From the Lips to the TV

SPECIAL EVENT
In The Loop Story Slam

Enough of this passive observation. It’s time to dive right in and get involved. Get out those great ideas and “guts” this evening, so you can share a story with the world. In The Loop is hosting a Story Slam. You bring your best story; they’ll supply the microphone, the audience, and five minutes. Sign-up before 7:30 pm, and be ready if your name gets pulled from the hat. Tonight’s theme is “disguise.” And if you tell a good tale, you might just end up on the radio. Jeff Horwich is hosting, and he’ll be joined by In The Loop’s house band, The Smarts.

7:30 p.m. (doors 6:30), Suburban World Theater, 3022 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 952-471-9500; $6-10 (pay what you can).

ART
Jade Townsend: Born Between Piss and Shit; Kristina Estell: Cover

Despite limited hours, Art of This is becoming an important place to visit; these two very different installations show the range of the gallery. Jade Townsend is an Iowan who passed through Minneapolis at one point and now works in New York, where his crisp and often funny-though-harrowing building installations have gotten good reviews. Razor wire, all-white interiors, holes in the wall, some contradictory emotional play between humor and horror: familiar stuff but interesting in person. Kristina Estell, by contrast, produces emotionally distant but evocative and sensual installations based on the overwhelming presence of water and rock in her current home, Duluth. –Ann Klefstad, artwork: “Hey Hey Woody Guthrie I Wrote You A Song” by Jade Townsend

5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Art of This, 3506 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis, 612-721-4105.

BOOKS
Jeffrey Harrison

It’s always a good thing when poetry offers surprises. (It’s rarer than you might think — if in fact you think about poetry at all.) It’s also a good thing when poetry offers lucidity, music, and mystery in something like equal measure (also rarer than you might think). Jeffrey Harrison’s poetry offers all of those things with impressive regularity. The Singing Underneath was selected by James Merrill for the National Poetry Series in 1987. And since then, Harrison has had a very nice career, at least as far as careers in poetry go, with scads of prizes, fellowships, and teaching gigs, and the publication of his poems in such esteemed periodicals as The New Yorker and The Paris Review. His fourth book, The Names of Things: New and Selected Poems, was released last year, and we’re assuming that, like many poets of his stature, Harrison has a small but ardent cult of admirers. We’ll also assume that the rest of you have never heard of the fellow, which seems like a shame. –Brad Zellar

7:30 p.m., University of Minnesota’s Walter Library, the Upson Room, 117 Pleasant St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-624-0224.

MUSIC
George Avaloz

George Avaloz may have grown up in St. Paul’s West Side, but his drumming has toured the world. He has played with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, and Quincy Jones (which pretty much tells you all you need to know), and he even pulled a ten-year tour of duty with Billy Eckstine. Avaloz is among the best timekeepers and musical interpreters of the glory years of bebop and ballad jazz. Don’t miss out.

9 p.m., Artists’ Quarter, 408 St Peter St., St.Paul; 651-292-1359; $5.

TV
Chef Fogarty Behind the Scenes

When the Food Network came to town to shoot an episode of Dinner Impossible, they turned to new Napa Valley Grille Executive Chef Matthew Fogarty for support. Fogarty helped Robert Irvine find food and supplies for a Mall of America dinner for 250 people who had worked there for 15 years. The episode is called “Mall Madness“, and you can see it tonight (9 p.m. and midnight) on Food Network TV.