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  • Sushi: The Naked Truth, part two.

    Bandwagons and gold diggers. Once something’s hot and mainstream it will most likely get exploited. As we all know, sushi is hot, and now it’s come to that stage.

    How can we make it faster, cheaper, and offer more?! This is the general direction for most new sushi bars.

    To cut costs, frozen tuna is often used, lower in quality with almost no flavor, still safe to eat, at almost half the price of good fresh tuna. The grace of a skilled sushi chef with his/her’s knife is also a dying breed. Tuna, salmon, white fish, just about every fish is now available frozen, trimmed, and pre-cut. hell I’ve even been approached by American fish companies asking if I would be interested in buying pre-made frozen ready to eat California and spicy tuna rolls!!

    Sauces, stocks, soups are also offered up in pre-made packaging. When I learned sushi, unagi (eel) sauce was one of the sauces I was taught. It is a pain in the ass to make as it has to be watched and takes up to four days to make, and with one small mistake it would burn and you would have to start over.

    Simple mathematics: all you can eat sushi is not the ideal place you want to go for fresh sushi. Yes, it’s cheap, but so is the quality. Good fresh tuna wholesale is around $15 a pound, plus waste from trimming. So if you go to an all you can eat place and it’s $20 bucks, you are getting cheap frozen fish. Frozen tuna that is safe to eat raw can be found for about $7 to $9 a pound.

    Along with the fish, so many other factors also come in play. The rice. Good sushi restaurants will use a good medium to short grain rice that’s about $30 to $50 for a fifty pound bag — compared to lower end rice that is around $15 to $20 for a fifty pound bag.

    Bottom line, with sushi you get what you pay for..

  • The Joy of Insignificance

    Poor Eran Kolirin. When I spoke with the director of The Band’s Visit a few weeks ago, he had been traveling so much that his jet lag kept him from even an hour’s sleep. Then, just minutes before this interview, he managed to whack his head against the door frame of the car that brought him to the Nicollet Island Inn. Despite all this, he was a gracious interviewee.

    I loved this movie. The Band’s Visit is funny, touching, and filled with performances so subtle and sweet, it makes you swoon. When I emerged from the theater, I ached to spend a quiet evening over tea with these characters, talking about nothing, and talking about everything.

    The Rake: The film opens with "Once, not long ago, a small Egyptian police band got lost in Israel. Not many people remember this. It wasn’t that important." Why is the "unimportant"… important?

    Eran Kolirin: Some of this came in this book by Ali Salem, famous Egyptian playwright, the only one who ever came to Israel. He wrote this lovely book about his trip called Journey Into Israel. At the beginning of his book he describes how he lost his way in his car when he came from being a bit stressed and scared from visiting Israel for the first time. Instead of getting to Tel Aviv he got to Netanya. Not a small town like the movie, but it wasn’t where he was heading. So he has to stay there, but he describes a conversation between himself and this girl at the front desk of his hotel. And this tension between this very big premise of history—an Egyptian writer in Israel—and suddenly life throws you into something unexpected and unintentional. The tension between the big story in the background and the small story out front, I found very interesting.

    Rake: The Band’s Visit reflects a rich understanding of every character, even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant people. Like the man on the phone. Are any of these people from your life?

    Kolirin: You have to find yourself in every character that you write. When my wife and I lived in an apartment in Tel Aviv, there was this guy sitting in his car waiting for hours and hours. We used to call him "The Waiter", because that’s all he would do. Finally, one day I saw him in his car passionately kissing this woman. I think this guy was just waiting for this woman. He waited and waited and something finally happened.

    Rake: Tell me how you ended up composing this film. Did you just read Salem’s book and think about a being lost…

    Kolirin: The process is always this: First you have this Egyptian band. Then you ask why? Why is this important? Then I can go back and think of my influences, the Egyptian films that I used to enjoy as a child, which influenced me. In fact, so much that I originally wanted Omar Sharif in the starring role. But your first impulse just comes to you. Then you analyze it backwards.

    Rake: There’s a political undertone, but a distinct lack of religious undertone. None of the Egyptians, for instance, are ever seen stopping to pray. Was this a conscious effort on your part?

    Kolirin: That’s an interesting question. In my life I’m very religious in certain ways, but not with the exterior stuff. There’s something religious in the movie in you insist on looking at it this way—but not in the way the characters act. The conflict is religious, but on a very big scale, but not when a Muslim meets a Jew, not on this level.

    Rake: There seems to be a wonderful spontaneity in the film. Like the scene in the restaurant, it felt very real…

    Kolirin: Well, it wasn’t spontaneous, it was completely controlled. I don’t know how to improvise. It’s funny that you say that because it’s real—I hope it’s real!—but actually it’s very unrealistic. It’s not naturalistic, it’s very slow acting with precise gestures. Like the scene in the rollerskating rink, with dramatic gestures. But sometimes you have to be very unreal to get something real.

    Rake: The Band’s Visit seems to be a call for peace, though a very subtle one–it certainly doesn’t hammer you over the head with a message. But it does focus on the lovely, small things that unite us–food, conversation, music. And if you look at that dinner table scene, with the family staring down the musicians and arguing among themselves, it even suggests that our family strife and our squabbles are the same.

    Kolirin: I don’t go it thinking I have this message of peace. The movie likes these characters and is OK with them. That’s something peaceful. Just to let people have the time to think for themselves, to communicate with each other, to share emotion with each other is necessary.

    Rake: In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine you said that you don’t think peace is achievable in the Middle East. And yet the film suggests otherwise.

    Kolirin: Oh, yeah [Laughs]. If you ask me on a realistic level if I look at what’s happening and do I have any clever solution, unfortunately all I see is bloodshed. Again, there’s reality and there’s the movie that you make, which can yearn for some other kind of existence. That doesn’t mean that in real life if I observe our politics I think it’s very bad.

    Rake: I read that there was hope this would be shown at an Egyptian film festival…

    Kolirin: No. There’s no way it can be shown in Egypt.

    Rake: At all? Anywhere in the country?

    Kolirin: Formally, no. There’s a ban against any kind of cultural relationship with Israel. And it was accepted at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, but it was rejected at the last minute due to political pressure. It’s shown in film festivals where I’ve met many audience members from the Arab world. But not formally in any Arab state. It’s a shame, really.

  • A Dearth of Hookers and Blow

    It has become quite obvious in recent days that loyal
    service just isn’t rewarded within the legislature anymore. As recently as a
    handful of years ago, long-tenured legislators and officials would be shown the
    public’s appreciation through pompous public ceremonies and the occasional
    backroom smorgasbord of hookers and blow. But Lindsey
    Lohan’s rates     have gone through the roof, and tight budgets have reduced the
    budget for recreational pharmaceuticals in the Senate to almost nil. As a
    result, the legislature hasn’t put together a proper farewell for our very own
    soon-to-be departing state transportation commissioner slash
    lieutenant-governor – Carol Molnau.

    Since Tim Pawlenty’s election in 2002, Molnau has tirelessly
    served our state as a triple threat – lieutenant governor, transportation
    commissioner and national arm
    wrestling champion    . Her self-proclaimed transportation expertise, which has
    been amply demonstrated by such deftly executed projects as the Wakota
    Bridge project    , and her masterful handling of the 35W/62 interchange project,
    where her requirement that all contractors bidding on the project pay
    construction costs up front and then be reimbursed by the state resulted in no
    bidders coming forward to take the work, stalling the project and saving the
    state millions in 2006.

    Of course, Molnau has had her detractors. Some call her
    leadership asinine, accusing her of being an unqualified bumpkin who managed to
    drive Mn/DOT into the ditch like a farm girl drunk on lust and moonshine
    attempting to make it to Sartel on her daddy’s tractor.
    Unfortunately, the tractor in question vibrates quite distractingly once it
    hits 5 miles per hour, making it hard for our heroine to keep her eyes on the
    road. Of course, it doesn’t help that the roads the tractor has to travel on,
    in the words of several legislators, are "crumbling," or that the process for
    awarding the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake for the new 35W bridge
    was approximately as comprehensible as Britney Spears’ thought
    processes    . In the meantime, she’ll just need to rev that fucker up and jump
    the gap in true Duke boys
    fashion    . And if the tractor won’t cut it, maybe she can borrow one of those
    brand new F-150s
    Flatiron imported from Colorado for the project.

    Regardless, Molnau is most likely on her way out today, so
    why focus on the pain of the past when we can build a brighter future? The king
    is dead, long live the king, and all that, right? Well, in order to build that
    brighter future, we’ll need a new transportation commissioner. Someone who can
    unite, rather than divide. Someone who can bring hope to all – from the
    unwashed masses on the 5 to the Chaska housewife deftly maneuvering her
    lumbering Expedition from pothole to pothole.

    And who would my recommendation be for this august post,
    assuming Molnau goes the way of the nigh-mythical Yecki? Who could be our
    beacon, our ray of hope that will bring happiness and My Little Pony back to
    this great state?

    Laurie Coleman

    Mrs. Coleman would be the ideal choice to resurrect our
    transportation infrastructure from the blasted,
    post-apocalyptic landscape     we’re greeted with on a daily basis. She learned
    urban renewal from Norm Coleman – a man who has played both sides of the aisle
    in his political career with grace and aplomb, not to mention a certain amount
    of opportunism. She can sell
    ideas     in ways that Carol Molnau never dreamed. This former runway model has
    already convinced me to install a Blo & Go, though I was under the
    impression it offered an entirely different feature set that would have more utility for today’s man on the go. I’ve
    even heard that, in preparation for the call from Gov. Pawlenty, she has
    devised a way to monetize Minnesota’s surplus of icy Scandinavian blondes, a
    resource our great state is known for. According to Coleman’s projections, this
    new export could likely negate the need for the recently passed gas tax.

    Of course, it doesn’t hurt that she’s hot. We could use a little eye-candy to distract us from the politicking and rampant idiocy. Besides, did not
    Keats say, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all ye know on earth, and
    all ye need to know"? Which, after taking a spin through the photos
    of our legislators    , goes a long way toward explaining why truth comes at
    such a premium up at the capitol these days.

  • All Truth Passes through Three Stages

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    The Language of Love

    After weeks of rehearsals and rewrites — and even blogging for us in our Just Passing Through blog — local playwright Aditi Kapil is finally debuting two of her works this evening. The first, Love Person, directed by Risa Brainin, isn’t your ordinary love story — about physical attraction, social structure, and sexual orientation — but rather a love story about language and communication. "I was researching Sanskrit," writes Kapil in her February 5th blog post, "and it struck me that there is a similarity between
    the two
    languages. Something about the sentence structure, and how direct they
    are, straightforward yet poetic. And I began to wonder if it is
    possible for two people to
    fall in love on the basis of language alone. Because they understand
    each other in some deep way that for instance English speakers can’t.
    And how interesting it would be if those two people were a Deaf lesbian
    and an isolated Sanskrit professor. 20 some drafts later here we are,
    gearing up for the world premiere." Don’t miss out on this beautiful "language-laden love mystery."

    7:30 p.m., Mixed Blood Theater, 1501 South Fourth St., Minneapolis; 612-338-0937; $10, but be sure to check out our special Rake reader offer.

    MORE THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    A Circus about Water

    In the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater
    always has something interesting, creative, and colorful to offer. So
    give them a script by Aditi Kapil to work with, and
    they’re bound to make magic — magic out of magic. Sound good? As always
    — though Heart of the Beast never fails to prove that puppts aren’t
    just for kids — they serve up a nice social message as well. The
    subject: water. Learn about public water works, the Mississippi
    watershed, stewardship of our water commons, and the bottled water
    industry (the evil water bottle industry — I cry when I take out my
    recycling and see all those nasty water bottles). But this is no boring
    little lecture; Beneath the Surface is an all-out puppet extravaganza, in full Heart of the Beast style. "I love this show;
    it’s a circus about water," wrote Kapil in our Just Passing Through blog after attending a rehearsal a
    couple weeks ago "Man, were they funny! No, wait, this is what I
    actually love about
    puppeteers! I may have written the script, I may know exactly where
    they’re headed, but their minds just work differently from most people,
    and they take me by surprise and crack me up every time!"

    7:30 p.m., In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, 1500 East Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-721-2535; pay what you can.

    Peace Crimes

    In the early ’70s, as the Vietnam War drew an
    increasingly high death toll, eight Minnesotans raided area draft
    offices to destroy draft cards and spare their fellow Minnesotans from
    the horrors of what they knew to be an unjust war. Dubbed the
    "Minnesota Eight" by the local press, the protesters were
    nabbed by the FBI, tried and convicted for conspiracy against their
    country, and locked up in a federal prison. Now, several decades later,
    the Minnesota History Theatre, the Playwrights’ Center, and the
    University Theatre Department have come together to bring their amazing
    story to the stage.

    7:30 p.m., History Theater,
    Rarig Center, 330 21st Ave. S., Minneapolis;

    $25.

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Charles Baxter

    Charles Baxter,
    whom we’re happy to once again claim as a local (he recently returned
    from a long exile in Ann Arbor) has been at it for twenty-five years
    now, and his body of work—which includes novels, short stories, poetry,
    and essays—has gained both a national reputation and a cult following.
    His novel The Feast of Love
    was a National Book Award nominee and was recently made into a film.
    Baxter’s teaching at the University of Minnesota these days, but he
    keeps turning out books (he’s purportedly an insomniac), and his
    latest, The Soul Thief, involves a graduate student wrestling with the realization that he may not be who he thinks he is. Or something like that. —Brad Zellar

    7-8 p.m., MinneapolisCentral Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.

     

  • Open Thread: Back In the Bucket vs. Toronto

    Game #56, Road Game #26: Minnesota 85, Toronto 107

    Season Record: 12-44

    Well the Foo Fighters were great until they strung a trio of their pop hits together at the encore–the hard rockers were their metier, and the acoustic set, while solid, simply disrupted their stride and made it difficult to settle back into that raging sweet spot when they returned. Serj Tankian (lead singer of System of a Down) was as daft and operatic on his own as he was with System, and Against Me! was a killer opening act churning for only half a house.

    Uh, I was at Target Center tonight and the Wolves weren’t. Went to the concert with my son. Sorry to be obnoxiously glib up top. Was going to tape the game but I’m too swamped to guarantee a worthwhile analysis so, once again, the floor is open.

    I did watch the first 1 and a half quarters, saw Foye’s boomlet of points that contributed to the quick start. I also note that Bosh went off for 28 a game after Boozer’s 34–slippage for Jefferson? Frankly, I didn’t think Jefferson played that badly on D vs. Boozer. And watching Bosh nail that well-guarded trey as the first quarter was ending was an omen that even good defense wasn’t going to stop him tonight.

    But I wasn’t around for it so instead I’ll prompt with leading questions:

    Shaddy five more attempts than any other Timberwolf, including 1-9 from trey territory. Was he ball hogging or trying to get the Wolves back in the game in a hurry?

    Jefferson was 9-12 and Foye 7-10. I remember hearing Hanny say Foye had hit his first five shots. So why did he and Jefferson stop shooting? Too judicious? Good Raptor double teams? Other players dominating the ball? Bad pt guard play from Bassy?

    Five turnovers for Craig Smith in less than 17 minutes? What’s up?

    I see the Wolves forced only 6 turnovers after getting 24 vs Utah the night before? Was Wittman right to call out the ballclub? Did they lie down in the second half? As Toronto began to open up a little lead in the second just as I was turning off the set, it still wouldn’t have surprised me to have seen a close game result–they weren’t playing that badly. How and why did it crumble?

    Or just give me your own take.

  • The Band’s Visit

    "My inspiration can from an image I had in my head," said director Eran Kolirin. "I pictured a tough Arab man—a man in uniform—singing a song that had been trapped inside of him." There is no better way, really, to describe The Band’s Visit. It is a starkly beautiful work that carries all the tension of a trapped song. This tension and the awkward channeling of emotions by the characters is really what the movie is about. The plot is more of an afterthought, but in a good way.

    What happens is simple enough. An Egyptian police band (The Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra, to be precise), arrives in Israel to play at the inauguration of an Arab cultural center, only to discover that they have been completely forgotten. No one shows up to meet them at the airport, so they plow ahead by themselves and end up lost in a desolate village somewhere in the deserts of Israel. This is where they meet Dina, a woman with a personality much too big for the tiny town she lives in, and a smattering of other poignant characters.

    It is truly the characters that make the movie. We meet a hodge-podge of interesting personalities throughout the film, some of whom only have a few lines but are memorable nonetheless. There is the man who waits every night for his girlfriend to call him on the village pay phone, the young man who is so afraid of women that every time he is around them he "hears the sea" in his ears, and the frowning turtleneck-clad teen known to us simply as "gloomy girl." Then there is the colonel.

    Colonel Tawfiq Zacharya is the hardened, dignified leader of the Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra who stands up straight and demands order and discipline from his group of less-than-dedicated orchestra members. However, Zacharya is more of a poet than an officer. As the movie unfolds, we are introduced to the softer side of a man that has been plagued by hardships. Under his grizzled exterior, we find a man who is haunted by the deaths of his wife and son, a man worried about his nation’s increasing disinterest in music, a man who loves nothing better than fishing in the morning and listening to the symphonic sounds of his village waking up.

    Despite the heavy themes in this movie, there are plenty of awkward, Napoleon Dynamite-like moments that you can’t help but relate to as you laugh at their ridiculousness. My favorite scene was at the roller disco (yes, there is a scene at a roller disco) with "gloomy girl" and "scared-of-girls boy" as they awkwardly hook up. They provide a perfect illustration of the film’s recurring pent-up tension looking for release. The characters also lend a charm and a depth to the movie as we witness their painfully candid moments and uncomfortable encounters with each other. Not everyone speaks well, not everyone is sure of themselves, and not everyone is comfortable in social situations. They seem to be real people that Kolirin just happened to film. It is the believability and simplicity of the film that make it a superb production.

    It may be a bit difficult to find this movie in the United States, so be sure to catch it at the Edina Cinema, where it opens on February 29th. It will be well worth your while.

  • Hot Stupid Foreign Nannies

    It started like this:

    My 13-year-old daughter walked into a room where I was reading and my husband was opening a bottle of wine (which she would tell you is what we’re always doing, except when we’re working or yelling at her) and said, "You remember when I went to Karl and Julia’s when I was in third grade and their nanny let us slide down that huge dirt hill all afternoon and you got really mad because it was so dirty and dangerous?"

    "Yes," I said, without raising my head.

    "And you remember how you said she was stupid because we could have gotten trapped under the falling dirt and suffocated?"

    "Yes." This time I looked up at my daughter who is powerful and beautiful and full of metal: braces and piercings and rings.

    "She was from Iceland, right? The nanny?"

    "Yes." I was waiting for the point, which is almost always your best bet with a teenager. Assuming can be a minefield.

    "So, I don’t get it. What’s the deal with that?" She was looking perturbed, squinching up her nose.

    "What?" I asked.

    "Hot stupid foreign nannies. That’s what all men want: a hot, stupid, foreign nanny. Why is that?"

    I turned to my husband — poor guy — who was coming with the wine. "That’s what you want?" I said.

    "What?" He hadn’t been listening. He’d probably been pondering string theory or thinking about our taxes. Some ridiculous thing like that.

    "A hot stupid foreign nanny. All men want them. You’re a man. So by the transitive property. . . ." (He’s a mathematician, so I’ll often throw in some irrelevant proof and use it incorrectly, though he’s usually kind enough not to point this out.)

    "Women, too, Mom," my daughter broke in. "Now be fair. Older women just want hot, stupid, Brazilian pool boys."

    "But we don’t even have a pool," I said.

    "What was the question?" my husband asked, putting on his glasses as if this might help.

    "Never mind," the teenager said, rolling her eyes. "I’m going to bed."

    Which is too bad, because she brought up an important point. What is the deal with hot, stupid, foreign nannies and the men who love them? Also, what’s the deal with George Bush, whom I heard on the radio just the other day, talking about how we’re not in a recession — it’s a "slowdown" — when about a third of the people I know have lost their jobs, which feels pretty damn recessed to me?

    About that recession (sorry, "slowdown"), why is it that some of the restaurants and bars and coffeehouses I visit are like tombs, echoing and about to shut down for lack of human traffic, while others are booming — same as always, it seems — filled to bursting by people waving money who can’t wait to get in? It seems strange, but there are few places in the middle, only those on the verge of bankruptcy and those where a spontaneous late-planner still cannot get in.

    What’s the deal with Earl Grey Tea, which is full of overpowering, flowery bergamot, but ubiquitous? Why is the social service system hemorrhaging while we spend millions on a Middle Eastern war? How come we keep driving so much no matter how high the price of gas? And why aren’t more people excited (and thankful) that the writer’s union is back to work?

    Most important, what possessed anyone to bottle the swill called Old Moon Zinfandel? Granted, it was inexpensive — I bought it myself, for $6 — but a lot of good wines are these days. There are decent $5 Chiantis and passable $7 Bordeaux. This Zin, on the other hand, is vile stuff.

    It was just after my daughter departed that my husband handed me a glass. I took a sip and then another, because I couldn’t believe anything called "wine" could possibly taste so bad. It was not just flat, but sinister, containing a dead, clayey flavor I imagined turned my tongue a grayish-brown.

    So horrible was this wine, just those two swallows left me sickened for the rest of the night. I was up late, drinking lemon water, trying to get the stench out of my mouth and pondering the problem of Stupid Hot Foreign Nannies. The question, of course: What to tell the beautiful girl when she awakened. Because when you’re 13 — and when you’re 41, it seems — the world just makes no sense.

  • Return of the Great White Way

    The way it looks now, it’s hard to imagine that Hennepin Avenue was once a Great White Way of cinematic wonder, each downtown block blessed with at least one tempting marquee adorned with blinding lights. In my own early years of moviegoing, I was able to take my pick of many single screen palaces on the strip, all showing the hottest new releases — at least, "hot" in the eyes of a preteen horror buff. This included the State (where I saw Blacula), the Mann (Blackenstein!), the Orpheum (Godzilla Vs. Megalon) and, most prominently, the Gopher (Jaws, no less). Within a few years of my visits to these shrines, the State became The Jesus People Church, the Mann and Orpheum abandoned tombs for the homeless to flop in, and the Gopher accomodated a porn house before being crushed by the Godzilla of City Center.

    Such was the fate of all too many downtowns throughout the country, as multiplexes took over the suburbs and drew away patrons disturbed by the urban core’s crime, grime, crowding and, worst of all, lack of free parking. But, at one time, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, both in its downtowns and neighborhoods, were home to dozens of movie houses — many of them elegant art deco, atmospheric, or atomic age complexes that each offered one film, and one film only, projected on a screen larger than the average megamall wall. Dave Kenney’s new book Twin Cities Picture Show (Minnesota Historical Society Press, $29.95) offers an equally elegant look back at the history of Twin Cities theater exhibition, from its extravagant beginnings at the turn of the last century to its uneasy state in the first decade of this one.

    Kenney, who researched and wrote this general history for the Minnesota Historical Society over a two year period, is not, himself, a historian, but a freelance journalist who specializes in Minnesota history. He began the project when he was alerted to a mountain of photographs and documents on local movie theaters and exhibitors, left behind by two MHS staffers who had amassed them for a book that never came to be. "There aren’t very many books that deal with the moviegoing experience," he explained to me, "You do find a number of books that deal with the architecture. But what really gets me excited is finding something that you can see and experience right now, and go back in time and see how we got there."

    Many past and present comparisons can be made with classic theaters that still stand and bear most of their original design and light displays – even if most of them no longer show movies. Two dazzling examples are the Orpheum and the State, which each rose like Lazurus from desolation to become premier spaces for concerts and Broadway shows. Another is the Ritz in Northeast Minneapolis, whose structure was maintained and protected from the elements during the many years it was closed, so it could open as a solid home for various dance companies two years ago.

    Most impressive of all is the Heights in Columbia Heights, which still operates as a profitable first-run movie house. As Kenney tells me, current owner and operator Tom Letness, who reopened and renovated the building with partner Dave Holmgren, has "figured out who his audience is. There are enough people out there and there are so few places to go see movies in Columbia Heights. He also owns the Dairy Queen next door – and he doesn’t have extra rent to pay, because he has a studio apartment he designed himself above the box office and lobby!"

    The fate of most of the grand palaces of the teens, twenties and thirties, though, has not been so rosy. Saddest of all, not least because the water-damaged shell of the building still stands as a reminder of what it once was, is the Hollywood in Northeast. Kenney, himself, remembers going there in 1980, to see the Jamie Lee Curtis classic, Prom Night, and regarding the place at the time as an old dump. Twenty-five years later, he would discover during his research that the Hollywood was actually once a masterpiece of palatial design.

    Another long lost gem was The Minnesota on 9th Street in downtown Minneapolis, which was the largest single screen movie house in the cities’ history. "I’ve talked to people who remember going into that thing," recalls Kenney, "The enormity and the space, and to think that it was built to show one movie at a time for up to 4,000 people." This, on top of a hydraulic orchestra lift and a back lit ceiling dome, plus a lobby that was larger than most theaters. Needless to say, even in the heyday of film exhibition, this monolith never made a dime, and, after twenty years of on-again, offagain service, met the wrecking ball in the mid-fifties.

  • The Three Pointer: The Best Yet This Season

    (AP Photo/Jim Mone)


    Game #55, Home Game #30: Utah 100, Minnesota 111

    Season Record: 12-43

    1. The Beauty of Teamwork

    It’s been a long time–certainly a year, maybe two–since fans of the Minnesota Timberwolves have seen this kind of 48 minutes from their ballclub. There have been some really nice wins thus far this season: The roaring final 3 quarters that produced the 131 points versus Indiana, the two convincing wins over Phoenix, and the solid rousting of Philly just last week. And there have been enjoyably well-played losses to Boston (the one on the road), Atlanta (the one on the road), and San Antonio (last week). But Indiana and Philly are sub-mediocrities, the style Phoenix plays is prone to their occasional pratfalls, and the losses were ultimately losses, after all.

    Tonight the Wolves beat a very good team–19-4 in 2008 heading into this game–by mixing aggression and sound judgment, tenacity and tact, and, above all, a full-fledged sense of selflessness for the sake of the ballclub. Such teamwork is harder to describe than witness–it’s always easier to isolate what’s wrong with a car than why it works so well from ignition to muffler–but worth the effort if only to savor it. There are all the little things. Randy Foye jumping right in the middle of the paint to set a pick for Al Jefferson. Rashad McCants diving toward the hoop wide open and not receiving the pass, yet diligently circling back out to probe for other ways he can extend the play. Ryan Gomes rotating over to deter penetration and cover for his late-arriving teammate, then sliding to the other side of the lane to box out his own man after the shot goes up. Corey Brewer scrambling to the sideline and backhanding the ball in to save the possession, then getting back in time to tip in the subsequent shot less than two seconds later. Foye scrambling back hard enough in transition to be able to set his feet for a charge.

    Utah is a physical team, charter members of the Frequent Foulers Club, expert in rubbing out obstacles with back-door picks and other traffic-jamming Xs and Os designed to sap your spirit and bruise your muscles. They wait to seize the lapses that are the byproduct of fatigue. But the Wolves beat Utah at their own game. Wittman threw new man Kirk Snyder on Utah enforcer Matt Harpring and Snyder, who practiced against Harpring often his rookie year after being drafted by Utah, went shoulder to shoulder, toe to toe and more than once joined him on the floor in their mutual mania for the round orb. Theo Ratliff took the measure of another bench bruiser for the Jazz, Paul Milsapp, and, although it required 5 fouls in 12:31, helped flummox the second year player. By the third and early in the fourth period, many Utah shots were banging front iron.

    Muckers like Craig Smith and Ryan Gomes mucked, but so did Foye and McCants and Telfair, and Big Al. They gave little away for free to Utah, staying with their men by wedging themselves over picks or switching off smartly, alert to the entire court, vertical and horizontal, the breakaways and the back-door cuts. They kept their heads on a swivel and their hands up for deflections, grabbing 16 steals (one short of the franchise record) and disrupting at least that many other possessions. Utah did not execute poorly–the Jazz shot 46.4% and had 26 assists–but the Wolves also forced them into a season-high 24 turnovers. Three Wolves–Jefferson/Foye/McCants–had three steals and Telfair and Gomes had two.

    The offense was even more fun to watch. It brimmed with minor decisions that made already good possibilities just a little bit better. Telfair led the team with just 4 assists, and two big men off the bench, Smith and the newcomer Snyder had 3. McCants would have an open look for his jumper but see Jefferson sealing his man and already anticipating the double team, so he’d dump in the entry pass, watch Jefferson spin one-on-three into the lane and draw the foul. McCants gets the glow of feeling unselfish; Al the gusto of barging into the teeth of Sloan’s boys in the paint, a Jazz player is that much closer to foul trouble and Jefferson nails the free throws (he was 8-10 FT overall). Another time down, Jefferson has the ball and is crab-dribbling into the double until he push-passes a final dribble into the hands of McCants, swinging over five feet behind him and getting his feet in position, even as Jefferson becomes the de facto screen on his two men and the other McCants has just rubbed off him. Shaddy nails the open look (8-17 FG), Jefferson drops an easy dime (one of two tonight) and Utah knows there are legit threats being wielded at either end of this two-man game.

    Except that it’s a five man game. The three-headed monster Wolves fans have been pining for–Jefferson, McCants and Foye–all take their closeups, damn well linger in it, maybe for two or three possessions in a row if the matchups are right, abetted by the other four teammates in the little ways described above. But then, for one of the few times this year, the emphasis moves before it has to. Foye’s hot, but cedes to Shaddy, or Al, who goes and gets some, but doesn’t mark the territory for pecking order purposes. In the first half, Foye has 9 shots, Jefferson 7, McCants 8; for the game Foye has 16 shots, McCants 17, Jefferson 17. Jefferson and McCants tie for the scoring lead with 22, Foye a whisker behind at 20.

    And 20 from Ryan Gomes makes it only the second time in the last 10 years, and the first time since January 2004, that four Wolves go off for 20 points or more. Gomes, of course, is different. He is the best individual barometer for this team, because his game is glue, everything geared to teamwork, meaning his perceptive movements without the ball will get him a bushel of sly, easy looks at the hoop if others notice and feed him. Tonight he was 7-15 FG and grabbed team highs in rebounds (11) and offensive boards (4). When the Wolves play this unselfishly, he is probably the most emblematic, and will likely be among the most obscure, especially in relation to his contribution.

    2. Coming Out Party

    Hey, it’s Randy Foye, circa January or Feburary 2007. Those who have been counseling us Foye critics to wait until the guy was back in game shape can gloat a little off this performance. Too often in his first 11 appearances this season Foye wallowed in boom-or-bust mode, bent on arching up treys or taking his shakey wheels for a traipse through the lane. Tonight he threw in the deceptively tough stuff, the midrange game, the runners and the pull-ups and the dish on the move. It made a huge difference both in making the treys and the lay-up tries more unpredictible and in fostering the ball and player movement so much on display tonight. As I mentioned earlier, and am anxious to repeat, Foye, McCants and Jefferson passed the baton fairly regularly tonight. There were three go-to guys and nobody bitched/sulked/malingered or otherwise acted out if one of the other two was bogarting the crayons in the sandbox. And while Foye is not a point guard (16 shots, 2 assists), he is a buffer against the idea of either/or between Jefferson and McCants.

    "We’ve said we have to be patient with Randy," an elated Wittman cautioned after the game. "There’s probably going to be another down before there is another up."

    And when there is, I’ll describe it and probably criticize it. But tonight’s effort gave credence to the "still recovering from injury" feeling about Foye; there was physical confidence in this "up." Yeah, Foye missed a chippie or two, but the shot selection was light years better than the chuck-fests he showed previously. Maybe this won’t be so much of a "limbo" season for Foye after all.

    3. In Praise of Wittman

    With ten m
    inutes to go in the game and the Wolves clinging to a one point lead, Randy Wittman opted out of his big lineup, subbing in Ryan Gomes and Craig Smith for Ratliff and Jefferson, with Foye, McCants and Snyder filling out the rotation. For those breaking out the slide rules at home, that’s no player above 6-7 (if you believe Craig Smith is 6-7). As a stalwart big lineup guy, I sharpened the poison pen.

    But Wittman had noticed Utah coach Jerry Sloan sitting his best players, Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams, limiting the Jazz’s options on offense. And he knew a front line of Okur (6-11), Harping (6-7) and Millsap (6-8), might have trouble defending a quicker team in the 4th quarter.

    Boom. Foye nailed a trey off a feed from Gomes. Harping tried a jump-hook over Smith on the baseline that didn’t go. Foye missed another trey attempt but Gomes got the board. His shot was blocked by Millsap but Smith got the board. His shot was blocked by Harpring, but Smith got it back, and laid it in. Millsap missed a jumper from the side of the key and Foye rebounded, leading to a neat layup by Gomes on an assist from Snyder. Sloan hurriedly called timeout and got Boozer and D-Will back in the game, but, in just 1:54, the smallball Wolves had bumped a single digit up to 8, permanently changing the complexion of the game.

    Had it gone exactly the other way–smallball giving the Jazz a quick seven and swinging the tide–the anti-Wittman venom from me and others would have been righteous. Because he’s got a lousy won-loss record, he’s fairly bland, he stunk up the joint in his coaching stint last year, and he enjoys the support of McHale, Taylor and some others who have been incumbents of the downfall. We’re quick to criticize and slow to praise.

    So give the man his due for the smallball gambit–it’s not like that quintet had ever played a minute together before, and it may have been the difference tonight. Wittman also chose this game to showcase Kirk Snyder, who doesn’t know all the team’s plays but logged an effective 24:09 tonight because Witt liked matching him up with the beef of Harpring and Kirilenko at the small forward slot. He probably also knew Snyder had that stint in Utah and Sloan doesn’t change spots that much. Snyder, anxious to make a splash and mindful of his impending free agency, was the right feature at the right time. There was also the fabled Wittman discipline, but lower-keyed and effective this time. After the Wolves raced out to an 8-2 lead, Utah scored the next ten points, leading to a no-nonsense time out from Wittman. Smart move whether he said anything or simply broke the prevailing momentum–the Wolves scored the next seven points.

    PS–City Pages writer Jonathan Kaminsky has a nice, long, profile of Al Jefferson up on the citypages.com site. Worth reading.

     

  • Life is real! Life is earnest!

    WINE & DINE
    Join Us for Dinner

    While movies like Ratatoiulle might have us questioning how good a dinner partner a food critic might make, we have to remember it’s merely fiction (the animation helps). The truth of the matter is, a good food critic is simply someone who knows and appreciates good food (and can express the reasons why, of course). What better dinner partner than that? I would gladly have dinner with any food critic in town — and we have so many good ones. But frankly, dinner with Jeremy Iggers and Ann Bauer — together! — has to take the cake. Join them this evening for an equally wonderful meal at T’s Place. According to Iggers, "T’s Place offers a unique menu — a combination of traditional Ethiopian dishes, served on a tray
    covered with injera (a pancake-like flat bread), and some
    Malaysian-Ethiopian dishes that chef T Belachew invented when he was a
    chef-partner with Kin Lee at Singapore!" And if that’s not enough to entice you, then be sure to read the Twin Cities Daily Planet‘s review of tonight’s featured musician, Yohannes Tona — "the baddest bass guitar player in the Twin Cities."

    8 p.m., T’s Place, 2713 E. Lake St., Minneapolis, pay your own way.

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Chip Kidd

    This is apparently what we’ve come to: In an age when we’re reminded
    on an almost daily basis that nobody reads books anymore, one of the
    biggest celebrities in publishing is a guy who designs book jackets.
    That, of course, would be Chip Kidd, the graphic designer with a
    classic quarterback’s name. You’d think maybe the guy would be content
    with having designed fifteen-hundred covers and counting—his work is
    ubiquitous and, to his credit, almost always ridiculously stylish and
    unmistakable—but you’d be wrong. Turns out Kidd also writes novels, and
    on the heels of his debut The Cheese Monkeys
    (an art school yarn) comes The Learners (a novel with a lot of
    ruminations on graphic design). You certainly can’t accuse the
    ambitious Kidd of not writing about what he knows. The publisher says
    the new book also involves “advertising, electroshock torture, suicide,
    a giant dog, potato chips, and the Holocaust.” —Brad Zellar

    7-8 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.

    MUSIC
    Foo Fighters

    If
    you want to piss people off, claim that Dave Grohl has written and performed more
    great music than Kurt Cobain. It’s true: While his stuff may never be as
    transcendent as Cobain’s, the Foo frontman and ex-Nirvana drummer has soldiered
    on in superior fashion since Cobain’s ’94 suicide, delivering a remarkably
    consistent string of quality discs. (One by One is the lone clunker among the
    seven Foo records.) The latest, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, ranks
    with the first disc on In Your Honor as the band’s finest work, containing the
    Foo hallmarks of dynamic crescendos (a whisper-to-a-scream capability to rival
    Aerosmith); gritty, punk-pop hooks; underrated, passionate vocals; and the
    occasional affecting ballad. Plus, in whatever incarnation Grohl slaps
    together, the Foos have always been able to deliver the goods in an arena-sized
    venue. —Britt Robson

    7:30 p.m., Target Center,
    600 First Avenue North, Minneapolis; 612-673-1600.

    Also tonight — and tomorrow night — the Terell Stafford Quintet will be performing at the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant.

    And on the birthday of one of my favorite American poets (1807-1882), I’ll leave you with his words:

    Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
    Life is but an empty dream!
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
    And things are not what they seem.

    Life is real! Life is earnest!
    And the grave is not its goal;
    Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
    Was not spoken of the soul.

    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
    Is our destined end or way;
    But to act, that each to-morrow
    Find us farther than to-day.

    Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
    And our hearts, though stout and brave,
    Still, like muffled drums, are beating
    Funeral marches to the grave.

    In the world’s broad field of battle,
    In the bivouac of Life,
    Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
    Be a hero in the strife!

    Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
    Let the dead Past bury its dead!
    Act,–act in the living Present!
    Heart within, and God o’erhead!

    Lives of great men all remind us
    We can make our lives sublime,
    And, departing, leave behind us
    Footprints on the sands of time;–

    Footprints, that perhaps another,
    Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
    Seeing, shall take heart again.

    Let us, then, be up and doing,
    With a heart for any fate;
    Still achieving, still pursuing,
    Learn to labor and to wait.

    —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow