January 2008

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MN Folk: Big in Madrid?

Filed under: Local Music

I meant to post this awhile ago, but over on MNSpeak, local illustrator and occasional Electric Arc Radio Show performer Andy Sturdevant pointed out that some crazy cool Spanish art mag wrote up a big feature on Minnesota's current folk scene. Roma di Luna, Meg Ashling, the Floorbirds (who?) and Mike Gunther were all written about in a piece that begins on page 20 of the January 2008 issue. You can download a PDF of the whole thing on the Calle 20 website.

The press came as a surprise to some of the artists highlighted--"I didn't know anything about the article. They procured the photos through the Dutch Label that released our last record, Rosa Records. It was a cool article, though," Gunther wrote in an email. It's kind of awesome that Spanish people, who are better than us because they have mad scientist chefs and lunatic architecture and tapas and also got the Mexicans to speak their language even though we live right next door, have found something to admire over here! Okay France, now you say something about our scene that you like.

Posted by Sarah Askari at January 31, 2008 7:13 PM | Comments (3)

 

Minnesota Book Awards Finalists Announced

Filed under: Books

Now in it’s 20th year, the Minnesota Book Awards announced its nominees this week. Helmed by the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, four authors were nominated in each of the eight categories by 24 judges from the state.

Nominees include Kevin Kling’s hilarious tales of life with a dog in The Dog Says How, Jim Walsh’s oral history The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting, and Wing Young Huie’s colorfully fascinating Looking for Asian America: An Ethnographic Tour. For a complete list, check out the Friends website here. Feel strongly about a local author? Visit Twincities.com during March to take part in the Readers’ Choice Awards.

Posted by Jessica Armbruster at January 31, 2008 5:31 PM | Comments (0)

 

Burnout Paradise: No Particular Place to Go

Filed under: Video Games

Go to the GameFAQs review site for Burnout 3: Takedown – widely regarded as the best entry in the critically acclaimed go-fast-and-crash racing series – and note the number of laudatory writeups in both the PS2 and Xbox versions’ player review sections that say something like “I typically hate racing games, but…” or “this is the only racing game I’ve really liked”. (I hate to make you do the legwork there, but I personally gave up after about ten, not including the misguided soul who claimed to hate “realistic racers like Project Gotham” – apparently “you need to brake” is too strenuous a demand.) I tend to have a pretty uncharitable view of that whole outlook: usually when someone says something’s [x] for people who don’t like [x], 9 times out of 10 the people who really do like [x] will find out that there’s not a lot of substance for them beneath all the mass-appeal diluting. I try not to be one of those people that always gripes about the “sheep” who keep buying Halo and Madden titles, but as a racing game aficionado -- and by “aficionado” I mean “insufferable snob” -- Burnout is my one weakness: if it’s the only racing game you’ve ever made it a point to enjoy, all I can say is you’re missing out on a hell of a lot. Did you know that Forza Motorsport 2 lets you drop an all-wheel-drive Nissan Skyline drivetrain into a ’69 Datsun Z? How is that not awesome?

But the real problem I’ve always had with Burnout, which I’ve enjoyed off and on since the first game was released back in 2001, isn’t specifically that it appeals to people who don’t like racing games -- it’s that sometimes it seems to be made by people who don’t like racing games. Sure, each game in the Burnout series comes achingly close to matching the kind of all-out white-knuckle craziness one would hope for from a game so heavily centered around blistering velocity and the pyrotechnical consequences of directing said velocity into a bridge abutment. But ever since Burnout 2: Point of Impact, the breakthrough title that established the series as a populist success, each successive title saw someone at Criterion and/or EA usher in some huge mistake. Takedown had a notorious flaw where the AI-controlled cars would always hang right off your ass no matter how fast you drive and how many times you wreck them, but the moment you wipe out they get a 30-second lead that they never relinquish. Burnout Revenge was a bit less bullshit as far as AI went, but the challenge – which previously owed a lot to the encouragement of a daredevil weaving-through-traffic driving style -- mostly disappeared, thanks to the “traffic checking” feature which turned most civilian vehicles from a dangerous obstacle to a flimsy target you could bat away like a wayward aluminum can. And while Burnout Dominator put a bit more focus back on straight-up racing, it lacked much of the over-the-top havoc (and the mildly sociopathic, puzzle-esque 50-car-pileup-creating Crash Mode) that made the franchise popular in the first place.

So you might think that Burnout Paradise’s shift to a free, open world where closed circuits and linear routes are traded for a city street layout would follow this pattern of botching a perfectly good idea. While this kind of freeform exploration’s been pulled off successfully in other racing games – think Test Drive Unlimited and the Grand Theft Auto cousin Midnight Club Racing – neither of those games relied on the kind of blink-and-die speed or gonzo destruction Burnout thrived on. As a result, Burnout Paradise can initially be a frustrating headache. Criterion took the freedom of an open world as an excuse to do away with everything that would keep the game from being seamless, and a lot of basic practicality went out the window: there’s not much real organization of events and no quick and easy way to jump from race to race, thanks to an insistence on creating a menu-free interface that simply places the starting points for races at various intersections and makes you go all the way back to that point of origin if you fail and want to try again. My first race took me from the middle of a busy downtown to a distant section up in the mountains, and when I finished a few ticks behind first place – the natural result of having to take my eyes off the road to glance down at a mini-map or up at a blinking “turn here” indicator sign, thereby increasing my chances of smashing into something by about 800% -- I discovered that I was in the middle of nowhere and there weren’t any other nearby races to participate in. Fantastic. Might as well drive around aimlessly for a while.

“A while,” in this case, being a few hours. This is where the real fun of Burnout Paradise comes in: if you find something frustrating or poorly-implemented about the races in this game, feel free to abandon them and just dork around. Just like 90% of the people who play a Grand Theft Auto title, I eventually started straying away from the main missions and did whatever the hell else I wanted: searched for wicked jumps, smashed through billboards, busted through the chain-link gates that denoted shortcuts, and basically just took in the scenery. The locale of Paradise City is a fictionalized generic simulacrum of California that, despite a faintly desaturated and hazy color palette and the lack of any sort of day-night cycle, makes up in odd little hidden routes and secret stunt areas what it lacks in immediate personality. You’ve seen most of the game’s environments – winding mountain roads, busy interstates, waterfront docks -- in sandbox titles before, racing or otherwise, but the streets that funnel you through them tend to take you to unexpected places and often divert you towards some of the most batshit crazy stunts I’ve ever seen in a racing game.

Ever play San Francisco Rush and get stupid with glee when you found some secret ramp tucked away behind a building, one that launched your car over an entire city block? Paradise has a jump like that about every 50 yards, and the ones up in the mountains can send your car airborne for ridiculous stretches of time. It helps a lot in alleviating the boredom that might otherwise start rearing its head during your 15th trip to the junkyard (it is just about the opposite of convenience to make the player drive to a specific spot on the map just to change their car), and eventually all this aimless cruising around searching for ridiculous stuff to do will translate into a greater knowledge of the map’s layout. Throw in a few events that aren’t dependent on any specific destination -- Road Rage (run a certain number of opponent cars off the road in a certain amount of time), Stunt Runs (gain points by stringing together combos of stunts a’la the Tony Hawk games), Showtime (the lukewarm replacement for Crash Mode, where you can bounce the remains of your wrecked car around like a one-ton basketball and ricochet it into oncoming traffic) – and suddenly those races become less about trying to figure out where you’re supposed to go and more about getting there fast. Not that it’ll come easy, given how huge the map is -- it took me two weeks to get bored of Burnout Revenge; it’ll take me at least that long to start feeling like I actually know most of Paradise City’s ins and outs.

As long as it’ll take to learn how to best navigate Paradise’s streets, acquiring and mastering all of the game’s 75-plus cars could take even longer. Unlike most of the previous Burnout games, just about every vehicle feels different: each one is designated its own specific specialty (unwieldy but tough Aggression cars, fast but fragile Speed cars and agile, jack-of-all-trades Stunt cars), but they also have their own handling traits and personality quirks; some cars not only feel faster than others, but lighter, more maneuverable and easier to slide around corners. They’re unrealistic in some basic senses – the inexplicable lack of a speedometer makes it feel like each car’s going 300 MPH, and if you can keep the hammer down through a long straightaway, listen to all the upshifts and you’ll discover that your car has what sounds like a nine-speed transmission. (None of the cars have drivers, either – sure, it’d be uncomfortable to watch human bodies flail around in the game’s super-detailed wrecks, but their absence means that Paradise City appears to be overrun with Christines.) But there isn’t any perfunctory hovercraft handling here; landing one of those ridiculous jumps feels weighty and solid, and throwing some of the heavier cars around a turn with a bit of drift-braking assistance feels almost as forceful as the controlled chaos of Project Gotham’s balletic powerslides. It helps the cause of variety that these fictional cars run a diverse range of styles – hot rods, ‘30s luxury cars, ‘60s British GTs, Japanese tuners – some of which almost look like car-geek in-jokes: your first ride resembles the unholy union of a GTO and a Mustang Mach 1, and a later acquisition bears an uncanny similarity to the world-beating Ferrari 330 P3/4 that dominated the 24 Hours of Daytona in ‘67.

So all I really wanted from Burnout Paradise was the ability to go stupid fast and do wicked powerslides as my opponents disintegrate in spectacular slow-motion like Steve McQueen’s Porsche 917 in Le Mans. It gave me plenty of that, and rendered it all in spectacular 60 FPS debris-strewn hi-def glory. But dropping me in a huge city and simply declaring “here you are, go nuts” went from frustrating and disorienting to liberating pretty quickly – especially online, where me and a bunch of friends spent hours racing around, taking online challenges (jump x number of times; do a barrel roll over a specific spot; drive against oncoming traffic for a certain length) or just playing chicken and laughing like idiots. Sure, this could be a racing game for people who don’t like racing games – but it’s also a Burnout for people who don’t like Burnout.

Posted by Nate Patrin at January 29, 2008 4:36 PM | Comments (2)

 

Gregory Maguire

Filed under: 3 Questions

Most famous for penning Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which re-imagined The Wizard of Oz and was transformed into a hit Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire has carved himself a literary niche by looking at fairy tales and children's stories from a different angle. He's reworked Snow White, Cinderella, and in his latest novel, What-the-Dickens, he explores the idea of the Tooth Fairy and its relationship to youth.

City Pages: Your novels frequently look at tales and characters that are part of our collective upbringing and cultural backdrop. Why does reexamining these stories as an adult inspire you?

Gregory Maguire: Well, there's several reasons they're appealing, one is I think generally they're all good stories or have good elements or else kids wouldn't be interested in them. So the fact that I'm interested in them now because children have been interested in them is a credit to their original value. The stories that are uninteresting to kids, they don't talk about, they don't remember, and they fall out of the culture immediately. So the fact that I go back to them at all means that they’ve already been tried and true. They already have something interesting and arresting to them. But why I go back to children's stories instead of other aspects of our culture or other thoughts and observations and apprehensions of the world I have has to do partly with how fragmented of a culture we live in here in America. That is to say in this year of politics we're always talking about the great divide between the red states and the blue states, in terms of economics we talk about the divide between the haves and the have-nots, if we are interested in Marxists sensibility, we talk about the class structure, we talk about certain privileges of education, but the one thing that we share in common, despite which side of the great divide we hail each other from, is the common territory and experience of childhood. You don't have to have a political opinion when you're 6 to decide whether you like the Wizard of Oz or not. You don't have to decide the face content is of your moral struggle to believe in the Tooth Fairy when you're 5. These stories sort of predate the ways in which we distinguish ourselves as adults one from another, and therefore they are somewhat universal in a world that is rapidly losing universals. Now, as a writer, I suppose I could also add I'm a professional. I want to get the biggest bang for the buck so to speak. I want to sell my work, I want to hit the biggest audience that I can, and so therefore to use the material of childhood is to use the material that almost nobody says 'Oh, I don't know anything about that, I'm not interested.' Everybody who grew up in America has a memory of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. If you say “poison apple,” quick, what are your associations for poison apple? Or what are your associations with the words “ruby slippers” or your association with the first tooth you lost as a child? Almost every American will come up with the same response. And that means they are all together with me on the same page, the first page of a book that relies on that material as its fundament.

CP: What do you think is appealing to adult readers about revisiting the stories that they loved and learned from as children?

GM: Well frankly I think we cower in terror at the world as it is. I know I do, that's why I'm here with a closed door and my children on the other side of the door. The reality of things with global warming and An Inconvenient Truth, and the apparently inconvenient truth of the fiscal meltdown; that if you've been hearing the news today, seems to have happened in Europe and Japan and Canada, and will no doubt happen tomorrow on Wall Street. These things are really scary, and they're things we have to deal with, and we may not in fact conquer them, we may be conquered by them. So to go back to a time in which we were consolable, those stories of childhood were consoling and as children we were consolable, I think that's a legitimate function of art--to console. So I use the material at hand that's appealing to me. But I use it for the same reasons that anybody might use any material for art: to console, to challenge, to inspire, to question, and to remind people that even in the solitude of reading, we're not alone.

CP:You've taken on Cinderella, Snow White, Dorothy and Oz, and now the Tooth Fairy. Is there a fairy tale or character that you just won't take on because it would be too difficult?

GM: Well, after I had written Wicked, which was by no means my first book, it was the first book that brought me to wide public attention, I would get letters from people, including my editor saying 'Why don’t you do the back story to Alice in Wonderland? Why don't you tell us all about that?' And I said with all due respect, and with all interest in a vibrant financial life of my own, The Wizard of Oz is a wonderful story, but in some ways a story with a lot of holes in it. It's a story with a lot of useful inconsistencies. Alice in Wonderland is a major work of a genius by a major writer. Maybe Tom Stoppard doing Rosencrantz and Gilderstern Are Dead about the back story of Hamlet, maybe he has the cajones to do that, but I've got a little growing up to do yet, I'm not going to take on Alice in Wonderland. So, there are things that are so brilliant and so beautiful that I'm not going to touch them. Now, mind you, remember Michael Cunningham's book The Hours? It was very brave and nervy to say, 'I'm going to take Virginia Woolf as a character and I'm going to take her themes as my themes too, and I'm going to build a book that is at once an homage to what she was trying to do, but my own book at the same time.' Virginia Woolf too is one great figure in literary history of the last century. I'm amazed that he had the nerve, and I think he did and he succeeded. But I prefer to take material that's a little more porous. Maybe the material of childhood is more porous because it does leave out adult things like sex and greed and the thirst for power and the dark side to human life that sometimes make us seem as if we're little sprites in the dark, but the dark will always win. Because there are absences in children's stories, it provides me an easier place to find a foothold.

CP: Writing for adults and children pose different challenges, but you seem to switch target audiences at will, and sometimes, as with What-the-Dickens, you write in a way that appeals to both adults and young readers. How do you master that in-between style that snares both age groups?

GM: I used to put if not photographs of people, sometimes I would just put their names, and I would tape them to the edge of my computer screen. And I would just say to myself 'You are not writing for the National Book Award committee, you are not writing for the review editors for New York Review of Books. You are writing for toothy Burke Hutchinson, age nine, who lives halfway to the next town and is a friend of my son's. And he's nervy and smart and a normal second grade boy with his own limited experience of the world and his own limitless appetite to know what comes next.' And sometimes fastening on a specific reader or a specific set of readers will help me remember how to tell a story that is appropriate to them. So, if I put a picture of the name of a nine-year-old on my computer, I also might put a picture of my stepmother who raised me whose 90 and reads well, and taught me to read and care about language. And those are both up there themselves, then the selection process of what would be interesting to them both is part of what determines the tone and the prose style of the work.

CP:Do you think that writing for one audience is more difficult than another?

GM: Yes, I think writing for children is much harder. And this is I think because children have so many more pulls to their appetites, to their attention. When I was a kid, which was several thousand years ago now, or so it seems, we were not prosperous, so we didn't have many advantages available to prosperous families 40 years ago, but secondly, the world was not as wired as it is with video. So the competition for books was much less, there was TV, and that was about it, and my parents were pretty strict about keeping the TV off most of the time. Now when a writer is trying to get a child's attention, they know that probably the child is reading in a room with the TV on, or where the TV can be turned on with the flick of a remote control. They know that when a child goes on vacation, there are screens that descend from the inside roof of the SUV so they can watch Shrek the Third for the fortieth time. But if you're going get their attention then and keep it, you really have to use every fiber and muscle group you have as a storyteller to make it worth their while and to keep them from flinging the book out the window onto the highway and going back to Shrek the Third.

CP: How then, do would you suggest parents and teachers get children to read with all the distractions they face? How can a book compare to a friendly green ogre?

GM: It used to be that all you had to do was lock a child in a room for 18 hours with nothing but a book, no food, no water, no light. That would usually work. But the government doesn't smile on that anymore that the department of social services would come and put you in prison, so you can't do that. I think that what you really need to do is have your own personal domestic Oprah's Book Club. You have to in some way prove to children who are reluctant readers that reading is a communal activity too. Whether it be by reading the first chapter of a story out loud then having the kids go off and read the second chapter then coming back to read the third chapter out loud. There are lots of different ways you can invent to make it a collaborative effort and a source of joy and communion. Even if it's the only time in the week where kids get to drink soda in the living room, or whatever it is that kids need as a special treat to know that this is a special event. You can soup it up and hang on the whistles and bells and persuade children that the act of reading together is something that is worth celebrating. I have an intensely literary household, we too, like my parents, keep the TV turned off almost all the time except for elections and impeachments. And the house is stuffed with books. We have more books than many libraries in third-world capitol cities. But my children are not by and large different from other American children. You could put them in a room with 80 books, a truck and a doll, and they would invent a story about how the truck ran over the doll, and the doll lay bleeding on the carpet screaming for mercy, and the books would go untouched. And they would play that game over and over again until the doll began to run over the truck and the truck lay on the carpet bleeding motor oil and pleading for mercy. It is hard to get kids these days to turn and look at a book out of boredom so you have to be inventive and make a communal event, I really do think so.

CP: Your children's books have been favorites of young readers for many years now, so I'm curious, what was your favorite book as a child?

GM: There are so many stages of childhood, there are as many stages of childhood as there are of adulthood. So I would almost have to go year-by-year if not season-by-season. There was a wonderful book called A Diamond in the Window. It is what is known as a magic book or a fantasy, a domestic fantasy, a little bit Harry Potter-ish in that there are normal people who wander sideways into a world where extraordinary things happen, then wander back and have breakfast then brush their teeth and go to school. What's wonderful about it is that it takes place in Concord, Massachusetts, and it is filled with metaphors for how the mind can be expanded, how the spirit can be expanded by images of the mind. It's a transcendentalist book in a way. I read this book when I was 11, here I am at age 53, and I'm living in Concord, Massachusetts partly because the book effected me so much that I wanted to be a writer who lived in Concord and could think in metaphor, and have my life expanded over and over again by the images in my mind.

CP: You clearly have a very active imagination. Do you think most adults have an imagination as vivid as yours but they repress them, or is your imagination functioning on a higher level than other people?

GM: That is an interesting question and I have no idea what the answer is. There are ways in which we are boxed in ourselves. I don't think of myself as having a vivid imagination, I think of myself as having a slow mind. I know other people have quicker mind than mine. And one of the reasons I write is that I value the act of the mind, I value the act of thinking. And writing stories, and even writing letters and writing essays, helps me to know what I think. If I'm at a dinner party and somebody turns to me and says, 'What do you think of the nature of evil? Does it exist or not, and what is its nature?' I would say 'Please pass the asparagus,' and go to the bathroom and cry for an hour because I couldn't think of an answer. I might then set myself to task of what is the nature of evil; let me write a story so I can think about it. I don't know that I have a more vivid imagination, but I do know that, despite how glib I am and long-winded in answering your questions, I actually don't think very fast, and I write because I value thinking, and writing helps me know what I think.

CP: My last question. Back to your latest book What-the-Dickens: do your children believe in the Tooth Fairy?

GM: They do, even the 10-year-old who has already begun to sniff the dirty backstairs gossip about Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy, perhaps because she or he comes with so much less commercial glitz, they fly in the secrecy of night, under the cover of darkness with a great many alibis, so they are easier to believe in a little bit because there is less to pin on them, there is less rhetoric. I heard my 7-year-old saying to my 6-year-old, 'I don't think there's a Tooth Fairy.' And the 6-year-old said, 'Sure there is.' And the 7-year-old said 'OK, but I wonder if daddy pushes the money under the pillow.' And the 6-year-old said, 'Look, if the Tooth Fairy is too busy, they write him a letter and say 'Would you please do this for me because I can't get there tonight.’'' And they kind of worked through that themselves, and went to bed. The 7-year-old lost a tooth and taped a quarter, a dime and a penny which he had stolen from my desk, to a note that said, 'Dear Tooth Fairy, here is $106, please leave me $200 change.' Any creature of the imagination that's going to give such a high return on investment has got to be believed, wouldn't you agree?

Posted by Ben Palosaari at January 29, 2008 5:30 AM | Comments (0)

 

Over the Weekend: 1/25-1/27

Filed under: Over the Weekend

The line between so-called high art and low art is largely artificial, and nowhere is this more ably demonstrated than on a Twin Cities weekend.

Take the past three days for example. Friday's show by local favorite Dosh at Triple Rock stretched into the wee hours, with three openers warming the crowd up for his forward-thinking electronic blend. Not feeling the modern music? Classic Chinese music and more hit St. Paul's Winter Carnival during the Ha Family's Chinese New Year performance. Acrobats, dances and more were on display to go along with the standard cold-weather entertainment.

St. Paul's Winter Carnival is in full swing. Image by James Tran.

If musical innovation and centuries-old celebratory arts didn't pique your interest -- and golf on top of frozen White Bear Lake seemed a little too genteel, or frostbite-inducing, or both -- there was always the wrestling show at First Avenue. Billed "Anarchy Rules," the choreographed violence wasn't highbrow, but featured highspots and a split brow or two.

On the topic of the upcoming flippage of the lunar calendar, newly-installed Web intern Andy Mannix hit the University of Minnesota's Chinese New Year celebration and brought back the following report:

CHINESE NEW YEAR: RINGING IN THE RAT AT U OF M

Screw Times Square. The rhythmic maneuvers of the Lion Dance at the Chinese New Year celebration last night alone were enough to put Carson Daly to shame.

Just under 500 people piled into the Great Hall in Coffman Memorial Union on the University of Minnesota campus to help ring in the Year of the Rat. A couple weeks early, sure, but who's keeping track?

The night started out traditionally, with a family of percussionists providing just the right noise for two guys in a red and gold lion costume (with some pretty impressive acrobatic skills) to groove to. Next up came an old folk song titled “Wangchunfeng” performed by pianist Kai-Li Cheng and violinists Hsuan-Wen Lin and Yinna Wang, followed by choreographed dancing from the Chinese American Association of Minnesota Dance Theater. So far, the events, set to ambient red lighting and extravagant decorations, would be enough to make one briefly mistake the room for a party in East Asia – save for the portraits of U of M fossils and heroes lining the walls.

Somebody's wishing it was the Year of the Rock Star at this point. Photo by Andy Mannix.

Later in the night, they mixed things up with a combination of customary and contemporary Chinese music, including original songs by artist Vivian. And if the music and dancing weren't enough, clever banter and strange recurring homages to ‘N Sync – including a brief tribute to Justin Timberlake – from MCs Jimmy Haung and Catherine Wang seemed to keep everyone entertained.

Finally, to make the night complete, somebody in a full-body rat costume that looked like the mascot for some unfortunately named high school football team was given the task of handing out trivia prizes. Maybe it was the weight of the costume, but this rodent appeared to have roughly the same enthusiasm for the job as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Oh well, the 3-year-old girl sitting next to me seemed to get a kick out of it.

All things considered, people went home smiling. And I am personally feeling better educated and more prepared for February 7th – the beginning of the Chinese New Year.
-- Andy Mannix

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 28, 2008 5:49 AM | Comments (1)

 

This is What a Dan Deacon Show Looks Like

Filed under: Music , Music

Dan Deacon was at First Avenue last night. Trying to explain Deacon is a futile exercise. And listening to Deacon isn't enough. You have to show him. This is what a Dan Deacon show (at First Avenue) looks like...

And if had been warmer, it would have looked something like this:

To review:

Photo from the Flickr page of user Never To Cool For School. More about this photo here.

Posted by Jeff Severns Guntzel at January 25, 2008 8:26 AM | Comments (0)

 

Diablo's Oscar Chances

Filed under: Film

Now that Diablo Cody has been nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Juno, what are her odds of actually winning?

Slightly better than even.

Cody is pretty much in a two-horse race with Tony Gilroy of Michael Clayton. The rest of the field are worthy competitors but trailing badly out of the gate. Ratatouille is a bet to show, but it’s an animated film, a category easy to dismiss by voters. Lars and the Real Girl and The Savages are smaller films without the buzz of Juno.

There are two arguments against Cody winning. One, she’s the new girl on the block, running against a respected veteran, Gilroy, the writer of the popular Bourne films, among others. Two, there is a danger that Juno has been overhyped to the point that voters may feel that it’s already received all the attention—and then some—that it deserves. One might also argue that the academy is biased toward dramas over comedies, but that’s less true in the writing categories. In recent years, writers have won for Little Miss Sunshine, Sideways, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

But there are several strong arguments in favor of her winning. The most potent: Juno received fairly surprising nominations in several big-time categories: Best Picture (beating out films like Into the Wild), a Best Director nod for Jason Reitman (over heavyweights like Tim Burton for Sweeney Todd and Joe Wright for Atonement), and a Best Actress nomination for Ellen Page (besting better-known contenders such as Keira Knightley for Atonement and Angelina Jolie for A Mighty Heart). That means Hollywood is seriously well-disposed toward the film--an excellent sign for Cody.

Another strong indicator: Cody has already won more screenwriting awards than Gilroy, including head-to-head matchups in the Broadcast Film Critics and Chicago Film Critics contests, plus a win from the prestigious National Board of Review. The Writers Guild Awards on February 9 will provide the most telling clue to the Oscars.

Argument No. 3: Gilroy is also nominated for Best Director. Voters who mark him down in that category may want to spread the wealth to Cody.

Finally, Academy members can be notoriously sentimental. Winning an Oscar would complete the Diablo Cody fairy tale, which might prove irresistible to voters in the business of knowing a good story when they see one. And no matter how accomplished Tony Gilroy may be, Diablo Cody is guaranteed to give the more entertaining acceptance speech. Who wouldn’t want to see that?

Posted by Matt Smith at January 23, 2008 1:59 PM | Comments (3)

 

Philosopher ... or Warrior?

Filed under: Stuff

I have noticed in my philosophical readings that the thought of many 19th and 20th century thinkers mirrors that of professional wrestler The Ultimate Warrior.

Hence, the following exercise: “Philosopher … or Warrior?” We've gathered sets of quotations taken from prominent thinkers Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault. A dash of Ayn Rand has been added for zest. In each set, two of the passages are from the philosophers – and one is from The Warrior.

It's more than just another fun, time-wasting quiz on the Internet. The fertile seeds of many doctoral dissertations exist here also – “The Notion of God in Heidegger as Compared to The Ultimate Warrior,” for example, or possibly “The Exegis of Altruism in Foucault and the Ultimate Warrior.”

It's one thing to engage with alterity, though, and quite another to kick ass. While the following material focuses on matters philosophic, the reader is conversely encouraged to imagine how each thinker would fare in the squared circle if opposed by The Warrior.

Heidegger and Nietzsche could have had success with the “evil German” gimmick popularized by Baron von Raschke and Fritz Von Erich. Rand would work very stiff, her notion of ethical egoism keeping her from concern about the other competitor. Foucault would be long-winded and tiresome on the microphone, rambling about his upcoming “exercise of sovereign power.” Perhaps he could find a tag-team partner, and the duo could operate under the tandem name “Discipline and Punish.”

In any event, main or otherwise, the strength of ideas would win out. Twelve problems follow. Can you figure out of which two of these come from the philosopher ... and which one comes from The Warrior?

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER ONE: ON GOD

1. “For these men are not unbelievers because God as God has to them become unworthy of belief, but rather because they themselves have given up the possibility of belief, inasmuch as they are no longer able to seek God. They can no longer seek because they no longer think. Those standing about in the market place have abolished thinking and replaced it with idle babble that scents nihilism in every place in which it supposes it own opinion to be endangered."

2. "Sacrificing oneself, as most religions ask people to do, totally contradicts the greatness of human life -- Which, for all intents and purposes, was created by the same "it". Why would an entity as great as the human life be created to do anything other than what it is designed to do - live life?”

3. “Qua religion, no — in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy.”

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER TWO: THE NATURE OF HISTORY

1. “Once one has grasped the finitude of one's existence, it snatches one back from the endless multiplicity of possibilities which offer themselves as closest to one—those of comfortableness, shirking, and taking things lightly … This is how we designate … primordial historizing, which lies in authentic resoluteness … in a possibility which it has inherited and yet chosen.”

2. "History tells us ... that a man's legacy is built from the premise that within his life the moments lived, once lived, become a piece of his history. Somehow, [humans] have conveniently, even eloquently, misplaced pieces of our history."

3. “The purpose of history, guided by genealogy, is not to discover the roots of our identity, but to commit itself to its dissipation. It does not seek to define our unique threshold of emergence, the homeland to which metaphysicians promise a return; it seeks to make visible all of those discontinuities that cross us.”

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER THREE: IMAGES

1. "The historicity of a thinker, which is not a matter of him but of being, has its measure in the original loyalty of the thinker to his inner limitation. Not to know this inner limitation, not to know it thanks to the nearness of what is unsaid and unsayable, is the hidden gift of being to the rare thinkers who are called to the path of thought."

2. "Destrucity: In its design, Destrucity represents a constellation existing in the heavens which symbolizes the "Eight Disciplines" by which [individuals] choose to live their lives. Brought to existence by the destinies of those willing to die for their Beliefs, brought to exist as a place where people live by Belief in the evolution of their Higher Selves -- constantly evolving toward a completion of their chosen destiny -- all with strength in the denial of "System Beliefs" -- the very Beliefs that amplify differences in and create rights, wrongs, judgments, and opinions of people, places, and things."

3. “We operate with nothing but things which do not exist, with lines, planes, bodies, atoms, divisible time, divisible space -- how should explanation even be possible when we first make everything into an image, into our own image!”

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER FOUR: PERSONAL STRENGTH

1. "The centrum for channeling 'unearned guilt,' self doubt and the circumstances immediately surrounding individuals, into a body-mind wholeness activating a 'right to fight, whatever it (rightfully and rationally) takes' attitude -- permeated from within a mind of clarity when faced with the issue of being right or wrong, responsible or irresponsible, accountable or unaccountable ... "

2. "Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent - that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior."

3. “Danger comes not from work for the State. It comes only from indifference and resistance. For that reason, only true strength should have access to the right path, but not halfheartedness ... study must again become a risk, not a refuge for the cowardly. Whoever does not survive the battle, lies where he falls."

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER FIVE: EGO AND INDIVIDUAL WILL

1. "The complete, uninhibited expression of positive, energetic, creative enthusiasm coupled with the teachings of self-belief, self-reliance, individualism and rational, objective thinking. To invoke an impetus within the human race which inspires a driving force in each and every individual to utilize, unequivocally and unabashedly, the limitless capabilities of their life as a human being, both physically and mentally."

2. “Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egoist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are function of the self.”

3. "Let your loyalty and your will to follow be daily and hourly strengthened. Let your courage grow without ceasing so that you will be able to make the sacrifices necessary to save the essence of our [people] and to elevate its innermost strength ..."

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER SIX: POSITIVISM

1."Positivism asserts that only knowledge derived from empirical experience alone, or the rationalist's logical/mathematical claims can be considered valid. This is an attempt to unite empiricism and rationalism. It denies religious or mystic methods of acquiring knowledge, fortunately. By trying to unite empiricism with rationalism, it actually accepts knowledge divorced from the evidence of reality (rationalism), and accepts knowledge divorced from reason or logic (empiricism)."

2. "To describe a group of statements not as a closed, plethoric totality of meaning but as an incomplete, fragmented figure, in accordance with the dispersion of an exteriority; to describe a group of statements in order to rediscover the specific forms of an accumulation--is certainly not to uncover an interpretation, discover a foundation, free constituent acts, nor is it to decide on a rationality or to embrace a teleology. It is to establish a positivity. To analyze a discursive formation is to define the type of positivity of a discourse. If by substituting the analysis of rarity for the search for totalities, the description of relations of exteriority for the theme of transcendental foundation, the analysis of accumulations for the quest of the origin, means one is a positivist, then I am quite happy to be one."

3. “We are caught in a pincers. Situated in the middle, our people experience the severest pressure … We are certain of this mission. But the people will only be able to realize that destiny if within itself it creates a resonance ... and takes a creative view of its heritage. All this implies that this people, as a historical people, must move itself and thereby the history of the West beyond the center of their future ‘happening' and into the primordial realm ..."

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER SEVEN: LIFE AND FREEDOM

1. “America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.”

2. "A methodology one ... uses to combine his knowledge of reality with the strength he has in an undeniable belief of an invocation by his higher self, a supreme being - a creator of the existent universe he consciously perceives. The application ... to his life, a continuum of disciplined action, reminds him to never obscure faith and reality. He cannot substitute one for the other. He must abide by an inviolate truce, one, he and he alone, constructs and reveres."

3. “Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms -- in themselves such judgments are stupidities.”

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER EIGHT: UTILITARIANISM

1. "The greatest good for the greatest number" is one of the most vicious slogans ever foisted on humanity. This slogan has no concrete specific meaning. There is no way to interpret it benevolently, but a great many ways in which it can be used to justify the most vicious actions. What is the definition of "the good" in this slogan? None, except: whatever is good for the greatest number. Who, in any particular issue, decides what is good for the greatest number? Why, the greatest number.”

2. "[Utilitarianism] held that the right or wrongness of an action is determined by how much good it brings to people. This was formulated as, "the greatest good for the greatest number." This is a very sacrificial ethic, which is thoroughly collectivistic and contains no concept of individual rights. The standard of good is happiness, though happiness is ambiguous in utilitarian thought. This is the fusion of altruism and collectivism in an ethical code. Later utilitarian thought went so far as to imply that some actions are good because of intrinsic "good"ness."

3. “You utilitarians, you too love everything useful only as a vehicle of your inclinations ‑- you too really find the noise of its wheels intolerable?”

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER NINE: BEING AND NOTHINGNESS

1. “The default of Being itself is expressly, if unknowingly, misplaced in its default by the nature of metaphysical thinking, as thinking in values, whereby the very misplacing does not know itself as such. The nothing of Being itself is sealed in the interpretation of Being as value. It belongs to this sealing that it understand itself as the new "yes" to beings as such in the sense of the will to power, that it understands itself as the overcoming of nihilism.”

2. “Whether it is hedonism or pessimism, utilitarianism or eudaemonism - all these ways of thinking that measure the value of thing in accordance with pleasure and pain , which are mere epiphenomena and wholly secondary, are ways of thinking that stay in the foreground and naivetes on which everyone conscious of creative powers and an artistic conscience will look down not without derision, nor without pity.”

3. "Nihilism claims that a human value system does not exist, that no authority should exist, and openly advocates the destruction of social and economic institutions. It is another leveller- but of the products of the results of society and industry."

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER TEN: FIGHTIN'

1. “He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemy's life.”

2. "[Pacifism] asserts a moral absolute (without any context) that it is wrong to use force. Instead of recognizing the need for self-defense, the pacifist equates all force with evil, equivocating. A pacifist society would perish absolutely ..."

3. “To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love—because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.”

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER ELEVEN: ON REASON

1. “To grasp, however, does not mean that we merely permit ourselves to represent the ground and to have thoughts about it. When we have grasped something we also say something has opened up to us. This means for the most part that we have been transported into what has opened up and remain determined by it from now on. Thus 'to grasp' the ground means above all that the 'essence' of the ground embraces us into itself, and that it speaks to us in our knowing about it.”

2. “I am an intransigent atheist, but not a militant one. This means that I am an uncompromising advocate of reason and that I am fighting for reason, not against religion. I must also mention that I do respect religion in its philosophical aspects, in the sense that it represents an early form of philosophy.”

3. "There are a great many people today who, philosophically, think that Reason is impotent, or even an illusion; and who think that Liberty is a privilege granted by Those-Who-Know-What's-Best, revokable at any time for "the common good". They are wrong on both counts. Those who would rewrite the history of our great country to be one of collectivism and 'success' of Government control, do so, only by ignoring the real basis of the foundation of our system of government. The government's purpose is to protect fundamental individual liberties and freedoms - not to limit them - and the quality of our individual lives depends on the extent to which that is accomplished."

Answer here.

PHILOSOPHER OR WARRIOR? NUMBER TWELVE: STANDARDS

1. "It is often said that definitions state the meaning of words. This is true: "words" do mean something, but it is not entirely exact. A word is merely a visual-auditory symbol used to represent a concept; a word has no meaning other than that of the concept it symbolizes."

2. "Imposing a standard ... is an end in itself. Knowledge is the means to fulfill this purpose - pay allegiance to this end, making conscious effort throughout life to increase its inherent value towards a reward."

3. "Altruism claims the justification for your life is to serve others. Self-sacrifice and betraying all your values (except altruism) are primary demands. The standard of morality in altruism is the degree of selflessness for an action. The only justification for your own existence is to continue sacrificing and renouncing your own values for others. Individuality is crushed, and blatant crimes in the name of "selflessness" destroy man's spirit in an altruist society. It certainly does not mean a general good-will towards others, nor does it mean being charitable to worthy causes. Altruism is self-abnegation."

Answer here.
Complete answer key here.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 23, 2008 12:38 PM | Comments (0)

 

Fast Food Menus

Filed under: Food

The New York City Board of Health unanimously voted to make chain restaurants (more than 15 locations) post calorie numbers on their menu boards.

The New York Restaurant Association sued to stop it from happening, but lost. It seems like they might have an argument that this law should be for all restaurants. Is there some special logic to only forcing chain restaurants to displaying the unappetizing information? Aren't your arteries being clogged if you eat a Big Mac (540 calories, 29 grams of fat) or a burger from a restaurant with one (or 14 for that matter) stores?

Posted by Ben Palosaari at January 22, 2008 5:06 PM | Comments (0)

 

Free Twee for Me and Thee (MP3)

Filed under: Music

Waaah Records was a British indie label that put out lovely twee/cuddlecore pop music some years back. Now, the entire canon is online for free download, along with zines and other remnants. There are dozens of great songs here, and the label owner has helpfully placed a photograph of a kitten next to his favorites.

There are bands here that I've loved for years, like the unabashedly warm-hearted Vancouver group Cub -- and I don't love 'em just because Neko Case punched some dick in the face to undermine their cutesy image, either. There is also a metric ton of music from bands that I've never heard of, some with sublime names like Dalek Beach Party and Les Poissons Solubles. Then there is The Field Mice. The shimmering, forlorn sounds of Trembling Blue Stars have been recent favorites of mine, so it's cool to hear an earlier iteration of that band.

Most of all, I'm excited for twee covers of the entire Sound of Music soundtrack.

Look for the kitten by the sound files. If you like what you hear, more info about all of these bands can be found at TweeNet.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 22, 2008 10:11 AM | Comments (0)

 

Over the Weekend, 1/18-1/20

Filed under: Over the Weekend

Thought for the day: falling temperatures don't get you down if you're a) inside, b) sharing a collective entertainment experience alongside kindred spirits, c) preoccupied by great music, or d) all of the above.

We all had our chances for at least one of those four letters this weekend, so if it didn't happen for you, it isn't the cold's fault. Unless you went to the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships on Lake Nokomis, in which case b) might not have kept you warm.

All the more reason to have attended an event where one might groove alongside one's fellow humans. One example:

TRU RUTS ARTISTS CELEBRATE MLK AT BABALU

Celebrating Dr. King in an intimate environment Sunday night were members of the Tru Ruts crew. Fusing spoken word with hip-hop and jazz, the troupe's sounds spread through Babalu Restaurant, just north of the Warehouse District. "Dr. King, we sing these songs for you!" invoked Sha Cage at evening's onset before launching into a set that included her rendition of Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise."

Sha Cage performing an original piece about strong women.

Backed musically by the fusion stylings of Quilombolas, Cage and Speakeasy records labelmate Truthmaze each paid tribute to the Reverend in word and spirit. Once Cage and Truthmaze finished their sets, the band paid tribute musically, using funky world rhythms to turn the crowd into one nation under a groove. How do you not love a version of "We Want Peace" sung in Portuguese?

Truthmaze, the original b-boy from the North side, with Quilombolas.

This wasn't all the musical weekend had in store.

BON IVER AT THE TURF CLUB

It's tough to find an indie artist with more current buzz than Bon Iver. We've contributed to this with a profile and an artist of the year selection. The artist also known as Justin Vernon played at the Turf Club in St. Paul on Jan. 17. Pitchfork has the pictures.

BANDS, COVER AND OTHERWISE

The Best New Bands event at First Avenue on Friday night had a lucky number of bands (seven), and we're lucky to have nearly 20 of Daniel Corrigan's pictures. Bands included A Night in the Box, Black Audience, Gay Witch Abortion, Gospel Gossip, M.anifest, Mouthful of Bees and To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie. If you're not much for the local scene and long to pour some sugar on the one you love, you can always see Daniel's shots of
Def Repplica -- the Def Leppard tribute group attended the weekend's Twin Cities Music Expo.

What weekend would be complete without soccer? We leave you with this report from our own football junkie, Paul Demko:

AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS AT HOLY LAND DELI

Three hours before the AFC championship game kicked off on Sunday, another futbol championship got started in Accra, Ghana. The bi-annual African Cup of Nations features 16 countries from across the continent. Television viewing in the U.S. is a challenge. The only station that broadcasts games is French language 3A Telesud. Thankfully Holy Land Deli, along with serving up some of the best Middle Eastern food on the planet, carries this obscure station. Two years ago, when Egypt won on its home turf, immigrants from across the African continent showed up to watch games at the Northeast Minneapolis eatery.

So I was expecting a crowd at the Holy Land for today’s opening match. But when Ghana kicked off against Guinea at 11 a.m., there were only a handful of folks on hand. The hosts looked like they’d run across some seriously bad juju in the first half. They lashed the ball off the post on three different occasion and a bicycle kick from Asamoah Gyan went just wide.

But the Black Stars went ahead shortly after halftime on the strength of a somewhat dubious penalty kick call. Guinea then answered with an unlikely equalizer off the head of Oumar Kalabane. Just as the match looked to be headed for a 1-1 draw, Ghanaian midfielder Sulley Muntari launched a 90th minute, 30-yard bomb that triggered bedlam in Accra.

Perhaps tomorrow’s Nigeria-Cote D’Ivoire showdown—the most anticipated match of the first round—will attract a few more viewers to the Holy Land.
-- Paul Demko

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 21, 2008 7:26 AM | Comments (0)

 

Five Songs About ... Martin Luther King

Filed under: 5 Songs About

On the Dreamer's day, we offer up five divergent songs about Martin Luther King and the holiday that bears his name. They are upbeat and somber, they are angry and hopeful, they are old and new. They are after the jump.

5. Ray Charles, "Abraham, Martin and John"
First recorded by Dion, the soulful Ray Charles version is my favorite. Penned in response to the assassinations of King and Robert Kennedy, artists from Marvin Gaye to Bob Dylan have lent their voices to the tune.

4. Common, "A Dream"
The most modern and up-beat of these songs is Common's track from the 2007 film Freedom Writers. The track samples King's famous speech, expertly weaving words into an update of the preacher's pro-freedom themes.

3. Public Enemy, "By the Time I Get to Arizona"
Influential as P.E. were, it's startling how dated some of their material seems now. The violent imagery in the video (Chuck and the S1Ws fantasize about taking out their frustrations on politicians who opposed the King holiday) is a bit discordant with MLK's pacifist message -- but this song reminds us that it wasn't long ago when powerful people were openly resistant to honoring King's legacy. Embedding for the video has been disabled, but you can watch it here.

2. U2, "Pride (In the Name of Love)"
Bono messed up the time of day in his reference to King's murder (it happened in early evening, not early morning), but what the hell, his heart was in the right place, and it's nice to see a purely rock song represented. From the same Unforgettable Fire album, there's MLK, a sweet lullaby-style tune in its own right, though you wouldn't know what it's about if not for the title.

1. Stevie Wonder, "Happy Birthday"
This offering from the legendary Stevie Wonder gets the nod not just for its subject matter, but because it was a centerpiece in Stevie's activist campaign to get King's birthday recognized as a national holiday. It's not just catchy, it helped catch a fire.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 21, 2008 5:37 AM | Comments (2)

 

Graphic Novelist Alex Robinson at Big Brain Comics Tonight

Filed under: Cartoons/Comics

Alex Robinson had an auspicious debut in 1996 when his graphic novel, Box Office Poison won several honors, including an Eisner Award. Poison told the story of a group of singles doing regular things in the city, with a whimsical tone and natural dialogue.

Whether or not it would actually be a box office kiss of death remains debatable, but if it were ever made into a movie, it probably would resemble an “indie” quirk flick like Reality Bites or Singles. In 2006 Robinson followed up Poison with Tricked, which was similar in that it featured a revolving card shuffle of wacky (but not too wacky) characters, yet different in that it told a more dramatic tale with darker undertones. He more recently released Too Cool To Be Forgotten, a time-traveling tale reminiscent of Peggy Sue Got Married (but set in 1985). Tonight, the Bronx-native stops by Minneapolis for a low-key signing at Big Brain Comics (1027 Washington Ave. S). The event starts at 5:00 p.m. Be sure to bring signable copies, just not all 21 serialized issues of Box Office Poison.

Posted by Jessica Armbruster at January 18, 2008 2:19 PM | Comments (0)

 

Parlour Suitehearts

Filed under: Local Music

Last night I snuggled into the Bryant Lake Bowl Theater for the Parlour Suite's CD release show. The place was close and crowded for openers Charlie Parr and Joanna James, but lost some patrons by the time this newish trio took the stage. They haven't quite got their sea-legs yet, these Parlour sweeties, even if they were born ready for their cover art photo shoot.

The dark-haired mademoiselle is tall and shy and averts her eyes from the audience as she bangs her tambourine. The fair one pounds out melodies on her keyboard, grinning like a meerkat the whole time. I think the guy standing between them with a guitar is slightly scared of her. (Later, I read that they're married.)

The three harmonize like a streetwise Carter family, with Inga Robert's voice, somewhere between Betty Boop and Bette Midler, setting the pace. When she sings "I'm so proud of my boys!" it kind of crystallizes for me: They grew up during the Depression and caught the country-folk acts that came through their little rural hamlet--but only the ones their parents deemed morally upright. Young adults now, they're living in a seaside town and playing sprightly ditties in a boardwalk bar for the WW2 troops who come in for a little R&R. Nothing dour, nothing that drags, please. Their debut album is called Rainmaker.

Posted by Sarah Askari at January 18, 2008 12:25 PM | Comments (0)

 

Half Baked Holiday

Filed under: Food

Only in America: National Pie Day. Wow. Here are the six most valuable things I learned from the American Pie Council's Web site.

'By its very nature, pie is meant to be eaten with others.'

By bringing pie to work, 'You’ll create a lot of good rapport and maybe even get a raise.'

The best way to thank somebody is 'with a warm hug wrapped in a delicious crust.'

Most Americans believe chocolate pie to be the 'most romantic pie.'

'It’s great with lunch, dinner or as a late-night snack.'

You can get free pie on National Pie Day at Bakers Square.

Posted by Ben Palosaari at January 17, 2008 11:27 AM | Comments (1)

 

Killing Me with DAT: Jordan Selbo Reviews Necro

Filed under: Concert Review

Necro
January 15, 2008
Station 4
By Jordan Selbo
Photos by Tony Nelson
Better Than: Mosh pits, youth unity, and unchecked aggression at a skinhead rally.

Station 4 is the perfect venue for the hardcore death stylings of Necro and his ilk -- dark, grimy, working-class sincere -- and Tuesday at 6 p.m. is about the perfect time for them, too. The clientele he attracts is a select sub-genre, awkward but proud, pissed-off but unified, stupid yet self-aware. The product he kicks is uncompromisingly violent, death-obsessed, and misogynistic. And yet the steam this skilled-but-nonetheless-grating music allows its listeners to blow off is, in the end, all gravy: teenagers have angst and horniness and rage at the world for days, and where else can it be better channeled than here, through moshing and harmless fantasizing?

Stay classy, Necro: Nothing says decorum like the middle finger and an "I [Heart] Fucking shirt. See even more dignified photos in our gallery.

Necro had the restless and partly-buzzed crowd in his big angry hands from the moment the two opening acts finished their perfunctory and underwhelming four-song sets. Clearly, they were here for him. And for 18 duckets, they better be passionate. So while PE samples Nation of Islam officer Dr. Khallid Muhammad, the forever young and dumbly violent Necro started his show with a Charles Manson soundbite. It made perfect sense, as did eschewing the standard rap crowd participation chants of "hey! ho!" for "show your ass," "suck it" and "pit! pit! pit!" (The last an exhortation to, of course, start moshing like maniacs). So when, late in the show, Necro asked in succession who was a metal head versus a hip hop head, and the former got a much louder response, that made sense too. But don't be too alarmed; for every manic mosher, there were two wallflowers living vicariously through the sex and violence soundscapes Necro provided, glassy-eyed but nonetheless transfixed.

With a killer hype man in Mr. Hyde, the show kept its energy high. The wheels of steel sat sadly on their pedestals, untouched, while the all-too-typical-yet-still-depressing DAT took their place. The songs all sounded the same in a comforting sort of manager, as even the two encores were squeezed off with little fanfare (but welcomed from the forever hungry party people). The standard boom-bap beats and repetitive-but-infectious melodic loops (notwithstanding a handful of awful metal-rap tracks) blasted through the speakers effectively, yet a weak mic volume occasionally sabotaged Necro's assured machine-gun flow. Not that it mattered much, as the content never veered far from tons of guns, revenge fantasies, and sophomoric sex attitudes.

In the end, whether good or bad (and I'm sure the majority opinion differs from the fans' view), Necro's disgusting, vile, infectious, intoxicating, and inclusive music is just what it should be-- unapologetic, warts and all. Ending the night with the screamo chant, "Violence! Death! There ain't nothin' left to say," I couldn't agree more.

Critic's Notebook
Personal Bias: Although I like the occasional "Shook Ones, pt.2"-era nihilism as much as the next guy, I'm really more D.A.I.S.Y. Age than DMX.
Random Detail: That's the most JNCOs I've seen in one place since 6th grade. Granted, there were only like three people rocking the extreme boot cuts, but still.
By the way: Despite (or perhaps because of) their best intentions, these murder-kids are actually the nicest and most sincere younguns you'll ever be lucky enough to meet (sometimes cringe-inducingly so, as when breaking down the finer points of Necro's artistry while wearing an ICP t-shirt).
-- Jordan Selbo

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 16, 2008 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

 

mnSpin: More Music for mnArtists.org

Filed under: Music

It’s been a little over three years since mnartists.org launched in late 2004. Since then, the McKnight and Walker Art Center-developed website has sought to bring artists of all facets together on one handy website. Though at times the site can feel a little visual art-heavy, musicians can become more involved now thanks to mnSpin.

This January it kicked off its quarterly music contest for local musicians, and now those interested can submit up to three works to be listened to by a panel of guest judges. This go-round, judges included local rapper Dessa and MPR’s Chris Roberts.

Interested? Take a listen to the January winners, Alison Rae, the Sexy Bang, and Stacy K, or read up on entry rules here. Winners eventually make it onto a compilation CD to be released later this year. Not ready to submit? MnSpin will also be hosting a variety of industry workshops, the first one in late March at the Summit Brewing in St. Paul. A beer party follows the workshop, of course.

Posted by Jessica Armbruster at January 15, 2008 1:23 PM | Comments (0)

 

Spank Your Neighbor

Filed under: Local Music

YouTube is so the new MTV, right? But even better, 'cause you can watch it at work. Waste three minutes on this fresh video from His Mischief.

The trio ranked 10th in our most recent Picked to Click best-new-bands poll. Here, they give us a behind-closed-doors look at all the debauchery going on in their neighborhood. After you watch it, you'll say, "That was fancy! Was it really local?" Yes, and if you go to the Fearless Filmmakers "Music that Moves" event on January 30th at the Oak Street Cinema, you can see this video and 18 more Minnesota-grown cuts. Afterparty at the Kitty Cat Klub, with one free drink for all you wannabes who aren't yet raking in that insane Minnesota music video green.

This video is rated U. It contains an Updike-style geriatric key party.

Posted by Sarah Askari at January 14, 2008 2:27 PM | Comments (3)

 

Over the Weekend, 1/11-1/13

Filed under: Over the Weekend

As the post below this one makes clear, this weekend saw the inaugural 2008 Polar Bear Plunge benefit for Special Olympics. I took part, took photos and video, and if you've ever wanted to see frozen Ghostbusters, head over to the photo slideshow.

Some of the costumed folks and event volunteers have shown up in the blog post comments, too, which is fun.

Upon drying off and warming up from the Polar Bear Plunge, I headed to the Walker for the Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People performance. The dance-and-much-more piece opened the 20th anniversary of the Walker's "Out There" series.

MIGUEL GUTIERREZ AND THE POWERFUL PEOPLE

One by one, they emerge, the Powerful People. As a simple cymbal beat plays, performers in the nine-member troupe move out from the wings and take the stage, faces blank. Now and again, they make eye contact with the audience; now and again the gaze breaks.

Check out our slideshow for the Out There 20. The first four photos are from the Gutierrez show, and the shots just get odder and more interesting from there.

Over the course of the evening, their performance piece "Everyone" would include music, dance, movement (solo and tandem) along with spoken word. Yet the high points of the evening were the most understated, the moments where Gutierrez and Co. made provocative statements about the nature of human connections with the self and the other. These moments existed, but were fleeting.

Besides the high concept moments, like when the troupe's placement amongst the theater seats gave performers the illusion of flight, the show's best moments were its most humorous. During a shared monologue (a paradox, I know), Gutierrez' ruminations on seemingly disconnected moments of relative truth value gave way to musings about INXS, Michael Hutchence's last moments and reality television. This engaged all segments about audience, something the rest of the performance struggled with.

Performance art isn't for everyone. It's meant to challenge and at times confuse, a point the group noted (and was evident to one attendee, who made a point of walking out during a brief lull in the action). At its best, it can be a unifying experience, where the line between audience and viewer, subject and object, is blurred.

The Powerful People reach for this, but never quite get there. Some of this might be due to rising expectations. After reading the New York Times' rave reviews, and that Gutierrez "upends the traditional theatrical experience by seating the audience on the stage," we were prepared for a bit more interactivity. The show included running, singing and simulated (?) make-out sessions, but the closest the audience came the performers was during a lull, when one Powerful Person came so close to the first row during an intricate movement series that you could have plucked her back hairs.

This was emblematic of the show: impressive, yes, striving, yes; but leaving you just this close to satisfaction.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 14, 2008 5:35 AM | Comments (1)

 

Tropical Transplant Does Polar Bear Plunge

Filed under: Over the Weekend

For the past year, I've been living in sub-tropical Okinawa, Japan -- not exactly the proper climate in terms of preparing for a Minnesota winter.

So I took the only logical course of action, throwing myself into the chill full-steam. This means doing the Polar Plunge to benefit Special Olympics at White Bear Lake this Saturday morning.

When I told people my plans, the response was uniform -- "you're crazy" -- save one holdout. My landlady told me that I have to be a third-generation Minnesotan before I try this. In the name of journalism, though, I broke out the underwater housing for my video camera to offer a first-person view of what doing the plunge is like.

The, um, battle cries are unscripted. My own personal Howard Dean moment.

I arrived at the lake early, just as registration was beginning at 9 a.m., so I could photograph the volunteers from local law enforcement cutting a hole in the frozen lake. The quiet registration soon gave way to a throng. There were more than 400 online registrations, and more than 500 people did the plunge overall -- a White Bear Lake record.

The outlandish costumes (one man's top three: the Ghostbusters; Twister; the Wizard of Oz cast) added to the festive atmosphere, and so did some judiciously chosen music playing from outdoor speakers. Strolling down to the jump-off point, I recall thinking "If you're going to freeze to death, you might as well do so to the tune of Rick James' 'Superfreak.'" And then, the water!

I'm a cold, cold man. We also have a photo slideshow with tons of images containing people in costumes far more outlandish than my Hawaiian shirt-and-board-shorts combo. Check out these reaction shots.

The aftermath was a blur of warm water, a quick change in the tent, and Paul Demko laughing maniacally at me. The initial shock of the water was nothing compared to the chill of walking around afterward wet. It's funny how much adrenaline will protect you from an extreme sensation -- and interesting how quick it wears off. I toweled dry, changed clothes, and zipped in to work to post this. With the miracle of Google, I checked the weather.

It was 22 degrees in Okinawa, today, too. Celsius.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 12, 2008 4:02 PM | Comments (6)

 

RIAA Defendant Loses Lawyer

Filed under: Music

"Jammie Thomas is going to have to sell a lot more thongs," snickers CNet as it reports that the woman who lost the first filesharing jury trial has also lost her lawyer. Thomas will have to seek out pro bono representation to continue her appeal after attorney Brian Toder formally withdrew.

Posted by Sarah Askari at January 11, 2008 4:02 PM | Comments (0)

 

Classic Stoner Behavior

Filed under: Music

Like the Beethoven? You may just be a degenerate dope fiend, if a study published in the journal Philosophy and Music (via the BBC) is to be believed. And apparently, the bands you like say a lot about the choices you make.

Okay, "degenerate dope fiend" is a bit much. The British study, which surveyed more than 2500 people, found that one in every four classical music fans have tried cannabis. This is apparently because you need to take the edge off Brahms (although with Stravinsky, that's actually understandable.

According to University of Leicester researchers, they were able to get fairly accurate predictors of lifestyle choices based solely on musical factors. "It was shown that [behaviours] had nothing to do with [participants] ethnic backgrounds," said lead researcher Adrian North. "The behaviour was linked purely to musical taste in its own right." The abstract of the study says they "concluded that participants' musical preferences provided a meaningful way of distinguishing different lifestyle choices."

So, what were the major findings?

* People who liked musicals took the least amount of drugs and committed the fewest criminal acts. Also