Kick That Rear into Gear

BICYCLING, ART, AND ADVENTURE
No Lycra Please – Just Get Out the Rain Gear

The weather is warming up, and the rains will likely prime our lawns, so we mustn’t complain. And we mustn’t be kept indoors. It’s time to pull out the bikes and dig out the plastic rain poncho. Where’s your sense of adventure? You’re too old for hide-and-seek and Easter eggs hunts, but you’re never too old for a good old-fashioned scavenger hunt. Join The Great Northeast Bicycle Scavenger Hunt. Saturday at 2:30 p.m., Logan Park, $5.

After the scavenging, stop by for the Fine Fendered Friends art show at the newly opening Wheel Good Bicycles. Using bicycle fenders as their canvas, local artists will display and sell their work in this unique art show. Purchase a one-of-kind custom bicycle fender set and a restored vintage bicycle on which to wear those custom fenders. Featured artists include Yuri Arajs, Jennifer Davis, Mike Sweere, Tara Costello, Nicholas Harper, Amy Jo Hendrickson, Keegan Wenkman, John Grider, Kate Pabst, JAO, Bill Beekman, Max Arose, Sean Tubridy, Amy Rice, Ingrid Restemayer, and John Diebel.

Friday at 6 p.m., Wheel Good Bicycles, 503 1st Avenue NE floor 3, Minneapolis.

While you’re there, stop by Yuri’s Placement Gallery (509 1st Avenue NE, 2nd floor) for the premier exhibit, Paintings in Place . You’re likely to run into many local artists there for their monthly Algonquin Hotdish night.

Speaking of buttocks…

ART by Ann Klefstad
Des Derrières: Mediating Excess Information with Insufficient Faith

This show features three intellectually hard-charging but often funny conceptual types from New York doing a wide variety of media (painting, sculpture, and video). This goofball name, Des Derrières, opens itself to all kinds of interpretations, from the opposite of the avant-garde (le derriere garde, the rear guard, those in fighting retreat) to pure scatology. All of this will matter, from the high-toned French history of the abject radical to the jokes and irreverence of fringy American art. It is also reminiscent of the old Monty Python joke: “And now for something completely different: A man with three buttocks.”

It opens May 5 with a party everyone is invited to; if the opening is typical for this gallery, there’ll be music and ways for audience members to participate in the work. This is not the kind of gallery where you get something to go above the sofa, but you could figure out something to do behind it. Or maybe under it.

Saturday at 7 p.m., Art of This Gallery, 3222 Bloomington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-721-4105.

The Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art is also holding their 12th Annual Open Studio Night on Saturday evening, so stop by anytime from 5:30 – 9:30 p.m. and see what they’re up to. 250 Third Ave. N., Minneapolis.

AUTHORS
Make it a Lofty Weekend

The Loft has a great weekend in store for us, with Chinese-American poet Arthur Sze on Friday, and Native American spoken word on Saturday. Call it a weekend of political poetry, poetry of identity, Native word-songs.

In addition to composing six collections of poetry, Arthur Sze has taught at the Institute for American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the past dozen years. He now directs the creative writing program and has received numerous prestigious literary awards and fellowships. Accompanying Sze in his presentation are memoir-writer Laura Flynn and mixed media poet and artist Michele Heather Pollock. Friday at 7 p.m., $5 (free to members).

On Saturday, follow up with the Equilibrium All Native Spoken Word Show – Making Oral History. “I write you this / An emancipation proclamation / Demarcation exclamation / Declaration of my independence” — and that pretty much sums it all up. Sarah Agaton Howes is one of seven artists using their rich oral history to create their own declarations of independence and demarcation exclamations. Saturday at 8 p.m., $5 ($3 students/members).

The Loft Literary Center, Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-215-2575.

And don’t forget the Minnesota Book Awards ceremony on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

MUSIC
Old School Ska from the Second Wave

English Beat. General Public. Fine Young Cannibals. These guys have had many incarnations, so certainly you must have heard of them. “Underwater deaf and blind / under such pressures you might find / a secret right before the end / that makes you want to breathe again,” sing the Cold War holdovers, the Margaret Thatcher-era hitmakers, the ska music part II trailblazers. The English Beat stormed the music scene in the early 80s (you remember!), kept cranking out hits with the next several records (yes, they were records then), and branched off into various succeeding endeavors. It shouldn’t be too surprising, since their commitment to music is clear, but I never expected to see these guys playing under this name again, and I don’t expect we’ll see it much longer. Use it.

Friday at 8 p.m., The Cabooze, 917 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis; 612-338-6425; $20.

Tugging at the Dirty Old Heart Strings

They’re back in town. They’re free. They’re great. They’re mellow. And if you’re into alt-country-Americana “apartment music,” you shouldn’t miss them. The Ashtray Hearts have a show this Friday at the 331 Club.

Friday at 10 p.m., 331 Club, 13th Ave. NE, Minneapolis; free.

With all the previous booty talk, I can’t fail to mention a booty-shaking opportunity. Stop into Babalú tonight for some Brazilian dance-music rhythms with Dandára Backen. 800 Washington Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612-746-5234; $10.

Also opening this weekend: The Minnesota Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro, The SteppingStone Theatre’s A Lion’s Tale: Somali Folktales, and The Valet.