The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • A Little Perspective on That Gas Tax Poll

    The Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll, now out-sourced to New Jersey, has been in heavy play this past week. For decades a valuable snapshot of Minnesota attitudes, the Poll, as many of you know, was seriously down-sized under McClatchy ownership and “right-sized” into oblivion by Avista Capital Partners. The Poll’s most recent director, Rob Daves, was dismissed this year, the office shuttered and all institutional memory pretty well vacated.

    With interim publisher, Chris Harte, cautioning his editorial section to avoid wild-hair liberal notions like calling for sufficient revenue to actually maintain the infrastructure we’ve got, I was intrigued to see that the question, “Would you be willing to pay more in gasoline taxes in order to pay for increased inspection and repair of bridges”, produced a 46%/50% yes/no verdict from the public. Though reporter Pat Doyle noted that that breakout falls within the 4% plus-or-minus margin of error, meaning you could if you wanted see a split decision, the usual suspects jumped on the “no vote” to affirm their campaigns to keep Minnesota’s finances just the way they are … or at the very worst shift some cash from all those lavish public schools and over-paid teachers to freeway construction.

    Proper allocation and all that, you know.

    Every poll depends on who you ask and how you phrase the question. In this case, the “Minnesota Poll”, contracted out to New Jersey-based Princeton Survey Research Associates, emphasized the hot-button word “bridge”, whereas polls conducted in 2004 and 2005 and at various times through the late ’80s and ’90s emphasized either “road improvements” or “road maintenance”.

    Anti-tax crusaders and other status quo tub-thumpers will remain gleeful with the verdict because they can continue to make the argument that even after “goosing” the question with the word “bridge”, the pro-tax crowd “only” registered 46%, give or take 4%.

    But if you dial back through the history of Minnesota Polls asking residents/voters about gas tax increases, it is interesting how thinking has changed, or not, over the last two decades. For example, in 1987 the yes/no split was 46%/48%. In 1990 it was 52%/45%. In 1993, 66%/32%. By 2005 it had drifted back to 41%/55%.

    While 2007’s 46%/50% can be read as public sentiment against a gas tax increase, you could just as easily have said, “Public shows small increase in acceptance of gas tax hike,” based on approval moving up from 41% to 46% in the past two years.

    Or … if you really wanted to stick a wrench in the spokes of the “non-partisan” Taxpayers’ League you could could point to the 2004 Minnesota Poll, which was conducted while Gov. Pawlenty and his transportation guru, Carol Molnau, were floating the idea of leasing out Twin Cities’ freeways to private contractors and charging tolls. In that context only 23% of Minnesotans favored increasing the gas tax.

    With that in mind you could have had a headline on Sunday’s poll saying something like, “Support for gas tax increase doubles since ’04”, and been correct, technically.

    I called Rob Daves, still here in Minnesota and busy assembling soon-to-launch Daves & Associates Research. He had only positive things to say about Princeton Survey. “Great firm. They do excellent work.”

    He had been out of town this past weekend and hadn’t seen the gas tax poll. I read him the question as asked.

    He offered that readers might have gotten a truer historical comparison had the gas tax question been asked the same way it always has, or at the very least, been subjected to a “split-ballot sample”, where half the 800-1200 respondents were asked the “road improvements” questions and the other half the “bridge” question.

    That didn’t happen. So what we’re left with is a more or less an even split on the question of raising the gas tax, which is sufficiently fertile turf for legislation this winter. I mean, anytime you can get half the voters saying they’ll pay more you’ve got more than adequate
    political cover.

  • Salty Sweet

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    I have an undeniable craving for salty sweet. It may be more intense during certain times: when I feel defined as a chauffer, when I’ve been bickering with the hub, when the days are so crammed with everyone else’s business there’s no time to breathe.

    Salted caramels, a pretzel stick jammed into a pint of Sonny’s cinnamon ice cream, roasted veg tossed with maple butter and sage … Balance and centering, oddly found this weekend in Trader Joe’s Sea Salt Brownies. Not content with using a mere sprinkle of salt, these dense chocolate chunks are riddled with big, crunchy flakes of sea salt. Just when the richness is about to swing you over, a tangy cut of salt brings you back.

    As I write this I’m late for the day … but whatever.

  • Paris to Barcelona

    Me and the missus decided to celebrate five years of married bliss by going back to the scene of the crime, Paris, France. We had gone out on a few dates in the spring of 2000, before I went off for a fellowship at Oxford. We kept in touch during the spring by email, and when the term ended, we rendezvoused in the City of Light. Not much happened in Paris that would make for exciting reading – we toured the markets together, made dinner together, smooched a little on the couch of a friend’s borrowed apartment in the 13th Arrondissement, and somehow the spark got struck.

    Given the utter improbability of us finding each other, getting hitched, and actually staying in love for five years, we probably should have gone to Lourdes to give thanks, but we went instead on a meandering trip through the countryside. We stopped in the Loire Valley and Burgundy to visit old friends, and then headed to the Dordogne, home of truffles, ducks, geese and foie gras.

    Foie gras seemed to be on nearly every menu in Dordogne, and I will confess that I ate my share: a big tranche of foie gras as an entree at L’Os a Moelle in Paris; roast quail over foie gras at La Recreation in Les Arques, foie gras and artichoke heart at La Belle Etoile in Roque-Gageot. It’s a very sensuous taste experience – with a flavor both impossibly rich and extremely delicate.

    It’s also a touchy subject on this side of the Atlantic – the city of Chicago has banned it from restaurants, and the state of California has set a deadline of 2012 to end production and sales of the fatty bird livers. The charge is cruelty, since the birds are force-fed a high-salt diet to produce the delicacy.

    I’m in sympathy with the motivations of animal rights activists, and I eat a lot less meat than I used to. I try to support the restaurants that serve humanely and sustainably produced meats. But based on everything I have read, I am not convinced that the force-feeding of ducks and geese (gavage in French) causes nearly as much suffering as the meat production practices that are routine on factory farms, especially in the US. In the Dordogne, local farmstead producers even offer farm tours, with tasting of their products, and demonstrations of gavage. You’ll have a hard time finding a commercial producer of pork, beef or eggs in the US willing to let consumers see how their animals are treated.

    At any rate, I didn’t take notes on my dining experiences – I promised Carol that this wouldn’t be a working vacation – so now a lot of wonderful food swims in my memory as a diffuse fog of recollected pleasure – succulent lobster ravioli in a langoustine sauce at La Recreation, a hearty plate of steak tartare in a Paris bistro; magret de canard medium rare with tender cheese quenelles at the Belle Etoile.

    One meal was a pilgrimage – a few years ago, I had read Michael Sanders’ book, From Here You Can’t See Paris: Seasons of A French Village and Its Restaurant, about a struggling village in the Lot whose inhabitants recruited a young chef from Marseille to turn their abandoned schoolhouse into a destination restaurant. When I discovered that the village, Les Arques, was near our route, we made a point of a lunchtime visit. The 30 Euro ($42) five course prix fixe menu was one of the gastronomic highlights of our trip, with highlights including lobster ravioli in a langoustine sauce, scallops in passionfruit sauce, medallions of monkfish with stuffed zucchini blossoms, and a sublime nougat glace.

    Our final destination was Barcelona. Barcelona is just a short train ride from the French border, but the culinary culture is vastly different. Catalan cooking isn’t as delicate or sophisticated as French cuisine, but what it lacks in delicacy, it makes up for in robust flavor. If in France, food is a religion, in Catalonia it is a sport. Our best meal in Barcelona – our anniversary dinner, actually -was a perfectly seafood paella for two at the venerable Set Portes, the oldest restaurant in the city. But perhaps the most memorable meal was a late-night outing for tapas at La Flauta on Balmes. At 11 p.m., every table in the dining room was taken, with a line as long as the tapas bar of eager customers waiting for a seat – and diners were still arriving when we left around midnight. The dishes we sampled, like an eggplant tortilla (a kind of frittata), a shrimp salad, patatas bravas (fried potatoes with a spicy tomato sauce), offered robust flavors that matched the energy level of the diners.

    I don’t want to stereotype Catalan cuisine as hearty but unsophisticated, though that’s just the kind of food that we sought out. Catalonia is actually at the cutting edge of world gastronomy, thanks to such celebrated chefs as Ferran Adria at El Bulli; neurologist-chef Miguel Sanchez Romera at L’Esguard, and Quique Dacosta at El Poblet. (To get a sense of the direction in which these chefs are taking cuisine as art form, spend a little time surfing the El Poblet website.)
    I didn’t even try to get reservations for any of these gastronomic pilgrimage sites; reportedly El Bulli gets 300,000 calls for reservations every year, and its hopeless unless you call many months in advance. Maybe if I start dialing now, I can get a reservation in time for our tenth…

  • The wine-soaked writing life

    Styron.jpeg
    (Pulitzer prize-winning author,
    William Styron)

    I finished another novel last week. But this means little.

    It means I awakened at 6:30 a.m. for two years or so — on holidays, my birthday, every morning but the one my husband and I camped on our honeymoon — went immediately to the computer while my saturated dream state remained, and wrote for an hour and a half before starting my day. It means when I found myself sitting with 450 double-spaced pages of a story that crystallized in surprising ways, I shipped it off to my agent — a New Yorker whom I’ve met only three times — and now I’m waiting for his response. Waiting.

    Experience with my first novel taught me that even if someone does pick up your book, some caring editor who shepherds it through the cut-throat global publishing scene and commissions beautiful cover art and publicizes it even though you, its author, are a complete unknown from the Midwest, it doesn’t mean you will become famous or wealthy. It only means there exists this knowledge that such a thing can happen. You can dream up characters and fall in love with them, put them into strange, wonderful, and unlikely situations, draw them out on paper in arbitrary symbols, sending them forth to touch people you’ll never meet. It’s pretty cool.

    It’s also hell. Did I mention I’m waiting. . . .? Waiting, waiting. Oh, and waiting. Which is excruciating, by the way. But apparently, this writing life is hard no matter who — or how great — you are.

    Recently, when someone close to me was being treated for depression, I re-read William Styron’s memoir Darkness Visible, in an attempt to understand what my friend was going through. The first time I encountered this book, it made an impression on me because it described with such visceral power the dark hole of depression. One almost enters the illness while reading Styron and wonders if, simply by putting the book down, it will be possible to emerge. It’s a terrifying experience, which I had on the second reading as well.

    But this time, another thread in the book caught me: Styron’s nearly Gothic description of the relationship between wine, aging, depression and art. This passage, for instance —

    The storm which swept me into a hospital in December began as a cloud no bigger than a wine goblet the previous June. And the cloud — the manifest crisis — involved alcohol, a substance I had been abusing for forty years. Like a great many American writers, whose sometimes lethal addiction to alcohol has become so legendary as to provide in itself a stream of studies and books, I used alcohol as the magical conduit to fantasy and euphoria, and to the enhancement of my imagination. There is no need to either rue or apologize for my use of this soothing, often sublime agent, which had contributed greatly to my writing; although I never set down a line while under its influence, I did use it — often in conjunction with music — as a means to let my mind conceive visions that the unaltered, sober brain has no access to. Alcohol was an invaluable senior partner of my intellect, besides being a friend whose ministrations I sought daily — sought also, I now see, as a means to calm the anxiety and incipient dread that I had hidden away for so long somewhere in the dungeons of my spirit.

    The trouble was, at the beginning of this particular summer, that I was betrayed. It struck me quite suddenly, almost overnight: I could no longer drink.

    That there is a connection between my wine drinking and my writing seemed likely, though it was not until I read Styron’s words that I truly understood what it might be. He goes on, in Darkness Visible, to plot out what happens once he is — for whatever reason — sickened by alcohol. A fog seizes his mind. A malaise settles over his soul. He cannot think, he cannot write. He becomes remote and suicidal. He loses all hope.

    I cannot say what the moral of this story might be. Styron recovered from the depression he wrote about so starkly but fell into another, even more profound, later in life and had to be treated with electro-convulsive therapy (ECT). He died of pneumonia, at the age of 81, in November of last year.

    “The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis,” Styron once said. And he lived it as well.

    I take some small comfort in the fact that I’m doing my part. Drinking my wine. Writing my stories. Letting neurosis dance freely across the surface of my sober morning brain. And waiting. . . .

  • Ezro

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    Most nights Hurley would sit up late, drinking, and would fall asleep looking for God. He heard leaves falling and trapped, swirling, in the alley out back. And then: the rattle of piss beneath his window and someone warbling a sad song.

    Some days he saw gulls, so many gulls, with no water anywhere around, behaving in a peculiar and beautifully aloof manner, yet sometimes almost as if they had orders.

    Hurley liked to think he knew well enough when to turn away, and when to sit quietly and let the world go.

    The truth is, no, that wasn’t true.

    He remembered the ragged man who used to wander the streets of his old hometown, talking about Jesus and feeding the birds in the courthouse square. Sometimes the man carried a sign: “Ask me about Hell! I’ve been there!” Other times the man would talk to himself and laugh, his laughter sounding to Hurley like a marvelous secret that had been whispered in his ear by luminous larks in some long ago darkness.

    There were many people in that town, Hurley’s mother had once told him, people who were likely as decent and befuddled as Ulysses S. Grant, and as capable of murderous resolve when push came to shove. Hurley’s mother was a fan of the War Between the States –“fan” was the word she used. She had a large collection of books on the Civil War. Some days when Hurley came home from school his mother would be slumped at the kitchen table, and she would hiss at him between her long fingers, “Don’t fuck with me!”

    There had never been anything cognate to anchor him, or so had once claimed an advocate from the state, speaking in some official capacity on Hurley’s behalf.

    He was just a boy. His hand was unsteady. His mother had asked him to draw color across her lips.

    Am I pretty? she’d asked. Isn’t that better?

    It looked awful against the gray. He wanted to smother her, and would have, but the minister who was holding her hand had smiled and winked at Hurley across the bed.

    The last night he slept in that house, watched over by a stranger dispatched by the usual bland kindness, the Jesus man became for him a prophet of his imagination, Ezro, hobbled, a man for whom the world and its suffering and shattering light were irresistible. Time and again Ezro appeared in Hurley’s dreams.

    They took Hurley away for a time, then let him go. Accused, he guessed, of being no longer young. They thought pills would keep him among the living, a visit now and then with a glum, fat bastard with a basement full of model trains and a tiny, precisely-detailed world for them to rattle through. Cows that never moved. A mailman who was paralyzed at the exact moment he raised his hand to wave.

    Hurley did what he was asked and dug for a time, never satisfactorily, never deep enough.

    Pride, generally, damned the angels, or at least those that managed to get themselves damned. The fat man accused Hurley of being too proud to dig. Hurley didn’t think that he deserved to be damned for not digging deep enough.

    And still Ezro appeared in his dreams.

    He saw him in the moonlight, weaving along a dirt road huddled under a pine casket. And every morning Hurley would go out into the world where once Ezro had cried and rejoiced, rejoiced and cried.

    And he thought: I could do that.

    He thought: Shit, I could surely do that.

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  • No Humans, No Freedom

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    A Day without Humans

    1007alanweisman.gifNow, here’s fodder for daydreams and late-night speculation: What would happen to the earth — and, more pointedly, to our massive infrastructure of buildings, bridges, subways, and sculptures — if the human race were to disappear? Author and University of Arizona journalism professor Alan Weisman has asked the question of everyone from geologists and paleontologists to art conservators and the Dalai Lama, and the answers are utterly fascinating. This month he discusses the well-researched thesis put forth in his new book, The World Without Us. Come prepared for an ecology lesson, as well as some delightful trivia. For example: Without us, mosquitoes would thrive, domesticated cattle would die out (of course), and a plastic bottle cap would likely outlive your house. –Danielle Kurtzleben

    7 p.m., University of Minnesota Bookstore, Coffman Memorial Union, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-626-0559; free.

    MUSIC
    Dare to Dream

    1007marywilson.gifThe name Mary Wilson might not mean anything to you on its own, but I guarantee you’ve heard her sing. Back when she was just 13 years old and living in Detroit’s Brewster Projects, Wilson dreamed of becoming a star, and when she met Florence Ballard, Betty McGlown, and Diana Ross she was well on her way. Do I have your attention now? Certainly you’ve heard of that last name. The four girls formed The Primettes, and later (replacing McGlown with Barbara Martin) became The Supremes. Why, when she set the standard for females in the recording industry, do you not know her name? Perhaps Dreamgirls can help you answer this question. She’s the “other” one: Lorrell Robinson. Truth is, Wilson stayed with the group even after Ballard and Ross left it, attaining several hits with The New Supremes. Since then, Wilson has written a best-selling autobiography, performed on stage and screen, lectured and toured the world, and continued cranking out stellar music. Catch her tonight and tomorrow night at the Dakota.

    7 & 9:30 p.m., Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet, Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; $60 & $45.

    Matt Pond PA

    1007mattpond.gif“It’ll never be that right / It’ll never be that wrong / You’re heading for the night / That’s as real as it’s long.” Matt Pond PA has evolved a great deal as a band over the past decade, yet they remain true to their initial challenge to pop music, to their initial focus on strings, and to their initial unpretentious, down-to-earth lyrics, with a sense of humor. Now joined by Steve Jewett on bass, Brian Pearl on guitars and piano, Dan Crowell on drums, and Dana Feder on cello, Matt Pond offers catchy melodies with sweetly sung, simple lyrics that cover the full spectrum from joy to misery, warning against apathy and exalting any kind of emotional response to human relationships and people’s relationship to their environments.

    7 p.m., Varsity Theater, 1308 4th St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-604-0222; $14.

    FILM
    Brand upon the Brain

    1007branduponbrain.gifBrand Upon the Brain! is black and white and silent. Brand gives us music, beautiful music, melancholy and thrilling, and reminiscent of the sea. You can almost smell the brine from the moan of the cello. Isabella Rossellini narrates, breathlessly, ordering us to participate, shouting her entreaties. She is a benshi, and one of the best. Of course, there is only a recording of Isabella, sweet Isabella. But she is our only benshi, sadly, and she wears that international crown with pride. “The past, the past, into the past!” she shouts, and with her we are thrust headlong into that past. We follow Guy Maddin, filmmaker, into his past and discover, simultaneously, that there are some discomforting parallels in all our childhoods. See a full review in our Talk about Talkies blog. –Peter Schilling, Jr.

    5:30, 7:30, 9:30 p.m., Parkway Theater, 4814 Chicago Ave., Minneapolis; 612-822-3030.

  • Meet the New Strib Reader's Rep: Everybody/Nobody

    Friday was the last day that the Star Tribune offered readers with beefs the name and number of a real person who would listen to them. Here’s the new procedure, as described under the headline “Have a Concern?” as it ran in Saturday’s paper.

    “The Star Tribune is committed to correcting errors that appear in the newspaper or online. Concerns about accuracy can be directed to corrections@startribune.com. You may also call the main number, 612-673-4414, weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and ask to be connected to the appropriate department. Contact information for editors can be found in each section of the newspaper.”

    I wonder what poor bastard has been assigned the thankless task of sorting through the new corrections e-mail bin? It’s doubtful the task was considered a plum assignment. Then, about that “main number” folks are directed to call. In the good old days of the live switchboard, the one person answering that line into the newsroom already had his or her hands full for eight frickin’ hours a day. With no one bothering to use the new automated system, I’m sure the pressure has already increased exponentially. Now, add to that the reader’s rep overflow–which is considerable and populated with regulars who call as much to chat as to vent. Oy.

    My favorite part was the final suggestion that concerned or disgruntled readers could contact the editors of various departments directly, only no specific phone numbers were listed, just the vague directive to search through the sections for contact information. These are folks whose voicemail picks up 24/7 because they’re up to their eyeballs 24/8. Some of these folks can’t even get back in timely fashion to their own staffers who call or email questions about breaking news stories. What chance does Joan Q. Public stand of getting a response while her question/concern/correction is still fresh?

    With a reader’s rep, the paper–though management may have been cynical about it–at least gave the appearance of wanting to hear from its readers. This latest system strikes me as one big FU.

  • Betty Jean's Chicken-n-Waffles

    Metroblogging reviews Betty Jean’s Chicken-n-Waffles. How many times have you walked past this place without even noticing? My only issue with the Skeptical Diner review is that it should have gone on and on and on about the waffles. They are without a doubt the best waffles I have ever tastes. In fact, completely different than anything I’ve ever tasted in the waffle world. Fabulous! But don’t try to taste everything at once. There’s a real danger of overeating there.

  • Jeremy's Cake: Fit even for his palate

    cake.jpeg

    It must be nerve-wracking to provide a birthday cake for one of the area’s top food critics. But some mysterious baker’s wife did a bang-up job.

    At my esteemed co-blogger’s party the other night, we were served a towering creation from A Baker’s Wife Pastry Shop. Now, I’m not a dessert person. Fine wine, five-dollar-a-cup shade-grown coffee, and savory, spicy snacks? Bring ’em on. But I eat sweets perhaps once a month. For October, this was it.

    Jeremy’s birthday cake was a mosaic — it went from white to dark chocolate and contained an array of hues in between, cream, walnut, and tan. As inexperienced as I am with pastry, I cannot do the taste justice. But I can say this was a more complex eating experience than one usually has when handed a slice of cake on a plate. There was a toffee flavor, something mocha, and chocolate, of course. The icing was sweet but not overly so.

    This wife can bake for me any time. And if you have a yen to indulge, I’d highly recommend your visiting her, too. And for more on Jeremy Iggers’ birthday celebration, click here.

    A Baker’s Wife, 4200 28th Avenue South, Minneapolis 612-729-6898.

  • The Weimar Republic

    The Economist reports on University of Minnesota professor Eric Weitz’s new book on the Weimar Republic.