Category: Blog Post

STYLE
Joynoelle

If you enjoy local fashion, then surely you’ll be interested to know that local designer Joy Teiken (a.k.a. Joynoelle, see her creation at right) celebrates the opening of her Minneapolis-based boutique and atelier this eve. How very throwback of her, no? The reception lasts from five to eight p.m. The digs? You’ll find ’em at 42nd and Grand Ave. S. If you can’t make the party, don’t despair: From hereon out, the store will keep hours on Thursdays from two to eight p.m. and Saturdays from ten a.m. to four p.m. –Christy DeSmith

ART & MUSIC
Another Gallery Grooves Evening

Danish Teak Classics: A place where your visions of a stylish, modern living area can come into focus. The Rake’s promotions depot hosts another of its fabulous Gallery Grooves events there this eve. There, you can marinade your decorating ideas in a showroom full of vintage-modern chairs, desks, tables, and lighting fixtures — as well as Peter Kramer’s new series of prints, Birdwatching and The Samurai’s Houseboat, featuring drawings done in church, at concerts, and while driving. The event comes replete with fine wine, food, visual art, and jazz to boot. No vin rouge on the orange-wool lounge chair, please. –Christy DeSmith

7 p.m., Danish Teak Classics, Northrup King Building, 1500 Jackson St. N.E., Suite 277, Minneapolis; 612-362-7870; free.

MUSIC
Two Legends Take the Stage

Dave Mason and John Mayall have a lot in common: both are ridiculously talented guitarists. Both are native Brits. Both have played with (and, unfortunately, been overshadowed by) some of blues and rock music’s greats — Mayall with Eric Clapton and John Lee Hooker, Mason with Fleetwood Mac and Jimi Hendrix (to name just a few). Both are prolific — each with over 50 CDs to his name. And tonight they are playing what is definitely the hottest show in town. –Danielle Kurtzleben

9 p.m. (doors at 8 p.m.), Cabooze, 917 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis; $25… way worth it to see two legends take the stage.

Golden Goldberg Variations

Lore dictates that Bach wrote his Goldberg Variations to ease the sleepless nights of a Russian count wasting away his nights without the comfort of a Tivo backlog. Perhaps this is why the 30-variation, nine-cannon work is so well suited for a performance of excerpts — proof of an innate human desire for highlight reels, particularly when only the sublime is adequate compensation for dreams. Wonderkind Glenn Gould’s name dominated recordings of the Goldberg Variations for more than 50 years. Earlier this year, Simone Dinnerstein made her name and signed her first recording contract by challenging those monolithic recordings. Dinnerstein will bring her guts and technical prowess to the Landmark Center Cortile this afternoon. Bring your lunch, and The Schubert Club will provide the coffee. –Danielle Cabot

12 p.m., Landmark Center Cortile, 75 West 5th St., St. Paul; 651-292-3233; free.

THEATER & PERFORMANCE
The Clean House

This is the first time a Sarah Ruhl play has been produced in the Twin Cities since the thirty-something hotshot’s Eurydice became the hit of Off-Broadway this summer. The Clean House is an earlier product of Ruhl’s fantastical imagination, and one with an important distinction from Eurydice: Even though it was a Pulitzer finalist in 2005, it drew divided criticism. The New York Times raved raved, but The New Yorker’s theater critic smelled a stereotype in the play’s heroine, Matilde, a depressive Brazilian maid who loves wisecracking but doesn’t particularly relish housework. What follows, no matter what your thoughts on the Latina character, is a robust satire on labor relations: Matilde’s employer, a successful American doctor named Lane, goes so far as to feed her servant antidepressants. But Matilde despairs whenever distracted from her quest to form the perfect joke. –Christy DeSmith

7:30 p.m., Mixed Blood Theater, 1501 S. Fourth St., Minneapolis; 612-338-6131; $10 tonight ($28).

BOOKS
Cheating at Canasta: Stories

Cheating at Canasta is a marvelous, enviable title, and William Trevor is an astonishing, and astonishingly reliable, writer. Along with Alice Munro, he is also one of the living masters of the short story. That sort of thing usually sounds like so much hogwash, but in this instance it’s nothing but the plain truth. Even as he approaches eighty, Trevor continues to produce carefully crafted marvels that often whipsaw between deviance and devotion, or dereliction and disappointment, from one story to the next. His best tales are compact and powerful moral symphonies, and are so full of startling and often catastrophic disruptions and moments of exhausted grace that they seem as utterly believable as life. –Brad Zellar

Available today at bookstores near you.

Now this. My good friend and loyal reader, Schneider, sent the photo above in response to my October 11 Jug O’ Wine entry about unexpected bottle shapes.

Hmmmmmmm.

Now, maybe I’ve just taken too many film theory classes (Am I, by the way, the only person in America who believes Die Hard was a romance between Bruce Willis and Reginald VelJohnson that climaxed — so to speak — when their hands met in front of a towering skyscraper that rose to pierce the clouds?), but it seems to me the Voga Italia bottle may have been designed to be. . . .um. . . .multi-purpose.

I haven’t tried the Pinot Grigio. To tell the truth, I don’t want to — I prefer a more traditional, less organic shape in my wine containers. But you can read Schneider’s far less Freudian analysis here.

I wrote a piece on Scandinavian furniture/design a while back and, unfortunately, it came off as slighting one of the finest sellers of Scandinavian wares in all the TC land: none other than Danish Teak Classics. This is the place where your visions of a stylish, modern living area can come into focus. Sure, the prices aren’t in line with what you’ll find at cheap-and-cheerful (and chintzy) Ikea. For starters, their stock of furniture has already seen a good fifty years. And from the looks of things, the average DTC piece will enjoy a healthy hundred more. The Rake’s promotions depot is hosting one of its fabulous Gallery Grooves events at Danish Teak Classics on Thursday eve. Check it: Marinade your decorating ideas in a showroom full of vintage-modern chairs, desks, tables, and lighting fixtures. And the event comes replete with fine wine, food, visual art, and jazz to boot. But no vin rouge on the lounge chairs, please. I heart the pink one at left.

For more than fifteen years, the gap between my two front teeth has been a source of self-loathing. This is usually how that went: I pore over women’s magazines, never pausing at the pencil-thin thighs but rather marveling at the models’ perfect smiles. Next, I stare at my reflection, puzzling over whether my gap makes me look European (Vanessa Paradis), lusty (Lauren Hutton, Madonna), punk-rock (Mick Jones of The Clash), or just plain hideous. When I see photos of myself, I fix upon the gap-toothed grin rather than, say, the double chins. Call me superficial if you must, but believe you me: Diastema can cramp a girl’s style.

In 1997, an unfortunate accident involving sangria, polka, and a good-looking Brit left me with a deadened front tooth. One root canal, a crown (which left the gap intact), and ten years later, the Chiclet started to show signs of wear. So, I figured, how harmless would it be to finally close the gap, since I would be replacing my crown anyway? My only complaint is that food sticks to my smile nowadays, whereas I certainly didn’t have that problem before. In any case, je vous presente me and my new, improved front teeth:

ART
Where Cigarette Machines Go to Die

We’ve all been to the Chambers Hotel and gawked at the fabulous (or at least fabulously expensive) art lining its halls. But Ralph Burnet’s chic lodgings have another amenity that makes fine art a bit more accessible (or maybe that’s acquirable): the Art-o-Mat, described as “the world’s smallest self-contained art gallery.” Invented by Clark Whittington, these converted cigarette machines dispense original works of art for a five-dollar token. After a couple of $12 Bombay To Tokyos at the Chambers’ bar, that kind of investment is a no-brainer. Tonight, join Whittington and local artists as they celebrate the tenth anniversary of this clever machine — and find out how you, too, can become part of the Art-o-Mat stable. –Julia Caniglia

5:30 – 7:30 p.m., Chambers Hotel, 901 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-767-6900.

FILM
Groundbreaking Film Exposes Mexican Maquiladoras

If you don’t yet know what a maquiladora is, it’s time to educate yourself. And if you do, well then, this is your opportunity to further that knowledge. This evening, the Labor & Community Film Series presents the acclaimed documentary Maquilápolis, a film about Tijuana’s maquiladoras, multinationally-owned factories attracted by Mexico’s cheap labor and tax incentives. In an intimate and empowering new style, filmmakers Vicky Funari and Sergio De La Torre bring together Tijuana factory workers and community organizers “to tell the story of globalization through the eyes and voices of the workers themselves — overwhelmingly women — who have borne the costs but reaped few of the benefits.” We’re not just talking on-camera testimonials and the usual talking heads. I said “new” — and what I refer to here is the current trend of putting cameras into the hands of the subjects. This is the video logging era, folks, and filmmakers world-round are adapting to this in all sorts of manners. Covering a very real and provocative topic, Funari and De La Torre did some very smart edgy thinking to overcome one of the biggest obstacles in any kind of cultural or anthropological discourse — the scientist, the recorder — in this case, the person behind the camera. Two of the women actually created their own video diaries, chronicling their struggles. And the result is a ground-breaking film that embraces subjectivity rather than trying to deny it.

7 p.m., Waite House Community Center, 2529 13th Ave. S., Minneapolis; free.

Massive Misinterpretations

Does the Bible really condemn homosexuality? Is homosexuality wrong? Have you still not really made up your mind on this subject? Then you, my friend, are one of the “moveable middle” — the audience that producer/director Daniel Karslake has said he hopes to reach with his new documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So. The thesis of this flick is simple: that the conservative Christian community’s anti-gay sentiments are based on a massive misinterpretation of scripture. Tonight the Lagoon Cinema will host an HRC-sponsored panel discussion after their 7:30 screening. “Moveable”? Come and be swayed one way or the other. Mind made up already? Take part in the (certainly heated) debate. –Danielle Kurtzleben

7:30, Lagoon Cinema, 1320 Lagoon Ave., Minneapolis; 612-825-6006; $8.25.

Cinema Lounge

For those of us who have already started having family holiday-induced panic attacks, why is it that Halloween proves nothing more than a sweet distraction from our impending emotional crises? Seek preemptive relief at IFP’s Cinema Lounge, where a trio of devilish shorts and an indie trailer will ease the onset of your Turkey Day flashbacks with werewolves, giant pumpkins, and a docu-style rehash of the infamous pirates vs. zombies pubcrawl dance-off of 2006. The films are free, so pony up for another round of Octoberfest to really savor the moment. There are scant days left till the commercial world unleashes their red and green assault. Revel in the fake blood and rotting flesh while you still can. –Danielle Cabot

7 p.m., Bryant Lake Bowl, 810 W. Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-825-8949; free.

BOOKS & AUTHORS
A Portrait of Segregation

Join best-selling author Edward P. Jones this afternoon as he discusses his latest collection of short stories, All Aunt Hagar’s Children. Bringing back some of the characters from his previous collection, Lost in The City, Jones paints a diverse and detailed portrait of Washington D.C.’s segregated neighborhoods through present day. “Through his stories we meet people struggling with the complex legacy of slavery, the challenges and disappointments of the urban promise, and the inter-racial class prejudice in the black community.” And we’re not just talking your typical fare; the cast of characters includes government workers, churchgoers, dishwashers, doctors, murderers, and even whores.

2 p.m., University of Minnesota Bookstore, Coffman Memorial Union, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-626-0559; free.

Back in the late 1990’s, I lived for a year in a house that felt completely wrong. Liminal, oddly oriented. It was set sideways — or rather, along a street that somehow struck me as sideways — on a hill, facing the back parking lot of a school that ran perpendicular. What’s more, the main floor was interrupted by a built-in garage, so it didn’t form a circle or a horse-shoe shape or even an arc. It was an “L” with a little lip where the kitchen had been extended in back.

Other people thought my home was just fine; they’d comment on the lovely cabinets, the prime location, and the spacious upstairs. But I didn’t trust it, and I spent not one minute in that house that I didn’t feel off. It was as if I were facing the wrong direction or buttoned backward into my clothes.

Strange, perhaps. But all I’m trying to say is that I notice — unusually so — the way the buildings I occupy are oriented in space.

Certain places feel right — the bar at jP American Bistro, for instance, which has a calming, nearly reverent sense of balance — whereas others strike me as precarious. While I love the food and admire the décor, 20.21 falls into the latter category. Upon entering its cubic dining area, I always have the tilted sense one gets while standing on one foot.

Bev’s Wine Bar, unlike my former house, exists in a strangely perfect sideways pocket of space. Tucked behind J.D. Hoyt’s, next to the Washington Avenue on-ramp to I-394, Bev’s is a block of a building with its name painted on the stone exterior and as stark a decorating scheme as I’ve ever seen. When I first walked in last week, I assumed the proprietors were just moving in. . . .or out. . . .The walls are a soft peach verging to pumpkin, half-etched with a leafy stencil of some sort, but otherwise bare. The furnishings are blond wood, the shelves behind the bar mostly empty. I sat in a corner, wondering if there was any wine left or if, perhaps, it had all been drunk except for a bottle of something leftover and sticky, like port.

Yet, I was quite happy sitting there, looking out oversize windows at the Minneapolis skyline and rush hour traffic bumping like little train cars onto the freeway ramp. And when the waiter came, I discovered Bev’s did still have wines after all — not so many as you might expect at a wine bar, but I’ve decided over the years that this is fine. Sometimes it’s better. A shorter wine list, carefully assembled, can be a soothing thing, and it was. I tried the “Bev’s Red,” a Protocolo Vino La Tierra de Castilla 2005, which sold for $5.95 a glass. It was like a dry cigar on the tongue, full of cardboard, tobacco, and crumbly soil, then fruit. Mostly dark cherry.

On a whim, then, because it’s very easy to feel whimsical while sitting in a small, well-slanted place with great music (the soundtrack from Once happened to be playing, which made me quite happy), I switched to white. First, I had a taste of the Amano Fiano Greco 2006, which has a nose of pure banana, then a fruity apricot flavor and a finish that vanishes like a poof of dust. I’m not wild about bananas, so I passed on this one. However, the second white I tried, a Farnese Trebbiano d’Abruzzo 2006 from Tuscany was exactly to my taste: as clean as wind, smooth but flinty, with a crisp ascending pear-to-melon flavor that I found nearly musical. Trebbiano typically is a very ordinary grape — and it’s not held in high regard by most connoisseurs — but the Farnese is a perennial award-winner, and for good reason. At $7.50 a glass, it’s quite a deal.

It turned out the young-looking guy wearing a faded t-shirt and standing behind the bar was the owner of Bev’s, Peter Karihara. And he is neither moving in nor moving out, he just likes to keep the place Spartan. In fact, Bev’s has been there, in that smoky little nick of downtown, serving a short list of wines, beers, and baguettes with Brie, for the past 13 years. Karihara also owns Moose & Sadie’s and Jetset, a gay dance club and bar on North First. “There is no Bev, not really,” Karihara told me. He named the place after the mother of a friend of his, a woman who liked wine. “It just sounded so cool: Bev’s Wine Bar. Don’t you think?” Then he grinned.

I can’t tell you why one slanty, sideways place will make me feel queasy while another seems utterly grounded, as organic as if it had sprung from the concrete whole. All I know is that as Bev’s filled on a Friday evening in fall, it felt warm and safe. A strangely simple little haven off the highway, set apart from the chaos outside.