A few days ago, a friend of mine sent out an email with this year’s List of Banished Words, as deemed thus by the language lovers over at the Lake Superior State University. The premise, for those of you who haven’t come across it before, is simple: you know the word that gets used any which way and people throw them around like a gold coin in Scrooge McDuck’s vault and you go from noting that hey that’s not what that word actually means to wow that word sure does get thrown around to irritation at the . . .

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I saw flamenco—steps and music—performed last night in a warehouse in NE Minneapolis. For free. Last night was a Wednesday, by the way.

The warehouse was cozier than a warehouse has any right to be—excepting the warehouse ceiling and cement construction, the room was closed in by a half-wall painted burnt orange, had tall mirrors on the walls, and was lit by tucked-away lamps and candles on the tables, scattered chairs, and stools.

The friend who had brought us—let’s call him “P”—plied us with Trader Joe’s three-buck chuck in Cabernet, Merlot, and Shiraz flavors. He had cases of the stuff . . .

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Pulao, Jayu, and I saw the worstest of worst movies at a friend’s house the other night. I saw the box at the movie store and picked it up of my own free will, even though the title was I’m Reed Fish, which should have told me all I needed to know. I saw the funny kid from the short-lived TV show Undeclared and the girl from Gilmore Girls, arm in arm, smiling up at me from the cover. They looked . . .

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As always, come up with a caption for this picture.

Happy holidays!

Last week, I saw M.I.A. at First Avenue with Pulao and some friends. M.I.A. (a.k.a. Maya Arulpragasam) is a British hip hop musician and visual artist, and, as a child, a refugee from the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

The show was spectacular and high, high energy. I danced my butt off. M.I.A. rhymed from atop the speakers, crowd-surfed, and, at one point, climbed from the stage to the balcony without missing a beat.

For the song “20 Dollar” M.I.A. said, “Turn off the lights! I’m going to take you to Africa.”

. . .

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