The Rake Magazine

Month: September 2005

  • From the Rake Today

    www.rakemag.com/today

    “An anonymous interlocutor took me to task last week for crying about the FEMA and Army types who wouldn’t let reporters ride along to document the search for the dead in New Orleans. Well, the reporters have their own rides now, but it seems the Army didn’t get the message about letting reporters do their jobs. Or perhaps they got a different message? I find it doubly ironic that the proud 82nd Airborne, heroes of WWII and a vanguard of our rapid deployment capability, was deployed so late to New Orleans and was given the task of protecting the president’s reputation above protecting the people attacked by Katrina.

    “Do we need to see pictures of bodies from New Orleans? Yes, just like we ought to see coffins from Iraq. It’s part of the story. It makes us think of how and because of whom we got in this situation. It helps us remember how to vote next time we get the chance.”

    The Read Menace, September 13

  • Can a church be ugly?

    I recently was given the September issue of The Rake by a Twin Cities relative. She passed it on to me as I am from Litchfield and there is an article written by Christy DeSmith titled “Power in Our Union” [September]. I enjoyed the article as I have a deep interest in the Grand Army of the Republic Hall and Museum. I was very disappointed, though, when it stated the building sat between two ugly buildings. Did the writer realize the one building is a church–The Christian Church (formally Church of Christ)? It is clearly evident it is a church. The building on the other side is not ugly, either. It is a modern garage alongside a nice house/office of an insurance agency. I enjoyed the article and the publicity it gave the G.A.R. Hall but was hurt by the usage of the word “ugly.”

    Gerry Moen
    Litchfield, Minnesota

  • I noticed that, too!

    I enjoyed reading the article about the stone arches and wall that stood amidst the weeds alongside Highway 52 in Inver Grove Heights for decades [“The Ruin,” September]. Growing up in the fifties and sixties, my family made a monthly pilgrimage to visit my grandmother on the shores of Lake Pepin. Sitting in the back seat of the car looking out the window, I’d see those lonely “ruins” go by and wonder what they were from. Neither Mom or Dad had any idea. As a young man I spent a few years in the Mediterranean area and often thought of the Inver Grove ruins when I passed some lone arch or pillar alongside a road, a similar forlorn remnant of bygone days. In time I returned to the Twin Cities, had a family, and pointed the Inver Grove ruins out to my children on the way to Lake Pepin. Of course, the passing of the Inver Grove ruins is no big deal–it was just a base for a billboard. But in a land bereft of real ruins it was all we had. Nice to know someone else besides me wondered about it, and cared enough to find out the story behind it.

    Steven M. Hansen
    Plymouth

  • Hi Mom! Does this count as calling home?

    Hello, this is Bryan Alvarez, Dr. Marla Spivak’s son. I am writing to say thank you for publishing such a wonderful article about her and her work. It’s a pleasure to finally see a story about honeybees that doesn’t read like a Dario Argento script. Bees don’t kill people. People kill people. Or something like that. I work at the National Institutes of Health, and if you don’t mind I’m going to forward the article to some friends over in the Infectious Diseases department. Maybe they’ll redirect some of their grant money to my mom. Probably not to The Rake, though. Sorry.

    Bryan Alvarez
    Chevy Chase, Maryland

  • Link Vostok: Central European Dance Exchange Festival

    Two years ago, a bevy of Eastern European dancers and musicians performed at the Southern as part of its Mississippi/Volga Dance Exchange with Link Vostok. With nary a tutu in sight, these flexy innovators impressed us with their postmodern, experimental, and jazz dance techniques. The Russians are back this year, joined by dancers from Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, all of whom will offer a vivid picture of the creative renaissance flowering in their parts of the world. 612-340-1725; www.southerntheater.org

  • Boats on a River

    Burgeoning talent Julie Marie Myatt is obsessed with sex. Seldom lewd and always complex, the stories from this playwright favor feminine perspectives on this basic human need. That preoccupation has benefited all lovers of contemporary theater, as evidenced by last year’s Guthrie production of Myatt’s The Sex Habits of American Women. In Boats on a River, she explores Southeast Asia’s sex-tourism industry and the Western aid workers who feel compelled to challenge it. This bare-bones production is part of the Guthrie’s “Construction Zone” new play program, but Myatt’s script is likely to be as compelling as anything on the theater’s main stage. 2301 Franklin Ave. E., Minneapolis; 612-377-2224; www.guthrietheater.org

  • Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers

    Buffalo Soldiers focuses on the lives of the Robe family, who are descended from an American Indian and an African-American “buffalo soldier” who was stationed on the bloody Montana frontier–and indeed, doing much of the dirty work–during this country’s Westward expansion. Now living on a Montana reservation, the grandchildren of this couple, who appear “too black to be Native,” wrestle with the haunting legacy of their grandfather. American Indian playwright William Yellow Robe Jr. and Trinity Repertory Company (a regional, Guthrie-like company out of Providence, Rhode Island) teamed up with Penumbra for this new traveling production. 270 N. Kent St., St. Paul; 651-224-8130; www.penumbratheatre.org

  • Shut Your American Pie-Hole, or Discount Family Values

    Caleb and Katy McEwan, the local reigning first family of fun, let fly with their quick wit and gutsy humor in this wicked satire. There are plenty of laughs to be had at your average Brave New Workshop production, but this one is especially rip-roaring and fearless. The McEwans, the finest jokesters in the Workshop, are not afraid to take down anyone, including Catholics, Laura Schlessinger, and Thomas Jefferson, in their mission to skewer the politically and religiously self-righteous. There’s even a song taking off on that instant-classic bumper sticker, “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” 2605 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-332-6620; www.bravenewworkshop.org

  • Super Vision

    From identity theft to digital surveillance, we are increasingly the sum of our recorded information. What power does that gives us? What does it take away? And how might we hang onto our humanity? Super Vision is the kind of high-tech performance that the Walker’s new theater, fortified with futuristic AV muscle, was designed to showcase. For this, its most robust theater-meets-video project to date, the Walker commissioned the Builders Association, a New York-based troupe known for making live theater with recorded images and produced sound. With the aid of Dbox, a visual arts studio specializing in 3D wizardry, the Builders will make zeros and ones sparkle, while pondering how data imprints might be manipulated in this post-Patriot Act world. 612-375-7600; www.walkerart.org

  • Al Vento

    Why aren’t there more truly excellent Southern Italian restaurants around here? Haven’t we gotten over the white- vs. red-sauce snobbery? Can’t we see past Chef Boyardee and lowbrow Lotsa di Pasta chain fare? In such a climate, Al Vento stands out all the more. Chef Jonathan Hunt sees the jewels in the land and uses them at every turn, serving humble foods with an exhilarating flair, from tomato bread soup to a red-potato pizza with spinach and Gorgonzola. The menu changes daily, so there’s always something new to explore. 5001 34th Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-724-3009