Max Ross I like McSweeney‘s. This may come as a surprise, because I don’t wear tight jeans. And even though I have thick-framed glasses, it’s because I’m near-legally-blind, so if I had puny little wire-frames the lenses would stick out like half an inch, and I’d be all self-conscious about it. You can call my tortoiseshell frames … Read more
A half-post: In this morning’s Star Tribune, Nick Coleman writes about two high school students from Chaska who just set off to reenact Eric Sevareid’s epic canoe trip from the Minnesota River to Hudson Bay, recounted in Sevareid’s book Canoeing With the Cree. As much as we might learn about chasing dreams and fulfilling goals … Read more
Employing a tactic I’m pretty sure I’ve picked up from the current presidential administration, I’ve decided to take a new approach to truth. Namely, I’m going to make it up. And make it up in such a way that justifies every decision I decide(d), and in such a way that makes me feel better about … Read more
This week is Passover. Christians everywhere are saying, "Great, I love Passover! Matzoh’s so fun!" Meanwhile Jews lament eight days of indigestion. What’s kind of interesting, if you’re into this sort of thing, is that more than any other (Jewish) holiday, Passover is based on a narrative. If one were to try and place the … Read more
first published on realbuzz.com The crowd did not want to sit. I think it’s safe to say that, for the most part, these were the Converse-and-thick-glasses-wearing underground hip-hop fans more accustomed to the open floor space of First Avenue than to the rigidly rowed seating chart of the Fitzgerald Theater. So when Brother Ali came … Read more
first published on realbuzz.com It’s hard to believe that this is the same group that released Overcast a decade ago. Back then they were a minimalist trio, with pared-down beats that, because of their easily discarded rhythms, put emphasis on the lyricism of the their lead MC, Slug. (Quickly thereafter, Spawn, their other MC, left … Read more
Employing a tactic I’m pretty sure I’ve picked up from the current presidential administration, I’ve decided to take a new approach to truth. Namely, I’m going to make it up. And make it up in such a way that justifies every decision I decide(r), and in such a way that makes me feel better about … Read more
When she was in second grade, my girlfriend was informed by her teacher that E.B. White was a woman. Ostensibly, she was using the initials ‘E.B.’ to hide this fact, because books written by women, of course, didn’t sell as well as those by men. "No," I said, fifteen years after the fact. "You’re wrong, … Read more
Creative Commons photo by Zachary Korb A couple weeks ago, a very quiet takeover of Downtown Minneapolis was staged. Thousands of librarians from around the nation — purse-lipped and padded-soled — convened for their annual convention. (Were it not for the laminated PLA badges that hung on yarn around their necks, they would have looked … Read more
first published at www.realbuzz.com Tapes ‘n TapesWalk It Off As disgruntled as Tapes ‘n Tapes may try to sound — stretching their voices, writing somber lyrics, going heavy on guitars — the songs on Walk It Off, their second full-length album, easily remain within the realm of pop music. This is a good thing, I … Read more