The Rake Magazine

Year: 2007

  • Some Things Really Do Come Free

    SEMINARS
    Unsatiated Appetites

    Are you in marketing? Communications? Public relations? Public affairs? Advertising? Brand management? Web publishing? Or just generally interested in the digital world and American consumption? The fabulous thing about the Internet is its vast span — the scope, the range, the access to information and communication. But you have to know how to use it. And you have to take the opportunities presented. Today’s free video webcast, Tails from the Long Tail, explores online video as “the force that has unleashed the true power of the ‘long tail’ of the Internet.” Find out how the various realms of content-producers out there (mainly marketers of sorts — hell, everybody is selling something these days) are addressing the endless demand for web video. The live program will be followed by an email Q & A session.

    1-2 p.m. eastern, MediaLink; free.

    FILM
    Intimate Dimensions of a Cataclysm

    main_photo_0.jpgDig out that military uniform (or respectfully pick one up at Ragstock) and head over to Northrop for a preview screening of award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’ s World War II series, The War. Burns will be present to discuss the making of his film and share personal stories of men and women from four American towns: Waterbury, CT; Mobile, AL; Sacramento, CA; and the tiny farming town of Luverne, MN. Through personal pieces of a common history, the storytellers in this seven-part series illustrate how the second World War touched the lives of every family in the country. Tonight’s event will feature clips from the film, as well as a Q & A session for the audience. Looks like no matter what you choose to do tonight, you’re apt to get answers. (Just make sure you know what questions you have.)

    7:30 p.m., Northrop Auditorium, 84 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-624-2345; free.

    BOOKS AND AUTHORS
    Journeys, Learning, and Transformations

    “What a small person I was before this little child came into my life,” writes Ann Bremer in Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives, edited by Kathryn Lynard Soper — mother of seven. Gifts tells the triumphant stories of mothers whose children have Down syndrome, their journeys, learnings, and transformations. These days, with many women choosing to have children in their 30s and beyond, the “threat” of Down syndrome is very real; but these women turn the alleged threat into a thing of beauty, into what is almost an angelic state of being — and they would know. “After much study it seemed apparent that I was no longer the mother of a typical family… By the end of the course I came to the conclusion that many of my assumptions were incorrect, my lack of sainthood being the obvious indicator.” Meet the woman of these words, learn from her, and simply bask in the beauty behind the strength. Bremer will be be signing books along with two other local contributors, Leah Spring and Emily Zeid.

    7 p.m., Barnes & Noble Booksellers – Mall of America, Mall of America, 118 E. Broadway, Suite 238, Bloomington; 952-854-1455; free.

    Weather Obsessed

    I hate it when this happens, but I get a lot of events coming across my desk these days — be it through external intervention or my own digging; and sometimes I add events to my calendar without noting the original source — not when it’s a matter of giving someone credit (which I believe is excessive but essential), but when it’s important to verify the source. So, what happens when you can’t verify the source? The point is, I received the above information from someone, but I can’t seem to confirm it. I find nothing on the Barnes & Noble website, but I’m fully convinced it’s happening. Still, if you want to play it super safe (though you can always call first), what I did find on the website was this: WCCO meteorologist (for 25 years) Mike Lynch, author of Mike Lynch’s Minnesota WeatherWatch: A Complete Guide for Weather-Obsessed Minnesotans, exposes the truth behind Minnesota weather, its history, and its lore. That ought to appeal; I mean, there’s nothing about which we like taking more than the weather. I’d say we’re weather obsessed here, in fact — and with good reason.

    7 p.m., Barnes & Noble Booksellers – Roseville II, Har Mar Mall, 2100 N. Snelling Ave., Roseville; 651-639-9256; free.

  • Twitch your nose and a sandwich will appear

    bew.jpeg

    It’s funny. Not too long ago, I was with a group of people who were bemoaning the lack of “real” delis in the Twin Cities. Then, as if magically, two contenders appeared.

    First, the New York Deli & Bar opened in June on the south side of downtown Minneapolis. And on Monday, September 10, former Solera chef Matthew Bickford and Michael Ryan, former chef de cuisine from Restaurant Alma, will launch a New York-style deli called Be’wiched in the old C. McGee spot at 800 Washington Avenue North (612.767.4330).

    OK, so Matthew and Michael aren’t exactly Sol and Abe. But they’re planning to brine and smoke all their own deli meats — pastrami, turkey, roast beef — and serve them on homemade bread. They’ll pile the sandwiches high with cheese, tomato, lettuce, and plenty of spicy mustard. Also, Bickford and Ryan have acquired a strong beer and wine license, which they promise to use for “eclectic and approachable” brews and blends.

    “Independently, Mike and I were both working on deli concepts,” said Bickford. “Even though we come from fine dining, both of us felt the pendulum was swinging toward simpler food and lower guest checks. Then we got together and came up with Be’wiched.”

    The name is a play on the national trend to abbreviate “sandwich,” Bickford told me, as well as a nod to the current craze for everything occult.

    So if you’re in the area, stop by for lunch on Monday to see how the boys are doing. Shout Mazel Tov. . . .or wave a pentacle in their direction. Then order a pastrami on rye.

  • Avista to Strib Edit Board: Go Easy on Gas Tax

    For a couple weeks I’d been hearing rumors of a directive … or something … to the Star Tribune editorial page from Chris Harte, the ex-Knight Ridder executive, (way back in the early ’90s), and as far as anyone knows the only Avista member with any actual newspaper experience. At first hearing the information was ninth-hand, at best. But the story had Harte telling (those who remain) on the paper’s edit page staff to go easy on calling for gas tax increases in the aftermath of the I-35W bridge collapse.

    Really? Why would Chris Harte care enough to stick his nose into something like that? Isn’t Par Ridder the publisher? (He is isn’t he?) If anyone, wouldn’t Ridder be the one to open the door to the dimly-lit offices of the Strib’s Bartleby-like Op-Ed wretches and admonish them with something like, “Now, now you crazy Commie, hippie kids. Let’s not get carried away with silly notions of throwing money at problems. We all know how ineffective and wasteful government is. I mean it’s not like a big public company that’s been laying off people left and right forking over $600,000 to an ace executive like me in return for my promise to stay in a job I left anyway barely six months later.”

    Eventually, with the departure of Steve Berg from the Strib just before Labor Day, I found someone with a first-hand connection to the story. And what do you know, the rumors appear to have been pretty much true.

    According to Berg, Harte did NOT order the editorial staff to reverse its long-standing support of a gas tax increase, (there hasn’t been one in 19 years). “It wasn’t like that,” says Berg. “Rather it was suggested heavily that we be careful to include other options in what we wrote.”

    Uh, huh. So Harte strolls in one day not long after the bridge goes down and says …

    “This was all by long-distance phone.”

    What? He wasn’t even in town?

    “If he was I didn’t see him. But we got this by phone. I think he called from Maine or Texas.”

    I told Berg the first question(s) that crossed my mind when I heard the story was, “Who got to Harte that fast, and why did he listen?” I mean, as everyone knows all too well, Avista Capital Partners has demonstrated almost zero interest in ingratiating itself as a member of the Twin Cities community. It isn’t known if Harte keeps even an apartment here. But the rest of the visible members of the “partnership” are East Coasters. Why would they give two cents … or 10 cents … if the Minnesota State Legislature hiked the gas tax?

    “He never spelled out why,” says Berg, who incidentally has agreed to write for Joel Kramer’s MinnPost.com. “A cynical speculation could be as simple as he was concerned about the cost of running the [delivery] trucks.” The delivery trucks. The cost could add up, never mind that gas prices are spiking up and down 30-40 cents a gallon depending how close we are to a holiday weekend. Eventually though, with an extra dime or quarter here and there you’d be talking real money. Maybe even enough to imperil Avista’s end-of-the-year bonuses.

    Berg, who handled transportation issues for the Strib’s edit page, doubts Harte or anyone else at Avista, “has actually sat down and studied the state budget.” He suspects rather, “They’re really interested in tone, in us being less like a knee-jerk liberal editorial page,” never mind all those pesky years Berg and his pals had spent actually reading the state budget and following the local politicking — in person, not by long-distance phone conversation.

    In fairness to Avista, Bergs adds, McClatchy was just as concerned with not “antagonizing local readers” with pro-tax editorials. “They were also urging us to be more nuanced in what we wrote.”

    “Nuanced” could be construed as corporate code for “mushier”, or in the context of adequate infra-structure funding, less informed in terms of how far the state has fallen behind, and more, shall we say, pandering, to the usual noisy critics whose cynical small government crusade is doing to public schools, police and fire funding, what has already been done to highways and bridges.

    But back to the, “Who?”

    I remain intensely skeptical that Chris Harte, vacationing in Maine or managing his portfolio in Texas suddenly got a bee up his silk boxers and speed dialed the edit board to urge nuance on their tax editorials. And yes, I love a good conspiracy. You know where powerful, well-connected people talk to each other privately, like peers. So I’m thinking somebody — someone here — contacted Harte first, urging him to urge his paper to dial back on … yadda yadda. But who? Who would have the most to gain from the Star Tribune “nuancing” down from gas tax, to “a range of other options”?

    And I’m sorry. I don’t even have ninth-hand as to who that might be.

  • Delicious Relief

    sweet relief.jpg

    When the rain started falling in August, it did more than just water the tomatoes. Sadly it washed away many of the season’s hopes for farmers in Southeastern MN. Many farmers found their homes washed away or their fields under contaminate water. Luckily enough, there is a sweet connection to the area with many local chefs: many of the fine ingredients you see on local menus are grown there, as were local Winona boys Scott Pampuch and JD Fratzke.

    Slow Food MN is helping promote an online auction that will benefit the flood victims through the Winona Red Cross and the Sow The Seeds Fund. The auction will be posted Wednesday September 5th and run through the 8th. Some of the tasty items that will bring relief: Slow Food book collection, tour of Cedar Summit Farm, one year’s subscription to Edible Twin Cities and a market bag filled with local products, a night at Moonstone Farm, cooking classes at Let’s Cook, and much more. There’s even a six-course dinner to be cooked and served by a secret panel of local chefs, to be revealed on Andrew Zimmern’s Friday afternoon radio show. Bid on people, bid on.

    If you’re looking for the full belly along with a warm heart, this Saturday is the night to eat out. One Big Night Out is a collaboration by area restaurants to donate a percentage of their profits to flood relief efforts. Let’s face it, those on board are the top localvores: Birchwood, Cafe Brenda, Craftsman, Corner Table, Heartland, Jay’s Cafe, Lucia’s, Muffuletta, Nicollet Island Inn, Signature Cafe, Spoonriver and others.

  • Bush as Zoolander?

    From The Guardian Unlimited (London), an observation that GWB’s new “Freedom Institute” bears a remarkable resemblance to the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too.

  • One Big Night Out to Sustain Sustainable Famers

    Flooding in southeastern Minnesota last month caused heavy losses to some of the small farms that practice sustainable farming. Now some of the Twin Cities restaurants that serve locally and sustainably grown foods are lending a helping hand. Dine at any of the participating restaurants next Saturday, September 8, for their One Big Night Out, and they’ll donate a portion of their profits to the relief effort. Participating restaurants include the Birchwood Cafe, Cafe Brenda, Corner Table, The Craftsman, Heartland, Jay’s Cafe, Lucia’s Restaurant, Muffuletta, the Nicollet Island Inn, the Signature Cafe, and Spoonriver.

    For an updated list, and information about an upcoming online benefit auction, visit the Slow Food Minnesota website.

    You can also make donations directly to the Red Cross Winona chapter, 1660 Kramer Dr.; Winona, MN 55987;; or online to the Sow the Seeds Fund, www.sowtheseedsfund.org.

  • Local Playwright Max Sparber Mentioned in NYT

    If you scroll down to the end of the article, you might find a familiar name. I’ll give you a hint: He plays Owen.

  • Poetry Is Nearer to Vital Truth than History

    POETRY
    We Build to Last

    BillHolm0904.jpgAuthor and poet Bill Holm was in Iceland during the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge. He heard about the sad affair on Icelandic state radio. His response? A poem. When Holm returned to the Twin Cities just a few weeks ago, Scott Beyers — audio engineer, producer, and publisher of EssayAudio.com — upon hearing his poem, asked him to record it immediately before driving back to his home in Minneota. Holm cheerfully agreed– jet lag and all — and now you can read and hear his poem online. (Read it quickly; the link will be active until September 11, 2007.)

    BOOKS
    Now in Bookstores Near You

    51jXVRka7jL._AA240_.jpgAn entrepreneur who sells his memories for three thousand dollars per decade, a verisimilitude inspector for a Civil War-themed amusement park, ghosts who relive their deaths every night when their son comes home from work: This is the stuff of a typical George Saunders story. What, then, happens when Saunders turns his pen to nonfiction? Consisting of essays on literature, travel, and politics, Saunders’s narratives in The Braindead Megaphone continue his explorations into the absurdities of modern life — only now his writing stems from observation. Here, his humor assumes a doleful tone, as does his subject matter. But it is undeniably real and equally intense and as disturbing as anything Saunders has conjured from his imagination. –by Max Ross

    51NPovssT3L._AA240_.jpgDenis Johnson’s new novel — his first in nine years — continues the author’s studies of sympathy and redemption as integral parts of human physiology. Still, as in most of Johnson’s work, a feeling of desolation pervades. Set in the ’60s, each segment of Tree of Smoke: A Novel follows a year in the lives of the narrative’s several characters, all of whom are either fighting in the Vietnam War or dealing with its effects. Sympathy often comes with feeling sorry for a murderer, and redemption is found in a dive bar with air conditioning. Their various plights and salvations coalesce into a single American experience that Publishers Weekly calls “a closure [on the Vietnam War] that’s as good as we’ll ever get.” –by Max Ross

    MUSIC
    It Sings because It Has a Song; It Writes because It Has the Words

    We call them musicians, but they’re writers, too. (Clearly, I’m not referring to Britney Spears here.) Join host Chris Thompson this evening for the Secret Songwriters Ball, featuring Rich Preiner, Andrew Lynch, Steve Smith, Frank Boyle.

    9 p.m., Lee’s Liquor Lounge, 101 N. Glenwood, Minneapolis; 612-338-9491; free.

    In the Face of Catastrophe

    TerenceBlanchard_1c_byJennyBagert.jpgIt seems lately, we have been surrounded with so much tragedy. Perhaps this is not unusual. Perhaps the world is somewhat bleak. But the beauty that has arisen in the wake of all this tragedy is not to be dismissed, overlooked, or forgotten. Just as Bill Holm wrote a poem in response to the collapse of the bridge, many other artists have come together to voice concerns and demands, to raise money, to honor victims and rescue workers, and to help assuage the fear and pain caused by recent catastrophic events. Along this vein, Grammy Award-winning composer and trumpeter Terence Blanchard has chosen to express an entire range of emotions evoked by the Katrina tragedy in his latest album, A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), released August 14th. Known for his African-fusion style, Blanchard has been among the top jazz trumpet players for more than two decades.

    7 & 9:30 p.m., Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; $40 & $30.

    Wilco Stops Scratching

    4185_image_1.jpgBack in mid-August, Wilco had to cancel its Bayfront Festival concert due to a “rather nasty case of the Chicken Pox” contracted by guitarist Nels Cline. Now, after a three week delay, the show is finally scheduled to go on. All tickets for the original date will be honored, and refunds are available to those who have tickets but are unable to attend tonight’s show. But the best part is that there are actually still tickets available. Perhaps a brief trip to Duluth is in order. Wilco’s melodies and lyricism are certainly well worth your while; and if that’s not enough to warrant the drive, our very own Low has now been added to the bill.

    7:30 p.m., Bayfront Festival Park, 700 W. Railroad St., Duluth; 612-605-7957; $35.65.

  • Another Summer, Gone Into The Gloaming

    How was your lovely Labor Day weekend?

    Mine? Horseshit, but thanks for asking.

    Though it pains me to admit this, and though I should be ashamed of myself, I spent the weekend watching baseball.

    Over at On the Ball, Britt Robson, David Brauer, and I discuss the disappointing season to date. Go over there and chime in if you feel so inclined.

  • Sad Day for Beer & Coffee Lovers

    Michael Jackson, the world’s foremost beer critic, has died at age 65. Jackson wrote some of the best guides on the subject. Read his books and you’ll be off to Peet’s Coffee is better than any other cuppa Joe. Peet’s is the bomb, it really is, especially Major Dickason’s blend. And the man who started the company–and ostensibly ignited the gourmet coffee movement that has taken over the country–has died.