Art’s Part

My first reaction to MNKINO was “BLEGH! This is the sort of stuff kids were making in high school!” And it’s true—it did feel very much like a film screening from my high school. But then I remembered that I went to the Perpich Center for Art(‘)s Education, and that the kids there were being balls-out experimental. And that was and is exciting to me.

The videos on display at MNKINO were all in this same vein. Some videos were made by talented videographers who didn’t know how to tell a story; some were made by true amateurs who tried their best and it showed. Some—and there’s no other way to say it—were really stupid. But you know what? That’s ok! They all put themselves out there to try something new based on a prompt that someone gave them a month ago.

I dare you to try it. I’m going to! The next theme is TRANSPARENCY!

Emily’s Part

I first heard about MNKINO when I went to Give & Take a few weeks ago, and I was all, “This is something Art would totally do!” So I was going to call him, but then I realized that he was in New York chaperoning a bunch of bitter 15-year-olds in tiny, tiny shorts on a trip where cell phones had been banned.

So I had to wait.

Then, when he returned to the Midwest, I told him about it, and he was all, “That is something I would totally do!” So we decided to go. (Art was actually going to participate with a sandwich-related movie, but we didn’t get around to it. But there’s always next month!)

So anyway, tonight was the night, and we were able to make it to the event after struggling to find a parking spot and then struggling even harder to figure out how to get into the West Bank Social Center. (It’s right above the Nomad World Pub, but you have to go into their little backyard area and navigate around a bunch of hipsters playing Bocce Ball to get up there.)

But of what I was able to see, it was a pretty cool event. People had some really interesting and different (except for two people who sort of made the same movie) takes on the theme of “On/Off,” some of which I even understood. (People who make movies are weird. But in a cool way.)

I’ll also probably be quoting a line (Blog, blog, blog . . . STRATEGY!) from the first movie I saw for quite a while.

Plus, it’s free (if you don’t count the Nomad charging us over $13 for two beers). So now you have no reason not to go.

Art’s Part

While I truly enjoyed the Fresh Taste Festival, for me this was an exercise in fantasy. The tickets cost $55 each, which I would never have been able to afford had Emily not won them. And even with the cost absorbed by the fact that the tickets were won and not purchased, nearly all the foods I tried were organic or otherwise boutique, which means they were mostly cost prohibitive on my nonprofit wage.

But as far as exercises in fantasy go, this one was pretty great. I got to see people and be seen by people, I got to be outside (sometimes) on a perfect August day, I got a pretty sweet commemorative wine glass, and I got to gorge myself on interesting and not so interesting foods.

The biggest surprise was a habanero-based spread. It did not singe my mouth; rather, it left a pleasant warmth on the sides of my tongue unlike any other kind of spicy food I’ve ever eaten. This came from Kayak Kitchens, which does not have a storefront, but which has a website. It’s all good.

This tasting gave me an excuse to confirm something I had long suspected: grass-fed beef is bogus. I was actually a little excited to try the hamburger patty they provided, but was let down to find the beef tasted normal at best and was actually a little chewy—NOT the buttery-soft supermeat I had been promised by oh so many hippies.

The chef demonstrations went at such a pace that I don’t even know if they were interesting because I got up after 20 minutes due to it being boring crap and not actually a demonstration of how to cook food. Live chef demonstrations are dumb in general though, so there you have it.

Overall, I’d say I really enjoyed this event, but I don’t know that I’d make a point to save $55 for it. If I had $55 lying around, I’d definitely make it back, no question. If you need more convincing to go next year, the proceeds do go to Minnesota Public Radio! (But considering all the new stations they’re opening all over the state, I think they might be able to get by without your $55 donation just this once.)

Emily’s Part

I’ll preface my review by saying that I won two tickets to this event via Minnesota Monthly’s brand new Twitter account. I’m very interested in food and wine, especially sustainable and organic food and wine, but $55 in advance and $65 at the door?

I don’t have a job, people.

But anyway, when I saw that they were giving away pairs of tickets to basically the first ten people to ask for them, I jumped at the chance to go.

So Sunday morning, with our stomachs empty and our hopes high, we got on the bus and headed to Nicollet Island for the event.

After a bit of a snafu at will call (no one seemed to have informed them of the 20 tickets that were given away via Twitter), we were handed our passes, a wine glass (one of their goals is to make it a waste free event, so we rinsed and reused the glasses) and a free subscription to Minnesota Monthly (score; I love magazines!)

Then we went on our way to try some food and wine.

Which, for the most part, was very good, and most of the exhibitors were knowledgeable and excited to talk about their offerings. Some particular standouts were butter from the Hope Creamery (no idea butter could taste that good) and Haute Habanero Paste (I don’t know who came up with the idea to put it in pumpkin bread, but I want to kiss him or her on the mouth).

I also didn’t mind trying a few varieties of Flat Earth beer, which was being distributed at a booth that was also offering massages and chocolate. That’s excellent planning.

And, though they weren’t feeding me, I had to respect the people from Tap Minneapolis, who were very enthusiastically extolling the virtues of our city’s tap water and pointing out the many ways in which drinking bottled water sort of makes you an a-hole (but being nicer about it than me).

So anyway, let’s get to the bottom line.

Did I have a great day?
Yes.

Would I have paid $55 for it?
No.

Would I be willing to pay $55 for it someday in the future when I have a job and a little more disposable income?
Perhaps.

Art’s Part

It is generally accepted by people who make lists that Minneapolis is a great place to live, especially in the summer. The City of Minneapolis has millions of miles* of biking and walking paths, enough trees to fill five forests, and 10,000 lakes. These are all great for doing things outside!

But what if you have the entire Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD? You’ll need a pretty good excuse to leave the house ever.

Outdoor Lure #1: Lake Calhoun Pavilion.

If you live in Uptown or in St. Louis Park, Lake Calhoun is a good walk or a very easy bike ride away. And let me tell you something: they have beer. And if you don’t want to pay Metrodome prices for beer, you can bring your own beer. Or you could bring scotch and drink scotch at or near the beach. The options are endless**!

But the food they have at the pavilion—called The Tin Fish—is delectable. I had a Mahi Mahi taco (which is known to most by another, more juvenile innuendo-name—but I hate puns so I won’t use that other term) with some of the juiciest, most tender fish I’d eaten in a while. Emily and I split some stuffed grape leaves, which inspired in me a great desire to move to Toronto, buy their professional hockey team, and name them the Toronto Grape-le Leafs.

After our meal that filled us with just the right amount of food, we decided to visit, for the second time in as many days,

Outdoor Lure #2: Jackson’s Coffee and Gelato

This delicious outdoor lure is maybe a mile from the Lake Calhoun pavilion. Jackson’s hasn’t been open for more than a week, and already I’ve eaten there twice. I can’t say anything about their coffee (after all, we wouldn’t want Artpartment-adjacent Urban Bean to be jealous), but they do have delicious gelato, which is certainly worth buying and eating. No outdoor seating though. Alas.

But if you were really into it, you could do what Emily and I did and just walk two blocks down Bryant to 32nd to Bryant Park and sit at a picnic table and watch the kids play basket ball and listen to the parents teach their children how to play hide and go seek like not idiots.

*Actually I’m pretty sure it’s billions
**I asked my mathematician friend, and the options do, in fact, eventually end

Emily’s Part

NOTE: I’m going to go ahead and assume Art made all the fish taco jokes this post can handle, so I’m not going to make any. However, I did do plenty of giggling while reading over my post and thinking of it that way. I’m only human!

I went to the The Tin Fish for the first time last week when I was having a crazy fish taco craving and someone recommended it. I was excited to find out this place even existed because I didn’t even know the Lake Calhoun pavilion served food.

But surprise of surprises, they have delicious reasonably priced a la carte fish tacos! With a wide selection of fish!

After enjoying it so much the first time, I was anxious to go back and suggested Art and I meet there for dinner. It’s about a mile from his place and two miles from mine.

He walked. I biked. Aren’t we super active for people who spend most of our time on the Internet?

After a mildly traumatic experience where a piece of my bike broke off and flew ten feet (it turns out that part wasn’t necessary, but it was still disconcerting) and waiting in a slow-moving line with a very poorly trained dog, we ordered our tacos and grabbed a table.

In my opinion, they’re worth what appears to be, based on the two times I’ve been there, a routinely long wait. Simple, delicious and just the right amount of heat (at least for me, but I’m sort of a baby).

After the tacos, we decided to head to Jackson’s Coffee and Gelato, which just opened a few blocks from Art’s place. We’d already tried their gelato the night before, but hey, we were active that day (see above), so it was totally justified, right?

Plus gelato is really good.

And while their gelato probably isn’t the best I’ve ever had and they could probably do with more of a flavor selection (I believe there were ten, but about half were sorbet or some other non-gelato product I wasn’t interested in), they make up for it with reasonable prices and a discount for cyclists (I found this out when the cashier spotted me awkwardly fumbling with my helmet while trying to find my cash).

Overall, I’d definitely still recommend it.

Full disclosure: We actually totally did this several weeks ago in an attempt to be more punctual with our columns, then forget to actually write the column before Art went on a trip to New York City. Sorry.

Art’s Part

I will always feel a sort of obligation to, if nothing else, applaud a person doing standup comedy at an open mic night. It takes balls to do it. (I’ve done it three times in my life and enjoyed it twice.) Balls, I tell you. Even ladies, they must go to the doctor and have balls attached and go through hormone therapy to do standup comedy.

There’s just one problem: you don’t need to be funny to have balls.

Let me tell you: yes, you will be uncomfortable in your chair when the first “comic” goes (quotation marks are warranted), for the show organizers put the new people at the top of the order. This person will not be funny. He will come off like he thinks you should think he is funny—which, if you can tell this much, is already a major obstacle overcome. But he still won’t be funny.

But as you drink and the comics drink, they become steadily better.

This betterment is not just due to consumption. Many of the comics who perform the open mic nights are professionals or semi-professionals and are doing the open mic to try out new or reworked material in a “safe” (there can be booing) environment. This is a big hooray for the rest of us, because we get to see two very unique things for free: people volunteering to be a train wreck for our enjoyment and some comics who are really onto something. And then more comics who aren’t.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Acme Comedy Company claims to be one of the top five comedy clubs in America, so the professional and semi-professional comics you see are not milquetoast or jackassy (most of the time)—these are people with truly unique ideas and some pretty great jokes. And because it’s generally the same comics from week to week, it’s possible you’ll hear the same joke twice. However, the jokes you do hear more than once will be the good ones.

Emily’s Part

Art is a bit more of a comedy connoisseur than I am, and when we first arrived he warned me that the people who had never participated were forced to perform first, meaning that things would probably start out a little shaky and improve from there.

And boy, did the first person up bomb.

This was only made worse by the gist of his first bit being, “Why would someone ever have stage fright? What’s the worst that could happen?”

Umm . . . you?

Oh, and his language. I did not like it. And it’s not that I’m a prude. I think a well-placed f-bomb can truly enhance a joke that’s actually funny.

Screaming obscenities when you’re not being funny though? Sort of uncomfortable. And a little scary.

Oh, and he also told a really long joke about pooping that wasn’t funny. Again, something that can be funny but is really uncomfortable when it’s not.

So anyway, just as I was about give Art an evil look for bringing me to this place (I was also in a hormonally-induced foul mood), the second comic came on and WAS funny! And so were the third and fourth!

And then I was reminded of that fact that it’s a night of free entertainment and maybe I should loosen up a little about the occasional suckage.

It’s all part of the charm.

So anyway, I guess I should write about the people I did think were funny. But the problem is that I wasn’t a good little reporter and didn’t bring a notebook, so I don’t remember anyone’s names.

Actually, that’s a lie. I do remember Mary Mack, but that’s because she was wonderfully and quite memorably weird and because she shares a name with a children’s song to which I used to jump rope.

If I wanted to write about the other performers, I’d have to make up names for them like Hipster Moustache Dude, Air Force Lesbian and Ultra Minnesotan Accent Bug Lab Lady. And that just seems like a lot of work even though those are really good stage names and I would totally contact them and tell them they should use them if I could only remember what their names were.

Art’s Part

As Cowboy Slim’s was being built—mere blocks from where I live–over this past spring, I knew what I wanted it to be. Sadly, I also knew what it would be.

I wanted it to be a beer and whisky bar where people over 35 and people under 35 but who are exactly like me—you know, people who know how to be in a bar and not be a total douche about it*—would hang out, maybe dance to some Hank Williams, Jr., and enjoy some beers. Basically, I wanted it to be Inn Kahoots, but walking distance from the Artpartment.

However, I knew it would be something else: an excuse for orange suburban girls to put on cowboy boots (with heels) and corsets to get ogled and groped by over-beefy suburban guys who can’t enunciate. And just walking by at night it’s evident that this is the scene at this bar.

But! During the day! During the day Cowboy Slim’s is a restaurant with a patio. The inside of the restaurant is pure cowboy cheese (think Camp Snoopy)—which is certainly fun if you’re in the mood for it. But we didn’t eat inside. We ate on the patio because it was a gorgeous day.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned undesirable crowd got an early start (or really powered through from the night before) so as to be falling over (three times in the first five minutes of us being there) drunk. The falling, yelling, 5pm drunkards were mostly contained on the opposite end of the patio, so Emily and I were able to eat our meal in relative peace. But if you decide to eat on the Cowboy Slim’s patio on a Sunday afternoon, be forewarned: there will be 5pm drunkards.

I ordered the meatloaf. I’m not going to start piling up superlatives on account of this meatloaf, but it did not let me down in taste or substance. And for ten dollars (actually twelve, but we split the bill–heh heh heh–and not counting the reasonably priced pitcher of Premium which we got at the bar), not being let down is a pretty good deal to me. I will also note that the corn was particularly moist and plump (not unlike the waitresses. HEYO!).

Speaking of the waitresses, have you ever seen Battlestar Galactica? I mean the new one, with all the sex and explosions. Well, all the waitresses at Cowboy Slim’s look exactly like Number Six:

*This does not mean people who don’t get too drunk or into fist fights. This means that if someone falls over it’s because they have had 25 beers plus whiskey, not because they’re a jackass who is whoring for attention from their friends.

Emily’s Part

Our original plan was to spend the evening at the Bastille Day block party, so we set off from Art’s apartment (he’d like you to call it “The Artpartment,” but I’m unconvinced) not very enthusiastic about the whole endeavor.

Art was hungry, over-caffeinated, and sunburned, and I was a little under the weather from a night of drinking and exhausted from an overly ambitious bike ride.

By the time we got there, we desperately needed food and beverages and made a beeline for the concession area, where we noticed that:

1. We were required to pay $1 for a wristband that would give us the privilege to buy overpriced beer.
2. The food options weren’t looking all that tasty.

After a few minutes, we decided that Bastille Day, while it might have been a fun time, wasn’t in the cards for us, so we wandered down Lagoon for a bit before deciding to try Cowboy Slim’s.

Now, I often wonder why bars attract the people they do. In any given neighborhood, they’re all going to pretty similar. Drink prices and food won’t vary much; it’s the people that make you decide whether you want to become a regular.

And the people hanging out at Cowboy Slim’s were not cool.

It was still pretty early when we arrived, and the indoor area was basically empty. The patio, however, was full of people. Full of drunk people. Drunk douchey people.

In the thirty seconds it took to give the hostess our name, a guy (who we’d later notice was wearing a jersey with “Mr. Creepo” on the back) fell down in front of the hostess stand.

The hostess just glanced at him, then gave us a look that seemed to say, “Eh, what are you gonna do?” and kept going about her business. His friends didn’t seem fazed either.

Once we were seated, the service and food were fine, but we couldn’t carry on a conversation because of the screaming going on at the table behind us. And by screaming, I do not mean that people were talking too loud. I mean that they were all “WOOOOOO HOOOOOO! Let’s do SHOTS!”

It wasn’t even 7:00.

So all in all, though we had a nice walk on a beautiful night and a decent meal, I think my favorite part of Sunday was going back to Art’s place for a few games of cribbage.

Art’s Part

I’d been to Zeno seven or eight times before I went for the cheap date night. None of those times had done a good job of convincing me that Zeno was capable of cheap: the food is delicious, the ambiance is classy-casual, and the prices are set thusly. So, for a special occasion or when I’m pretending I don’t care how much money I spend, I’m thrilled to go to Zeno. But as a cheap date? I’m skeptical.

Which is why, when Emily noted that Zeno indeed has a special labeled “Cheap Date Night,” I jumped at the chance to go. Thirty dollars for an appetizer, a salad, a dessert, a bottle of wine, and a couple movie tickets? You could easily pay that much for just a bottle of wine at a place like Zeno. But, like all things, it was a little too good to be true.

After it was all added up, it was much closer to $40, which is actually a moderate-to-high-priced date on the Art and Emily scale. I certainly can’t afford to drop $20 on myself for a Tuesday night date every week. (What will Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights say? Where, then, would be the money for them?)

It was also wonderful to see a movie afterwards. After paying the bill, it was nice to go and receive another two hours of entertainment without taking out my wallet again (for a $9 ticket!). But if you’re like me and you drink a lot of tea or coffee during the day, you probably tend to break the proverbial seal around 2 p.m., which means you’ll have to be strategic about how you handle that half a bottle of wine waiting impatiently in your bladder for two hours.

But if you can get past my crotchety, “cheap means cheap” complaints about the extra five dollars a person and my old man bladder, you really should try this out. The wine is drinkable, and the food is characteristically delectable. I may recommend eating a slightly larger or slightly later lunch than normal, as the three courses are individual servings intended to be shared (or consumed by the more assertive of the two of you), but I didn’t and I was fine. Plus you get to eat at Zeno, which is always a great time.

Emily’s Part

I decided to walk to Zeno (about two miles from my apartment), and because I always overestimate walking times and Art was a bit late, I spent about twenty minutes chugging water (it was hot outside) and taking in the atmosphere.

The first thing I noticed is that the staff of Zeno is mostly made up of impossibly beautiful, well-groomed men. (Even Art agreed. It was ridiculous.) I mean, I was excited to see Public Enemies because I was going to get to spend 2+ hours looking at Johnny Depp and Christian Bale (who I’ve had a major crush on since Newsies), but damn.

Anyway, Art eventually arrived, and we got right down to the business of ordering because we needed to be at the theater in an hour.

Ordering from the “date night” menu, we went with a Cabernet Sauvignon (rather tasty, though I’m no wine critic), baked clams (an automatic winner because they were served in a giant bowl of what was basically garlic butter), a spinach salad (their advertising and signage doesn’t say that a salad is included, so hooray, bonus salad!) and a raspberry sucree (eh).

All in all, I wasn’t overly excited by the food (though there were a lot of other items on the menu I’d love to try that go on special on other nights), but it was definitely tasty and a fun way to share a meal. It was also, at least for me, a perfect size for a meal (I felt full but not like I wanted to die), though I suspect that Art wouldn’t have said no to a sandwich after we’d finished.

One thing I did find problematic was that because dessert was included (and because I didn’t want to spend any more money), I felt too guilty to get Raisinettes. And a move is not a movie without Raisinettes.

But besides that glaring problem, it was a very pleasant evening, though you may want to steer clear of bringing a man with a hearty appetite. In fact, this special might even be better suited for a “date” with a girlfriend. That, or you can just distract the hungry man by taking him to a movie with more machine gun fire than I’ve ever seen. That works too.

Art’s Part

Ok, so why not just go on Flickr and look at pictures of the State Fair? I mean, there are over 12,000 of them. Why should you buy a book of pictures?

Well, let me tell you something. This is a coffee table book. As it’s just like Stephen Colbert said: when you’re moving, you can’t wrap your dishes in a blog. And you can’t set Flickr on your coffee table. Seriously, your coffee table needs this book. I’ll go so far as to say your coffee table is ugly without this book. UGLY.

So, let me tell you about this book. First, the puns. Oh, the puns. A two or three word caption is associated with each picture, and many of them are great puns. My favorite caption in the whole book is for the first picture, on page two. (See? Now you have to pick the book up to see it. Unless you’re a total asshole and just look it up Amazon.)

Ok, so maybe you’re one of these people I’ve heard about who isn’t totally into puns (I know! I didn’t believe it either). But you’re on the internet, so that means you love a good lol. This book (which sits on your coffee table, remember) also has a fair share of genuinely-lol lols. Also, there are some creepy (read: hilarious) chickens as pets/chickens as food and pigs as pets/pigs as food juxtapositions.

Oh yeah, and the pictures are all top-notch.

So, I swear to you, this book will make your ugly coffee table beautiful and it will make the ugly coffee table you think is beautiful actually beautiful. Anecdotal evidence: I don’t even have a coffee table and my sister picked it up and flipped through it when she came over one time.

Emily’s Part

I’m not sure how qualified I am to write about this book. After all, I’m not from here, I’ve only been to the Minnesota State Fair once, and I’ve never even been to the fair in my home state of Wisconsin. (Despite its world famous cream puffs, Wisconsinites seem to prefer Summerfest over their state fair. And while the Summerfest experience is more focused on music than food, both events feature large crowds of women in tube tops they probably shouldn’t be wearing, so let’s try to focus on our similarities rather than our differences, okay?)

Anyway, during my first summer here, I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about or why all of my coworkers were asking me whether I’d “been to the fair yet” as if it was a given that I was attending. Because I was most certainly not.

I did make it last year, though I was still a little freaked out by the whole thing. My trepidation even made me express disgust toward bacon, which is totally unlike me.

And while I definitely had a nice day at the fair (other than the fact that the fat content of the food I ate made me want to die later that night), I don’t think I’ll ever really understand or identify with the fair the way native Minnesotans do. I think it’s one of those things you have to grow up with, something you have to do every year for the better part of your childhood, to fully embrace. No amount of Pronto Pups is going to change that.

That being said, I really liked this book. I thought Susan Lambert Miller did a great job of capturing the many sides of the fair, from livestock (cute little piglets!) to food (mmm . . . corn on the cob!) to rides (vomit!) to the just plain bizarre (busts sculpted from butter?) and juxtaposes the images in a way that highlights just how weird the fair really is.

If nothing else, I’d highly recommend the book to first time fairgoers who need a preview of what they’re getting themselves into.

Oh, and there are also puns. But I’m sure the “Punsultant” has already filled you in.

Art’s part

If you went to elementary school in Minnesota you don’t really need an excuse to go to the Science Museum. You know it’s always fun and amazing no matter what is happening. (Hooray for science!) So you’ll understand when I say: while the Titanic exhibit wasn’t the most fun I’ve had at the Science Museum, it was on par for interestingness and entertainment (which is to say, on a level much above most any other things you can do around town).

There’s not much I can tell you about the artifacts themselves that you probably haven’t already guessed: they’re old, fancy, and mostly really depressing. It’s cool to see a period of time captured and undisturbed by ocean. But really, I found that the artifacts weren’t as haunting as they were kind of neat—especially the pieces/photos of the ship itself. I had a good time comparing the change in the size of toothbrushes over the years.

But it is a Titanic exhibit after all, which carries with it a certain level of haunt and definite extreme sadness. Which is why every Titanic exhibit needs some levity. But they’re not just going to give it to you like so many free roast beef sandwiches and complimentary glasses of Guinness—you have to take it. So here’s what you do:

1)    Ask the period actors questions they can only answer out of character. For example:

•    Do you travel with the exhibit, or are you just here in St. Paul?
•    What is the password to the wireless internet?
•    Aren’t you glad women in France can’t vote and won’t be able to for another 60 years?

2)    When you get to the timeline of wireless dispatches, read them as a Twitter exchange. When the Titanic radios for help in 140 characters, that makes it more amusing, I found.

The one negative thing I have to say about this exhibit is about the crowd flow. The exhibit is not set up to maximize people movement. So, don’t be a sucker: break free from the the You Must Stay in a Line yoke of oppression and meander. You’ll keep your sanity if you do.

Emily’s part

I felt like a very classy lady attending the reception before the exhibit opening. First of all, there were passed hors d’oeuvres, which always make me feel fancy yet awkward because of the difficulty of eating and holding a drink at the same time (the Guinness was free, so there was a lot of drink holding). Plus, there was an ice sculpture filled with shrimp AND roast beef sandwiches with THREE sauce choices.

That’s classy.

There were also children at the reception, which elicited mixed feelings from me. While I did enjoy hearing from a particularly cool two-year-old (and I’m not just saying that because his mother got us into the event) about how great dinosaurs and roast beef sandwiches are, I did not enjoy that there were Irish step dancers there. I’m all for celebrating your heritage, but those curly synthetic hairpieces they wear are super creepy, and I was feeling really bad for the one boy in the group, who I assume was forced into it by his mother. You know, because of the dancing. And the skirt.

After the reception, we headed into the exhibit, where we were each handed a boarding pass with information about Titanic passenger. I was a woman in second class, and Art was a man in third class. Therefore, we assumed I was going to live (“Women and children first!”) and Art was a goner.

With this in mind, we entered the exhibit, which I have to say was pretty cool. I couldn’t believe that 1) they were able to pull all of those artifacts from the bottom of the ocean; 2) what they did pull up was so well preserved; and 3) all of the actors working at the exhibit managed to stay in character despite the fact that they (especially the attractive young ladies) were constantly being asked questions not relevant to the time period.

When we reached the end of the exhibit, we were able to look at a list of passengers to see if the person on our ticket survived. We both lived, which made me happy until I heard that my mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law also all survived when they saw it in Milwaukee, which makes me think the entire thing is a big fat conspiracy.

You heard it here first, folks.

Art’s Part

For being such a dark, sober (heh) story, Ivan the Drunk does not take itself too seriously. Which is to say it took itself just seriously enough. I’ve seen reviews that use phrases like “full of laughs” or other euphemisms for funny, and that’s not it, exactly. There are a few truly absurdly funny moments—and you should not feel guilty about laughing at them—but this play isn’t funny.

I think the best word I could use to describe this play is “detached.” I mean this in a genuinely positive way. I mean it in the same way people who are “dispassionate” about things mean it. Not wrong or aloof or uncaring, but deliberate and thoughtful.

This is also not to say that the play is not incredibly engaging or, indeed, passionate. I found myself right there with Ivan the whole way, if not entirely understanding his burden. (Although, his Burden is physically manifested and a genius device. I loved this aspect of the production.)

The actor who played Ivan, Paul Herwig, carried the role exceptionally well. For the entire hour and a half, all I wanted was to see more of his character. And I was sitting in the front row—three feet from the man. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to see someone that close that much. (Except, of course, for Emily.)

My enthusiasm is not unqualified. There was one point in the production that was so over the top that I just wanted to tell them to shut up and get along with it already. When Ivan confronts his demons (at least, I think that’s what it was), they were, perhaps, just the right level of abstract, but just the wrong level of screechy and unnecessarily obnoxious. This may have been magnified by the fact that I was in the front row and they were three feet from me. That, and the ending. I have three words for the ending, and the first two are W and T. Can you guess the third?

On the matter of the costumes, they were all very well done as far as I could tell. BUT, what astounded and fantastically impressed me was the false moustache technology employed. Ivan writhes and wrestles with his Burden (which also impressed me), and for the first ten minutes I was staring at that false moustache, just waiting for him to pull a Jim Carrey-on-SNL-esque moustache reaffixing, but there was none. His moustache stayed firmly secured to his upper lip for the entire performance, refusing to be dislodged even by the sweat that began to drip down Ivan’s face.

Emily’s Part

Half out of wanting to watch it with an open mind and half out of sheer laziness, I went to Ivan the Drunk knowing nothing about it except that it was a play by Max Sparber.

And, as it turned out, even that’s not entirely true.

First of all, I think it was more of a play/ballet hybrid; there are entire scenes without dialogue, completely expressed through dance and movement, interspersed with more dialogue-heavy scenes.

Another surprise for me was the level of collaboration in the creation of the piece. I assumed it had been written by Sparber, handed to the theater company, rehearsed, and performed. Instead, the story, which was conceived by Paul Herwig, Co-Artistic Director of Off-Leash Area, and the rest of the company, came before the words, which were written by Sparber, and they developed what became the final production together.

After the show, Sparber and Herwig told us that this collaboration, along with the busy schedules of everyone involved, made creating Ivan the Drunk a sometimes painful process, but I think the end result was more than worth it.

Herwig gives a compelling performance as Ivan, a tortured Russian WWI veteran, playing the character at different ages and wildly varying psychological states as the story jumps through space and time to different formative moments in Ivan’s life.

Ivan spends as much time talking to Burden, a life-sized dummy stuffed with artifacts of his past, as he does interacting with other characters, and I thought this, especially his physical interactions with Burden (they have a fight in the first scene, which I can’t imagine was easy to choreograph or pull off without seeming ridiculous), was surprisingly exciting to watch.

Now, as happens a lot with me and art (and Art, for that matter), I’m not sure I really “got” all of it. Things sometimes got a bit abstract for me, especially the ending, which I’m sure had some sort of profound meaning that I missed out on. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, and it got me thinking about the veteran’s experience, which I believe was at least in part, the play’s intention.

Art’s Part

As a beer drinker and a karaoke aficionado, what I am about to say does not come hastily, nor on a whim: U Otter Stop Inn is, point for point, my favorite bar in Minneapolis.

Sure, there are bars with better beer prices (like the VFW in Uptown) and there are bars with more extensive (which is not to say better*) karaoke song selections (I’m looking at you, 1029), but numbers are notorious liars. What makes the Otter great are its intangible assets.

First, there’s Kat. Kat is your lovely karaoke hostess who can belt out a tune herself and always keeps the singers in order. Kat is an hilarious conversationalist who can keep everyone in check. A whole bar of drunkards demanding to know why they aren’t next, when are the going to sing, they need to leave soon so can the sing next, COME ON I WANT TO SING. Kat is always happy, knowing she is mocking them to their face and they have no idea. She’s brilliant.

Then, there’s the clientele. A friend of mine and I, after frequenting the Otter for some time, decided we would start taking notes on the percentage of groups of people who came into the bar when we were there (some weeknights, some weekends). We split the crowd into four groups: Hipsters, Douchebags, Old People, and Other. Once we had enough data we were going to analyze it and determine exactly what kind of bar the Otter was. We returned multiple evenings, taking rough percentages on the same napkin. Each time the numbers varied wildly, and after six or seven recordings, we gave up. There is no pattern. I can only assume it is because this bar sits within a supernatural nexus within Minneapolis, much like the Bermuda Triangle: it is in Northeast Minneapolis, but sits between 6th and 7th Streets Southeast.

Also, the puns. U Otter Stop Inn has no fewer than three puns. U is a pun meaning both University and second person singular pronoun. Otter, in this context, is a pun for “ought to” (which is totally true. You ought to stop in.) And Inn, another word for tavern, is a pun for the preposition “in,” thus completing the three-deep superpun. Plus, on The MySpace dot com, Kat’s profile name is Kat E. Clyscmic.**

Finally, there’s the bar itself. I’ve been to many bars, some of which have karaoke. Some of these bars even call themselves karaoke bars (I’m looking at you, Nye’s). However, no bar as small enough or set up as well to put the focus on the karaoke as the Otter. Every other bar in Minneapolis is a bar that has karaoke (which patrons seem to take as something to talk over/ignore until it is their turn), whereas the Otter is a karaoke bar, where the fine art of karaoke is practiced for an attentive, appreciative audience.

So, dear reader, I say, U indeed Otter Stop Inn.

*Sure, the 1029 has access to probably thousands of songs to download in addition to the ones in their karaoke books, but in that vast internet library they can’t find room for Punk Rock Girl by the Dead Milkmen? For shame, 1029. You’re lucky you have Another Postcard.**NOTE: I write the all-pun blog www.punsultancy.com. I love puns.

Emily’s Part

At the risk of having to change the name of this column to “Totally Being a Drunken Embarrassment with Art and Emily,” I agreed to write about the Otter this week. Because, much like last week’s Rock for Pussy debacle, I have made some bad decisions at this establishment.

It all started when I moved to Minnesota in the summer of 2007 and hadn’t quite learned the ropes of Minnesota drinking. For example, the first weekend I lived here I tried to buy beer. On a Sunday. In a gas station. It didn’t work out.

Another place where I went wrong, alcohol-wise, was expecting that shots (I was fresh out of college and still felt like doing shots on a regular basis was a good idea) would be about an ounce or so, not, like in some Minnesota bars, the size of a cocktail. Except all booze.

So anyway, I went to the Otter, agreed to take multiple shots with a friend of a friend, did a rowdy rendition of “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips (while vigorously pumping my fist in the air) and then spent much of the next day on my bathroom floor.

And I swore to never return. Because obviously it was the bar’s fault, not mine.

So fast forward a few years to when I meet Art, who is a lover of all things karaoke, and he suggested that we return. I was hesitant because of my past experiences, but it turns out that if you don’t drink your 21-year-old self into oblivion, it’s actually a great place.

They’ve got a mildly crotchety bartender who seems to keep track of the tabs by memory and feels perfectly comfortable telling me that my hair doesn’t look very good in my driver’s license photo (and then showing it to someone else, who for some reason had a plate of cookies, to confirm) and an emcee who, if you write mean things about her on Craigslist, will refute your claims and post embarrassing pictures of you proving her point. Because she doesn’t put up with that crap.

Oh, and you also get to see Art dance like this (thanks to Meg Canada for the photo):