The Rake Magazine

Month: June 2007

  • Tiny Totes

    Chiropractors were the first to sound the alarm. Now, some women have answered by tossing aside their gargantuan handbags in favor of miniature versions. Clutches seem to be the most popular of these pint-sized purses; after all, they represent the natural progression from big to small, as their shapeless, hobo-esque forms echo that of the steadfastly popular duffel. Itsy-bitsy alpaca bags and billfolds with hand-stitched embroidery and beadwork are also popular around these parts, as are molded leather “box” bags and pocketbooks attached to shoulder straps.

    While this new smattering of small bags will do much to appease the spinal specialists, a further development in fashion forecasting takes this load-lightening trend in a whole new direction. Not so long ago, any self-respecting woman would have recoiled from the thought of wearing something outré as the posture-friendly fanny pack. This summer, however, the area’s forward-looking boutiques are stocking up on the belted pouches in anticipation of a fall comeback. Rest assured: These will not be fanny packs of the Velcro, nylon, and neon varieties. Rather, the season’s most fetching models sport muted tones and come replete with heavy-metal adornments like oversized buckles and coin-purse clasps, just like their monster-bag counterparts.

    Read Christy DeSmith’s fashion blog, Hook & Eye.

  • Tranquility in a Tee

    This summer, those trapped in the concrete jungle seek relief by wearing nature on their T-shirts. Hot styles include a silhouetted flock of birds hovering over an oak tree, and baroque, often airbrushed, images of dense forests and meadow grasses. As one who rode the crest of this trend, how does botanist-cum-T-shirt designer Sarah Nassif react? “I was really bummed at first,” said the thirty-four-year-old, who, three years ago, turned her passions for plants and apparel into a business called Rectangle Designs. “But,” she added, “images of plants have always figured into textile design, which I think is an interesting almanac of what’s going on.”

    Nassif, whose goods are found in boutiques nationwide (including the Design Collective in Uptown and Truly… in White Bear Lake), points out that she is “focused on reproducing actual images from nature—not sketching.” That’s why she carries a digital camera, whether she’s hiking along the West River Parkway in her Minneapolis neighborhood or traipsing about her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Her favorite subjects include ginkgo trees (“They’re sort of ancient, like a living fossil”) and Queen Anne’s lace. She converts her digital images into monotones, then manually screen-prints them onto canvas clutches, soft cotton tees, and, recently—in keeping with the current fashions—extra-long tanks. But Nassif’s love of nature doesn’t extend to a taste for humdrum hues like “oatmeal” and “buff.” Her latest collection pairs black with magenta and even buttercup yellow over lavender. “I think Mother Nature would approve of these not-seen-in-nature color combinations,” she said. —Christy DeSmith

  • To The Barricades

    As I was watching the mid-June press screening of Michael Moore’s new movie Sicko, I could almost hear the lips of the conservative bloggers and talk show hosts beginning to smack as the smell of fresh meat wafted over the media landscape. Moore, whose Bowling for Columbine won the Academy Award for best documentary, won’t disappoint. The basic premise of Sicko—that the American health care system is sick (in all senses of that adjective)—is not disputed by any serious observer.

    Unfortunately, Moore can’t resist taking his point to the furthest reaches of the political landscape: Cuba. In order to show up our government and our health care industry (is that redundant?) he ferries a troop of Americans, whose health has been ruined as much by our system as by their own misfortune, to Cuba, where they are given free examinations and extremely cheap medicines. The fact that a number of these people were sickened by working at the site of the World Trade Center attacks makes Moore’s point unmistakable—when our reviled Communist enemy Fidel Castro provides better health care than we do, we ought to reexamine how we’re doing things here.

    Moore, of course, never uses a needle when a cudgel will do. He frequently undermines his own arguments by not filling in the subtleties that might call his conclusions into question. In his exuberance, he provides unlimited fodder to his right wing critics and those in the pay of the medical industry. The attacks should start in earnest June 29, the day the movie is released.

    The main point I took away from Sicko though, was the conclusion Moore drew from France. Yes, that France, the one that many people believe belongs alongside Iraq and Cuba in the Axis of Evil. Moore pointed to the frequent mass demonstrations in France as having a real effect on the government; those manifestations of public outrage prevent the government from being too influenced by capitalist pressure to cut social benefits. As he put it, “In France, the government is afraid of the people. In America, the people are afraid of the government.”

    We have 47 million Americans without health insurance. We have the leading Democratic candidate for president, who once was the primary national advocate for universal health care, now taking massive contributions from health care companies and expressing more “moderate” views. We have enshrined in law that the government which represents the people is prohibited from negotiating bulk drug prices for the benefit of its citizens. We have story after story in the mainstream press about children dying as a result of losing their health insurance. We have two recent stories in the New York Times about doctors in Minnesota taking large payments from drug companies to promote non-indicated uses for their products. And we have the local CEO of a large medical provider who wasn’t satisfied with the billion dollars he’d made by cherry picking who would get coverage and who wouldn’t, and so manipulated the dating of his stock options so he could make even more.

    So, is it time to put away our “Freedom Fries” and try exercising some real freedom? Shall we take to the streets?

    Not so fast.

    Although my natural inclination is to recall my youth during the Vietnam war and dig out my STRIKE! T-shirt from the bottom of the attic trunk, it ain’t gonna work this time. When naïve people say that the country learned nothing from Vietnam (and that’s how we got into Iraq) they grossly underestimate how smart the guys who own the government are. They certainly have learned how to quell dissent.

    The situation regarding health care is only going to change when business realizes that it’s ultimately bad for business to have an unhealthy work force. When we have economic studies that show that the country is worse off because workers are afraid to change jobs because they’ll lose their health care, when economic studies show that American companies are less competitive because they have to bear the costs of health care for their workers, and when we have studies that show that communities which are the home to large employers who don’t provide health insurance are having to bear the costs of that lack of care by subsidizing local hospitals, we might have some change. Such studies do exist, but they have no chance against the massed strength of the drug and health care companies

    The health care problems of this country will only get better if the rest of the business community decides that it is in its own best interests to put gross anti-government ideology aside and throw its own economic muscle behind buying back the government. We hear all the time about how small business is the real backbone of this country. This might be our chance to find out if small business actually has one.

    Let the attacks commence.

  • Nancy Crampton

    Some people become authors because they are of the exact opposite temperament from a movie star. Putting on a clean shirt can, in itself, be a chore; putting on a pressed one is out of the question. Author photos, then, are the art of making these schlubs and misanthropes look believable, wise, and even a touch mysterious. Nancy Crampton, who for thirty-five years has shot the likes of Norman Mailer, Gabriel García Márquez, Ian McEwan, and Lorrie Moore for New York’s Unterberg Poetry Center, is particularly astute at portraying warmth and piquancy, without making authors look like someone other than themselves. She will discuss her book, Writers: Photographs, a collection of more than one hundred duotones, at the library, where her photos will be on display. RSVP required. 612-630-6155; www.friendsofmpl.org

  • Tim O’Reagan

    Shortly after Tim O’Reagan’s arrival from Kansas in ’88, it became clear that this Leatherwoods drummer was something special. While other members of the band were singing about eight-balls and dicks, O’Reagan shyly smiled over his drumsticks as he proclaimed himself a happy man in that upbeat Marvin-Gaye style of his. Quiet though he was, it was no surprise when O’Reagan continued on to fame with The Jayhawks as the Leatherwoods fizzled out. Almost two decades later—with a little more irony, a little Dylanesque grit, and an overlooked solo debut—O’Reagan retains his understated manner. He advances quietly, slips in through the back door in the true fashion of a drummer, and consistently delivers solid performances. And bam, one day you wake up and he’s a true pop star. 400 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-332-2903; www.400bar.com

  • Monty Python’s Spamalot

    Hands down, this retelling of the ’75 flick Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the Broadway hit of the decade. Its success owes to the Pythons’ pioneering formula—sketch comedy bits on flatulence, effeminate Frenchmen, and such—which, in turn, has attracted the loyal patronage of a most atypical theatergoer: the heterosexual white man aged thirty-five or thereabouts. But this production is an unapologetically slapstick, frisky, and therefore supremely escapist entertainment for all demographics. This touring production features an all-new cast of King Arthur and his knights in tights, as the original blockbuster is still going strong on Broadway. Nevertheless, the ersatz proves as popular as the first: Already Spamalot’s twenty-four St. Paul shows are nearly sold out. 651-224-4222; www.ordway.org

  • The Driveway Tour

    Master puppeteer Michael Sommers and his itinerant troupe are spending the summer gigging at local libraries and parks, as well as residential driveways, with two offerings: The Adventures of Katie Tomatie and Little Grandpa’s Big Adventure. They’re traveling light, with entire hand-painted sets and most of their characters—handmade puppets, that is—packed into single suitcases, but they don’t skimp on the best qualities of theater: spirited performances, delightful screwball characters, and live accordion music. Sommers’s sly, dark humor may fly under the radar with kids, but certainly sweetens the pot for older audience members. Best of all, this low-tech gypsy brand of theater becomes all the more magical when viewed under open summer skies. Check the Open Eye website for detailed listings. 612-823-5162; www.openeyetheatre.org

  • Momentum: New Dance Works

    A quartet of the state’s most compelling pieces of choreography come together in this sixth annual snapshot of the Minnesota dance community. An early standout this year is Our Perfectly Wonderful Lives, a riff on the allure of superstardom by one of our favorite physical-theater troupes, Off-Leash Area Contemporary Performance Works. Co-director Paul Herwig says the story involves “three characters happily skipping down the road to disaster with absolute willingness and smiles on their faces.” It uses Andy Warhol’s biography as a rough launching point, weaving together dance, theater, and even visual art—including a giant tinfoil recreation of Warhol’s Factory. Co-presented by the Walker Art Center and the Southern Theater. 612-340-0155; www.southerntheater.org

  • Bush Is Bad

    Regardless of all the reports about beleaguered Republican politicians, it’s liberals who’ve recently been found, by Pew Research Center pollsters, to be “less happy” than their compatriots at the other end of the political spectrum. This madcap musical was created in hopes of cheering them up. Joshua Rosenblum, a New York City-based composer/lyricist, channeled seven years of angst into this comic revue, whose cast lampoons the likes of Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Ann Coulter, and, of course, our hapless Commander in Chief. The raucous (not to mention vicious) libretto features such memorable lyrics as “Won’t somebody give this guy a blowjob so we can impeach him?” 2821 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis; 612-871-0050; www.bushisbadminneapolis.com

  • Chris Isaak with Alison Scott

    He looks like a cross between Buck Owens and Morrissey—which, come to think of it, is a fairly apt description of the Chris Isaak sound. Whether you were drawn in by that bare-chested babe who pranced about the video for his biggest hit to date, “Wicked Game,” or genuinely fell for the man’s ethereal, rockabilly, and surf-styled ballads, an Isaak concert is a virtual lock to be a smooth, stylish, and thoroughly date-friendly affair. In recent years he’s done some acting and cavorted with Hollywood’s most reliable nip-slipper, Bai Ling, but with the release of last year’s Best of Chris Isaak CD, the finest of quavering troubadours seems to be once again turning his attention to what he does best. 651-989-5151; www.suemclean.com