READINGSRaking Through Books with John TorenJoin your literary homies from The Rake for another installment of the popular Happy Hour reading series "Raking Through Books " at Kieran’s Irish Pub co-presented by The Loft, KFAI radio and the U of M Bookstore. Tonight’s special guest is author John Toren, who will show off his new … Read more
I’ve reached a new low, which is amazing, because I’ve had my fair share of low moments in my life. There was the time in college when I had an explosive stomach issue while wearing a Halloween costume. On my wedding day, I had a dress shirt "malfunction." I had to wear a tie and … Read more
MUSIC K’naan D.E.M.O.’s Twin Cities Pan African Fest goes out with a bang tonight at First Avenue. Toronto-based Somalian rapper K’naan will engage the audience with his smooth flows and thoughtful prose for an evening of amazing music you won’t soon forget. Raised in Mogadishu, Somalia in the midst of civil war, and descended from … Read more
The opening game for the USA Olympic basketball team was close early–tied even, at 29-29, nearly halfway through the second quarter–almost exclusively because the US were missing their three-pointes while their Chinese opponents were knocking them down. But nobody seriously thought this would be a ballgame, and the 101-70 tally seemed an appropriate gauge of … Read more
Last year, I posted a movie on YouTube. It was a candid short film of a Mom sending her kid off to "camp" at a church in Edina. The Mom was wearing a leather Ferrari jacket while burdening her two cherubic children with care packages the size of a Marshall Plan drop. I found the … Read more
After a flamboyantly successful run at the Bedlam Theatre earlier this spring, You’re No Fun has been whittled down for a Fringe staging. The play centers around a present-day hobo who comes back to town, and finds that his ex-girlfriend has written a musical about his life. It is a tale of star-crossed lovers that, … Read more
I was by myself the other day when I stopped in for lunch at SerenTori restaurant, 5748 34th Ave., Minneapolis, so I could only try one dish, which made it kind of a tough choice. The $6.95 lunch specials didn’t sound that appealing – they’re mostly Chinese take-out classics like Sesame Chicken, Egg Foo Young, … Read more
Fool for a Client, Mark Whitney’s politically-tinged Fringe show, is The Shawshank Redemption meets The Pursuit of Happyness. And not only is the painfully funny show tough to perform, since it chronicles some of the roughest periods of Whitney’s life, but it also attempts to examine many of the odd conflicts inherent in today’s political … Read more
Those of you familiar with this site may remember the series of roundtables I held last year between myself, steadfast Twins fan, along with Rake and ex-City Pages baseball columnist Brad Zellar, and former Twin Cities Reader sports columnist (and current Minnpost media columnist) David Brauer. Zellar and Brauer are my kind of conversationalists: They’re … Read more
ART Overflow: A Pleasure Trip Eric Inkala‘s no fool. After a good run of years of painting his coloristic, hazy-dazy, arabesque, Little-Engine-that-Could-meets-Pacman murals (this guy is a tagger of the most whimsical sort) on walls around town, Inkala’s finally been hit by the legitimacy bug. That is, in the manner of graffiti artists gone legit–like … Read more