The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

STYLE
Joynoelle

If you enjoy local fashion, then surely you'll be interested to know that local designer Joy Teiken (a.k.a. Joynoelle, see her creation at right) celebrates the opening of her Minneapolis-based boutique and atelier this eve. How very throwback of her, no? The reception lasts from five to eight p.m. The digs? You'll find 'em at 42nd and Grand Ave. S. If you can't make the party, don't despair: From hereon out, the store will keep hours on Thursdays from two to eight p.m. and Saturdays from ten a.m. to four p.m. --Christy DeSmith

ART & MUSIC
Another Gallery Grooves Evening

Danish Teak Classics: A place where your visions of a stylish, modern living area can come into focus. The Rake's promotions depot hosts another of its fabulous Gallery Grooves events there this eve. There, you can marinade your decorating ideas in a showroom full of vintage-modern chairs, desks, tables, and lighting fixtures -- as well as Peter Kramer's new series of prints, Birdwatching and The Samurai's Houseboat, featuring drawings done in church, at concerts, and while driving. The event comes replete with fine wine, food, visual art, and jazz to boot. No vin rouge on the orange-wool lounge chair, please. --Christy DeSmith

7 p.m., Danish Teak Classics, Northrup King Building, 1500 Jackson St. N.E., Suite 277, Minneapolis; 612-362-7870; free.

MUSIC
Two Legends Take the Stage

Dave Mason and John Mayall have a lot in common: both are ridiculously talented guitarists. Both are native Brits. Both have played with (and, unfortunately, been overshadowed by) some of blues and rock music's greats -- Mayall with Eric Clapton and John Lee Hooker, Mason with Fleetwood Mac and Jimi Hendrix (to name just a few). Both are prolific -- each with over 50 CDs to his name. And tonight they are playing what is definitely the hottest show in town. --Danielle Kurtzleben

9 p.m. (doors at 8 p.m.), Cabooze, 917 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis; $25... way worth it to see two legends take the stage.

Golden Goldberg Variations

Lore dictates that Bach wrote his Goldberg Variations to ease the sleepless nights of a Russian count wasting away his nights without the comfort of a Tivo backlog. Perhaps this is why the 30-variation, nine-cannon work is so well suited for a performance of excerpts -- proof of an innate human desire for highlight reels, particularly when only the sublime is adequate compensation for dreams. Wonderkind Glenn Gould's name dominated recordings of the Goldberg Variations for more than 50 years. Earlier this year, Simone Dinnerstein made her name and signed her first recording contract by challenging those monolithic recordings. Dinnerstein will bring her guts and technical prowess to the Landmark Center Cortile this afternoon. Bring your lunch, and The Schubert Club will provide the coffee. --Danielle Cabot

12 p.m., Landmark Center Cortile, 75 West 5th St., St. Paul; 651-292-3233; free.

THEATER & PERFORMANCE
The Clean House

This is the first time a Sarah Ruhl play has been produced in the Twin Cities since the thirty-something hotshot's Eurydice became the hit of Off-Broadway this summer. The Clean House is an earlier product of Ruhl's fantastical imagination, and one with an important distinction from Eurydice: Even though it was a Pulitzer finalist in 2005, it drew divided criticism. The New York Times raved raved, but The New Yorker's theater critic smelled a stereotype in the play's heroine, Matilde, a depressive Brazilian maid who loves wisecracking but doesn't particularly relish housework. What follows, no matter what your thoughts on the Latina character, is a robust satire on labor relations: Matilde's employer, a successful American doctor named Lane, goes so far as to feed her servant antidepressants. But Matilde despairs whenever distracted from her quest to form the perfect joke. --Christy DeSmith

7:30 p.m., Mixed Blood Theater, 1501 S. Fourth St., Minneapolis; 612-338-6131; $10 tonight ($28).

BOOKS
Cheating at Canasta: Stories

Cheating at Canasta is a marvelous, enviable title, and William Trevor is an astonishing, and astonishingly reliable, writer. Along with Alice Munro, he is also one of the living masters of the short story. That sort of thing usually sounds like so much hogwash, but in this instance it's nothing but the plain truth. Even as he approaches eighty, Trevor continues to produce carefully crafted marvels that often whipsaw between deviance and devotion, or dereliction and disappointment, from one story to the next. His best tales are compact and powerful moral symphonies, and are so full of startling and often catastrophic disruptions and moments of exhausted grace that they seem as utterly believable as life. --Brad Zellar

Available today at bookstores near you.