Month: July 2006

  • Friday on Monday

    The things I do for this job: contractual obligations force me to sit inside air-conditioning and watch the brainless Talladega Nights. But if you’re wise, you will wander down to Loring Park to endure brain-melting temperatures to enjoy Howard Hawks’ witty and wonderful His Girl Friday, part of the Walker’s Summer Movies and Music. I…

  • Gimme Grain!

    At 9:28 a.m. thirty-one grain traders are milling around a trading pit—an octagon about the size of a pontoon boat, recessed into the hardwood floor—at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. Steps are wide and lazy, chests are thrust outward. Several of the men (and they are all men) discuss the price of downtown real estate; a…

  • Corrections

    An article in the July issue about Robyn Waters [“The Lap of Paradox”] stated that she worked at Target for thirty years. In fact, she worked there for ten and a half years. (She worked in the retail business for thirty years.) We regret the error.August 2006 cover illustrator Kyle Webster can be reached at…

  • The Real Thing

    Often regarded as Tom Stoppard’s best play, this production is a—perhaps the—high point in the Guthrie’s 2006-07 season. A masterpiece of wit that also grapples with romantic love and the havoc wrought by extramarital affairs, the story centers around Henry, a successful playwright often thought to be a stand-in for Stoppard. Henry has just penned…

  • “The Only Other Job I’d Like”

    The candidate was running late, of course. So, on a sweltering June morning, I was left to wander the third-floor headquarters of Peter Hutchinson’s gubernatorial campaign and consider its architect. Two floors above a coffee shop and the funky Architectural Antiques, someone erected temporary walls to form a couple of small offices, and in one…

  • Old-Fashioned New Bohemian

    The picture windows beneath the Jerabek’s New Bohemian awning gave a good feel for what was being sold inside. One window showcased the stock of vintage dresses—from satin gowns to housedresses bursting with floral prints. Metallic shoes, two or three cycles since they’ve been in fashion, lined the window’s ledge, tossed in with an oversized…