In the past three weeks, I’ve been browsed 253 times, though I wonder if that number includes the twice-daily peek I take at my own profile, like a quick glance in the mirror as I pass by. Tickle.com first lured me to its domain with a promise to rate my intelligence. While other indicators have … Read more
It’s February, and if you aren’t carbo-loading for the Birkebeiner, then you could be carbo-loading on behalf of your local public broadcaster. Can it be long before the next round of pledge drives hits the airwaves? The last time this happened, I volunteered all over town to sample the culture and the carbohydrates. First I … Read more
One of the upsides of not being a serious athlete is that you can feel a little less guilty about smoking and drinking with impunity. But you can always count on certain subcultural elements to contradict even that plain truth. Bike couriers, for example. They seem to take special pleasure in doing everything, well, extreme. … Read more
Odd how few poets emerged from the Second World War. The First World War produced plenty. Some, like Rupert Brooke, thought they were going to be Homeric heroes––he died without hearing a shot fired in anger, and is buried on the island of Scyrus, where Achilles hid among the women. Others—Charles Sorley, Wilfrid Owen, Siegfried … Read more
Lakewood Cemetery, situated between Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis, is a place of big lawns and grand monuments. It is one of the city’s fanciest and most meticulously maintained community spaces. Indeed, it holds the graves of some of our state’s most prestigious former citizens, including Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Paul and Sheila … Read more
May told me something, Sarah says. My heart beats in stutters. Like I’m guilty. What did she tell you? I laughed. I shouldn’t have laughed. What did she tell you? It was her friend’s aunt. She died. You laughed at that? She died at her own forty-fifth birthday party. Why did you laugh? Sarah puts … Read more
In August of 1953, the American painter Beauford Delaney was aboard the ocean liner Liberté, bound for Paris, the city in which he would spend the rest of his life. The ship’s purser asked Delaney if he wouldn’t mind regaling the other passengers with some jazz standards. Delaney, it seems, had written “artiste” on his … Read more
Behind every news exposé, be it sporty (Barry Bonds and steroids), vengeful (outing CIA operative Valerie Plame), or just plain titillating (those tidbits about Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress), there is almost always a confidential source. Without confidential sources (and the reporters who love them), Watergate would simply refer to an upscale Washington hotel and C.J. … Read more
Guy Nelson, Guy Nelson–someone please tell us why we’re stuck on this Guy’s name. He’s certainly making a splash at SooVAC, having filled its space–no mean feat–with a host of found-object sculptures and five large-scale paintings. We were drawn to the paintings’ mix of abstraction and primitive/cartoonish representation, along with their goofy titles and a … Read more