CP: Explain what the title of your book refers to.

JP: Well, I think it's fair to say that we've created the world's first truly global empire, and for the first time we've created an empire primarily without the military; we've done it with economics. Perhaps the most common method is that we will identify a third-world country that has resources that corporations covet, like oil. Then we arrange a huge bank loan to the country from the World Bank. However, the money doesn't go to the country. Instead, it goes to our own corporations, which build things like power plants, industrial parks, highways; projects that benefit a few rich people in the country and our corporations. They don't help the majority of the people who are too poor to buy electricity, don't have the skills for industrial parks, don't own cars to drive on the highways, but the whole country is left with this huge debt; they can't afford to pay it. So we go back in and say, "Listen, you owe us a lot of money, so sell your oil real cheap to our oil companies, or vote with us on the next critical UN vote, or send troops in support of ours in Iraq or some other place of the world." In that way we've really managed to create this empire without people even realizing we've done it.

CP: Could you just give me a thumbnail sketch of how, in your experience, the world functions as a whole?

JP: The world is run by institutions whose primary goal is to maximize profits regardless of the social and environmental cost. That's extremely dangerous. It's very shortsighted. But I'm also extremely hopeful that we can change this. The fact that we have a world empire that's been created primarily without the military means that for the first time in history, we probably don't have to defeat it with the military. We can defeat it, change it, transform it by how we shop and by the way we relate to businesses. These corporations are vulnerable to us as consumers and workers. For example, we've forced corporations to clean up polluted rivers, or to get trans fat out of food at KFC and McDonald's. We need to convince corporations to change their overall goal. Rather than maximizing profits regardless of social and environmental costs, maximize profits within the context of creating an environmentally sustainable, socially just, peaceful world.

CP: Part of the subtitle is "How to Change the World." What do you suggest the average American do to change the world?

JP: Shop more responsibly. Don't buy things made in sweatshops, do a little research. Don't buy water that's sapping the aquifers of Fiji. Cut back on things. We all have to be less consumption-oriented and realize that real joy doesn't come from buying things in stores, it comes from the way we relate to our friends and neighbors and the world around us. We can all walk down different paths as long as all those paths are headed toward a destination of an environmentally sustainable and peaceful world. Every executive I've ever known has been a decent human being. I've never met an evil executive. But they're living in an old paradigm that says maximize profits regardless of the social and environmental costs. We need to change the paradigm of our leaders and ourselves.

John Perkins reads at Borders tonight.— Ben Palosaari

The Jewish-American identity has become increasingly blurred in the past decades as Wonder Bread substitutes for Challah, and Christmas trees rest beside the Menorah. But not speaking Hebrew or observing Shabbat doesn't discount the heritage Jewish-Americans still hold. Lynne Avadenka, Robyn Stoller Awend, and Geraldine Ondrizek come together to drive right at the heart of this identity crisis with their joint exhibit, "Speaking in Code," which adapts the Hebrew alphabet, Jewish texts, images, and symbols of Jewish ceremonial life in various art forms. Fabric, letterpress printing, book, and installation art are all utilized to get at the essential, perhaps unsolvable, questions of who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. The result is stark and eerie; the work abounds with blank spaces on print sheets and a circular hole that cuts through the center of a mock prayer book made from linen and silk. But the art is also alive, pregnant with the loaded emotion that lies between a jumble of English letters and one from the Hebrew alphabet, floating aimlessly, trying to find its place. Public reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday, May 3.— Amy Liberman

It's hard to explain the suburbs to someone who has never lived in one. Like an exclusive fraternity, the 'burbs are full of cultural tics that influence our culture, political climate, and society in ways we might not even realize. The Walker's "Worlds Away" explores the split personality of the suburbs; how they can be simultaneously hailed as a utopian realization of family values and the American dream, and criticized for being an intestinal tract, shitting out conformity and homogeneity. In this group show featuring 30 artists and architects, works include colorful photography: a man mowing a dead lawn, a woman proudly standing in front of her McMansion in a silk robe, as well as architectural designs proposing the dawn of a new suburban aesthetic. The Walker After Hours Preview Party promises to be far more fun than a soccer-mom ice-cream social thanks to music by the appropriately named Alpha Consumer, and DJ Glen Leslie, and a screening of Jonathan Kaplan's Over the Edge (1979), a flick about a planned community and the teen hooligans who act out against it. Just don't try to make small talk about your sprinkler system or new SUV. The opening party is $35 from 9 p.m. to midnight on Friday, February 15.— Jessica Armbruster

In days of yore, the lesbian bar scene was apparently pretty sparse. Though there were various Dykes Do Drag events throughout the year, few specific locales catered to this untapped niche market. Some gay bar patrons even went renegade, hilariously hijacking ladies' nights around the city at various sports bars. But now that Pi has been on the scene and thriving for over a year, there's at least one Minneapolis pub out there that is openly lesbian-friendly. The bar hit the ground running when it opened, hosting a myriad of live music nights, film screenings, and free pool. And though the scene is lesbian-friendly, the emphasis is on friendly, for everyone. Included in the weekly lineup is a Tuesday trivia night. Though you might want to ease up after a night of partying into 2008, it never hurts to flex the brain muscle. Those with the most expansive, trivial of knowledge win a $50 bar tab (perhaps for the next celebratory bender), which can go toward daily drink specials including Tuesday's $3 rails and Jag shots from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.— Jessica Armbruster