My brother recently had a job that required him to purchase 231 gallons of gas in seven weeks. Ben was behind the wheel of his 1997 Honda Accord ten hours a day, seven days a week, and he covered 5,500 miles without ever leaving the metropolitan area. But this was no trucking or courier gig; … Read more
Every winter you encounter them in the news, Minnesota’s perverse answer to Sports Illustrated swimsuit models: pale, shivering people taking part in polar plunges for charity. Huddled like doomed, featherless penguins, their ample pink flesh turning blue, they suddenly rush past the camera men and on-site ambulances to flail briefly in the water of some … Read more
In 1978, Joe Franken had a day job consulting for the Johnson Printing Company of Minneapolis. He also moonlighted as an actor, a model, and a copy writer. Back in the seventies and eighties, his work in TV commercials made him a familiar face to many Twin Citizens. Before he got into advertising and printing, … Read more
The other day, the Minnesota State High School League decided the public is ready for instant replay at some high school basketball and hockey games. High schools using television replay to fact-check the referees is unheard of, yet at their meeting last week, Minnesota coaches, officials, and athletic directors all patted each other on the … Read more
Jared has a last name, but like Michelangelo, Madonna, and Saddam, he doesn’t need one. When I say “Jared,” you know I’m not talking about actor Jared Leto or Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond. Those guys have their constituencies, but uninym status? There’s only one Jared who can make that claim: Jared the Subway Guy, … Read more
It’s time to celebrate the unassuming doughnut, the stalwart companion of countless cups of fresh-brewed coffee, the humble fried hoop that is everyman’s golden cake. Why now, you might ask? Because January marks the opening of a long stretch of winter contemplation; also, there has yet to be a holiday misgiving that can’t be quietly … Read more
I had begun writing on an entirely different subject for this month’s column—plea bargaining—but then a friend called to tell me that Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III had died. I put all thoughts about plea bargains aside, went down to my basement, and dug out an old Pryor album. Staring at it, I was … Read more
Losing weight and quitting smoking are always the top two New Year’s resolutions for us Americans. Not to brag, but I’ve done both—quitting a twelve-year, pack-a-day smoking habit and losing (and regaining and relosing) a rather substantial amount of weight in my life. I did neither by making a New Year’s resolution. Like most really … Read more
Vast and stark, repetitive and meditative, this pair of video installations lulls viewers into transcending their own boredom. In The Desert Sweepers, a crew of street sweepers in orange vests gently rake sand into small piles in an endless, digitally enhanced desert. Tse herself appears in Echo, playing cello in a stunning alpine valley, accompanied … Read more
"If I see that tie one more time, I’ll shoot myself.” My husband Jon was browsing through photos from our recent wedding, lamenting his last-minute decision to rent a tux rather than buy a suit. “Look at that,” he groaned. “Did I somehow not notice it was made of pressed plastic?” I laughed, but lightly, … Read more