Month: January 2006

There’s usually no problem finding a good movie to see in the Twin Cities—between the imperiled Oak Street Cinema, the Heights, Walker Art Center, and Landmark Theatres, there’s plenty to choose from that doesn’t insult one’s intelligence or batter one with sound and C.G.I. Sometimes, though, you get the urge to shut down your brain…

The room was smaller than I would have liked. And there were no tables to stand behind and very few chairs. I was on an upper floor of the Cosmopolitan Club in Manhattan, celebrating the eightieth birthday of my husband’s father, the lights of the surrounding buildings twinkling through the windows as the bow-tied and…

The “white lie”—is there such a thing? Good journalists, they say, have no friends. We have a few, so perhaps we’re doing something wrong. It’s true, though, that anyone who writes for a living makes enemies now and again. Writers of all types are caught on the horns of fact and fabrication. On the one…

Just around the corner from Como Zoo’s polar bears, snow leopards, and other winter-loving creatures is a Victorian-era tropical oasis. The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Como Park floats on the horizon like a series of great, sparkling glass beads. Up close, the building’s steel and aluminum frame and solid Ionic columns are less ethereal, but…

ick Oehlenschlager’s office is crowded with so much unusual visual stimuli that it’s often hard for a visitor to follow the man’s enthusiastic torrent of conversation. There is a dead grouse splayed on its back on a newspaper atop a desk. There are tottering stacks of mounted plant specimens, various skeletons, and shelves jammed with…

Square in the middle of North Dakota is a town called Heaton. At this point, though, it may be an exaggeration to call it a town. It’s more of a boneyard with town-like aspects. The main street has an abandoned bank and gift shop, both with broken-out windows. A piece of a “B” rests on…