Getting their Jane onLast week, Julia Matson of Plymouth packed up her reticule (a drawstring women's handbag, circa 1800) and trotted off to New York City for the annual meeting of the Jane Austen Society, which drew hundreds of "Janeites," many in full period dress. It's an event where you can "really let your Jane Austen freak flag fly," as Matson, who plans Austen-themed tea parties, told the New York Times. Keynote speaker and avowed Austen fan Cornel West "was very moving," Matson told I.W. "He reached all the way back to the Greeks, and talked about the existential vertigo that Austen brought to her work." Matson, who got into the historical spirit by donning a white muslin dress with blue silk over-robe, skipped the little white bonnet that so many other attendees wore. "I'm not a bonnet person," she said.

KRISTIN TILLOTSON

Say what you will ...After 31 years in the band, guitarist Dan Murphy had to wait one extra day before acknowledging his exit from Soul Asylum. The final legal hurdle was held up by the Columbus Day holiday. "Lawyers might be the only ones who celebrate it anymore," he cracked Monday. When things went public Tuesday, the comments from both sides went beyond lawyerly to classy and loving. Murphy's statement on the band's website praised co-founding singer Dave Pirner, "whom I felt like I grew up with and who provided me and all of you with so many memorable musical moments." Pirner himself did not personally comment but the group issued a statement wishing Murphy well, and later it urged fans to do the same -- which they did in droves (see their comments all at EntertheSoulAsylum.com). Soul Asylum will perform again without Murphy next weekend in Richmond, Va. Pirner has a solo gig scheduled in Minneapolis at the "Vote No" concerts Oct. 27 at the Triple Rock.

CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

Westerberg talksWhile one local pair of legendary Minneapolis rockers split, another made the equally surprising decision to reunite. In a lengthy Q&A posted Tuesday at RollingStone.com, Paul Westerberg talked more about getting back together last month with Tommy Stinson to record a Replacements cover EP benefitting former bandmate Slim Dunlap: "It felt pretty natural. It felt very much like it used to." However, the frontman stopped short of saying he'd like to do more with "the R word," as he kept referring to the band. "I'm closer to it now than I was two years ago, let's say that," he said. Among the other tidbits in the interview: His new song "My Road Now," which dropped online last month, was written for Nashville twang-pop trio the Band Perry to record, and Jimmy Fallon's TV crew invited him to sing it. Acknowledging these and the increasingly lucrative offers for "R word" reunion shows, the reclusive rocker said, "I spent as much time trying to be un-famous as I did trying to be famous. I'd hate to start it all up again."

CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

Wedding portraitsNot content with having balanced its $25 million operating budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year (and squeezing out a $17,000 surplus), the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is looking for new crowds and revenue sources in unusual places. It plans to rent its third-floor party room for weddings; it has already booked six for the coming year, director Kaywin Feldman told I.W. Other museums including Walker Art Center and the American Swedish Institute have successfully engaged the white-gown trade. Attracting new audiences is also a priority at MIA, which is especially eager to lure millennials -- i.e., twenty-somethings. Senior museum staff, including Feldman, have each been assigned a millennial coach to jolt them out of their usual notions about how art museums should operate. A first piece of advice from the young is to nix the whispers. Talk normally in the galleries, even introduce music, white noise or other lively sounds. Officials are debating the idea.

MARY ABBE

Egg on her faceNorth Carolina singer-songwriter Tift Merritt turned into a food critic Saturday in her return to the Cedar Cultural Center. On her way to Minneapolis, she and her band stopped at the famous Norske Nook in Osseo, Wis. (Wonder if her Minneapolis-bred guitarist, Eric Heywood, made the suggestion?) A debate about pecan pie ensued among her entourage. She argued that pecan pie is a speciality of the South. She expected the Nook to feature something like, say, meatballs, not pie associated with her home state. "I would not order a meatball sandwich in North Carolina, right?" she told the crowd.

JON BREAM

Gallery decoderSo what's B&W Gallery? That's what the crowd that packed Weinstein Gallery's opening for "Charles Biederman: 60 Years of American Modernism" wondered last Friday. B&W is the gallery named on the art labels. Turns out it's a new partnership between veteran Twin Cities art dealers Thomas Barry and Martin Weinstein. They have linked up to sell art by Biederman, the reclusive avant-garde Red Wing intellectual who left his artistic estate to the University of Minnesota and its Weisman Art Museum when he died in 2004. In his heyday in the 1960s, Biederman was known internationally for his theoretical writings and sophisticated aluminum constructions, but his reputation was eclipsed in later life by his prickly manner and relative isolation. Handling his work on behalf of the U, Barry and Weinstein are quietly reintroducing Biederman's work. The Art Institute of Chicago already has snapped up a significant piece.

MARY ABBE

In with FlynnWant to chat with Vince Flynn? The best-selling writer of political thrillers, who lives in Sunfish Lake, is going to call up as many fans, selected randomly from online entries, as he can between 5 and 6 p.m. Oct. 20. You'll get only a minute, so talk fast. Deadline to sign up is Thursday at www.vinceflynn.com.

KRISTIN TILLOTSON