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  • Raging

    Something terrible happened to my family this week.

    What it is isn’t important, and I’m not being self-effacing when I say that. Individual calamities mean little but to the people who suffer them. Tragedies occur every day: Little children are struck by cars and killed; young people are diagnosed with hideous diseases; old people die after slowly losing their minds. We assume, generally, that this is the natural order of the world. It is only when it is happening to us that we object.

    There are those who learn to make peace with their suffering. They accept and accommodate and make alternate plans. This always reminds me of the maternity nurse who attended me when I was 21 and giving birth to a nine-and-a-half pound baby boy. "Just give in to the pain," she told me. "Work with it. Let it help you." Luckily, my husband at the time — a large man — stepped between us before I could kill her.

    And later, when that child was diagnosed with autism (the event which preceded, in many ways, the crisis that took place just three days ago), I read Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People. A rabbi, Kushner wrote this spiritual self-help manual after the death of his own son, Aaron, from progeria. He deconstructed the Book of Job, claiming it proved that God is both benevolent and fallible. To suffer, Kushner claimed, is simply to be fully human. The secret, he said — this man who certainly knows anguish — is to embrace one’s lot and look to God not for help but for strength.

    I tried to find solace in his words. But I couldn’t. Because no matter what the circumstances, I fight. Back in the early 90’s, I abandoned Kushner and read the works of a man whose outlook on the world rather frighteningly matched my own. A chronic philanderer and suicidal alcoholic, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas better captured my philosophy, then and now.

    So late yesterday afternoon, in the spirit of Thomas, I poured a glass of Elderton Shiraz 2003 well before the official cocktail hour. I didn’t like this wine, frankly. It’s pricey (a $40, 14% alcohol vintage that someone had given me as a gift) and I’ve no doubt it’s good by objective standards, but it was far too jammy and bold for me. Dark fruit and red licorice flavors marched across my palate like a high school band, raucous and insistent but with no refining grace. I like my wine more subtle — as you know — yet, in the tradition of DT, I drank steadily simply because the bottle was there.

    Then I read, as I have so many times:

    Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
    Because their words had forked no lightning they
    Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
    Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
    And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
    Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
    Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    And you, my father, there on the sad height,
    Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
    Do not go gentle into that good night.
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    And as they always have, these words gave me comfort. I’m a Jewish woman who doesn’t know from acceptance. But rage, I get.

  • We're Having a Party!

    SPECIAL EVENT
    Celebrate Theater All Year

    If you only do one thing this weekend, join us for a fabulous celebration of Theater All Year. Start the evening off by kicking back a few Newcastles and sampling the natural and organic victuals of Whole Foods. And then stick around for a presentation by The Lighthouse Group. An artist of the year, an Ivey Award honoree, a Mentor Award winner,
    two dancers, and a director will come together to present a clown act,
    a dance, and a new drama for the audience. The evening promises to be a hoot.
    (Want the celebration to last year round? Treat yourself or a friend to a 6-voucher Theater All Year
    package    , and check out the available performances.)

    Sunday at 5:30 (reception) and 7 p.m. (performance), Illusion Theater, 528 Hennepin Ave., Suite 704, Minneapolis; 612-339-4944; reception free, performance $12 (to reserve
    tickets, call Illusion Theater and use
    the codeword PARTY).

    FILM
    Cloverfield

    It looks like producer J. J. Abrams (the man behind Lost and Alias) took a few cues from legendary horror-meister Val Lewton. In Cloverfield,
    Abrams’s Godzilla-like monster wreaks havoc on New York City—except he
    does so at night, and we can’t see a damn thing except shadows and
    fleeting images of the beast as things blow apart, casting flickers of
    light on the carnage. Abrams understands, as did Lewton when he made The Curse of the Cat People
    some sixty-five years earlier, that imagination is the best special
    effect—and it’s cheap. The web is already alive with anticipation for
    this one. If the trailer is any indication of Cloverfield’s thrill-a-minute qualities, this should be one helluva popcorn flick. —Peter Schilling

    Area theaters.

    Walk into the Sea

    Be
    a part of the unveiling of a story that up until now has remained untold.
    A Walk Into the Sea is a bittersweet tale about the brief but brilliant
    life of Danny Williams, a man who was defined by his stunning work as
    a filmmaker in collaboration with the Warhol Factory. Williams
    made more than twenty films and designed light shows for the Velvet
    Underground, but his relationship with Warhol ran much deeper than that. Now his poetic life story is finally being told by his niece, filmmaker
    and director Esther B. Robinson. Robinson offers a glimpse into the
    life and works of Danny Williams, but if her documentary makes you crave
    more, then be sure to also explore Danny Williams’ Factory Films,
    a compilation of the films Williams produced while working under the
    Warhol Factory. —Kate Leibfried

    Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m., Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600; $8 (members $6).

    ART
    Closing this Weekend: Michael Kareken’s Urban Forest

    Scrap yards and paper recycling form Michael Kareken’s usual
    subjects (though he has other, more conventional ones as well—figures,
    usually); many of the works in this show depict the Rock-Tenn recycling
    yard near his studio. Tough-love limnings of crushed heaps evoke the
    huge stone Aphrodite that stood at the old Getty Museum on the Malibu
    cliffs, her voluminous draperies blown by a hurricane and torn and
    broken by two thousand years. The formal visual qualities of these raw
    heaps is exciting in itself, but Kareken also manages to infuse the
    drawings and paintings with the pathos of drapery—material that takes
    on the shape of that which it clothes, be it divine flesh, the force of
    tearing winds, or the mindless crush of waste. These scraps record the
    currents of our desires. —Ann Klefstad

    Friday 12-5 p.m. and Saturday 12-4 p.m., Groveland Gallery, 25 Groveland Terrace, Minneapolis; 612-377-7800.


    Opening this weekend: Dan Havel’s Open 24 Hours

    Dan Havel’s latest installation has been brewing for 14 years. Two years after leaving Minnesota for Houston, Texas, in 1991, Havel was working on a site-specific installation at an abandoned adult movie theater where he came across numerous old film reels. Over the past year, he has revisited these reels, pulling together a series of digital prints from the water-damaged ’70s porn films. The result is a fascinating fusion of decay and kitsch. "The colorful surfaces are cracked and scratched, with fractals of pooled emulsion intertwining and framing the various figures, stories, and locations in the films." Certainly not something you see every day, you won’t want to miss this.

    Saturday from 8 p.m. to Midnight, Icebox Gallery,1500 Jackson St. N.E., #442 & #443, Minneapolis; 612-788-1790.

    MUSIC
    Something for Everyone

    Lovers of the classics will delight in a perfect fusion of film and orchestra tonight (8 p.m.) at the Sounds of Cinema Festival, where the Minnesota Orchestra will accompany Chaplin’s City Lights — one of the best films of all time.

    Those looking for a some truly beautiful, indie-alt-folk vocal stylings should head to the Cedar tonight (8 p.m.) for the sweet, lulling songs of Haley Bonar and Pieta Brown. These sexy ladies are topped only by their fabulous voices and stellar song-writing.

    Saturday is Janis Joplin’s birthday, so if you’re up for some old-school ’60s rock, you should make your way to Mayslack’s Bar (9:30 p.m.) for a birthday extravaganza featuring Happy Birthday Janis! Several featured performers will pay tribute to the legend, including Monica Heuser and Jill Mikelson from the Ordway’s presentation of Love, Janis, and Andra Suchy and Kari Shaw from local country group The Dollys.

    Also on Saturday, Aaron
    Smith, Steve Tacheny, Tate Schoeberlein, and Chris Hansen of The Slack
    invite you to "a magical night of music and tomfoolery" at the Terminal Bar (9 p.m.).

    And on Sunday (4 p.m.), join gospel quintet The Steels in honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with a From Every Voice concert at Ted Mann Concert Hall.

     

  • Childhood … for Grownups

    Chuck & Buck, a somewhat underrated 2000 film that was one of the first major releases shot on digital video, revolves around Buck, a 27-year-old man (Mike White) who, for all intents and purposes, is an 11-year-old boy. He perpetually sucks on Blow Pops, fills his room with toys, wears ill-fitting windbreakers, and speaks to other adults in a simplistic, gee-whiz monotone. The story begins with the death of Buck’s mother, a tragedy that sends him in pursuit of a childhood friend, an LA music producer named Chuck (Chris Weitz), with a stalker’s determination. Buck is clearly not developmentally challenged; he simply seems to be stuck in a time warp set to the years he and Chuck played make believe. A ridiculous tale? Perhaps. Yet, while Buck may seem an implausible character, there are, in fact, adults in real life — fully functioning members of society who are well educated and can live independently — who pursue the articles, activities, and attitudes of childhood with more dedication than most actual tykes.

    One case study of this, a prominent Minnesotan who, sadly, died last August, would rightly be called the ultimate pursuer of this strange approach to life. For starters, his name was Joybubbles. He loved stories and had imaginary friends. And he was an avid fan of Mister Rogers and similar shows, as well as an incessant collector of toys, dolls, and other playthings, listing his age as "five" until the day he died, at 58. All this despite the fact that he was once a graduate student in philosophy with an IQ of 172, who could imitate the analog dial tone that used to be a fixture of the phone system. It was this last talent that briefly brought him international fame as the grandfather of a short-lived movement known as phone phreaking.

    Blind since birth, Joybubbles entered this world as Josef Engressia in 1949, in Richmond, Virginia. In 1991, he legally changed his name to Joybubbles, which he happened upon several years earlier at a motivational seminar in Minneapolis. The leader of the conference asked attendees to describe themselves in one word. The first thing that came out of Engrassia’s head was "Joybubbles!" This confabulation gave the participant so much reason for living, he applied it to all unofficial and official documents, including his social security card.

    The reason behind this alias, and Joybubbles’ fixation on collecting Raggedy Ann dolls, Curious George books, and Sesame Street episodes, was borne out of a desire to recapture the childhood he felt he never had, and to escape the adult world he no longer wished to be a part of. "Childhood is a protected status," says Ross MacDonald, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, "No one really expects anything of you. It’s a time of fun and frivolity, at least in theory. Someone uninterested in the pressures and responsibilities of adult life, and there is no natural reason to want them, would likely find childhood a fairly palatable state."

    A quite unpalatable past drove Joybubbles’ infatuation: the sexual abuse he suffered when he was actually a child. According to longtime friend and executor of his estate, Steven Gibb, young Josef’s mother refused to believe her son’s reports about the molestation he experienced at the hands of a nun, who was also one of his grade school teachers. Consequently, as the years went by, mother and son would become so estranged that they ceased direct communication, using his father and later, following his death, his equally blind sister as go-betweens for messages.

    Another source of the friction between child and parent, and a driving force in Joybubbles’ need to make up for lost kid time, was the isolation that he felt from other children, thanks to his ability to read at an advanced level and enjoy cultural pursuits far above his age group. The latter, above all, included phone phreaking, which involved duplicating the tones that connected long-distance numbers, thus allowing the phreak (a hybrid of the words "phone" and "freak") to make long-distance calls without the phone company making a record and charging the caller.

    This bizarre hobby was made possible when human switchboard operators were replaced by automated systems that relied on tones. From the late ‘40s through the mid-‘70s, the telephone network relied upon a 2600 Hertz, or Hz, tone to indicate when a long-distance trunk line was idle, and used pulses of 2600 Hz to send dialing information. Most phone phreaks needed mechanical whistles to duplicate this sound (this included one acclaimed individual called Captain Crunch, so named after the cereal, whose whistle prize he used to imitate the tone), but Joybubbles, who was born with perfect pitch, could do so simply with his mouth.

    It’s not hard to see the members of this niche movement as antecedents of today’s computer hackers. In fact, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple, started out as participants in this game. Phil Lapsley, an Oakland, California author who is currently working on a book about phone phreaks, claims: "Phone phreaking and hacking started to intertwine in the 1970s as computers became more widespread. Many of the skills that made one a good phone phreak also made one a good hacker. If you can understand how the telephone system works, you can probably understand how computers work, too."

    As it happens, Joybubbles was one phreak who did not join the computer revolution, in no small part because he was blind. Even when Jaws and other audio systems enabled the visually impaired to use the technology in as sophisticated a manner as sighted people, and e-mail accounts could be had via telephone, Joybubbles, following a brief dalliance with the internet in the late ‘90s, never developed an interest in it. But, in the era of phreaking, he amassed an impressive "rap sheet" — ever since the day in 1957 when the eight-year-old Josef Engressia discovered that whistling the fourth E above middle C would stop a dialed phone recording. This went on until the end of the ‘60s, when, as a graduate student in Tennessee, he was given a suspended sentence for malicious mischief after making long-distance calls for friends at a dollar a minute.

    Engressia became such a celebrated member of this cult that an NBC Nightly News report featured him on November 27, 1968 — a clip of which can be found on YouTube and which is likely the only visual documentation of his life available to the public. He was also the inspiration for the blind character of Whistler, played by David Strathairn in the 1992 movie Sneakers.

  • An American Truth

    There are those, here in Boston, who will say that Paul Revere never made his historic Midnite Ride, that he actually sent a neighbor to warn the countryside. And some people will giggle at your naïvety when you mention the Boston TEA Party, as if everyone should be so silly to think that it was actually tea being stored in those rum barrels.

    It’s enough to shake a history buff. But if you run back to your historic hotel, where you decide to take refuge in culinary history, you might not be comforted.

    I admit that part of the reason I chose to stay at the Parker House was because it was the birthplace of the Parker House Roll and the Boston Creme Pie. I can put up with tiny, cramped, stodgy rooms and early morning construction noise as long as I can get a bite of the past.

    I wasn’t expecting much from the rolls. After all, they’re white dinner rolls. But after having to actually pay extra to add one to my meal, the forthcoming roll wasn’t even warm. And you’d think an icon would deserve to be accompanied by more than just a common foil wrapped chunk of frozen butter. Was a small dish of whipped and salted butter simply too much to ask for a national treasure?

    And still, it got worse. It turns out that the place which claims honor for the original Boston Creme Pie (a true inspiration for doughnut eaters everywhere) has done the unthinkable: THEY’VE CHANGED THE RECIPE. Instead of a classic 1855 dessert of dense cake and custard, covered with a deeply chocolate ganache, we now have a fluffy, spongy thing covered with coconut and drizzled with white chocolate in a modern spidery design.

    And so you lose a little religion.

    But I did find faith again in a little restaurant called The Ivy, tucked away down an alley off of Boston Commons. It’s an Italian small-plate restaurant with a nice wine list: any glass $9, any bottle $26. We showed up a little late and asked if the kitchen was still open. The manager at the front was nice enough to run downstairs to check. As we settled into a booth, resigned that we were going to get a glass of wine regardless, he came to inform us that the kitchen had closed. I asked if there was even any bread we could snack on, and he again ran down to check.

    Upon his return he informed us that, although he couldn’t cook anything from the grill or the fryer, he’d be happy to whip us up a salad or make something from the saute side. We said we’d be happy with just about anything and would take what ever was easiest. When he suggested the bolognese and brought it to us within a minute, it hit us like a ton of bricks…"Is this supposed to be YOUR dinner?" He had given us the meal prepared for himself. As restaurant people, we all knew the value of sitting down for a hot meal after a night on the floor, shuffling plates, dealing with guests, running up and down stairs … sometimes that meal is the only thing that keeps you going.

    Of course we protested, and of course he wouldn’t take it back, claiming he ate it every night and could use a break from it. Wide, flat pasta was richly covered in a pink veal and pork ragu. The soft meat was perfectly done and not a bit greasy, like some bolo can be. With a bite of pasta it was almost creamy, yet subtly tangy with just a touch of red pepper. We ate it hungrily and gratefully. We drank our wine and vented our lives and tipped graciously.

    That bolognese is my new Boston icon.

  • Don't Call Me Sweetheart

    I just picked up my two children from their school-supported daycare, at which time a young woman put her finger in the air and motioned for me to have a moment with her. I stepped aside and proceeded to listen to her complain that my son had been calling her, and other students and teachers, "sweetheart." She told me that she and some of the other students did not appreciate it, and that this behavior was unacceptable.

    I know my face must have resonated with a "you must be fucking kidding" look. Sweetheart! He’s five. If it is not endearing and humorous, it certainly cannot be very disruptive.

    I wanted to to tell her that "bitch" and "my ass" are bad words, but "sweetheart" has no malice. One can deduce bad intent if it comes from a greasy man at a bar, but my son is a cute 43-pound Guatemalan boy. (By the way, when I asked him to get on the scale, he said, "OK, honey.")

    I am so taken aback that this women has nothing better to do than to rat on a little boy who is trying to be funny. I informed her that there are a lot more destructive behaviors to focus on than a child saying "sweetheart." This daycare worker just would not let it go. She argued that if she or any children did not want to be called sweetheart by my son, he should follow their wishes, and that this needed to be addressed.

    I don’t know what makes me more angry — the fact that this woman is just being STUPID (a word my son is not using) or the long-term effect of not letting a five-year-old be OK with who he is. What’s next? Not using the word "love" or "friend"? No, I know: the word "honey."

  • Spaghetti Red and a Seductive Nose

    "Don’t you find," he said, "that there’s a funny taste of
    chicken coops in Rhone wines? Especially Beaucastel."

    "Chicken coops?" Was he pulling my leg?

    "Even the great wines, you know, have a whiff of chicken
    coops. It’s well known."

    I offered him a glass of the Beaucastel. I tasted it
    again, now frantically looking for traces of sublimated chicken coops. The
    waiter winked at me, was he suggesting I’d been had?

    "Taste it?" he said. "A bit poopy, eh?

    "Well, I said, "maybe I can taste chicken coops."

    I couldn’t taste anything of the sort. But we swirled and
    sipped and agreed that the chicken-coop element gave the wine its complexity."

    Lawrence Osborne, The Accidental Connoisseur, North Point Press, 2004.

    Whenever I read those florid descriptions of wines – "a
    direct and seductive nose overflowing with floral notes, gingerbread, cocoa,
    candied cherries, a mouth which is spherical, sexy, fleshy –     , in wine
    reviews or on those little tags at the wine store, I have two reactions:

    1)
    I wish I could write like that.

    2)
    Are these guys just making that stuff up?

    I’ll admit it, I’m no expert on wines. I know what I like –
    big, full-bodied reds, mostly – but unlike my esteemed colleague Ann Bauer, I
    don’t have much of a vocabulary to talk about it. And I can appreciate the
    difference between a $10 bottle of Cabernet and a $50 bottle, but I usually
    don’t think the difference in experience is worth paying for – at least if I am
    paying. And when I see a $50 price tag on a bottle of wine, I also start
    thinking about people who don’t earn $50 a month.

    My wine career has been a never-ending search for cheap
    drinkable plonk. In the 80s and 90s, it was focused on the wines of Romania,Il Circo Ruche
    Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia – remember Avia and Premiat? , These days it
    has shifted mostly to Spain, and the garnachas and tempranillos and monastrells
    in the back left corner of Hennepin-Lake Liquors.

    Every once in a while, though, a cheap wine jumps out at me
    as something out of the ordinary. I first discovered
    Bonny Doon 2003 "Il Circo" Ruche
    di Castagnole Monferrato     on a wine list at Taste Wine
    Bar (that quirky little spot hidden inside The Newsroom), and liked it so much
    that I started looking for it, with no luck, at local bottle shops. Then, last
    week, I stopped in at Gigi’s for their happy hour, and lo and behold, the
    featured $3 happy hour red is Il Circo Ruche.

    I happily drink a
    glass and a half, and return the next night for Gigi’s Thursday night cheap
    date spaghetti special – two plates of spaghetti, garlic toast, and a bottle of
    wine for $25. The spaghetti was great -the red sauce with spicy meatballs
    robustly spicy (vegetarian also available), and the noodles actually al dente.

    And sure enough, the red wine was Il Circo Ruche. This time
    around, I tried to figure out just what it is that I like so much about the wine,
    put it into words, but I got absolutely nowhere. I try out all
    those words that wine writers use – blackberries, leather, hints of cinnamon
    and passionfruit, but none of them seem to fit,. Mainly, it seems complex but
    balanced, but that doesn’t say very much.

    The label on the
    bottle said that ripe Ruche was redolent with roses, but I couldn’t for the life of me smell anything
    that tastes like roses. Complicating things further, Carol, who was sharing the
    bottle with me, didn’t taste anything special about this bottle at all. So I
    cork up the last quarter of the bottle, and bring it the next day to Ann, who
    really is good at describing wines. "Cherry and cassis with a touch of
    dark honey;" Ann reported back the next day," a resinous flavor that becomes cigar-like as it warms; undertones
    of earth, but very dark, no peat at all.
    A dry, almost dusty finish. That
    thing about roses? I didn’t get it at
    all — unless you count the dusty, earthy scent and flavor, which reminds me of
    DECAYING roses."

    A tip from a friend research led me to Robin Garr’s
    wineloverspage.com, where Robin Garr’s posted his 2005 tasting notes on the
    Bonny Doon Il Circo Ruche, "an Italian red grape so obscure that it’s only
    grown in a few small villages in the Castagnole Monferrato hills northeast of
    Asti in Piemonte."

    Wrote Garr: "This is a very dark purple wine with a bright
    reddish-violet edge. Luscious aromas offer a benchmark example of Ruche with a
    heady, rosy floral scent accented with warm brown spice. Rich and full in
    flavor, tart red fruit and spice, mouth-filling and plushy on first impression,
    but a firm core of acidity carries it into a clean, medium-long finish, with an
    unusual, intriguing hint of caraway seed and light tannic bitterness
    lingering."

    So Robin Garr did discover the rosy floral scent in 2005,
    but Ann and I couldn’t detect it in 2008, That actually makes sense, since Garr
    predicted that the floral scents would soon fade from the young wine.

    Of course, there are lots of factors that influence how we experience the taste of wine, as this story from Bloomberg News illustrates:

    "Volunteers in California who were given sips of wines with
    fake prices said they preferred the cabernets they thought were
    more expensive to the ones they thought were cheaper about 80
    percent of the time, according to the study published … in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…. In a follow-up experiment eight weeks after the original
    study, patients were given the wines to taste without any
    suggested prices. Most chose the $5 wine as their favorite, (a researcher) said."

  • Heartland Wonders

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Particularly in the Heartland

    Part of the Walker’s Out There festival of experimental theater, this show, by a youthful New York City ensemble called the TEAM (Theater of the Emerging American Moment)
    defies rampant cynicism by presenting a work of resounding optimism.
    Set in Kansas, the action unfolds within an evangelical household. The
    parents have just been killed by an awful Kansan storm, but the
    children believe the rapture has taken them. What’s surprising about
    this work, especially in this age marked by Colbert Report satire,
    is how the TEAM avoids irony in painting its portrait of the earnest,
    often anti-intellectual culture of Evangelicalism. Instead, their
    feel-good show teems with rigorous dance and movement, sincere
    character study, and even wholesome Stephen Foster songs. —Christy DeSmith

    8 p.m., McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600; $20 (members $16 & $14).

     

    PERFORMANCE
    The Force Is With You


    Fun equals…physics? For
    all of you non-believers out there, here is a show that is out to prove
    that physics is not the stuff of long lectures and tedious equations,
    but the stuff of zip and pizzazz! Physics Force, an entertaining
    physics demonstration team from the University of Minnesota, will perform
    their annual Physics Circus today in Northrop Auditorium. This
    is a unique opportunity for people of all ages to learn a little more
    about the face-paced world of physics and to be entertained at the same
    time. Be sure to get there early because tickets are free and
    there’s a high probability that this show is going to generate some
    electricity! —Kate Leibfried

    7 p.m., Northrop Auditorium, 84 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-624-2345;

    free.

    SPECIAL EVENT
    Jazz, Art, and Wine

    Join us for Gallery Grooves, The Rake’s monthly art, jazz, and
    wine event. Socialize and discuss the latest jazz with Kevin Barnes
    from KBEM, view artwork for sale, and enjoy wine info and sampling courtesy of The Wine Company. This
    month, view illustrative paintings by Joel Barkley at the Minneapolis
    School of Flower Design. Barkley’s collection of artworks, both fantasy
    and realism, represent a sampling of his imagination. —Jennifer Havrish

    7 p.m., Minneapolis School of Flower Design, 79 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 877-322-5666.

    MUSIC
    Old School Freight Train

    Acoustic music is undergoing a revitalization.
    Look out! It’s a bird. It’s a… train? Well, sort of. Old School Freight Train is the name of an up-and-coming acoustic band
    that is playing at the Cedar tonight. The band
    combines thought-provoking lyrics with captivating melodies, soulful
    vocals, virtuosi instrumentals, and imaginative arrangements. Blending
    folk, jazz, soul, pop, bluegrass, Latin, and Celtic, Old School Freight
    Train offers a unique musical experience. Just like the locomotive
    in the 19th century, Old School Freight Train is being called
    the "next big thing," and it would be a shame to miss this exceptional
    musical performance. —Kate Leibfried

    7:30, The Cedar Cultural Center, 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-388-2674; $17.

     

  • The Strip Club Steak House

    Thanks to Rich Goldsmith for the use of his camera, and for his photos.

    The Strip Club finally opened last night in Saint Paul, and while it perhaps lacked the expected tits-and-ass show, many a mouth was watering throughout the evening.

    I must confess, I had absolutely no intention of going — after all, this is Iggers and Bauer turf I’m stomping on here, and they’re hardly run-of-the-mill opponents. But several email exchanges later (the power of the internet), I found myself with boots in hand. Maybe I was swayed by the misguided idea that three or more people wanted to see me. (I’m sure they hardly cared, but it’s so hard to tell with you stoic Minnesotans. Perhaps it’s merely a convenience to think so.) Maybe I finally caved into a self-imposed sense of responsibility to get out more and offer first-hand accounts. Or maybe I just needed a drink.

    Thanks to Max Sparber and Courtney Mault, I got one. (And you can blame them, and a few other, for this post you’re getting as a result.)

    The Strip Club — a joint venture between Tim Niver (who greeted us with great enthusiasm) and Aaron Johnson, of the Town Talk Diner, and Chef J.D. Fratzke, previously of Muffuletta — sits in Dayton’s Bluff, on the corner of Maria and 6th Street. The space is beautiful, charming, in fact — smaller and far more refined than the Town Talk, with the elegance of Muffuletta. The main level has a beautiful bar in which I could easily see finding a regular stool, and somewhere around 10-12 tables from which to choose. The decor is simple and elegant — white painted brick loosely speckled with mirrors (a wise choice given the relatively narrow quarters).

    To the left of the entrance, however, stands a quaint old spiral staircase leading to the sweet-spot of the house. The second level, a balcony of sorts, overlooks the main floor, gives a fabulous sense of privacy (despite the fact that it contains almost as many tables as its lower half), and brandishes many fine points to admire: a wall of varied glasses (which for reasons I cannot explain, I found quite beautiful); an ornate, seemingly iron, black railing (matching the staircase); and a fireplace embedded into an actually functional door.

    This is not the most flattering photo (everyone looks so mean), but you’ll notice the fireplace mantle behind Courtney (left). Try to ignore the hideous blue ribbon on the plant — the only touch of gaudiness to be found. That entire wall panel, upon which the mantle is built, opens up into another room behind it. It is, in fact, a big square door. Precious!

     

    The menu.

    Drinks first, of course. The drink menu boasts numerous prohibition-era cocktails: the Joker, the Sidecar, the Old Fashioned — all quite good, though at your typical $8-a-pop prices. Two beers on tap — a great blonde (also at $8) and an unconvincing porter (with a strangely bitter afterbite). Numerous bottled beers. And a great looking, somewhat modest, wine list. The wine list actually surprised me by not emulating every other wine list in town. A nice selection indeed.

    The food.

     

    I’ll go anywhere for a good glass of wine with escargot. When I was three years old I took my own bag of snails (from the beach) to a restaurant in Spain and asked them to cook them for me. The waiter took the bag, winking at my bewildered mother, and brought me out a dish of their escargot — which I eagerly devoured, thinking they were mine.

    The Strip Club escargot did not disappoint — though, I must say, it’s almost a crime to not serve some bread with which to wipe the plate. (The bread is a bit pricey at $4 a plate — which includes about five pieces.)

    This is, of course, just one of many Small Plates offered on the menu — making that regular stool at the bar that much more desirable.

    The Lady’s Night Shrimp Scampi, served in a champagne glass, was quite good. And the deviled eggs have a wonderfully spicy touch of curry and chili oil.

    Max went nuts over the whole scallions served with the Ploughman’s Lunch — essentially a port wine cheese plate. At least this came with crackers. And the crackers were quite wonderful, though oddly, despite their perfect plainness, they seemed to overwhelm the cheese.

    I didn’t try any of the main courses — no strip steak for me — but those that did seemed more than satisfied.

    The set-up is great. Steaks come with a choice of eight different toppings (or none, like the one above) — ideal for all tastes. A couple members of our party raved about their steaks, while one lone member seemed unimpressed. "It’s ok." (More stoicism perhaps?)

    The burgers were a hit all around.

    Cooked to perfection. It’s nice when medium really means medium.

     

    If presentation were everything, I’d have to give it up to the dessert.

    Our party ordered this beautiful pear dish.
    But when it came time to actually eat it…

    They had a little trouble getting the forks in. The pear wasn’t cooked, you see; and pears aren’t exactly the softest of fruits. I’d guess a little baking time — perhaps poaching to preserve the juices — would soften it up, bring out the flavor, and better swathe the chocolate at the core.

    Overall, the experience was delightful: the space charming, the drinks intoxicating (and, yes, delicious), the food satisfying, the presentation all-around lovely, and the service absolutely fabulous — but, judging from Tim’s visits to the table and a final round of shots on the house, I gather we may have had somewhat special treatment. A smart man (men, actully, since the other owners were involved), indeed. It’s never a bad idea to treat a group of local bloggers well on opening night! Never a bad idea at all. See for yourself: Aaron’s post, Ed’s post, and Courtney’s photos. Trust me, their photos are far better than the ones here. (Sorry, Rich. Don’t take it personally. Your camera has a better sense of humor.)

  • A Dream Deferred

    It was difficult to sleep, yet almost impossible to move. It was easy to be irritated about everything that was of no consequence, yet care about nothing that mattered.

    —Richard Flanagan, The Unknown Terrorist

    There is no love. There is only proof of love.

    —Denis Diderot, or maybe Jean Cocteau

    One of the firemen from the station across the alley was peeking in Katherine’s windows. She could hear the crinkle of his heavy yellow coat and the tread of his big rubber boots tramping through her garden, where for years the firemen had been stealing tomatoes and zucchini in the moonlight.

    This one, the peeker –Katherine had never actually seen him, yet she nonetheless had a clear image in her mind– was a big fellow, sturdy, and modestly handsome, but old as far as firemen go. She imagined he’d fallen through a roof or two.

    Katherine had been a thin, graceful dancer in her younger days, but she’d recently been gaining weight.

    Things didn’t always –or even often– turn out the way that people planned. Katherine’s father, who was certainly living proof of this fact, took every opportunity to remind her of it nonetheless. He wasn’t a cold or mean-spirited man –quite the contrary, in fact– and Katherine understood that he intended the words to buoy rather than discourage her. She couldn’t deny, though, that she was feeling a bit discouraged, but she was also a deeply practical woman, and had a keen understanding (or so she believed) of the way the world worked.

    Still, she knew that she had lost her life, or at least any life other than the one she had. Her father had always told her that it was never too late, and while this may have been literally true, she also knew that she had become a special case. She was more and more convinced that she was slowly being washed out, becoming invisible.

    At some point –it now seemed like such a long time ago– her mother had become ill. She had died very slowly, and afterwards Katherine had stayed on to look after her father and keep him company. This was the way the world in which she lived worked, and she had always accepted that there was a rightness to it. The usual horrors were easier to bear when one had the courage and decency to do the right, simple things, even if they were seldom so simple.

    She still carried the life she had once imagined inside her, and it was still as beautiful as it had ever been, and likely more beautiful than it would have been if even a small part of it had been made real. Those old dreams, however, had become in time a very real retreat, and at considerable cost to Katherine’s social skills and comfort level when forced to go out into the world.

    She still had her piles of old movies, fashion magazines, and travel brochures, though, and there was still a magic to them that even her retreat had not been able to dispel. She could still quite vividly imagine herself aboard cruise ships and strolling through foreign cities with a smiling, handsome man at her side.

    Katherine had now been alone in the big, old house since her father died. The calendar on the kitchen wall still showed the month of his death. It had been almost five years, and she still missed his gentle voice, kindness, and old fashioned manners. In the year before his death he had been bedridden, and Katherine would read to him from the newspaper and from his old favorite books. He loved Sherlock Holmes and Trollope. When she would appear each afternoon with his tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich he would kiss her on the cheek and say, "Don’t you just carry a candle to my heart?"

    Her father worried about her. Once upon a time he had built her a large, ornate dollhouse –she was a girl who had from a very early age rejected dolls, dismissing them as "dead children"– and had presented it to her for her birthday one year.

    The dollhouse was a beautiful thing. There were tiny chairs and tables and four-poster beds; above the dining room table there was a miniature chandelier, and the living room featured a fireplace and candlesticks on the mantle, a detailed oriental rug, and a coffee table on which were stacked tiny books and magazines. There was even a coat rack inside the front door.

    "Who lives here?" Katherine had asked her father.

    "That is for you to decide," her father said. "In the meantime, you will live there in your imagination, and every night there will be music and lively conversation and all manner of happiness."

    One side of the dollhouse was wide open, and when she was a little girl Katherine would crouch beside it in her bedroom and stare into its still, dark, quiet rooms. It was lovely to her, but there was something about it that also made her sad.

    Then one summer she started capturing grasshoppers in the weedy lot of the old abandoned Mormon church at the end of her block, and she would carry the grasshoppers home and place them gently in her dollhouse. She went to the public library and read about grasshoppers in the encyclopedia, and scattered green grass and carrot shavings and green peas and corn throughout the rooms of the dollhouse. She lined one of the four-poster beds with grass, and was delighted to discover a grasshopper drowsing contentedly in the middle of a bed one evening.

    Katherine brought home more and more grasshoppers, and they would always disappear after a time, but there were nights where her dollhouse would be trilling into the early morning with their lovely music, just as her father had once predicted.

    As she got older, and particularly after her mother’s death, Katherine’s father would often tell her that she needed to get out and meet people. She would answer that she’d never met anyone in her entire life, a petulant statement that nonetheless had some truth to it.

    She was shy, and had always believed that she would find her future, and whatever friends she might one day make, somewhere else out in the world. She had never liked to go to church with her parents because there was never anyone there that she knew.

    She did take dance lessons for a year or two, studying with an old woman who lived in town and had allegedly once danced on Broadway. Katherine had displayed a natural aptitude for dance, and she had enjoyed the experience and the freedom she felt when she was moving. Eventually, however, she danced exclusively in the privacy of her bedroom, dancing to songs on her phonograph and practicing to to be the person she never became.

    One night, after the fireman –whose presence she had still only sensed, but never seen– had been peeking in her windows for several weeks, Katherine realized that she was just lost enough to be stirred by the attention. She was simultaneously tickled and disturbed by how stirred she felt. She felt for the first time in a very long while like a candle had been carried to her heart. The idea that she was being watched, that someone was seeing her, recalled to her the private magic of those long-ago nights when the music of the grasshoppers had filled her room and she had fallen asleep with her head full of beautiful dreams.

    Katherine showered, brushed her hair, and went to the hall closet and found her mother’s prettiest dress. She dug out and lit some ancient Christmas candles. And then she put one of her father’s old Strauss records on her phonograph player and she danced.

  • The Three Pointer: Not Enough Talent

    AP Photo/Jim Mone

    Game #37, Home Game #18: Golden State 105, Minnesota 98

    Season record: 5-32

    1. Low IQ. Low skill level. Low chance of winning.

    All things being equal, the Minnesota Timberwolves without Randy Foye and Theo Ratliff, opposing the Golden State Warriors on a sub-zero January night having already clearly established themselves as the worst team in the NBA, will lose to the Golden State Warriors.

    Well, all things were essentially equal tonight. Al Jefferson and Rashad McCants were off their games a bit, but Antoine Walker emerged from a long slump, Ryan Gomes continued his solid play, and I thought Randy Wittman both coached well and summed up the defeat in a succinct, intelligent fashion from the postgame podium. Or maybe this loss sort of blurs into the other 31 because I’m just not inspired enough to hash out particularly innovative nuggets of wisdom that seem particularly different than the various recaps of so many other games. This wasn’t a special loss in that it was a tough, close encounter or a monster blowout, or that one particular facet of the other team was vitally important or one particular player on the Wolves was the giant goat. So rather than pretend we’re doing depth tonight, let’s just wing it with the impressions and see what happens.

    But first, Wittman’s take. Asked about the large disparity in backcourt performance (Monta Ellis and Baron Davis were a combined 39 points, 6 rebounds, 13 assists, 5 steals and 4 turnovers in 73:34, versus Telfair-Jaric being 16-7-11-2-6 in 70:05), Witt rued the decision-making. "We talked before the game about how they are the number one team for turning turnovers into points," he stated, noting that the Wolves coughed the ball up 20 times, costing them a whopping 31 points, 13 more, in a 7-point loss, than Golden State yielded via its 12 turnovers. His troops were committing the kind of turnovers that result in 3-on-1 breaks in transition, Witt lamented, then shrewdly observed that instead of making the extra, safer pass, "we tried to split the seams with our passes" and the seams weren’t there.

    Without calling anyone out by name, Wittman cited the dumb inbounds pass McCants made that was stolen by Baron Davis in the last 4 seconds of the third period and transformed into a layup by Matt Barnes just before the buzzer. This concluded a sequence where, after McCants drove for a layup to cut the lead to 10 with 1:08 left in the third, the Warriors scored 7 straight points to bump it to 17 at the conclusion of the quarter. Witt also called out the turnover spree after the Wolves had whittled the lead back down to 4, 96-92, with 4:11 to play. McCants had his shot blocked, Walker committed an offensive foul, and Jaric was called for a carry, a borderline whistle after a series of inept calls that prompted Wittman to earn a technical.

    2. The Little Two

    Normally the big two, at least in terms of scoring, Jefferson and McCants both had off nights. Shaddy’s was by far the more obvious. On a day when the Strib had spotlighted his inconsistency in a feature piece,he showcased most of his flaws, including the stupid fouls–ladled with an increasing sense of victimization that is at once partially accurate and conveniently overblown in his own mind and emotions–the holding of the ball in the half-court, the silly turnovers, and the sporadic bouts of energy and lethargy. It all amounted to 11 points in 30:12, albeit with 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a team-best plus-minus of zero, which only makes the time he is forced to sit on the bench more aggravating. When he grabbed his second foul with 3:23 to play in the first, for instance, the Wolves scored a mere 4 points in the next 5 minutes, turning a one point lead into a 5 point deficit in the process before Walker went on one of his handful of personal mini-runs (he finished with 26 points).

    Jefferson had better numbers: 18 points on 7-14 FG, and 14 rebounds, but Wittman didn’t like his lack of aggressiveness looking for his own shot. "Al let them off the hook too much in the first half," said the coach. "No offense to anyone, but if [Al] can get Austin Croshere [guarding him], he’s got to back him down and put it in the basket." Jefferson was a game-worst minus -19, Croshere a game-best plus +17. Actually, Jefferson looked for his own shot more in the first half, when he was 4-10 FG, versus the second half, when, despite 3 offensive rebounds, he only launched 4 shots, making 3. Yes, ‘Toine was rightly the focal point of the offense, but no way Jefferson should be tied with Marko Jaric as the team’s fifth most-frequent shooter in the second half, especially against a paint-challenged squad like Golden State. (For the record, ‘Toine had 9 second half shots, Shaddy and Gomes 7 apiece, and Telfair 6.)

    For what it’s worth, Jefferson ducked the media after the game. He follows the now standard custom of not wanting to conduct postgame interviews until he is fully dressed. He came out, put on his pants, then went back into the trainer’s area. A few minutes later, a Wolves’ locker room assistant came out and scooped up the rest of his clothes. Jefferson still hadn’t emerged by the time almost all the media had gone.

    3. Quick Hits

    ‘Toine’s breakout game was his first bout of productivity in weeks. Because both he and Gomes understand how to play the game so thoroughly, they are fun to watch, but recently only Gomes has been able to take what he sees the opponent giving him–‘Toine simply hasn’t executed. But Golden State’s fly by night D has a tendency to heal all slumps. Playing at the power forward slot, ‘Toine already is a natural floor spacer, causing mismatches either on the perimeter on down low and finding the open man or making a team pay for whatever mismatch they choose. Tonight he shot 4-5 FG from down low, especially little turnaround jumpers spinning baseline on the left block, and 3-4 from beyond the arc. Half of his 26 points came in the fourth quarter, when he went 5-5 FG. He also snatched 10 rebounds, second only to Jefferson among all players on both squads. But zero assists, because, as with Jefferson, the Warriors weren’t emphasizing the double team.

    Corey Brewer may be hitting the proverbial rookie wall, usually judged to begin slightly before or after the midpoint of the 82 game season. Yes, I know Brewer’s minutes have been cut, but it isn’t the game-time lack of energy so much as the constant practicing, travel, level of competition, and, in Brewer’s case, all the losing. A key point in tonight’s game occurred when Brewer subbed in after McCants’ third foul with 6:13 to play in the second and the score tied. Mickeal Pietrus proceeded to school him for a trey, reverse lay-up and alley oop dunk in the next 1:48, compelling Wittman to utilize a quick hook and bring in Greg Buckner. That followed a desultory first quarter stint where Brewer committed a turnover and a foul in his first 70 seconds of action. For the game he had one missed shot, one assist, one block, three fouls, two turnovers and was a minus -12 in just 8:24 of action.

    Asked what happened in the Brewer-Pietrus matchup, Wittman said the difference was "just experience. I would be comfortable putting Corey on him again." But 8:24 proves he was not comfortable with it–and appropriately so–tonight.

    The referees were horrible. The worst display was a no-call on a breakaway layup where Stephen Jackson clearly travelled, but there were a bevy of others. McCants and Craig Smith both got jobbed and then had reason to overreact to all the legit fouls called upon them–there is a reason they lead the team in whistle frequency. But what was also telling is McCants getting whistled for pretending like he was going to fling the ball into the stands, a situation where he seemed as mad at himself as at the refs; versus the veteran Walker screaming at them for no calls during a rebounding scrum and getting only a delay of game for tossing
    the ball away. The terrible crew: James Capers, Scott Foster, and Tommy Nunez Jr.

    While I laughed at Gerald Green running around like a chicken with his head cut off while constantly looking to the bench for instruction on defense, GG went plus +10 during his 8:25 on the court–not coincidentally spent almost entirely with Walker.

    Sebastian Telfair is dinged up, perhaps his back. Teammates took turns holding on to his arms and gently lowering him to the floor (instead of a chair) during his times on the sidelines.