Month: July 2004

  • Straight Talk

    The saying goes that slow and steady wins the race. If so, give Low the gold. This Duluth indie-rock trio—guitarist Alan Sparhawk, his wife Mimi Parker on drums, and bassist Zak Sally—have become internationally renowned for a contemplative, ethereal sound reminiscent of Galaxie 500 and the early Cure. Their new retrospective box set, A Lifetime…

  • Soundtrack to Mary

    I should preface everything by saying that for me the scariest scene in Rosemary’s Baby was not when the middle-aged Satan worshippers drugged Mia Farrow and forced her to have “relations” with the Beast Master, thus planting the seed of Lucifer in her waif-like womb. For me, the real horror began when, upon moving into…

  • Desert Island Duffel

    All this year, the French-American company Theatre de la Jeune Lune has been celebrating a quarter-century of existence by restaging and revisiting works from previous seasons, culminating with a return to the Georges Bizet opera Carmen, running through August 15 and directed by co-founder Dominique Serrand. Given Jeune Lune’s reputation as one of the most…

  • Olympic Spirit

    You can find the best-looking man in Minnesota, my female colleagues tell me, at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. He is well over six feet tall, poses naked, and has a relaxed, arrogant look about him—there’s that jutty chin that women find irresistible. I am led to believe (by the same authorities) that the view…

  • Unhappy Trails

    Guthrie, Minnesota, is not much more than a sleepy little huddle of buildings nestled between Lake Itasca and Leech Lake. It’s classic lake country, where tourists have been coming to summer resorts for generations. Cabin season is short and the impact of tourism can be dramatic, especially since logging and mining have ebbed. The locals…

  • Getting Baked

    “My issues with tanorexia go way back to high school, when tanning beds first hit the scene,” said Julie Dey, a pretty twenty-eight-year-old from Apple Valley. “Girls would make tanning appointments and get out of school to go tanning. I have pictures of girls at my prom who look like they were painted in blackface!”…