Yearly Archive:: 2023
Oct 21 2023
Nowhere Haunted House Brings a Second Year of Scares to Inver Grove Heights
I do this all the time, all right? Haunted houses—that’s my thing. I visit them, I’ve worked for a bunch, I follow them on social media, novelty T-shirts fill my closet. You get the idea: I’m a spooky Halloween fan, and obviously, I consider myself something of an expert on the subject.
So when I was lucky…
Oct 19 2023
Life Sucks Reinterprets a Chekhov Classic with Brilliance and Charm
I will openly admit that I don’t have a ton of familiarity with Anton Chekhov’s work. I married into the theater community and am therefore woefully uneducated when it comes to the classics, beyond the perfunctory high school and college curriculum. I do know, however, that with Chekhov, if you see a…
Oct 15 2023
This Week in Geek (10/16/23–10/22/23)
Welcome to This Week in Geek, your guide to events of interest to the Minnesota geek community for the week of Monday, October 16, to Sunday, October 22.
(Jump to In-Person Events)
Virtual Events
Creative Night @ GPS Online
What: Arts, Community
When: Monday, October 16, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Virtual via…
Oct 11 2023
Sweet Escape Is Maplewood Mall’s One-Stop Shop for All Things K-Pop
As someone who frequently jumps between new hobbies and interests, I often find myself adrift in the sea of confusion, and nowhere has this been more evident than in my recent dive into the world of K-pop, courtesy of the group Stray Kids.
As a newbie, the whole world of K-pop feels like a linguistic labyrinth…
Oct 09 2023
Worldbuilding Falls Flat in A Prayer for Vengeance
Leanne Schwartz’s debut novel, A Prayer for Vengeance, looks like a straightforward tale of retribution on the surface: the story of a warrior hellbent on punishing those who did her wrong, with the Pygmalion twist that she was turned into a statue and has recently been awoken by an unassuming young…
Oct 08 2023
This Week in Geek (10/9/23–10/15/23)
Welcome to This Week in Geek, your guide to events of interest to the Minnesota geek community for the week of Monday, October 9, to Sunday, October 15.
(Jump to In-Person Events)
Virtual Events
Creative Night @ GPS Online
What: Arts, Community
When: Monday, October 9, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Virtual via…
Oct 07 2023
The Uncanny Experience Brings an Immersive and Inclusive X-Men Event to Minneapolis
If you felt a tingle at the back of your head recently, it just might have been Professor Charles Xavier reaching out with Cerebro, searching for the next students for his Xavier Institute—temporarily relocated to Minneapolis for the Uncanny Experience, an immersive X-Men fandom convention.
Convention-goers…
Oct 07 2023
The Northman Is a Dark and Brutal Viking Revenge Tale
In 2022’s The Northman, Robert Eggers made pretty much exactly the type of Viking movie you’d expect him to. His previous pictures, The Witch and The Lighthouse, were brilliantly dark and surrealist depictions of historical horror. This one is very much in that same camp, perhaps even…
Oct 05 2023
The Exorcist: Believer Proves There’s Nothing Scarier than Middle-School Girls
Following a brief brush with certain death (an original release date set to coincide with Taylor Swift’s Eras tour concert film), the highly anticipated sixth installment of the Exorcist franchise opens in theaters this weekend. Billed as a direct sequel to the 1973 classic, it faces an endeavor scarier…
Oct 02 2023
Oh, Suddenly Egyptian God Surprises and Soothes with Its Sweetness
“Sudden” is definitely an apt description of my response when Oh, Suddenly Egyptian God popped up on my radar while prowling Crunchyroll for my next marathon. Why in the world didn’t anyone tell me about this anime sooner?
Making its anime debut in the cursed year of 2020 and returning…