CULTURE TO CONSUME
Watch this: “Drugs Are Like That”
Educational films from the sixties and seventies can be pretty addicting to watch, especially given the wide collection available on the Internet Archive (archive.org). “Drugs are like that,” the narrator would probably chime in now. The above video is a fear-laden (and highly entertaining) documentary intended for elementary school kids. A woman’s voice relates the activity of a young boy making himself dizzy on the swing set coupled with a montage of falling pills and syringes. “Lot of things make you feel funny,” she says. “Drugs are like that.”
Other notable info-tainment: “1999 AD,” “VD is for Everybody” and “Sudden Birth.”
Read this: “The Round House” by Louise Erdrich
Named the winner of this year’s National Book Award, Erdrich’s 14th novel follows one family on a reservation in North Dakota. The 13-year-old Joe seeks to understand the details of an attack against his mother. His search takes him to the Round House, a sacred space for the Ojibwe. Erdrich presents a rich history lost in contemporary literature while maintaining a comic and engaging voice through the story’s young narrator.
Listen to this: “Dirty Money” by Antibalas
You might have heard Antibalas even if you don’t initially recognize the Afrobeat band’s name — they’ve been featured on TV on the Radio’s acclaimed album “Dear Science” and even this year’s “Love this Giant” by David Byrne and St. Vincent. But on their new single, “Dirty Money,” from this year’s self-titled release on Daptone, the Brooklyn-based group is no longer relegated to the background. Funk is very much alive and well for the band, culling their sound from the both Cuba and West Africa. Fela Kuti would be proud.
THINGS TO DO
THURSDAY
Titus Andronicus with Ceremony and Buildings
7th St. Entry
701 N. First Avenue, Minneapolis
8 p.m.
$15
As far as punk bands go, the New Jersey-based Titus Andronicus deals with some heady, non-conformist material. Named after one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest and most distasteful plays for audiences in the Victorian age, the band continues the rage against the machine with this year’s stellar “Local Business.” Even though the scope is smaller — 2010’s “The Monitor” grappled with Civil War themes — frontman Patrick Stickles still has plenty of grievances, meaning plenty of reasons to hear “In a Big City” in person.
FRIDAY
Daniel Tosh
State Theatre
805 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis
7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
$49.75 to $65
The best part of Daniel Tosh’s comedy series “Tosh.0” features the comedian personally interviewing YouTube stars. Tosh’s “Web Redemption” usually makes for a hilarious look into the viral star’s personal life but also provides an outlet for the audience to laugh with the guest. He can’t always get the audience on his side, so make your own decision about whether he’s a provocateur or comical social commentator. (See: the recent controversy about the remarks he made towards a heckler.)
SATURDAY
David Byrne’s “Playing the Building”
Aria
105 N. First Street
Minneapolis
10 a.m. to 10 p.m. through December 4th
$10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under
The ex-Talking Heads star created an interactive musical installation fit for an entire warehouse. An organ situated in the middle of Aria’s bare 17,000 square feet controls the metallic guts of the entire space. Byrne first premiered the piece in Stockholm in 2005. Each note on the lone instrument spurs the pipes, beams and pillars in the walls to life — a spectacle fit for an artist who’s actually making a lot of sense lately. His new book even chronicles a new cultural, social and scientific understanding of his lifelong passion, “How Music Works.”
