Author: rakemag

Dear Rake,
I was too excited when I saw the cover of the February Rake [“Exposed”]! It was right before I left on my first vacation at a naturalist resort. The experience was great and the magazine was a big hit at the manager’s cocktail party, among the many Minnesotans who “bare it all” at this great resort on St. Maarten.
—Kathy from Minneapolis

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen was only a stone’s throw from my snug, little brick house. Next door, in a smaller home made of mud, lived my landlady Saida, her four young children, and her mostly absentee husband. I was a twenty-four-year-old aid worker, eager to help in any way I could.

Saida’s kids were sweet-faced ragamuffins, fascinated by my red hair and delighted when I sat alongside them on my doorstep, laughing and practicing Arabic. They didn’t have many diversions; their only “playground” was a dusty field in front of our houses that was strewn with rusty cans and rotting food and frequented by scavenging dogs.

Saida’s two older kids attended school, but four-year-old Maisa and five-year-old Abdul did not. Day after day, I watched them play in the dirty lot while, on the other side of the embassy wall, there lay immaculate lawns and an unused swing set. The kids’ friendship meant a great deal to me, and I daydreamed about all the things I would like to give them.

One afternoon, only a few months into my stay, I decided to bring Maisa and Abdul inside the embassy grounds to play. I knew this probably wasn’t OK, but nobody had told me I couldn’t. I wanted very much to offer something special to my little friends, something that American kids took for granted.

Holding onto the children’s grimy hands, I rapped on the embassy gate and then caught myself when I heard a repetitive sound. I always seemed to interrupt the guard during his afternoon prayers. “Allahu Akbaaaar,” God is great, he chanted, and we waited quietly. After a few moments, he opened the gate, prayer rug in hand, and gave me a surprised, slightly disapproving look as I sailed past him with Maisa and Abdul.

The kids didn’t seem to notice the lush grass under their feet, but stood at my side, staring at the swing set. They appeared to have no idea what it was. I walked them over to it and Abdul put his foot on the slide’s ladder. “Yalla,” I encouraged him, go on. After much coaxing he climbed the ladder, and then suddenly curled himself into a ball and went hurtling to the bottom, landing with a thud and a scream. My pride turned into a kind of sheepish alarm as I picked him up and he sobbed in my arms.

I took Maisa’s hand and led her to the swings. Her body trembled as I lifted her up onto the wooden seat, and her knuckles whitened as she gripped the chain handles. I tried to reassure her, but my gentle pushes only seemed to heighten her fear, and after only a few moments, I lifted her off.

The kids had clearly had enough. They both seemed relieved when we walked past the silent guard, out the embassy gate, and onto the familiar packed-mud lane. Maisa stayed beside me, but Abdul quickly let go of my hand and went running, straight through the garbage field and back toward his house.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, so I’ll put it off. I always find plenty to appreciate in The Rake. On picking up 17 Voices [April], I turned first to Robert Bly’s “The Book You Can’t Find,” and then pondered the coincidence of its being immediately followed by Oliver Nicholson’s “Halls of Memory.” Quite a few years ago I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation under Oliver’s inestimable guidance, and I am currently writing a book with Robert’s generous cooperation and encouragement. Then I flipped through the rest, happy to see other writers I admire and enjoy. The photographs of “Written on the Body” caught my eye. It so happens that I have written a fair amount on tattoos in Greco-Roman antiquity (the Nicholson connection) and I love modern poetry (the Bly connection). So I was doubly struck when I saw the photo of a forearm marked with the words of a familiar poem by Galway Kinnell. Now the bad news. One thing I have learned: It is very important to be careful both with tattoos and with words, especially words in poems. Unfortunately, the tattooed poem is missing one word, another “is.” Kinnell’s poem “Prayer” (from his book The Past [1985]) is correctly printed as follows:

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
That additional “is” turns out to be crucial to the meaning of the poem. And the series of three of them, “is is is,” something that practically never occurs in English, gives this short poem its particular buzz. If the message of this poem, with its attitude of welcoming and acceptance, has gone more than skin deep for the possessor of the inscribed arm, maybe this is not bad news after all. It’s just what is. I mean, shit happens. Whatever.
–Mark Gustafson,
Minneapolis

Editor’s note: That wasn’t the only mistake on the literary-tattoo front. The tattoo which purported to be John Steinbeck’s Latin motto: “To the stars on the wings of a pig,” actually reads, due to a mistranscription of the Latin somewhere in literary history, “To the stars on the other things of a pig.” We won’t speculate on what the pig’s “other things” are.

Hosannas to the artist-designed initial caps and the stories/poems [17 Voices literary supplement, April] that followed, aimed at lovers of literature and libraries and books and life. Oliver Nicholson’s fragrant essay of ancient library information and memories reminds me to emphasize as well the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, located among the monks of St. John’s U. When Founding Executive Director Julian Plante told me twenty years ago about the project of microfilming the world’s one-of-a-kind monk-illuminated manuscripts, I was skeptical of the need. That was before the bombing of the library at Dubrovnik, then the Iraq National Library conflagration. Homo homini lupus—man is a wolf to man—we know that Roualt image of a hanged man in a charred landscape. But burned books—homo liber lupus? Unimaginable, and yet … So celebrate the new library—and keep it idiot-proof by reading, and reading The Rake.

James P. Lenfestey,
Minneapolis

I was deeply offended at your insinuation that Crocs are anything less than the finest advancement in footwear since the invention of the cushion insole [“Clog Wild,” April]. Have you ever worn a Croc? I suspect not, because if you had you would be aware of their superior support, breathability, comfort, and engineering. These are no mere Jellies! Recant, blasphemer! Lest more strongly worded letters should find their way to your inbox!

Kristyn Meyer,
Normail, IL

Thanks for your excellent piece by Tom Bartel, “Guns in the City” [April]. It’s great to read a balanced, level-headed article about gun ownership in our city—one that dispels the myth of the slack-jawed, chew-spitting, ignorant “gun nut.” People who are anti-gun either by choice or by default often view a gun owner as some kind of leper; hopefully articles like this one can help bridge the gap and show that we’re regular citizens too.

–Alex Barnes,
Minneapolis

This was a great article on the gun culture of the area. The overwhelming majority of firearms enthusiasts are not crazed nuts just hoping for some punk to “make their day.” We just want to protect our house and family from the worst that could happen. Thanks.

–Adam Houtkooper,
Burnsville

The article about handguns by Tom Bartel is an interesting piece to find in a magazine that claims on its website to favor “contrarian” viewpoints. Bartel acts as a marketing mouthpiece for the nine-billion-dollar firearms and ammunition industry—hardly a contrarian thing to do. I might have found it more contrarian if Bartel had investigated whether the gun shops in the area actually would refuse to make a sale to an obvious “straw” buyer (illegal), or if they would sell fifty or one hundred handguns to a single customer (legal but unethical). It is these types of purchases that are key to the supply of illegal guns on our streets.
Bartel makes it look attractive to buy a handgun, but that’s because he didn’t talk to anyone who might have given him some facts. Like the fact that the single most important risk factor for being killed by a gun is owning one. Or the fact that on average, one gun is reported stolen every day in Hennepin County. Or the fact that the handgun that killed a Minnetonka man downtown in March was stolen from someone carrying it for protection. Or the fact that an American is nearly seven times likelier to be struck by lightning than to kill someone justifiably with a handgun.
Bartel notes that Bill’s Gun Shop and Range in Robbinsdale was identified by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as the source of 373 guns linked to crimes between 1996 and 2000, but “no data has been compiled since then.” That’s not quite right. The data is there—it’s the ATF’s job to compile it. The news is that Congress, at the insistence of the gun lobby, has forbidden the ATF to release the data. The firearms and ammunition industry depends on the criminal market for its profits, so it lobbies to protect dishonest dealers. Which local gun dealers are the suppliers of the street guns used to kill in our neighborhoods? That’s one of the “Secrets of the City.”

–Heather Martens,
Minneapolis