Category: Article

Having won the Pulitzer Prize by focusing on the miniscule in his phenomenal book The Ants, Wilson turns to the macro with The Creation. Long interested in the intersection of humans and nature, Wilson made a name for himself in 1975 with Sociobiology, a foundational text on evolutionary psychology that got him branded by some as a Nazi and racist; however, he has since regained public acceptance as a champion of biodiversity. A respected scientist who is also an accomplished writer is a rare species, indeed, and with The Creation, Wilson tackles the survival of his chosen subject. Written as a series of letters to a Southern Baptist pastor, the book ardently celebrates nature’s complexity and calls humankind to fight for, rather than about, creation.

Who better to host a holiday show than a man who looks like Santa? The bearded and barrel-chested Bill Holm explores holiday phenomena with MPR’s Heather McElhatton and a collection of other guests, including musician Charlie Parr and writer R. D. Zimmerman. From the small town of Minneota, Minnesota, Holm is all homegrown wholesomeness, except for those stints in China, Africa, and Iceland, and that tenure at a historically black college. And then there are those radical leftist rants … but politics aside, Holm’s writings, such as The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth and Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays, explore the themes of place and heritage, telling his ancestors’ stories and reflecting on different cultures. His cosmopolitan bent and deep sense of tradition should make Holm’s commentary more than the usual tree-and-menorah nostalgia. 651-290-1200; www.fitzgeraldtheater.org

“I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a ferris wheel,” the incomparable E. B. White once wrote. This was the man who gave us the little girl named Fern, Wilbur the pig, Templeton the rat, and Charlotte, a spider who happens to be one of the most wondrous creations in all of fiction. No home should be without a copy of White’s Charlotte’s Web. There’s a new movie adaptation coming out, but skip it and read this beautiful new edition that’s tied to the movie release. Or buy it for someone you love. Read it and weep: “The Fair Grounds were soon deserted. The sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn. The infield was littered with bottles and trash. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all. No one was with her when she died.”

You’d think the power of Dickens’ holiday workhorse would have been diluted by the ceaseless adaptations, knock-offs, and rip-offs it has inspired over the 163 years since it was published. Yet the irony of the Christmas Carol cottage industry is that despite so many crass, overblown, exploitative (or just plain lazy) versions that risk sabotaging the message of Dickens’ story, none has managed to dent its essential magic. Dickens’ combination of a compelling story, an indelible sense of place, terrifically drawn characters, joy, and redemption makes A Christmas Carol worth returning to year after year for fresh rewards and familiar pleasures. And while there have been scads of excellent illustrated versions over the years, P. J. Lynch’s watercolor-and-gouache spreads (at right) in this handsome new edition are both splendid and subtle: alternately teeming and forlorn, with just the right balance of darkness and light.

Globalsecurity.org lists forty conflicts—uprisings and insurgencies, civil wars, and occupations—currently playing out around the world. Lori Grinker has spent the past fifteen years portraying their human costs, traveling among some thirty countries to document both the physical carnage and the psychological damage. The result is a kind of perverse twist on the legendary Family of Man exhibition from the 50s: Instead of promoting a universal understanding of shared humanity, it conveys the universality of human conflict. Portrayed through both large-scale color photographs and interviews, Grinker’s veterans include a British man still unable to talk about fighting in Korea, a female Bangladeshi student who fought as a man in the early 70s, and a Sri Lankan girl who was promised karate lessons if she joined up with the Tamil Tigers. 165 13th Ave, N.E., Minneapolis; 612-824-5500; www.mncp.org

Two-person shows are too often arbitrarily conceived, but Huie’s photographs and Bielak’s monotypes play well off each other. In his newest series, Huie remains in familiar geographic territory (the streets of South Minneapolis) but homes in on the titular theme with images that are full of nuance. A homeless woman in one image is positioned to the side so that her shadow takes center stage; in another, a hipster decked out in white shades, white headphones, and a white-striped track jacket reaches into his white McDonald’s bag for a fry. Bielak, too, investigates the language of bodies moving through public spaces but portrays her characters from a vantage point that’s slightly above the fray (she was working in a second-story office), giving them a choreographic quality. 400 First Ave. N., Suite 210, Minneapolis; 612-332-5252; www.galleryco.net

Which is hotter—fashion or architecture? It’s probably a toss-up. Celebrities jam the front rows as designers reveal their new collections; cities clamor to enlist globe-trotting starchitects to devise their spectacular new landmarks. (For that matter, so do fashion labels, Prada’s commissions for Rem Koolhaas being but one example.) Organized by British curator Bradley Quinn and based on his book of the same name, this traveling exhibition plumbs the many connections between the two forms, which date back to the days when hunter-gatherers made both garments and shelters from single animal hides. But this is no fusty anthropological display; on view are cutting-edge designs (a cantilevered bikini, a house that “wears” a flirty curtain-skirt) by clothiers, architects, and collaborative entities from all over the globe. 89 Church St. S.E.; 612-626-9068; events.tc.umn.edu

If the Highpoint Center for Printmaking is one of best-kept secrets in the Twin Cities art world, then its predecessor, Vermillion Editions, is—or was, until this exhibition—all but lost in the mists of time. Printer Steven M. Andersen set up shop in the Minneapolis warehouse district in 1977, and over the following fifteen years, Vermillion became known as the kind of place where artists could push boundaries in printmaking. Red Grooms, Robert Mapplethorpe, Steven Sorman, James Rosenquist, Nicolas Africano, T. L. Solien, and dozens of others came to work with master printers, and the MIA, always thinking ahead, established its Vermillion Editions Archival Collection well before the studio closed. This exhibition is drawn from that collection and highlights some of Vermillion’s most noteworthy achievements. 612-870-3131; artsmia.org

Alternative jazz trio Medeski Martin and Wood improvises with such stamina, endurance, and brilliance that adding a fourth member to the band might seem to put at risk the geniality that marks its live shows. But guitarist John Scofield—who worked with Miles Davis in the eighties and whose work MMW interpreted on A Go Go, the trio’s classic 1998 recording—is one guy who fits right in. As a quartet, the band has released Out Louder, a funk- and blues-flavored affair that features covers of John Lennon’s “Julia” and Peter Tosh’s “Legalize It.” No tune is an odd choice for these guys, and their ability to take a riff out into the galaxy and bring it back transformed is not a studio trick. MMW’s live shows are amazing; enhanced by Scofield, this one should be spectacular. 612-332-1775; www.first-avenue.com

Just eight months after selling out the Varsity, the electro-pop ingénue returns—her sights on First Avenue’s big room this time. The quirky Brit can largely credit her increased draw to the soundtracks she has abetted—notably, solo for The O.C. and for Garden State as Frou Frou (her collaboration with Madonna producer Guy Sigsworth). On her most recent album, Speak for Yourself, angst-ridden lyrics and heavy sighs accompany Heap’s ethereal voice, creating an alluring mix for the sentimental indie crowd. Beyond the lyrical melodies, though, each song comprises layer upon layer of sound, all of which Heap composed, recorded, produced—and funded—herself. Live, be ready for a plugged-in one-woman band, dressed in colorful feathers and drapery, sampling and looping both her voice and her instruments. 612-332-1775; www.first-avenue.com