Lost & Found
Intermedia Arts
 As
the immigration debate catapults further into crude nativism, I recommend
Francine Conley’s one-woman performance “Lost & Found,”
in which 11 diverse people in an airport contemplate various migrations
and the meaning of home. A young Muslim re-imagines her American Dream;
a suburban mom takes her Swedish to Stockholm while her daughter goes
on a sacred quest back in the Midwest. There’s also a bittersweet
jazz singer, Betty D., a Russian exile and more. Conley hit Frinj of the
Fringe with her “Shoes” show, published a 2001 book of poems
(“How Dumb the Stars”) and co-founded a theatre company that
produces French plays. Meeting these humorous and touching characters
who are looking for a place to belong reawakens a more welcoming spirit.
Fri. & Sat. 8 p.m. $10/$12. 2822 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls. 612-871-4444
or IntermediaArts.org.
HOWELL
Body Worlds
Science Museum of Minnesota
 Eerie
doesn’t even begin to describe the experience of seeing the controversial
Body Worlds exhibit. I saw it in Chicago last spring, and it was
the most transcendentally bizarre museum experience I’ve ever had.
The majority of museum shows present facsimiles, models, simulations;
Gunther von Hagens’ exhibit gives you the real thing: actual bodies
preserved through a process called plastination. The quick and dirty explanation
is that fluid plastic replaces water in the body’s tissues and is
allowed to harden, and the process is used to show different aspects of
the human body: the nervous system, the musculature, etc. I recommend
you look for the display where the body has been obliterated but for the
spindly fibers of the blood vessels. Up close, it looks like a web of
fire-red twigs, but as you step back, it resolves itself into a human
form limned by its circulatory system. It pushes at your safe spaces a
bit, as you can’t help but be reminded constantly that these were
actual people who donated their bodies for this very exhibit. Some find
it disturbing, some fascinating, most a mixture of the two, but you absolutely
need to get out to see the show while it’s here. Science
Museum hours: Mon. - Thu. 9:30 a.m. - 9 p.m.; Fri. & Sat. 9:30 a.m.
- 10 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. $22 adults/$16 youth (ages 13 - 18) college
student & senior/ $12.50 child. Advance tickets highly recommended.
120 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul. 651-221-9444. smm.org.
STEVE
MCPHERSON
|
The Cardinal Sin CD Release
Triple
Rock Social Club
 I
have a kind of proud paternal feeling when it comes to The
Cardinal Sin: They were the subject of the first article I ever wrote
for Pulse. And look at them now! Their debut full-length, Hurry Up
and Wait, on Grey Flight Records, ups the ante, tightening the screws
on their already impressively tight post-hardcore sound. Cries of emo
won’t be silenced by the sweetly arpeggiated acoustic guitar that
propels the knife-edge rock of immediate standout “Rough Road,”
but when it sounds this fist-pumpingly good, who’s complaining?
Singer James Russell’s straining tenor is reminiscent of the Get
Up Kids’ Matt Pryor but Hurry Up and Wait plays more like
a double helping of the Get Up Kids’ excellent Red Letter Day
EP than their less consistent LPs. Transfer this exuberance from record
to stage and you get an experience you should really muscle your way up
front to check out. With Abagnail Suite and Somerset at the early show;
God
Damn Doo Wop Band, Thunder
in the Valley and Ted Romeo at the late show. 5 p.m. &
9 p.m. $5. All Ages & 21+. 629 Cedar Ave., Mpls. 612-333-7499.
MCPHERSON
Living Green Expo
Minnesota State
Fairgrounds
 Sustainability
means meeting current needs without making future generations sacrifice
for the same standard of living. It’s about balancing environmental,
economic and social concerns. And while the city of Minneapolis has already
launched a list of sustainable initiatives, which include increasing bike
paths, reducing carbon dioxide emissions and improving water quality,
don’t look to your government to save the planet. George W. Bush’s
myopic “environmental vision” consists of little more than
clearing brush from his Crawford ranch, and his hands are so oily he can
barely hold the chainsaw. Learn for yourself how to live a sustainable
life at the Living Green Expo. Now in its fifth year, the event offers
an abundance of information on low-impact living, from energy reduction
and recycling to organic farming and water conservation and much, much
more. More than 60 workshops and over 200 exhibits will cover everything
you’d ever want to know about sustainable transportation, energy,
home building and remodeling, food, yard and garden, lifestyles and recreation,
household products and arts and culture. Don your hemp and ride your bike
(or take public transportation or carpool) down to the Fairgrounds this
weekend, because despite what Kermit says, it is easy being green! Fri.
& Sat. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Free. 1265 N. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.
651-215-0218 or LivingGreen.org.
NANCY
SARTOR
 It
From Bit CD Release
Turf Club
If you take It From Bit, you get a sum that is greater than its parts.
Three band members of Parts from All Makes—Jacob Grun (guitar, vox),
Jeff Marcovis (drums) and Laura Meloy (keys)—banded together with
Scott McVeigh (bass, vox) to form alt-rock It From Bit ten months ago.
The name, culled from a physics theory, is inspired by “’It’
being a smaller part of ‘bit,’ yet there’s meaning within
‘it’ that’s the same as the ‘bit’ it came
from.” Heady physics stuff from a very interesting band with a dynamic
new CD, Make Some Noise, that spans a broad range of styles, including,
according to their MySpace
site, “screamo to a cappella to comedy.” The CD was recorded
by Nick Tveitbakk, produced at the fabulous Sound Gallery (where Grun
is a co-owner), and features special guests Damon Kalar and Corey Palmer
from Daykit who are also performing at the CD release. Grun’s impassioned
tremolo/ vibrato vocals and darkly wry lyricism channels Marc Bolan in
beautiful ways. With Daykit and headliner Kid
Dakota. 9 p.m. $5. 21+. Corner of University & Snelling
Aves., St. Paul. 651-647-0486. CYN
COLLINS
Royalty, Etc. Party
Sound Gallery
 Sure,
in this town, upstart record labels seem to grow on trees, but not all
of them have the drive and initiative shown by Ty
Morse’s Royalty,
Etc. Boasting a solid roster of artists including Space Camp and Middlepicker,
Royalty Etc.’s sound hews to the rougher and edgier end of the good
old rock and roll spectrum, and now they’re teaming up with the
recently opened recording studio the Sound Gallery to bring you a warehouse
party of epic proportions. You can count on sweat-soaked air and plenty
of cacophonous energy shot through with some vicious hooks. It’s
so exclusive, they’re only letting in people who RSVP, but don’t
you worry: you can send an e-mail with your first and last name to soundgallery@royaltyetc.com.
They’re just trying to keep out the riff-raff. Or keep it in, depending
on how you look at it. With Box of Dicks, It
From Bit, Parts
for All Makes, Superdanger,
Harp
and Finial, Middlepicker,
Space Camp,
White
Elephant and Driftless
Pony Club. 7 p.m. $10 (refreshments provided). 21+. 414 3rd
Ave. N., Mpls. 612-501-8223. MCPHERSON
 The
Vestals
Suburban
World Theatre
Two years on from their stellar debut, anglophile rock lovin’ bros.
Ben and Jeremy Gordon return with the Vestals
sophomore album, Songs About Girls … And Other Life Mysteries.
The result of an epic amount of studio time with local ace Jason Orris
(12Rods), Songs About Girls finds the Gordon boys still in love
with all things John, Paul, George and Ringo but also injecting a bit
more mod-rock crunch into their rock (“Nobody You”) and dabbling
in Elvis-Costello-styled-suave-pop-sophistication (“The Average
Girls”). The bar is set awfully high with the opening “Before
I Run,” a slice of propulsive power pop as good as any in the rather
luminous past of the genre locally, and the following 13 cuts—which
equally split lead vocal duties between Ben and Jeremy—largely manage
to live up to its promise. The national British music mags (Mojo) have
already glommed onto these boys as the real deal in classic Brit pop done
right—and they should know, right? With The
Deaths and Chris
Koza. 9 p.m. $5 adv / $6 door. 21+. 3022 Hennepin Ave. S.,
Mpls. 612-822-9000. ROB
VAN ALSTYNE
Free Comic Book Day
Participating Stores
 Here’s
the perfect opportunity for the broke bibliophile: Free comic books! But,
be warned. Free comic books are a gateway drug, and the comics industry
knows that it just takes a sample to create an addict. Soon, the new reader
will be spending a sizeable amount of time browsing the shelves at comic
book stores and spending an untoward percentage of income on protective
cardboard backings and mylar sleeves. Still, as habits go, collecting
comic books (or, for those who like to put on airs, graphic novels) is
a worthwhile one. After all, this indigenous American art form has produced
a few legitimate masterpieces (art speigelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning
“Maus” springs to mind), a unique genre of visual storytelling,
and, well, the closest thing this still-young country comes to a collective
mythology. Mind you, there’s some limitations to Free Comic Book
day: You won’t be able to walk into just any store and take just
anything that strikes your fancy. But what’s available should be
enough to give you a sense of the astonishing variety of contemporary
comic books, as well as the narrative sophistication it has developed.
Go to FreeComicBookDay.com
for a list of participating local stores. MAX
SPARBER
|
Sigur Ros
Orpheum
Theater
 Sigur
Ros is a band that fairly demands to be the soundtrack to your life
in moments of need and transition. Their lyrics, written in a phonetic
jumble called Hopelandic, aren’t statements so much as empty vessels
into which you inject yourself, and the swell of orchestration that accompanies
their dynamic peaks would be overwhelming if they hadn’t been so
careful in bringing you along on the journey. Their latest, Takk…,
could be called more of the same, but this is a band that knows the power
of motif, that creates impact not from aping the frenetic kineticism of
modern life, but by applying a steady hand to our musical pressure points:
melody, minor-major resolution, dynamic movement. I can’t recall
exactly when, but I remember being on a bus in Chicago, mid-fall, headed
down Lake Shore Drive late at night, Ágætis Byrjun (their
first LP) streaming through my headphones, sodium streetlights flashing
by. That night, they were the sound of something beginning curled up inside
the sound of something ending. Had I left the East Coast already? Had
my band broken up? What is it about buses at night that inspires gentle
melancholy and wistful whenandifying (as in, when and if I ever figure
this all out)? I can’t tell you; just keep some Sigur Ros handy
in case you ever find yourself in similar straits. With Amiina.
7:30 p.m. $30-$40. 805 Hennepin Ave., Mpls. 612-339-7007. STEVE
MCPHERSON
|
Biju
Mathews
