The Rake Magazine

Year: 2007

  • Explore the Unconventional

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Hit the Road, Jack

    kerouac816.gifThis week marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s medium-sized-but-still-somehow-epic novel On the Road, in which Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty zip back and forth across the country via various modes of transit, legal and not. Penguin is celebrating by releasing a special edition of the book, as well as a copy of the original scroll on which he typed the first draft of the manuscript during three weeks in April of 1951. (The scroll, made of eight long sheets of tracing paper that Kerouac later taped together, held the content as Kerouac wanted it published: unedited [he thought editing deprived a work of its spontaneity] and without a single paragraph break.) Additionally, a new biography of Kerouac by Douglas C. Brinkley, and a somewhat more philosophical contemplation on the meaning of by John Leland, will be released today. –by Max Ross

    ART & MUSIC
    Gallery Grooves

    image_sad copy.jpgJoin us for Gallery Grooves, The Rake’s monthly art, jazz, and wine event. Socialize and discuss the latest jazz with Kevin Barnes from KBEM Jazz 88. Enjoy free libations compliments of The Wine Company. Featured Jazz selections include the Puppini Sisters’ Betcha Bottom Dollar; various artists’ We All Love Ella; and the Monk’s Music Trio’s Monk on Mondays. The exhibit, SAD: Illuminating a Northern View of Darkness, addresses a sense of place focused not on land, but on the qualities of light and atmosphere, and the sense of time to which those elements relate. It features nine Twin Cities-based artists: Ana Lois-Borzi, Jan Estep, Theresa Handy, Chris Larson, Charles Lume, Molly Roth, Andrea Stanislav, Piotr Szyhalski, and Katherine Turczan.

    7 p.m., Frederick R. Weisman Museum, University of Minnesota, 333 East River Rd., Minneapolis; 612-625-9494.

    FILM
    Eloquent Nude

    05475401.jpgYou might be familiar with Charis Wilson. In fact, you’ve probably seen her naked. Her nude images hang in museums across the globe. Want to see some more… and in motion? Tonight’s documentary, Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston & Charis Wilson, recounts her story of love and work with photographer Edward Weston — the man behind the camera. Granted, she’s 90 now, but that just makes the nudity that much more interesting. OK, to be honest, I don’t know that she’ll be unveiling herself physically at this point, but she’s certainly denuding herself in a much deeper sense. The film, directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Ian McCluskey, is associate produced by Minnesota native Julie Gliniany who is now bringing the film back to her homestate for only a few limited screenings. Don’t miss it. McCluskey will be present for a Q & A session, and there’s a reception following the screening. Of course, if you miss the screening this evening, you can catch it this weekend at the Riverview Theater, with an after party on Friday night.

    7 p.m., Minneapolis Institue of Arts, Pillsbury Auditorium, 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-870-6323; $5.

    A Leech of Your Own

    waspnleechsm.jpgIf you’re in the mood for something a bit wackier, less nudity and more leeches, head over to the Bell Museum courtyard for a screening of Attack of the Giant Leeches. Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, this creepy-crawly horror flick shows a small town wracked by terror. Local moonshine-swilling trapper Lem Sawyer sees a giant creature in a swamp near his home, but his story is ignored… until people start disappearing. The best part of tonight’s event? — If you happen to be lucky (or perhaps unlucky) you’ll be taking home your very own pet leech. (What are you gonna do with that? I say go fishing… but how the hell are you going to sleep tonight?)

    8:30 p.m., Bell Museum, 10 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-624-7083; free

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Cabaret, Town Hall, Vaudeville, Opera

    dreamlandfacespic.jpgThe Bedlam certainly isn’t known for putting on boring shows. It seems everything they do is at least somewhat unusual, and tonight’s performance certainly confirms this. Ahh-vuh-deez Productions presents A Bedlam Town Hall Show this evening: a fine mix of cabaret, town hall, vaudeville, and opera featuring Alison Scherzer-soprano, Eric Pearson-baritone, Grant Sherzer-baritone, Avedis Manoogian-piano, Dreamland Faces (with magicians and puppets), The Last Unicorns with Bird and Silas, Wendy Lewis, and Solid Gold. Sounds like an action-packed evening to me. Why settle for mainstream entertainment, when you’ve got this? Get there before the show for the Bedlam happy hour (4-6 p.m.). I guarantee it’ll be heavenly with a couple cocktails under your belt — not that it won’t be without.

    7:30 p.m., Bedlam Theater, 1501 S. 6th St., Minneapolis; 612-341-1038; $6.

  • Brenda To Buy "Ch-uh-man". (Any Day Now).

    (Posted by Brenda “BMW” Langton)

    OK. I MUST SAY CALLING AROUND TO CAR DEALERS AND SPEAKING WITH USED CAR SALESMEN IS NOT MY CUP OF TEA. So, after much reading online and Consumers Report on cars I have narrowed my search for my next used car.

    It has to be a luxury sedan that is all wheel drive and has a black interior…I can be flexible on the color of the car but I will not give in to ONE MORE ugly beige or light gray interior!! Honestly, could someone please figure out some sexy interior colors of cars for the love of GOD!!! It’s like everything else about cars has evolved except the beige and gray interiors.

    I have come down to three cars…the BMW 3 series, Infinity G35 or Audi. I ruled out the Audi, I’ve had too many problems with them in the past and it gets very bad ratings (new models are much better now), even though it is a beauty and performs well.

    The Infiniti G35 is too loud and has more muscle than I need. I feels like like more of a man’s car to me. The interior also lacks sex appeal and the brakes were super touchy. I found it odd, for example, that when I test drove it the salesman in the backseat alerted me to the brakes, perhaps he had some previous driver launch him into the front seat.

    Later in the night I drove the BMW which was lovely, it won hands down over the Infiniti. The interior was really snazzy, it had a very smooth and peppy ride and the brakes were a breeze–what a difference.

    Buying a used car of this caliber is the only way I can justify/afford this kind of luxury. And while it is commonly known that the the 2005 BMW 3 series received great reviews, it has been challenging to find one that is coming off lease. Till now, that is.

    That makes right now the right time to buy.

  • Finish Line Fries

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    I don’t love running like I love fried chicken, but I really can’t have one without the other. This summer, my daughter and I have been training for Jack’s Run, a race named for a little friend we know and love.

    But running is hard. And when it’s hot and humid and lazy and beach weather, running is very very hard. So I need a prize, and my prize is fries.

    Seriously, I could sit and eat Culver’s squishy salty fries dipped in vanilla custard every night of the week … but I don’t. Now that I’m logging some heavy road-time in my sneakers, I feel more able to succumb to my fried potato needs.

    And yet, if I’m going to indulge, I want it to be worth the miles. Clearly, I’m a big fan of Chino Latino’s Popocatepe which are like nacho-fries: loaded with guac, sour cream, black beans, pico, chile de arbol, yada yada. But I truly crave my own version of Buffalo-fries: tossed in wing sauce and drizzled with bleu cheese dressing and bleu cheese chunks. Not that good can’t be simple. Give me a hot, crispy cup of frites and a bottle of malt vinegar and I’m set.

    Sunday will be my first visit to Harry’s Food and Cocktails , so I’ll be on the lookout for the much-anticipated poutine. I hope it’s worth my Saturday morning.

  • The Knife Of God

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    Yes, boy, I could sure go for some beef stew and a chicken bone. That’s it.

    –Last words of Christopher Newton, whose execution by lethal injection in Lucasville, Ohio took nearly two hours (May 24, 2007)

    I summon you now

    Not to think of

    The ceaseless battle

    With pain and ill health,

    The frailty and the anguish.

    No, today I remember

    The creator,

    The Lion-hearted.

    –May Sarton, from “For My Mother”

    You’ve been gone for five years this morning, but if you were still here I know you’d be driving through the night, headed in my direction even as I type these words, and at some point in the next couple hours I’d expect to hear your knock at my door.

    Five years ago this morning I walked out into a world without you in it for the first time, and I know how much it would pain you to know that that world has been wobbling under me ever since.

    I’m not blaming you. You gave me plenty more than I needed. I watched you long enough that I should for damn sure know how to go through life with a smile on my face and enough grace, good humor, and compassion to get me through any day. And anybody who spent enough time with you and logged long hours in the hospitals where you left so many years of your life and got so many of them back should have gained enough perspective to spend every one of their remaining days counting their blessings.

    It’s been really hard, though. I’m tired, and I’ve failed.

    Your last words to me were, “I love you. I’ll see you soon,” and those words have haunted me. I wish you could stand here before me and take at least some of them back.

    I wish there had been more, of course –of you and from you and for you. And for me. And for all of us.

    Tough shit, though, which I fully realize is not a sentiment you’d ever endorse.

    I remember reading something long ago by Thomas Carlyle, an essay, I think, about heroes. A hero, Carlyle said, had to be first and foremost sincere. Not merely honest or earnest, but fiercely sincere. He had to have true conviction in what he said and did and believed. And a hero had to have heart; he had to be stout-hearted, yes, and brave, but also and especially tender-hearted, pure-hearted, compassionate, and capable of real love.

    I might be making this all up, or confusing my writers, or even just imagining things, although the sad truth is that I’m not having much luck making things up or imagining things anymore.

    I do know, though, that using that definition, or those definitions, and virtually any other definition I can come up with, you were a hero.

    My hero.

    Ours.

    I couldn’t afford to lose you then, and I can’t afford to lose you now, even as I seem to be losing things right and left. Including, I sometimes fear, you.

    abelpann-burning.jpg


    —Abel Pann

    By the time he was my age he had four children and a literally broken heart.

    He did what he could.

    He taught wonder.

    I used to sense him coiled like a discus hurler behind every one of my best intentions.

    His blood was the blood that called me back to this world each time I crawled away disgusted.

    His were the words of forgiveness I was always surprised to find crouched at the back of my tongue. The tenderness, unexpected, that seized me when I was in the presence of suffering or helplessness, that also was him feeling through me.

    My biggest dreams were his.

    He pointed out the stars, and taught me to appreciate the gorgeous example of upholstery that is a baseball mitt. The short trigger, the hatred of condescension, the intolerance of cruelty, his compassion and affection for the little guy and the underdog, all those things he gave me.

    He could not, unfortunately, give me his unbridled optimism, his undying faith in human goodness, his stiff upper lip, or his genuine willingness to just let the world be the world.

    But his capacity for love, his sense of loyalty, his appreciation for a good road trip, and his eagerness to play the fool –What can I say? I was his boy.

    He showed me again and again how to live.

    Some nights lately I’ve sat up in the middle of the night, half expecting him to knock on my door.

    I’ve forgotten so much already. I’d give anything if he could come back for just one day, for just one hour, for just one cup of coffee, to help me remember.

    He’s not coming back, though.

    He’s waiting for me to come to him.

  • Music and a Movie?

    FILM
    Schmooze Time

    UrbanLull.jpgOy! Another month gone by?! It really can’t be; but, oh, it is. Cinema Lounge strikes again. See five short films and meet the filmmakers. Ask them anything you like, and you might just get an answer. Tonight’s films include Urban Lull (At Once Charmed), by Micah Dahl; A Satisfied Life, by Freya Schirmacher; Who To Trust?, by Dean Peterson; Buddy, Buddy, by Mojo Solo; and Unhinged, by Gregg Holtgrewe.

    7 p.m., Bryant Lake Bowl, 810 W. Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-825-3737; free.

    Hometown Crime Spin

    dyingmidwestern.JPGSmall time politics. Big city crime. That’s what the movie poster says anyhow: Dying Midwestern, a film by Matt Kowalksi. Of course, I can’t seem to find either on the Internet. Hmmmm… Is this a film about St. Paul’s tender punk rock band? I think not, though I know very little. All I know is that it’s a crime story shot entirely in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. Yay! Another film shot in the Twin Cities. I ask, once again, who the heck says we don’t do film here? It seems there’s a new local film coming out every other week. What about tonight’s, though? The press release compares it to Fargo and Pulp Fiction, and while this may very well be accurate, we must never dismiss the simple fact that is indeed a press release after all.

    6:30 p.m., The Varsity Theater & Café des Artistes, 1308 4th St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-604-0222; $8.

    While you’re at it, have a look at the Pulp Fiction Short Version.

    And for a real treat, have a look at Beast of the Tokyo Bathhouse, part 1. You may just notice a familiar face in there. Have you had the pleasure of meeting Sailor Martin? You may not want to once you see this film.

    Oh, and don’t forget to check out this week’s Owen video. He’s having a little trouble in the communication arena.

    MUSIC
    Get Out of Jail Free

    curtis.jpgI haven’t given you a good reason to sneak out of work lately, so you’ve definitely got one coming. How about The Brothers Curtis at Elliot Park? Hell, if you work downtown, it’s a piece of cake, just a hop, skip, and a jump away, just over yonder on that greener grass. Otherwise, better still, just cut out early and wile the afternoon away. Enjoy Stratocaster Master Curtis Marlatt with Blues Harp Bender Curtis Blake, then stick around and browse the farmer’s market, which goes until 4 p.m.

    Noon – 1:30 p.m., Elliot Park, 1000 E. 14th St., Minneapolis; 612-370-4772; free.

    And Then There Were Some

    Damn, those Minnesota Zoo concerts are well-attended. Tonight’s show — Tower of Power with Paul Cebar — is sold out once again, so if you don’t already have tickets, you best look for an alternate source of entertainment. The Rake’s myspace page doesn’t really serve much of a purpose, but we do get quite a few announcements for upcoming shows. (If there’s one good thing about myspace –and even that’s pushing it — it’s the abundance of musician and band pages.) And while I so often overlook these announcements until it’s too late, I did notice a few for today.

    Eddie F. posted to let us know about the hip hop and punk rock show at Big V’s. (See, even Big V’s has a myspace page.) Hip hop and punk rock? Does anybody else think this is an odd combination? I guess there’s no such thing anymore. This evening’s performance features C. Doty Run, The Angry Mothers, Fixed Gears are for Jerks & Lesbians, and Many Missions.

    9 p.m., Big V’s, 1567 University Ave. W. (University & Snelling), Midway, St. Paul; 651-645-8472; $5.

    The paper prophet posted to let us know about this evening’s Turf Club show, with Thunder in the Valley, Spider Bags (from Chapel Hill, NC), and Prairie Sons.

    9 p.m., Turf Club, 1601 University Ave., St. Paul; 651-647-0486; $4.

    And a heads up for tomorrow night: Seymour Saves the World will be playing at 10 p.m., at the Uptown Bar.

    Head on out and sample some local sounds.

  • Frank Lloyd Wrong, Part Uno

    spider duetto.gif
    The Duetto Spider. A lovely little effort from another master besides Frank

    I just returned from a trip to Buffalo, New York. For what it’s worth, if you are flying back from the East and granted the chance to be re-routed for points, speak up immediately and say, “I would love to get routed through Buffalo, New York.”

    Suddenly, you could be perceived as a saint by fellow yuppies who are weighing the merits of a stopover in another perceived hell like Detroit (which is actually a real hell compared to this overlooked architectural paradise I am about to describe).

    You may also come face to face with something many never will–that modern American architecture neither begins nor ends with Frank Lloyd Wright, and that in many cases this graphic designer (the one area in which he is peerless) actually got it wrong.

    How do I know this?

    a) I study proportion as design exercise every day.

    b) I have learned from Giorgetto Giguaro, Batista Pinnifarina and Tom Tjdara, who teach us that proportion is essential to the design of all things. (Use my links if you want to meet the dudes.)

    c) Frank frequently got proportion wrong in his work, leaving people with the desire to bolt from his buildings.

  • Feed the Mind, then Feed the Soul

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Raking Through Books

    gx91elev.gifJoin us this evening for our Happy Hour Book Club. Come celebrate the Great Minnesota Get-Together in literary style. Four authors gather to share their insights on all things State Fair–from crop art to 4-H cakes, from Pronto Pups to Midway prizes. This evening’s authors include Linda Koutsky & Kathryn Strand Koutsky, authors of Minnesota State Fair: An Illustrated History; Karal Ann Marling, author of Blue Ribbon; and Colleen Sheehy, author of Seed Queen, the Story of Crop Art. (All books are available for sale at a 20% discount at the University of Minnesota Bookstore.) Flaunt your knowledge in a State Fair trivia contest and win State Fair tickets! Plus… the best thing of all… haiku on a stick! All are welcome, even if you have not read the books.

    5:30 p.m., Kieran’s Irish Pub, 330 2nd Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-339-4499; free. Park at Downtown Auto Park, 4th and Marquette; $2 with Kieran’s parking voucher.

    MUSIC
    In Lieu of Wilco, Head for the Dark Side

    Sorry, folks. The Wilco show at the Bayfront Festival Park has been rescheduled for Tuesday, September 4. Unfortunately, our lovely Wilco and his guitarist have come down with a mean case of Chicken Pox. I’d hate to see him up there scratching.

    3404988652.jpgThere are, however, still tickets to the Marilyn Manson show this evening at the Xcel Energy Center. And who is the goth lord playing with? None other than Slayer. Ouch. For those of you with a 90s dark side (sorry, mine is definitely an 80s dark side), head out for the show this evening. According to the band’s reps, they’re going all out for this tour with a beefed-up performance, full sets, and great music, of course. Don’t miss Manson’s first gig at the Xcel Center.

    7 p.m., Xcel Energy Center, 175 West Kellogg Blvd., Kellogg Boulevard and W. Seventh St., St. Paul; 651-726-8240; $59.

    A Glimpse at the Past, or a Peek at the Future?

    31K3QCC5YWL.jpgDamian D, currently of Heaven Zone and Bankrupt in Panama (that I know of), will be getting back together with Joel Blum (lead singer), Jill Bartyzal (bassist), and B.T. Hanson (drummer) for a Blume reunion show this evening at Lee’s Liquor Lounge. Come on out and enjoy Blume’s hybrid folk, with touches of hip hip and jazz, and a dash of Tom Waits. Hopefully, this reunion signals a more permanent union; but, no promises, folks; catch it while you can. Tonight’s show promises to be a good one with a lineup that also includes Dreamland Faces and The Acoustic Death Machine. These guys (and gals) are all worthy of note, and quite a lot of fun. I guess there’s a dash of Tom Waits in all of us.

    9:15, Lee’s Liquor Lounge, 101 Glenwood Ave., Minneapolis; 612-338-9491; free.

    RAKING THE NET
    Fodder

    Truly Awful Stuff
    Random Good Stuff

  • Wicked fun

    Full diclosure: Mitch Omer and Cynthia Gerdes (pictured below) are two of my best friends in the world.

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    (photo by Elena Bauer)

    They’re also the owners — along with Steve Meyer and Mark “Pappy” Anderson — of Hell’s Kitchen, with locations in downtown Minneapolis and Duluth.

    Now, I’m not the only one who loves Hell’s Kitchen. It’s gotten great reviews from nearly every local critic and several national ones — most notably Roadfood’s Jane and Michael Stern. But the truth is, these people probably could serve me warm seawater in one of Mitch’s old size-14 boots, and I’d rave.

    So I’m going to cut out the usual “taster’s notes” here and just give you the facts. I spent the weekend up north, listening from afar to the blues and tasting wines at HK in Canal Park. My favorite set is a weekend series of special Zins from Alexander Valley Vineyards in Healdsburg, California.

    On Friday nights they serve Temptation Zin 2005 — a big, fruity, juicy, sexy blend of 92 percent Zinfandel grapes and 8 percent Sangiovese, with splashes of blackberry and spice.

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    Saturday nights, it’s Sin Zin 2005 — a zestier wine with layers of cedar, raspberry, and black pepper that’s 100 percent Zin. A gold medal winner in the Los Angeles International Wine Competition.

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    And on Sundays, of course, there’s Redemption Zin 2005 — a smoother, “tamer” wine than the other two; also 100 percent Zinfandel grapes, but more blueberry, cherry, and oaken in tone.

    Redzin05.jpg

    Beware, these are all rich, “hot” wines, with alcohol contents in the 14.5% range. So it’s probably best not to taste them as I did, all in a row from Temptation to Redemption and then back again. But they were bold and fun and perfect with Hell’s Kitchen’s heavenly heuvos rancheros — also just different enough from one another to keep me snitching sips, trying to figure out which was which.

    Of course, my husband was drinking abstemiously and holding the keys, ready at any moment to drive us back to our hotel and take advantage of the effects wrought by those wicked wines.

  • Does It Have to be News OR Analysis?

    The extraordinarily anachronistic Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times — a guy writing about media, newspapers even, while on the staff of a daily newspaper — has a particularly interesting piece up today. It’s about several things all adding up to what news consumers really want out of an on-line newspaper, supposedly the creature evolving to either hammer the last nail in the coffin of print or to offer print a last chance for survival.

    Rutten gets off several good lines, like the one where, in trying to describe the specific type of anger that drives CNN Headline’s Nancy Grace, he comes up with, “crypto-fascist anger”. (Shades of Gore Vidal v. William Buckley). And by the way, what was Grace ranting on last night? Some derelict mother who fed cocaine to her toddler? Why is that ever a national news story? Rutten’s point is that cable TV’s strategy for driving viewership is based on a wretch-inducing combination of near lunatic anger, junk news and hype, not exactly a recipe for journalistic credibility.

    He also notes a Pew study on the matter of “media bias” that 71% of Republicans who rely on Fox News as their main news source — and damn, aren’t they a fun crowd? — “hold an unfavorable opinion of major national newspapers”, as opposed to 52% of Republicans who get news from somewhere else and only (?) 33% of non-Republicans. In other words the more you turn your brain over to Fox News the angrier you get with the New York Times and the Washington Post for not reporting the good news from Iraq, the hoax of global warming, the in-depth, investigated truth about John Edwards $400 haircut and how the Clintons murdered Vince Foster.

    Point being, screw ’em. You pander to that fringe at your own peril.

    But eventually Rutten gets around to wondering what news consumers want, (as opposed to what embittered ideologues need).

    If an on-line newspaper is going to be different than its shriveling, compromised dead tree cousin, how different and in what ways?

    “The honest answer,” Rutten writes, “is that nobody knows for certain, but the odds are it will be a hybrid publication in which an online edition that’s focused mainly on breaking news and service works in tandem with a print edition whose staples are analysis, context and opinion. The former almost surely will have a lot more video and interactivity than it does today; the latter will have to be much more thoughtful and far more intensely and carefully edited.”

    Rutten, like other veteran newspaper types seems to believe that news consumers will demand some kind of continuation of a print edition well into the future. I’m not so sure at all.

    Last Friday night former Strib food and ethics writer turned Rake blogger and TC Daily Planet guiding force, Jeremy Iggers, invited me down to a class he’s teaching at the new Minneapolis Central Library. I was flattered he had an interest in my deep thoughts on what is happening to daily papers, and arrived full of half-prepared bloviation and bogus factoids. I was going to wow ’em, I tell ya’. Then the Strib’s Mike Meyers showed up. Mike is a smart and funny guy, and, well hell, why lie? He big-footed all over me. Not that I put up much of a fight. Who could? When Mike gets on a roll he is damned entertaining, and Iggers’ class ate it up. Besides Meyers and I pretty much agree. Pretty much. So what’s to fight?

    Meyers, who takes a kind of pragmatic capitalist view of things up to the point of condoning rampant, short-sighted stupidity, such as he sees going down at the Star Tribune and elsewhere in the newspaper biz, also believes the dead tree version will linger. I don’t. I think five years from now the thing they’re leveling forests and burning boat loads of gas to truck to your door every morning will be a quaint memory.

    In my scenario, the greed of the Avista Capital Partners private equity/hedge fund crowd now gobbling up every molecule of value at the Star Tribune will soon give way to them blowing out of town and leaving behind the journalistic equivalent of a fake Hollywood stage set standing at 425 Portland. The Strib will be a fraction of a fraction of its former size and by that time everything the Strib, and other major papers, used to provide, will be available, albeit scattered in a thousand different places on the web. But also by that time … advertisers will have grown comfortable enough with the best of local news/analysis sites to have begun moving money toward them. Then, I say, all that’s left to spike consumer interest and appeal is an ergonomically comfortable device that allows avid information consumers to replicate their favorite habit of reading the “paper” anywhere they want with a cup of coffee and a delicious custard-filled bismark. (Oh wait, that wasn’t supposed to be in my out-loud voice.)

    A device based on technology from something like this would pretty much fill the bill.

    I mention the ergonomics because I hear that a lot, especially from older readers, the crowd Strib research famously referred to as being so loyal, “we couldn’t beat them off with a stick.” People like holding a newspaper. They don’t like hunching over a computer. Everyone understands that. This ergonomic issue came up again at Iggers’ class.

    I tried to explain the dawn of gizmos that will radically shift the thinking of long time newspaper reading adults. But that f**king Meyers was being so amusing and on-point all I got were a lot of glazey-eyed stares. (Meyers nodded when I repeated the market assumption that the purchase price of a personal, fold-away, eminently portable computer screen would probably be heavily underwritten by on-line content purveyors, much like cellphone companies who more or less give the phones away and then stab you with monthly fees.)

    But back to Rutten’s concern over the proper separation of classical news reporting and analysis. Frankly, I don’t see why the two can’t co-exist on the same web-site. Anything you can do in print you do more of and better on line. In something like the I-35W bridge collapse what staff there was, and presumably an established collection of stringers/community journalists, most with cameras, would rush down and do what reporters always do. But then, as the search for explanations expanded, reporting, by professionals, could mix with analysis in ways that would not set off bias sirens in anyone other than the most hardened Fox News-o-holic, not many of whom I’m betting will have much interest in news from any source other than Sean Hannity’s butt.

    I mean, read a newsweekly and tell me where the “straight” news ends and analysis kicks in? Smart readers — the only folks who’ll BUY into an on-line paper — know bias when they read it. Bias is when the facts don’t match the reality.

  • Giddyup to Glamorama

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    It’s a busy week here at Rake Media Worldwide as we put finishing touches on a September issue. But here’s the light at the end of my tunnel: Countdown to Friday’s Glamorama event, in case you missed my little preview over the weekend. So excited am I that I carved out some time to pull together my own glamorama getup: cowl-neck Tracy Reese dress (it’s turquoise!) paired with leather belt, pewter-n-mother of pearl belt buckle with a lil’ horsey’s head painted at the center – formerly owned by my father (d’OH – why didn’t I take of picture of THAT last night), simple hoop earrings, and my loose-fitting, Jim Barnier white boots (above) with the floppy straps.