Category: So Little Time

Things could get interesting when the English and Theater departments at the U of M embark on a joint investigation of Suzan-Lori Parks’s oeuvre. This Pulitzer- and MacArthur Genius Grant-winning playwright boasts a body of work that’s rich in poetics and historic awareness, yet audacious enough to confront issues of emotional brutality head-on. (In other words, beware of over-intellectualizing.) The series kicks off when Frank Theatre, the local company with the most Parks plays under its belt, excerpts its productions of The America Play, Venus, and Fucking A (Rarig Center, February 26). Frank’s founder and artistic director, Wendy Knox, also joins a panel of experts to discuss what it’s like to direct Parks’s plays (Rarig Center, March 4); and the series culminates with Parks in the flesh at Ted Mann Concert Hall on March 26, where she will lecture, play her guitar, and “show her ass,” as she likes to (metaphorically) put it.

University of Minnesota, 612-626-1528. 

One of the most literate, thoughtful choreographers in town, Stuart Pimsler presents a double bill of protest art late in the month. Ways to Behold, a world premiere with accompaniment by spoken-word artist Tiyo Siyolo, juxtaposes the realities of a U.S.-initiated—yet somehow invisible—war overseas with the comforts of daily life on our own shores. Sentry is a reprise from the Reagan era; it was created during Pimsler’s days in New York City, when he was active with Artists Against Nuclear Madness. Set to a medley of ’60s protest songs, the piece is based in part on military orders that one of Pimsler’s students smuggled out of the Air Force Academy.

Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-436-1129.

Bob Mould hits town at his old First Avenue stomping grounds (March 5) with a resplendent new disc, District Line, that mixes an occasional electronic dance tune with the molten pop-rock … Two substantial (as in deep and dense) jazz bands for the price of one are on the docket when both Ravi Coltrane and Roy Haynes front ensembles at Northrop Auditorium (March 6) … Ditto the Prezens Quartet (with Craig Taborn and Tim Berne) and Drew Gress’s 7 Black Butterflies at the Walker (March 28) … L.A. punk never topped the slattern charms of X, who will churn up the beer-drinking faithful at the Cabooze (March 22) … Finally, fans of vocals and attitude shouldn’t pass up stormy soprano Kathleen Battle at Orchestra Hall (March 30).

For those who prefer the hunks in the big hats and tight jeans, well, it’s time you learned it ain’t the meat in a man’s voice, it’s the motion. And even at age seventy-six, the pipes of The Possum will have you moving with him into chasms of loneliness and epiphanies of grace and gratitude that are emotionally closed off to most every other singer. Jones is generally regarded as the greatest country vocalist who ever drew breath. Age has undeniably shortened his phrasing and weakened the fiber in his tone, but when your signature song is a goose-bumper like “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” and you tour with some of Nashville’s finest musicians, you can play for posterity at a casino and still pack a mighty wallop. —Britt Robson

Mystic Lake Casino, 2400 Mystic Lake Blvd., Prior Lake; 651-989-5151.

This odd but spectacular double-header pairs two veteran singer/songwriters from opposite sides of the emotional spectrum. At one end is the naively optimistic Jonathan Richman, known for his playful and charmingly inane simplicity. Even if he doesn’t dive into his classic songbook from his days with the Modern Lovers, he can draw upon nearly thirty years of consistently wonderful solo albums. At the other pole is the noted cynic Vic Chesnutt. His albums are significantly darker and deeper, traits stemming at least in part from his perspective as a paraplegic. This date will be an intimate solo appearance, without the members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Fugazi, who helped transform Chesnutt’s latest record into a moving and chaotic masterpiece.

Cedar Cultural Center, 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-338-2674.

One of the last things you expect out of Maceo Parker is a new wrinkle, and that’s OK: As the saxophonist for the Godfather of Soul, he’s the man who blew the horn that popped the sweat out of James Brown’s pores. He went on to play with two of Brown’s most renowned heirs to the funk tradition, Parliament/Funkadelic and Prince. New tricks aren’t normally a priority for an old-timer who still slathers the fatback this well—even after turning sixty-five on Valentine’s Day. But then Parker starts to croon on his new disc, Roots and Grooves, and he turns out to be the best Ray Charles doppelganger since Brother Ray shed this mortal coil four years ago. The ballad “Georgia,” the sprightly “Hit The Road Jack,” and the funk workout “What’d I Say” are all daringly faithful tributes that don’t embarrass Parker vocally. But if you’re worried he’ll abandon that big tenor sax sound, a 17:48 version of “Pass The Peas” on Roots and Grooves will lay it to rest. Expect to hear both the voice and the horn at the Dakota.

Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, 612-332-1010.

Flynn’s debut about growing up in 1970s San Francisco with a paranoid schizophrenic mother sounds like the sort of overwrought therapy masquerading as literature we’ve been inundated with for years—but it’s actually as convincing as it is harrowing, and is ultimately a beautiful testament to the remarkable resilience of children and the power of imagination and (it really does hurt to write this) love. As her mother’s illness spirals out of control, and her father (presumably worn out from accusations of Satanic proselytizing) leaves the family, Flynn and her two sisters find solidarity and survival in books, fantasy, and, most touchingly, in the sorts of imaginative flight they’d originally learned from their mother.

February 8th.

Charles Baxter, whom we’re happy to once again claim as a local (he recently returned from a long exile in Ann Arbor) has been at it for twenty-five years now, and his body of work—which includes novels, short stories, poetry, and essays—has gained both a national reputation and a cult following. His novel The Feast of Love was a National Book Award nominee and was recently made into a film. Baxter’s teaching at the University of Minnesota these days, but he keeps turning out books (he’s purportedly an insomniac), and his latest, The Soul Thief, involves a graduate student wrestling with the realization that he may not be who he thinks he is. Or something like that.

7-8 p.m., MinneapolisCentral Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.

This is apparently what we’ve come to: In an age when we’re reminded on an almost daily basis that nobody reads books anymore, one of the biggest celebrities in publishing is a guy who designs book jackets. That, of course, would be Chip Kidd, the graphic designer with a classic quarterback’s name. You’d think maybe the guy would be content with having designed fifteen-hundred covers and counting—his work is ubiquitous and, to his credit, almost always ridiculously stylish and unmistakable—but you’d be wrong. Turns out Kidd also writes novels, and on the heels of his debut The Cheese Monkeys (an art school yarn) comes The Learners (a novel with a lot of ruminations on graphic design). You certainly can’t accuse the ambitious Kidd of not writing about what he knows. The publisher says the new book also involves “advertising, electroshock torture, suicide, a giant dog, potato chips, and the Holocaust.”

7-8 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.

Not since the Brontës bulled their way to prominence in nineteenth-century Duluth has the flyover cultural set seen a distaff literary dynasty—or, quite honestly, any sort of literary dynasty—the likes of the Erdrich sisters. By now everybody knows Louise (independent bookstore owner and author of the award-winning Love Medicine and all sorts of other critically acclaimed novels, children’s books, poetry, and short story collections); and everybody should know Heid, who for our money is a more consistently stunning poet than her more celebrated sister. The impetus for this family reunion, however, is the publication of Night Train, a debut collection of short stories by Lise Erdrich, the sister we confess to knowing almost nothing about. We do know, though, that she was a 2007 Bush Foundation fellow, and Sherman Alexie has said of her collection, “This book challenged, entertained, thrilled, and scared me.” No idea how often they actually get a chance to sit down together, but we’re guessing they’ll have plenty to talk about.

7 p.m.-8 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.