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Want to see me squirm and duck for cover? Try one of these conversation starters:
1. “I met someone who knows you.” What possible good can come from a sentence that begins this way? It’s never followed up with, “It was someone whose life you saved a few years ago and then selflessly asked for nothing in return.” It’s usually more like, “He said you two went out once and then you lost touch. He’s on parole now and says you should give him a call. Also, his band has a new disc coming out that he’d love for you to give a listen to.” Then the real challenge begins. How do I explain to this well-meaning messenger that I’d rather have elective gum surgery than get in touch with someone who knows me?
2. “Would you be available … ?” Never is this starter followed up with anything you, me, or your Aunt Marie would ever consider doing at gunpoint. The following words are usually involved, “host,” “judge,” “emcee,” “panel,” or “intro.” This one is particularly sketchy, as I’ve made a semi-career out of doing all of the above. But once you’ve been seen doing something, the assumption is it’s got to be something you love doing. Also, you love doing it for free.
Come to think of it, I could add many more cringe-inducing sentence starters to the list:
“Is it true…?”
“Dont take this the wrong way…”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you used to… ?”
“When you get a chance…”
Leonardo da Vinci said it best when he said you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. The facts of life.

Email Mary at popularcreeps at yahoo dot com.

Maybe the idea of a live puppet rock opera doesn’t catch you–but a live puppet rock opera as conceived and produced by Dan Graham, Tony Oursler, Rodney Graham, and Paul McCarthy? We can’t think of a more alluringly odd quartet of art stars to get together and do a disillusioned send-up of the hippie era that they all lived through. Dan Graham is the sixties rock critic turned conceptual artist who makes tricky glass-and-mirror sculptures. Tony Oursler’s the one who projects onto various objects videos of eerie faces uttering strange and funny things. Then there’s Rodney Graham, who appears in a video riding a bike on acid, and Paul McCarthy, who is just plain nuts, and naughty to boot. The wildly multidisciplinary production also involves live music by postpunk hipsters Japanther and puppets by Phillip Huber (of Being John Malkovich renown), kicking off what is sure to be a memorable Out There series. 612-375-7622; www.walkerart.org

One of the most beguiling shows of the past year, A Cupboard Full of Hate, is a thoroughly Frenchified thing, performed in a style that’s light on dialogue and heavy on visual tricks. Off-Leash Area’s artistic director, the Paris-schooled Paul Herwig, plays a fitful old geezer who so vigorously hates the world that he locks himself in a cupboard, where he passes eternity inventorying and reordering his stock. While that may not seem like the kind of heartwarming fare that befits a bone-chilling January evening, rest assured this show does inspire a few cathartic chortles. And it’s beautiful! Silent film starlets, little girls, and other figments of the old man’s imagination emerge from claustrophobic, Joseph Cornell-style memory boxes. 2821 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-724-7372; www.offleasharea.org

Ron English has pulled off some impressive stunts over the years. His best-known involved illegally plastering over billboards in cities across the country with subversive messages. One, posted in Cleveland last March, featured a picture of a child in a pith helmet and read, “PLAYDATE IRAN.” Another, funnier offering included a black and white rendering of Charles Manson and urged, “THINK DIFFERENT.” Beyond that, English has painted Marilyn Monroe with matching Mickey Mouse boobs, kids dressed as clowns drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, and also all those eerie McDonald’s-related paintings featured in the movie Supersize Me. Now English himself is the featured subject of POPaganda: The Art and Crimes of Ron English, a documentary that aims to describe the man behind the antics, a self-described “modern day Robin Hood of Madison Avenue.” 10 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-627-4430; www.bellmuseum.org

A company known for working with composers, librettists, and musicians to compose new musicals and operas, Nautilus Music-Theater is trying its hand at an old standard. Man of La Mancha, a 1960s Broadway musical in which an imprisoned Cervantes enlists his fellow inmates to perform Don Quixote, is best known for a catchy reprise called “The Impossible Dream”; many will recall the 1972 film adaptation starring Sophia Loren and Peter O’Toole. Superstars such as Jacques Brel and Placido Domingo also have stepped into the Cervantes role; now a glamorous all-star troupe of local crooners chimes in, including Bradley Greenwald, Ann Michaels, and Brian Sostek. 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-340-1725; www.southerntheater.org

Some say M.F.A. programs are better at nurturing egos (for a price) than actual writing careers, but N.M. Kelby–with her Pushcart Prize nomination and M.F.A. from Hamline Universit–is here to tell you that’s not true. Kelby left the Twin Cities for Florida after collecting her degree, but we still have a claim on her. Her work includes plays staged at numerous local theaters, three complex, funny, and successful novels, and a fat pile of short stories, a couple of which have been picks for NPR’s Selected Shorts program. Kelby’s new book, Whale Season, is clearly not the work of a local writer. Ribald, adventuresome, and fast-paced, it’s more Carl Hiaasen than Robert Bly. Which is just fine by us.

To many, Cesaria Evora’s swooningly romantic voice embodies the sound of Cape Verde, but at sixty, she may be the voice of its past. With more Cape Verdeans living outside the country than in it, the new sound of this West African island nation is one that captures both the traditional song styles and vocal nuances, which are a blend of African and colonial Portuguese influences, as well as the myriad traditions that flavor the new expatriate experience. Young Lisbon-born singer Lura comes from Cape Verdean parents, and holds the resonant memory of the land in her throat, but her bold and sensual songs tell the story of a new land in the making. 612-338-2674; www.thecedar.org

In a stroke of great creativity (and, let’s face it, a move to bring in younger audiences), the SPCO is inviting families to come hear classical music with a slightly gross twist. This particular afternoon features songs inspired by the insect world: Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, Kenji Bunch’s “Arachnophobia,” Ervin Rouse’s “Orange Blossom Special,” and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee.” Musicians include Gary Bordner, Steven Copes, Julia Bogorad-Kogan, and Kathryn Greenbank; in the lobby: bug-themed crafts by Creative Kidstuff. 651-224-4222; www.thespco.org

Stacia Rice long has been a fixture on local stages, though we became enamored of her last year when she starred in a blockbuster production of Tennessee Williams’ workhorse, A Streetcar Named Desire. Anyone so capable of unlocking the vintage desperation and fragility of Miss Blanche DuBois, American literature’s most famous coquette, deserves special attention and her own gaggle of groupies. So it’s with great interest that we note the founding of Rice’s new company, Torch Theater. Although her choice for an inaugural text–The Miracle Worker, an antiquated, saccharine-sweet 1959 play by William Gibson about Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan–might raise an eyebrow, Rice’s performance as Sullivan will no doubt be powerful enough to blow the dust right off any outmoded lines. 711 W. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; 952-929-9097; www.torchtheater.com

We’re not sure that people in, say, San Diego would get such a kick out of hearing a swingy jazz rendition of the Replacements’ “I Will Dare,” but in these parts, such a thing scores high in both the nostalgia and novelty categories, with extra points for being beautifully and creatively executed. This trio, made up of Semisonic’s John Munson, the Suburbs’ Chan Poling, and vibes-guy-about-town Steve Roehm, has remade local and national punk rock classics for its self-titled CD debut. Live, the three should shake up the super-cool environs of the Dakota Jazz Club in just the right way. 612-332-1010; www.dakotacooks.org