about a nameless American journalist and his adventures in a mysterious foreign land. Enlisting the help of Jeremey Catterton, a stage director and friend from the University of Minnesota who now resides in London, the band has cobbled together a fictional travelogue based on the writings of Paul Bowles, the ex-pat author best known for The Sheltering Sky. Given the scarcity of collaborations between theater-makers and rockers, this won’t be your typical night at the theater—plus this production incorporates puppets, dancers, and video. As for the score for Idigaragua, one local music critic compared it to Sondheim and Beethoven—but these ears detect more the influence of Queen. Bedlam Theatre, 1501 S. Sixth St., Minneapolis; 612-341-1038.

If you happen to be wandering near the Walker some evening this month, do not be alarmed if you’re accosted by a young European wielding a video camera. This is merely part of the “War on Anonymity” waged by the Gob Squad, a performance art troupe whose members hail from the U.K. and Germany. One hour before each 9 p.m. performance, troupe members will take to the mean streets of Lowry Hill, where they will allow serendipity to take over as they incorporate unsuspecting passersby into their impromptu cinematic creation. Then they will hustle back to the Walker to treat their audience to Super Night Shot, a one-hour, four-screen showing of their uncut footage. We’ll be intrigued to see what kinds of material they can generate by provoking us supposedly modest Minnesotans. Walker Art Center, 612-375-7600.

Though she loves classics, Diane Paulus has a penchant for finding inspiration in the more theatrical aspects of pop culture. The New York City-based director recently staged Turandot in a professional wrestling ring, but she’s better known for her production of The Donkey Show, a disco adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So it’s not surprising that fashion shows, what with all the elaborate costumes, makeup, and entrances and exits, became a recent and ripe subject for Paulus’s picking. By transplanting an ancient Japanese samurai narrative called Ronin 47 to the dog-eat-dog world of high fashion, Paulus has created a surprisingly family-friendly work in the style of Project Runway. Here’s an amusing tidbit from a production in which characters set out to out-design and out-strut one another: Instead of switching off their cell phones, theatergoers will use them, à la American Idol, to vote. Childrens Theatre, 612-874-0400.

There is Shakespearean language, with its grand soliloquies and sonnets. And then there is the language of David Mamet, who made his name by elevating everyday speech into an art form. This fall, The Jungle Theater brings those trademark machine-gun sentences, stutters, and profanities to the stage with Speed-the-Plow.

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Jungle Artistic Director Bain Boehlke directs this satire about a Hollywood producer who is torn between art and money when he’s given twenty-four hours to green-light either a spiritual, apocalyptic film (pitched by his gorgeous secretary) or a sex-and-violence-packed action flick (pitched by a close friend). Consider it a palate cleanser after the summer of Transformers and Spiderman 3. 612-822-7063.