Author: Jennifer Vogel

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…

Citizen’s arrest is no joke, as fans of The Andy Griffith Show can attest. In a memorable 1963 episode, Barney Fife issued Gomer Pyle a ticket for making an illegal U-turn, and then, as Fife was wont to do, began philosophizing. “It’s from little misdemeanors that major felonies grow,” Fife said, adding that even citizens…

John Herou isn’t your typical electric-car ideologue. The founder of e-ride Industries possesses a bright strain of idealism to be sure, but fundamentally he’s a practical man, an inventor and classic car buff, more entrepreneur than tree hugger. The cars he builds, called neighborhood electric vehicles because by law they can go only twenty-five miles…

Kevin Turnquist, a psychiatrist for more than twenty years, currently cares for some of the most seriously ill patients in the Hennepin County public mental health system. The good doctor, who specializes in schizophrenia, has pretty much seen it all—such as the woman who believes that during sleep she grows extra limbs that are clandestinely…

Once upon a time, say fifteen years ago, portraits of chief executive officers had much in common with oil paintings of George Washington or Robert E. Lee. There was a man (they were pretty much all men), shot from a slightly low angle so as to amplify his stateliness and power, with his hand on…

If you visit the P.M. Bedroom Gallery in Blaine or Woodbury, you might run into Jim Borofka, co-owner of the stores and one of the last waterbed salesmen in the Twin Cities. The showrooms at HOM, for example, don’t feature waterbeds, though the store was once called the Waterbed Room. Borofka accuses HOM of “disconnecting”…