It was the first Broadway musical to be commemorated by a postage stamp. It has earned dozens of accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize, an honorary Grammy, and two Academy Awards. It held the record for longest-running Broadway show for fifteen years, playing longer than any other brainchild of Roger and Hammerstein, including South Pacific, The … Read more
So what if you haven’t waxed the Lexus lately? Trend food is now in reach of the proletariat on the Tejas lunch menu. We once walked into the Southwest-style eatery at the spiritual (if not geographic) center of Edina and asked for a takeout menu and instead received a withering glance. Now, three years later, … Read more
Despite the overnight snowfall and a route through some of the metro’s most notorious traffic hot spots, I pulled into the well-salted parking lot almost fifteen minutes early for my appointment to look at the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s new Roseville compound. It’s a brushed aluminum affair, called the Water’s Edge building. Together with the … Read more
POPULAR CREEPS My hopes for the future include the following:1. That we finally see a real end to the war that officially “ended” last spring.2. That we finally see an end to makeover-decorating-themed TV shows. I can make over your rock ‘n’ roll crib, easy. Give me a pile of oily rags and a match.3. … Read more
The Chinese calendar declares that 2004 is the year of the monkey. Anyone born this year will be intelligent, well-liked by everyone, and have success in any field they choose. Lucky monkeys. The loquacious and red-faced Democrats have claimed 2004 as the Year of Change. Athletes and festival purists may see 2004 as the year … Read more
If you’ve watched television at any point during the past ninety days, you’ve probably seen the latest ads from Old Navy, a brand that dispenses irony like VH1 serves up nostalgia: cheap, shameless, and unfiltered. In a commercial I cannot for the life of me get out of my head, a waxy Fran Drescher brays, … Read more
A few months ago, Intercontinental Video reopened its doors. It had been closed for more than a year, after a fire destroyed the West Bank store’s irreplaceable video collection of almost 50,000 titles. The store was always a sure bet if you were trying to up your cool factor with an attractive potential mate by … Read more
Who now reads Charles Morgan? Some years ago there was a revival of his novel The Gunroom, which proved to anyone who was interested that the middle one of Churchill’s three Traditions of the Royal Navy (Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash) was a living reality for young officers of the Edwardian Era. Morgan’s masterpiece is … Read more
Bobbleheads have recently become all the rage among collectors of sports souvenirs. Those oversized craniums, wobbling on springs as if Parkinson’s disease were desirable in a doll, are a pleasant diversion when perched on your mantel or flanking your computer monitor. They’re funny not just because of their striking ugliness, but because they point beyond … Read more
You can do it! Here are the answers: Magers—the King; Robinson—the Count; Santaniello—the Helmet; Binkley—Bozo the Piece; Grayson—Best in Show; Diana Pierce—Ferret-Glo; Murphy—the Wet Mop; Gatenby—the Rust Bucket