Twenty-seven years ago, I left Iraq on the first leg of a journey that would take me to the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and finally the United States. Today I am an American citizen, a businessman, and the father of three sons. Because my small business, Sindbad’s Café and Market, has become a crossroads for … Read more
Until the late sixties, in much of the country, the pigmentation differences between my wife and I would have made us felons had we tried to get married. According to one Virginia judge in 1959, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay, and red, and he placed them on separate continents.…The fact that … Read more
Orange Alert, everybody. Avoid crowds. But go shopping. Keep the economy strong. Have an emergency plan in place. A central location for you and your family to meet in the event of, oh, I don’t know…an explosion? The deadly release of a new Ben Affleck movie? Wash your hands, please, but masks are for the … Read more
Death. Justice. And very smart people in very strange times. Those are the favored topics of documentarian Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, Mr. Death). In his new film, The Fog of War, he finds all three in Robert McNamara, the Kennedy- and Johnson-era defense secretary whose career spanned the WWII-era U.S. firebombings of Japan, … Read more
February is high season for cross-country skiing around these parts. Minnesota and Wisconsin are the Mecca and Medina of this arcane sport. The American Birkebeiner in Hayward, Wisconsin (February 19; never mind Atkins, you better start carbo-loading today), is all the evidence we need that the nation—and much of the world, actually—comes here to celebrate … Read more
Martha Schultz and Julie Cologne enjoyed having a little time away from their husbands and kids, even if it meant hunkering down in a parking lot at four in the morning. The dashboard of Schultz’s Audi station wagon said it was twenty-seven degrees, which must have been the interior temperature, because outside the Edina Community … Read more
“Crisis” may be a strong word for the chocolate situation locally, but the situation is alarming. If you plan to say “I love you” with a box of chocolates on February 14th, options are dwindling. Dependable entry-level fare is still available at any of Fanny Farmer’s metro locations. And nowadays, we can’t turn around without … Read more
Mitch Hedberg is one funny dude. But his shtick—the stoner who’s mistaken the stage door for the restroom or exit—might be affecting his career trajectory. Dope logic and delayed response time is funny to a point, but it’s maybe not the best business plan. Strategic Grill Locations, the self-produced 1999 concert CD Hedberg had printed … Read more
What does it mean if you have a dream about flying through the air strapped to a toilet? Dare I ask? How could I not? Since ancient Mesopotamia, where dreams were first recorded, people have meandered the path of wonder in search of meaning in dreams. Dreams have inspired music, literature, mythology, political decisions, and … Read more
If you hold on to your hat and hustle over to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, you might catch the Werner Bischoff exhibition. Bischoff did as much as anyone to define photojournalism in mid-century magazines like Du and Paris Match. His work appears on the walls in sixty or seventy frames, a pretty healthy sampling. … Read more