When Blidner last showed in Minneapolis it was selections from his “Tango Argentino: The Spirit of Buenos Aires” series—some hundred highly stylized images, appropriately doused in drama, of men and women performing the national dance of his home country. He ventured much farther for his new project, training his lens on Helsinki, London, Milan, Cologne, … Read more
From Kanye West to Mel Gibson to Michael Richards, 2006 was a year of unexpected outbursts on race. Is it possible to have a more productive dialogue on a topic that is habitually avoided in “polite” conversation? The Science Museum of Minnesota and the American Anthropological Association believe so—thus this groundbreaking exhibition. Slated to tour … Read more
“To find a new name for St. Paul’s RiverCentre Convention and Visitors Authority (RCVA), the city’s tourism and convention arm, officials are raising $76,000 from private sources to hire a Nashville firm that bills itself as a community branding expert.” —StarTribune, December 11, 2006 The Rake is wary of this latest foray into “community branding”— … Read more
My grandfather wanted to tell me the story of the horse that died of heartache. “What are you thinking?” my grandmother said. The horse’s name was Sully, my grandfather said. (Which must have meant something quite different in another language. I did not ask.) “A beauty,” he said. He said it was true, the story … Read more
The blizzard shook the whole town like a cuff on the head and in ten minutes our house was not visible from the park across the street. It was a blessing and it obliterated the Christmas Day funk that had fallen over everything. There had been a two-day thaw and the old snow and raw … Read more
In the spring of 1965, Ione Butts, sole proprietor of the Knight’s Best Motor Lodge, widow of the handsome asshole Henry Butts, and mother to a ten-year-old child, inadvertently acquired a sixty-foot knight in shining armor. A man named Franklin Tort came into the motel office with his hat in his hands and said: “I … Read more
“Want an animal cracker?” Renee asked, as they pulled away from a Shell along route 80. While Jack had pumped gas and cleaned the windshield, she’d gone in to buy bottled waters. They’d just crossed the Platt River, and had another day’s drive before them. “I didn’t know they still made these,” Renee said. “I … Read more
When Felix’s special phone rang at 2:00 in the morning, Kelly rolled over and punched him in the shoulder and hissed, “Why didn’t you turn that fucking thing off before bed?” “Because I’m on call,” he said. “You’re not a fucking doctor,” she said, kicking him as he sat on the bed’s edge, pulling on … Read more
Soon Enough They Would All Drown A horse emerged from the woods, sleepwalking through the fog, its eyes literally closed. The hooves of the sleepwalking horse were long and yellow and curled like the toes of elf shoes. There was lightning in the blue windows of a tree house, where scientists were hunched in the … Read more
I heard a story at my great-aunt’s place that I told to my sister long-distance on the phone. Well, first I said, “Did you know her real name?,” because I knew or suspected that my sister did not. I will not repeat it here. But one of the cousins, a man whom I had never … Read more