Most of Richard Barlow’s recipients have no idea who’s sending mail to them. But when the artist picks someone for his “Daily Bromides” series of watercolors, he sends them one...

Twelve years ago, a car altered Kevin Kling’s life forever. At the corner of Lake Street and Lyndale Avenue, he clung to life on his motorcycle after a near fatal crash. The accident left his right...

Carroll is a band with a hell of a work ethic. “Needs,” the only release by the Macalester College-founded group, is only six songs long, but the brief back catalog never meant they shied away...

Since 1994, the Minnesota Fringe Festival has offered a staggering amount of theater over its annual 11-day run. With 176 shows in 16 venues, the largest non-juried theater festival in the United States...

Every band needs a meeting spot. Between beers and bocce ball, Part Mammal first bonded at the Nomad World Pub. The West Bank bar has been the band’s natural habitat since 2010. A sign at the bar...

You can almost feel the sweat dripping off the pages of “Sammy the Mouse,” Zak Sally’s latest series of comic books. He spent months slaving over the first volume’s run, working...

DreamHaven Books houses a vast repository of lost science fiction gems. Talking cats and floating cubes litter the pages of these ’60s- and ’70s-era pulp novels, but simply taking a look at...

Sometimes the vegetables give off a reedy low-pitched tone. Other times, Philip Blackburn’s talking plants emit a set of seemingly random percussive beats. “Some of them have more emotive qualities...

  Andres Guzman and Allegra Lockstadt both complained of sores on their hands. “Don’t you get calluses from working with concrete or sanding things all day?” Lockstadt said. Neither...

A band of demonstrators from across the country gathered outside the White House, right under newly elected Richard Nixon’s nose. As author Laura Waterman Wittstock remembers, the timing couldn’t...

  Green Day’s “Dookie” made an impression on a 14-year-old Mike Cunningham. “That’s really what made me want to play an instrument,” he said. Known as Mike Midwestern,...

Let’s face it: that half jug of Gatorade is not the most enticing thing to offer a potential sexual partner. Why not add some class to your bag of beverage tricks? Make some stiff drinks to help...

At First Avenue this weekend, fans will get to take what the venue bills a “psychonautical voyage.” The Bathysphere journey may be proverbial, but the festival boasts a list of trance-inducing...

On a bike ride through the riverfront district in Minneapolis, Penny Petersen realized one brick building was out of place among the upscale housing. From what she knew about the late 19th century in the...

Under a mountain of inked paper and Adderall, Tao Lin worked tirelessly on “Taipei.” Crafting his third novel — an alienating piece of comic fiction — required copious amounts of...

After a storm knocked out electricity for more than half a million homes and businesses in the metro, Erica Krumm and Jim Kolles entered their cramped Minneapolis practice space to check the power. The...

Despite the mid-afternoon thunderstorm, Dan Deacon forged ahead underground on Saturday. When rain made his performance on the Walker Art Center’s outdoor stage for Rock the Garden completely impossible,...

Words of encouragement cover everything from the walls of fluorescent-lit offices to college dorm rooms reeking of leftover pizza — the world runs on the genre of inspirational vernacular. Now that...

With the arcade in mind, pop-funk, five-piece Hot Freaks enter the local music sphere with plenty of quarters and Mountain Dew in hand. Inspired by Nintendo’s back catalog of video game soundtracks...

Trash bags marked with red tape carried the cocaine. A trucking company would gather the haul like it was garbage at ports, sites where the cruise ships docked. In the 1980s, coke from Colombia poured...

Israel “Icepick Willie” Alderman punctured victims’ brains via their eardrums with his namesake tool — that way, an autopsy would fail to detect any sign of a homicide....

Andy Haynes no longer sleeps on an inflatable bed—now he’s making enough money to afford an actual mattress. When the stand-up used to live with fellow comic Rory Scovel in L.A., he slept on...

Jed Smentek founded his band after buying a retro synthesizer off of Craigslist. To form CLAPS, he’d need the inspiration from the ’80s synth to build the moody minimalism his band is known...

“Starcrash” hasn’t aged well, but last Wednesday, the 1978 Italian sci-fi romp graced the screen of the Trylon Microcinema, where B-movie fans gather each week to embrace the forgotten...

What: “The City Dark” Where: Bell Museum of Natural History, 10 Church St. SE, Minneapolis When: 7 p.m., Thursday Cost: Free with museum admission   Armed with his homemade telescope and...

What: Colleen Green Where: Memory Lanes, 2520 S. 26th Ave., Minneapolis When: 10 p.m., Monday Cost: Free   Colleen Green hasn’t had a real job in four years. Between stops in Canada and Detroit,...

Until recently, the DJs on “African Rhythms” had to rely on more expensive means of finding new music. They’d use their connections to purchase obscure music everywhere from Mali to the...