The Rake Magazine

Year: 2002

  • Marx Brothers Retrospective

    They were the Mr. Show of their day—sarcastic, wildly inventive, and a hit with the college crowd, but sometimes almost a little too smart for their own good. And that’s why Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and sometimes Zeppo have stood the test of time, while Charlie Chaplin now seems mawkish and Laurel and Hardy seem quaint. (For purposes of this argument, pretend Harpo’s lo-o-o-ong musical interludes never happened.) When given free rein, they were zany and anarchistic, with no regard for dramatic structure, if there was a joke to be had. The Three Stooges had the attitude but were almost entirely slapstick, lacking the crazed insouciance of Harpo’s mime-from-Mars shtick and Groucho’s machine-gun genius for loopy punning riffs. (“You can leave in a taxi. If you can’t get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that’s too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.”) Though some of his dialogue was scripted, his wit was the real thing, and he delivered his daggers with dry, eyebrow-wagging, subtle hostility and the skill of a Charlie Parker. This series screens what’s generally agreed to be the four best films, but if you only see one, see Duck Soup , their gleefully scathing satire of dictatorship, war, and mirror impersonation. It was the zenith of their madcap style, but audiences weren’t ready for it in 1933. When it bombed, the Brothers changed strategies (and studios) for A Night at the Opera , their biggest popular success but the start of a slow slide into suffocating structure and tacked-on romantic subplots. Oak Street Cinema, (612) 331-3134, www.oakstreetcinema.org

  • Macca Attack

    I hope the writer who penned the concert announcement for Paul McCartney’s appearance at the Xcel Energy Center [The Broken Clock, September] was able to attend the event. A rare opportunity was available for the writer to broaden his/her horizons. If the writer attended, s/he would have heard three songs from a new album written by the performer in the last year; songs that equal in energy the lyrical and melodic qualities of McCartney’s music from throughout decades past. The writer would have seen a man in his 60s perform with the stamina of his 20-something-aged band members, even continuing solo while those band members were allowed an intermission break. Not only did McCartney perform a three-hour concert non-stop, he did so with a voice that resonated as clear and strong as when the music was originally recorded. The writer would have witnessed a man expressing his sorrow at the personal loss of people dear to him, courageously in front of a room filled with strangers—an audience of thousands who responded in support with displays of respect, not with rude and insensitive rumors. Alone, or with a partner, the body of work created by Paul McCartney is international in scope, timeless in relevance to life, can and is performed by anything from a polka band to full orchestra, and most of all, contributes to the betterment of people. There are few individuals today who come close to matching these accomplishments. Paul McCartney is an exceptional talent and true artist who deserves a better description than what was provided in The Broken Clock. Readers deserve a better announcement notice too.

    —Cynthia Marotteck
    Cottage Grove

  • That Wasn’t Funny? C’mon, That Was Funny!

    I relocated to these barren wastes in April ’01, and spent my first year searching—mostly in vain—for anything remotely stimulating, or even interesting. Imagine my delight when, on my first anniversary, I stumbled across your magazine. (And imagine my disappointment when the very next issue featured that lame “Top 50” list [“Our Brightest Stars,” June]. Almost all of your “also-rans” were far more worthy.) I now look forward eagerly to each issue as my respite from this Minnesota bland. Your back page columnists—Kruse, Collins, and Ouellette—are particularly erudite and thought-provoking. It is a great consolation to know that, even though God may have forsaken this land [Good Intentions, October], good, intelligent writing has not.

    —Eugene Dillenburg
    St. Paul

  • Big Apple, Pie

    Stephanie March asks why New York is called “the Big Apple” [Down the Hatch, October] and notes that “one theory is that the nickname was coined by jazz greats like Charlie Parker.” While this is a popular theory, it’s been disproven. I’m attaching a research note by Yale librarian Fred Shapiro:

    “The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang documents the usage of Big Apple by sportswriter John J. FitzGerald starting in 1921 to refer to the New York horse racing circuit. Since the dictionary was published, a 1924 column by FitzGerald has been discovered, in which FitzGerald pretty clearly makes the transition from talking about the horse-racing circuit to using Big Apple to mean New York City. The Oxford English Dictionary records a 1928 glossary of movie terms in the New York Times in which one of the entries reads ‘The Big Apple—New York City.’ Many people assert that Big Apple originated in a jazz context, but the above evidence clearly disproves this theory.”

    While I’m at it, I note that March suggests that the term “upper crust” came from an alleged Depression-era assumption that only rich families would make apple pie with an upper as well as a lower crust. Unfortunately for these theory, the term “upper crust” in this sense can be traced back at least to 1836 and Thomas Haliburton’s Canadian comic novel The Clockmaker (and from context, there seems to have already been well known enough to need no explanation). That’s a good century or so before the Depression by my reckoning. The Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which supplied the Haliburton citation, says that “the upper crust was at one time the part of the loaf placed before the most honored guests.” Nothing to do with apples, it appears.

    —Dennis Lien
    Minneapolis

  • Post No Bill

    Despite your accusation [“The Puppetmaster at Rest,” October], I planned to vote for Wellstone from the get-go, and I never saw one of Hillsman’s famous ads. And I sure as hell didn’t vote for Jesse (The Numbskull) Ventura, a man more interested in holding asinine grudges than in actual governance. Paul Wellstone’s success in 1990 was due to two things: His incredible skills at grass-roots organizing (he’s trying to lead the Democratic Party away from the expensive TV ad campaigns that comprise the meal tickets of people like Hillsman, and back toward old-style pound-the-pavement campaigns) and the monumental last-minute screwup of Wellstone’s 1990 Republican foe, Rudy Boschwitz. As for Jesse Ventura, he was on his best behavior throughout the 1998 campaign, actually managing to sound semi-intelligent, and even fooling a few lefties who didn’t realize his utter antipathy towards spending tax monies on government projects (unless these government projects were his own pet ones, such as LRT). His name recognition as a Minnesota-born major wrestling star brought a number of new voters into the ranks, and that was enough, in a three-way race, to take home the win. However, Ventura’s popularity didn’t last, which is why he’s not running for a second term. And as for why Bill Hillsman is finding it hard to get work nowadays: When one realizes that he’s gone from working for a Democrat who believes in using government to make things better (Wellstone), to a loose-cannon closet-Republican who hates government and governance (Ventura), to a man who told both Outside and In These Times magazines that he wanted Bush to win in 2000 (Nader), you’ve got to wonder about not only his self-proclaimed ethics, but also his loyalty. One suspects he’s not so much the idealist he claims to be. He is just another gun for hire.

    —Tamara Baker
    St. Paul

  • Shop Till You Drop That Skepticism

    Thanks for the fine “Happy Anniversary” item last month [Good Intentions, September]. What an elegant expression of the mix of concern, anger, and hurt I live with as a result of the attacks, and the inadequacy, to put it mildly, of most of the public debate and actions that have followed. The juxtaposition of the attacks’ anniversary with that of the megamall is painfully perfect. Can we buy ourselves out of pain and fear, or be bought off of our concern about Bush, Cheney, et al.’s political and economic malfeasance? We’ll see.

    —Jo Devlin
    Minneapolis

  • Still working on that?

    I’ve been a waitress for seventeen years. That’s pre-pepper grinder, fusion cuisine, touch screen, and “Sparkling, still, or tap?” If you look me up on the chronology of food-service evolution, I’m right there close to the beginning, walking upright and sporting thumbs, but with a hump on my back and a heavy, weighted brow indicating a double shift on all-you-can-eat brunch Sunday. This month, this very year, I mark an anniversary. And I’ll tell you something about that. No one ever starts out thinking they’ll be a waitress for 17 years; it’s just something that sort of sneaks up on you. You start out that first year thinking to yourself, “Hey! This’ll be fun… for a summer! After that I’ll figure out what it is that I really like to do!” The next thing you know, you’re 34 years old, discussing the obvious merits of catfish “fingers” over chicken “fingers,” while wearing a nametag.

    Please, don’t get me wrong. I’ll come clean—I like it. I like people, I like bustling around, and I really really really like to snack. If I had an office job, I’d be forced to stuff coins into a vending machine in order to snack on hard, dry kibble like a dog. Where I work, hors d’oeuvres fall like manna from heaven… fresh, hot, and plentiful. Mostly, I forgo the three squares in favor of a constant stream of tidbits. As far as I can see it, this profile leaves me with two career choices: socialite or waitress.

    The other thing I like about working in restaurants is the people-watching. A café is the perfect place to see a demonstration of all kinds of mating rituals. On a Friday night, it can be like Wild Kingdom with high heels and hair gel. (Look how the double-breasted braggart preens and stomps to dominate the attention of the hollow-eyed Uptown warbler. Uh oh! Their plates are empty, let’s send my wait assistant Jim in there to clear the debris so we can get a better look. Be careful, Jim! They still look hungry!)

    I like the theory that anyone can do restaurant work. It’s democratic. People re-entering society often get placed in food-service jobs because of this. Anyone can try. Three restaurants ago, I worked with a woman I’ll call Baby. Baby was in an outpatient treatment program after touring with several odd heavy-metal bands in a county fair circuit. Hey, it could happen to anybody. Baby, although beautiful, was unaccustomed to flirting while sober. During one shift, Baby asked a 40ish man in her section, “Sir, what would you like for lunch today?”

    The man eyed her form filling out the snug uniform, and leered. “Oh, don’t call me sir.” He began laughing at his own joke. Baby laughed too, but with a hint of fear to it, not understanding what the hell the guy meant. I could smell Baby’s confusion from all the way across the dining room. After several tense seconds, Baby hit on an answer. “Um, okay, what would you like for lunch today, dude?” I was so happy for her I could have cried. Unlike an office, where someone else’s failure might mean your success, in a restaurant, you have to watch each others backs, because if the guy next to you goes down, you’re next. This creates kind of a pirate-ship mentality that all food-service workers past and present share.

    Of course, there aren’t many lifer buccaneers. What about folks like me, who are working on their 20-year pin? I recall the words of an early career food-service mentor, Paul, a slight man who watched my back at Mickey’s Diner off and on in between writing western novels. “You know, Colleen, how people on the highway slow down to look at an accident while they are passing by? People slow down and stay in this business because they just have to see how it turns out!” I’ll keep you posted.

  • Either & Neither

    If you mix blue paint with yellow paint, you get green paint. If a Finn and an Indonesian “get together,” as my teenage boys would say, a child produced by that union would be Finnish-Indonesian. However, in our race-warped culture, when a black person and a white person produce a baby, something different happens. The baby is black. The “white” side ceases to exist in a meaningful way for most Americans. Now, in any other context, such a result would be dismissed as illogical and absurd. But in America, most of us still passively accept the racist “one-drop” notion.

    A quick recap: Ever since Africans were first dragged by Europeans to this continent, they and their descendants have been kicked to the bottom of the caste system. Maintaining separation required making consensual sex between the two groups the ultimate taboo. And, if sex occurred (as it often did, if one can call the rape of millions of African women sex), the resulting offspring had to be black. Any other result flew in the face of the Declaration of Independence, with its soaring eloquence about a certain kind of equality. Slavery could not exist in a land where “all men were created equal” with the “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” unless the slaves were tainted, not quite human beings. If blacks were tainted, then their “blood” would be as well, forever corrupting anything it touched.

    And so, in this world, black plus white equals black, no matter what. Most Americans, regardless of color, bought into this racist line of thinking. And, until very recently, I did too. I have two fine sons from my first marriage to a woman of European descent. Even before they were born, I told her my boys would be African American. For me, calling them “bi-racial” was a bourgeois cop-out used only by folks in serious racial denial. I knew that most of the world would view them as black, and I did too.

    I am now in my second marriage, this time to a woman of Swedish-Irish descent. We are expecting our first child, a son. His impending arrival has made me rethink my ideas on racial identity. My wife wanted assurances from me that our son would not have to choose racial sides. I said he would not, thinking deep down that he would be African American, just like his brothers and his dad, whether she liked it or not. I said to myself, the world will see this child as black, I have to get him ready for reality. More important, he is black, legally speaking. Finally, I said to myself, black people are the only people that will accept him as he truly is.

    Historically, there was some truth in the first two arguments. The world—at least our world—will view this young boy as solely a black person, for all the reasons discussed above. Beyond that, American law does presume black parent plus white parent equals black child. And, yes, black people were—and often still are—more likely to embrace a person of black and white parentage than white people. However, that acceptance often comes at the cost of denying the white side of that person. This so-called “acceptance” has done untold psychological damage to many bi-racial children. No one should be forced to deny part of his or her cultural heritage as the price of social acceptance.

    The last population census forced people to rethink what constitutes a black person. It was threatening to many people, including many African Americans. There is no question that the “one drop means you’re black” thinking has increased African American political clout. Census numbers are used for everything from political redistricting to government aid to schools. Therefore, who’s who and who’s what has far-reaching implications. The fact that the concept is based on intellectual hokum means little when money and power are at stake.

    What does this all mean for my wife, my sons, and me? Not much, really. Our little family will not be defined by antiquated, racist notions of “blackness” or “whiteness” because that’s the way it has always been done, or because it increases black political clout. Instead, we will raise this boy to be proud of who he is, which is part African, part Native American, part Irish, part Swedish, completely human, and all American.

    Clinton Collins Jr. is a Minneapolis lawyer and ABC Radio commentator. His email address is ccollins@collins lawfirm.com.

  • The Well-Worn Mind

    For starters, let’s say that I’m not going to write about the election or the war. You and I have both been around the block enough to recognize that I am no Bill Hillsman, and nothing I say is going to change your mind on these matters. This is because you are a stubborn creature who is determined to see things your own way, and who, just like me, mostly recycle your threadbare thoughts over and over, rarely allowing anything new to cross the threshold of your imagination.

    Nine out of every ten thoughts you think today are the same ones you thought yesterday and the day before. And the few stray novel ones aren’t likely to be revolutionary, since they had to fight their way through the heavy-duty security system you employ to scare off anything that doesn’t validate your current belief system.

    That’s why it’s such a mind-boggling privilege to work with kids as I do. Kids think new thoughts every day, and, I believe, catalyze the adults around them to think new thoughts as well. But the touchy issue is that the thoughts the children think don’t come from the ether. They come from me, or whoever else stands in front of them. Is anyone fit for that kind of role?

    The first time I walked into the classroom and looked out at 23 children’s faces “looking up, holding wonder like a cup,” the enormity of the responsibility was nearly paralyzing. It was immediately obvious that when I spoke, these children believed me. About everything. This is handy when you are setting out to teach something tricky—say the alphabet, or how to read, or complex mathematical concepts like carrying and borrowing. If I tell them they’re smart and talented and capable and that they’ll soon be able to do everything that comes in front of them, despite the confusion and struggle, they genuinely trust my optimism. This dynamic has been a powerful inspiration in my classroom—and that’s nothing new, since research has shown repeatedly how teacher expectations for students tend to be self-fulfilling. Over time, students internalize the beliefs teachers have about their ability, and they rise or fall to the teacher’s level of expectation.

    Some would call this, tritely, the power of the mind. A watered-down version of levitating a spoon with your brain, which for some reason I have never been able to do. But still I can’t understand why the power of thought is so under-rated, when reams of good research—from a variety of disciplines—back it up so compellingly. As my friend Sean said to me the other night, “Oh yes, you do like scientific studies, don’t you?” And the answer is yes, I do, because on the one hand, I find sociology and anthropology endlessly fascinating, and on the other hand, every once in a while a grown-up will believe something I say if I provide peer-reviewed statistical evidence to fortify the claim.

    The placebo effect is a fantastic illustration of all this. When researcher H.K. Beecher published his groundbreaking 1955 paper, “The Powerful Placebo,” he concluded, based on analysis of 26 studies, that an average of 32 percent of all patients respond to placebo. This average has held constant in all the years and studies since. “Expectation is a powerful thing,” says Robert DeLap, M.D., of the Food and Drug Administration, in an interview for FDA Consumer magazine (January-February 2000). “The more you believe you’re going to benefit from a treatment, the more likely it is that you will experience a benefit.” (I’m not convinced this justifies one particularly well-publicized study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, in which half of the Parkinson’s disease patients enrolled in the trial underwent a “placebo” surgery in which doctors drilled holes into their skulls but didn’t implant the potentially beneficial human fetal tissue in their brains, but I suppose that’s a tangent.)

    The point is, there’s more to this stuff than a bunch of mind-over-matter New Age psycho-babble. And as I said, when you work with children, you don’t really need a scientist to tell you that perception becomes reality. But while children’s perceptions are malleable, most adults are bogged down by a pattern of thinking that has grown so stale a sledgehammer could hardly dent it.

    This is why instead of swinging a sledgehammer over the election or the war, I’m going to do something more likely to make some small difference: pry my mind open a crack to make room for a few new ideas. Tough going, but stand by.

    Jeannine Ouellette is associate editor of The Rake.

  • Deer Wine

    A few weeks ago, central London saw the largest demonstration it has ever witnessed. A good-humored crowd of 407,791 people marched through the streets. These were not folk normally given to protest. For the most part, they were quiet country people, though to be sure they enjoyed their day out in the capital, cheering, singing, and blowing hunting horns.

    They had come to remind Her Majesty’s Government of a few home truths, in particular that one cannot pay too much for food, that it is rude to criticize a farmer with your mouth full, and that agricultural subsidies are not handouts for farmers but a way of ensuring a supply of cheap bread (circuses come separately) for the urban masses. But at the heart of their protest was not the plight of farmers so much as anguish at the government’s interference with certain immemorial pleasures of the rustics.

    The oldest of these pursuits is the hunting (with hounds, not guns) of the wild red deer, once the sport of kings, but now carried out only on one remote moor in the southwest of England. Deer run faster and straighter than foxes. Following stag-hounds across the springy heather under an open Exmoor sky must be one of the most exhilarating pleasures a human being can have. Hunting deer involves knowing about their natural history. The locals seem to know the deer individually—“the big stag with the crooked antler as lives above Badgworthy”; “the pale-colored hind you see at the bottom end of Horner Wood.” They can tell from their footprints (“slots”) the age, size, sex, and condition of the deer who made them. It is probably true that despite the damage they do, the wild red deer are tolerated by the Exmoor farming community principally because of their complex relationship as hunter and hunted. If and when the hounds do bring their beast to bay, it is dispatched from close range by the huntsman; the hounds get the paunch, the followers divide up the venison, and the heart goes to the farmer on whose land the deer was killed.

    This sport involves a good deal more exercise than the shooting of white-tailed deer, a popular sport in Minnesota in the autumn. But both present one common problem: How do you cook wild meat of indeterminate age which is going to need to be hung quite some time before you can be sure it is at all tender? The sensible solution is, of course, to eat farmed venison, a delicious meat, always reliably tender and amazingly low in cholesterol-inducing fat. It may be the lean meat of the future, but that’s another story.

    I cannot help the hunter much with recipes. For these you must look to the wonderful cookbooks of Nichola Fletcher, Game for All and Monarch of the Table (I specially like her “Venison in Chocolate Sauce”). But I can recommend a wine which I think will stand up to the strongest of “gamey” tastes. It is the 2000 Napa Valley Zinfandel from Beaulieu Vineyards, a winery with more than 100 years of continuous history behind it (they made altar wine during Prohibition).

    This Zinfandel is a fine red color, like a pan of berry juice ready for making bramble jelly. (Deer like berries. You should see what a stag can do to a blackcurrant bush. So there is some justice in the world!) The soft tannin at the center of the taste will stand up well to the meat, the smell of fresh oil which comes from the wine being matured in oak barrels is appetizing, and the pleasant fruity sensation as you swallow, which is reminiscent of a fresh Granny Smith apple, gives the palate wings. Less mist, more mellow fruitfulness.

    This is a wine with a good heart— and at less than $20, a decent price. It should go nicely with whatever Florian Krebsbach and Clarence Bunsen may shoot (or run over) in the woods near Lake Wobegon this autumn. For me, it brings to mind the Scotch poet who wrote, “My heart is on Exmoor / My heart is not here. My heart is on Exmoor / A-chasing the deer.”

    Oliver Nicholson is a classicist at the University of Minnesota, and former Secretary of the Wine Committee at Wolfson College, Oxford.