The Rake Magazine

Category: So Little Time

  • Lizz Wright

    The 28-year old Georgia native flexes her emotional range on The
    Orchard     (which dropped in late February), her third and best disc to
    date. Producer Craig Street concocts the sort of pop-jazz-soul-gospel
    stew he fashioned to break Cassandra Wilson into the mainstream, and
    Wright provides a similarly breathy, atmospheric vocal. Left field
    covers of Led Zeppelin (a graceful "Thank You") and Patsy Cline (a
    soulfully dumbstruck "Strange") are stuck at the end, prefaced by a
    half-dozen tunes Wright co-wrote with guitarist-singer Toshi Reagon,
    including the seething "Leave Me Standing Alone" and the gorgeous,
    crooning baptismal, "Song For Mia." There’s also the nurturing maturity
    of "Speak Your Heart" and a sexy blues, torch-song rendition of Ike
    Turner’s "I Idolize You" that reportedly slays in concert. Wright has
    always had the rep of being better onstage than in the studio. Now that
    she’s stepped it up a notch on record, who knows what this shift from
    the clubs to the midsized Varsity venue portends.

  • Gordon Johnson GJ4 CD Release Party

    Gordy Johnson is a connoisseur of jazz piano trios, and not
    coincidentally the format is his metier as a bassist. As its title
    implies, GJ4 is the fourth time Johnson has mixed and matched trios
    from his impressive connections with national stars and local
    luminaries who are drummers and pianists, and it is arguably his best
    foray into this self-defined realm thus far. My favorite songs on the
    disc are the pair with Johnson musically astride the restless,
    harmonically acute ivory stylings of precocious local Tanner Taylor and
    the surprisingly restrained yet simmering beats offered up by
    ex-Journey and current Vital Information drummer Steve Smith. Don’t
    miss Matt Wilson’s innovative drumming on the Dewey Redman tribute,
    "Joie de Vivre" and the Alec Wilder composition, "I’ll Be Around," or
    the hushed delicacy of Johnson with Bad Plus timekeeper Dave King and
    the exquisitely pensive ex-pat Minnesotan Bill Carrothers on piano on
    the closing "Sleep Warm." Taylor will be on board for this CD release
    gig at the Dakota, along with Monkish pianist Laura Caviani, who
    contributes the gently burnished "The Return" on GJ4, and pianist Bryan
    Nichols    , who is featured with Johnson and Wilson on those Redman and
    Wilder numbers. The beats will be ably rapped out by Phil Hey, who has
    pretty much set the gold standard for local jazz drummers the past two
    decades. But most of all, these trio CD releases are the rare occasions
    when Johnson’s penetrating bass lines and solos are as much the star as
    the character actor complement to the prevailing music, an
    assertiveness that both rewards and reminds us of his talent.

  • The Rape of Europa

    You’ve seen this image before. Of course you have — if nothing else, at
    least a cheap print in a college dorm. Gustav Klimt’s Gold
    Portrait, stolen from Viennese Jews in 1938, is now the most expensive
    painting ever sold — and the opening subject of The Rape of Europa,
    an "epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction, and
    miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during World War II."
    Have you heard of the Venus Fixers, the Monument Men, the Roberts Commission, the MFAA? They were essentially a pared down Secret Service
    of the art world through the 1940s — young museum directors, curators,
    art professors, and architects who volunteered to protect Europe’s
    strong artistic cultural history by policing looting, theft,
    destruction, and artistic loss of any kind. Written, produced, and directed by Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham, and Bonni Cohen, The Rape of Europa
    maps out Europe’s artistic loss at the hands of the Nazis over the
    course of twelve years — the most savage theft and destruction of art
    to date.

    Opens Friday, May 30th at Landmark’s Edina Cinema, 3911 West 50th St., Edina.

  • Special 40th Anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey

    In celebration of the 40 years since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Heights Theatre is showing the 1968 masterpiece, digitally remastered in 70mm, a project of Kubrick’s before his death in 1999. This historical depiction of the future raised many questions as to the existance of life and the mysteries of science and space. And who doesn’t love a bunch of monkeys dancing around a mysterious monolith? Follow man from his pre-historic ape-man status, when he first uses tools to conquer his environments — into the present day (the future, at the time the film was made), when man has set out to conquer space, and perhaps even life itself.

    May 9-15, Heights Theatre, 3951 Central Ave. NE, Columbia Heights; $8.

  • There Is Music in Northfield Women Poets’ Anthology, Penchant

    Eleven truth-telling women passionately grieve and celebrate the myriad facets of their complex lives in the new Northfield women’s poet anthology, Penchant. The title implies an inclination, and the title poem, by Karen Herseth Wee, explains that each of these poets possesses a drive:

    "An uncontrollable urge to write, reveal, chant
    aloud that which otherwise stays hidden in the body or mind-"

    But this is not a book merely of blatant or trite self-confession—although it is often personal and intimate. This is a book of many themes. One of the themes is poetry itself, the music of words, and the ability of that music to fill us with emotion. This is a Pen-chant, beginning with the poetic act of observation in Beverly Voldseth’s poem "Her Bath," and ending with Andrea Een’s invitation to "sing as if your life depended on it." If it is true that the audience for poetry is made up mostly of poets, then this volume encourages readers to examine the world with their own eyes and, through the incantatory power of language, to make of that examination, music in their own voice. But more than that, this anthology is a work of art, a concert of voices rich with lived experience, voices practiced in the craft of poetry.

    These women have all lived through decades. Every one of them has been writing for longer than a quarter-century, and they employ their craft skillfully to circumscribe experiences and insights in the way that only poetry can.

    This is a volume I will read again on a lonely evening when it seems no one understands me. For here I have found eleven women, all different from one another in temperament and in voice, who, for years, have nurtured one another’s love of poetry. They also have created a safe haven in which to honestly explore life through words. This long-lived community is a testimony of graceful acceptance. In this place where women gather around words, we, the readers, are welcome to enter in.

    Here we discover, as JoAnne Makela writes, "there is no other place that welcomes my words so…[and] the most important time is set aside for laughing." Tony Easterson, too, writes about this community in "Between Tuesdays," telling us that "at the game of careful stories, everybody wins." Susan Thurston Hamerski celebrates the birth of fellow poet, Mary Moore Easter, sharing the joy of successful community and inviting us to participate. She proclaims, with mirth, a delightful manifesto, imagining a world in which "we call out to each other more often in tenderness than in despair," a world where

    "…we stand before each other, willing to confess
    everything, and find it all reasonable
    if not even good, or
    at the very least, forgivable."

    The wide world, as well as the intimate, unfolds in this anthology. Karen Sandberg celebrates birth [of any child, whether mine or hers, or all of ours] in the poem, "Baby Emma and Baby Sophie Smile at the World." Marie Vogl Gery invites the reader to "open the long-closed door of your heart," reminding us that we are, and that so much of the world is, made to be loved. Mary Moore Easter guides us to understand connections- between past and present, between people who love words, and even between strangers on a bus in Africa. She knows that we are joined together in "all the dreams we carry with us / through the streets from one place to the next."

    This is a large world, emotionally and geographically. These poems deftly carry us from one place to the next. Riki Kölbl Nelson leads us on a journey into a cup of jasmine tea, which, through her memory, takes us to Shanghai and Beijing, Jogjakarta and Ho Chi Minh City. In following poems, she takes us to her birth land, Austria, then back to Minnesota to remind us of two important truths: "Travel is never easy;" and "home is where I am."

    Sigi Leonhard escorts us into journeys of profound emotional depth: first onto a frozen lake, where the black ice is like dark glass; and then into the world of grief, "walking from one room / to another, images attacking the mind…" Her poems line up to reassure us that while "there is no solution" we somehow make art out of our lives, and that the small things we managed to make of our experiences,

    "everything
    Played its brief melody in the concert of daily life, and the music
    They made together, including the dissonances, strange solos,
    Unasked for arias, the music was ravishing."

    The attribute, "ravishing," in its purest sense, applied to something able to fill us with emotion, particularly with joy, may be honestly applied to the poetry-music in Penchant. Scott King, the editor of this collection, believes these poets speak to the importance of history and community, that this is "a collection of poems that, despite the odds and against the rule of profit at all costs, attempts to make a difference." I am certain I am not the only reader who would affirm that the collection does indeed make a difference, as every word and deed and work of art, which move us to consider the multi-faceted truths of life and love, death and grief, make a difference by enriching us.

  • Ben Garthus & Greg Priglmeier

    Life is no
    movie. We have no soundtrack. (Ok. Sometimes we do.) But we sure have plenty of background
    noise — background noise and visual noise, which somehow play off each
    other in a most fascinating way. Local artists Ben Garthus and Greg
    Priglmeier have joined forces to bring us Background Noise,
    an attempt to capture the cultural, political, and environmental
    conditions of city life — "traffic patterns, animal behavior,
    artificial environments and cultural changes." While Garthus focuses
    more on consumption and by-products, Priglmeier explores unseen
    connections to our environment.

    Opening reception on Saturday, May 3rd, from 7-10 p.m. (show runs through May 31st), Rosalux Gallery, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-803-6400; free.

  • The Figure and the Landscape

    Figure and
    landscape. Sculpture and photography — black and white landscape
    photography, to be precise. What’s the connection? Go see a beautiful exploration by
    recognized Minnesota sculptors and photographers at the Vine Art Center.
    Experience "the powerful and sensual nature of landscape and figurative
    work." The exhibition, which runs from May 2nd to June 24th, features work
    by Will Agar, Doug Beasley, Chris Faust, Roger Junk, Brant Kingman,
    Jeff Korte, and Nick Legeros. There will be an opening reception on
    Friday, May 2nd (6-10 p.m.) and an artist discussion panel on Thursday, May 22nd (7
    p.m.)

    Vine Arts Center, 2637 27th Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-728-5745.

  • The Triangle Factory Fire Project

    The Minnesota Jewish Theater Company ends a strong 2007-2008 season with another regional premiere. The Triangle Factory Fire Project — directed by Carolyn Levy— tells the story of a fatal fire in the Triangle Waist Factory, in 1911, that took 146 lives.  Author Christopher Piehler (in collaboration with Scott Alan Evans) offers a play-by-play of the events, followed by an unappeasing murder trial, and a round up of the numerous social and political changes that took place as a result.

  • Camden Workhouse Theater: 'Night Mother

    What do you do if your daughter tells you that she’ll be dead by morning? This is essentially the premise for the 1983 play, ‘night, Mother, by Marsha Norman. Two years ago, when the Camden Workhouse Theater did a staged reading of the play, it was met with a standing ovation. (Yes, it’s that good.) Now, they’re bringing the Pulitzer Prize-winning play back for a full theatrical production, starring Muriel Bonertz and Miriam Monasch. Don’t miss this haunting production about life and death and family. (And if you haven’t seen the 1986 film, starring Sissy Spacek and Ann Bancroft, you might want to follow it up with that.)

    May 2-5, 8-10, and 16-17, all shows at 7:30 p.m., except for Sunday, May 4, which is at 2 p.m., Workhouse Stage, The Warren, 4400 Osseo Rd.; $10 if paid in advance and $12 at the door ($8/$10 for students and seniors).

  • Long Day's Journey into Night

    After having to postpone the opening for a week, due to illness in the company, the Theatre in the Round Players are finally commencing their production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. Considered by many to be O’Neill’s masterpiece (it won a Pultizer in 1957), Long Day’s Journey narrates a fateful, heart-rendering day in O’Neill’s own life, in August of 1912. Directed by Lynn Musgrave, this Theatre in the Round production features Maggie Bearmon Pistner, Rachel Finch, Rob Frankel, Tom Sonnek, and Wade Vaughn. Expect a lot of alcohol and a little bit of morphine.