Can an artist simultaneously celebrate and critique pop culture? Those familiar with the incredibly varied work of Richard Prince have seen appropriation, pop culture, and cultural criticism battle it out over the span of his 30-year career. His medium of expression varies greatly, from recreating photography, paintings, reprints of comics, and even collecting clay auto-body molds. The duality of his work is evident in his 1980s photographic recreations of the Marlboro advertising campaign, which celebrates the iconic image of the cowboy and Western landscape, while drawing attention to the hypocrisy that such an image would be used to advertise an addictive, unhealthy vice. His Nurses, inspired by the covers of pulp-fiction hospital romance novel covers, are both alluring and unsettling. Also, regardless of where his aesthetic inspiration takes him, each series of work explores concepts of artistic ownership, as he recreates and sometimes simply reprints photography, imitating iconic corporate symbols, or reprinting text or quotes from writers. Prince forces the viewer to reconsider context, drawing attention to the irony of pop culture, while bringing what is normally left unsaid to the forefront. After Hours Preview Party features food, film screenings of Rendezvous and The Honeymoon Killers, a text-based art activity, and music by Skoal Kodiak for $35 from 9 p.m. to midnight Friday, March 21. — Jessica Armbruster

One doesn't need a use Twitter account, an emoticon on a LiveJournal entry, or a link to Google maps to understand that the ways we express and comprehend the meaning of "where" is changing with new technology. This is the general premise of Intermedia Arts ongoing show, "W(e are)Here," a multimedia exhibit that explores the new frontier of "place" physically, technologically, and emotionally. Works include artistic visualizations of hard data, interactive elements, and emotional renderings of location. This Thursday, from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., guests can partake in a "Psychogeographic Mapmaking Party," which, while it sounds like a mouthful, is really more of an adventure. Participants will be sent off in small groups on tours where routes will be dictated by a rolling of dice. Using a wall canvas, Google Earth, a wall projector, and some booze, tour details and memories will then be layered onto one another to create a map of experiences. An art party featuring live music, food and drinks, and a presentation of the final map will be celebrated the next day from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. — Jessica Armbruster

It turns out Lucille Ball's hair wasn't her only red trait. The FBI had a file outlining its suspicion that Ball was a scheming commie. This little-known nugget of America's history of terror and subversion is just one of hundreds displayed in this exhibit from the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., "The Enemy Within." Although the all-encompassing term "war on terror" has gained substantial popularity since 2001, administrations have been battling terroristic groups and individuals since the end of the American Revolution. A few prime examples include the 1919 bombing of Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer's home in response to his anticommunist raids, the explosion of the Munitions Depot in New York Harbor in 1916, and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. In addition to these past terror threats, the exhibit identifies current hate groups functioning inside the U.S. today, and an eight-minute film, Under Siege (no, not the one starring Steven Segal fighting mercenaries on a Navy battleship, although that film would be fitting, too), analyzing current terror threats to America today. As part of the History Lounge series, this Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., author and Minnesota historian Annette Atkins and Minnesota Historical Society Curator Patrick Coleman will discuss how Minnesotans dealt with fear, terror, and government surveillance in the early part of the 20th century. — Ben Palosaari

The categorization of great coffee as a fine art has taken on a new meaning. After hitting Boston, New York, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C., over the past few years, the traveling photographic exhibition "The Birth of Coffee" is visiting Minnesota until May 7. Journalist and photographer Daniel Lorenzetti's most recent project tries to expand the scope of coffee past consumers' mouths and into the larger, overtly political world in which it is grown. The 40 black-and-white silver prints on display are quite fittingly, and literally, toned in coffee, and depict the lives of coffee growers in Brazil, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, and Yemen. Lorenzetti and his wife, Linda Rice Lorenzetti, traveled five different continents doing research that resulted in a co-authored coffee-table book, The Birth of Coffee, and this exhibition, which explore the individuals and unique experiences that contributed to the $4 latte so many people mindlessly gulp each day. — Amy Lieberman

What softens a recession's bite as effectively as cheap booze? Nothing...except free entertainment. While "Triple Double"—the Triple Rock's freshly reinvented Tuesday bacchanal—offers both commodities by the truckload, the night's ever-changing DJ roster and floating-genre music selection make leaving the house to drink a far more attractive proposition than mere two-for-one tap beers and well drinks (or fucking karaoke) ever could. Next week's lineup, featuring Vampire Hands vocalist and percussionist Colin Johnson, generalist DJ TRL, and Rhymesayers/Current bastion Kevin Beachum, provides a textbook example of the madness behind curators Wes Winship and Mike the 2600 King's method. We who are about to rock, er, hip-hop, uh, soul or whatever, can only salute them. — Rod Smith

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