John writes: Dear Rake–here’s a picture of my wife Shelley and I atop Victoria’s
Peak in Hong Kong. We brought The Rake to read on the (long) plane ride over and used it as a photo prop when the opportunity arose. Please make us famous!
–John Steingraeber, St. Paul
The Rake writes: Hope this helps …
Interesting profiles on the six politicos in your “Sculpting a Candidate” article [November]. One is a good pal of mine. However, I can’t be the first to note that all six of the people profiled were employed by those on the liberal side of the ledger. Are we to believe there is not one hard-working, interesting person who’s toiled for a Minnesota Republican who might have been included in the article? The conventional wisdom is that The Rake is a reflexively left publication, whether intentional or not. But I have to ask about your editorial meetings where this article was discussed. The names of the politicians sprinkled in the article read like an ACLU mailing list: Skip Humphrey, Amy Klobuchar, R. T. Rybak, John Marty, Paul Wellstone, Tom Harkin … it goes on. And for the over-fifty crowd, we even got Bobby Kennedy and Michael Dukakis.
If by chance this tilt didn’t occur to somebody, it says something about your—dare I say it—bias, or rather naive editorial process. Even the insertion, at the beginning of the piece, of a lighthearted sentence acknowledging the DFL celebration about to follow would have helped.
Tom Bartel’s characterization of Keith Ellison [“Capulets and Montagues,” November], like his understanding of perfect political storms, could benefit from a deep breath. The election of Jesse Ventura in 1998 did reflect voter aversion to the candidates of the established parties, but Ventura’s populist image, albeit more cultural than economic, had an even greater impact on his election. Populist moments come around infrequently, so to peg Ellison as “ … the two-dimensional cardboard caricature of a liberal … ” seems pretty absurd. Ellison’s frequent challenges to economic power (populism) and his record of standing up for the little guy as a lawyer, legislator, and activist have all but escaped coverage by reporters and pundits. There is a great deal to be sour about in this election cycle, but Ellison has kept his populist focus despite shallow media coverage and commentary.
I was a little surprised by the political operatives you chose to highlight in the November issue [“Sculpting a Candidate”]. Not because of their skills and abilities—indeed, they are clearly some of the best left-leaning political minds in Minnesota—but rather because of the lack of diversity in the profiles. I find it hard to believe that the Hmong, Latino, or Black communities, for example, have not produced a single politico to match the skills of the individuals featured in the article.
I really don’t think there is a logical connection between Terminalia and, as you state, political boundary lines between Mr. Ellison and Mr. Fine [“The Rituals of Boundaries,” October]. You suggest that Mr. Ellison and Mr. Fine should come together and find some common ground on Louis Farrakhan and his teachings. Some lines need to be drawn, and this is one: There is no room for discussion and compromise with someone who wants to behead every Christian and Jew. (Oh, if we could just sit down with them, try to understand why they hate us, and show them that we mean no harm, they will love us and we can share a feast together.) Terminus, where are you when we need you?
Are you suggesting that Western civilization and the Nation of Islam “celebrate” their common interests? Mr. Bartel, there are no common interests: If so, you would believe that if the Nazis and Jews got together in 1938 to share their common interests, war would have been avoided in Europe.
You have obviously studied ancient history at some point in your education; you might want to study recent historical conflicts and events that are more relevant to today’s conflicts than Terminalia.
I really enjoyed the story about Circle Pines [“A People’s History of Circle Pines,” November]. I have spent a large chunk of my life living in the N.E. metro and have memories of Circle Pines from back in the 70s. (Yes, I still can remember!) What really caught my eye was the map on page 56. Right away I realized that something was not right with the geography that the map displayed—like Hodgson Road, located west of Lexington. I then “Google Mapped” the location. Not only was the map flipped left to right, it was also flipped top to bottom. Also, maps almost always have north at the top, but not this one. Since the caption stated that it was from a brochure, it’s obvious that the developers put their own spin on Circle Pines’ existing geography (location, location, location) to market the place.
In “Pep Personified” [The Rakish Angle, November], Nancy Nelson’s husband explains that he gives his wife bee-themed jewelry as a private joke, because, “Aerodynamically, a bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly … but the bumblebee doesn’t know that, so it just soars merrily along.”
At the risk of depressing the sales of the bee-themed jewelry industry, I’d have to argue that the idea that any scientists ever seriously believed that bumblebees can’t fly is an urban legend. It can be traced back to a theory proposed in the 1930s by one Andre Saint-Lague, was corrected almost at once (he’d based his calculations on fixed-wing rather than moving-wing models), and has subsequently been debunked again several times— but, like all such legends, it refuses to die.
Director Richard Linklater has been on the independent movie track for over twenty years now, and he’s built an oeuvre that’s as interesting as it is eclectic. He recently abandoned the romantic comedies and plotless, stream-of-consciousness work he’s been known for, turning out instead a pair of cynical flicks—A Scanner Darkly and now Fast Food Nation—that would’ve fit right in during the 1970s. A self-taught filmmaker who, in a former life, worked on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, Linklater has a special feeling for people who labor on the lower rungs—something that’s especially evident in his latest movie.
What attracted you to adapt Fast Food Nation, a nonfiction book, as a fictional film?
I had a real desire to do a piece about industrial workers—auto assembly and the like. I know what it’s like to work at the absolute bottom, and I wanted to make a film from that viewpoint. It was Eric [Schlosser]’s [the author of both the book and the screenplay] idea to base the film around these fictional characters … When I heard that idea, I got on board immediately. Documentary’s not my thing, and, besides, you’ve got the documentary in the book itself. It would be redundant.
No one seems able to really change the system in Fast Food Nation.
It’s cynical in a way that’s almost hopeless.
Eric and I tried to be honest. Take Greg Kinnear’s character—he’s not a hero or a bad guy. One of the messages in the film is that none of us are heroes or villains, we’re just people trying to do our best, and we can make choices. But if you try to sum everything up too simply in a film like this one, you end up weakening the message. If I made someone embody everything that’s wrong with the story, I’m giving that one guy a lot of power he doesn’t really have.
The gore involved in meat production is pretty diminished in this film. Did you want to avoid desensitizing your audience?
Oh, yes—that stuff is pretty powerful. But I felt that if I stuck my camera in the blood and guts, it would be exploitative. I wanted to be somewhat abstract but still get to the reality of the situation. Billions are spent to get you to ignore the reality of your food. You look at fast food … it’s John Wayne and Montgomery Clift on a cattle drive, bringing you the beef. But it’s never fifty thousand cattle crammed into a small space, gorging on hormones and standing in their own feces.
Which processing plants were crazy enough to let you in?
We had to go to Mexico. Amazingly, those facilities are cleaner and safer than those in the United States, and they treat their employees better. The economics are much different, of course: They handle forty to fifty head of cattle in an hour, while in the U.S., they’re doing ten times that. The people who owned that slaughterhouse liked the fact that we focused on the migration north. That’s a very mythical story to them, leaving Mexico to find better work in the United States. Granted, we didn’t tell them everything we were doing, but we didn’t lie, either. It was the same with the fast-food joint—“Mickey’s” is a real place, this little chain from Texas. I’d shot film there before, and the owner allowed me to shoot Fast Food Nation there as well.
And Bruce Willis? I heard that you and he were of similar minds when it comes to things like September 11th conspiracies.
Well, I don’t know about that. He’s a freethinking, wild guy—analytical. He’s crucial in the movie, playing a guy who’s on the inside and doesn’t really care about what’s going on. Working with Kris Kristofferson, too, was an experience. I’ve been a huge fan of his from way back. This was just another small part for him, of course, but when I came away from meeting him, he exceeded my wildest impressions. How often can you say that about meeting one of your heroes?
Caleb McEwen is fast on his feet, but we suspect the artistic director of the Brave New Workshop has been running himself ragged as of late. Not only has he been directing plenty of comedy revues, but he and his wife Katy (the workshop’s assistant artistic director) welcomed a bundle of joy into the world last August. Nevertheless, McEwen remains as quick-witted as ever—so much so that we grew nostalgic for his legendarily funny improv performances. (When, oh, when will he appear onstage again?) In fact, McEwen was unfazed when asked to compose a list of necessities for a hypothetical sojourn on a desert isle. “Strangely, I may be one of the few people you’ll ever meet who has actually been stranded on a desert island,” he said. Was this just another of his improvisations? It’s hard to say, although McEwen did note that his experience made our little game, for him, “less hypothetical and more practical.” Here are the no-nonsense items he’d take along:
1) Von Neumann’s theoretical “Universal Constructor.” This machine is capable of powering and replicating itself, given the proper raw materials. Mine would be made out of the theoretical stuff from other people’s theoretical duffel bags, as these things would be littering the theoretical island—things like Joni Mitchell albums, Sopranos DVDs, and supermodel Gisele Bündchen. I would simply initiate Task No. 1: Start Universal Constructor Sequence. Then I’d relax as my machine begat one duplicate, then four, and so on until they formed a bridge to the mainland. I would then immediately initiate Task No. 2: Stop Exponentially Increasing Universal Constructor Horde from Devouring Earth.
2) Flava Flav. If derivative fiction has taught me one thing, it’s that uninhabited islands are rarely uninhabited. Eventually, someone is going to show up. When they do, I want to make the proper impression. Thus, I would bring along the greatest hype man of all time to properly introduce me. Flava Flav’s energetic and skillful announcement of my presence would prevent an unwelcome bum rush. Also, Flav is one of the few people who could properly appreciate my Universal Constructor.
3) Weapons-grade plutonium. When you’re in possession of some plutonium-239, someone will find you. To alert the world to my ownership, I would post a bulletin on MySpace.
4) A panda. They have to be endangered for a reason. I’m betting it’s because they’re delicious.
5) A recording of that sound Aquaman uses to control fish on Super Friends. I believe this is self-explanatory. How is Carnival Cruise Lines going to react when Flava Flav, an irradiated panda, and I roll up—Ben Hur-style—atop a flotilla of angry tuna?
Caleb McEwen directs Christmas: The Other White Holiday, which runs through January 27 at the Brave New Workshop Comedy Theatre, 2605 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-332-6620; www.bravenewworkshop.org
Seemingly timed for the darkest month of the year, this is a dystopic vision of a world in which the women suddenly become infertile, forcing society to examine—in short order—just what it means to be alive. The youngest human on earth, all of eighteen, is killed, and society’s falling apart at the seams. But when a woman is discovered to be great with child, the forces of good and evil work to deliver or destroy her baby … and hope for mankind. Children of Men is a celebration of gray and brown tones, exploring terrorism and environmental destruction and featuring Clive Owen doing his downbeat existentialist shtick. Along for the ride are Julianne Moore and a long-haired Michael Caine to add some heart to an otherwise morose story. With Children, the newly released Fountain, and the forthcoming Pan’s Labyrinth, this is looking to be one of Hollywood’s most ambitious sci-fi seasons ever.