With her all-seeing eye and clear, impelling, and quietly humorous prose, Joan Didion helped shape the golden age of literary journalism in the sixties and seventies. In particular, her book of California essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was a landmark work that confirmed for the rest of the country that strange folks indeed populate that state. … Read more
In an American literary scene where the writer’s gaze has been steadily turning inward for decades, Philip Levine’s concerns–blue-collar work, exploitation, social justice, and spirituality–are so virtuous as to be almost anachronistic. Born to Jewish immigrants in Detroit in 1928, Levine did a long apprenticeship in the Motor City’s industrial academies, and his poetry–distinguished by … Read more
It took a while, but the Twin Cities finally got a literary festival of the caliber of Chicago’s great Printer’s Row Book Fair. Every year, the folks behind this true labor of love seem to push the thing further in the right direction. This is no mere gathering of highbrows and academics; sure, there is … Read more
Remember Cook’s Choice? It was the most dreaded day on your school lunch calendar. The lucky ones brown-bagged it; the rest of us stood in line for a meal we knew had been planned by a Lunch Lady surveying the walk-in cooler and reading expiration dates. As we bravely offered up our trays for a … Read more
What is it about Americans and guilt? Mr. Bush, it seems, may now be willing to admit that the world is warming up. But he would not have us think that the human race (let alone its industries and motorcars) is in any way responsible. Mustn’t feel bad about it, must we? This is strange … Read more
American gun lovers who hated Bowling for Columbine have got another thing coming with Dear Wendy. Scriptwriter Lars von Trier already raised hackles on these shores for his blasting of bedrock American values in Dogville; that’s partly why Dear Wendy was directed by his buddy, Thomas Vinterberg, who is himself responsible for The Celebration, one … Read more
In this offbeat coming-of-age story, a meek seventeen-year-old tries to break a lifelong habit with the help of a transcendentalist orthodontist (Keanu Reeves), group therapy, and ADD drugs. The incentives to remove his thumb from his mouth once and for all are strong (and curvaceous), but in the course of doing so he’s forced to … Read more
Frankly, we’re sick and tired of biopics (Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash? Pshaw!), but this one promises to be a breed apart–as much about the making of an American masterpiece as it is a bio of its author, Truman Capote. He and his childhood friend, the novelist Harper Lee, seemed like an unlikely duo to … Read more
The other day, Michelle Mayama stood in the Lake Harriet Spiritual Center, an unassuming church at Forty-Fourth and Upton in Linden Hills. She held a chain, at the bottom of which hung a smooth piece of amethyst. As she entered the main glass-domed sanctuary, the stone spun almost too quickly to see—at about six hundred … Read more
Corporal Anthony Schramm, like most of our brave soldiers on active duty, had Internet access while his National Guard unit was deployed in Iraq. A good thing, too—Iraq was just as dangerous and hot as everyone says, and entertainment was scarce during his eighteen-month tour. Receiving up to twenty emails a day was a great … Read more