September 2011
Czechs to Fitzgerald Theater: Siddown,...
In an e-mail to the Fitzgerald Theater—CCed to theater writers at the Star Tribune, the Pioneer Press, and the Daily Planet—Joe Landsberger of Czech and Slovok Sokol Minnesota challenges the Fitzgerald’s claim to be “St. Paul’s oldest surviving theater space.”
“I think you misstate,” writes Landsberger. “The CSPS (Sokol) Hall Theater was started in...
Irishmen of The Script charm Orpheum Theatre...
It’s a familiar story: Irish band cancels their Minneapolis show; said Irish band makes it up with a rescheduled, gushed-about performance. This time it was The Script, not U2, who took center stage and screamed sweet nothings to an enamored, and mostly inebriated, crowd.
The Dublin pop-rock trio (made up of lead singer Danny O’Donoghue, guitarist Mark Sheehan, and drummer Glen...
August 2011
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"Alcina's Island" brings light operetta to the...
“It really is hard to describe,” said members of an approximately 100-person audience as they happily filled out comment forms. Mixed Precipitation Theater’s director Scotty Reynolds had just pleaded for comments that might succinctly communicate a complicated mashup. That’s what it is, a mashup.
Opera by Handel meets country twang; a breaker on that, good buddy...
Talking with Evan Glodell, creator of the...
This January at the Sundance Film Festival, there were many high-profile screenings of films with big stars (Perfect Sense with Ewan McGregor; My Idiot Brother with Paul Rudd; The Details with Tobey Maguire; Margin Call with Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, and Jeremy Irons) and all these films found U.S. distribution after their screenings at Sundance. Over 30 films were picked up throughout the...
Ben Lerner's "Leaving the Atocha Station" is an...
I recently had the pleasure of reading internationally acclaimed poet Ben Lerner’s debut novel Leaving the Atocha Station, forthcoming from Coffee House Press. Lerner, who is the author of three books of poetry—The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path—is a native of Topeka, Kansas and currently teaches at Brooklyn College. He is young (only 32), talented, well spoken, and...
Things a mother pig might be thinking as she gives...
“Miracle,” my ass!
You know, it’s the video cameras that really cross the line here.
Sure, and where’s this crowd going to be when I’m off to the ol’ slaughterhouse next year?
One down, 13 to go. God, I hope that first one wasn’t just the runt.
Pink. Again?!
If one more kid yells BA-RAM-YU!, I’m going to shoot the next piglet straight into his...
Laura Moe blends songcraft and stagecraft
Observing vocalist Laura Moe, covering my music beat, has been a pretty much tip-of-the-iceberg experience. Seems the more I find out the more there is to find out.
One night, M.J. Kroll graciously hauled me out to the St. Paul hinterlands of Eagles Club/VFW to catching something called The Travelin’ Moburys. As it turned out, a strong country trio of Bill Travers and Francis ...
MUSIC | Munqs drops an uneven but intriguing...
Local musician Munqs keeps expectations modest for his solo debut, trial&era—now available for free download on his website, and recommended to me by a mutual friend. “Trial&era is less an album and more a song journal; it covers a period of roughly five years and a variety of musical personalities.”
Though Munqs (a.k.a. Corey W. Lawson) is a 27-year-old with a solid...
Things to scream into the microphone as you're...
Paul is DEAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!! ChimichAAAAAAAAAAAAANGAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! I am the GREAT CORNHOOOOOOOLLLLIIIIOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I feel BLOOOOOAAAAATED!!!!!! I brought my own potato sack from HOOOOOOOME!!!!!! WHYYYYYY GOD WHYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?! I’m single and I have a GREAT CREDIT SCOOOOOORRRRE!!!!!! Baby got SAAAAAAACK!!!!! MynameisInigoMontoyayoukilledmyfatherpreparetoDIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!...
Other things to put Minnesota State Fair food on...
A Carmen Miranda hat
The half-naked body of an attention-hungry candidate for public office
A plastic lightsaber
A pedestal surrounded by wild dogs
One of those little pirate-sword cocktail skewers
A cat
A large ferry that dumps the food out into the sea while hungry people watch*
A burro
On hold at the Merriam Park Library
A baby bird’s tongue, after the food is pre-chewed
- Jay...
Jungle Theater's "Hamlet": Guilty creatures...
“Thank God for Hugh Kennedy.”
So said my friend at one of the two intermissions for the Jungle Theater’s current production of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, and I have to agree. Of the things that work in Hamlet, Kennedy as Prince Hamlet is involved in nearly all of them. When Hamlet disappears from the action for a chunk of act three, you feel his absence. I...
Minnesota State Fair Giant Slide couple have...
He worked at Mike’s Hamburger Stand. She worked at the Giant Slide. It was inevitable they would meet and fall in love.
“It was a State Fair romance story from the get-go,” said the girl, Stacey Barona. Celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary August 22, she and husband Robert stood at the fair’s iconic slide. “We went out to dinner—but not at the fair.”
Stacey and Robert sealed the...
Minnesota State Fair's Princess Kay of the Milky...
The 58th Princess Kay of the Milky Way, Mary Zahurones, climbed back into a 40-degree rotating glass cooler Thursday afternoon at the Minnesota State Fair’s Dairy Building after a warm-up break. She had another hour and a half to go before her image was finally carved into a 90-pound Grade A block of butter.
Zahurones had been sitting for butter sculptor Linda Christensen since early...
Minnesota State Fair Art Show honors 100 years of...
“The seventh time is the charm,” declared sculptor James Freid to a group gathered around his piece, Spinn Cycle, at the Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Preview Aug. 23. “It’s the simplest, but the funnest, thing I have done.”
Freid made six previous attempts to be included in the annual juried art competition. This year, the 100th anniversary of the show, proved to be the magic number for...
Downsides of having your head carved in butter at...
Tubs of margarine thrown through your windows
Awkward family dinners for months while you use up the butter
Tasteless “on a stick” jokes
You always wonder whether you’d look better salted
People saying, “They sure do know how to butter you up!”
Getting mooned by fairgoers while you pose in the refrigerated booth
People saying about you, “She’s...
The night the cops took my clothes
Jay Gabler (my boss at the TCDP) has been making these Local Lists and I contributed to this one recently: “Summer in the Twin Cities is almost over! I’d better hurry up and…” My contribution was: “Get my clothes confiscated by the cops while I’m skinny-dipping…again.”
I ran into Jaybler the other night on my way to a #30daysofbiking party, and it somehow came up that...
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Scenes we do and don't have in the Twin Cities
Pitchfork: What’s the music scene like in Minneapolis? James Brooks: There isn’t a scene. (“Rising: Elite Gymnastics,” 8/24/11)
Other scenes the Twin Cities don’t have
A surfing scene
A mountain-climbing scene
A reality TV scene
A tap-dance scene
A hatmaking scene
A krumping scene
A crumpet scene
An after-2-a.m. scene
Scenes the Twin Cities do have
A...
Adele croons, St. Paul swoons
Wednesday night’s Xcel Center was packed to the brim with those eager to hear two vocal legends. One was Wanda Jackson, the First Lady of Rockabilly who’s in the midst of a resurgence. The other was Adele, a fresh-faced performer whose career has exploded recently on the strength of music inspired by some of the past century’s legendary singers.
Opener Jackson delivered a set...
Other Twin Cities investment opportunities for the...
Eat Street Lofts: ONLY EIGHT LEFT since 2007
Re-opening MinneNAPolis at Mall of America
Hydropower plant at Ye Olde Mill
Opening a House of Nuts next to the House of Balls
Private Equity Field at the Metrodome
Adding third, fourth, and fifth decks to the Stella’s rooftop
Buying Capella Tower and redeveloping it as Acapella Tower, converting its offices into practice space for...
Arts Orbit Radar 8/25/11
What’s happening this week On the radar
“We’re so sticky and glittery,” I overheard one teenage girl say to another last month at the sultry-hot Pitchfork Music Festival, “It’s like Ke$ha threw up on us.” Your best shot at having that actual experience is Tuesday at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium.
After an itinerant year following the closure of Bedlam...
Graywolf Press: "Addicted to making these...
As a 20-something with an English degree, I find myself constantly awash in a sea of interns. I’m there too, part of the wave, all of us crashing down upon a vast, barren shore of employment possibilities.
Being a publishing intern is always wonderful at first, until you reach the limits of your work—you are working near publishers, but not necessarily in publishing; you are reading books,...
David Bowie's "The Man Who Fell to Earth" comes...
After writing in last week’s post about the plethora of repertory films screening at the Trylon Microcinema, it was nice to see another “rep” film show up on the Twin Cities film schedule from British director Nicholas Roeg: his The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) will be getting its due for a week-long engagement starting this Friday at the Lagoon Cinema. What’s special...
Small arts organizations: Help us help you
The Daily Planet recently applied for a grant that would allow us to expand our arts coverage, and as part of the application, we were looking to gain the input and support of some of the local venues that would benefit from increased coverage. I wrote to several venues across town, from big to little. I heard back very quickly from the Guthrie Theater, the Walker Art Center, and the Capri...
Donations politely rejected by the Minnesota...
Charles Lindbergh’s swastika doodles
The first pole Diablo Cody danced on
Denny Hecker’s tanning bed
The embalmed corpse of Liquor Lyle
Vince Vaughn’s diaper pail
Ambiguously stained GETTIN’ CRAY CRAY banner from Cray Computers’ 2009 holiday party
Scott Seekins’s summer mustache
Randy Moss’s baditude
The athletic supporter worn by Kent Hrbek in...
“Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey is an American hero.”
– Reader comment from the Daily Planet archives.
Types of people who are like, "YES! Finally...
People who buy their art at IKEA
Barista stalkers who have to stay, by court order, 500 feet away from Spyhouse
Uptown slumlords trying to avoid their tenants
MCAD flunk-outs
People who’ve dated artists
Michele Bachmann, for fear of Soviet spies
People who own Infinite Black cold-press jugs not solely for jugband purposes
People whose only tattoos are lower-back butterflies
Members...
