I had to laugh at your article, “The Dog’s Lover” [July]. You see, I, too, have a similar problem with my male Yorkie. His toy, a poor stuffed animal, is now missing an ear, eye, and portions of his head, which I have had to stuff and sew numerous times. I made the mistake of bringing it out when we had company—yes, he certainly provided the entertainment. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a replacement, but my Yorkie has occasionally made do with a stuffed porcupine (ouch!).
Author: rakemag
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FROM RAKEMAG.COM/TODAY: September 04, 2006 A Sort of Requiem
The summer is fading. The moon is easing down to sleep in the trees, even as the stars step back into the dark country of heaven. They look like a small cluster of island villages in the North Sea, seen from an airplane at night.
A fox, interloper here in the middle of a city overrun by the swelling chorus of cicadas singing summer’s requiem, does its solitary, long-legged Mardi Gras dance down an empty street.
These are, I suppose, precious days in the middle of a man’s life. If you’re going to find yourself at the crossroads it’s nice to have such pleasant diversions while you mull your options, nice to still have options, to still sense the road forking off in so many directions wherever you happen to find yourself.
Take your time, the night says, it’s yours, even if there’s less of it now than there was yesterday, than there was last September. Take your sweet fucking time.
It’s hard to imagine, on an evening like this, that there’s a single thing out there to be afraid of, or that all your failures add up to anything but a series of minor follies. It’s all frankly hard to imagine, this life, this world, the world stretching to the horizon in the darkness and out into space beyond even the most distant stars. -
FROM RAKEMAG.COM/TODAY: Got Me a Movie, I Want You to Know…
Got Me a Movie, I Want You to Know: The Best Songs About Movies and the People Who Make Movies
A bee got into my bonnet the other day, and I started thinking about my favorite songs about the movie industry. Not songs from movies—those are a different beast altogether. No, I want songs that celebrate or lament Hollywood, tributes to the stars or reminiscences of some actor’s tragic demise. In no particular order:
Debaser, The Pixies. A tribute to Buñuel.
Take, Take, Take and The Union Forever, The White Stripes. The first, about an obsession with Rita Hayworth; the second, about an obsession with Citizen Kane.
Lon Chaney, Chickasaw Mudd Puppies. Great song that you’ll never find—these guys (a guitarist and a guy in a big rocking chair, singing and keeping the beat with his boots) are long gone. All about the Man of a Thousand Faces. Nearly indecipherable lyrics, most of which are references to his many films.
The Right Profile, The Clash, and Monty Got a Raw Deal, R.E.M. A pair of songs about the tragic life of Montgomery Clift.
Act Naturally, Buck Owens (and later sung by Ringo on Help!). “They’re gonna put me in the movies…”
David Duchovny, Bree Sharp. She’s probably regretting not going with Gillian Anderson on this one.
King of the Mountain, Southern Culture on the Skids. Fab song about a backwoods pornographer.
Martin Scorsese, King Missile. -
from Mumbai { What Next?
Twelve hours before the U.S. government issued a terror alert for its citizens in India, I stopped by the Fatima Burqa Collection shop in Mumbai (officially known as Bombay until 1996). Located on Ebrahim Rahmatulla Road, a teeming shopping street in a crowded downtown Muslim district, the diminutive outlet is distinguished from its neighbors by the stately, headless mannequins draped in black silk in the entryway. Standing next to one of them, I peered inside. Peering back at me, behind the counter, was a thin, middle-aged man with a hennaed beard, wearing a skullcap. I adjusted my Twins cap, but I couldn’t fool him—or myself.
“They probably thought you were the police,” laughed Rohit Shah, a friend who is president of the Bombay Metal Exchange. It was a few days later, and we were driving past the Victorian splendor of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station. Since terrorists bombed Mumbai’s commuter trains on July 11, killing at least 183 people, the terminus has been considered a major terror target, and security has supposedly been tightened. But from the backseat, I saw only beggars standing in the doorways. “There is nothing that anyone can do,” Rohit said. “In Bombay, we are in God’s hands.”
Lately, God has been rough on Mumbai. If it isn’t terrorism, it’s an unusually powerful monsoon. I had come to Mumbai to report on India’s burgeoning recycling industries and rode into town during a downpour fierce enough to wash out roads and create car-sized craters in highways. My plan was to spend two days touring recycling facilities located in the city of Surat, north of Mumbai, but upon my arrival my contact—let’s call him Mr. S—informed me that his driver was terrified of the rains. Surat, home to two-and-a-half million people, was ninety percent underwater as a result of mismanagement of dam reservoirs during the monsoon.
The next afternoon, as consolation, Mr. S’s driver arrived at the Hilton with instructions to ferry me to Mr. S’s country club. I had been watching the rain from my room all day, and I was anxious to go. But my enthusiasm soon waned; traffic was totally gridlocked due to washed-out roads. During long, dead stops in the middle of downtown, I watched from fogged windows as Mumbaikars—some in saris, some in business suits, and some in rags—waded barefoot through water that ranged from ankle- to knee-deep.
Three hours and twenty miles later, the car pulled up to the gate of the club. Waiting for me were Mr. S and his friend, Mr. E, a manufacturer of brass ballpoint-pen tips. We retired to the empty, wood-paneled bar for drinks and lamb from the tandoor. My seat faced a glass wall that looked onto a pool overflowing with rain. “For the last three years, the monsoon has been very bad,” said Mr. S. “Unusually bad.” When I suggested that global warming might be the cause, he erupted into a high-pitched giggle. “Something must be wrong,” he replied, and ordered another round.
Two days later, I was still stuck at the Hilton, awaiting word as to whether I could visit recycling facilities in nearby Sylvassa. As I lay in bed, CNBC reported that the U.S. Consulate in Delhi was advising U.S. citizens in India to maintain a low profile. Apparently, “individuals associated with al-Qaeda” were planning to bomb hotels, markets, and tourist sites, and special police units were being assigned to vulnerable and sensitive areas in Mumbai. One such site, it was noted, was the Air India headquarters next to my hotel. I walked out to the street, where I found the Air India building flanked by two traffic cops armed with bamboo walking sticks. Four other traffic cops sat, unarmed, on the stairs of the building, chatting amiably. Not exactly reassured by this show of force, I sought comfort by taking a twenty-minute walk up the street to the Gateway of India, Mumbai’s most popular tourist site. Aside from an admittedly larger regiment of traffic police standing guard, one of whom even sported a pistol, there was little indication that any serious effort was being made to halt potential attacks, despite the fact that more than fifty people were killed by a car bomb here in 2003.
I called Rohit. He asked if I was keeping a low profile. When I admitted that I had, out of curiosity, just visited two likely terror targets, he chuckled. “In Mumbai, after the train bombings, the trains were running again in six hours. In London, after the bus bombings, the city was shut down for days.” He paused, and I waited for the moral to this story. “Anyway, Mumbai people are strong because they place their fate in God’s hands. You’ll see.” Actually, I had seen enough. Back at the Hilton, I noticed that the tall, fierce-looking Sikh guards who stood by the door were now augmented by two slight men in pale blue uniforms emblazoned with patches that said “Monitron.” Neither was armed. As I paused to pick up a FedEx package at the front desk, I noticed the pretty young concierge who had helped me change my departure flight from Mumbai. “Monitrons,” I said, nodding at the new security presence. She smiled politely in response. “Are you enjoying your day, sir?” she asked.
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Joan Jett
Joan Jett, the tough-talking broad who once screeched “I don’t give a damn about my reputation,” has been canonized by an entire generation of she-rockers. Everyone from Courtney Love to PJ Harvey cites her as a muse. And while Jett’s career has recently detoured through acting gigs and reworking some of her standards for movie projects, she and her Blackhearts have recently been touring in support of an all-new record, Sinner, which was ten years in the making. Jett gave us a ring one recent afternoon to chat about her music, her career, and the current climate for women in rock.
So, after ten years with no album, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts are back with Sinner. What’s the deal with the name?
It’s really just a reflection of the times we’re living in. Everyone seems to be on one side or the other, and so it’s kind of interesting to realize that morality is so subjective. For example, a lot of people might judge me based on who I am, based on the way I look or whatever. But underneath, they may not know anything about me. But it’s not just with me. I’m thinking about other people, too, and my judgments of them.
We’re listening to some of the tracks on the new record and not discerning a great shift in musical style. However, with songs such as “Riddles” and “Change the World,” it seems your lyrics are tackling a new topic: politics.
Politics and war—and hope, hopefully. These are certainly my first protest songs. It’s something I’ve kind of wanted to touch on for years, but I didn’t really know how to cross that bridge without being preachy or corny; I wanted it to be really organic. So [with “Riddles,” a song that mixes in sound bites from Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush] I was able to write a song that’s not calling anyone a moron or anything; it’s just reflecting on something I see. And I want to see if other people see it, or if I’m just crazy.
What can people expect to hear at First Avenue on October 23?
There’ll be a lot from Sinner. But there’ll be a lot of our older songs, too.
So you’re not averse to playing the classics. Will you go as far back as The Runaways?
Yeah, actually, we’ll do a little Runaways, too. Why would I run from who I was or who I am? I’ll even play “I Love Rock-n-Roll”… I had to make peace with that a while ago.
Looking around at the situation today, the presence of women in rock seems to have dissipated some since the Blackhearts’ heyday in the 1980s. What’s your assessment of the state of women in rock?
It’s really frustrating! For a while, you had bands like L7, Babes in Toyland, and Bikini Kill. I think girls are still a little hesitant because I think there’s this illusion of support and equality, and it’s not really the case. People say girls are equal and girls can do what they want, but most of the time, the girl is going to take a little shit from her parents or her girlfriends for trying to get into a band. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of support for girls playing music—either from radio, or people just not being interested. I remember what a lot of people were saying about The Runaways, and it got to be really hard. Frankly, I think I had a point where I was lucky. The timing was right. I had a great song [The Runaways’ late 70s hit “Cherry Bomb”]. And I recognize that a lot of it was luck and timing. If it’d been even a year later, things might’ve been different.
So, what are you listening to these days?
I listen to a lot of the things I grew up listening to, which would be things like British glitter music, David Bowie, T. Rex, Gary Glitter, and then a lot of the punk rock stuff—The Replacements, Social Distortion, Fugazi.
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts perform at First Avenue on October 23.
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Wendy Knox
As of late, Wendy Knox has been giving some thought to what a person might take with her if driven from her homeland. She and her Frank Theatre troupe are rehearsing their production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, an epic set during the Thirty Years’ War of 1618-1648—a time when many Europeans were rendered refugees.
Brecht’s play, which premiered in Zurich in 1941, is a meandering but deeply intellectual piece of literature, one with no shortage of contemporary parallels. Indeed, it has recently become fashionable reading, especially since a prominent and well-received New York production, starring Meryl Streep, was mounted in New York. But like most Twin Citizens, Knox has never seen Mother Courage set to stage. Where Mother Courage—and the posthumous personality we’ve attached to Brecht, for that matter—represents great darkness, the effusive Ms. Knox is quite the opposite. She was warm and chatty during a recent phone conversation—especially for a director fascinated by Brecht, Suzan-Lori Parks, and other challenging playwrights. And, like any theater professional worth her salt, she handily improvised the following list of items to take with her to The Rake’s desert isle:
1) I’m taking the hammock. Most people think that because they’re going to a desert island there’s already going to be hammocks there, because they’re used to going to Mexico. I went down the Amazon ten, twelve years ago, and we actually slept on hammocks, which was pretty fun. Then I bought a hammock a couple years ago, and I’ve got to tell you, I’m a believer in the hammock therapy. They’re great for reading. They’re great for just spacing out.
2) My friend Richard’s iPod. I don’t have an iPod and I’ve never even programmed one, but when I go to Richard’s house, I hear the most eclectic programming on his—everything from Donna Summer to Louis Prima. But first I’d want to make sure he had Elvis Costello and the Staples family.
3) One or two golden retrievers. I’m a golden retriever addict; they’re such great companions! And who cares about dog hair on a desert island?
4) For my intellectual survival kit, I’d take the library of my friend Beth Cleary [a Hamline University theater professor], which includes Brecht’s collected works, his journals, his poetry—since I’ve had the obsession with Brecht for, like, the past twenty years …
5) I’d also like to have a culinary survival kit, including a copy of Cook’s Illustrated: The Best Recipes. What’s great about it is that they’ll go into their test kitchen and do these test runs—how do you make the best scones or the best fried chicken? They’ll try the recipes with milk, and then maybe some cream. And then they’ll do this sort of analysis: Well, this worked but it made it kind of soggy, and so on. The survival kit would also have a really good knife and at least a case of fine wine. And a handful of seeds, because I’m a maniac gardener, too, and if I had a handful of heirloom tomato seeds and basil, I’d be able to make my own li’l caprese salad.
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Mina Agossi
Mina Agossi was born to rankle a particularly fusty type of jazz listener. Her music is just so maddeningly … French. Edgy, cranky, wandering, and undeniably sexy, her vocal style owes more to PJ Harvey and Diamanda Galás than anyone from the jazz world. Agossi employs punkish backup musicians, utilizes unauthorized sounds (including the kamale n’goni, a Malian string instrument), and sings with the kind of unholy spirit that used to get women burned at the stake. 1010 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; www.dakotacooks.com
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Beck
Three years after his last album, Guero, Beck gives us The Information, a spacey rap fantasy, and we’re relieved to report that our favorite trapped-in-puberty rocker is still one of the most devious sound manipulators in the business. Things were uncertain for a while: After the exceedingly mopey Sea Change and a notorious tour with the Flaming Lips, Beck got married and became a dad, which downshifts many a good rocker into a mediocre folksinger. The beats on Guero were a step in the right direction, however, and now the man has hit the ground running in The Information. Apparently, it wasn’t Scientology Beck needed to pull him out of his slump; it was hip-hop.
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Yo La Tengo
Long the greatest cover band in the indie-rock world, Yo La Tengo’s live repertoire (and much of its recorded catalog) includes an exhaustive list of wonderful songs by other people, ranging from the Fall and the Grateful Dead to John Lennon and Captain Beefheart. Of course, Ira Kaplan has proven to be abundantly capable of writing his own agitated, intricate, and eclectic songs for the band, a tradition that continues on its latest release. Titled I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, it makes you wonder if there’s a specific person that this normally mild-mannered trio is addressing. There doesn’t seem to be any musical confrontation on the new album, however, as the band blurs pop’s boundaries by bringing in jazz, rock, country, and glorious ambient sounds. 612-332-1775; www.first-avenue.com”
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American Voices: Cantus with VocalEssence
VocalEssence, 120 singers strong, will join forces with the all-male singers of the boutique troupe Cantus to present an evening of folk songs, spirituals, and contemporary classical compositions, all handcrafted right here in the U.S.A. Included are works by Aaron Copland (“Ching-a-ring-chaw”) and Leonard Bernstein (“Make Our Garden Grow”) as well as relative unknowns. A section of the bill is also dedicated to Minnesota composers: Domenick Argento, Aaron Jay Kernis, Libby Larsen, and even Brent Michael Davids, whose work is a fascinating melding of traditional Native American music and classical European stylings. 612-371-5656; www.vocalessence.org”