The Rake Magazine

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  • The Office Monkey Continues

    I’m guessing this doesn’t look like your day at work.

  • Nau: Commerce Meets Conservation

    The website for Nau, a new-fangled “green” clothing company, is winning all sorts of awards. And some of their practices — such as small-footprint stores and discounts on orders shipped directly from their warehouse — seem right. But can ecologically-aware rhetoric explain the $40 sailor’s cap?

  • Now at Schiek's: Grade A Meat

    True story.

    Back in the mid-90’s, my friend M. got married. I didn’t much like the guy — he was shifty and weird — and for his bachelor party, his "friends" took him to a club downtown, where an exotic dancer slid her way across the bar, presented her spangled G-string to accept his $100 bill, and whispered in his ear that he was the hottest guy there (I assure you, he was not). Why do I know this? Because he was so proud he told everyone, including his wife-to-be.

    A year later, M. noticed money was disappearing from their joint accounts. I mean pouring out. At first, she thought her husband had a drug habit. No. He was back at that joint where the dancer — Trudy, he knew her quite well by now — would tell him almost nightly what a studly man he was. It helped him feel confident, he explained to M. The attention he received from Trudy was good for their married sex life, he insisted.

    Now, imagine if he’d been able to say, "Honey, I’m only going for the food — this place has the most amazing steaks. Why don’t you come with me next time? You’ll love their Cobb Salad." M. and her husband might still be married today!

    Someone finally caught on to this; the day when you can get a lap dance along with a juicy sirloin has arrived. Just as Playboy runs breakthrough interviews and short stories by the likes of Joyce Carol Oates among the cheesecake photos of women touching one another in forbidden places, savvy upscale adult entertainment purveyors, such as the Penthouse in Manhattan, are incorporating haute cuisine. Locally, Schiek’s Palace Royale — easily the classiest, most upscale strip club in town — is opening a high-end restaurant called The Kitchen, where restaurant owner Mike Stone promises to serve steaks on par with Manny’s and seafood akin to that at Oceanaire.

    "Our clientele is upper middle-class and higher," Stone says. "They’re spending $15 on a single cocktail. Weekdays, we get mostly business travelers with corporate American Express cards. These are people who can afford really good food."

    For years, Schiek’s has allowed customers to bring food in from downtown restaurants, then charged $20 to $50 (depending, Vegas-style, on how "good" the customer who was asking) to heat and plate it. But when new owners took over recently — VCG Holdings, a group out of Denver that has more than 20 high-end gentlemen’s clubs throughout the U.S. — they decided it made more sense to keep, um, satisfied patrons right on-site. So they approached Stone, the man behind Stone’s Restaurant and Lounge in Stillwater, and asked him to be their Minneapolis partner.

    Stone recruited chef Stephanie Hedrick, formerly of The Independent and Pi Bar and Restaurant, to oversee the kitchen. And what a smart move! Because according to stats compiled by Schiek’s, FORTY PERCENT of their customer base is made up of couples. And not just curiosity-seekers; these are men and women who return, together, over and over again.

    Hedrick has put together a menu of upscale American classics, with a heavy focus on steak (a 42-ounce Porterhouse, Kobe beef hamburgers, thick-cut pork chops), grilled fish and seafood, hefty dinner salads, and big shareable desserts. Something for everyone.

    "Look, I have no delusions," Stone says. "We’re never going to be a great destination restaurant that happens to have adult entertainment. We’re always going to be a premier gentlemen’s club that serves dinner. But the food component has many elements, and one of them is enablement. If someone really wants to go to the strip club and check it out, they can say, ‘Hey, I read about this goofy restaurant at Schiek’s that’s supposed to have great steaks. Let’s give it a try.’"

    The Kitchen will open for business November 2. Call 612-341-0054 for a reservation.

  • Spouting Prelude to Open Thread: Wolves Best the Bucks

    The balmy weather and the impending denoument of my favorite season sent me up to Ely and then on to the Superior Hiking Trail for a little fresh air the past two days and I thus wasn’t able to make it back for the Wolves-Bucks tilt. Here are my questions and observations simply from gleaning the recap and box score from nba.com. Anyone who can respond–or if you want to chime in with second-hand observations and questions of your own–are welcome to do so. After all, we now have less than a week of wankery before everything counts and we take hoops (but hopefully not ourselves) seriously.

    * The four starters aside from Randy Foye shot 80 percent from the field (28-35)?! McCants was perfect in 8 attempts, Jefferson 9-12, Gomes 5-7 with 2-3 from trey, and Ratliff 6-8…is Milwaukee’s D really that horrible? And does this look like the sensible starting lineup on opening day even before that little shooting explosion?

    * Did anyone else read Sports Illustrated’s NBA season preview issue, especially the Timberwolves page, especially the anonymous scout’s take? Especially the part where the scout ripped Al Jefferson and gave huge ups to Gerald Green? What is a customarily fine mag like SI doing quoting obvious idiots as experts, and where was at least one editor with a smidgen of hoops knowledge to spot this bullshit and demand either a new scout, another interview, or one of those laughing heads to clue people in that the whole thing was a weird joke? Witt should throw the thing up on the bulletin board, as the mag also picked Minnesota to finish 15 out of 15 Western Conference teams. I’ll bet you Mike Bibby’s torn thumb ligament they finish ahead of Sacramento, and probably the Clips. BTW, Gerald Green had 5 turnovers in 8:53 tonight, which is probably why he was able to squeeze off only two missed shots.

    * Green was only the most egregious turnover-er. For those who saw the game, how many of Craig Smith’s seven miscues were charges or travels? And how many of those were questionable calls? And what is the world coming to when Theo Ratliff not only has as many assists as his rebounds and blocks combined, but only commits one turnovers versus his four dimes and chips in a couple of steals?

    * Is Sebastian Telfair just healthier than Randy Foye right now or more adept as spreading the ball around? Six assists, two turnovers and only six shots (three of them makes, including his only trey) in 26:54 are blessed numbers for Telfair. Foye played ten fewer minutes, had as many missed FGA and personal fouls, doled out one assist and looks inert, box score-wise? True?

    * I know he was a DNP, but is Antoine Walker out of shape? In street clothes or his uni? Smiling or sourpuss?

    * Was the Wolves winning by 21 enough to overcome a preseason basketball game featuring 57 turnovers between the two teams? And was it a coincidence that every one of the four Wolves DNPs were at least 30 years old, or are we saying goodbye to a couple of them soon?

  • Rectangle Receipt

    Good news! The locally owned and operated Rectangle Designs just launched its online store. Check it out if you care to purchase T-shirts, dresses, and totes in flora-themed prints. This is the one that I purchased recently. The picture at left doesn’t exactly do the shirt justice (the problem with these longer tees is that you’ve got to pair them with fitted, flat-front pants – thus the proliferation of leggings), but it is quite flattering in real life. Also, it’s the only shirt stitched by Sarah Nassif, the brains behind these Rectangle operations. All the others are printed on American Apparel garments, which run quite small, if you ask me.

  • Fairytales: Who gives a damn?

    Thanks to Jezebel for steering me toward this gem: Wherein Josephine Cox, the 64-year-old British author of Atonement (among other things), wonders whether she harmed a generation of young women by perpetuating the myth of malehood. To which I respond: Hell, yes, you did! Although, for me, my notion of prince charming was shaped more by the movies than books. In fact, just last night, I asked the boyfriend (hunky, bluecollar, and a filthy mouth to boot) to fulfill one of my fantasies by pretending to be Humphrey Bogart. Anyhoo …

    Unlike Cox, I think the problem lies more in “finishing” than it does in looks. All our lives, women have been fielding messages, subtle or not so much, about social climbing via our mates (to marry a doctor!). Just last week I asked a girlfriend (mid 30s, attractive, climbing the corporate ladder at a global insurance company), about her “type.” Her response was that she is looking for a man who is SMARTER than she is. To which I responded: But there aren’t very many PEOPLE who are smarter than you. You’re pretty fuckin smart. And accomplished. So, here is what I think: As women become more and more fabulous (and compensated, educated, etc.) we’ve got to make peace with “dating down.” Of course, this shatters any hopes we might have about being devoted, stay-at-home mothers one day. With any luck, however, our ineloquent, uneducated, underemployed partners will at least help with the dishes.

    As for the teeth that Cox refers to in her piece: I suspect that they, too, were seen as a reflection of socioeconomic status – just another clue that this guy is a plebe.

  • "War of the Worlds" at the Fitz: Fear Factor

    It was purely coincidental. I got an e-mail as I was surfing through cable coverage of the California wildfires and caught … Fox News … asking the rhetorical and self-serving question: Might “terrorism” be behind the multiple infernos?

    They had no evidence of course. No more reason to shout “terrorism!?” than I do for that flat tire I had the other morning. But when you’re in the fear business like Fox News is, when promoting fear is a fundamental factor of your business plan, you never want to miss a chance to goose your coverage just a wee bit, on the off chance that tinder dry conditions, 70 mph winds and the presence of 19 million people living in a desert environment — i.e. “reality” — isn’t scary enough.

    Keith Olbermann took his shot at Fox News’ cynicism here.

    Anyway, as I’m watching this I get an e-mail from the publicist for WNYC’s “Radio Lab Live!” promoting tomorrow’s show sat the Fitzgerald in St. Paul, titled, “Decoding the ‘War of the Worlds’.” Prior to reading the attached copy all I knew was that NPR science correspondent Robert Krulwich, who I always enjoy, was going to be doing something with the classic Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater Martian invasion broadcast that spooked a chunk of the population back in 1938.

    As I read through the copy I came across this line, “[Producer Jad] Abumrad and Krulwich will hear from eyewitnesses, scientists, and master storytellers to investigate the nature of belief and skepticism, uncovering the neurological differences between those who believed and those who did not.“

    Bingo. If you’re in the business of following the media, you’re also in the business of trying to understand why X% of the population appears to have such stunted abilities for critical thinking and why they are so damned susceptible to fakery and bullshit.

    I arranged an interview with producer Abumrad and caught him just before his lunch was about to arrive Thursday afternoon.

    He said that that “neurological” separation business was what intrigued him most about this particular episode. (Abumrad and Krulwich began by producing five “Radio Lab” episodes a year, now distributed through 170 public radio affiliates, but “we’re now ramping up to do ten.”)

    Abumrad said a Princeton scientist, (“War of the Worlds” was set in New Jersey), did a survey immediately after the hysteria died down, looking to see what characteristics defined those who believed and those who properly sorted through the available clues and accepted it as fiction. The survey asked questions testing respondents’ levels of insecurity, phobias, their church-going tendencies and levels of personal confidence.

    What the scientist did and didn’t find out is part of Krulwich and Abumrad’s production, so I won’t ruin anyone’s enjoyment. (Tickets are still available. 8 p.m. Saturday. Only $15. mpr.org/events.)

    I had never heard that re-stagings of Welles’ broadcast — years later — had inspired similar hysteria. Abumrad says a 1949 Spanish language re-staging – in Ecuador — ended with 15 people dead. (Most after a mob, angry at being duped by the hoax, attacked and torched a radio station.)

    “There are so many factors to examine in why some people accept or default to what is called ‘magical thinking’,” said Abumrad. “There was an interesting study out of Israel which looked at the effect the stress of the Scud missile attacks during the first Gulf War had on some people. Frankly, after you look at these studies the question you start asking yourself is, ‘Why didn’t everyone believe?’”

    The only semi-concrete percentage of the morbidly credulous, as I like to think of them, is the Princeton study’s estimate that 12 million people heard the Welles’ broadcast live and somewhere around a million “ran out of town screaming”, as Abumrad puts it, with a little comic hyperbole. That’s not great science, but a little over 8% is roughly the combined audience share for cable news these days.

    I didn’t push Abumrad on my Fox News obsession, but he freely offered that TV news in general operates on a fear format to hold and build audiences, and a shrewd impresario like Orson Welles, (already writing the script for “Citizen Kane”), certainly understood that “fear works”.

    Abumrad and Krulwich’s “Radio Lab” 90-minute show will take audiences through the psychology, historical context and showmanship of the Welles broadcast. There will be a Q & A. And a podcast will be up, “in December or January”.

    In another related bit of coincidence, the news this morning includes this sadly surprise-free survey of Americans’ belief in haunted houses, ghosts and assorted bogeymen. (Note that more liberals than conservatives claim to have seen a ghost. Maybe the Ghost of Critical Thinking.)

  • The Not-So-Friendly Skies

    The subhead on this looks like it was written by someone’s 8-year-old. But as someone who was on standby yesterday for something like 95 hours. . . .I couldn’t help but read.

  • A Declining Week in Wine

    pl.jpg

    I have a wicked wanderlust. This is one of the reasons I ride a motorcycle: because on any given Saturday I’m willing to take off and hit a small town in South Dakota — as long as it’s one I’ve never seen before. I’ll also seize whatever random opportunity comes my way to get on a plane and BE somewhere else for a while. This week, I went out to New York City in order to give a 20-minutes speech at the New York Academy of Medicine. At least, that was the plan.

    On the panel were one of the world’s top research psychiatrists, a doc from Johns Hopkins, a graduate of Harvard Medical School and, uh. . . .me. No pressure there.

    I was last on the agenda, going immediately after the woman from Hopkins who’d single-handedly set up a peds unit for critically ill children while raising two kids of her own and no doubt darning her husband’s silk socks. But after hours worth of PowerPoint presentations, each of which had multiple technical difficulties, the moderator looked at me and said in a genuinely gloomy tone, “I’m so sorry, our program has gone over time, you’ll have to keep your comments to five minutes. Seven at most.”

    There was wine at my left hand: a glass of Beaulieu Vineyards Chardonnay, which is the Skippy peanut butter of white wines. It’s cheap and if not high-brow, perfectly fine — even marginally satisfying — once you get a few swallows in. Well, ordinarily, I don’t drink before speaking (which is why the full glass was sitting there, untouched). But in this case, I made an exception and downed about a third in what I hope was a ladylike motion, rose and said, “Well, I’m a writer, I’m used to being edited,” then gave my 20-minute talk in 6 minutes flat.

    It was a lovely trip, really. The Academy people couldn’t have been nicer. No, that’s not true. They could have been the guy with dreads and a grease-stained jacket at Grand Central who swiped his very own Metro card for me and whispered, “Go,” when I was ineptly trying to rush the turnstile and catch the Lexington Avenue train.

    I had lunch with my agent at the Blue Water Grill, a terrific, casual publishing hang-out on Union Square. (And yes, for those of you — thank you — who are reading closely: the agent responded, the book is being tweaked and readied for editors’ eyes. My neurosis about it grinds endlessly on.) We ate some great spicy tuna rolls and assorted other sushi, but we didn’t have wine over lunch, which is a shame, really, because it probably would have been the only decent glass of my week.

    As it was, things went downhill from the Skippy-level Chardonnay.

    I went to the airport yesterday afternoon, dashed in feeling late, in fact, for what was to have been a 6:30 flight. After I stood in line and got my e-ticket, however, I noticed the time had been changed to 6 o’clock. “How odd,” I thought. “They rarely move the flight times back.” That, of course, is when I realized that not only had the time been changed, the date had as well. This morning, six a.m., and I had no place to spend the night.

    The woman behind the American Airlines counter was on the phone, speaking Italian. She hung up, turned to the couple at my side, and had a rapid conversation in Spanish. By the time she turned to me, I’d put her right up next to the doctor with the seven or eight Ivy League M.D.’s. (People who speak multiple languages always intimidate me in a biblical, highly evolved sort of way.) I showed her my ticket and she punched something into her computer. “Northwest at 10:45,” she said in a gruffly lilting Puerto Rican accent. “The weather is bad. They might let you on, might not.”

    Which is how I ended up, elbow-to-elbow with a furniture salesman from Detroit, at the bar in the Delta terminal at La Guardia, asking for a wine list. To which the bartender scoffed. “We got red,” he said, holding up a crusty bottle of Kendall-Jackson Merlot. This is one of those wines I’ll drink at a pub, if I absolutely must. If it’s that or, say, Schlitz. So I said, “Sure,” and he tipped the bottle, but what came out was more the consistency of slurry than wine. The only taste I took was thick and scorched, like the stuff that dribs onto the bottom of the oven when you bake a blueberry pie. I switched to soda water, which the furniture salesman insisted on putting on his tab, and waited among thousands of hot, stranded bodies for my plane to land.

    They let me on the plane. I nearly wept. My husband picked me up from the nearly deserted nighttime airport on the other side. We came home and despite the late hour, opened a bottle of wine. It was corked. So we opened another — the only one we had. It happened to be an odd vintage with a demented Robert Crumb-ish label called Plungerhead Old Vine Zinfandel 2005, which someone had given me insisting it was good. It’s made by The Other Guys, a whimsical little division of the mega-corporate Don Sebastiani & Sons.

    This wine is called Plungerhead, apparently, because it’s sealed with a “zork” — a rubbery little mushroom top cap that’s been wrapped with a spiral of plastic you have to unzip. It’s supposed to keep the wine good. Well guess what? It isn’t good to begin with. At least this bottle — at 1:30 a.m. on a Friday morning, after a total of 12 hours spent sitting on airplanes and in airports over the space of only 24 — didn’t seem so to me. It has a nose of cranberry and cough syrup, and a flavor to match, only the taste fades quickly in a sour way. And I expect more from a basic $12-14 bottle of Zin.

    The only good part: Plungerhead has a whopping 14.8% alcohol, which made it better than Nyquil for knocking me out.

    I can’t say I’m sorry for the way of the week. Typically, my days are full of sameness and routine, interrupted from time to time with a really fine glass of wine. This was a whirlwind of activity, new experience, and truly putrid drinking. Life is meant to be lived, after all, and an adventurer is bound to run into a few snags (seen Into the Wild, anyone?). As trade-offs go, this one — compared to killing a moose, eating poison and dying a lonely death — wasn’t so bad. But I’m looking forward to something far better when I tilt my glass tonight.

  • Art: How We Communicate What It Feels Like to Be Alive

    ART & WOMEN
    In Our Own Right

    0710johana.jpgWhat better way to celebrate the achievements of women in the arts than to spend an evening enjoying the “expressions, perspectives, and self-revelations” of local women artists. Tonight’s In OUR Own Right performance and closing reception features performances by singer/songwriter JoAnna James (winner of two consecutive Minnesota Music Awards for “Female Vocalist of the Year”), storyteller and performer Amy Salloway, contemporary dance ensemble the SHE Collective, Perpich Center for Arts Education poets Ali Scott and Heather Campbell-Bezat, and spoken word artist Madame Mimi.

    Friday at 8 p.m., The Minnesota Museum of American Art, 50 W. Kellogg Blvd. (at Market St.), St. Paul; 651-266-1030; free.

    ART & MEDITATION
    Clear Your Mind for Artistic Expression

    0710shambahla.jpgWhile our creativity is certainly fueled by experience, by all the clutter around us, our environment. The truth is, it’s also squelched by all the noise. Like all energy, creative energy must be allowed to flow, to move, to express itself. But getting there, freeing your mind from the chaos around you and appreciating the simplicity and brilliance of things as they are, can be quite a challenge for some of us. Need some help with this endeavor? The Minneapolis Shambhala Center invites you to participate in parts one and two of a five-part Shambhala Art Program based on the teachings of Chogyam Trungpa, meditation master, poet, and artist. The program uses contemplative exercises and meditation instruction to explore and celebrate artistic expression that springs from the meditative mind. Enjoy a free public talk this evening, and participate in the workshop Saturday and Sunday. No previous experience required.

    Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Shambhala Meditation Center, 2931 Grand St. NE, Minneapolis; 612-331-7737; free public talk on Friday, $150 workshop on Saturday and Sunday; no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

    ART
    Frida Kahlo

    kahlo.jpgOn the centenary of Frida Kahlo’s birth, a comprehensive retrospective can go a long way to rescue this tough, rich artist from her Art Heroine Poster Grrrl status. She deserves more. Kahlo was full of contradictions and had moments of heroism and weakness; she had blindness, insight, and a gift for telling a story with pictures. She also had talent — maybe not quite enough for her desire, but that’s true of many deservedly beloved artists: Edward Hopper and Paul Cézanne, for instance, were given deeper insight into the nature of the world by their own clumsiness at levering it into paint. Kahlo shares this divine thumbiness; it helps her create the new and make it accessible to her fellow mortals. –Ann Klefstad

    Preview Party on Friday from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m., opens Saturday (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600.

    SHOPPING
    Discover Friends, Discover Treasures

    Granted, collecting antiques — or at least the romantic ideal of it — is about long drives to the boondocks, sifting through dust and rejected “knick knacks,” and discovering a treasure no one knew they had. In the end, it’s usually about exploiting the seller’s ignorance of the object at hand’s value. True, somehow, I doubt that The Minneapolis Institute of Art is terribly ignorant of the value of any antique. But if you want to avoid the long drive and the dust — if you’re looking for a perfectly curated antique show, bringing together some of the finest antique dealers from across the country — then you won’t want to miss MIA’s 24th annual Antiques Show & Sale this weekend.

    Friday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday & Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p,m., Sunday 11 a.m. – 9 p.m., Zuhrah Shrine Center, Harrington Mansion, 2540 Park Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-871-3555; 612-870-3039; $10 (museum members $8).

    FOOD & WINE – BENEFIT
    Celebrate Bacchus and Do Some Good

    0710chef.jpgJoin Napa Valley Grille Executive Chef Matthew Fogarty this evening for a walk-around food and wine tasting with over 50 wines and 15 food sampling. For the first time ever, the Napa Valley Grille will close (open to you, of course) its doors this evening to host a benefit for the Second Harvest Heartland foodshelves. That’s right: feeding yourself will feed others — unfortunately for them, not with the same food. Tonight’s menu will include cider-roasted stuffed suckling pig, seafood paella, roasted leg of lamb, imported cheeses and breads, plus a wall of dessert tiers in the wine cellar. Sample the food, indulge in the wine, and participate in a silent auction of 25 mystery wine grab bags. Earmarked at $25, these lovely bags will contain wine bottles priced up to $100. Sounds like a win win situation to me. And, of course, all proceeds will benefit Second Harvest Heartland.

    Friday from 6:30 – 9 p.m., Napa Valley Grille, Mall of America, 2nd level West side, Bloomington; 952-858-9934; $65.

    DANCE
    James Sewell Ballet

    0710sewell.jpgThe James Sewell Ballet presents its fall program this weekend, featuring the premiere of Kinetic Head, a piece commissioned by Richard and Sandra Jacobson on the occasion of their 40th wedding anniversary. Kinetic Head’s choreography continues Sewell’s exploration of multiple coordination in ballet, taking the movement patterns and layers to a new level of structural complexity. The music is designed to serve the choreography, and is compiled and engineered by Sewell from diverse music loops, plus music by John Scherf and J. S. Bach. Also on this weekend’s agenda are Schoenberg Serenade, choreographed by Sewell for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2006, and excerpts from Raymonda, with choreography re-staged after the 1898 classic by Marius Petipa.

    Friday & Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., The O’Shaughnessy at the College of St. Catherine, 2004 Randolph Avenue, St. Paul; 651-690-6700; $32 (students $16); there will be a $10 First Chance Dance performance on Saturday at 11 a.m.

    Playin’ at the Pantages

    0710mdt.jpgWhen I first moved to Minnesota with my family so many years ago, my sister sat crying by my side as we left her East coast world of ABT (dance afficionados will no doubt recognize that as the American Ballet Theater). As a rising and promising — though still young — ballet dancer, she wasn’t exactly excited about being land-logged here in the midwest. That is, until she learned that Loyce Houlton was teaching at the Minnesota Dance Theater. Houlton is a legend in the dance world, having studied with both Balanchine and Martha Graham (it doesn’t get much better than that) — and having choreographed so many wonderfully energetic and inspired pieces. And while she is no longer with us, she leaves her legacy at the heart of the Minnesota Dance Theater. This weekend, enjoy a touch of that legacy, that energy, that inspiration and beauty, as MDT opens its 2007-2008 season with two pieces by Houlton: 293.6, inspired by the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon, and her more classical Boccherini Dances. Also on the slate for the evening is Eliot Feld’s A Stair Dance, created in memory of Gregory Hines; Sir Frederick Ashton’s Façade, a witty ’20s piece; and Portrait Project, a collaboration of three former MDT dancers.

    Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., Pantages Theatre, 710 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; $31.50.

    MUSIC
    Bill Frisell Trio

    bill.jpg Bill Frisell’s loping, laconic guitar phrases are as implacably beautiful and subtly shape-shifting as a prairie landscape, a perfect soundtrack for compelling visuals. Indeed, two of the cooler items in his quilted discography were created to accompany the photographs of Walker Evans (This Land) and the films of Buster Keaton (Go West). Now the Walker has co-commissioned Frisell to provide the atmosphere on the photos of Mike Disfarmer, who made Evans-like images of the Arkansas poor in the ’40s. But unlike the horn-oriented ensemble for This Land, Frisell will be joined by violinist Jenny Scheinman and lap-steel guitarist Greg Leisz. –Britt Robson, photo by Mike Disfarmer

    Saturday at 7:30 & 9 p.m., Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600.

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    The 14th Annual BareBones Halloween Show

    0710barebones.jpgYes, sirree. Halloween is right around the corner, and that means another big-time puppet extravaganza by the light of the moon. If you’ve been to the BareBones Halloween Show since its 1993 inception, you’ll certainly want to repeat the experience. This is an all-out production, a real celebration of All Hallow’s Eve (and then some). With over 150 artists involved, the show features larger-than-life puppets, shadow puppets, handpuppets, costumes, masks, choral singing, fire artistry, stilting, and a live musical score composed and performed by a 10 piece orchestra. Bring a blanket, dress warm, don your own costume — at least a mask — and experience the narrative unraveling before you. “This year’s show begins on the Mississipi River Bank with the arrival of a macabre steamboat bearing a hilarious and satircal travelling carnival. River spirits arrive to guide audiences through a sublime river landscape (recreated in the forest) to a puppet river town. The arrival of Huck and Jim (from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) causes a town controversy from which the two have to flee. From there we follow their adventures down the river encountering wildlife, spirits, and the river’s dark history. All culminates in the swamp of reckoning with a call for justice and flood of light.” See what I’m saying? Big-time extravaganza! As always, you’ll even have an opportunity to honor the dead. (Come on; it’s Halloween.) And the audience is invited to stick around after the show for food, live music, and dancing.

    Saturday through Wednesday at 7 p.m., Hidden Falls, base of the North Gate entrance, 1309 Mississippi River Blvd. S., St. Paul; 612-341-1038; free with donations encouraged.

    And Now, We Sing for You

    As a companion piece to their scaled-down production of La Bohème, Theater Latté Da presents three evenings of minimalist cabarets, somewhat appropriately titled Bohemian Rhapsodies, in which a bunch of local, aging bohemians gather around a piano and, from what we hear, sing for you. The first installment (this Sunday) features singer Ann Michels, storyteller and performer Josette Antomarchi, jazz vocalist Dennis Spears, poet and memoirist Patricia Hampl, and opera tenor Vern Sutton. Truth be told, we’re more looking forward to the November 4 show because we’ve got an awfully soft spot for at least one of the following: It stars soprano Maria Jette, husband-and-wife duo Fred and Anna Mae Vagle (they’re well known for their musicianship about St. Joan of Arc Church), folk singer Ann Reed, Russian singer Sima Shumilovsky, and co-host of The Current’s semi-popular The Morning Show, Dale Connelly. –Christy DeSmith

    Sunday at 7 p.m., The Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-340-1725; $18.