Sunday news and reviews

Wow - Star Tribune dominates today. Pioneer Press has all of one article, TC Daily Planet website is down at the moment, and everybody else appears to have taken the day off. I wonder if it has anything to do with a certain game today..?

Art

Renaissance rock stars

Exquisite masterpieces from 16th-century Venice take center stage in a Minneapolis Institute of Arts show.

Create a More Connected Minnesota

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- MARY ABBE, Star Tribune

Books

Blowing the whistle on sports myths

Following the example of "Freakonomics," two professors examine the facts behind common misconceptions in the world of sports.

- ALLEN BARRA, Star Tribune

Round peg in a very square hole

A Communist school system tries to make a Mongolian boy conform.

- KATHRYN KYSAR, Star Tribune

A FROZEN ODYSSEY

One woman's trek around the North Pole reveals the lives and histories of the people who live there.

- JULIE FOSTER, Star Tribune

'Paris' exposes the gritty reality of the City of Light

Thirty-two essays and stories take the shine off the city's romantic sheen.

- ROCHELLE OLSON, Star Tribune

'Weird Sisters' are charming and fun - and not really all that weird

Eleanor Brown's likable debut novel is the story of three grown sisters who return home when their mother falls ill.

- LAURIE HERTZEL, Star Tribune

Wojahn takes on 'all the world' with new poems

The ninth collection of poetry by St. Paul native David Wojahn.

- ELIZABETH HOOVER, Star Tribune

Music

Kronos Quartet is still provocative after all these years

Kronos' Friday-evening concert, the first of two contrasting programs at the Walker Art Center, highlighted a central strand of the quartet's activity: its mining of the music of peoples and cultures under stress -- music seemingly more urgent and more pointedly communicative than that conceived under conditions of relative security and comfort.

- LARRY FUCHSBERG, Star Tribune

Stage

Lots of help for Mother Courage

A small Chicago company with Minnesota roots returns home with Barbra Berlovitz in Brecht's antiwar masterpiece.

- GRAYDON ROYCE, Star Tribune

It's easy to take a shine to Jungle Theater's 'Shirley Valentine'

The Jungle Theater is no stranger to single-actor shows, but its production of "Shirley Valentine" is a winsome variation on that theme.

- Dominic P. Papatola, Pioneer Press

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Steppenwolf and the Goodman battle for top-of-heap status in Chicago's varied theater world.

- CLAUDE PECK, Star Tribune

Television

A Guthrie 'guinea pig' makes good in Hollywood

Before arriving at Fox's new comedy "Traffic Light," Aya Cash got her actor's permit in Minnesota.

- NEAL JUSTIN, Star Tribune