Crawling to the next thing

Today’s Secret: Cinema Revolution hosts its monthly Cinema des Artistes film event tonight, when they’ll be showing L’Intrus, a 2004 film-of-few-words by French filmmaker Claire Denis. This should be a pretty hip-n-happening scene at the Varsity Theatre. But I guess I, in particular, will never know ’cause I won’t be there. Can we lean on … Read more

This Day Is Tuesday

The day the world ended, God sat quietly alone in a huge room, alternately dozing off and turning the pages of a fat scrapbook. God could remember everything, and this no doubt saddened Him. Far below Him there were, here and there, people floating in boats and still –many of them, anyway– praying. There were … Read more

Internationalism threatens America

Julie Quist wants to save your children from the horrors of knowledge about other countries. A story in the Strib today mentioned growing opposition in some quarters (such as the sixth district Republican ones that nominated Michele Bachmann for Congress) to the growing trend in Minnesota school districts to adopt the International Baccalaureate method of … Read more

Sit down for this

I don’t go out nearly as often as these posts might have you believe. And as I grow older, I find myself becoming more and more of a “coach potato,” sprawled out leg-long, eating chili-cheese chips, and watching second-rate DVDs some nights, when I’m not out trolling for stories or reviewing theater productions. So, while … Read more

Social rank demerits

Man do I want tickets to Saturday night’s Symphony Ball! Mostly because it’s the closest thing Minneapolis has to the Costume Institute Gala, and the Strib folks always end-up doing some sort of fashion run-down after the fact. I wonder which over-embellished, designer dresses have been plucked off the Oval Room eighty percent-off rack in … Read more

Of Witches and Ice Cream

It’s hard enough to find a good Ice Cream Social anymore, let alone an Ice Cream Social associated with a beautifully enigmatic water tower. The familiar icon of the Prospect Park/East River Road neighborhood is locally referred to as The Witch’s Hat and Friday is its day of days. One day a year the tower … Read more

pockets of the city

One of my favorite scenic runs is along the stone arch bridge/west bank/mill ruins corridor–mostly because I so love seeing the Mill City Museum from this vantage. Same goes for the new Guthrie. But it’s truer of Mill City, or at least it has been for the past several years. The building is especially beautiful! … Read more

Tasty Reads

By the way, that’s not me, that’s my Tummy-Double. Yes, I read cookbooks from cover to cover, like a novel. Truly, I snuggle down into the couch with a big glass of wine and read them, skimming the recipes while conjuring events and parties that might support my new creations. Now that June is upon … Read more

And at its Center, A Confused Man

The Third Man, 1949. Directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene (with uncredited help from Alexander Korda and Orson Welles). Starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee, Paul Horbiger, Ernst Deutsch, Siegfried Breuer, Erich Ponto, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Hedwig Bleibtreu, and Orson Welles. With the person of Holly Martins, Graham Greene created a … Read more

Pine Eyes

I’ve reserved a special place in my heart for the St. Paul-based Zeitgeist new music ensemble, probably because cultivating new classical and chamber music seems like such a long row to hoe. Have I mentioned how I hate the term ‘classical music,’ by the way? Probably. The folks at Zeitgeist prefer “new music” or alternately, … Read more