Tag Archives: northeast minneapolis

The Short Stack: May 23

Every Friday, I share  the pop culture, fashion, lit and randomness that crossed my radar during the week. Enjoy with some coconut water and circus peanuts!

I know I can’t save the world but I can do my part to make it a better place and that’s why I’m leading off with this:

Really ugly jean shorts

This is a mistake. There’s a shop online that’s trying to sell this as a look for summer. No, no, no… this is not a look one purchases. This is a look one arrives at after a series of bad choices that initially have nothing to do with clothing.

To my mind, this is a look we left behind in the 90s, emerging as better, stronger, faster people once this was behind us.

I saw an article in a magazine that asked people, “When did you know you were really an adult?” and, had I been asked as a “woman on the street,”  I would have said, “The day I knew cut-off denim shorts were no longer an option for me, not because I have heavy thighs but because I have taste.”

[OK, I do kind of hate my thighs. I guess I’m not that evolved.]

[Being a “woman on the street” interview would be on my bucket list if I could stand the term “bucket list.” But I don’t want to be asked something like, “What do you think was the most important outcome of The Second Sino-Japanese War?” I want someone to ask me, “What do you think of jean shorts?” so that I can say, ‘I despise them. Jean shorts are everything that’s wrong with our society today.” ]

Wearing
The Murakami t-shirts arrived!

Peter Cat Jazz Murakami tshirt

Internetting
I discovered They Draw and Cook this week and got super excited. They have cool t-shirts with a monkey on them, too. I’m going to make blueberry muffins.

Shopping IRL
The Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul
Zinnia Folk Arts in Mpls

Shopping Online
A MANO
Chiapas Bazaar

Watching
You probably know this but Orange Is the New Black season deuce comes out at 12:01 am on June 6. But you probably knew. You’re all connected and shit.

Listening
Chromeo’s lastest, White Woman, is out.

Reading
Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words (Yeah, I’m on a kick)
The Origin of Satan (we should all know, right?)
Bibliocraft

*Preparing annual Summer Reading List, to be shared on this site and then (probably) promptly disregarded.

Looking At

Some of the best work I saw at last weekend’s Art-a-Whirl in Northeast Mpls was hanging in a hallway at the California Building – the paintings of Ryan Peltier, an artist and illustrator from Minneapolis.

painting by Ryan Peltier

His work, painted on boards and framed in dark wood, has an otherworldly feel, like you’re looking through a porthole at action you can’t quite understand – it could either be an innocent gathering or happening or very sinister. Maybe it’s both – poised right at the moment when something is about to take a dark turn. It’s hard to tell, which is why you want to keep on studying it and forming a narrative.

There’s something about his style that reminds me a little bit of the work of cartoonist Charles Addams.

When I went online to find his site, I also discovered his awesome illustrations of people in addition to his paintings.

Thinking About
Kanashibari (Sleep Paralysis)

Why my dog likes to roll on top of dead animals with liquified organs that get into the scruff of her neck and are sprayed all over my face when she shakes herself off mid-bath.

What to do when I find out that people I like/respect sincerely believe in astronomy.

Why anyone would throw a “90s Dance Party” and not play a single hip hop song? Few people want to dance to Better Than Ezra, many people want to dance to “Daisy Duks” by Duice. Hey, fat man who hasn’t left his basement since 1997, I don’t make the rules. Listen to the people. I’ll even let you wear those jean shorts.

[Warning: only watch this video if you want this song in your head for the next three days.]

 

 

The Wednesday Outlook: May 25, 2011

While cleaning out some drawers today, I found the above pic. I think I cut it out of a magazine and saved it because it represented the best of bizarro pop culture – two strange worlds colliding to overlap for a moment of ultimate strangeness. It was taken during the time that Liza was married to David Gest and was having a bit of a revival, thanks to all the press attention and David’s maneuvering [quick Google of David reveals that most recently he “donated thousands of pounds worth of showbiz memorabilia to a Derbyshire (UK) charity he saw on television.” It’s worth hitting this link just to see a photo of David’s face.]

It was also during the time when Britney Spears was hot stuff – before the K-Fed debacle, before breakdowns and shaved heads and rehab and giving power of attorney or control of her financial affairs to her father. It was also a time of flat stomachs. At least for Brit, not sure what’s going on underneath Liza’s sequined shift.

Isn’t it amazing how a time just ten years ago can seem so quaint and innocent? It makes me wonder about today but it also gives me a certain appreciation for today, in a way I can’t quite describe. I often think my days are boring and filled with nothingness because I’m not saving the world or conquering Twitter but they are actually quite rich in simple ways.

I’m touched that I bothered to cut that photo out because it was funny and that I found it today. I’m happy that I walked with Freja to the water tower and sat looking down on a house that I find very beautiful. I’m glad to be working on a collage that’s as strange as this photo – last night I became completely immersed in it, cutting and pasting as I listened to the WTF with Marc Maron podcast (I listened to Garry Shandling and then the one from April with Conan O’Brien, both of which are excellent). These things have meaning to me and often that’s what we need to do here – infuse our lives with meaning that is specific to us and let other things go.

Reading: Confessions of An Art Addict by Peggy Guggenheim, published in 1960

Watching: Far From Heaven (2002), which was a terrible film that received Oscar nominations for its director, Todd Haynes, and female lead, Julianne Moore. What am I missing here, people? I wanted to hit Julianne’s character across the face as well, just like her closeted husband did.

Doing: getting ready to run my first 5K. Baby steps! I’m going to run the Twin Cities Pride Rainbow Run before the Pride Parade on June 26th. I’ve never run a race before.

Also, the superstars at this past weekend’s Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis (in my opinion, of course – and we didn’t get to the Northrup King Bldg this year) included painter Patricia Canney for her amazing paintings of dresses, Farida Hughes for her innovative oil paintings of crowds as seen from above – the best is titled Fair Days – and also Victor Yepez for his nearly life-size sculptures of horses constructed from metal – the head on one was a bike frame; on another bike chains served as the horse’s mane and tail… I love.

Anticipating: Trying out breakfast at the new Bread & Pickle at Lake Harriet tomorrow – a run around the lake topped off by a breakfast sandwich… is that bad? Then Memorial Day in Wisconsin. Hell yeah.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap ($6)

TNT heading

On Friday night we went to Mayslack’s in Northeast Mpls to see T/N/T, an AC/DC tribute band. One thing I’ve discovered since our venture is that it’s important to make the distinction, when talking about  T/N/T, is to make sure you distinguish it from TNT, another AC/DC tribute band based out of Los Angeles (basically, the fitter version).

While it’s not surprising that there is more than one AC/DC tribute band (with so much material, why should only one band reap the cover band gold?), it’s not clear to me why only one name is allowed.  Is there a TNT franchise that one can buy into and set up shop in a region? Could one of the bands be High Voltage or Back In Black or, if I were going to have an AC/DC tribute band, American Thighs?

The band we saw, T/N/T,  is the Midwest-based AC/DC tribute band, which one can pretty much guess by looking at them. One of the singers – mostly supposed to sing Bon Scott’s songs -  looks a bit like Louie Anderson – overweight, kinda sweaty, pasty skin. I was a little worried that he would have a heart attack during his performance but, luckily, I’m sure the show held no surprises for him.

“OK, now I go into ‘Big Balls’ and then it’s onto ‘Dirty Deeds… Let’s get on with it.”
Continue reading Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap ($6)