Who knows what marvels may span the course of a week?

For our resident artiste adopté, Joe Mauer, the past week was filled with marvels of a most extraordinary nature. Yesterday, it was announced that Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer was being named the American League Player of the Week presented by Bank of America for the period ending Sunday, May 24.

In seven games last week, Joe Mauer went 11-24 (a .458 batting average) with two doubles, four home runs, 25 total bases, 12 runs scored, and 13 RBI . Joe was overall, as of Tuesday, batting .444, and had 11 HR, 31 RBI, a 1.042 slugging percentage, and a .516 on-base percentage. In particular, on May 21, Mauer went 3-for-4 with two doubles and a grand slam, accumulating a career-high six RBI, and leading the Twins to a 20-1 victory over the A.L. Central rival Chicago White Sox.

Today also marks the beginning of the last week before the “Stuck in Right Field” event that takes place at the Metrodome on June 3. And considering Joe Mauer’s marvellous past week, we may well all know no end of marvellous glory as we count down the days until we meet in the fabulous Nose Bleeds, tossing down abuse on the visiting rivals, lavishing praise on our own hometown boys, and stuffing our hotdog-holes with all the Hormel dollar dogs we can lay hands on.

Here are “Stuck in Right Field” event details:

What: We will meet up to watch your Minnesota Twins take on those hard striving, underachieving kids from Cleveland (boo!) at the Metrodome.

When: Wednesday, June 3. Gametime, 7:10 pm.

How: Artsy sorts are asked meet up at the main Twins Ticket Office — near Gate G — no later than 6:20 pm. (!!!!!) (Be there on time, or miss your chance to sit with the gang!) Look for a slightly pudgy guy in a blue home  Twins jersey and black beret (that’ll be Mr. Art Happy Hour, Michael Fallon).

Everyone will pitch in to buy general admission tickets for themselves (for cheap! — only $8), and it will be Marvellous.

Note: Facebookers can sign up for this event (and get more details), here.

Thanks to all who came to the Art Happy Hour on May 13. About 35-40 festive people joined the festivities at the Bedlam Theatre. (Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a camera to take photos at the event.)

I can report, however, that the main event of May’s Art Happy Hour, the Art Trivia contest sponsored by the Tours Department at the Walker Art Center, produced the following clear winners:

2nd place (tie): Steven Tyler’s Bulge

2nd place (tie): Avidor

2nd place: Thin Soup

and

1st place (new champion): Thunder Road

For anyone curious about Art Trivia, eager to mingle with fellow artists and arts community members, and prone to a fondness for $3 beers, comfortable confines, and stimulating conversation, be advised:

Art Happy Hour on June 10 will run from 4 to 7 pm at the Bedlam Theatre (as always). All comers are welcome.

…who attended Art Happy Hour last night at the Bedlam Theater. It was good times, good times.
(I promise a rundown soon, when I have a spare moment.)

(Next chances to get Art Happy: June 3 @ the Metrodome; June 10 @ Bedlam)

Hey ho: Come to Art Happy Hour this Wednesday, May 13, 4 to 7 pm

Bedlam Theatre
1501 S. 6th St. (on the West Bank), Mpls
(Phone:  6123411038)

Art Happy Hour (est. 2008) is known for being a relaxing good time, and a chance for your to mingle, over drinks, with your fellow local artists, arts writers, arts organizers, museum professionals, filmmakers, screenwriters, theater artists, and other art scenesters of all ages!

As promised, this (May) Art Happy Hour features many good things, including:

• Food and drink specials

• An Art Trivia contest

• Fabulous prizes

• A very special guest

And for all you green Happy-hourians, the Bedlam Theatre has informed Art Happy Hour HQ that, just in time for Bike Walk Week, 10 brand new bike racks have been installed outside the theatre. This makes a previous easy-to-reach venue that much more convenient to get to.

Also, please note that following the Art Happy Hour, the Bedlam will be presenting, at 8 pm, the 8th Annual Bedlam Community 10 Minute Play Festival. Tickets are $10 per set!

To learn more, please visit www.bedlamtheatre.

All are welcome!

Young up-and-comer who really paints the “wall,” Joe Mauer

Stuck in Right Field

By Special Art Happy Field Correspondent, Andy Sturdevant

Dateline: Minneapolis

A bad night at the Metrodome can be so much like a bad night at a gallery opening.

It’s a beautiful evening and you suspect you should be out enjoying it, but you are instead trapped indoors, trapped inside a crowded, noisy sterile white building drinking overpriced beer and watching strutting, arrogant local “professionals” bumble through another lackluster showing, constantly being outdone by their counterparts in New York and Los Angeles; meanwhile, scowling men dressed in dark clothing hover over the action, calling out errors and loudly announcing to all that can hear who’s in and who’s out. A drunken malcontent is telling you “My kid’s twice as good as these bums and he’s just in kindergarten!” You cringe at the thought of what you’ll read in the papers the next day about this dismal performance. How can your local heroes be so well-intentioned and so spirited, and yet so completely incompetent and so seemingly ignorant of the fundamentals?

But on a good night — and there are many of them! — it all comes together beautifully. There’s careful attention to craft, there’s passion and high spiritedness, there’s guts and high-wire risks that would seem impossible to pull off, but that pay off in thrilling ways. You’re constantly amazed that these kids, some of them just out of college or called up from the sticks, are so good at what they do. “These young kids have a future!” you exclaim. “What a great eye! What marvelous control!” It makes you proud to live in Minnesota!

On that note, join mnartists.org and Art Happy Hour at “Stuck in Right Field” — a celebration of art and baseball and whatever intersections there may be between the two.

What: We will meet up to watch your Minnesota Twins take on those hard striving, underachieving kids from Cleveland (boo!) at the Metrodome.

When: Wednesday, June 3. Gametime, 7:10 pm.

How: Artsy sorts are asked meet up at the main Twins Ticket Office — near Gate G — no later than 6:20 pm. (!!!!!) (Be there on time, or miss your chance to sit with the gang!) Everyone will pitch in to buy general admission tickets for themselves (for cheap! — only $8), and we will all enjoy Hormel Dollar Dog night together. And out in the fabulous Right Field Nose Bleeds!

As that experimental atonal Fluxus-inspired art-rock anthem goes, “We’re going to win Twins, give it our all / We’ve got the guys who’ll knock the cover off the ball.”

Ooh la la!

1.

I recently submitted to Andy Sturdevant’s fantastic and ever-entertaining blog, Southtwelfth, a Kentucky Derby-day cocktail recipe called The Bruitist Manifesto. I present the recipe here (cleaned of typos and slightly clarified) for your Art Happy enjoyment:

The Bruitist Manifesto

1. Ponder a confusion of noises, colours and spiritual rhythms.
2. Play your favorite recording of the essence of a tramcar with the yawns of Mr Smith and the shriek of brakes.
3. Order vermouth from a club in Berlin which you can join without any obligations (if preferable, you may consider clubs in Honolulu as well as New Orleans and Meseritz).
4. Now, as you are bound by no frontier, religion or profession, pour into a cocktail shaker several peace congresses, scuffles in the vegetable markets, social get-togethers, etc., etc.
5. Pause to read the paper as the Balkan express crosses the Nisch bridge and a pig squeals in the cellar of Mr Bones the butcher.
6. Add several jiggers of bourbon and, as bitters, several dashes of the unrequited tears of a novitiate of the order of Carmelite nuns. Shake well.
7. Recite in a foreign accent: “Down with the anaemic abstraction of Expressionism! Down with the literary hollow-heads and their theories for improving the world! Long live Dadaism in word and image! Long live the Dada events of this world! To be against this manifesto is to be a Dadaist!”
8. Pour into a rocks glass. Garnish with a page from a Proust novel. Enjoy.

2.

Reminder: The next Art Happy Hour takes place on May 13, at the Bedlam Theatre, 4 to 7 pm.
Includes: Art Trivia contest (with prizes).
Note: Art Happy trivia hints starting today, May 1, on Twitter.

3.

Save the date — June 3 — for the next Art Happy combine: “Stuck in Right Field” – An artists event at the Metrodome.

Stay tuned (to http://www.arthappyhour.com/; to “Art HappyHour” on Facebook; to /ArtHappyHour on Twitter) for the deets about when and where to meet up with your fellow baseball (and hotdog)-loving artists!

And please don’t forget: Down with the literary hollow-heads and their theories for improving the world!