Academy Award nominee Bill Plympton presented his new animated feature Cheatin’ on April 13 and 14 at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. Plympton drew 40,000 images in pencil to create the film, which is a romantic comedy that is touching, hilarious, raunchy, and doesn’t have a single line of dialogue. Cheatin’ is Plympton’s seventh hand-drawn animated feature. He has also animated over 60 shorts, two of which received “Best Animated Short” Oscar nominations.Before and after the two screenings of his film, Plympton sold his DVDs, books, and art while he spoke with fans and drew characters from the film onto postcards. Continue Reading
All week long, tantalizing aromas have been wafting from the doors of African Paradise Restaurant as they’ve rehearsed for their grand opening, Friday, March 20. The freshly painted walls and ceiling finished from earthy ocher pigments and ample seating split between the sunny front window and the shadowy, more intimate back section provided a choice for dine-in customers.I had the luxury of a sneak-peek sampling from their Mediterranean platter. A large rectangular dish arrived at my table filled with grilled beef and chicken cubes seasoned mildly. Mixed in with the meats were bell peppers and onions. Complementing the meat dish, a vegetarian entrée appeared with spiced peppers and black beans. Continue Reading
As the fifteenth annual conference of the Association of Writers and Publishers (AWP) convened in Minneapolis this week, thousands of writers, editors, publishers, and other literary fellow travelers attended panel discussions and readings both at the AWP itself and offsite in bookstores, coffee shops, and theaters across the Twin Cities. The conference — which draws attendees from all over the country, indeed all over the world — presented an occasion for reflecting on the literary identity of the Twin Cities and the Upper Midwest more broadly. Such was the topic of a least a half dozen AWP panels, among them: “Beyond Lake Wobegon: Minnesota Writers of Color,” which interrogated Minnesotan cultural identity beyond the “clichéd images of the state”; “Letters from the Snow Belt: Writing in the Land of Blizzards and Cabin Fever” which asked whether the famously hard Upper Midwest winters are “a key ingredient in the creative spark of prose and poetry”; “Revisiting Highway 61,” and homage of sorts to Bob Dylan that included local rapper Dessa among its participants; and a reading by regionally-based writers celebrating the University of Minnesota Press’ 90th anniversary.
Minnesotan literary identity was also explored at several offsite events. Wednesday evening’s “Literary Locavores” reading – an on-going series by local writers – took place at Nicollet Diner and brought together novelists, memoirists and poets who read pieces about canoeing in the Boundary Waters, the political shenanigans of a fictional western Minnesota small town, and the emotional pull of the North Country for a Minnesotan expat living abroad. Continue Reading
“To me, being a Somali is a blessing because there’s so much richness artistically. And I say it’s a blessing because most of us don’t actually realize how rich our heritage and our culture is.”
-Aar Maanta
“Somalia was always known as the nation of poets,” Aar Maanta said to the small audience at the West Bank’s People’s Center, during a relaxed Q&A session. An afternoon “mini-performance” and discussion was attended by mostly Augsburg students & faculty, as part of Aar Maanta’s week-long residency in Minneapolis, a joint effort hosted by Augsburg College and the Cedar as part of their longer Midnimo series. Aar Maanta promised to play an additional song if the audience danced, and by the last song of the lunchtime concert, the majority of them were on their feet and dancing. Aar Maanta, born Hassan-Nour Sayid, has returned to Minneapolis this week for the first time since his 2012 performance at the Cedar. Continue Reading
Arab American Soundscapes: An Evening of Music, Poetry, and Performance lit up the Cedar Cultural Center. Presented by St. Paul-based Arab American arts organization Mizna, the program highlighted live readings and performances from eight different poets–some local and some national, but all identifying in various ways as Arab American. The event was one of the many offshoots of this year’s massive Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference.A video projection of a rippling Euphrates River and digital music from local artist Naj Bagdadi served as the backdrop of the evening, both literally on stage and more symbolically as cultural and historical touchstones. (The video was an original Mizna commission, by Iraq-based video artist Ali Al-Tayar.) Opening the evening were poets Hedy Hebra, Glenn Shaheen, Trish Salah, Philip Metres, and Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán. Continue Reading
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of what I’m calling “citizen reviews” of films playing at the MSPIFF. The first is by Reyna Crow, an activist with the group Idle No More. I reached out to Reyna because I knew she would have something to say about Medicine of the Wolf, a film about the cotroversial wolf hunt here in Minnesota. In this short article, Reyna gives us some insight into issues in the film. It screens tomorrow, April 11th at 4:45 at Saint Anthony Main and Sunday, April 12th at 1pm at the Best Buy Theater. Continue Reading
The Northeast Minneapolis Arts District was recently named the Number 1 Arts District in the USA in a reader’s poll that set it against Arts Districts in cities like Boston, Dallas, Detroit and Los Angeles. That victory was celebrated at a party in the Solar Arts Building on April 1. The party featured music, food by Chowgirls, speeches by Northeast Minneapolis leaders and arts district pioneers, and awards to Northeast Arts District Visionaries.Video produced by John Akre Green Jeans Media Continue Reading
just like Africathe NorthSide’s a continent…one acts not for allEditors Note: This is a new series by Minneapolis photographer Bill Cottman. For more than five years now, a poem, a musing, or a few words shows up in my inbox. Some with numbers in the title. Some with no title at all. There was no regularity either. Continue Reading
