Southeast

by Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet • 11/22/08 • Studying in Australia for a few months in the mid-90s, I was party to any number of earnest conversations about “the true spirit of Australia” and the frustrations of being reduced, in the global imagination, to a kangaroo, a boomerang, and Paul Hogan.

Members of the Metropolitan Council’s Corridor Management Committee and community advocates met November 13 to discuss the Central Corridor Light Rail project. At a forum broadcast on KFAI’s “Truth to Tell” and recorded for later broadcast on St. Paul Neighborhood Network, participants provided an update of the project and outlined issues of concern. MORE »

As America celebrates President-Elect Barack Obama’s historic win, the Somali community in Minnesota is forced to deal with negative press brought about by one of their own. On Election Day, November 4th, stories about Somali volunteers allegedly influencing voters at the polling stations began to appear in the press. MORE »

This week’s picks

Thursday, November 20
Does Joe Dowling have the Guthrie logo tattooed on his arm? I haven’t checked, but I suspect not. Jeremey Catterton, artistic director of Lamb Lays With Lion, now literally wears his heart on his sleeve—specifically, on his inner forearm. The LLWL troupe will be at the Hexagon tonight performing The Little Skeleton That Could Not, a work of “info-tainment” about alcoholism, AIDS, and anorexia. Stick around afterwards for music by Fort Wilson Riot, Plastic Chord, and Speed’s The Name.

Friday, November 21
Last Christmas you gave your godparents a terra cotta garlic cooker…how are you ever going to top that?! Try a work of original art from a student at MCAD; the school’s annual art sale opens tonight. MORE »

The yellow back of the light rail barely shined over the top of the makeshift iron wall in the decaying courtyard, strewn with broken bricks around a waterless, rusted fountain. MORE »

by Phillip Andrew Bennett Low • 10/19/08 • addiction
a – dic – tion [uh-dik-shuhn]
-noun
the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.
Origin:
1595–1605; < L addiction- (s. of addictio) a giving over, surrender.

Aditi Kapil is one of the finest comedic talents ever to see a Twin Cities stage. Too bad she’s squandered her gift by deciding to write and direct in addition to acting. That decision has led to Kapil’s play Love Person being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It’s led to her newest work Agnes Under the Big Top, A Fairy Tale copping a New Play Development grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; the play will be developed with Lark Play Development Center in New York. She broke into Twin Cities theater as a would-be successor to Lucille Ball, only to wind up as, without question, an artist of proven consequence. MORE »

In the weeks since Augsburg student Ahmednur Ali was shot and killed just feet from Currie Park and the Brian Coyle Community Center, area residents, community organizations and institutions, and police have stepped up efforts on a number of fronts to improve public safety and community relations in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. MORE »