August 2008

August 28, 2008

Museum claims RNC asked it to remove Nazi banner

The executive director of a St. Paul museum is claiming today that representatives for the Republican National Convention to be held here next week have asked the museum to temporarily remove a Nazi banner captured by American soldiers during World War II and displayed in an exhibit on Nazi book-burning.

Michael Luick-Thrams, who heads the small TRACES Center for History and Culture in the Landark Center, close to the convention site, says Landmark officials first received calls expressing concern about the banner from organizers who had rented the building for a party to be held next Thursday, post-convention. Luick-Thrams says he later learned the party was being held by a large law firm, and the concerns were allegedly that a delegate or politician might inadvertantly be... Read more »

Posted on Thursday, August 28, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 27, 2008

The State Fair fine arts—much fat, little meat

The fine arts exhibition at the Minnesota State Fair has an, er, colorful history  that goes back to 1878, or almost exactly 130 years longer than cheese curds last in your hand. In fact, it says as much about the fair as Minnesotans that the first place we apparently thought to publicly exhibit art in this state was not in a gallery somewhere but at the fair--residents complained, in fact, that the 19-year-old fair didn't host a fine-arts exhibit. (Of course, it'd been held in uppity Minneapolis that year.) Imagine one of the guys in an "Official Tick Checker" T-shirt at the fair today lodging that complaint.

It says much about the... Read more »

Posted on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 20, 2008

"Fences" at Penumbra plus a photo alternative

This Thursday, Penumbra Theatre opens its second season with "Fences," continuing its multi-year spin through the cycle of August Wilson's plays. Never seen one of the plays in August Wilson's famous 10-play cycle, a journey through 20th century African American life that's considered one of the country's greatest literary achievements? Worried you missed the beginning? Here's what you need to know: 651-224-3180. That's the Penumbra box office number (or visit Penumbratheatre.org). Call it and don't look back. Because this isn't The Wire or, God forbid, Star Wars--you can jump in anytime, and in fact Penumbra has been jumping around in the cycle, as well. What's important is that if you don't go, you'll be missing out on one of the richest, most accessible... Read more »

Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 4, 2008

Fringe Hits and Misses

The numbers are in: For the first four days of the Minnesota Fringe Festival this year, the top-selling shows were "Shakespeare's Land of the Dead" by Walking Shadow, "The Cody Rivers Show Presents: Stick to Glue," "An Inconvenient Squirrel," by Joseph Scrimshaw, "Musical the Musical" by Urban Samurai, and "Mortem Capiendum" by Four Humors Theater. I wouldn't expect this to change much over the next week: the top shows are a combination of reliable out-of-towners with polished productions and reliable locals with polished productions--and all comedies. On the surface, it would appear that the Fringe will pass this year without major discoveries or disappointments. But that's because the... Read more »

Posted on Monday, August 4, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (2)