In the classic arts, things remain decidedly nationalistic. Just as the Italians get most of the credit and attention for opera, the English seem to command center stage in dramatic theater. And bridging the two, though often dismissed, are the Germans, who not infrequently bettered their cultural neighbors in both categories. Wagner, no matter what … Read more
Playwright Gavin Lawrence garnered good notices for Cut Flowers, a dark and often angry drama set among low-wage workers in Washington. His latest, warmhearted family comedy, Salt Fish, has a lighter touch. It’s based on the history of his own family, which emigrated here from the South American country of Guyana, and especially his grandmother, … Read more
Naked people have not yet become boring to the artists of the world. When Icebox owner Howard Christopherson put out a call for artworks based on the human nude, he was sent so many entries—500, from seven countries—that he doubled the size of the show. In total, 112 artworks made the cut, encompassing photography, body … Read more
It is one of life’s mordant ironies that Macalester art professor Rudquist, who often painted skulls, would pass away in 2001 of brain cancer. But Rudquist had a streak of mordancy himself, expressed in such comments as “Bone, of any species, is an extraordinarily beautiful material.” This overview of his career does show the more … Read more
We love the Bell Museum, we really do. It is old, humble, a little bit musty, and very, very quiet—those carpeted walkways through the exhibit halls are ever so effective at creating a pleasant hush. It’s the perfect antidote to the sense-jangling overload that can be the adult experience at the larger, glitzier family museums … Read more
Can an all-night jazz club in downtown St. Paul survive on nothing more than caffeine, nicotine, and donuts? The owners of Brilliant Corners hope so. The plan is to fill this hip new space with all kinds of jazz, from the most modest local ensembles to major national acts—charging covers accordingly, and serving up nothing … Read more
Louise Erdrich is fighting sleep. This explains a lot. It’s said that the threshold between sleeping and waking—the lucid yet lawless terrain of twilight—is a cracked door to enlightenment, a conduit to the divine. How apropos that, here in the grainy borderlands of consciousness, the Minneapolis novelist puts pen to paper and struggles (yes, struggles) … Read more
David Cronenberg is infamous for his unique style of horror filmmaking. His films–among them The Fly, Naked Lunch, and Dead Ringers–gaze with icy formalism on worlds where biology has gone mad. They’re a catalogue of physical breakdowns, sexual dysfunctions, florid mutations and hallucinations. His latest, Spider, based on Patrick McGrath’s novel, stars Ralph Fiennes as … Read more
In many states there is a law, or at least a strong suggestion, that you ought to stay the hell out of the way of people who can actually drive. To wit, if you are not passing someone, don’t drive in the left lane of the freeway; if you are coming to the end of … Read more
I liked Mike O’Brien better than I knew him. He was a friend of my friend Charlie and we’d exchanged some boozy repartee at a few of Charlie’s parties over the years. He was a big Irish sort of American—funny, loud and a wonderful story teller. He grew up in Tunisia and spoke fluent French. … Read more