Year: 2004

  • Bigger & Better: Linkless But Insinuating Christmas Edition

    Sitting around the office yesterday, we had noticed the proliferation of little pamphlet-sized magazines in our fair city—in fact, in cities all over the country. These are neat little publications, not because of anything that is in them, necessarily, but just because of the way they are. The format is fun, easy to pick up,…

  • OK, you get ONE MORE wish. Don't waste it!

    Michael Miner can be forgiven for his rather unimaginative wish for the New Year—that more people will start reading newspapers. Why should they? We’re tired of this perennial kvetch, especially coming from Chicago, where just about every trick has been tried other than improving the quality of the actual newspaper. We were reminded the other…

  • Got Jesus?

    Yesterday, the people who organize the Gay Pride parade in the Twin Cities filed a complaint against the Star Tribune. This one could sting: They are complaining to the Minnesota Commission on Civil Rights because the Strib apparently refused to publish an advertisement for the parade that showed two men kissing. Many interested readers who…

  • My Grandmother and Nirvana

    I found an old scratched-up CD of Nirvana’s “In Utero” in my desk drawer today, no jewel case. I put it in the tray, pressed play. Of all Nirvana’s records, I like it best. It is the most raw, the most punk rock. At the time it was released, I remember, it was kind of…

  • Dancing About Architecture

    If there is a holy trinity of writers who capture the spirit of what we’re trying to do here at The Rake, we would identify them as follows: E.B. White, H.L. Mencken, and Flann O’Brien. Much to the wife’s irritation, we have taken to hauling these three separate volumes all around the house, sort of…

  • Strunk and White and Read All Over

    Especially clever readers of The Rake know what we think of E.B. White. He is one of our pole stars. When things seem to be getting a little too serious or ornery or inhuman or just too damn wordy, and the readers are in trouble, we refer back to the American master of the humane…