British playwright Caryl Churchill weighs in on the subject of human cloning with her deliciously absurdist and a-tad-bit feminist commentary on the great debate. Set in the near future, A Number is about a man suffering the loss of his wife and son. In his grief, he arranges to have his boy cloned–times three. But … Read more
I’m only telling you this personal detail about my wife because you have to be aware of it to understand the whole story of how I came to find myself playing volleyball with an Elvis imitator in the nude. e So here it is: My wife has a perfectly formed body. That’s not bragging, just … Read more
Square in the middle of North Dakota is a town called Heaton. At this point, though, it may be an exaggeration to call it a town. It’s more of a boneyard with town-like aspects. The main street has an abandoned bank and gift shop, both with broken-out windows. A piece of a “B” rests on … Read more
ick Oehlenschlager’s office is crowded with so much unusual visual stimuli that it’s often hard for a visitor to follow the man’s enthusiastic torrent of conversation. There is a dead grouse splayed on its back on a newspaper atop a desk. There are tottering stacks of mounted plant specimens, various skeletons, and shelves jammed with … Read more
Just around the corner from Como Zoo’s polar bears, snow leopards, and other winter-loving creatures is a Victorian-era tropical oasis. The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Como Park floats on the horizon like a series of great, sparkling glass beads. Up close, the building’s steel and aluminum frame and solid Ionic columns are less ethereal, but … Read more
The “white lie”—is there such a thing? Good journalists, they say, have no friends. We have a few, so perhaps we’re doing something wrong. It’s true, though, that anyone who writes for a living makes enemies now and again. Writers of all types are caught on the horns of fact and fabrication. On the one … Read more
The room was smaller than I would have liked. And there were no tables to stand behind and very few chairs. I was on an upper floor of the Cosmopolitan Club in Manhattan, celebrating the eightieth birthday of my husband’s father, the lights of the surrounding buildings twinkling through the windows as the bow-tied and … Read more
There’s usually no problem finding a good movie to see in the Twin Cities—between the imperiled Oak Street Cinema, the Heights, Walker Art Center, and Landmark Theatres, there’s plenty to choose from that doesn’t insult one’s intelligence or batter one with sound and C.G.I. Sometimes, though, you get the urge to shut down your brain … Read more
Enough was enough, she thought as she stared out her kitchen window at the falling snow covering her garden. Growing things now bored her to tears. It was a brutal and masochistic hobby in such a harsh climate. She’d have three mostly satisfying months, preceeded by two months of dirty work and followed immediately by … Read more
By summer, the hulking, multi-ton blade sharpening machines of Printers Service Inc. will be gone, hauled out through the big front windows of 716 Washington Avenue North. For more than half a century, Ken Springer has run his business here, with the help of various employees who tend to stick around like family, and his … Read more