The Rake Magazine

Month: August 2007

  • Frank with Relish

    The regional premiere of The Pillowman, a recent hit on Broadway, is shaping up as one of most highly anticipated productions of the Twin Cities fall theater season. A psychological thriller about a mystery writer whose stories uncannily resemble real-life horrors, the play—like so many other productions by Frank Theatre—takes place in a totalitarian state.

    Frank Theatre founder Wendy Knox is an unpretentious St. Cloud native who has spent nearly two decades producing work by some of the twentieth century’s more provocative playwrights. Frank has also been noted for creating theater in such rough-hewn venues as the abandoned Pillsbury A Mill. Perhaps it’s a measure of Pillowman’s popularity, but this time out the onstage action will unfold at the Guthrie’s sparkling Dowling Studio (September 20– October 14).

    You founded Frank Theatre almost twenty years ago now, in 1989. Is the name a reference to being frank, or upfront?
    A lot of people seem to think so. But, no. … I started the theater with Bernadette Sullivan, an actress. We had had way too much coffee, and I had seen a film that day … there were sixteen characters and they were all named Frank.

    How would you describe your company to someone who knows nothing about theater?
    Politically and artistically edgy.

    Does that explain your affinity for dark, political playwrights such as Brecht?
    Oh, I’m a big ol’ Brecht fan. And as I get older I try to use him a little more. I also love Caryl Churchill and Suzan-Lori Parks—love her! And no one else will touch Parks’s work. I’m interested in plays that tackle tough issues, and do it in a really smart way. I’m also interested in plays that have language you have to wrestle with.

    What does The Pillowman playwright Martin McDonagh have in common with these more established scribes?
    Again, he’s got great language, great storytelling … there’s this whole thing about rewriting and revising the story. Suzan-Lori Parks does that, too—the repeating and revising also leads to the idea of the power of the narrative, and how whoever tells the story shapes the experience.

    You must have seen The Pillowman in London or New York. What drew you in?
    The play itself was such a delight. You think you’ve figured it out and then something new happens; and so right up until the end there are these constant surprises. And, it’s also just raw; it’s black humor. I saw it at a matinée with a bunch of blue-hairs and I’m in the second row howling at all the wrong things in the play.

    But the plot involves the murders of children. Isn’t that going to be touchy?
    When I Googled the press on this play I just howled because it’s in keeping with Frank’s reputation. Most often with paired adjectives, [critics] say this is the most disturbing yet funniest play they’ve seen in a long time.

    So with regard to your own work: Why do some audience members say they feel like they’re getting yelled at during Frank performances?
    I don’t want to feel that we lecture or yell at people but also I don’t shy away from the fact that our work scratches around and raises questions … we do that while realizing fully that we’re preaching to the choir. Most people who come to Frank shows are going to be sympathetic. But even those in the choir like to go to church.

    Since your company is Frank, tell us what you think is wrong with the local theater scene.
    I’m not cynical about theater, but I think good theater is hard to find. My friends say I don’t like anything. But it’s not that; it’s just that I think there’s a greater potential. And it’s important to talk about what you don’t like in a play or a production and why you don’t like it. I think it’s important for the theater community to have that discussion because that’s how you get better.

    So is the Twin Cities theater community perhaps too supportive of each other?
    Yeah. You don’t get to talk with the reviewers back and forth, and also within the theater community.

    Do the Twin Cities deserve a reputation as a theater hotbed?
    Yes, I do think there’s a lot going on here, a lot at all levels. … Right now we’re at a really interesting moment: What is the impact of the Guthrie—and also all the big Broadway shows—going to be on the rest of the community? It seems like the mega stars here are getting more mega, whereas on the smaller end it’s always scrappy; you have to be scrappy to survive.

    In recent years, several mid-sized local companies have complained about shrinking audiences. Are you feeling that?
    There is a battle. There are so many theaters! I’m kind of a hag for saying that, but do we really need this many theaters? Twenty years ago in grad school Lee Breuer [founder of the New York avant-garde company Mabou Mines] came and talked to us and he was smoking his Camel straights and he said: “What ya gotta do is ya gotta find a theater that you sort of believe in. And you just hang around and hang around. And then you hang around some more. And you hang around, and pretty soon you’re working and making yourself indispensable so they’ve got to hire you.” That’s the sort of sane advice I pass along.

    But how sane? Obviously, few in town are getting rich by working in theater. How do you fare?
    I feel really lucky, as cynical as I am. I get to work with really good people. I have a house. I drive a twenty-year-old Volvo, but I get to do work that I really believe in, and that’s something that a lot of people—and a lot of artists—don’t have.

    Which local theater-makers excite you?
    It’s funny as you get older, you slow down. I used to go out a lot, but I still try to keep tabs on what is going on. I would hope I see thirty-five, forty shows a year. Michael Sommers [of Open Eye Figure Theatre], who is also a good friend of mine; we’ve been collaborators for twenty years. I also like seeing what’s going on with Bedlam, at Mixed Blood, Jeune Lune. Joel Sass, who’s designing Pillowman—he’s got a very distinct aesthetic and he’s really smart about theater. A lot of directors in town don’t have a distinctive mark, don’t have an aesthetic; they don’t have a point of view.

    Which recent productions stick out in your memory?
    I Am My Own Wife at the Jungle Theater [summer 2006]—loved that! I was so proud of Bradley [Greenwald, the solo performer], so proud of Joel [Sass, the director]. That was the year that I also saw Pillowman and Knock! After a long, dry period I was just tickled to see three shows within a couple of months that thrilled me.

    Do you have any guilty pleasures?
    Law & Order, I confess to you. My dad in the nursing home called the other night and I said: “Dad, I’m watching Law & Order!”

    Who’s the funniest performer in town?
    That’s tough. Jim Lichtscheidl and Luverne Seifert are both so goddammed funny. They’re really wrestling for the crown of comedy whore.

    The sexiest?
    Bradley Greenwald has done some very sexy things in his funny little goofy way. Luverne can be totally sexy onstage. He hasn’t done it for a while, but when he played Macbeth fifteen years ago, it was something; everyone thought he was totally hot. Oh, here! Michael Sommers in his fur pants for The Holiday Pageant

  • Destination

    At Miriam’s insistence, Estelle scheduled her flight so they could meet at the concourse and cab into the city together. She supposes that, given their mission, there’s a likelihood one of them might back out, and really, neither should be alone as they approach the business at hand, the crime.

    Estelle is the first passenger up the ramp, calf-sueded and cashmered with colorful dashes that complement the dyed trim of her coat. Up close Miriam sees the fur is real, and sighs. It’s not as if they haven’t had this conversation. Estelle is practically a spectacle next to Miriam in her wool car coat, tan slacks and tan cardigan—an ensemble that could be tossed into a dustbin, should there be any need to dispose of evidence. Similarly non-descript replacements are in her overnight bag.

    The sisters bump cheeks and quickly comment that the other is looking well. They turn down the vast concourse.

    For a dozen yards, Estelle watches her sister in the periphery. Miriam has faded some, Estelle thinks, is less like herself, more like a widow.

    Miriam can feel the deceptively soft gaze Estelle employs. She turns and they make real eye contact. “You hardly look the part, Estelle.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “I mean you hardly look like a killer.” It comes out much louder than intended.

    Estelle’s eyes swivel to the family of travelers just abreast—a couple with two beefy teens in varsity jackets with athletic patches on their sleeves that look like Oreos. She squeaks, “Well, neither do you, Miriam.”

    As the family moves ahead, Estelle sees the patches are embroidered hockey pucks, and though they pass quickly out of earshot, she attempts small talk, pointing out the many shops and kiosks along the concourse. “Airports were never like this back when Roger and I were traveling. They’re like malls now, aren’t they?”

    To Miriam, the airport seems identical to the one in Boston—the same Starbucks and Cinnabons situated on the same corners, so that she must concentrate to place herself in Minneapolis. As they walk, she fidgets with the bangles that had set off the metal detector at Logan and wrecked her nerves for the morning. She hesitantly tells Estelle about her run-in with security, “Do you think getting rid of these might be more prudent than risking more trouble on my return flight?”

    Estelle picks up her sister’s wrist then drops it. “I’d toss them.”

    Miriam sniffs. “You would.”

    “You asked.”

    The silver bangles are souvenirs from a trip to Mexico with Dennis, but Estelle wouldn’t know that. Rearranging them, Miriam notices a new liver spot on her wrist and frowns—they are definitely multiplying in spite of the expensive cream she’d ordered from an infomercial. The guaranteed two-week trial period has already passed twice. Suddenly ashamed for her brief flight of vanity, she shoves her hands in her pockets, deciding to keep the bangles and throw away the cream.

    Estelle trawls for conversation, “Is that coat new?”

    “No.” Miriam stops. “There’s nothing about me that’s new.”

    “Well, you look fine, Miriam. Very nice.” The hairstyle could easily be fixed. “By the way, did you get my birthday present?”

    “I did. Thank you very much.”

    “Did you get the joke? The amount, I mean … a hundred for every year?”

    “Of course I got it, it’s a lot of money, Estelle.”

    Estelle crooks her arm through Miriam’s, “Well, my kid sister only turns seventy once!”

    “I’m seventy-two. Since you started fudging your own age, you can’t keep anyone else’s straight.”

    “Sheesh. Remind me to send you another two hundred, then.”

    Miriam closes her eyes and shakes her head as Estelle starts humming her self-conscious hum. Kid sister. Miriam looks up at Estelle, whose skin is taut with procedures and peels, any worry lines buffed away. If Estelle worries at all it would be over the sorts of things other people only dream of worrying about. With her young face and lolli- pop voice, Estelle makes an unlikely elder to her and Penny, their in-between sister, the one they’ve come to Minnesota to see.

    They will visit Penny. If it’s as bad as all that, if she’s doing that poorly, they will say their goodbyes. If things seemed stalled, and Penny really needs their help, Estelle and Miriam will fulfill the pillow pact and kill their sister.

    Miriam whispers, “Maybe.”

    “Pardon, Mir?”

    “Nothing.” Penny could live for weeks yet. Months. Her sons seem to think so, anyway.

    They move on, scanning open storefronts, making full stops to look at cleverly displayed bags of wild rice, plush loons, and novelty snacks. Estelle examines such items as if they are essentials, choosing packages of Gummy Mosquitoes and Viking bobbleheads for her grandsons, a flickering blue night-light shaped like a bug-zapper, and a pair of trout-shaped oven mitts for Francesca.
    A shop in the far periphery catches Miriam’s eye. “What time is it?”

    Coming from opposite coasts, each is hours removed from the other’s time zone. Estelle pulls back a fur cuff to reveal her Omega. “Only 10:15!”

    Miriam is out of the novelty store and charging toward another shop—one that sells sleep- number beds. She’s never seen such a store in an airport—in the window a mattress is sliced in half to show its innards slowly expanding and contracting, as if breathing. She watches for a few huffs and heads inside to another display, a fully made bed roped off against children or anyone else naturally inclined to lie down when tired. Miriam steps around the velvet swag to sit on the duvet. A lamp glows pinkly on a nightstand—she might be in someone’s bedroom.

    Estelle appears with her packages and her shoulders slump, “Oh no. Miriam, really.”

    “What? I need a bed.” She lifts the price tag and makes a tiny noise. “And I have all that birthday loot burning a hole in my pocket.” As she lowers down onto the pillows, a groan escapes her. Not bad. Squeezing her lids to feign sleep, she can hear Estelle breathing. Soon enough, pacing commences next to the bed. Miriam is just beginning to drift along to the rhythm when the footfalls stop. She opens one eye to Estelle staring down at her, very near. With a twinge Miriam realizes she is in the same position poor Penny will be in an hour or so: prone, trapped, and at the mercy of sisters, those who love but are under no obligation to like.

    “I’m so tired, Estelle. I had a two-hour drive to Boston and two flights.” She pauses before adding, “Both in coach.”

    When Estelle sits on the edge, Miriam shifts over, believing her sister might kiss her forehead. But she only clucks, “You should have said something, Goose, I would’ve upgraded you.”

    Miriam rises to her elbows, suddenly fighting tears. “I really did not sleep a wink.”

    “Of course you didn’t. I only got six hours myself.”

    “I might not have the energy for this, you know.”

    “Miriam, but you said …”

    She knew what she said. That she possessed the required detachment to do the Kevorkian thing, if it came to that.

  • Of Busybodies and Taste Buds

    Fogo de Chão [“Meat and Greet,” July] is a frenetic experience, loud, fast, and exciting. It’s not for anyone looking for a quiet evening’s dining experience. I’m surprised Jeremy [Iggers] did not mention the hectic pace.

    Stu Borken, St. Louis Park

  • Correction

    On page 32 of our August issue, we featured a 1995 photo of the Minneapolis band Suicide Commandos, but failed to credit photographer Dan Corrigan. We regret the oversight.

  • A Diagnosis of Misdiagnosis

    I was saddened to read Ms. Bauer’s article, and am somewhat relieved that in this instance most of the effects of misdiagnoses and poor management appear to be temporary. I am one of the psychiatrists who was featured in Gardiner Harris’s New York Times article [“After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay,” New York Times, June 3, 2007] referenced by Ms. Bauer.

    As I review her story, the major problems that I see in her son’s care are the failure to attribute his changing “symptoms” to the antidepressant, and the subsequent misdiagnosis of the changes as a spontaneous psychosis, hence the addition of the neuroleptics (antipsychotics). I doubt that pharmaceutical company influence led to the antidepressant prescription or to the addition of an antipsychotic when the clinical picture changed. I do feel that failure to see a pattern of side effects was a major problem.

    Much of the money paid by pharmaceutical companies to physicians is for pharmaceutical-sponsored educational programs. Much of this is about illness recognition and how to make a correct diagnosis, and is often “unbranded” (in many talks specific medication brands are not mentioned). Paradoxically, pharmaceutical company-sponsored education for health care professionals hopefully will decrease the frequency of similar disasters happening to other patients by increasing MDs knowledge about diagnosis, appropriate treatment, and recognition of side effects.

    In this instance, the problem is knowledge, not influence. Mayo Clinic doctors did a fantastic job in this situation, but many MDs who avoid drug company contact end up ten years behind in education about when to use—or avoid—treatments.

    John E. Simon, MD, Minneapolis

  • The Forgotten Ones

    I just read your August issue about the autistic teenager and the “violent, unpredictable man” that those pills turned him into [“Crazy”]. I am not writing to make any kind of stand on medicating autistic or ADHD kids. To be honest, I’m not really a fan of pills for kids (other then those that are seriously, medically needed). But sometimes they are needed, and often they are helpful.

    I want to say that most of the stories I read and the things that I see on TV are about high-functioning autistic children. Sometimes I feel that children like my son just disappear. Maybe they don’t look good on film? I know that trying to interview him would drive a journalist insane. He’s ten, but he has only one word and he only uses it when he’s with me. That word is mamamama. I think it’s a word. (I understood when he was maybe five that he’d probably never be able to tell me that he loved me. I’ll take that mamamama, even when it comes with a bite or a pinch.)

    All the focus on the kids at the high end of the autistic spectrum makes me wonder if there are no other kids like my angel. (But I know that’s not the case.)

    You did a story about a higher-level functioning autistic child. Please, can you do one about a child like mine—a ten-year-old with a two-year-old’s mind? One out of every 150 children is now being diagnosed with some level of autism. This is becoming a huge thing. At least some of those children will be like mine. And when their parents die, who’s going to be taking care of them?

    Karen Johnson, St. Paul

  • Plays on Location

    “Edifice complex.” That’s the diagnosis playwright Edward Albee gave to American arts organizations—more specifically, it seemed, to nonprofit regional theaters—when he spoke at the Westminster Town Hall forum in 2005. Though the pun drew laughs, Albee followed with a hard, damning statistic. “Ninety-five percent of the money we give as a country does not go to creative artists; it goes into buildings and organizations,” he pointed out. “But great music, great art, great theater can be performed on the streets. It does not need a fancy theater to occur.”

    At the time of Albee’s talk, lovely new facilities for a number of local arts organizations were in the works, with designs by pedigreed architects (Guthrie Theater, Walker Art Center, MacPhail Center for the Arts), or plans to rehabilitate historic quarters (Ritz Theater Foundation, Minnesota Shubert Performing Arts & Education Center). Other historic theaters renovated in earlier years include a “building preservation fee” in the price of most tickets (Southern Theater, Theatre de la Jeune Lune).

    For many theater artists (or almost anyone lacking a development staff, really), the costs of renting one of these facilities are prohibitive. One way around that, though, is to get creative about where and how to stage work—to find a site that’s not devoted exclusively to performance. The origins of site-specific theater are often traced to the now-disbanded New York troupe En Garde Arts. For a time during the mid-’80s and through the ’90s, this company was staging work in such unconventional settings as the Chelsea Hotel and a pier on the Hudson River. Other companies followed suit, expanding on the Shakespeare-in-the-park tradition and looking to public spaces, cultural landmarks, and art galleries as performance venues—places that are far less expensive than theaters, and sometimes free.

    An upcoming site-specific production is Cityceased, a theatrical walking tour of South Minneapolis’s Lakewood Cemetery that opens September 1. Four actors and a musician will enact an ethereal piece of fiction that considers the histories of both the cemetery and the people buried there (which includes many notable figures, although this play won’t call attention to any particular graves). It’s a novel idea, but Kristopher Lencowski, the show’s director, acknowledges that economics had much to do with spawning his unusual show. “I’ll be totally honest—the cemetery isn’t charging us anything,” said Lencowski, an approachable twenty-seven-year-old with wide, fiery blue eyes. “I’m a young director, and it’s expensive to get a theater. As a point of comparison, my friend rented the Ritz [the rehabbed theater that reopened in Northeast Minneapolis last year] and it cost her $3,500 for one weekend. I’m running four weekends and it cost me nothing.”

    At the same time, from the perspective of Lakewood Cemetery, Cityceased might add up to something of a public relations opportunity. Not only is it good form to support the arts, but hosting this show could also serve to demystify the cemetery for the public, and even enhance appreciation for its acreage. In fact, the press release for Cityceased includes an enthusiastic quote from Lakewood’s president, Ron Gjerde, Jr.: “It is our hope that these performances encourage thinking and conversations about the significance of remembering those we’ve lost. We think the beauty and peacefulness of Lakewood will provide the perfect backdrop for such a conversation.”

     

  • Famous, but not a Grouse

    A colleague likes to talk about the Ivy League football games he went to as a graduate student at Harvard. Apparently they did not sing the Tom Lehrer Harvard fight song (“Wouldn’t it be peachy if we won the game …”); in fact, the crowd’s invective sounds as though it was scarcely more subtle than that practiced by supporters of Personchester United (as we must learn to call the English-speaking world’s best-known soccer club). The Harvard crowd, it seems, hit a nadir as it chanted at opponents “You may be winning but you still go to Brown,” with substantial emphasis on the final syllable.

    These thoughts often stream through what passes for my mind as I spend time in an England governed no longer by the gleaming grin of Tony Blair but by the altogether grimmer visage of Gordon Brown. One could say that the new British prime minister is the gray man of British politics, except that there has already been a Grey administration—the one headed by the Earl Grey, who gave us the 1832 Reform Act and that filthy tea adulterated with oil of bergamot, the English ancestor of Constant Comment.

    True, Mr. Brown has gingered things up by allowing eight ministerial colleagues to announce that they smoked cannabis in their youth, and also by appointing as a minister in the Foreign Office a former United Nations eminence who has dared to tell the United States that might may not always be right.

    Not the least gray feature of Mr. Brown is the granite town in the east of Scotland where he grew up. I once spent a whole morning behind a stall in Kirkcaldy marketplace (it’s a long story) and had ample opportunity to study the leaden clouds that lurched across the dreich wastes of the Firth of Forth before they unburdened themselves onto to the streaky concrete and dour stone of this dull burgh. The most famous son of Kirkcaldy is Adam Smith, promoter of the dismal science of economics and author of that famous page-turner The Wealth of Nations, which he actually wrote while living at home with his mother. (One wonders how many bawbees a week he gave her towards the housekeeping.)

    Mr. Brown is an apt epigonus of the dismal Smith. He has the tidy mind of an economist and, having applied it during the Blair decade to the nation’s finances, he proposes now to redesign that elegant organism, the British Constitution (it does exist, you know, even if it is not written down).

    To redesign it, that is, in all but the one particular where it cries out for alteration. When the Blair Administration invented separate national legislatures for Scotland and Wales, it allowed Scots Members of the United Kingdom Parliament to retain the right to vote not only on matters that affect the whole of Britain but also on those that affect only England. An English member now may not vote on the future of foxhunting in Scotland—pas de problème—but a Scots member may still vote on whether it continues in England.

    Many English people find this arrangement as quaint as some residents of the District of Columbia find their representation in the U.S. Congress. Mr. Brown thinks it is just fine, and for a very simple reason. The Labour Party, which he leads, has lots of support in Scotland: forty-five seats in the United Kingdom Parliament. His main rivals, the Conservative Party, have very little: only one seat. Does Mr. Brown admit that what worries him is losing all those Labour seats in the United Kingdom Parliament? Of course not; he blathers about sustaining the Union. There are plenty of Englishmen who would be happy to vote for complete independence for Scotland in hopes of resolving this anomaly.

    And to show there were no hard feelings, I am sure they would join me in drinking Mr. Brown’s health in a glass of The Famous Grouse. It’s the most popular whiskey in Scotland, available in Minnesota for around twenty dollars a liter. This whiskey is deeper and darker than most of the sweet, pale blends popular in the United States. But for all its firm flavor, the spirit rises through the eyes; there is taste but there is also tingle. It could lift the spirits of folk who dwell below gray skies. Though I suppose it is brown.

  • Red Knife, Green Knife

    Nearly every morning but for Shabbos (Saturday, the Sabbath) and religious holidays, Rabbi Avrum Kaufmann walks from his home in St. Louis Park to the Byerly’s store half a mile away, where he serves as mashgiach: supervisor of the kosher deli’s adherence to kashrut laws.

    The deli cannot open until Kaufmann or one of his delegates arrives, and it must close for business if he leaves for even a moment. According to Jewish law, no deliveries, food preparation, or sales may be conducted without a mashgiach on hand to ensure that everything is handled correctly. Kaufmann also oversees Byerly’s kosher bakery, and what is likely the only certified kosher sushi bar in the Upper Midwest.

    “Many people are under the misconception that kosher means a food was blessed by a rabbi,” Kaufmann says. “But that’s not true. We do say a blessing when we slaughter an animal because it’s part of Jewish law, but that isn’t what makes the meat kosher. Kosher is a matter of fact; something either is kosher or it isn’t.”

    Fact, yes. But as with many of the laws that appear in the Torah—the first five books of the Bible, which Orthodox Jews hold to be the unmediated word of God—determining these facts is a complicated matter. Kosher law includes the following tenets:

    • Meat must come from animals that ruminate (chew a cud) and have cloven hooves.

    • Fish must have fins and scales; all shellfish is considered trafe, or unfit.

    • Meat and dairy may never be eaten at the same time, as the Talmud prohibits “boiling a calf in his mother’s milk.”

    • Utensils and dishes that come into contact with meat must never come into contact with dairy, and vice versa.

    • Insects, birds of prey, and the hindquarters of animals may not be eaten.

    Rabbi Kaufmann, who has worked as an elementary school teacher, an electronics retailer, and a pulpit rabbi, interprets these laws for Byerly’s. He also checks the heckscher (or kosher seal) of prepared foods coming into the store; answers customers’ questions; and makes decisions when situations call for a mashgiach’s judgment.

    For example, how to treat pareve (“neutral”) utensils—that is, utensils that have touched neither milk nor meat: “What would happen if, by accident, we were making a spaghetti dish and instead of stirring it with the pareve spoon, we stir with a meat spoon? Would that invalidate the dish? Would it invalidate the spoon?” he asks. “This varies by factors: Was there meat present and how long did the spoon sit in the dish? We might rinse and sanitize the spoon, boil it, or blowtorch it. These are the sorts of decisions I have to make.”

    Like all mashgiach, Kaufmann obeys the laws of kashrut and does mitzvoth, meaning he keeps all 613 commandments that appear in the Torah. But he works alongside Steve Deutsch, the deli and kosher meat manager at Byerly’s who is a goy (non-Jew) from Ellsworth.

    Deutsch grew up in the business, starting as a laborer at his hometown meat locker at the age of fourteen. After attending Mankato State, he moved to the Twin Cities and began working for Byerly’s in Edina. Nearly three years ago, the company asked Deutsch if he would head up an unprecedented project: developing an all-kosher deli in St. Louis Park.

    “I thought this would be an exciting opportunity to test my mettle,” he says. “The first thing I did was go out and for a week, I kept kosher. I wanted to see what I was up against.” He laughs, looking like a grown-up Opie Taylor. “What I found out is that I eat a lot of cheeseburgers.”

    Deutsch read up on kosher law and spent ten months designing a kitchen that would meet its standards. Ultimately he decided to offer no dairy whatsoever; the deli offers meat, fish, and pareve items. And he came up with a color-coding system for all kitchen utensils and surfaces: red for meat, white for pareve, and green for fish.

    “Color coding bridges language barriers, and it becomes automatic,” he explains. “So much so that I’ll be at home, going to cut one of my kid’s sandwiches and I’ll look in the drawer for a red-handled knife.”

    Though he does not observe kashrut himself, Deutsch is firm about the deli’s obligation to its clientele, whom he calls the most gracious he’s ever known: “We never compromise when it comes to the standards. We always err on the highest side.”

    This month marks the two-year anniversary of the kosher deli at Byerly’s, which serves approximately three thousand customers a week from places as far away as Kansas City, Detroit, and Fargo. Locally, the majority are Orthodox Jews, but the deli also serves Muslim customers who follow halal guidelines (“permissible foods,” according to the Koran, which overlap with many kosher foods) and a growing number of shoppers more concerned with avoiding dairy than with following religious laws.

    “This place is important to a lot of people,” Deutsch says. “I had a mother come in with her six-month-old baby who was severely lactose intolerant and just moving from soy formula to solid food. When I showed her the sign that means pareve and told her that’s all she had to look for, she cried, she was so relieved.”

    It is, perhaps, this mix of customers and needs that helps bring together the two men—butcher and rabbi—and encourages them to pool their knowledge.

    “When we opened, Steve and I made a deal,” Kaufmann says. “In nine months I would be a butcher and he would know how to speak Yiddish.” He butts Deutsch’s arm and grins, looking, despite his wiry hair-netted beard, like a naughty little boy. “OK, so that didn’t happen. Eventually, we’ll get there.”

  • Cool Hand Lynch

    Inside a booth at the recent Back to the ’50s classic car show at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, Sven Lynch labored in the sweltering heat over a slim stripe on the side of a black ’36 Ford coupe. Various gawkers had gathered, including a pair of corpulent, bearded twins clad in matching Twins shirts, a pock-marked kid wearing religious slogans, and a parade of purists dismayed that Lynch would dare to gild the lily of a classic auto. Lynch steadied one hand with the other, drawing a flawless canary-yellow line. His panache, not surprisingly, prompted one spectator to inquire about a custom job. “Sorry,” Lynch told the man without glancing up from his work. “By then I’ll be back in Stockholm.”

    The Twin Cities boasts not a few pinstripers, but none are as highly regarded as Mr. Lynch—or “Von Sven” as he’s known when behind the brush—who has become the reigning pinstripe king of Sweden. Unlike most of today’s custom painters, Von Sven, a Twin Cities native, is decidedly old-school. He eschews stencils, choosing instead to eyeball a particular hot rod before creating a complex and utterly wicked design on the fly. Each of his pinstripes is unique.

    Lynch looks very much like he stumbled out of a ’50s B-movie. He sports a haircut he describes as a “flat-top with fenders,” baggy jeans rolled up at the cuffs, and a black T-shirt that begs to have a pack of cigarettes tucked in the sleeve. The stepson of McKnight Fellow and acclaimed local painter Mike Lynch, Sven has always been drawn to painting, though he was discouraged at a young age from entering the competitive world of gallery artists. “So I got into lowrider bikes,” he said with a shrug. Exploring this second love, Lynch spent time between the old Missing Link bike shop and the Grease Pit, fixing lowriders, customizing banana seats with found upholstery, and creating mutant bikes with fellow members of the outlaw Black Label Bike Club.

    Then one day in 1995, Lynch was sipping coffee at Bob’s Java Hut in Minneapolis when he noticed a pattern of elaborate pinstriping on the café walls. Instantly, he was hooked. “I was lucky—a friend gave me some brushes, and other people let me practice on their bicycles,” he said. Over the years, he perfected his technique, and by 2003 he had found work at Classic Limo, a renter and restorer of custom automobiles. His first paying job involved applying a hard stripe to a Rolls-Royce. “God, that was nerve-racking,” he admitted. “I thought I was working on one of their restoration jobs, something that cost an individual tons of money. But it turns out it was just one of their rentals, so I could make mistakes.”

    It was obvious that Sven was a genius at pinstriping. He sized up each car like a sculptor inspecting a piece of granite, eyeing its shape and structure, moving with almost excruciating patience. He is taciturn, to say the least, and talking with him requires a tilted head to catch every quiet phrase. Yet Sven’s art spoke volumes and word spread throughout the classic car community, placing his skills in high demand. He took a job at Yesterday’s Auto in Minneapolis, which brought him an even more exacting clientele.

    Despite his celebrity, work in the Twin Cities didn’t earn him enough money to live on. So, like many artists before him, he set out for Europe, where less typical lifestyles are sometimes easier to sustain. At the urging of a friend in 2004 he hopped a plane to Sweden, where the citizenry has a legendary appetite for classic American cars. The Power Big Meet, which claims to be the world’s largest antique car show, is held in Västerås, a suburb of Stockholm.

    Sweden wasn’t entirely foreign to Sven, whose biological father owns an apartment there, and whose brother runs a vegetarian restaurant in the city. And Stockholm welcomed him with open arms. Lynch found an artistic home at a “rockabilly mall” called Sivletto, the ad for which features Marlon Brando in leather, leaning against his bike in The Wild One. To get there, patrons must trek to a side street and descend a flight of rickety spiral stairs. Then they enter a warehouse full of old cars, motorcycles, lowrider bicycles, Brando-esque clothing (for the guy, gal, or child), haircuts and pomade, and, of course, malts and Cokes.

    According to Sven, the customers are mostly rural Swedes, called raggare, and are typically more blue-collar and a bit more conservative than their countrymen. Perhaps that accounts for their American car lust. Some of the biggest draws for the raggare are the classes that Sven teaches out of his paint shop, which is called Von Sven Kustom DeLuxe. Students learn the time-consuming techniques of striping and lettering, and many of them return to their rural homes to complete their own work.

    As it stands, Sven is happy in Sweden. “Yeah, the winters are long—it gets dark around three in the afternoon, and the summer light’s pretty much on all day.” He returns to the states each June to “maintain connections,” working at the car shows and Yesterday’s Auto, before returning to Stockholm. At the Back to the ’50s booth, Lynch used the butt of his brush to apply a dot of yellow—the crowning touch to the ’36 Ford. The car’s owner beamed at Lynch and whistled. “Perfect,” the man sighed.