Fernando & Becky at Magen’s Bay, St. Thomas US Virgin Islands, same place where they spent their honeymoon 20 years ago. Second photo: Well, that’s Dumbo reading the Rake at the comfort of his cabin in the Royal Caribbean Explorer
Author: rakemag
-
Guatemala
Bharati Acharya [Minneapolis] knew she would have a lot of time to read at Lago
Atitlan, Guatemala. Among her other things, she packed a copy of the Rake in
her luggage. The only way to get around the lake is on one of the dozen,
or so, boat taxis that traverse the waters. But a lot of time is spent
waiting for boats to fill with passengers before leaving the dock at various villages surrounding the lake. Acharya took time to catch up on the latest issue during the wait
time. -
Nary a Peep from Parry
Clinton Collins, Jr., clearly defines the problem of the Star Tribune’s reader’s representative [Free the Jackson Five, June] when he concludes that “complaining to the Star Tribune is OK—if it is the right complaint, on the right issue … ” The irony here is that the Star Tribune did have a reader’s representative who was responsive to readers’ comments and concerns. His name was Lou Gelfand and I had a long-standing and cordial relationship with him. When I called him, he was always accessible and attentive. He was never too busy to listen or to return my calls.
It’s been disappointing to me that I’ve been unsuccessful in replicating this relationship with Kate Parry. I enjoy Kate’s thoughtful articles and it is obvious that she enjoys writing them; it’s also obvious to me that she’s not a one-on-one reader’s representative. It seems that the emails and phone calls that really capture her interest are the ones that create subject matter for her articles. She’s a talented journalist, but she has not filled the vacuum created by Lou’s departure. I am still waiting for an answer to the email that I sent to her on December 15, 2005.
-
Pooh-Poohing the Plastinates
The only positive thing about the very creepy Body Worlds exhibit at the Science Museum [The Rake’s Progress, June] is that it’s dead humans and not the usual dead animals that are being violated, disrespected, and exploited in the name of art.
-
No Sympathy
So to summarize your story [“No Way Home,” June]: Cambodia is hot. Cambodia sucks. Boy comes to the U.S. with his parents. Boy joins a gang, and never bothers to get citizenship, despite living here fifteen years. Finally, after being in fairly regular criminal trouble as a juvenile, he’s eighteen when charged with a felony and deported. (By the way, what objective journalist would travel all the way to Cambodia to talk to a criminal and not press him on what precisely he’d done?) Poor fellow feels “betrayed.” What part of this is unfair? This is not a “good kid,” accidentally picked up by The Man on his way to Sunday school. This is a habitual petty criminal, who finally strayed into the big leagues, and got punished. I say “good riddance.”
All those folks said such nice things about him—did any of them perhaps feel that they should intervene? Stop his self-destructive course midstream?
“It’s not right to send people to a country they do not call home without giving them the opportunity to argue for a second chance and to show what they’ve done to turn their lives around.” What? The lack of objectivity at letting this statement stand unchallenged is staggering. This punk got lots of second chances, and third chances, and probably fourth and fifth chances too. Eventually (I would hope much sooner) his chances ran out.
“Should people be deported when the U.S. has been involved in creating the conditions that led to their becoming refugees?” Personally, I’d love to challenge Mr. Hing on the deep racism in that statement. As if it logically follows: refugee, thug, criminal? This country was built on refugees. Economic, war, political, religious—aside from autochthones, we all are refugees and the children thereof. By his logic, we’re all apparently free from culpability for our personal behavior? If the consequences of Moek’s deportation were so severe, perhaps he should have followed a narrower path? The rest of us manage to understand that lawbreaking leads at least to jail, so we don’t do it. Or is your author suggesting somehow that Cambodian refugees are too stupid to understand the logical consequences of criminality? Don’t want to be deported, separated from your family, your home, sent someplace else? To quote a film: “Stop breaking the law, loser.” In fact, the crying shame is that of the 1,500 “caught in the process,” only 145 have been deported. 0.100 is a pretty crummy batting average.
-
Lizz Winstead
Jon Stewart’s smart satire makes watching The Daily Show one of our favorite things to do in bed. But it’s a little-known fact that the show owes much of its sassy vibe to Minnesota-born humorist Lizz Winstead, who, with Madeleine Smithberg, co-created the show. Winstead still works the comedy circuit, performing one-woman shows such as Don’t Get Me Started and Stream of Consciousness that get personal on touchy topics, and she’s also appeared on programs like Politically Incorrect and Air America’s Unfiltered. She’s at home anywhere she has an opportunity to lampoon and dissect the news of the day, which is why we permitted her to bring item #1 to The Rake’s deserted island; her powers of creativity are fueled by current events, and it just wouldn’t be fair to cut her off.
1. I would have to bring a computer that would give me Internet access. I need to read Slate and listen to NPR every day. I’m a total news junkie, and I have to keep up with what’s going on in the world.
2. Would a Scrabble board be a ridiculous thing to bring if I was by myself? But I love Scrabble. I play a lot of Scrabble, and I always have. I like the strategy of it. Even if you lose, you achieve your personal best just by being strategic and paying attention. I’m competing with myself, not with the other person. But hey, with my computer, I can play Scrabble on the Internet.
3. My dog, Edie. She’s a rescued collie-shepherd mix. She would provide the most joy I could possibly have on the island. She and I could go swimming, and she’d tell me all her secrets. She’s named after Edie from the documentary Grey Gardens [about the deteriorating cousins of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy]. In the movie, there’s a little Edie and a big Edie; my dog is little Edie and I’m big Edie.
4. A family photograph of my siblings—I’m the youngest of five—singing to my parents on their fiftieth anniversary.
5. I like crappy coffee. It keeps me not broke. In New York I buy coffee from the men who have coffee carts on the streets for a dollar, and I think it’s delicious. Other people think it’s not so great. And I’d bring a bottle of Oban Scotch.
-
Juked For Joy
Several months back, I managed to straddle the divide between the good and bad, young and old concert-going experience in just one evening. It’s no coincidence, of course, that I was still 29-years-old back then–well on my way to becoming the “Snack Wells and Cat Lady” I would be at the stroke of thirty. In any case, the evening started at the Nomad–not a bad place to hear music, mind you. I do have fond memories of catching ska concerts there back when it was called Five Corners.
I can’t recall which band was playing this night, but I do remember them being so loud as to cripple the conversation I was trying to have with a hot’un 25-year-old at the bar. (I first spotted him on MySpace and then worked the courage. Last time I’d ever try that one.)
The deafening decibels got old after so long, even while ogling the mop-haired cutie didn’t. I eventually went for a stroll, ending up at the The Viking Bar (1829 Riverside Ave.) a few blocks over, where a trio of gray hairs were plucking swing and bebop at reasonable, acoustic levels. As I’m sure you can imagine, the evening turned on its head just then and improved ten-fold, despite the fact that, by then, I was in the company of a pity-partying, forty-something divorcee. But I was able to ignore him, mostly, because the music was so good. And while I didn’t exactly get out of my seat and dance that night, I did bounce around quite a lot.
I bring this all up to plug The Viking Bar’s Wednesday night Jackson’s Juke Joint concerts–yet another series of grown-up music events. Tonight brings the First Annual Rock & Roll Polka Fest with Daddy Squeeze’s Polka Pals plus the Tin Star Sisters. It all starts at a very reasonable 7 p.m.
-
At Least One Revelation
While not exactly a secret, the just-opened Diane Arbus exhibition is fantastic. I was absorbed by it while milling about the gallery this past Saturday afternoon. The photographs were beguiling, of course. But what really struck me were the “project rooms”–in particular, the room housing Arbus’ personal biography. Her childhood, her marriage, her motherhood, all are synopsized in a fairly impassive manner–personal letters notwithstanding. Then, all of a sudden, in 1971 she’s gone by her own hand. I found it curious that the didactics bore little hint of the fraying mental health that led to her suicide, other than a flip reference to her “starting to see” a certain therapist or that the arms of Marvin Israel, her lover, were wrapped around some mysterious other woman in a photo. (This photo capturing a party which celebrated Richard Avedon’s 1970 Minneapolis Institute of Arts solo exhibition. Local hob-nobbers will find it interesting because there are some familiar characters from our local art scene in it, too.)
While walking around, I felt it evident in the body of work, the fact that his woman was buried deep in ideas and images, and she was unable to burrow her way out in order to find satisfying human contact. It’s obviously a plague of artistic brilliance, even more so of artistic “observers” such as photographers, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this particularly afflicts artistic women. If they’re so absorbed by thought are they unable to meaningfully fulfill the selfless roles of wife, mother, caregiver, significant other, and friend. I won’t go on and on about my impression here, realizing how over-consumption of feminist literature might color my perspective. But if you get the chance, go see the show, and drop me a line to let me know whether you agree.
-
Where not to park at the new Guthrie
Secret of the Day is that you should avoid parking in the Guthrie Theater’s new parking ramp, once it opens next week. After a “press screening” on Friday, I tried paying my fee in the fully automated ramp with my credit card, only to have it get rejected. Nothing out of the ordinary there. I tried the next one. Then the next. No dice. At this point, I press a button and ask for help. I wait five minutes. I get impatient. I pull back and then pull into the automated exit thingamajig one over, only to suffer another string of credit card rejections. Then the darn autotron ate my ticket, and whaddya know, when the security guard finally arrived, I was asked to pay the “lost ticket fee.”
This was a bad experience, made worse by the fact that I drank three cups of coffee and had had no breakfast. But it doesn’t quite over-shadow all the fun I had tromping about the interior of that new building that morning, prior to this breakdown. It’s darn beautiful inside there–even if the exterior does strongly resemble an IKEA store. Particularly gorgeous are the new proscenium theater (i.e., Guthrie Lab space), which is decorated love dungeon-style in opulent reds, and the deck of the “bridge to nowhere,” which offers what is possibly the best view in the city. Also, the new Guthrie has eleven bars! How neat!
-
Le weekend
A little birdie / press release told me that Twin Cities Film Fest / U Film Society mastermind Al Milgrom got into a fight with an elevator out at the Seattle Film Festival on Wednesday. And the elevator might’ve won, because he ended up with a broken arm. Geez, Al! First the heart attack and now this!
In any case, same-said item claims you can “help his condition” by going to see Iberia at the Oak Street this weekend–Iberia being one of the bestsellers from this year’s festival. It’s about gypsies, as are all good movies, operas, and theater productions really.
And now, is my good deed done?
What I’m really doing this weekend: checking the various Nature Valley Grand Prix bike races, my favorites being the one in downtown Minneapolis tonight (implicit beer drinking) and the “toughest criterium in North American” in Stillwater on Sunday (Oy, the hill!); spending as much time in bed as is possible; passing through the office to put a few finishing touches on the July issue.If I was a more ambitious woman, I’d be road-tripping to Grandma’s Marathon, up in Duluth, to serve as a spectator or riding ye old byke to the Square Lake Solstice Festival in Stillwater. You get a discount if you can pedal there, you know.