rakemag

A fresh breeze from the East. Over thousands of years, from the time of the five magical emperors who ruled earliest China through the end of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Chinese artists have gracefully rendered cranes, tigers, dragons, apple blossoms, and smiling ladies with painfully tiny feet on vases, scrolls, and bits of jade. … Read more

A few months ago, at a Fitzgerald Theater appearance, poet Gary Snyder explained that he lost interest in religion as a young boy after his Sunday-school teacher told him that “non-human beings aren’t included in the drama of redemption”—a notion he found intolerable. It’s likely that Gary Bastian, Georgia Mrazkova, Ray Rolfe, Carol Strait, Allison … Read more

The “ready-made” of the title refers to Marcel Duchamp’s infamous urinal that shocked the bourgeoisie in 1917. It’s impossible to shock most folks these days, of course. So Yamada goes in for the cool, sleek beauty of porcelain and the soothing effects of repetition in these sculptural installations. In fact, what appear to be advanced … Read more

It’s not unusual for artists to work with a number of media, but painters who go in for a multiplicity of styles are rather uncommon. Minneapolis artist Jason Sandberg has four distinct styles of painting. He does realism, impressionism, abstractions, and pop. His eye wanders from scenes that have a distinctly local feel, such as … Read more

We find it, how you say, ironique, that this stunning monument to upper-class French domesticity is being unveiled on a holiday that celebrates the overthrow of said class. Apparently, we good ol’ Americans will celebrate virtually anything French on Bastille Day. This particular grand salon rocked the Parisian social circuit when royal tax collector Jean … Read more

Most of Minnesota’s great, iconic consumer goods, including Tonka Toys, Faribo Woolens, and Red Wing Shoes, aren’t made here anymore. But in 1996, Scott Gillmer, grandson of the last president of Red Wing Pottery, brought the family business back to life on an artisanal scale. Three full-time potters are using the same techniques and designs … Read more

In a just world, Lynda Barry’s books would all be in print and Marlys would be as iconic as Charlie Brown. We do not, of course, live in a just world, but the fact remains that nobody has chronicled the awkward, lonely, and frequently exuberant weirdness of childhood and adolescence more righteously or faithfully than … Read more

For every J.D. Salinger hiding out at the end of a very long driveway and revealing nothing to no one, there is a Kathryn Harrison, sharing everything—perhaps too much of everything—in a memoir. Notwithstanding her growing collection of graceful, compelling novels, Harrison will always be the woman who wrote a memoir (The Kiss) about having … Read more

For a long time, it didn’t make sense to us that writers like Mark Helprin and Orson Scott Card, spinners of such epic and delightful fantasy worlds, were also conservatives. The mirth, recklessness, and sheer imagination that fuels their fiction just doesn’t jibe with their imperious political commentaries, or with the speeches Helprin has written … Read more