How many shopping days left until Christmas? Well, whatever it is, it’s not enough. Cry all you want during your next trip to Target about the Bleeding Skull Halloween costumes hanging next to the icicle lights and the faux-fir tree display. Do you hear what I hear? It’s the rat-a-tat-tat of mass merchants gunning for … Read more
You may shoot me with your words,But still, like air, I’ll rise.-Maya Angelou Ever since she toppled incumbent Jackie Cherryhomes in 2001, Minneapolis Fifth Ward council member Natalie Johnson Lee, the council’s lone African-American woman, has continued to rise. She has successfully deflected and deflated those wanting to blow her off-especially the North Side wannabes … Read more
The coolest thing about the place is the secret door to the kitchen hidden in the bamboo mural on the back wall. But there’s a lot to like about this cozy green eatery a stone’s throw from Wild Rumpus bookstore in Linden Hills. (Note: Please do not throw stones at Wild Rumpus.) For instance, the … Read more
It is usually considered a bad sign when you go to the theater and hear hissing, but in this case it’ll be coming from onstage, not the audience. Playwright Carson Kreitzer’s new work, getting its world premiere in this production by Eye of the Storm, interweaves the stories of four women throughout history who all … Read more
What would Shakespearean theatre be without men in drag? Or jigs danced the way sixteenth-century Tudors might have gotten jiggy with them? The better to show audiences what plays were like when the Bard was in charge, this touring production by London’s Globe Theatre is doing things the old-fashioned way. Besides period costumes and music, … Read more
We’ve heard of a meeting of the minds, but what’s about to go down at O’Shaughnessy is a definitive meeting of the feet. In a premiere collaboration, two of the Twin Cities’ big-dog dance companies, Jazzdance and Minnesota Dance Theatre, are joining forces to bring us 8ight Seasons, an ambitious dance party set to the … Read more
Over the past few years we’ve become big fans of the raw power of outsider art. It might sometimes (all right, often) lack in technical chops, but the work of inspired amateurs can be compelling precisely because their muse doesn’t know all the rules. For four years, the Northeast Minneapolis nonprofit I Love a Parade … Read more
That there’s more to ancient American art than simple pottery and whittled sticks is wholly evident in the MIA’s impressive collection of early masterpieces. Recently returned from a yearlong tour of French museums, the exhibit highlights 180 artifacts from all across pre-Columbian America, ranging in media from jade to gold to wood to stone. That’s … Read more
Keeping on top of the full range of Robert Pollard’s seeming millions of solo albums and official Guided By Voices work is, frankly, more work than anyone should have to put in. It’s far too late, we suspect, to hope that he’ll hook up with a producer who can make him focus on quality over … Read more
Weiler’s last record was called Fly Me Back, but she’s flown away instead. A highlight of the local folk scene throughout the late nineties (and winner of three Minnesota Music Awards), Weiler now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she’s just finished her fourth studio album, Cold Weather, out this month. (And it’s nice to see … Read more