The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • Do I Repeat Myself? Very Well, Then, I Repeat Myself

    For many months, on her way to and from school each day, Gloria had
    paused at the pet shop window to gaze with a combination of adoration
    and desire at the pretty little accordion nestled there in wood shavings and newspaper confetti.

    Each night at the dinner table she would beg her parents to let her
    have an accordion –and not just any accordion, but the one, lonely
    accordion in the pet shop window. How she longed to have that accordion
    in her arms, to have it for her very own.

    Her father, however, was insistent that they would never have an
    accordion in their home; Gloria, he said, was much too young, and an
    accordion was a serious and expensive thing. The world, he proclaimed,
    was already full of abandoned and unloved accordions.

    Perhaps, her mother said, when she was a bit older, Gloria might get
    an accordion. But her father looked sternly at his daughter across the
    table and said, Not as long as I am in charge of this house. I don’t
    have a moment of peace and quiet and can barely make ends meet as it is.

    At this, Gloria’s mother winked at her and said, Someday you will be
    older and you can work hard and save your money for an accordion of
    your own.

    Finally, one day when she had all but given up hope, Gloria came
    home from school to find the pet shop accordion wrapped in a red bow
    and resting on her bed. She took it lovingly in her arms and was
    startled to discover how much larger it had grown since the first day
    she had laid eyes on it in the store window.

    And then, as she cradled the accordion in her arms, Gloria found
    herself seized with a sort of panic that cast a quick, dark shadow over her
    joy. An accordion, she suddenly realized, was a tremendous and perhaps
    terrible responsibility.

    What, she wondered, shall be my accordion’s name? And what will I feed it?

    Gloria studied her accordion intently, and again and again she ran her fingers gently over its beautiful body and sang to it all the prettiest songs she could remember.

    And that night, as she curled up next to the accordion in her little bed, she thought, How will I ever sleep again?

  • Dance, Sing, Love

    MUSIC

    Bad, Beautiful Women with Big, Bad Voices

    What do you say about a woman who describes herself as a Japanese classic music, Christian rap, regional Mexican artist? Holy crap?! Well, if anyone merits this phrase, it’s Meshell Ndegeocello. Or is it Me’shell Ndegéocello? Or Michelle Lynn Johnson? Who knows. And who cares. She’s utterly fascinating. The German-born American singer, songwriter, rapper, bassist, multi-instrumentalist packages herself, as well as her voice, in a beautiful, bald and bold androgeny. It’s hard to believe she started out in the go-go circuit in the ’80s. Or is it? She does it all: soul, funk, hip hop, reggae, R&B, rock, jazz. And who better to open the show than Black Blondie, of whom we’ve already written plenty. This is going to be one hot show.

    9 p.m., Fine Line Music Café,
    318 First Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612-338-8100; $25.

    MORE MUSIC
    Stravinky’s The Firebird

    In Russian folklore, firebird literally means ember bird, derived from the word for ember, flameless fire — a magical, glowing bird from a faraway land, which is both blessing and curse to its captors. Try as I may, however, I can find no curse in Stravinsky’s Firebird, and it has often been my captor. Perhaps my only curse is that I cannot capture it and reverse the roles, hold it in my hands, devour it, as I would like to do. I will continue the attempt, however. Will you join me? Let’s feast on the Firebird tonight. The Minnesota Orchestra will prepare the meal. Sarah Hatsuko Hicks will serve it. And Sam Bergman will give a special blessing.

    7:30 p.m., Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-371-5656; $20-$45.

    DANCE
    Pichet Klunchun and Myself

    It’s
    never an easy task to carve out a new path, or embark on an old one
    only to redirect it into as yet uncharted territory. Regardless of its
    merits, there is always resistance and doubt. Such was Jérôme Bel’s
    experience with his conceptual dance work across Europe in the 1990s.
    But when the "Parisian
    provocateur" finally got around to his first U.S. tour in 2005, The Show Must Go On
    was met with great praise — a true success. Maybe it was the many years
    in between. (Does it still take us that long to catch up?) Or maybe it
    was his fabulous French accent. (We still value the European ideal over our
    own. Do we have one?) I’d like to think it was his bold
    approach, his innovative style, his wit. And I’d like to think he
    hasn’t stopped pushing those boundaries. From the looks of it, he
    hasn’t indeed. Tonight, he teams up with Thai dance master Pichet Klunchun for a "fascinating exchange of ideas and movement in an understated conceptual performance that revels in our common humanity."

    8 p.m., McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600; $22 (members $18).

    ART
    Home for the Holidays

    If you do a search for Jennifer Davis on our website, you’ll find at least twelve references to her work. What can we say? We love her. A search for Andrea Carlson reveals six articles. You will find Samantha French’s art in our magazine and on our website, as well as work by several of the other artists featured in the Soo Visual Art Center’s new group show, Home for the Holidays. Last April, in fact, we contacted SooVAC in search of information on Deuce 7‘s New York graffiti.
    (I heard of some controversy that arose, but was able to confirm
    nothing.) What can I say, this is an interesting group of artists — a
    group show with a little for everyone. You’re bound to find something
    you like. And what they heck, with the biggest consumer season right
    around the corner, you might even find something to take "Home for the
    Holidays."

    Noon-6 p.m., SOO Visual Art Center,
    2640 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-871-2263.

  • Take This Bread

    Back on October 23, a reader wrote to tell me that she and a friend had gone to Blackbird and while the overall experience was wonderful ("Both our meals were quite good — [my friend] nearly licked her plate — and I like that it’s in my neighborhood, friendly service, etc."), they were soured by the fact that they were charged $1.50 apiece for a couple slices of bread with foil packs of chilled butter.

    I published her complaint in an entry called The Staff of Life. . . .Shouldn’t it be Free?, omitting the name of the restaurant (because I didn’t want to single out a small, family-owned bistro when many restaurants have the same practice) and asking other readers to weigh in. I had no idea what a firestorm would ensue.

    "If you don’t want to provide bread, don’t provide bread. Charging for bread is tacky," one commenter wrote.

    "I don’t understand why you won’t tell us the name of the place that
    charged for bread," said another. "Don’t you want to prepare us so that we know that we
    will pay for bread if we choose to eat there?"

    "I agree that there’s no reason not to name names here," someone else chimed in. "If it’s a part
    of the dining experience – for good or bad – it seems part of the
    reviewer/blogger’s responsibility to inform and attribute, not simply
    toss off as a curiousity."

    So I’m naming names, but in the interest of fairness, I wanted to give the people at Blackbird an opportunity to respond. So I called Gail Mollner, who owns the cafe with her husband, Chris Stevens.

    She sighed and said, "I thought diners were over this."

    Ten years ago, when she worked at Table of Contents, Mollner says they instituted the practice of charging for bread, in an effort to keep costs to the customer above board.

    Here’s the rest of what she said: "Restaurants have very small profit margins. We’re insane to be doing this. We do it because we love it and because it makes us happy and maybe in five years we’ll make enough money to go to Hawaii. But we can’t compete with the chains on entrée and wine prices. The only way we can compete with fair prices is to be totally up front and honest about everything you as a diner are paying for. I could offer bread for free but then my entrée prices would go up. Because New French Bakery doesn’t just come to my door and give me free bread, so I can’t turn around and give it away for free. In fact, grain prices recently went up about 15% on the commodities market; I just got a letter to this effect. So now I have to turn around and pass along this price to my customers."

    The other point Mollner made is that as a small, neighborhood place with limited seating and a tight budget, they simply can’t afford those patrons who order only a dinner salad, get a free basket of bread, and sit, drinking tea and buttering slices for hours.

    And that foil-wrapped butter (which, if you ask me, was the final straw for our reader)? Mollner said she hates it, too. But there simply isn’t enough space or time in her small kitchen to make, separate, and plate butter pats.

    How about olive oil? I offered. Mid-grade virgin topped with black pepper. Call it done. Studies actually show that people eat less bread when it’s served with olive oil versus butter. But that would require a hefty investment, Mollner pointed out. Cruets, pepper mills, not to mention the oil itself.

    In Blackbird’s defense, I want to point out that the bread they do serve (from New French) is of very high quality. And items such as soup, salad, and lasagna come with a piece or two for the purpose of sopping up dressing or sauce. Also, they’ve put a stop to a major source of wastage — which is a big problem in the restaurant industry. When they first opened, Mollner said they did provide free bread and about half of it went back to the kitchen, untouched. "And I kept thinking, why am I throwing away this beautiful product?"

    For the record, I also called Cafe Maude, which one reader of my original post "accused" of being the offending restaurant. And while Maude does offer a baguette with jam on its mid-day menu (for $2), they do provide free bread in the evening when prices go up.

    "We’ve had discussions about it but we’ve decided it’s just part of the dining experience," says manager Chris Gehrke. "It’s there to tide one over while we prepare what we hope will be a dynamic entrée. Bread is not the star of the meal, but we feel it’s part of the rounded experience."

    I stand by my original recommendation that higher-end restaurants should provide bread gratis but ask patrons if they want it, eliminating perhaps 50% of their bread costs and most of the waste.

    Beyond that, I found it is interesting how exercised people became over this issue. It reminded me of a passage in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, the 1943 novel by Betty Smith about an impoverished Irish-American family living in turn-of-the-century New York.

    Katie Nolan, the mother in ATGIB, is a tough matriarch who stretches pennies to feed her family, even while her husband, a handsome singing waiter, drinks himself to death. But the one luxury she gives her children (her children, mind you) is coffee: three cups a day. The older, Francie, loves the smell of coffee and enjoys holding the cup in her hand but doesn’t particularly care for the taste. So after her coffee goes cold, it is dumped down the sink, every time.

    Katie’s two sisters — both running lean households of their own — object, to which the usually hardened woman responds: "Francie is entitled to one cup each meal like the rest. If it makes her feel better to throw it away rather than drink it, all right. I think it’s good that people like us can waste something once in a while and get the feeling of how it would be to have lots of money and not have to worry about scrounging."

    There’s something about a basket of bread, delivered with no contract or expectations, that makes a diner feel valued, cared for, and rich. And that feeling, in the end, may be worth every penny a restaurateur pays out to make it happen.

  • Books for Children, Adolescents, and Adults

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Raking through Books

    If you’ve been resenting the lack of story time for adults, then this evening’s Raking Through Books will please you immensely. Twin Cities local
    literati — Shannon Olson, Carl Brookins, Heidi Erdrich, Todd Boss, and
    Colleen Kruse — will read from books they liked as children. What fun! They won’t be tucking you in and giving you a kiss on the forehead, but if you down a couple of cocktails, you should have no problem drifting into peaceful slumber once you’re home. Featured books, including Olivia Helps with Christmas, are for sale at a twenty percent discount at the University of Minnesota Bookstore.

    5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Kieran’s Irish Pub, 330 2nd Ave. S., Minneapolis; free.

    Joe Sacco

    The comic book has come a long way since Superman, with
    graphic novels now (rightfully) garnering literary cred and occupying
    their own constantly expanding section at the local Barnes& Noble.
    But with his unique brand of “cartoon journalism,” Joe Sacco has put his influential stamp on the medium. When Sacco applies his “comic book” treatment to subjects like the occupation of Palestine, war
    in Bosnia, and the Gulf War, the results are superior works of both art
    and reporting. Sacco conducts hundreds of interviews for his books, and
    tells these personal narratives with feverish mishmashes of frames that
    are more evocative and harrowing than most front-page news photos. Tonight, as part of Walker’s Brave New Worlds political art series and the Rain Taxi reading series, he discusses his approach and inimitable artistic style. —Danielle Kurtzleben, photo by Michael Tierney

    7 p.m., Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600; $10 (members $8).

    Melissa Fay Greene

    Melissa Fay Greene made her big splash with National Book Award finalist (and perennial book club favorite) Praying for Sheetrock, a social history of a tiny Georgia county struggling to come to grips with the challenges and ramifications of the Civil Rights movement. In
    all of her work, Greene combines meticulous historical research with the
    dogged chops of a first-rate journalist and the narrative skills ofa
    novelist. Her most recent book, There Is No Me Without You, is
    the tale of Haregewoin Teferra, a foster mother in Addis
    Ababa, Ethiopia, and the AIDS orphans she has raised. At the Weisman,
    she will be joined in conversation with Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of
    Public Affairs professor Larry Jacobs. —Brad Zellar

    7:30 p.m., Weisman Art Museum, 333 East River Rd., Minneapolis; 612-625-3363.

    FILM SEMINAR
    Rupture: Dark Fantasy and Dissolution in Post-Soviet Cinema

    For the last couple months, and through the end of the year, The Museum of Russian Art will be featuring the art of Geli Korzhev, one of the most influential painters of the 20th century. Russian art, in all its forms, has a strong history of bleakness, and Korzhev certainly lives up to this reputation. Tonight, Cold War cinema specialist Mike Bailey will explore Korzhev’s cinematic counterparts. Just as he was influenced by the cotidian sorrows expressed in postwar Italian films, the bleak nature of Korzhev’s later work finds its complement in Russian cinema of the 1980s to the present. "Under Gorbachev’s glasnost policy, Soviet filmmakers exercised new freedoms to criticize and reflect on the nation’s history," a trend that continued until just recently, as filmmakers experimented with genre and allegory in an effort to express and shape a new post-Soviet identity. If you go, make sure to ask Bailey for his take on why these filmmakers lack the sense of humor and playfulness of post-Franco Spain. Economy?

    7 p.m., Museum of Russian Art, 5500 Stevens Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-821-9045; reservation required.

    DANCE
    Koresh Dance Company

    Artistic Director Ronen Koresh takes on the history of American music (or at least a couple formative decades) with the Koresh Dance Company’s latest production, Looking Back: The Music of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Already known for their eccentric and energetic performances, the dancers paint a picture of this vibrant era, "weaving together the many styles, beats, fashions, and metaphors of this time
    period into one fantastic performance."

    7:30 pm, Northrop Auditorium, 84 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-624-6600; $31-$52.

     

  • If you're going to insult me, cancel my subscription first

    Here is the first sentence of today’s Star Tribune editorial on "Aiding Baby Boomers’ Search for Meaning": "The nation’s supernumerary baby-boomers have reached what’s being
    gently called "the second half of life," but the big generation is
    still doing what it has done since its diaper days: It’s demanding
    notice and altering the contours of every phase of life it touches."

    Yuk.

    And not only for the mawkishness. "Supernumerary" means superfluous, not numerous.

    Of course, maybe the editorial writer is superannuated, which means "too old to work."

  • Cursed

    Someone put a food curse on my house.

    I cooked like crap last week … Nothing lived up to expectation, mistakes were made at every turn, I threw my knife more than once into the wooden chopping block.

    Maybe it started with the Osso Buco my husband attempted last weekend. He had been craving the comforting dish and we were all looking forward to it. Sadly, not even his rich sauce could save the mealy, fatty pork shanks which he had substituted for veal shanks (fearing a revolt from the teenagers).

    That meal was followed by a diappointing bean soup, in which I used too few beans and too much stock. Post puree, the resulting soup was a thin, weak mess instead of a thick, hearty belly warmer.

    So I resorted to the repertoire and pulled together a meatloaf. But I miscalculated the oven temp/size of loaf/timing of sides and ended up with a set table, ready eaters, and a main dish with a nakedly raw center. More broccoli anyone?

    I won’t resort to victimology, that my mojo must have been off due to the illness making its way among my family members, or the silly situation that gave me stitches on Friday. I’m better than that, I’ve cooked through worse to better heights. So I thought I would be able to kick it into high gear and pull off a spectacular dinner party this weekend for one of the Grrrls who was debuting her current beau among her friends. The veg was good, everything else was average. They broke up the next day, I kid you not.

    My confidence is shaken, the phrase ringing through my head as I pick up a knife is a resouning YOU SUCK. What’s worse, this is a particularly bad time to have the whammy on my kitchen, we’re in the final countdown to the seasonal feast: Tday 10 days out.

    So tonight I am cleaning my kitchen from floor to ceiling and lighting a bound stick of dried sage. I don’t know what I have done to piss off the Kitchen Witch, but this evening’s meal will be cooked humbly and slowly. To rebalance myself I am making spaghetti Napoletana. The smell of freshly smashed garlic simmering in olive oil should help rebaptize my kitchen and there’s a chance the bright red tomatoes will bring me luck. Using a long and toothsome pasta like spaghetti just feels right. This is a simple dish that I could make with my eyes closed … but not tonight.

    Spaghetti Napoletana

    1 lb. spaghetti

    4 T olive oil

    4 cloves garlic: peel, then smash with side of knife, roughly chop

    1 28oz. can whole peeled tomatoes: drain most (not all) of liquid, move knife within the can to break tomatoes apart

    1/2 cup freshly chopped basil

    Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

    In a big pot of salted water, cook spaghetti until aldente, DO NOT OVERCOOK.

    While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in large saute pan over med-high heat. Add garlic and simmer until slightly browned. Toss in tomatoes and stir about to mix with garlic, add basil with salt and pepper to taste. Let mix reduce and thicken, stirring occaisionally for about 6-8 minutes.

    When pasta is ready and drained, add it to the tomato mixture and toss to coat. Sprinkly liberally with cheese and toss again. Slide it all into a large serving bowl/platter. Garnish with more cheese and chopped basil if you’d like. Serves 4 hungry people who might like a slice of garlic bread on the side.

  • Marshalling George Moskal's Latest

    And this other thing: One of my fave local fashion photographers,
    Nic Marshall, just sent along these new portfolio pics. Local designer George
    Moskal     (also one of my faves) lent some of his latest looks for the occasion. I absolutely lurve
    the following fancy, gray brocade dress with roped belt. Actually, it’s the dress I first spotted at
    Eclecticoiffeur’s MNfashion Weekend runway show (see my half-assed photo of it here), and I’ve longed to wear it to a Christmas party ever
    since. Mr. Moskal, if you’re out there … Might you consider a loan?

    And finally, the beauty shot. I’ve always wanted freckles, too …

  • The Opposite of Beige

    Warning: In this post, you’ll have to wade through some sap
    before arriving at the payoff. This weekend I met my new mentee via the U of M’s
    school of journalism mentoring program. (I’m also on the school’s alumni board;
    do the warm-fuzzies never end?) Here’s what I love about mentoring: You give and
    you give, and then you get back more than you ever imagined. Already, my mentee
    has proven her self a person of impeccable tastes. She is a former Japanese
    language and literature major, so she happens to know oodles about Japanese
    culture. She told me about this cool, origami-inspired method of Japanese
    gift-wrapping     (which I intend to try this holiday season) and even referred me
    to this aptly named Japanese fashion magazine, FRUiTS. On a beige Minneapolis morning such
    as this, these pics of colorfully clad Tokyoites (see the gallery within) really
    hit the spot.

  • Politics in Minnesota: MnDOT Suffering Under Strib Attack

    Whoa. Sarah Janecek’s Politics in Minnesota newsletter sure lobbed one into the Strib newsroom late Friday. In a Weekly Report item entitled “MnDOT Under Seige: The Star Tribune’s Agenda,” Janecek writes that MnDOT personnel are getting pretty fed up with certain pushy, expletive-spewing Strib reporters.

    According to an email sent by a MnDOT mucky-muck to an unnamed GOP legislator and passed along to Janecek, agency employees “have been subjected to professional and unnecessarily harsh name-calling, hostile phone conversations and phone and email harassment. MnDOT employees have come to me with reports of enduring profanity in phone conversationsand having their professional and personal integrity questioned.” Among other charges leveled: When MnDOT employees did grant interviews and provide information, “they feel their work has been mischaracterized in print and facts have been disregarded in lieu of predetermined story lines.”

    In particular, according to Janecek, employees singled out Strib investigative team members Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe as particularly egregious offenders in the offensive language category, uttering phrases like “bullshit,” “you’re lying” and “you’re stonewalling.”

    MnDOT has been under investigation on so many occasions by the Star Tribune that I wonder why its employees aren’t more desensitized by now to the journalistic speculum. However, another part of me sympathizes with MnDOT worker bees.

    Kennedy and McEnroe are not the warm and fuzzy feature writers the paper uses to staff the booth at the State Fair or provide whimsical insight into the paper at Rotary Club luncheons. No, Kennedy and McEnroe are the baying hounds from Hell that are released from their heavy chain link kennels by leather-gloved handlers when the prisoners escape.

    Thinking of them working a story brings to mind the description given Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator: “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever.”

    That’s McEnroe and Kennedy. Especially McEnroe. This is the man the paper has sent to cover two wars—and not as an “embedded” correspondent. When rookie Minnesota Viking Dimitrius Underwood went AWOL to Philadelphia in 1999, McEnroe was dispatched with a pocketful of cash and orders to find him in that city, with no other information. He did. McEnroe is relentless. So is Kennedy—ask Northwest Airlines, which he covered like a blanket when assigned to that beat.

    That’s good news for Strib management, which has been reaping the benefits of their exhaustive, scoop-filled bridge collapse reporting and is gearing up to nominate the pair in all sorts of Pulitzer categories, according to staffers. The bad news is, when you unleash the dogs, sometimes people get bitten.

    In this case, according to Janecek’s report, the victims are MnDOT employees who are either potty-mouth adverse or just plain tired of being—pardon the pun—hounded by the pair. Is that a crime? Should the Stribsters be sent to journalistic charm school for a refresher course? It’s doubtful the paper will pay much attention to the PIM report, other than to write it off as political polemic.

    Neither McEnroe nor Kennedy responded Friday afternoon to an email containing the PIM story. Kennedy, reached at home Sunday night, seemed more poodle than pit bull. He said he hadn’t received the email, wasn’t aware of the PIM report and didn’t want to hear about it. "I work hard during the week; I don’t want to deal with anything on the weekends," said the reporter, who is well known for making calls at any time, day or night (or weekend), when he’s working on a story. "I’ll deal with it Monday, if I have to deal with it at all.

    Of course, I was tempted to yell at him, “Stop stonewalling me with that bullshit!” but I guess he wouldn’t have gotten the joke.

    However, the part of Janecek’s story that did gave me pause involved claims that story coordination at the Strib seems so poor that everybody and their mother at the paper appears to be asking for the same documents, which is making for costly extra work at MnDOT, an agency funded by tax dollars.

    That may be the point where this story rises above the partisan pool.

  • The Only Thing You Owe the Public Is a Good Performance

    MUSIC
    Ben Lee

    At the very green age of 14, Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee emerged on the music scene with his then-band, Noise Addict, and caused a minor stir, garnering the attention of members of both Sonic Youth and the Beastie Boys. Fifteen years later, with albums, movies, and experience under his belt, Lee is in town tonight promoting his sixth and most recent album, Ripe,
    which came out a couple of months ago. I just hope all those love songs are no longer about Claire Danes. Opening for Lee this evening are the Cary Brothers and The Kahn Brothers. What’s with the whole brotherly theme, eh?

    5 p.m., Varsity Theater, 1308 4th St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-604-0222; $15/$17.

    Ryan Montbleau Band

    While their website claims they’ve averaged over 200 gigs per year for the past few years, this is no doubt the Ryan Montbleau Band’s largest tour, as they promote Patience on Friday, released last month. "Patience is simply something you have to learn," says the band’s frontman, "and Fridays are the days you go balls out." If you’re a Ben Harper fan with a special place in your heart for Stevie Wonder, this is definitely a show for you to check out.

    8 p.m., 7th St. Entry, First Avenue, 701 First Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612-332-1775; $8.

     

    FILM
    The Quintessential Film Noir

    No actress has commanded the screen as well as Lauren Bacall. No on-screen chemistry has impressed and charmed us as well as that between Bogie and Bacall. And the quintessence of that chemistry, of the duo, of an age, of a genre, of film noir… is without a doubt The Big Sleep. (Granted, I’d choose To Have or Have Not any day. Have you ever stepped on a dead bee?) The film is a gold mine in every sense possible — the best of the best at every stage: a Raymond Chandler novel adapted into a screenplay by William Faulkner, directed by Howard Hawks, and acted by Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and John Ridgley. This is Philip Marlowe at his finest: "I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners, I don’t like them myself.
    They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings."

    8 p.m., Parkway Theater, 4814 Chicago Ave., Minneapolis; 612-822-3030; $6.

    Forever

    Surely you’ve seen this image before. Pere Lachaise cemetery. Jim Morrison’s grave. Some of us may have actually been there ourselves, paying respect to the Doors frontman and everything he has come to stand for (what exactly is that anyhow, desert peyote trips? jeans without underwear?); regardless, we’ve at least seen it on film. You know the story: the die-hard fan travels across the globe to visit the resting place of a beloved artist — Morrison, Chopin, Proust, Maria Callas, Oscar Wilde, Yves Montand — all in a quest for solace or inspiration, answers to an all-evasive question. It’s no fiction. Every year, some of our favored, long-gone celebs receive millions of visits from people of all ages and corners of the world. Who are these people? Why are they there? What do they hope to get from the experience? Director Heddy Honigmann gives us a glimpse into their worlds in Forever. Watch the trailor.

    7:15 & 9 p.m., Oak Street Cinema, 309 Oak St. S.E., Minneapolis; $8.