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You’re probably most familiar with Tom McCarthy from his acting roles in Meet the Parents and TV’s Boston Public, but you may soon be hearing more about him as a director thanks to the impressive Sundance debut of his first behind-the-camera film, The Station Agent, which picked up both screenwriting and audience-favorite awards. It’s a quirky, character-driven comedy about friendship, with an unlikely hero in Finbar McBride (the excellent Peter Dinklage), a taciturn dwarf and “railfan,” or train hobbyist, whose life changes when he inherits a disused railway station in New Jersey. The film opens October 17 at the Uptown Theater.

THE RAKE: You lived in Minneapolis for a couple of years when you were first getting started as an actor. Do you have fond memories of our town?
McCARTHY: I lived here in college in 1988 and 1989, acting in an improv comedy troupe called Every Mother’s Nightmare. It was great because you could exist without that much trouble. It wasn’t that expensive. Minneapolis has always been a special place for me, because it’s where I started. In college I wasn’t thinking about becoming an actor. I got here and there were great people, musicians, so many artists and actors. My next-door neighbors were Dave Pirner and Marc Perlman, of the Jayhawks.

THE RAKE: How did you find the transition to directing? With the tight schedule of an indie shoot, you must have had to learn on the fly.
McCARTHY: You have to. Basically you’re the captain of a ship and you don’t understand how the ship runs. But luckily you have all these people around who are experts at what they do. Your cinematographer, your sound, your grips, your actors, your producer. You rely on them. You have to make the decisions and get it done, just trust your gut.

THE RAKE: It’s interesting how much the story grew out of your random discovery of the film’s railway station, before you had even started writing a script.
McCARTHY: I grew up about half an hour away, and one of my brothers bought a lake house in that area. I was up there visiting him, and I drove past that depot and I said, man, what a great location for a movie. I slipped a note through the door and I said, give me a call, I’m a writer. So this guy called me. He was a railfan, really excited. He invited me to these railfan meetings like you see in the movie. I plunged myself into learning about trains. I was fascinated by the role that depots played in history, and specifically the station agents. These guys became the unofficial mayors of their community. So I thought it’d be interesting if a guy who inherits this depot unwittingly inherits the social responsibility to connect the community.

THE RAKE: It’s a nice irony that despite his physical differences, Fin is otherwise the most ‘normal’ guy in the movie.
McCARTHY: Totally. It’s very much a nod to Steve McQueen or John Wayne or Gary Cooper as the mysterious stranger who rides into town and immediately attracts the attention of the townspeople. He’s one of those classical Western heroes. The way he dresses, walks, talks, moves. He says what needs to be said and doesn’t waste time with a lot of words.

THE RAKE: Peter Dinklage must have been pleased to get a role where his height wasn’t the main focus.
McCARTHY: We decided that this would not be a movie about being small, about being a dwarf, but about a guy who’s disconnected and how he connects with the community. In some ways being a dwarf was a catalyst, but he could have been a one-armed gunslinger; it’s just anything that makes him different. I think it gave Peter an opportunity to make people forget about his dwarfism and just revel in how good of an actor he is.

One recent afternoon in south Minneapolis, we looked on in horror as a torch-wielding mob chased a pale, fedora-clad man down an alley past the grease-clogged kitchen vents of a Chinese restaurant. Rounding a corner ahead of the mob, the fugitive ducked through an oddly small lavender-colored door in a nearby storefront. As the mob continued their search in the wrong direction, we ducked through the diminutive door and found none other than Lemony Snicket catching his breath in a shabby wingback chair, surrounded by cats, a banty hen pecking about his feet. The reclusive author recently completed The Slippery Slope, the tenth in his Series of Unfortunate Events books documenting the tragic affairs of the Baudelaire orphans. As the clamor of the mob receded in the distance, Mr. Snicket agreed to tell The Rake what he would bring along if stranded on a desert island. Though in Snicket’s case, the question may be when, not if.
1. “An up-to-date atlas.”
2. “A sturdy, easily steerable raft, preferably designed by Thor Heyerdahl.”
3. “Alice Waters. Founder of the famed Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, known for concocting delicious dishes out of local materials. I should hasten to add that Ms. Waters would be along in a purely professional context, in a non-romantic way.”
4. “Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project. It’s a thousand-page long philosophical treatise-long thought to have been destroyed-on window shopping in France. I’ve always wanted to read it, and a desert island might provide me ample time for cracking its spine without cracking my own.”
5. “Sun Ra’s collected singles. A magnificent collection of music that spans nearly every emotional flight of fancy so that regardless of my mood it could be interesting to listen to. If there were no stereo system available on the raft, I think the closest thing to musical entertainment would be a very large bottle of Germaine-Robin, preferably taken from the musty basement of a trusted friend or manservant.”
If no one stops him, Lemony Snicket will appear at the Mall of America Barnes and Noble October 4.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to do some fill-in work at a radio station. Handed a pile of standard forms to fill out, I sat staring at question number four. “List three people to call in case of emergency.” Three! Didn’t it used to be one? Just how dangerous is this gig? I thought I’d be plugging in headphones and back-selling Ella Fitzgerald. I didn’t realize I’d also be milking the venom out of snakes.
Eureka! I’ve got a boyfriend-he’ll be first on my list. Now, anyone after this becomes comedy. Dad? I think he still believes the telephone to be a new invention, which might explain why his “phone voice” sounds like someone rounding up cattle. Besides that, he hasn’t answered the phone since 1995. Siblings? All screeners. Besides that, three out of five won’t drive if there’s a freeway involved. One is paralyzed with social anxiety and doesn’t leave the basement; moot point as he doesn’t have a driver’s license anyway. “Hurry, I’m bleeding! Snort your Ritalin and hop on your bike!” Not likely. Friends? I feel like I’m putting them out when I ask them to coffee. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable asking any of them to identify my headless body at the morgue.
I lived alone for years and would often wonder: What if I were to slip on the Irish Spring in the shower and hit my head? How many days would it take for someone to notice I was “missing”? Very tricky as a freelancer. If it happened on a Friday, God help me, it might be a week. My agent would call, but would she honestly come rushing over to bang on my door? Come on Eileen, I don’t think so. Unless she hadn’t gotten her ten percent that month. Now that I think about it, I realize living like a flake could really work to my disadvantage. “Oh, no one’s heard from Lucia in a month. But you know, that’s just her.” I do have cats, but as of yet I haven’t been able to train them to dial 911. (We’re still working on “GET DOWN!” from the top of the television.) It got me thinking that some enterprising person should offer their services as someone’s in-case-of-emergency contact. You could hire someone on a year-to-year basis. They could have multiple clients. They would only need to be sober, own a pager, and not have an irrational fear of doorknobs. 1-800-I-AM-SANE.

Scientists argue about a lot of things that most of us don’t care about. But the researchers who observed about ten years back that sperm counts were falling—nationally, about one and a half percent per year—found themselves in the news. Naturally, the average guy on the street worries about his sperm being headed for extinction. Since then, there has been a lot of scientific squabbling, and Minnesota sperm have figured prominently in the controversy. As it turns out, one of the nation’s oldest and most respected sperm banks is located in Roseville. The latest information issuing from such places could gestate for hours at your next dinner party.

Where you live seems to matter. Minnesota men have sperm counts sixty percent higher than men in Missouri. Minnesota also beats California hands (tails?) down. Not only are our sperm more numerous than in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s adoptive home state, but they also appear to be healthier swimmers than California’s microscopic surfers. Though the research is cloudy, Minnesota sperm counts may be going up; at worst, they are holding steady.

It seems that Minnesota is a sperm-friendly place to live. Dr. Bruce Redmon is a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He teaches urologic surgery and is a Minnesota sperm specialist. “Men in Minnesota, at least those living in the Twin Cities area, appear to have good semen quality compared to other urban areas in the U.S.,” he told me the other day. Perhaps we’ve stumbled on a new angle for the local tourism board: Impaired sperm of the world, come to the Twin Cities!

Why exactly is the Twin Cities such a sperm-friendly environment? Dr. Redmon’s studies suggest that environmental factors like pollution “raise a red flag.” One theory is that the especially toxic herbicides and pesticides used to grow fruit in California may have some nasty side effects on male fertility.

Alternatively, Minnesota winters may have something to do with it. Sperm are one of the few living organisms that thrive in winter. Some of the highest sperm counts on the planet are in frigid Finland. Researchers know that sperm counts tend to fall in warmer summer temperatures—which might explain why California, the land of endless summer, has such a lethargic sperm population. One researcher at Columbia University has correlated hard winters in Minnesota with higher sperm counts—and subsequent baby booms. In other words, if this year’s winter is especially harsh, we can expect a bumper crop of new Minnesotans next year. There is no guarantee that they won’t grow up to complain about the weather, though.—Debora Geary

A yellow electric scooter lies on its side in the middle of 38th Street and Park Avenue. It’s just past 2 a.m. (hooray, new bar time!), and I swerve my Mazda into construction to keep from running it over. The scooter lies among flashing orange-and-white traffic horses and chunks of broken pavement, like a glowing offering from the street gods. I stop in the middle of the road and get out to inspect it as if it were an injured kitten I need to swoop up and rescue. There are no scraps of mangled metal. There’s no evidence it was involved in a collision with another vehicle or wayward street sign. Instead, the poor thing is just abandoned. Alone and dejected. Like a culprit in a recent crime spree, left behind to defend itself.

If the murmured rumors around my Powderhorn neighborhood are to be believed, this little motorized scooter is an awesome new tool for petty crime, a mode of transportation that’s quick (maximum speed: twenty-two miles per hour) and untraceable (it doesn’t require a motor-vehicle registration). They’re cheap, easy to get, and—apparently—easily ditched.

My interest was piqued: Why have these vehicles suddenly appeared all over the city? Why don’t their drivers need to be licensed? Where can I get one? Like any informed and cost-conscious Twin Citizen, I assumed I could find answers at Target. Making my semi-regular visit for Frappuccinos, refrigerator magnets, and overdue wedding gifts, I saw a crowd gathering around rows of boxes the size of a guitar case. There it was: The “E-Scooter,” ready to unfold, charge up, and take on a crime-free joyride. Yes, enviro-friendly transportation now comes in a box for the bargain-basement price of $199.99. Battery included!

Leoch, the makers of the E-Scooter, began licensing their product to Target earlier this year. According to the China-based company’s sales manager, a friendly woman named Anne Daisy, Leoch’s sales have increased by fifty percent during the last year. “Our scooter keeps gaining popularity because of its convenience and fashionable style,” Daisy said. And what about its effectiveness as a getaway vehicle? “I haven’t heard anything until now,” she said. “People mostly use it for amusement and shopping.” The Minneapolis police couldn’t confirm the crime rumors, either. “I haven’t heard anything,” said a Third Precinct officer. “If someone hasn’t figured out how to do it yet, I’m sure they will soon,” he said, with a tone of world-weary resignation. He didn’t thank me for introducing the idea. —Molly Priesmeyer

The Hamm’s Club brewery show this past September was pretty much what one would expect: a few dozen vendors in the parking lot of a defunct brewery hawking beer collectibles to each other. Some sold genuine antiques, some had kitsch, some not-yet-kitsch, and some never-would-be-kitsch. A guy named Jerry from Fort Worth offered Styrofoam Hamm’s bear statues for $495. A carved wood Leinenkugel’s oar could be had for $45. In this unpredictable market, the table doing the most business was selling hot dogs, chips, and soda.

Business was also brisk at the Hamm’s Club tent. What looked like a thin crowd was, in fact, “a great turnout,” said Jon Morphew, Hamm’s Club chief counsel. The Hamm’s Club has controversial opposition to thank for some extra attention. After raising $12,000 for a six-foot granite monument to the beloved Hamm’s bear, and after securing Park Board approval to place it in Como Zoo, the Hamm’s Club took a slap in the face when the St. Paul City Council voted to table final approval, offering little by way of explanation beyond church-lady mumblings about “indirect promotion of alcohol” from council member Jay Benanav.

Morphew showed me the monument design as he speculated about prospects for its future. It’s a carved headstone, essentially, designed by Bill Kelley, the “Michelangelo of the Hamm’s art world,” according to the club website. The club will gladly accommodate the city and remove the word “beer” from the monument. Morphew also said they would consider placement at the defunct Stroh’s brewery site on the East Side, assuming redevelopment leaves something more than a warehouse or a crater there. If the city does not come up with a placement that satisfies the club, he said, “the bear becomes a free agent.”

Hamm’s Clubbers at the show seemed disappointed but undeterred by this setback. Mary Penning of Inver Grove Heights understands the current of cultural disapproval against which the bear is swimming. She was buying shirts featuring the Hamm’s bear playing hockey. “My kids can’t even wear these to school,” she noted stoically. “We’re so politically correct,” groused a guy called Pat who declined to give his last name. “It started with Joe Camel.”

“They probably don’t even remember who paid for Hamm’s Falls in Como Park,” accused clubber John Husnik.

Jay Benanav wasn’t taking the anti-beer bait anymore when I spoke to him, pointing out that, at age 52, he certainly has “something to show” for his time in the pints. He also seems mindful of the 856 liquor licenses currently held in the St. Paul city limits. But Como Park is in his ward, and he just doesn’t want a headstone there. “It doesn’t have anything to do with being afraid of beer,” he said. “The overriding factor is that it’s a gravestone. Como Park is not an appropriate place for a grave marker. If we don’t have some standards, what’s next? A gravestone to the Cootie Bug?”

Council member Chris Coleman also declined to take an anti-beer stance. He just hates the bear. “This bear has a white belly. What kind of bear has a white belly? We just don’t need schmaltz art in our center park. Now, that little oven mitt that’s advertising for Arby’s is pretty cute. Maybe I’ll see if we can get one of those for the park. Actually, I’d like to have giant statues of the Simpsons all over town, the way we have the Peanuts now.” Coleman was clearly not seeking reelection when I reminded him of the deep feelings many in the Hamm’s Club have for the bear. “Can any of them see their toes?” he asked.

At the brewery show, Kevin Burke had choice words for the City Council. Burke’s uncle was a Hamm’s distributor. He couldn’t say for sure whether the bear will become an endorsement issue in Benanav’s next campaign, but he made the following promise: “I’m gonna jump him like a dime-store pony.”—Joe Pastoor

Tea is a crop we could grow in Minnesota, but the end product would be so foul that no one with working taste buds would go near it. The mountainous soils of Nepal, though, produce some damn fine chai, as they call it. Swadesh Shrestha and his brother Saujanya serve it at their Uptown Minneapolis shop, Himalayan Chai. The black, green, and ayurvedic teas are robust and flavorful. They are typically steeped loose, in the cup, and they are actually quite toothsome. You find yourself enjoying the sensation of leaves in your mouth—like steamed greens. The practiced customer will discreetly give the gums a whirl of the tongue before grinning in pleasure.

But there’s more in that cup than just edible dregs. Drinking at Himalayan Chai is an inherently political act. Here’s why: The tea shop is owned by Nepal Natural Tea Industry, a company that was started twenty-five years ago by the Shresthas’ father, Saumendra. Already a tea grower and exporter, and very well-to-do by Nepalese standards (he owned both the first truck and the first printing press in their hometown of Phidim), Saumendra decided he wanted to do something for the people of his native country. He enlisted a handful of families to launch a tea garden cooperative. Each family contributed some land and set to work cultivating the crop that grows so well at the village’s seven-thousand-foot elevation. Today, there are nearly two hundred families in the cooperative. Phidim now has a school and a bridge. Life is good.

The Shresthas tell me that everything that can be done by the cooperative is kept within the country. Instead of importing tea boxes from China or India, the Shresthas employ a Nepalese family to handcraft their unadorned but elegant boxes from recycled sawdust. The teas are grown organically. Cooperative members handpick the tea three times a year, and hand-deliver it to the processor in the valley. Large quantities of tea are exported to Germany, and smaller shipments go to Australia, Japan, and the United States. In Minneapolis, the Shrestha brothers are enthusiastically hoping to turn people on to chai. Swadesh went so far as to give away all tea drinks, no charge, during the first two weeks the shop was open.

Inside the tiny, marigold-colored shop at 713 W. Franklin Ave., there is the familiar hum and twang of Eastern music. The slight, 32-year-old Swadesh is eager to please and such a detail-oriented capitalist that it’s tempting to think this kindhearted cooperative is all a front. Maybe the brothers plan to take the money and run. Nope. Almost every business transaction conducted in the shop benefits the people of the tea cooperative. The profits from the brightly colored wool sweaters for sale go to a group of women living in stone huts on a Himalayan mountainside. Profits from tea sales go directly to the producers. Even the tips the Shresthas gather are sent home. The $100 collected each month is enough to send two more Nepalese children to school. This collision of good works with Western consumerism has been such a success that the Shrestha brothers are now opening a second shop, at 25th and Hennepin. —Katie Quirk

If you peer off the north side of the Lake Street Bridge this time of year, you’ll often spot a dark blue, double-masted sailboat anchored on the Mississippi. For most of the past seventeen years, Captain John V. Caola has sailed from points south—Key West, Miami, and the Bahamas—to beat the heat and visit his family (which now includes eight grandchildren) in the Twin Cities.

He is turning into a seasonal sight himself. Sporting a blue Hawaiian shirt, Panama hat, and a salt-and-pepper beard, Caola resembles a slimmed-down Hemingway, a guy who at first strikes you as just the kind of carefree and footloose soul you would imagine choosing to live out his retirement on a sailboat. Talk to him for a while, though, and you soon discover a surprisingly conscientious and meticulous individual, one who reels off the details and specs of his thirty-three-foot boat—which, he informs me, is really a motorsailer rather than a sailboat—and the routes he has sailed.

Since the end of January, Caola and his friend Monique, a newcomer to the live-aboard life, have sailed or motored 2,400 statute miles. They began in Miami, sailed north on the Atlantic, and traversed the width of Florida via the Okeechobee waterway. On the Gulf coast, they followed a route of commercial waterways and open sea that eventually brought them to Mobile, Alabama, where they began an inland journey up the Mobile, Tombigbee, Tennessee, and Ohio rivers. And then, at Cairo, Illinois, they embarked on old muddy itself—the Mississippi River.

The early days of fall are an ideal time to be on the upper Mississippi, Caola says. Even in a dry year like this one, the view of the changing leaves is spectacular from the river, as is the setting sun reflecting off the steel skin of the Weisman Museum, a short sail up the river. Soon Caola and Monique will turn the MS Beluga around and sail back south, this time down the entire length of the Mississippi to New Orleans.

Over the years, Caola has been pleased to see the water quality and boating facilities on the Mississippi improve. Although the boat traffic has also increased, the river is still a remarkable refuge. “It is amazing,” he says, as we gaze up at the busy bridge from the west bank of the river, “that you can be right in the heart of the hustle and bustle of a big city and down here it is all peace and quiet.”
—Dan Gilchrist