Colleen Powers

tyleroakley: I want this enlarged, framed, and mounted above my...

Thu, 24 May 2012 21:12:56 -0400

tyleroakley:

I want this enlarged, framed, and mounted above my fireplace.

I got straight bangs today and the first thing I thought when I looked in the mirror was, “I am Matilda.”

But I really like the things former child actress Mara Wilson writes on the Internet these days, so maybe that’s OK.

mplstv: May’s Artist in Residence at MPLS.TV is David Paul...

Wed, 23 May 2012 21:19:12 -0400

mplstv:

May’s Artist in Residence at MPLS.TV is David Paul Seymour, a self-described “proud low-brow” creator whose work is influenced by street art, skateboarding culture, cartoons, and other pop culture. Read the interview to learn more about his background, his methods, and why he’s in Minneapolis to stay.

“…I immediately fell in love with how clean, energetic, smart and creative Minneapolis was. I’ll literally never leave now. You’re stuck with me. I also love that despite it’s a metropolis and all, it’s also a really small town. I’m starting to see how I’m running into the ‘so-and-so told me about you,’ or the ‘I’ve already heard of you. Yeah.’”

I quite enjoyed putting together and reading this month’s Artist in Residence interview for MPLS.TV—check it out.

"An extra playing a pageant judge looked so much like wrestler Jesse Ventura that director Donald..."

Tue, 22 May 2012 20:01:50 -0400

“An extra playing a pageant judge looked so much like wrestler Jesse Ventura that director Donald Petrie jokingly referred to him by that name during filming. It is not, however, actually Jesse Ventura in the role.”

- Miss Congeniality (via imdbtrivia)

Every once in a while I look at the list of tumblrz I’ve created and find one that I completely forgot existed (usually related to the twin towers or Mark McGrath?) because I was probably drunk when I thought it was a good idea. I’m pretty sure this one happened while high at someone’s apartment, reading up on Last Comic Standing winners, and annoyingly reciting trivia out loud to the room. Although I’m not exactly sure how that led me to Miss Congeniality.

(via synecdoche)

Hey, I had the idea to create an IMDb trivia Tumblr once, too! The post I was going to start with was from the X-Men: First Class trivia: “This is the second time that January Jones has been cast in 1962 opposite an actor with a pork based name.”

Whenever Girls comes up, I try to make an assertion based on the one episode I’ve seen and the...

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:37:00 -0400

Whenever Girls comes up, I try to make an assertion based on the one episode I’ve seen and the others I’ve read about, and I always end up doing so incoherently. Here’s what I’m trying to articulate.

Girls reminds me how terrible people can be to each other, and how terrible I can be to others. And that both interests me and makes me want to flee in the other direction. I felt the same way about Adrienne Eisen’s Making Scenes, last month’s pick by Emily Books. There’s an icy flatness to the way Eisen’s narrator describes her cheating and lying and self-destruction that made me almost physically uncomfortable. I was so uneasy while reading the book that I didn’t want to continue. Both Eisen and Girls writer/director Lena Dunham make the decision to lay out their characters’ selfish, petty, narcissistic decisions and motivations without turning it into a morality play, and I think that’s a worthy choice. The violent, unfaithful, and/or iconoclastic male anti-hero has become a staple of contemporary movies and TV shows: Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Walter White. But there’s something both fascinating and repulsive about exposing the manipulative and cruel acts young urban bourgeois people, specifically women, commit against one another. That’s valid, and I’m glad a show that does that exists. But I don’t enjoy consuming it.

The guy I’m seeing has said that he doesn’t like media that hews too close to his own experience—it just feels like a continuation of his daily life, it’s not enough of an escape. I was skeptical when he first said that, but I can see his point. I haven’t been seeing him for very long, and I don’t know if it will work out, because most things don’t. But I want it to work out. I want to believe that it can work out. I don’t want to watch a TV show about people my age hurting each other and be reminded of all the ways I’ve been hurt and have hurt people and all the ways I can still yet hurt and be hurt. Maybe shying away from Girls makes me willfully ignorant, but—just let me pretend for a little longer that people in relationships can be kind.

Just North of Something Important: Good lord, a mixed-race person who is president of the United States...

Wed, 09 May 2012 20:29:01 -0400

Just North of Something Important: Good lord, a mixed-race person who is president of the United States...:

barthel:

Good lord, a mixed-race person who is president of the United States just endorsed gay marriage several years after passing health care reform. Do you know how many of those things were inconceivable 5 years ago? You can be happy about this without having to be happy about everything else the man…

rookiemag: acehotel: “Once a little boy sent me a charming...

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:23:00 -0400

rookiemag:

acehotel:

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

Maurice Sendak, rest in peace.

My favorite story. -Lauren R.

Best.

A little disposable income is a dangerous thing.

Sun, 06 May 2012 21:54:45 -0400

A little disposable income is a dangerous thing.

cordjefferson: Tim and Keith and I drank too many Tecates a couple weeks ago and decided that these...

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:38:02 -0400

cordjefferson:

Tim and Keith and I drank too many Tecates a couple weeks ago and decided that these are the best state mottos, in no particular order:

Arkansas, “The people rule”

West Virginia, “Mountaineers are always free”

New Hampshire, “Live free or die”

North Dakota, “One sows for the benefit of another age”

New Mexico, “It grows as it goes”

North Carolina, “To be, rather than to seem”

alapoet: NEVER FORGET.Kent State University, May 4,...

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:16:04 -0400

alapoet:

NEVER FORGET.

Kent State University, May 4, 1970

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

Most of the historical events that really resonate with me are from the ’70s, for whatever reason, and few hit me in the gut like Kent State. I can never wrap my head around how fucking terrifying it must have been to be 20 years old and have your fellow students gunned down by your own country’s National Guard. Shit, man.

mplstv: In last month’s All This Is Ours (read it if you...

Thu, 03 May 2012 19:08:53 -0400

mplstv:

In last month’s All This Is Ours (read it if you haven’t yet!), Sarah Brumble and Ben LaFond visited Northeast weapons maker Arms & Armor—and Sarah got to try on some of the goods.

All photos by Ben LaFond.

I can’t get over how great these photos are, not to mention the story that goes with them.

Tonight I went to my first-ever professional modern dance...

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:21:00 -0400

Tonight I went to my first-ever professional modern dance performance. The closest I usually come to enjoying choreographed dance is through cheesy movies like Step Up, and for me the words “modern dance” mostly just conjure up a vague image of limbs snaking and feet stomping.

I read a fair amount about modern dance as a kid, though. For a third-grade biography project, I gave a presentation on Katherine Dunham, who, according to Wikipedia, has been called “the matriarch and queen mother of black dance.” Around the same time, I read Andrea and Brian Pinkney’s picture-book biography of Alvin Ailey, who was inspired and influenced by Dunham and who became one of the most popular figures in modern American dance.

It was the Alvin Ailey Dance Company that I saw perform tonight, thanks to free tickets from Metro Mag. Before the show, I decided to read more about Ailey—I figured he was more complicated than a picture book. I learned that he had been an activist, and that he was involved for a time with socialist and pacifist agitator David McReynolds. I learned he prided himself on his company’s multiculturalism, and that he struggled with mental issues and a constant compulsion to prove himself in the face of racism. I also learned that Ailey died of AIDS, a fact he asked doctors not to tell his mother.

When I saw the company was coming to town, I immediately thought of one illustration from the book, of Ailey’s major work Revelations. The story traces a through-line from Alvin singing spirituals and gospel songs like “Rock-A My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” in church growing up to building his magnum opus around those very songs. Remembering the book’s vivid drawings of black dancers in colorful skirts and wide-brimmed hats, sashaying and waving fans, I was eager to see Revelations in person.

Sure enough, the triumphant last moments of the show made me shiver: It was the picture come to dynamic, fluid life. But for me, the moments of the show weighted with that significance—both what I’d read about Ailey and the larger themes of the history of black people in America—were the ones that stood out. I enjoyed parts of Revelations and the preceding pieces (especially a segment in Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16 where the dancers pulled a few audience members onstage for a lively round of cha-chaing), and I was impressed by the dancers’ grace and power, but I don’t think I could have written a real review of the show. It’s still an art I know virtually nothing about.

I’ve been thinking about dance lately, though. I write every week for MPLS.TV about Kickstarters I like, and I couldn’t resist donating to one for Aniccha Arts where the reward is a one-on-one lesson with the company’s choreographer. I may end up gulping, “Well, that was embarrassing, but at least it was a new experience,” but I’m intrigued to express something physically besides “I have a butt, and I want you to dance on it” or “I really enjoy the music of Blackstreet.” I’m looking forward to giving it a whirl.

365musicproject: TONIGHT—MPLS.TV’s first-ever Ideashare...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:16:56 -0400

365musicproject:

TONIGHT—MPLS.TV’s first-ever Ideashare Extraordinaire. Diamonds Coffee Shoppe. 6:30-8:30. Will you make history with us (or at least some cool projects)?

A Really Great (Two-and-a-Half-Year-Old, Wow) Post By Nitsuh Abebe That Has Informed My Thinking Regarding the Use of 'White' as a Cultural Shorthand and That People Should Read and Think About

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:09:52 -0400

A Really Great (Two-and-a-Half-Year-Old, Wow) Post By Nitsuh Abebe That Has Informed My Thinking Regarding the Use of 'White' as a Cultural Shorthand and That People Should Read and Think About:

(via celebraterickysargulesh)

This isn’t just pedantry about the meanings of words, though. Most of what people are trying to shorthand when they call indie acts “white” is set of ideas about social manner and social class: what they’re doing is fundamentally just a modern-American youth-culture spin on calling peoplebourgeois. (Obviously the last thing you’ll risk when calling out an indie band for being bourgeois is actuallyusing an upscale word like “bourgeois.”) As always, much of it is a game of small differences: middle-class youth reprimanding one another for being whatever they’re most embarrassed to be. Koenig and Batmanglij can be those things, too—of course they can.

I don’t even object to the inevitable use of shorthand for those things. (The English have an interesting term: “student types.”) What surprises me, though, is how many white speakers—including people who are relatively savvy about race and culture—seem completely unbothered by the very obvious problems involved in using a racial shorthand for them. Some will quite casually use “white” as code for a certain set of qualities—safety, cleverness, politeness, education, middle-class manner, “literary” pretensions, alleged blandness—without, so far as I can tell, much noticing the shadow of opposites that casts on everyone else. (Danger? Vulgarity? Ignorance? Poverty? Savagery?) Some will argue, in earnest, that they’re actually taking the side of some vibrant other thing over bland, upscale whiteness—all without noticing how very old and familiar that line is. (Haven’t white audiencestraditionally admired black artists as a source of transgression, of danger, of dirt, of “authenticity,” of “soul,” of “primitive” thrills?)

maura: <3 <3 <3 I clearly remember this from a VHS we...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:06:05 -0400

maura:

<3 <3 <3

I clearly remember this from a VHS we had when I was a kid, but I had no idea it was Madeline Kahn.

“You’ve got to be putting me on!”

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:57:48 -0400

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere:

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer hit me like a blow to the head when I first read it in high school. The title story is on the New Yorker website and you should read it.

Bridging the Gap: Local Hip-Hop x Local Press

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:40:00 -0400

Bridging the Gap: Local Hip-Hop x Local Press:

I talked to four people who write about music and/or edit music publications in the Twin Cities about how they cover the local hip-hop scene.

I’m still hesitant to draw any conclusions about hip-hop and the media, but I think and hope this interview accomplished what I wanted it to: making people outside the hip-hop community aware that there is a gap; offering people in the scene ideas on how to reach out to the press; and just generally laying out a chance to talk about the issue. Tomorrow, April 19, 6:00 at the Northeast library, the discussion continues.

mplstv: Does your cubicle day need some brightening? Check out...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:07:11 -0400

mplstv:

Does your cubicle day need some brightening? Check out April Artist in Residence Aimée Pijpers’ favorite artists and places to go in Minneapolis.

My cubicle day always needs brightening—maybe that’s why I really like this piece by Aimée Pijpers.

"Back in the day I was fascinated by the release of the Linda Tripp / Monica Lewinsky transcripts...."

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:45:28 -0400

“Back in the day I was fascinated by the release of the Linda Tripp / Monica Lewinsky transcripts. Not so much for the salacious stuff or for the hunting of the president or any of that… but for the compelling-in-its-banality experience of a strained, contrived, yet still in a way ‘real’ friendship between two people. In one of their last conversations the two, both concerned about weight and diet, talk about splitting a cheeseburger, because splitting it will make it ok. Without the contrivance of the political, they probably never would have become friends, yet you feel like in a different reality they could have been real friends.”

- comment on this Kickstarter page, which is raising money for a film made up of dialogue found in legal transcripts from a 1950s embezzlement/pinup girl scandal. This is all kinds of things that interest me.

mplstv: Filmmaker Rosemary Williams hired a private...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:10:41 -0400

mplstv:

Filmmaker Rosemary Williams hired a private investigator to learn more about the ’50s pinup girl who shares her name. Now she’s making a movie about that other Rosemary and the scandal that ended her career—and she needs your help, on Kickstarter.

“I see Rosemary as a very powerful person who was stuck in an era and circumstances which ultimately trapped her. In a different time, she might have been a CEO, but in 1950, she had to use what she had, which was her beauty and her intelligence, to try to achieve the power she craved.”

One of my favorite Kickstarters of the week yet—check it out.

rookiemag: neuewave: Jenny Holzer “Truisms,” 1977–79 T-shirt...

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 13:58:58 -0400

rookiemag:

neuewave:

Jenny Holzer

“Truisms,” 1977–79
T-shirt worn by Lady Pink, New York,1983.
Text: “Truisms” (1977-79),
Photo: Lisa Kahane

“The ‘Truisms’ (1977- 79) were perhaps an overly ambitious attempt to make an outline of everything that I wanted to do. I’m not sure I knew that at the time I wrote them, but that’s what I’ve come to recognize. I wanted to have almost every subject represented, almost every possible point of view, and then I had to sort out what those sentences should appear on.”

- Jenny Holzer

I’ve been thinking for a while about making my own “Abuse of power comes as no surprise” shirt, but is Lady Pink the only one who can pull it off? (Serious question.)