Month: November 2005

  • The Rake's Progress

  • Water and Steel

    Port of Duluth—Saturday, October 15, 2005 In the middle of the night, at the end of a long day in the middle of October, I found myself sitting in a recliner. I was in the lounge of the penthouse high above the long deck of the American Spirit, a thousand-foot bulk freighter. We were plunging…

  • The Tortoise and the Hare

    It’s hardly surprising that many of the works in Walker Art Center’s newest show, Andy Warhol/ Supernova: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962-1964, are the artist’s best-known. His repeating runs of Elvises, Lizzes, Marilyns, and Jackies, along with paintings of car crashes and electric chairs, show the extent to which a fascination with tragedy and death…

  • Soundtrack to Mary

    While reflecting on one’s life, certain images and themes seem to dominate: God, Family, Love, etc. However, it’s occurred to me that I may have an unconscious fixation with Chihuahuas (for the record, I can barely spell “Chihuahua”). I’ve never eaten at a Taco Bell. Paris Hilton means very little to me. Yet Chihuahuas seem…

  • A Tisket, A Tasket

    There are happy gift baskets, and there are sad gift baskets. The sad ones are given by well-meaning souls who see shrink-wrapped fruit and think, “Oh joy!” Oftentimes these come year after year, stuffed with salamis and tissue paper, implying nothing other than, “Happy holidays, have a snack.” Worse yet is the revelation, upon stopping…

  • A Working Christmas

    Pat was my boss at the diner. I’d say she was around fifty years old, but I don’t know for sure. That’s just not the kind of question you ask your boss. Donnie the dishwasher was thirty-five, with the mental capacity of an adolescent. Then again, how many teens do you know who could work…