Category: Article

There was some surprise around town last week when the Minneapolis Fire Department said they’d already started selling advertising on city fire trucks. They’ll begin with hose covers promoting an unimpeachably responsible product: a smoking cessation program called Quit Plan. Still, thoughtful people were alarmed, and we were intrigued. When times are tough, our city leaders need to think creatively about funding liberal indulgences like putting out fires, right? We should be applauding Chief Rocco Forte for what may be the most creative funding solution ever applied in the public sector. So what’s the big whoop?

There are several big whoops. One is that we can’t escape the feeling that virtually everything is for sale, including our most necessary civil services. When Budweiser offers to buy the university a new swimming pool, with, you know, a custom tile job—what will our answer be?

Then too, we’re reminded of Lady Bird Johnson’s prescient campaign in the sixties to check billboard advertising. It resulted in the National Highway Beautification Act of 1965, which limited billboards to commercial and industrial zones as well as empowered states to decide how degraded they wished to be. (To this day, billboards are prohibited in Vermont. Oddly, no one complains.) Still, we fear hers was ultimately a futile effort lost to another century. The present one has so far been dominated by Reliant stadiums and Pepsi halftimes.

It probably doesn’t get said enough that this is a form of visual pollution. (Graffiti is illegal not because it assaults the eyes, but because it is advertising for which no one has paid.) We admit this for selfish reasons. When one becomes inured to advertising, it stops working, and ad-underwritten media (like, say, a nice little city magazine) begin to go away.

Besides, we actually like good advertisements, and we confess that an ad-free society wouldn’t be one we’d like very much—and not just because we’d be out of a job. One of the most depressing pilgrimages we ever made was to prelapsarian East Berlin. It took us days to realize that our vague feeling of desperation was being fed by something very specific: the complete absence of color, light, visual stimulation. On the other side of the wall, this was provided by good-old fashioned capitalist hucksterism—in a word, advertising.

Of course, there may be more serious reasons to worry about selling the hose covers to the highest bidders. We think the MFD is wise to take baby steps in these untested areas. Quit Plan offers an irresistible symmetry to the relationship: Most fatal fires in Minnesota are caused by reckless smoking. And even though the majority of calls to which the fire department responds are “medicals,” one could certainly make a case that the larger share of these, too, are health-related problems caused or complicated by smoking cigarettes. In other words, if this particular ad campaign works, our fire department will have less work to do, with more money in hand.
We should be so lucky.

A five-year labor of love by French writer/director Sylvain Chomet, Triplets is a pure visual delight that ought to appeal both to young children and the snootiest of the arthouse crowd. Chomet’s warped sense of humor and sheer inventiveness keeps the film percolating with comic energy, reminding us that there’s more going on in the world of animation than Finding Nemo. The storyline is uncomplicated, the more so for being nearly dialogue-free: A champion bicyclist is kidnapped by the Mafia right in the middle of the Tour de France, and his plucky grandmother sets off to rescue him. She finds allies in three eccentric, aged jazz singers (who, in flashback, are the centerpiece of the film’s bravura opening sequence, set in a 1920s speakeasy with guest appearances by the likes of Fred Astaire and Josephine Baker). Tiny Madame Souza, only three feet tall and club-footed, makes an endearingly indomitable heroine, almost mouselike compared to the giant squarepants shape of her mobster foes. But what’s most appealing about Triplets is its propulsive sense of rhythm and musicality, which often makes the action seem like some kind of outlandish Rube Goldberg device. Lagoon, 1320 Lagoon Ave., (612) 825-6006, www.landmarktheatres.com

Aki Kaurismäki comes from a land populated by emotionally reserved Nordic types and mosquito-breeding lakes, where it is cold and dark for six months out of the year. That would be Finland, though Fridley fits the bill. Specializing in low-budget movies that are smart, deadpan, and inspired equally by European art cinema and American rock and blues, Kaurismäki is Finland’s answer to Jim Jarmusch. This Walker retrospective covers fifteen of his features and short films made previous to 2002’s acclaimed Man Without a Past. You’ll most likely find us in line for one of his comedies, like the cult hit Leningrad Cowboys Go America or his droll second feature Calimari Union, an enjoyably plotless ramble about eighteen supercool guys in sunglasses, all named Frank except the one who isn’t. But Kaurismäki’s also got a powerful knack for humanist social realism, and some of his best work, like Ariel and Drifting Clouds, are about ordinary Finns trying to keep their dignity in an undignified world. Walker, 725 Vineland Pl., (612) 375-7622, www.walkerart.org

Remember the good old days of mom-and-pop bookstores? Back when Ruminator had healthy operations in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, we might have walked in the door, charged right up to the counter, and asked a real person: Can you tell which city readers are from by the books they buy? With the recent unpleasantness, though, we got lazy and threw in with the enemy. Amazon keeps track of sales by region and by city, a swell feature they call “Purchase Circles.” A random peek at the bestsellers the other day revealed some interesting differences. Though both Minneapolis and St. Paul are dominated by the latest Harry Potter doorstop, John Grisham’s The King of Torts was at No. 3 in St. Paul and No. 13 in Minneapolis. This probably doesn’t flatter either city, but might also reflect the fact that you can’t swing a dead cat in downtown St. Paul without hitting a real-life lawyer.

Perhaps not coincidentally, St. Paul seems to be suffering from low self-esteem, judging by the number of self-help titles on its Top 20, including The Power of Now (9), The Purpose-Driven Life (12), Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (14) and What Should I Do With My Life? (15). The more self-confident city, Minneapolis was interested only in The Power of Full Engagement (15). Then again, it could be that Minneapolitans are too distracted or vain for introspection, because they are busy searching out beef sources for Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution (8).

According to someone we spoke with at Amazon, St. Paul is actually buying more books than its more populous twin—enough to get its own list of books selling uniquely well there. Some books unique to St. Paul are no surprise: Jim Brandenburg’s Chased by the Light is selling well (9), presumably among capital citizens with big coffee tables and “critical habitat” license plates. With the holidays upon us, The Great Scandinavian Baking Book (12) is also a natural local favorite. The media edges out the message near the top of St. Paul’s unique list, where KARE-11 political reporter Kerri Miller’s novel Dead Air (2) clocks in ahead of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone’s The Conscience of a Liberal (3). One title stands out, however, in summarizing St. Paul’s identity issues: The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World (20).—Dan Gilchrist

They don’t make them like Cary Grant any more. Sure, George Clooney’s got many of his good points—the good looks, the one-two combo of great comic timing and solid dramatic chops. But only the guy born Archibald Leach a century ago this month has so many classics to his credit that a three-week retrospective like this isn’t quite long enough to catch every essential film. As a comic actor, he had a doubletake that still ranks among the very best—check it out in the definitive version of that community-theater chestnut Arsenic and Old Lace, or his pairing with Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, a bomb in its initial release but now regarded as one of the finest of the screwball-comedy genre. Yet he was also an eminently capable romantic lead and noir hero, who teamed with Alfred Hitchcock on four of Hitch’s best thrillers. Three of those are playing in this series: North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, and Suspicion. (In fact, Ian Fleming was so taken with Grant’s persona that he used him as a model for James Bond; Grant refused the role, forcing him to settle for some unknown Scottish guy instead.) Of the fourteen films shown here, the only one we’re not fond of is Gunga Din, a Kipling romp that hasn’t aged very well, so consider this a recommended baker’s dozen. Oak Street, 309 Oak St. S.E., (612) 331-3134, www.oakstreetcinema.org

Language purists might think that the most alien thing about this nine-disc DVD set is the newly coined word in the title; we’re guessing Fox Home Video didn’t trust its audience to know that four related dramatic works are properly called a tetralogy. But whatever you call it, Sigourney Weaver’s sci-fi quartet (see, there’s another perfectly good word they could have used) gets an almost ludicrously lavish repackaging. Each movie comes bursting with de rigueur extras—mostly behind-the-scenes and visual-effects featurettes. Anchoring the nine discs are two versions of each film—the original theatrical release and a directors’ cut. These are a bit of a mixed bag. The first Alien is a near-perfect chiller, and the 2003 recut by director Ridley Scott may even be leaner and meaner than his 1979 original; it’s actually a minute shorter. On the other hand, James Cameron’s Aliens, the second in the series, throws in a half-dozen flabby scenes that were cut out of the 1986 version for a good reason. As far as the progressively worse Alien3 and Alien Resurrection, we’ll just say that while each had plenty of good moments, watching a new cut that’s even longer is only going to suck away eight to thirty minutes of our lives that we could have spent doing something else. Like spellchecking DVD box sets.

Who’d have thought that a documentary about spelling would be one of the most tension-filled, broadly American films of the year? True, some of us here at The Rake find it fascinating to see a bunch of bright young folks on the fast track to careers in the glamorous field of magazine copyediting, but we wouldn’t expect the rest of you to get excited about it. You ought to, though. This Oscar-nominated look at the 1999 national spelling bee is about spelling bees the way Hoop Dreams was about basketball—namely, only on the surface. Deep down it’s about much bigger themes, like the melting pot and the American Dream. Spellbound introduces us to eight finalists and their families, a quorum of nerds from wildly divergent ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. One’s well-to-do father pays for a team of private tutors; another is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant who doesn’t speak English. Director Jeffrey Blitz avoids what could have been D-U-L-L by making sure we get to know the kids—which is why we feel the same nailbiting anxiety as the boy at the microphone struggling through “Darjeeling.” (It certainly doesn’t hurt that Blitz has an eye for irony; that boy’s parents are from India.)

“You know, you’ve got beautiful nipples for piercing,” she said. “Yeah,” he replied. Zac was nervous—his voice unnecessarily loud and shaky. “You should do three to four piercings in these nipples,” she said. How old was he? Eighteen. Ever been to Saint Sabrina’s before? No. How long had he had the lip ring? About a year. Plans for later that Friday night? The overnight shift at a Chaska gas station. “Are you nervous?” she asked gently. “Yeah, a little,” he said.

Zac laid back, drew several deep breaths, then winced and moaned as Jesika Bornsen pierced both his nipples in a matter of seconds. Bornsen, a beautifully tattooed and pierced twenty-nine-year-old, is well versed in the art of being sensitive to people’s fears. After seven and a half years as a piercer, she’s seen clients do it all—panic, vomit, cry, faint. There’s still a large chip out of a wood display case outside her piercing room where it intercepted a client’s boyfriend’s head, after he passed out.

“The person on my table is the most important thing to me,” she explained the other day, while disinfecting the gray gurney. “I have to walk them from a place of fear to a place of calm.” This takes a lot of energy, and it explains the high rate of turnover in the profession. A lot of what piercers see and hear does not constitute a pleasant experience. Stretch marks and cuts on thirteen-year-old bellies. Poor hygiene. Botched DIY jobs. They see much evidence of lives littered with bad decisions and bad luck.

A large woman in her forties came in and wanted Bornsen to pierce a nipple and her clitoral hood. The woman wanted privacy. When I returned, Bornsen had another client about to get an “industrial”—a piercing that has two points of entry through one area. The girl and her friend looked like college freshmen, their pale pure complexions virginal in the presence of Bornsen’s tattoos and nine facial piercings.

As Bornsen pierced her ear, the girl curled her toes, her flip-flops clamped against her heels, but she didn’t make a sound. A few moments later, after asking Bornsen about genital piercings, the girl sat, then stood. “You all right? You look a little pale. Grab a sucker,” Bornsen said, pointing to a “Mother” coffee mug filled with red lollipops. “The sugar helps.” It’s no wonder she’s busy with modish young women who have delicate questions. Between Fargo and Chicago, Bornsen is the only female member of the Association of Professional Piercers.

Bornsen led me to the sterilizing room, where she logs many hours disinfecting and packaging jewelry and needles. “This is a really important part of it all,” she said. Sterilization education becomes very important when you consider that many piercers stick themselves with needles just as often as, if not more than, medical professionals. Bornsen told me about the time she got stuck with a needle while piercing the head of a client’s penis: “It was horrible. My finger was attached to this guy’s penis with a needle. He was cool though, and offered to go get tested.” (Everything checked out just fine.)

A tall blond woman came into Bornsen’s room for a navel ring consultation—also a big part of a piercer’s job. “My boyfriend’s a surgeon and can’t wait to get his hands on me,” she said. But the woman’s bellybutton was shallow and lopsided, and Bornsen said it could barely be done without puncturing the umbilicus, a major source of blood supply for the intestines. She advised her to have it done by a professional piercer and not her boyfriend.

When the woman left, Bornsen began to giggle. “I’m just picturing this romantic scenario with her on the bed, and her boyfriend pierces the umbilicus, and all this blood starts squirting out,” she said. With her finger, she mimicked the blood pulsing. “I can guarantee you that she won’t have her navel pierced anywhere else.” —Erin Madsen

We’ve never cared for the term “blaxploitation,” but we do love the movies it describes—those early-seventies action flicks that explored the experiences of African-Americans in ass-kickingly cinematic terms. They’re very much of their time—funk and seventies fashion at its most outlandishly ghetto-fabulous—but also full of attitudes toward gays and women that wouldn’t fly today. And most were made cheaply, quickly, and with an eye toward a buck rather than an Artistic Statement. But they’re important pieces of film history, and they’re still pretty fun. Superfly, propelled by Curtis Mayfield’s fantastic score, is one of the genre’s high points—a gritty noir directed by Gordon Parks Jr., whose father, the great St. Paul photographer, kick-started the genre by directing Shaft. Meanwhile, other than changing the ethnicity of its hero and villain, 1972’s Blacula stays firmly within the strict genre conventions of the vampire film; it seems almost old-fashioned next to, say, Roman Polanski’s 1967 Fearless Vampire Killers. It’s redeemed by Shakespearean-trained actor William Marshall. We specially like his throaty performance as Mamuwalde, the African prince who asks Dracula to sign an anti-slavery petition and gets “fangs, but no thanks” in response. The sequel’s not as good but gets extra points for costar Pam Grier, who livens up any film she’s in.

Just six months after releasing The Man on the Burning Tightrope, acerbic New York combo Firewater returns with this collection of covers, a good showcase for their sense of the smartly sinister. We’ve got no argument with their song selection, a nice blend of the obvious (“Folsom Prison Blues”) and unexpected (“This Little Light of Mine”) that alternates numbers by 1980s underground guys like Robyn Hitchcock with old standards made famous by Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra. And there’s fire in their playing; clearly, these really are songs the Firewater boys wish they’d written. Sometimes that means a little too much faithfulness, as with “Diamonds and Gold,” too much of Tom Waits’ original with the edges sanded off—which begs the question, what’s the point? On the other hand, their slow-burning psychedelic take on “Paint It Black” is pretty great.