Carter Logan and Jim Jarmusch of SQÜRL, 2019. Photo courtesy Sara Driver
Director Jim Jarmusch and composer Carter Logan (aka avant-garde post-rock duo SQÜRL) perform live to four surrealist and dreamlike silent films by artist Man Ray. They’ll create the semi-improvisational scores onstage in the Walker Cinema, with loops, synthesizers, and effected guitars that display the band’s experimental, ambient, and drone-like tendencies. Featuring Le retour à la raison (Return to Reason) (1923), Emak Bakia (1926), L’étoile de mer (The Starfish) (1928), and Les mystères du château de dé (The Mysteries of the Château de Dé) (1929). 68 min.
Titles by Man Ray are in the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image collection. Major support to preserve, digitize, and present the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection is generously provided by the Bentson Foundation.
The Hudson Hot Air Affair has announced the theme of the 2020 hot air balloon rally and winter festival. “Balloon’n Up Nort’ Yah Sure You Betcha” will play out in buffalo plaid with ear flap hats and hot dish recipes. WESTconsin Credit Union is the corporate sponsor of the annual event coming February 7-9, 2020 throughout the Hudson community.
Join us in Hudson, Wisconsin, along the beautiful St. Croix River for Hudson Hot Air Affair, the premier winter ballooning event and winter festival in the Midwest. This family friendly event includes activities such as an evening Torchlight parade, hot air balloon launches, geocaching, marketplace and craft fair, smoosh boarding, bingo, balloon moon glow or field of fire, children’s activities and theme events, just to name a few.
Hot Air Affair is run entirely by volunteers and funded by our generous sponsors. Join the fun! The Hot Air Affair Committee is seeking new volunteers to help with event planning, social media, balloon crewing, merchandise sales, school program assistance and other activities. If interested in volunteering, contact the Hot Air Affair at 715-381-2050 or email Hudsonhotairaffair@gmail.com.
See our Sponsors page for more information about becoming a sponsor or visit our About Us page to lean more about volunteering.
The Hmong people come from Southeast Asia (Laos, Vietnam, Thailand). They are nomadic with no country of their own, held together by their traditions, culture, art and cuisine. In the 1970s, many Hmong people left Asia for the United States after the Vietnam War, which brought Yia, Chris and their families to their new home in Minnesota.
ABOUT
Union Hmong Kitchen is a is a pop-up restaurant experience that features Hmong culture, stories, rituals, foods and flavors. We marry local traditions with those from back home in South and Eastern Asia to bring Hmong flavors to American palates. Every dish has a narrative and we look forward to sharing ours with you, through our food.
No matter where we were or what we were doing, we could hear the voice of my mom, a tiny Hmong woman, yelling for us to come to eat. My parents believed in eating at the table together for dinner. It was a time to take a pause in our lives and connect with each other. Sometimes there wasn’t much to talk about, and sometimes that was the moment my father took to give us a talking to. Regardless, the table was a big part of our family life. At the table we connected with each other and shared a meal.
YIA VANG
Vang was born in a Thai refugee camp, came to the United States at five years old, and eventually arrived in the Twin Cities as part of the largest urban Hmong population in the world. He cooked at Nighthawks, Borough, and Gavin Kaysen’s Spoon & Stable before starting Union Hmong Kitchen, and serves as a passionate, tireless, funny, and forgiving advocate for Hmong food as an expression of Hmong culture.
CHRIS HER
Chris was born and raised in the East side of St. Paul. After high school, he pursued a degree in accounting from the University of Minnesota Duluth. While in UMD, he found a love and passion for cooking by making dinner for his roommates and friends. After graduation, he began his career in Accounts Payable at 3M, but after a taste of the corporate world there was another taste lingering in the back of his heart…his passion for cooking. He left his office job and started working as a line cook by night and pop-up business owner by day.
“I want to put Minnesota on the map more with arts and culture,” Morrow says. “We are already on the map with regards to the Penumbra and the Guthrie. These are house hold names and are well known across the country. That is exactly what I want to do when it comes to fashion and film.”
Although Black Fashion Week MN is still in its infancy, founder Natalie Morrow has been breaking down barriers and elevating artists of color across genres for over two decades. She was an influencer before that was even a term. “I was way ahead of my time,” she says.
In the 1990s, Morrow was one of the few female concert promoters in the Twin Cities, promoting artists like Nelly, Mos Def, and Jay-Z. An avid film-lover, in 2002 she started the Twin Cities Black Film Festival. Part of that event included themed Hollywood Fashion Shows, which were surprise hits that attracted the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Sean Combs, and Kevin Garnett, and garnered footwear, and clothing donations from companies like Converse and Nike.
Noticing how popular the event was and the lack of diversity in fashion shows she attended, Morrow knew it was time to spin the fashion show off into its own event featuring Minnesota talent. In May 2018, Black Fashion Week MN debuted at the Moxy in Uptown. It sold out.
“The most gratifying part of Black Fashion Week for me is having the ability to showcase different talents here in the Twin Cities,” says Morrow. That first fashion show featured Minnesota-based labels like HWMR and Akua Gabby Designs as well as designers Jacqueline Addison and Houston White.
The event has included themed shows such as Black Man Magic, celebrating Black men; 40 Lux, recognizing Indigenous and POC over 40; and Runway Africa, featuring African designers who call Minnesota home. Other happenings during the week-long soirée have included an A-list party, a cocktails and couture mixer, a fashion bazaar, and Opalescent, which gives young event producers the opportunity to put together a fashion show. The number of Black Fashion Week MN participants has grown to 1,000 since its inception, with each week involving around 50 models, 20 designers, and eight stylists.
“There are tons of creatives out here, from shoe designers to clothing designers to jewelry designers that are people of color,” Morrow say. “There’s a lot of talent right here in Minnesota and I do not think people realize it. This is why we have this platform.”
One barrier for designers of color is a lack of connections. “If you don’t know the right people, then there are not going to be events that will give you a chance to showcase your work. And that is where we come in,” Morrow says.
The other major fashion event in town tends to use a small core group of designers and models of color. Many designers have come to Morrow saying they have been shut out from that event. “We try to give everyone an opportunity if we see potential for them to do well [with more exposure],” Morrow says.
One of the hurdles is that not all designers know how to market their brand. To remedy that, in 2020, Morrow will incorporate a seminar on marketing strategy. Also in 2020, Morrow says she hopes to enlist experts, like celebrity supermodels and stylists, to inspire local designers with success stories.
Black Fashion Week MN is part of a national trend to spotlight Black designers. Morrow says Minnesota lags behind other states in extending opportunities to designers of color at all stages of their careers. She adds, “I am the type of person that if I start it, I am going to see it through and make it work.”
If Taraji P. Henson wasn’t an award-winning actress, then you may have ended up sitting in her salon chair.
Although it’s hard to imagine the Empire star giving clients sew-ins and blowouts, the Howard alum revealed that she used to do hair back in college to earn extra money. And now, she’s revisiting that side hustle with the launch of her own haircare line.
“I know that if I didn’t go into acting, I would have been a cosmetologist,” Henson told People in an exclusive interview. Henson, who says that she’s never lost her passion for hair, has been working on her new hair collection, TPH by Taraji, for 10 years. “I was like a mad scientist,” said the Golden Globe winner about creating the line, which she started concocting in her kitchen.
Set to officially launch in Target stores on Jan. 29, the 18-piece product line was created for every texture, from straight to wavy to curly to coily. The color-coordinated line is divided into four parts: cleansing and care, repair, treatments, and scalp-care. However, Henson told Allure that she particularly wanted to focus on scalp care products due to her own experiences wearing weaves over the years.
“The first time I went to get the weave taken out, it smelled like mildew. I was so embarrassed. I was washing my hair, but wasn’t drying the weft,” she said. “When you have a weave or an install, your hair is braided down and then sometimes they sew a hair net down on top of that and then they sew the hair tracks on top of that. My dilemma was how do I get to my scalp? How do I clean it? I didn’t ever want that mildew smell again.” Her Master Cleanse, the hero product, is inspired by a homemade concoction Henson made specifically to refresh her scalp when she wears weaves.
Henson first teased on the brand’s Instagram account back in September of 2019. The 49-year-old actress posted a recent selfie after using her products to do her natural hair.
