Year: 2005

My favorite question of the moment is “What are you obsessed with?” I realize the idea of obsession scares people off, but I decided to make a list of my current obsessions—is that an obsessive thing to do? Oh well. What’s a little psychiatric disorder going to hurt??The things I am obsessed with, in no particular order, are:?

1. Coffee. Sometimes I lay in bed at night, unable to sleep in anticipation of my morning cup of coffee. (No, I am never switching to decaf.)?

2. Death. How anyone can not be obsessed with death is mystifying to me. It crosses my mind every day in any situation.?

3. The C-level comedy The Money Pit. If I’m surfing channels and I come across this film, I will inexplicably watch whatever is left of it for the fiftieth time.?

4. The complete imbalance in men’s choices for footwear, compared to women’s. Do men really want a mere eight variations of an already-boring style??

5. Trying to identify the voice in a commercial. This one has been known to drive loved ones around me to drink.?

6. Cats. If one appears on television or I spot one outdoors, I will stop whatever I am doing. Like a two-year-old learning to identify, I catch myself saying “kitty” quietly to myself.?

7. Boys in bands who appear to cut their own hair.?

8. Biographies of people who’ve spent time in the nuthouse. I can’t help but believe that, had I been born in 1915, someone would’ve thought cutting out part of my head was a good idea. “There now, Lucia, don’t you feel calmer?”?

9. Vintage clothes. I know it skeeves out so many people to wear someone else’s garments. It’s for that very reason that I am drawn to them. I should clarify that. I’m not bothered by a worn collar, or by the shape of someone else’s foot in a secondhand pair of shoes; however, I am not enthralled with the idea of wearing a dress marked with some flapper’s pit stains. ??

Email Mary at popularcreeps@yahoo.com

As a North Dakota farm kid, Chuck Klosterman took in a lot of empty roads, endless skies, and fields of corn that stretched to the horizon. His pipelines to the greater world were Top 40 radio and eighties television. And then he heard Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil, which transformed him into a metalhead, who grew up to become a professional metalhead—that is, a music journalist. Klosterman offered obsessive yet engaging ramblings on topics such as the social relevance of Bon Jovi in his heavy-metal memoir Fargo Rock City. More recently, in Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story, he chronicled a road trip to the death sites of various figures of music history, including Graceland’s Elvis death toilet; the Macon, Georgia, street where two members of the Allman Brothers were killed in separate motorcycle accidents a year apart; Mud Island Harbor on the Mississippi, where Jeff Buckley drowned; and the Lake Street apartment where Bob Stinson drank himself to death. For a musician, dying is the ultimate career move. Since the same effect doesn’t translate to rock critics, we’ve decided to let Klosterman live. But we’re shipping him off to a desert island. Here’s what he’d like to bring along.??

1. Shane Carruth’s 2004 film Primer. This is the most confusing narrative movie I’ve ever watched; it makes Pi seem like Groundhog Day. I’ve seen it twice, but I’m pretty sure it would take two hundred viewings to figure out what is going on. (Note: This selection operates under the assumption that I will have a device that will allow me to play the film—if not, I guess I would just have to read the back of the DVD box really, really slowly.)??

2. Papaver somniferum. These are opium seeds. I have never experimented with heroin, but I can’t foresee any downside to smoking opium on a desert island. It’s not like I have to worry about being late for work. And I don’t have any friends there, so there’s nobody to alienate. ??

3. Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath (1970-1978). I thought about bringing the Beatles’ White Album, primarily because it’s one of the only legitimate albums I can think of that has rock (“Glass Onion”), metal (“Helter Skelter”), blues (“Yer Blues”), pop (“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and Monkey”), novelty (“Rocky Raccoon”), hippie music (“Piggies”), nap rock (“So Tired”), and experimental bullshit (“Revolution 9”). But then I remembered I was bringing opium seeds, so I might as well just lie in a hammock and listen to Sabbath until I die.??

4. One pregnant German shepherd. I grant that this is a curious decision for many reasons, one of which being that I generally prefer the company of cats. However, in this context I think I would be better off with a litter of German shepherd puppies that could be trained to serve and protect me. Perhaps they could even work in concert and kill wild boars for my own personal consumption! Obviously, the downside to this scheme would be the risk of eventually populating the island with packs of savage inbred dingoes. But I would take this risk.??

5. One Nerf football. Admittedly, not my wisest choice. But fun.

What a revelation a good order of fish and chips can be. Normally, we are stuck with fish sticks or cardboard nuggets processed from some kind of fish slurry. Proper fish and chips—the kind Mac’s serves—are hot and crispy, never soggy or overtly greasy. On the fish side of the plate, Mac’s batter is touched with a sweetness that nicely complements its base malty flavor. The meaty halibut is firm and flaky. The chips (which, okay, are fries) are plump with a crunchy outer crust. With a good sousing of vinegar, they measure up quite nicely. Don’t be surprised if you have to wait for a table; this joint is small and habit forming. 1330 W. Larpenteur Ave., St. Paul; 651-489-5299

The legions of people who grew up eating at the Convention Grill know to expect the frosty tin when they order a malt. This old-fashioned accoutrement is standard-issue at a restaurant that prides itself on generosity: Its skyscraper burgers come heaped with onions and surrounded by enough fries to satisfy even the most strapping construction worker. This bounteous attitude extends to the dining atmosphere. The Convention doesn’t mind kids and it seems that all the waitresses have smiles to spare. 3912 Sunnyside Rd., Edina, 952-920-6881

It’s obvious that 112 Eatery is run by people who passionately love food, and especially love to serve it. Restaurant power couple Nancy St. Pierre and Isaac Becker (who was formerly head chef at Lurcat) strive to perfect every detail, providing not only attentive service, but also gorgeously presented meals. You might say that the menu under-promises and over-delivers. Take what is listed simply as cold cuts with pickles: This appetizer turns out to be a plate generously piled with imported cured meats, homemade gherkins, and brilliant freshly made mustard. The French cheeseburger comes topped with a creamy, melty chunk of Brie—and for seven dollars. Humility—what a nice change of pace. 112 N. Third St., Minneapolis; 612-343-7696

For a long time, it didn’t make sense to us that writers like Mark Helprin and Orson Scott Card, spinners of such epic and delightful fantasy worlds, were also conservatives. The mirth, recklessness, and sheer imagination that fuels their fiction just doesn’t jibe with their imperious political commentaries, or with the speeches Helprin has written for rigid Republican politicos like Bob Dole. Ah, but time has revealed that fantasy and myth do indeed have a place in the realm of a successful political machine. Curiously, Helprin’s new novel features an uncommonly stupid presidential candidate. And who knows exactly what commentary he’s trying to make by dropping a couple of British royals—by parachute, bare naked—onto American soil, after which they embark on a bizarre and outlandish cross-country quest? It’s all greatly amusing, and we’ll leave it at that.

For every J.D. Salinger hiding out at the end of a very long driveway and revealing nothing to no one, there is a Kathryn Harrison, sharing everything—perhaps too much of everything—in a memoir. Notwithstanding her growing collection of graceful, compelling novels, Harrison will always be the woman who wrote a memoir (The Kiss) about having sex with her father. In other books, she’s generously shared her experiences with shoplifting, eating disorders, and exhuming her mother’s body to cremate her and scatter the ashes, thereby dispelling bad mother/daughter juju. Envy, however, is fiction. After losing his son in a boating accident, grief consumes a New York psychoanalyst, leading him to become obsessed with patients and with a woman from his past. Emotionally searing and darkly erotic, Envy allows Harrison to work out a few taboo ideas, while withholding a bit of herself—for her next memoir, perhaps.

In a just world, Lynda Barry’s books would all be in print and Marlys would be as iconic as Charlie Brown. We do not, of course, live in a just world, but the fact remains that nobody has chronicled the awkward, lonely, and frequently exuberant weirdness of childhood and adolescence more righteously or faithfully than Barry. Her long-running Ernie Pook’s Comeek is a first-rate primer in the triumphant power of individuality, funk, and self-esteem in the face of what writer Barry Hannah once called “the gloomy usual.” If Charlie Brown had been blessed with a companion like the splendid Marlys instead of the wretched Lucy, how much happier might he have been? At the very least he would have learned the Funky Chicken. Barry’s wisdom and keen awareness of the dark crannies of the human heart (for really dark stuff, there’s her stunning novel, Cruddy) are precisely what make her humor so funny—and her overall work such truly great literature. 651-290-1221; www.fitzgeraldtheater.org??

Most of Minnesota’s great, iconic consumer goods, including Tonka Toys, Faribo Woolens, and Red Wing Shoes, aren’t made here anymore. But in 1996, Scott Gillmer, grandson of the last president of Red Wing Pottery, brought the family business back to life on an artisanal scale. Three full-time potters are using the same techniques and designs that have made this distinctive regional stoneware world-famous since 1878. They’ll be doing their thing this weekend, Gillmer will be talking about the company’s storied history, and Red Wing stoneware through the decades will be on display. The Red Wing Collector’s Society is also convening this weekend, so the town will be crawling with pottery shows, auctions, and experts. 1920 W. Main St., Red Wing; 651-388-3562

We find it, how you say, ironique, that this stunning monument to upper-class French domesticity is being unveiled on a holiday that celebrates the overthrow of said class. Apparently, we good ol’ Americans will celebrate virtually anything French on Bastille Day. This particular grand salon rocked the Parisian social circuit when royal tax collector Jean Gaillard de la Bouexière first hosted his cohorts there in 1735. It’s a fantastically detailed three-dimensional picture of the high life from that era—that is, life as it definitely and quite miserably wasn’t for most in the days before that original Bastille Day. Complimentary small pox exposure, a soundtrack of angry street crowds, and a glimpse of period bathroom facilities are not included with the tour. 612-870-3131; www.artsmia.org