The Rake Magazine

Month: June 2007

  • Master of the Restaurant Riff

    Tim Alevizos is a man who lives his art.

    Show up at his posh Uptown condo on a Saturday morning around 10. He will open the front door and take your coat. Then, if you’re someone he likes (and believe me, if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here) he’ll usher you into the “owner’s suite” of his 8-foot Italian couch and bring you a cup of coffee so strong it’ll make your nasal hairs sing.

    There are surgical photos lining the walls, all viscera and blue-veined hearts. A statue of a naked Roman, one hand cupping his genitals, in the corner. Raise your mug and you’ll see that it’s printed with an advertisement: a beautiful blonde gazing into middle distance, looking healthy and satisfied. And underneath the words, “For her, it’s Maximum Strength Pubicort.” Alevizos will chuckle and stroke his chin and show you his own cup, the one that features a photo of him, five years younger and beardless, with his arm around the same woman, and the words “Clitrosyn Vagitabs.”

    These were Alevizos’ Christmas gifts one year: he posed for the photo with his friend, Jennifer Roberts; dreamed up the names of the drugs; and had the cups screen printed for $35 each at a Kodak photo lab in New Hope.

    “The best part,” he’ll tell you, flopping back against the far end of the couch, “was when I went to pick them up and there was this big guy at the register, yelling into the back ‘Hey, George, do we got any more of the Clitrosyn mugs back there?’ And I was just delighted. I made the big man say my made-up dirty words!”

    After a cup of the tannic coffee, you’ll ask for a glass of water (sparkling, of course), and then you’ll need to urinate. Lucky you.

    “Use the toilet in back,” Alevizos will advise, his eyes sparkling behind thick glasses. “That’s the best one.”

    So you’ll go all the way back, through the man’s personal lair with its unmade bed and books strewn all over. Enter the bathroom, a cavernous cube of tile, and face the Toto Neorest, a porcelain fixture like a throne that will yawn open as you approach. Sit on the heated seat, settle in, do your business. Then pick up the remote that hangs to the left of you on the wall.

    Hit the button that says “Front,” and feel the warm spray, which you can adjust — farther forward, if you happen to be a small sort of person who perches toward the front of the rim; or back, if you are, unlike this reporter, a person who covers the entire area of the lid — then the one that says “Back,” even though there is no compelling hygiene reason for doing so. (Notice, ladies, that there is a ‘pulse’ feature, as well; you decide what to do with this particular bit of information.) Finally, press the button labeled “Dry,” and let the air move gently across your bottom while you imagine the horn-shaped blowers of a drive-through car wash, only smaller and down below.

    “I was in Japan in 2002 when I first encountered these toilets,” Alevizos will say when you return, a full 20 minutes after excusing yourself. “I was lusting after one. Then I got this really sweet freelance job that turned out to be really easy and incredibly lucrative. Out of nowhere, there was just enough money to order a Neorest, and I’m really glad I did. That purchase has been nothing but pleasure for me. The remote, the technology, and the pride of ownership. People are always begging me to let them come over and poop in my toilet.”

     

    So what does all this have to do with food? Only that Tim Alevizos is the author of roughly 90 percent of the edgiest, most scatological, profane, and impolitic restaurant advertisements in town.

    His billboards for Chino Latino were among the most famous, sparking, among other things protests from the parents at a local elementary school when “Aw, Phuket, Let’s get takeout” was posted directly across the street from their playground; and outrage from All in the Family fans from coast to coast when he penned the wickedly cruel “Third World Prices, Sally Struthers Portions.”

    All in all, the Chino campaign hit national news some half a dozen times. Not bad for a guy who started his career as an intern for the U.S. Senate.

    “My first restaurant writing job was back in 1988,” says Alevizos. “I’d just graduated from Northwestern and moved to Washington. I always thought I wanted to work on Capitol Hill, but when I got there, I discovered the only things I liked about it were the crazy letters from constituents and these fabulous corporate gift packs that would open up like a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk. When it came to having laws passed, I really didn’t care.”

    That’s when he got a call from Phil Roberts, co-founder (with Peter Mihajlov) of Parasole Restaurant Holdings, and the father of his childhood friends, Steve and Jennifer.

    Roberts had just opened Blue Point, a rustic little seafood restaurant in Wayzata, and he wanted to produce a faux-tabloid ad. Alevizos responded with about a dozen headlines, including: “After having 3 bouncing baby boys, Wayzata woman gives birth to 18-inch prawn; Dad loves the little shrimp.”

    Still in Washington, now working as an information officer for PBS, Alevizos continued writing restaurant jingles and ads on a freelance basis. When Parasole launched Buca di Beppo in 1993, he traded on the over-the-top kitschiness of the décor, scripting radio spots that promised an atmosphere perfect for anniversaries, birthdays, and bowling banquets, as well as “recorded music in every room, thermostatic heating and cooling, and sanitary bathrooms.”

  • Dog Day

    72 Degrees
    You’re wide awake at six a.m. when the sun tips its hand. You barely slept at all last night in the hot box that is your cramped third-floor apartment. There’s no air-conditioning, the windows are all propped open. You spent most the night on top of the sheets, waiting for a breeze that never came, just listening to the sounds of the city; cars whirring by on the street, college kids passing by on the sidewalk below, talking excitedly about their night at the bar. It sounded too familiar. That’s why you moved, to get out of the rut you were in. So far, it isn’t working.

    You might have slept for an hour or two, long enough to have dreamt about the beach—which is odd. You’re not a beach person. You haven’t gone swimming in years. Still, the idea echoes in your head while the heat begins to build, while broad swaths of yellow light climb the cream-colored walls around you.

    It’s a Saturday. You don’t have to work today and it’s going to be viciously hot again. Your friends back home would rag you to no end for even considering going to a beach by yourself. “Pathetic,” they’d say. But they’re not here, and you’re not there. Besides, there’s no one you know well enough to ask to join you.

    It’s settled: You will go to the beach.

    There’s a nice one within walking distance. You’ve driven past it dozens of times and walked around it once or twice, watching everyone else have fun. Today you’ll see for yourself what it’s all about.

    Tell yourself it’s because you’re bored, because any more time spent in this broiling apartment might drive you mad. But deep down inside you know you’re going for the girls. Five months without a date is a long time. Four months in a new town with none of your old friends to fall back on has been a lifetime in itself. You moved, and that’s good, but now it’s time to get moving.

    You roll free of the damp sheets. Your feet hit the gritty wood floor. The dry boards feel warm, not cool like you were hoping.

    74 Degrees
    Your second cup of coffee goes down smooth. You’re just enjoying the morning, reading the newspaper, and taking it all in. You can feel the city waking up around you and it thrills you in some vague way knowing you’re a small part of it. The light morning traffic sounds like a symphony to you. People jog by and zoom past on bicycles. There’s energy in the air, everything seems alive, possible. You never had this sense back home. The shaded downtown streets always seemed empty, the people you did walk past hardly ever looked your way.

    The picnic table on the sidewalk outside the coffeehouse was empty when you got there and you have room to spread out your paper. You’re just getting to the sports page when a pretty girl steps outside with her coffee. From the corner of your eye you can see her thinking about joining you. She’s attractive, somewhere right around your age—twenty-five, you guess—give or take. She has long blonde hair and is wearing round, blue-tinted sunglasses. She looks to you like everything you’ve been missing out on your whole life.

    The words to invite her to sit down are on the tip of your tongue, where they’ve always been when it comes to being anywhere near forward, but they refuse to fly. Instead you get nervous and swallow self-consciously. You study your paper for a moment, feign a look of grim concentration, and then look up at her hopefully. She returns your gaze and even gives you a friendly smile before turning around and going back inside. You smile, too, wryly, before flipping the page.

    You promise yourself right then and there the next time a chance to meet a girl comes along you will go for it, because it’s better to die on the mountain than starve in the valley. Or something like that.

    It’s still early. You aren’t thinking clearly yet.

    76 Degrees
    Instead of walking home after leaving the coffeehouse, you decide to go the grocery store to get supplies for the day. Before the heat comes down, before you change your mind and all you feel like doing is hiding out at the mall, maybe seeing a matinee by yourself. But you know that’s a dead-end street, with no chance for any interaction. No, the beach is where you should be today. You need to be out among people.

    The morning air outside is already heavy, but not choking like it will be later in the day. You listen to the birds singing in the trees. Even they sound restrained. The sky above you is a stark blue and streaked with traces of high, silver clouds. It looks to you as though one more scorching day might bleach away what color remains.

    Thoughts of the beach have you feeling light for the first time in weeks, happy. Your light-brown sandals flop rhythmically on the sidewalk, the sound echoing down the block.

    The back streets are quiet, there’s barely any traffic at all. Nothing seems to move but you. You almost wish someone would walk past you just so you could smile at them, and perhaps even risk a “Good morning!” if they happened to make eye contact with you. Smiling, you look up at the sky. There’s no sense getting too carried away.

    65 Degrees
    It has to be at least ten degrees cooler inside the store. You grab a handbasket and walk over to the fruit and vegetable section. You’re in the heart of the trendy part of Minneapolis and the health-conscious hippies are out in force. You look at their tattoos and their piercings, and the way they intently study each piece of fruit, as though the fate of the world depended on them finding just the right bunch of bananas.

    A pale young woman with jet-black hair cropped in a bowl cut catches your eye. You freeze and then hazard a small smile. She rolls her eyes like she expected nothing less from you. You grab a pound bag of red grapes and move on.

    It amuses you to think that here you’re the strange one. You, with your scrawny build, dark tousled hair and nondescript, clean-shaven face. You and your white T-shirt, khaki shorts and sandals. It would have bothered you once, not so long ago, the way she looked at you. It would have made you feel small and insecure.

    Now it just makes you laugh.

  • Fogo de Chão

    Yes, Brazilians really do eat this way. Fogo de Chão, the new Brazilian steak house at City Center in Minneapolis, is much more elegant—and more expensive—than the truck stop in northeast Brazil where I first experienced churrascaria (Brazilian spit-roasted barbecue), but the basic principle is the same: Waiters in black pleated gaucho pantaloons (at Fogo de Chão, not the truck stop) stroll through the dining room with a skewer of spit-roasted meat in one hand and a long-bladed carving knife in the other. If your little coaster is green-side-up, they’ll stop at your table and carve off a portion to order. Turn the coaster red side up and they’ll steer clear.

    The fifteen meats offered range from sirloin, rib eye and beef ribs to leg of lamb, lamb chops, pork loin and bacon-wrapped chicken breast. As a dining experience, it’s a carnivore’s dream; as a business model, it’s brilliant. Instead of the typical mammoth slab of high-priced beef served up by Morton’s, Ruth’s Chris, Manny’s, etc., which congeals on your plate for an hour or two and eventually goes home with you, half-eaten, in a doggy bag, the mixed grill at Fogo de Chão arrives hot and juicy, a few slices at a time. (The chicken and pork tend to be drier, but the beef is wonderful.)

    You can have as much meat as you like, but you’ll probably eat a lot less than you might at a steak house. Diners are encouraged to start their meal at the cold buffet, and by the time you work your way through the cornucopia of salads, cheeses, and salumeria ranging from prosciutto, smoked salmon, and mozzarella to sundried tomatoes, asparagus, and hearts of palm, you are likely to be half-full. Then an assortment of filling side dishes is brought to the table, including fried plantains, seasoned mashed potatoes, pão de queijo (little cheese popovers), and fried polenta.

    The white-tablecloth ambience compares well with the other high-end steak houses in town, but you are likely to spend a lot less. Lunch is $22.50 and dinner, $38.50. 645 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-338-1344; www.fogodechao.com.

  • Shiraz Fireroasted Cuisine

    It’s hard to find a decent Shiraz in Shiraz these days, but that doesn’t mean that the Iranians have stopped drinking. (A popular joke: “Under the Shah, we drank in public and prayed in private; now it’s the other way around.”) But you can find some very drinkable Shirazes and first-rate Persian cuisine in stylish surroundings at the new Shiraz Fire Roasted Cuisine. Many dishes are Persian versions of familiar Middle Eastern fare—hummus, stuffed grape leaves, and kabobs of beef and chicken. More adventuresome diners may want to try the gormeh sabzi, a tart stew of beef, kidney beans, and preserved lemon; or the fazenjoon, chicken and ground walnuts in a pomegranate sauce. Best bets include eggplant mirza with tomato and garlic; the chicken koubideh; the beef kabobs; skewers of coarsely ground chicken seasoned with saffron; and the bastani, Persian ice cream flavored with rosewater. Vegetarians, though, should stay away unless they want to make a meal of hummus. Entrées run $10-$14. 6042 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-861-5500.

  • Bank

    Banks are about delayed gratification: today’s pleasure denied for a better tomorrow. And hotel restaurants often aren’t about gratification at all: You are a stranger in a strange town, you’re tired, you’re hungry and you’re on an expense account, so why not just eat here? But Bank, the upscale dining room in the new Westin Hotel in downtown Minneapolis, offers ample hedonistic gratifications in a stunning setting: The WPA-era lobby of the former Farmers and Mechanics Bank, with its high ceilings, copper chandeliers, and dark wood-paneled walls, has been transformed into an elegant and romantic dining space.

    The menu gets a bit too cute, listing entrées as “long-term interest” and appetizers as “shared currency,” but chef Todd Stein’s “modern American” cuisine is impressive. Stein, formerly executive chef at Chicago’s highly rated MK, incorporates French technique and Asian accents in dishes such as wok-steamed mussels served in a subtle Kaffir lime broth; five-spice rubbed duck breast with frisée, mizuna, and poached egg; and spit-roasted Berkshire pork with apple-braised pork belly, poached leeks and Chinese long beans.

    The salmon tartar is the love child of Japanese sushi and French steak tartar (which itself originated with Tartar horsemen who thundered across the steppes with raw meat under their saddles). Stein’s nuanced rendition combines the salmon with mango and avocado and pairs that with a tuna poke (pronounced pok-eh), a Hawaiian dish of marinated raw fish prepared with pine nuts, apple, sesame, chili, and mint; both are presented on silver tasting spoons.

    At its best, the taste experience is sublime. The poached lobster and risotto croquettes with truffle butter are a marvel of contrasting textures and subtle flavors; the lamb with braised white beans and ratatouille is more robust but no less satisfying. The grilled salmon with spring asparagus, ramps, and trumpet royale mushrooms lost a few points for excessive charring, but was otherwise a delightful springtime dish. Among the few off-notes were scallops lacking the sweet succulence of the very best, and deviled eggs with sturgeon and tobiko caviar that were just ho-hum. The wine list is pricey (mostly $40-plus), with limited choices by the glass. Breakfast runs $7-$16, lunch $9-14, and dinner entrees $21-$32. 88 Sixth St. S., Minneapolis, 612-656-3255; www.bankmpls.com

  • The Language of Lunge

    There’s no love lost between me and the cat that lives in our house. She’s not really my cat; I bought her for one of the kids a while back. There had been a specific Christmas wish for a white kitten with a red ribbon round its neck. I had worked a lot of overtime that year. And I am theoretically smarter than what I am about to say:It was December 23rd, and I just wanted to make it all better with presents.

    I found her at the St. Paul Humane Society, the only kitten who fit the Christmas Wish description. I ignored the bloodstained Post-It note attached to the wee beastie’s cage: “Can’t go home with children—behavioral issues!” I bought the snarling, pointy-eared succubus, and invited the devil into our home.

    Thankfully, the cat never attacked the kids—just us grown-ups. Over the next few months, my husband and I sustained several hairline lacerations—one that almost sliced my left cornea to ribbons—before I broke down and had our precious baby declawed. The cat resorted to biting. Like a cobra strike, she would sit quietly in a corner, waiting for me and my insolent stocking feet to dare walk past her without offering a semi-soft “fish-flava” niblet in tribute.

    “Fool!” she seemed to say. “How would you like tiny puncture wounds in your Achilles tendon? Or perhaps you would rather just be startled out of a sound sleep by the terrifying sight of an eight-pound hissing bomb poised on your chest? As the glowing coals of my beautiful yellow eyes laser beam at you through the darkness, I’ll watch you weighing the chances of covering your face with the thick blanket for protection before I can lunge, jaws snapping. I would laugh, but I am a cat, and such things are beneath me. Instead, I pity you.”

    My friend the animal behaviorist told me that our baby was probably suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, possibly the result of an abusive past. My friend said that our cat was also probably depressed, and suggested Prozac—for the damn cat.

    See, I come from a long line of practical, uninsured working-class folk. The kind of folk who would not scoff at shelling out for antibiotics for an honored animal who had been injured in the line of duty, but who would definitely draw the line at mood meds other than Leinie’s, and would never, ever waste good beer on a cat.

    I decided to approach the problem like any good East Side grandma would: Feed the depression, starve a cold—or something like that. I started double-filling the cat’s food dish; she stopped attacking and started napping more. Presto, no more midnight raids, no more surprise attacks in the hallway. She’s simply too fat and too tired. My husband recently likened the cat to a mini Tonka dump truck; she exists solely to empty out her food drawer, then lumber downstairs to the laundry room to unload her cargo into the shit box.

    I disagreed with him, saying that I could see the feelings etched in her angry eyes, hear them in the petulant pitch of her meow if I am late shaking the kibble into her dish. My hub then stated that he thought I was willing to assign the cat feelings because I had feelings about the cat.

    I countered that he also must have feelings about the cat, but he insisted that he didn’t. He then shrugged and said that men were different, that men have about one-fourth the feelings that women have, and they certainly wouldn’t waste any of them on murderous psycho house cats.

    I’ve come across this before. The old “men and women are different” line. And I’ll tell you what I know is true: We are different, but it’s all in the language.

    Over the last few years, I’ve had a lot of feelings for this weird cat who shares our home. I’ve felt anxiety, terror, hope, and relief. And I think my husband has experienced many of the same feelings, only he would classify them as thoughts, opinions, or gut reactions. Go ahead and try this at home—pick a topic, any topic, ask a guy what he feels about it, and then listen to the crickets. Wait a day or two, and ask him about his thoughts, opinions, or gut reactions on the same topic. Just make sure you’ve got a comfy place to sit. And if you want to calm him down you can always double-fill his food bowl.

    Writer, performer, and femme fatale Colleen Kruse can be reached at mscolleenkruse@yahoo.com.

  • Formula for the Future

    Like the ice sheets of Greenland, the American newspaper industry appears to be collapsing faster than the worst pessimists thought possible. Recently the Wall Street Journal ran a story in which Avista Capital Partners, the investment firm that has owned the Star Tribune since early March, conceded that its half-billion-dollar Minnesota toy is producing cash flow twenty percent below promised projections. And those projections were made less than a year ago.

    Large chunks of the newspaper industry are calving off and doing a fast melt into the ocean of the internet. As profoundly bad as this is for newspapers (and other forms of the so-called traditional media), there is a growing belief that opportunities are being created for those who correctly guess what comes next.

    Here in the Twin Cities there is a lot of just-below-the-surface chatter about the dawn of a comprehensive online newspaper. Most of it is idle and wishful. But the combination of high demand for reliable information, a deep pool of brand-name writing talent, and much lower production costs for a concept that would not involve millions of tons of newsprint, fleets of trucks, and vast expanses of office real estate has serious people thinking seriously that the time is right to offer an alternative to the pale shadow of print.

    Assuming that these serious people have the necessary millions, the big question is “Which combination of the best attributes of modern news-gathering will best jump-start a revolution in hybrid media, blending newspapers, magazines, and video?” Since no one knows for sure what online readers will respond to best, there are a thousand half-baked theories diagramming the ideal new, all-electronic major metropolitan news service.

    That said, here’s my list, more half-baked than most, of the must-have components:

    A: Investigative reporting and analysis in the realms of business, government, and education—or wherever the story lies. Few types of journalism generate more impact than investigative reporting, and nearly every second-, third-, and fourth-tier newspaper has given up on it. It isn’t cost-effective, they reason. It requires too much staff time. Time is money.

    But if you want to be a serious player, a bona fide force in your market, you have to risk that a team of two, maybe three, skilled investigative reporters will provide the gravitas and impact required to establish an online “brand.” Moreover, a handful of deeply sourced writers could, with their left hand, provide a steady stream of analysis based on stories reported superficially by television news and/or the remaining newspapers.

    Simultaneously, it would be wise to develop a video component for these stories in order to expand their impact and inflict damage on the broadcast competition. But don’t be TV: Don’t select stories based on what plays well on camera.

    B: Politics. As with investigative reporting, establish a solid base by covering the adult world of money and influence. Hire a handful of reporters—six wouldn’t be too many—to cover the legislature in session and to dog key government officials year round. One of the great benefits of online publishing is that these reporters would not be limited to fifteen inches of newsprint. Nor should they be yoked to treadworn conventions requiring that they choke back what experience and background tell them is really going down. If you can’t stomach blending reporting and analysis, separate them and run them side by side, or a click away. But remember that all readers are confronted with bewildering waves of spin. More than just who said what, they’re asking what in hell does all this mean? They will click in because they want the sharp-eyed, skeptical, fair-minded analysis provided by your reporters.

    Again, there should be a video component, pieces featuring the reporter as story-teller. Don’t worry if the segments aren’t slick out of the box: In focus with decent sound will suffice.

    C: Local. Cultivate or cut a deal with “citizen journalists” to file suburban and neighborhood reports.

    D: Arts. Sports are over-covered as it is, and that band will still be playing as the S.S. Newspaper bounces off the iceberg and sinks beneath the waves. For mass appeal “toy department” coverage, go instead with the arts: heavy on local theater, music, dance, museum shows, fashion, film, and even television. Again, because you can, do something more sophisticated than cheerleading. Let critics write thoroughly and skeptically. Double-ditto all the obvious video connections.

    E: Oh yeah, and media. This all-important topic probably should be one rung above investigative. Just don’t let it slide to “Z.”

    Read Brian Lambert’s blog, at www.rakemag.com/media; email lambert@rakemag.com

  • Holiday in Cambodia

    When I was at home, I was in a better place.
    —Shakespeare, As You Like It

    “I’m somewhere in a godforsaken rainforest on the north coast of West Papua, Indonesia, and I’m ready to get the hell out of here.” So begins Michael Behar’s “The Selling of the Last Savage,” which originally appeared in Outside magazine and eventually turned up in the 2006 volume of the annual Best American Travel Writing series. You’ll notice Behar’s use of the first-person point of view, the clear suggestion of a masochistic impulse, and the use of the present tense. These characteristics are all now pretty much standard features of a certain subgenre of travel narrative.

    Travel writing is a curious, and increasingly risky, business. Not that long ago (2004, actually), Pico Iyer, one of its most successful and respected practitioners, observed that “American travel is about looking for the light.” It’s frankly hard to know what to make of such an odd statement, given much of what has been packaged as travel literature in the early years of the twenty-first century.

    Reading through a batch of The Best American Travel Writing anthologies—six of them over a period of a couple months—was a disorienting experience, to say the least. Alongside breezy accounts of what might properly be characterized as larks or rambles (riding the bus in New York City, a road trip along Route 66, pigging out in Iceland, spending the night in Central Park) are perilous and disheartening dispatches that go well beyond the merely exotic to the truly terrifying. There was a below-deck report of a doomed boat packed with Haitian refugees; a story of slaughter in Uganda; an account of the horrific ecological disaster at Karakalpakistan (“a place of almost unimaginable misfortune”); not to mention numerous tales involving murder and child abduction and war. You can’t help but notice that the sense of discovery that was once such a staple of travel writing has given way to what Jamaica Kincaid, in her introduction to the 2005 edition, gently called a “sense of displacement.”

    Paul Theroux, in his own introduction to the BATW 2001, goes to some lengths to mark the changes that have taken place in travel writing in a world that exists in a now-permanent state of limbo between post- and pre-catastrophe. The response of a new generation of intrepid travel writers has been to wade into the teeth of such catastrophes, to report on what they see in such places that have been changed (for the worse) beyond recognition.

    “It is not hyperbole to say there are no Edens anymore,” Theroux writes. “We live on a violated planet. Travelers are witnesses to change and decay, and when they write we are entertained and sometimes enlightened. But the mode of expression, like the world, has changed.” To write about that changed world, Theroux contends, requires “a different sensibility and different expectations.”

    He goes on to explain the myriad ways that travel writing has changed since the days when writers went abroad or rambled far afield in search of indolence, civilization, the remnants of fading cultures, or a relatively benign sort of exotic adventure—which was virtually always seen through the wide and incredulous eyes of Westerners on holiday. Travel writing today, Theroux says, “is not about vacations or holidays, not an adjunct to the public relations industry.” Nor is it, he contends, “necessarily tasteful, perhaps not even factual, and seldom about pleasure.” This relatively new breed of travel writers, and this disturbing and increasingly prevalent strain of travel narrative, is a product of a “postmodern view of travel as adversity,” and its proponents most often drag themselves to the ends of the earth in search of “hellish places” and “a rewarding misery.”

    Keath Fraser, in his introduction to an anthology of travel writing called Bad Trips, spells out this new paradigm thusly: “Without fear, travel has no meaning.” Adds Jason Wilson, the series editor of BATW, “We are all tourists now, and there is no escape.”

  • Word Factory

    [Aquarium bubbling] … [chairs squeaking] … [computer keys clicking] … These sounds are indications of productivity at CaptionMax, Inc., the Midwest’s only closed-captioning company. 

    Long before CaptionMax moved into their capacious digs in Minneapolis’s Warehouse District, founder and president Max Duckler earned his first entrepreneurial dollar (in 1993), just months after installing captioning software onto a computer in his five-year-old son’s bedroom.

    Duckler is a soft-spoken but self-assured man who started out as a video editor in the 1980s. He read an article in an obscure periodical about closed-captioning and proposed the idea to his superior, who said Duckler could work on it independently if he wished. Closed-captioning became a requirement for new broadcast programs after congress mandated it in 1996, and demand for his services multiplied.

    “After a while I bought my own equipment, and within a few years CaptionMax was earning about five times the revenue that the editing place was,” Duckler recalled. “Never underestimate a small idea.”

    At CaptionMax headquarters, editor Jonathan Quijano, his curly hair jutting haphazardly around his headphones, stopped typing to stretch in his low-slung chair. “I prefer the laid-back approach,” he said with an off-kilter grin. Quijano’s computer screen was split into areas with a column of captions trailing down the left side, a video window on the bottom right, and a frame-by-frame view across the top. Although Quijano sported a yellow button-down over his slacks, the dress code around the office is casual. “I tell people what I do is something like postproduction,” he said, “and they always go, ‘Postproduction? Oh. Ooooh.’”

    Most of the twenty or so captioners at CaptionMax are, like Quijano, eclectic, youngish adults, with English or journalism degrees, who transcribe and edit closed-captions for various television networks. Programs range from televangelist broadcasts and classic westerns to experimental films and quilting shows. Employee Amanda Johansen, who sits behind Quijano, expounded on a Star Wars documentary she had just proofread. “It was such a weird show, especially the part where scientists were analyzing Darth Vader’s gastronomy. They were speculating on what his poop looked like. It was really bizarre.”

    CaptionMax workers adorn the facility with lighthearted odds and ends. In the kitchen, a plastic ostrich stood on the fridge. Next to the coffeepot, an illustrated CPR instructional poster from the 1990s showed two plastic-looking individuals giving mouth-to-mouth. A printout taped above the poster proclaimed, “Let David Hasselhoff And Leona Helmsley Show You How To Save Lives!” And as an unabashed tribute to the nerdiness of wordiness, Magnetic Poetry captions were scattered across the side of the fridge, arranged in such profundities as “tiny weak man spank sad monkey,” and “do not eat the girl jelly.”

    The CaptionMax team would argue that their casual approach doesn’t leak over into the captions. When it comes to business, word generation is painstakingly thorough. “The first thing people want to know about my job is if I’m one of those ‘live-typers’,” Quijano said, referring to what are called “real-time captioners.” Another coworker chimed in, “They want to know if we’re the ones who make all the mistakes on-screen.”

    The editors that work in-house actually are not real-time, but instead, offline captioners; they transcribe shows that have not yet aired. Consequently, they have time to formulate precise captions complete with character identifications and juiced-up sound-effect descriptions. A well-placed “[spooky foreboding music]” adds atmosphere to the cult ’80s drama series “The Equalizer.” A timely “[thud]” emphasizes one of Evander Holyfield’s classic knockouts.

    The captioners don’t always generate words quietly. Oftentimes they battle over them. Should it be “awhile” or “a while”? “Above ground” or “aboveground”? Should a comma follow the word “so”? Should “Frisbee” be capitalized?

    “We can definitely get into arguments about grammar,” Johansen confessed. A handful of designated proofers, including Johansen, advanced through the editorial ranks while building up a plethora of punctuation and style rules. They oversee final episode files and decide what rules to add to the CaptionMax “Manual of Bling.”

    Near the end of their shift, caption editors exchanged playful ribbing and grabbed mini Snickers bars from the candy bowl. One guy wheeled his bike into the elevator as noises of [drawers clicking shut] and [footsteps thumping] peppered the air. Eventually there would be [no audio] until the next morning at Minneapolis’s one and only word factory.

  • Magical Thinker

    Any good businessperson knows that if you want to cultivate a certain type of clientele, you meet with them on their own turf. Jodi Livon, a psychic medium who has counseled movers and shakers in the corporate world for the past twenty-five years, offices not in some shabby storefront, but at The Atria, a plush office building in Plymouth. She focuses her practice on powerful people, she says, because their actions are likely to affect many others. On this bright June afternoon, she trained her intuitive powers on me. Put together like an attorney in a smart Ann Taylor black dress, pearls, and stylish pumps, she asked me to state my full name and the address of my workplace, and to hand her a copy of this magazine. As she proceeded to describe in vague terms the kinds of dynamics and issues that could apply to many workplaces, I maintained a healthy journalistic skepticism. But then she delved into personal matters—intimate details about my children, former girlfriends, and my long-ago past—that she couldn’t have possibly ascertained through Google (or even, for that matter, through a really good private investigator). In the following interview, Livon’s first, the corporate psychic discusses life, death, and getting along with your boss.

    Why isn’t your name listed on the door?
    Many of my clients wouldn’t feel comfortable if others saw them walking through a door that said, “Jodi Livon, Intuitive Coach,” which is what I call myself.

    Why do you focus on corporate types?
    The office setting is where people in positions of power feel comfortable. I want to reach as many people as I can. Whether it’s two people or a thousand, when you run a business you are affecting many others; you are in a position to raise the energy vibration for everybody.

    So you want to touch large numbers of people through their bosses. Who are some of these powerful people you’ve worked with?
    I have more conservative white-collar clients than you would expect: a lot of well-known attorneys, judges, and physicians, people who work for Fortune 500 companies. Also many small-business owners—massage therapists, people who own hair salons.

    Do people ask you very specific money questions, such as what the stock market is going to do tomorrow?
    I would never tell them.

    Do you know?
    I don’t want to know. I don’t gamble; that’s not what this is for. That’s such an abuse. I would never give that information out.

    What are some of the challenges people bring to you?
    A big complaint is “I don’t like my boss. I don’t think he sees who I am, and what I have to offer.” They’re focusing on this and guess what happens: The boss doesn’t see them, and doesn’t recognize what they have to offer. I suggest that people focus on the positive things their bosses do, and then those things get bigger. I tell them to take the emotion out of it. It isn’t about who likes who. It’s about getting the job done.

    That sounds close to what one might hear from a job counselor or self-help book. But what do you do as a psychic to help people in their careers?
    I teach people to trust their gut, to use their intuition as they make decisions. One client was a physician. Everything about the tests he had performed on a pregnant patient seemed to point to a normal birth. But he told me he had this funny feeling that led him to the decision to perform a C-section. It turned out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the child’s neck so many times that with a vaginal birth that child might not have made it. Naturally, this doctor backed it up before going ahead with the surgery, but the course of action he chose began with an intuitive feeling.

    Are you familiar with The Secret, the best-seller that advocates using the power of thought to get what you want?
    I am, and I think there are some pieces dangerously missing from it. Intuition shouldn’t be about manifesting things; it’s about manifesting peacefulness.

    When did you first realize you had these intuitive abilities?
    When I was twelve I started to see that not everybody could sense other people’s energy the way that I did. I could feel energies of people who had crossed over—it just creeped me out.

    How did you experience that?
    I saw dead relatives in front of me.

    People you knew?
    Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I didn’t understand it. I would hear something one of these dead relatives said, and I would repeat it out loud, and my parents would freak out and say, “How did you know that?”

    Do you see dead people as ghosts or as human beings?
    It’s almost like a clear cutout, a mist. I can hear them, I can smell them, and I can feel them.

    Should we fear death?
    Not at all. It’s peaceful. In all the years I’ve been doing readings, I’ve never had anybody come over from the other side and say it’s horrible over there.

    Did you have other types of paranormal experiences as a child?
    I tried the Ouija board and it went completely crazy. People always wanted to do the Ouija board with me, but I stopped. It didn’t feel right because it was pulling from dark energy. Stay away from Ouija boards.

    Have you had any particularly scary experiences?
    I was in my first apartment—I was just eighteen —and all of a sudden I found myself on the ceiling and I saw someone else walking in my body below. I knew the energy in my body was male and was dead. After that I realized I needed to do some very serious work; I was too open and vulnerable.

    What did he do while he was in your body?
    He was enjoying being able to walk around. He seemed to be looking for some coffee or booze.

    You must have had liberal hippie parents, right?
    No [laughs]. I grew up in a very conservative family. In a very conservative neighborhood.

    What were you like as a teenager?
    I was sort of a freak at Golden Valley High. I was teased mercilessly because I had big, fat, frizzy hair, and I did my own thing.

    Do your children share your abilities?
    They are very psychic, which is really a handful to deal with. One is eight, one is seven, and one is four, and they talk about dead people. They say Mommy, I know people live again. And Mommy, when I knew you before…, and Mommy, when I come back….

    Do you ever have a client come in for a reading who ends up saying, “I think you’re full of shit”?
    Yeah, people have. They don’t do it so much anymore because I’ve become so comfortable with my abilities. I’ll just look at them like this [she gives a cold, steady glare] and they shut up.