Category: Blog Post
-
Back in Time to China
Better late than never. A Twin Cities copywriter blogs his three-month visit to China. Go back and read though some of the funnier entries. I’m a big fan of My Apartment Was Designed to Kill Me.
-
Mental Contagion
A local online monthly arts and literature magazine, Mental Contagion features online exhibits, fiction, poetry, essays, profiles, interviews, podcasts, and more. See Wendy Lewis’s latest fiction.
-
I Like to Watch
Salon writer Heather Havrilesky examines what upcoming televised features suggest about the American ego.
-
Army of Dude
The Washington Note cues us in to Army of Dude, an American military guy’s blog that the Pentagon has not yet shut down. Washington Note writer Steven C. Clemons actually suggests that the guy is on the scale of The New Republic. That ought to tell you what to expect.
-
Take Pride in What's Yours
MUSIC
Quirky and Hypnotic
Tonight the weird and wonderful Twin Cities jazz trio Hips Don’t Lie performs the first of a three-night gig at Rossi’s Blue Star. Though the group has the consistency of a traditional piano trio — Tasha Baron on keyboards, Liz Draper on upright bass, and Pete Henning on drums — their music is pointedly different from traditional jazz. Hips Don’t Lie’s songs (all of them originals, written by Draper and Baron) contain a good amount of the unexpected, with elements like sound effects and atonality; and the solos, though quirky and even challenging, can be downright hypnotic. –Danielle Kurtzleben 8 p.m., Rossi’s Blue Star, 80 South 9th St., Minneapolis; 612-312-2828.
Count on the Dakota for a Dinner Serenade
I used to think the Dakota was over-rated. It’s true. I missed the old location in Bandana Square. As inconvenient a location as it was, it was a beautifully intimate setting, which made for some fantastic shows. The first time I went to the new location, however, I went for dinner. I was seated upstairs, behind a wall, where we could not see the show. Stupid. Of course, I used to the think the Dakota was over-rated. I was stupid. I know better now. The Dakota is under-rated. The place is amazing — and in our own backyard. (My own back yard, literally, as I live downtown.) The food is solid. The space is solid. The service is solid (just don’t ask them to slice up your steak and serve it to you as an appetizer). And the acts they bring in — both local and from out of town — are truly outstanding. Tonight’s performance is no different. Grammy-nominated songstress Jane Monheit serves up her buttery pop-jazz vocals. This is a beautiful date night — both for old and new loves. Who isn’t impressed by a spontaneous Monday night offering?7 & 9 p.m., Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; $35 & $25.
MUSIC RADIO
Listen. Share. Learn.It seems sometimes that just about everyone in the Twin Cities is or has been a musician at some time. Come on — remember that band you were in? If you ever took it seriously, you probably know the frustration of trying to get radio play. While anyone with a band and a half-way decent computer has the potential to record and distribute their music nowadays, artists still suffer the frustration of trying to get their voice out there. Even on the Internet — a seemingly “democratic” space that demands user-shaped content and customized consumption — we suffer the consequences of corporate control. Yet, as big media desperately grapples for digital real estate — and our total dependence — the little guy keeps creeping up with more democratic ideas, more idealist ideas, ideas that require others to help build; and when we don’t step up to build them, the ideas get squashed under some warped interpretation of it — scooped up and controlled by the very entities we set out to defy.
Phew! What am I getting at here? There’s a new cat in town — a has-been musician is-now geek of sorts — and he has started an internet radio station, called Localtone Radio, to provide local artists of all kinds a platform where they can distribute their work, listen to other’s content, and learn about other Twin Cities artists. Any listener can add content to the system (anything from music, to poetry, to broadcast journalism), listen to samples of audio, and cast votes daily for the content that they like. And the votes determine the next audio to be played. It’s user contributed radio in its most open and free form — no big corporations dictating what media you can consume, just audio from your local artists and a community of listeners directly shaping the broadcast. The only problem — it’s takes us all to help build it. So build, my friends. Build. This is ours to be had.
NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN
Laughter and PoetryWhile new forms and styles of entertainment greet us daily, we mustn’t take for granted the possibilities that are more constantly offered. How long has it been since you’ve had a good laugh? This city is so full of options: The Brave New Workshop (Is it still Dudley Riggs?), Comedy Sportz, Stevie Ray’s Improv Company. They have shows just about every week, and we so seldom go. Let’s get out there. And let’s start tonight with the open mic at Acme. Think you’re funny? Put yourself to the test. Sign up for a three minute act. Otherwise, sit back, relax, have yourself a from-the-gut roar. I guarantee at least two or three acts will provoke it. (Perhaps it will even be yours.)
8 p.m., Acme Comedy Company, 708 1st St. N., Historic Itasca Building, Minneapolis; 612-338-6393; free.
If laughter is not your thing tonight, explore your poetic side at the Artists’ Quarters open mic. What I love most about their poetry open mic night is the jam session that inevitably ensues after the words. Your poetry can be in any form — words or music, and the evening always ends with what I deem to be among the most genuine jazz jams around. (Or at least it used to be so — I confess, it has been a while since I have been there.) If you feel like getting out of the house early, be there at 7:30 p.m. for the “burning post-pop quartet” Green.
9 p.m., Artists’ Quarter, 408 St. Peter St., Hamm Building, St. Paul; 651-292-1359.
-
A Prayer For Michael Vick
May you be forgiven.
May you be given a second chance:
May you come back as a dog.
May you be lost.
May you be found.
May you be loved.
May the whole world smell wonderful.
And may you know the touch
of gentle hands and the soft
voice of someone who sees
and knows and needs you,
to the end of your days.
Hence comes the four-legged friendships of so many of the better kind of men, for on what indeed should one refresh oneself from the endless deceit, falseness, and cunning of men if it were not for the dogs into whose faithful countenance one may look without distrust?
—Schopenhauer, Ethics
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receeding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
—R.S. Thomas, "The Bright Field" -
Come to the Mill City Farmers Market Today
Got plans this morning? Come over to the Mill City Farmers Market, at 2nd and Chicago in downtown Minneapolis (next to the new Guthrie Theater). It’s the peak of the growing season, there will be lots of fresh produce and locally made products on hand, and besides, I will be judging a pie contest. The contest starts at 10 a.m. – hope to see you there.