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Here’s the feel-paranoid hit of the season. Nicole Kidman was originally slated to star in this dark, suspense-filled doozy from director David Fincher, but one too many can-can kicks on the set of Moulin Rouge forced her to back out at the last minute. Thankfully, her replacement is the all-too-scarce Jodie Foster. Fans of the original Clarice Starling can count on more than a little of her sizzle in this claustrophobic thriller. Panic Room centers on a hellacious night in the life of a New York divorcee whose spacious new brownstone is invaded by a trio of treasure-seeking felons (Forrest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, and a brutally corn-rowed Jared Leto). She and her daughter hole up in a special high-tech mini-fortress built into the house for just such a terrifying occasion. With a tension-monger like Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) at the helm, you can smell the shadowy interiors and perilous scenarios already—no wait, that’s the stale popcorn and “butter-flavored” topping. But you get the idea.

With due respect to Dirk Diggler, there’s never been a better film about empty sex and failed optimism than 1975’s Shampoo. As dim-witted hair stylist Warren Beatty dutifully knocks boots with Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, Lee Grant, and Carrie Fisher, you can almost hear the cynicism of the Nixon era grabbing hold of the American consciousness. A new print of this titillating and politically tinted gem is the centerpiece of an inspired Oak Street retrospective, revisiting the career highlights of the late director Hal Ashby. He may never have picked up a Best Director prize on Oscar night—he was only nominated in the category once, for 1978’s fearless Vietnam flick Coming Home, which will be included here—but he remains responsible for some of the coolest and most distinctive movies this side of whatever Wes Anderson is working on now. From the dark comedy and unorthodox romanticism of the cult-favorite Harold and Maude to the gently intrepid satire of the classic Peter Sellers pic Being There, Ashby specialized in sharply scripted, character-driven fare.

Like Prince and Loni Anderson before him, Hollywood It-boy Josh Hartnett is proving to the rest of the free world that Minnesota can pull its weight on the breakout-sex-symbol production line. As we see in Black Hawk Down and the underappreciated Virgin Suicides, it doesn’t hurt that Josh can actually act. Oddly, his real debut as a big-time romantic lead (we don’t count Pearl Harbor) casts him as a recently dumped dude who swears off sex for Lent. As if the hormonal ramifications of his sudden celibacy weren’t grave enough, he’s got a new drop-dead gorgeous love interest in the picture to crank up the temptation quotient—A Knight’s Tale’s Shannyn Sossamon. With an R rating attributed to “strong sexual content, nudity and language,” it’s unlikely that 40 Days is a glorified instructional video for born-again virgins, if you know what we mean. Knowing Miramax, we think they’ll not only find a way to bring Hartnett’s character back into the carnally knowledgeable world, but they’ll do it with panache. Teen-movie slump be damned, we haven’t been this excited about a local boy making good since Apollonia’s skinny-dip in what she thought was Lake Minnetonka.

That glimmer of hope you see on the springtime motion picture horizon could be the return of Robin Williams from his teeth-hurting escapades as Sad Clown of the 90s. Patch Adams, Jakob the Liar, and Bicentennial Man—a cinematic trifecta from Hell. We are thankful Mr. Williams appears to be seeking redemption. In January, the Sundance Film Festival premiered the R-rated One Hour Photo, starring Williams as Seymour “Sy” Parrish, a nebbishy photo-lab employee who becomes obsessed with a family whose pictures he develops. Before Photo’s April release date comes Death to Smoochy, in which Williams portrays Rainbow Randolph, the host of a children’s television show. When Randolph is fired over a bribery scandal, his show is taken over by Smoochy, played by Edward Norton (Fight Club) in a fuscia rhinoceros costume. To make matters worse, Randolph finds out Smoochy is sleeping with his ex-lover, a top programming executive played by Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich). Randolph begins to plot his revenge. Death to Smoochy also features Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) as a network president, choreographed midgets in rainbow wigs, costumes Liberace and Elton John would have clawed each others’ eyes out for… did we mention Edward Norton as a fuscia rhinoceros? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Robin. Don’t screw this up.

From the air, the river looked innocent enough: A mocha-brown flow etched its way through the forest in lazy S’s. But paddling it was another matter. An unusually dry season reduced the normal torrent to a trickle. The shallow bottom and exposed rapids compelled us to carry our canoes more than they carried us. After four grunting sodden days, tragedy struck. Just before sunset my brother Nick, the team technologist, jumped out of the canoe for another pull when he stepped on a freshwater stingray. Its stinger whipped upward three times and impaled his foot, injecting massive amounts of venom.

According to the indigenous Machiguengas here, these stingrays are among the Amazon’s most feared creatures. Though their venom is not as lethal as, say, the surucucu snake’s, stingrays are harder to avoid, maddeningly well-camouflaged in the river’s murk. Few people die from the poison itself (ensuing infection is more dangerous) but as our Machiguenga companions warned, humans know no greater pain than stingray venom. We didn’t bother to ask if an antidote exists.

Nick yelped and leaped and performed a Christlike scramble across the water. On shore, he collapsed in a heap, writhing in pain. I hurried over to see what happened. Blood oozed from all three puncture wounds. The venom turned the surrounding flesh white and red, making his foot look like raspberry revel ice cream. We could see the poison working its way up Nick’s ankle. Where would it stop?

I tore apart my pack looking for the satellite phone Globalstar had graciously loaned us, and I dialed Hennepin County Medical Center (out of mindless, panic-stricken impulse, I suppose). In moments, I was miraculously put through to Dr. Dan Keyler, a co-director of toxicology research for the University of Minnesota. More miraculously, he is one of the world’s foremost snakebite experts. But when I told him I was phoning from a remote Amazonian tributary, he thought my call was a prank.

Somehow, my adrenalin-fueled jabber kept Dr. Keyler on the phone. “I’ve heard of these stringray attacks,” he told me. “But never actually treated one. They’re exceedingly painful.” I could hear him rifle through pages of medical text in search of a field treatment. Meanwhile, our Machiguenga companions had carried my moaning brother to a clearing in the jungle and were moving about. After 30 seconds which took an eternity, Dr. Keyler finally had an answer: Submerge the foot in water as hot as Nick could endure. “The heat will denature the venom,” he said.

I thanked Dr. Keyler profusely, promised to call back in a few hours, and hurried over to the Machiguengas to pass along the treatment, but they were way ahead of me. They had already started a fire, put water on to boil, and prepared to submerge the foot.

To notice the skatepark building boom, you’d have to know what you were looking for. Driving Excelsior Boulevard through the 169 interchange in Hopkins, it’s eminently easy to miss the chain link enclosure of “The Overpass,” a newborn skatepark sponsored by the city of Hopkins. True to its moniker, the park is tucked into a concrete wedge beneath the freeway where it spans SuperValu’s headquarters and Excelsior Boulevard. Another city-sponsored skatepark in Minnetonka easily escapes notice folded into the Glen Lake shopping area. Others have sprouted in Burnsville, Oakdale, Mankato, Northfield, Duluth, and Moorhead. Edina and Richfield have a cooperative skatepark planned for the Southdale area. And for more than four years, Third Lair has operated in south Minneapolis as an indoor, commercial skatepark.

Curiously, this ascendence of the legit skateboarding scene corresponds to a proliferation of city ordinances that explicitly forbid skateboarding in almost every public place. Depending on who you talk to, the gradual crackdown on the streets and the opening of parks has ghettoized, mainstreamed, or liberated skating. Against this background, a group of geriatric (over 30) local skaters gathered the other day to have a few beers and unwind some yarns about then and now.

“Then” means the 80s to most skaters of the older vintage. Without exception, anyone who skated seriously then has a fistful of tales about the Twin Cities’s thumper cops, predatory jocks, and illegal spots. Brian Kevitt recalls assuming the position at least once for Bloomington police for the crime of skating in an empty parking lot. Steve Gareri and Mike Kleitz, both of Minneapolis, swap stories of beatings at the hands of the MPD. And while police were not a problem for Hopkins native and former pro skater Justin Lynch, he recalls how much fun Main Street rednecks had pummeling him with his own board.

Even the punks were hard on skaters, says Gareri. The “McPunks,” and “greenhairs” who populated the Hennepin/Lake intersection in Uptown Minneapolis circa 1984, were often seen with boards. They frequently used them as weapons and formed a defiant core of the early skateboard menace. But, says Gareri, “They would give you shit for skating, and they were sitting there with their boards. You had to be a tough ass to skate in the ’80s because you were challenged every day–jocks, punks, skinheads.”

To escape such unwanted attention, says Gareri, skaters built their own ramps in out-of-the-way spots. (These early plywood ramps were a persistent splinter risk, says Mike Kleitz, who claims to have witnessed a complete gluteus impalement on one.) But these were usually discovered and destroyed by police.

And so, in a crucible formed by the torment of peers and cops and the fight for habitat, a subculture was forged. Skating’s anti-authority bent was cemented with Black Flag anthems, MDC emblems, and Agent Orange rantings. And the 7th Street Entry added skateboard check-in to its door service. Leather jackets were decorated with hand-painted messages designed to give suburban housewives nightmares, and the slogan “SKATEBOARDING IS NOT A CRIME” found its way onto a bumpersticker.

Now, in the 21st century, skateboarding is, in fact, a crime. And some suburbs have skateboard-specific enforcement plans that include warnings, tickets, and board confiscations. And to this day, skaters still find inventive new ways to chafe the law. “Grinding” on rails and benches has taken its toll in property damage near 50th and France, according to Edina police Lt. Ken Kane. Skating the irresistible downward spiral of parking ramps has also generated complaints in Edina and St. Louis Park. Main Street Hopkins, where Justin Lynch remembers being treated like a freak on a board has become a magnet for any kid with wheels underfoot. “Wherever the space is, the kids help themselves to it,” says Hopkins police spokesperson Connie Kurtz, adding that “Razor”-type scooters have now made the list of prohibited conveyances.

Petty skate-crime notwithstanding, the skateparks sprouting in almost every ‘burb and city (with helmets required under age 18), have yielded a low-risk threat assessment of the sport from cops and parents alike. While nearly 100% of skaters over 30 report at least one hassle with cops in their history, only one in four teens questioned at Third Lair have ever encountered law enforcement when skating.

A canvass of parents at Third Lair revealed no greater concern than whether they should stay and watch their kids shred. For suburban cops, the skateparks are a great place to check in on kids and see what’s going on, says Minnetonka officer Jerry Cziok. Skate activism has gone mainstream, too. Hopkins spokesperson Kurtz notes that teens promoting the skatepark agenda in Hopkins attended city council meetings and participated with the forestry department in getting the Overpass built. “The kids were very organized,” she says.
Despite the hell-bent rebellion and the hard dues paid in the early days of skating, the mellowing of the culture and the actual criminalization of skating seem to sit well with the old crowd.
“No one ever got into skating to be persecuted,” says Ole Gilbertson, who cut his teeth at underground Minneapolis ramps in the ’80s. Indeed, most skaters would rather show off a kickflip injury than get cuffed and hauled downtown.

To Gareri, who now manages Third Lair, a legal location where skating can be done the way it should be–without hassle or fear–is the prize for all the sound and fury of the ’80s. “I run a business, too. I respect the work that cops do. I respect that other business owners don’t want kids grinding their rails or getting hurt on their property with liability being a problem. A lot of the media stories are about showing what a bunch of maniacs skaters are. But the kids at Third Lair, when they’re skating, look at all the things they’re not doing. They’re not smoking dope, they’re not stealing, you know.”

A true shock, perhaps, to their boomer parents, many of whom probably did a great deal of both.

Jazz fans can be such snobs. For all our High Fidelity obsessiveness and occasional lapses into cultural myopia, at least we rockers are rarely elitist out of a sheer, simple disdain for populism. I mean, the Beatles stand as one of the most successful rock bands ever (the best-selling group of 2001, in fact), and they also happen to have had considerable artistic merit. I’ll truck no high-minded, post-feminist defense of Britney Spears’ lowest-common-denominator pandering, but I’ll fight long and hard on the merits of Smash Mouth, and I have a rock-critic peer whose eloquent parsing of the charms of the Backstreet Boys is almost enough to convince you. (Almost.)

Not so with the high-minded jazzbo. He (and it’s almost always a he) is spending an awful lot of time these days kvetching and wailing about the success of Diana Krall, that comely blond Canadian who has become the best-selling jazz artist of the new millennium. The rap on Krall is that not only is she successful, but she’s actively courting and enjoying success! As if the only career model for the modern torch singer should be the miserable downward spiral of Lady Day or the cloistered cabaret cultdom of the Rosemary Clooney/Bobby Short set.

Granted, Krall’s willful acquiescence to the image-mongering of the modern music biz can seem a little over the top. Witness her progression of cover photos, from the polyester-wearing frump of 1992’s Stepping Out, to the black/white, good girl/bad girl dichotomy of 1996’s All for You, to the leggy vixen in the little black dress on last year’s The Look of Love. She’s even hotter inside the CD booklet, posing as a casually tussled backseat bimbo with a fetching come-hither look that recalls Olivia Newton-John’s post-enlightenment slut in Grease.

Then there were those appearances on Melrose Place, and Krall’s anointing as an icon by Target department stores. She showed up on the cover of Target the Family, the chain’s holiday advertorial/magazine, dreamily gazing out amid cover lines such as “Beautiful Buffets: Service With Style” and “Special Handbag Size!” None of this did much for her cred among serious musos.

But hey, in these culturally-constricted, corporate-dominated times, there’s an argument that says advertising is actually doing more to bring good art to the masses than radio or the music press. (Call it “the Moby defense.”) And even if you insist that Krall is an over-eager sell-out, well, if you’d been raised in the nowhere burg of Nanaimo, British Columbia with a sister who became a Mountie, you’d probably be anxious to buy into something a little more glamorous, too.

There are mitigating factors that give the skeptics pause, including the 37-year-old’s respect for jazz tradition and her exquisite taste in material. She has toured with Tony Bennett, and New York Times critic Stephen Holden has called The Look of Love “the most satisfying collection of orchestrated popular standards to be released since the heyday of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.”

Krall has been choosing songs wisely from the beginning. She tackled Rodgers & Hart and Duke Ellington on her debut, and Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Leslie Bricusse on 1999’s When I Look in Your Eyes. With All for You, she paid an entire album’s tribute to the smoothie who is perhaps her ultimate favorite, Nat (King) Cole. And she’s always found the right vehicle to deliver these classics.

Strings are always a controversial subject in jazz—Charlie Parker got crap for using ’em—but Krall’s foray into orchestral turf is done right. The Look of Love alternately utilizes the London Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles session orchestra (no hacks here), and the arrangements are all crafted by the much-revered Claus Ogerman, whose collaboration with Michael Brecker on Cityscape was a big influence back in Nanaimo. Keeping things moving with countless variations of a slinky, sultry bossa-nova groove is the world-class rhythm section of bassist Christian McBride and drummer Peter Erskine. But ultimately it all comes down to The Voice.

It takes a lot more than chops to do something new with the Gershwins’ classic “S’Wonderful” or the standard “Besame Mucho” (which even the Beatles covered), but Krall claims them as her own via sheer force of personality. Here’s where a rocker’s perspective comes in handy. Like Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, or Justine Frischmann of Elastica, Krall’s dark, sensual, smoky vocals deliver more than just lilting and lovely notes. They convey an attitude, and that’s what’s at the heart of her appeal.

There is a hint of irony, a bit of cool postmodern detachment, but most of all an underlying strength and self-assurance that brings new depths of meaning to the traditional romantic lyricism of Look’s 10 tunes, which are carefully sequenced to chart the arc of a very-today relationship. Krall takes us from the first blush of infatuation (“S’Wonderful,” “Love Letters”), through betrayal (“Cry Me A River,” “The Night We Called It a Day”), to arrive at the modern woman’s uneasy truce between self-reliance and lusty co-habitation (“The Look of Love,” “Maybe You’ll Be There”).

Jazz and rock extremists alike may dismiss this as lounge music, but if so, Krall commands a lounge that could at any moment reveal itself to be a clandestine bacchanal, or maybe an after-hours S&M club. It’s about time jazz had a riot grrrl, and it’s the purists’ loss if they don’t appreciate her. Meanwhile, like much of America, I say to Diana, “Take me, I’m yours.”

Diana Krall appears at the State Theater March 15.

Kent Barnard is a road-salt aficionado. He is also a public relations expert for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, tirelessly striving to let you know that much is being done to keep your automobile out of the ditch this and every season. If breaking news about all kinds of alternative de-icers and road sensors kept him busy last winter, there’s something about MnDOTs errands that transcends all seasons. “We’re always ready,” Barnard. “If it snows in July, we could get out there.”

Widely reported to be yellow, the darling of new de-icers this year was a corn based product from Minnesota Corn Processors subsidiary Glacial Technologies. This space-age compound can push melting points down to 40-below zero Fahrenheit. This winter, it was tested on the Lafayette bridge in St. Paul and two other undisclosed metro locations.

Still, the largest story by weight is salt. Because salt has, over the years, saved so much of the time that might have been spent prayerfully greeting loss of traction, riding in tow trucks, and sipping burnt coffee in body-shop waiting rooms, it deserves consideration in proportion to the hundreds of thousands of tons MnDOT keeps on hand.

Each year an average of 200,000 tons of rock salt are
applied to Minnesota roads. That amounts to about 102 pounds annually for each vehicle registered in the state. This is certainly a large amount, but as a percentage of body mass, it compares favorably to the 10 pounds of salt the vehicle’s driver can expect to consume over the same period. So called “nutritional salt,” though, is less likely to contain sodium Ferro cyanide. (Barnard says this anti-clumping agent is not nearly as nasty as it sounds).

Still, however you cut it, 200,000 tons is a lot of anything, and while this writer has no idea how many times it would circle the earth if each grain was laid end to end, it’s quite true that if the annual dose were dissolved into Lake Superior, it would become more saline than the Atlantic Ocean in less than two years.

While no one at MnDOT has proposed the salinization of Lake Superior, road salt does go somewhere after it’s done its work on the pavement. George Hudak, Assistant Professor of Geology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, has discovered chlorine levels in fresh surface water that can’t be explained any other way. The environmental implications are not necessarily clear, but, Hudak speculates, “It’s not so good for your steel canoe.”

Most commercial rock salt began as efflorescent deposits from evaporated prehistoric oceans. In order to form the massive domes of halite from which it is mined in Michigan, Kansas, and Louisiana, Hudak says these evaporates must spend millions of years compressed under millions of tons of rock. Being of lower density, it gradually pushes up through faults toward the earth’s surface, where Cargill and Morton lie in wait for the harvest.

Salt had been established for millennia as a fundamental element of political and military force. The Roman empire, known for its roads if not for the salting of them, nonetheless coined the word “salarium” (salary) from the occasional use of salt as payment to soldiers. Hundreds of years later, Marco Polo reported watching Roman authorities mint salt-cake coins bearing the emperor’s seal. The power and influence of Danish kings was once estimated by the amount of salt each guest could expect at a feast.

By these standards, King Jesse Ventura is a mighty lord indeed, with his sovereign rule over 292,000 tons this year alone. But before he is duly venerated, forget not the kingdom that lies to the east. Wisconsin reportedly treats its roads with as much as 700,000 tons in a single year, says Kent Barnard.

Barnard and Hudak speculate that the “lake effect” accounts for Wisconsin’s larger share of the salt pie. Yet it may be worth noting that Wisconsin’s inhabitants, according to the Beer Institute, consumed an estimated 1,165,251 more barrels of beer than Minnesotans in the year 2000. Even when adjusted for population that’s more than a third of a barrel more per person. Which raises the possibility that Wisconsin roads merely seem more slippery.

There’s a new dining movement in this country: the small, upscale, funky, limited-but-interesting menu, wine-friendly, neighborhood restaurant. Even though they’re generally called cafes, we think of them as American bistros. Minneapolis and St. Paul are lousy with them. And if you’re lucky, it’s a great meal within walking distance.

It may look like a basement rec room, but the kitchen at the 128 Cafe turns out dish after dish of fabulous food. The barbecued pork ribs have a spicy orange flavor which the roasted garlic mashed potatoes complement beautifully. The chicken breast comes with couscous and a lemon, garlic, and caper sauce. Start with an arugula salad or an appetizer of roasted garlic bulbs and apple-raisin chutney, and you’ve got yourself a great meal.

This is a trend in full flower. Marimar, First Course, 3 Muses, and N.E. Thyme all opened in 2001. Others like Zander, the 128 Cafe, Modern, and Mildred Pierce Cafe have been around a bit longer.

Of course, neighborhood restaurants are old hat, at least in cities with real walk-around neighborhoods, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. These new restaurants are not the greasy spoon mom-and-pop family restaurants of old. You dropped into that kind of restaurant because it was there, it was cheap, and you were hungry. They didn’t take reservations, and the menu changed nearly every decade. For a truly special night out, you drove to your family’s particular enclave. (Lowell Inn on Grandma’s birthday, anyone?) But now a new generation owns the field. Chefs—often the owners—are experienced and innovative. The food doesn’t follow the old salad-meat-starch formula; it’s complex and interesting. And while the menu may not have a wide selection, it changes regularly. Heck, you can even get a nice bottle of wine with dinner.

At N.E. Thyme, the menu changes every week. The last time we were there we had a choice of five entrees, two of them vegetarian. The mahi mahi was covered with cilantro pesto and pineapple-mango salsa, and came with lemony potatoes and delicate haricots vert. And the chicken breast came rolled up with proscuitto, truffle cheese, and spinach.

Let’s invent a name for this kind of cooking, shall we? American Melting Pot. Not fusion cooking, which conjures up lemongrass ravioli and other unfortunate collisions, but a clever and stylish blend of several cuisines and ingredients.

One of the things we like about these places is that you can go in for a quick bite or make an evening of it. The appetizers are filling; the salads interesting. You can even go just for dessert; Modern’s chocolate crème brulee is worth a trip.

At First Course, we loved the barbecued chicken quesadilla and the minestrone soup, and had mixed success with the entrees. Best is probably the meatless lasagna stew. It’s called “open-faced lasagna” on the menu, which is a funny way of saying that it doesn’t hold together like a real lasagna does.

Mildred Pierce Cafe also shakes up comfort food. Try the BLT with white truffle aioli, pork chops with sun-dried tomatoes and pistachios, and delicious variants of club and grilled-cheese sandwiches. Modern serves pot roast with a horseradish cream sauce.

That’s what you get at an American bistro: traditional favorites with a twist, and new and interesting dishes. Sometimes the kitchen’s reach exceeds its grasp, but that’s part of the fun.

It’s wise to remember that you’re not here for the decor. Modern looks like a grubby diner right out of the 1940s; Zander like the 1950s. 128 Cafe looks like the neighbor’s family room, and 3 Muses turn funky into an affectation. And service can be spotty; we won’t mention that one visit to First Course.

Nothing has brought the Twin Cities restaurant scene into the 21st century faster than the well-chosen and reasonably priced wine list. What works is a good selection of wines that go well with the food, with lots of by-the-glass options. At 3 Muses, most bottles are under $30. N.E. Thyme offers thirteen choices by the glass. Marimar prices its bottles at around $20, half-priced on Mondays. You can bring your own wine to First Course—they don’t have corkage, so you won’t be socked for an extra $20.

These American bistros are not cheap, but they’re a wonderful value. Entrees run north of $15; appetizers $7-$8. We plan on spending $30 a person total: each having an entree and a glass of wine, and sharing an appetizer and dessert. Sure, that’s a yuppie food coupon and a half, but you don’t have to order three courses. $20 will get you a smaller meal and change. Sure, you’ll spend less at Curran’s. But the point is fresh, interesting food in a pleasant little place right in the neighborhood.

Bruce Schneier and Karen Cooper live in Minneapolis, but eat all over the world.

Marimar
5001 34th Ave S, Minneapolis, 612-728-1123
First Course
5607 Chicago Ave, Minneapolis, 612-825-6900
Mildred Pierce Cafe
786 Randolph Ave, St. Paul, 651-222-7430
Modern Cafe
337 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis, 612-378-9882
NE Thyme Cafe
4257 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis, 612-822-5155
The 128 Cafe
128 Cleveland Ave N, St. Paul, 651-645-4128
3 Muses
2817 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, 612-870-0339
Zander Café
523 Selby Ave, St. Paul, 651-222-5224