The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

Playoff Three-Pointer: Speed Is Killing

1. Warriors in Command
The big news of the first round of the NBA playoffs is obviously Golden State’s 3-1 lead over 67-win Dallas, a series that would have any neutral observer pulling hard for the Warriors even if he/she didn’t know they were enormous underdogs. Golden State epitomizes the coming out of FUN in the NBA this post-season, flipping the bird to the conventional wisdom that you need an airtight freeze-dried stiff upper-lipped dose of disciplined, didactic conservatism in order to win pro hoops in the spring. In fact three of the four most enjoyable teams among the 16 combatants are painting mustaches and spinning whirlagigs on that shibboleth.

No, the new news is that speed, athleticism, transition flow, and ball movement are threatening to be in vogue for the first moment since the Showtime Lakers a pair of decades ago. And joining Steve Nash as the poster child of this stomp-the-throttle fantasia is Baron Davis, who is turning in a folk hero style performance this series. If you like serendipity, your favorite Baron moment tonight was the half-court bank-in to the tie the game at the halftime buzzer. If its plain grit and hustle you hanker for, that jousting with Jason Terry for the steal on the out-of-bounds pass and subsequent transition layup with Terry riding his hip like a bad jockey, all in the last three seconds of the third period, comes out on top. And if seize the moment ingenuity is your thing, Baron’s rebound off his own free throw miss and followup lay-in might be the snapshot.

Of course everybody is going to gush about Golden State–we’ve all got guilty consciences for picking against them, not truly believing until tonight’s gritty victory. That they still might lose is a possibility, of course, but irrelevant to the lasting glory of these first four games. If they keep going, sweet. But it’s that initial rush that really salts away the memories. Golden State fans feel better right now than they will if the Warriors win 55 games and make it to the conference finals next year.

There are a couple of things still worth pointing out about Dallas, however. First, the universally accepted label slapped on the Mavs was that they were stylistically versatile, that they could play Bump and Grind with the Spurs and the Jazz and Beat the Clock with the flyboys. But it wasn’t so. Of the team’s mere 15 losses in regular season play, a third of them were to Golden State, who beat them in all three meetings, and Phoenix, who beat them twice in a row in the final couple months of the season. People mistake the Mavs’ quickness for a team that enjoys transition play. They don’t. Even their fastest players like Devon Harris and Josh Howard have the sort of explosiveness that works best in the half-court for them, and regular rotation guys like Nowitzki, Stackhouse, Dampier, and Terry don’t thrive against teams that love uptempo play. And if you need further convincing, the 45-4 edge the Warriors had in fast break points tonight over the first 46 minutes of the game might be the smoking gun.

Second, this has not been a good series for Avery Johnson, who was the single biggest reason why I decided the Mavs could withstand what was clearly going to be a difficult series for Dallas (but highly entertaining for the rest of us). It began when he went small with the lineup change, a move subsequently discredited by the fine performance of Dasagana Diop in the middle, who has been as much of an obstacle to the Warriors as anyone in a Dallas uniform–the key to tonight’s game was when he picked up his 5th foul with the Mavs up 7 in the fourth period. The other mark against Avery is that his inflammable emotions on the sidelines haven’t inspired his squad and may have contributed to their rattled demeanor. There was no way for anyone to know how the Mavs would react, of course, but if anyone should have had a clue, it was Avery.

Third, as someone who has watched Kevin Garnett be pilloried for playing fundamentally sound, unselfish basketball for lo these many years, I’m a little suspicious on the pile-on Nowitzki is being subjected to right now. TNT announcer Dick Stockton (oh I wish Harlen and Collins could have done this game) was a real asshole about it, justifiably pointing out Nowitzki’s absence of aggressive point scoring, but either deliberately or blindly not noticing all the little things Nowitzki was doing on defense and for ball movement tonight. Granted, Nowitzki has not had a great series by any means, but neither has it been a classic choke–far from it. According to the popcornmachine.net totals, Dallas was +3 tonight in the 47:09 Nowitzki played, and -7 in the 51 seconds he sat.

2. Bullish in the East
Speed kills, exhibit B was Chicago’s sweep over ossified Miami, the pathetic defending champs who mailed in the entire regular season in the belief they could just flip a switch in the playoffs, only to get de-pantsed by the Bulls’ squadron of small, quick, very talented and poised top 5: Deng, Gordon, Wallace, Nocioni and Hinrich, with PJ Brown the token slowfoot.

My advice to any neophyte or otherwise clueless GM: Get some players from Argentina. Like Manu Ginobili, Nocioni seems to kick it up a notch when it matters most–otherwise known as having a killer instinct. Deng, like Baron Davis, is writing his name in neon across these playoffs, sending poor Eddie Jones packing with his combination of strength, size and quickness. Gordon has so much confidence in his shot right now that a priority for opponents should be to frustrate him and get him out of sync, even at the expense of leaving others open a little more. Wallace is the experienced hand, the guy who can battle in the paint and play superb interior D without retarding the high powered pace that is the Bulls metier. And Hinrich, well, he had an off-series, beset by fouls, and if the Bulls are going to beat the Pistons in the second round, he’ll have to raise his game and move his feet better against Chauncey Billups. I wouldn’t bet against it.

3. Hidebound SOB/PhDs in San Antonio
Watching these games for the pure basketball of it all, I found myself rooting for Golden State (even my disdain for Don Nelson abating), Phoenix, Chicago, and….the Spurs. How could this be? AI is one of my all-time couch potato lures, and I dislike Tim Duncan’s “noble carriage but blatant whiner” hypocrisy almost as much as ref Joey Crawford. Worse, if there is a team that can send the NBA back to the stone age in terms of bruise-over-cruise prioritizing, it is Gregg Popovich’s unmerry men.

But damn it if the Spurs don’t have grit and guile and team synergy that isn’t lightning in a bottle but fermented for eight years in oaken casks in the dusky depths of their collective souls. The key plays in Saturday night’s pivotal road win over Denver were Robert Horry’s steal and bucket to trigger a deadly surge at the end of the third quarter, and Michael Finley making them pay for doubling Duncan while keeping close watch on Ginobili and Parker–he buried treys. The key plays that nobody ever thinks about being key plays were all the times the Spurs scrambled back on defense.

I don’t understand why Pops wants to throw Bowen on Iverson every third or fourth possession, especially when Tony Parker is playing decent D for a change and hair-shirt defenders like Bowen are the only guys that usually give Carmelo Anthony fits. But I don’t think it is a very bright idea to criticize Gregg Popovich’s decisions about how to play defense. Still, it’s a head-scratcher that doesn’t seem to be working.

Another reason I swung to the Spurs is Denver feels like a punk-ass outfit. Nene has had a bevy of marvelous moments, but is still prone to putting a little mustard on the rage when he finishes an open dunk with his team down 6 with two minutes to go–and he’s whining more than Duncan. Karl hasn’t worn well since his heyday in Seattle, even, or especially, his fluke year in Milwaukee that bagged him the huge contract. And Melo, well, Melo is the poor man’s Kobe Bryant, and that is not a compliment. Can score in the clutch. Does a lot of things well. Obviously smart, pretty well-spoken, and often fun to watch. But from afar, he doesn’t feel like a great teammate–there’s a distance there that might be arrogance or immaturity or simply a lack of inspirational leadership. In a playoff year when speed and transition are the rule, a squad with Melo and AI should ready for their close-ups. Instead, the Nugs don’t seem ready. Or maybe the Spurs are simply that good.

April 30, 2007
Not Just for Girls – A Girlie Monday

I realize it’s not politically correct to call things “girlie,” and it’s certainly a disservice to my gender — but then my gender has done me many a disservice, so… take that!

THEATER AND PERFORMANCE
“Okay, first things fuckin’ last!”

This just sounds too interesting to pass up. Imagine that Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs was written by a woman. Imagine the characters were women. Hard to imagine. I know. But what might that be like? Would it be so horridly filled with girlie clichés, you’d run screaming for cover (or Tampax)? Or would it simply be ingenioius? Award-winning Canadian playwright Laura McGhee was listening to the song Stuck in the Middle With You, when she wondered what connotation the dancing torture scene would have had if a woman had been playing the role portrayed by Michael Madsen. Then she started to speculate about what else would have been different. The result was Reservoir Bitches, a dramatic parody of the Tarantino classic. Presenting the midwest premiere is the Red Eye Theater, known for their multimedia stagings and dark exploration of the underbelly of contemporary life.

7 p.m., Red Eye Theater, 15 West 14th St., Minneapolis, 612-870-0309; pay-what-you-can.

READINGS
A Union of Love and Loss

If you’re looking for less violent “girlie” stuff, you might want to go hear author Linda Olsson talk about her debut novel at the Galleria Barnes & Nobles. Olsson’s Astrid and Veronika tells the story of two women — a 30-year-old writer and a septuagenarian recluse — who befriend each other and share their emotional scars while living next door to each other in a small Swedish town. While it certainly sounds a bit hokey, Olsson’s unembellished style stops it from sliding into an overwrought melodrama. She’s a solid writer and has traveled the world from Sweden to Kenya to Singapore, so she ought to have plenty to say.

7:30 p.m., Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Galleria Shopping Center, 3225 W 69th St., Edina; 952-920-0633; free.

MUSIC
Don’t Let the Girlie-Appeal Fool You

The majority of comments I’ve heard about Duncan Sheik in the past few years have been more geared toward his good looks than his great music — and maybe I’m allowing myself to be blinded by his bold break onto the music scene about a decade ago — but I still think the man has something more to offer than a condom reference with a sexy gaze. I mean, he’s even gone and composed an entire score for the new Broadway musical Spring Awakening — and the reviews aren’t half bad. Sheik has certainly mellowed over the years, so if you’re looking for a respectable version of mellow mysticism threaded with pop, he’s your man. And hey, as mystical as the music may sound, the lyrics still have a satisfying darkness: “I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor, and when I die I expect to find him laughing.”

7 p.m., Varsity Theater, 1308 4th St. SE, Minneapolis; 612-604-0222; $23.

Listen to Duncan Sheik.
Watch and listen to Duncan Sheik.

The Awesome Monday Show!

OK. If you really need to throw off all the Monday girlie schlock, join host Rayna Terror at the Bedlam Theater for an evening of head-thrashing, liquor-free rock-n-roll. (And don’t you dare call a booze-free event “girlie.” I see no correlation at all.) Tonight’s show features psychedelic punk-rockers Nudity, with Dreamland Faces, Synchrocyclotron, and Styrofoam Death (remaining members of Styrofoam Duck). It promises to be an interesting show, with plenty of energy, and plenty of… teenagers. Actually, I don’t know how many teenagers are allowed to go to a concert on a Monday night, but it’s a dry, all ages show, nonetheless. Any drinking to be done must be done at the neighboring Palmer’s Bar or one of the other Cedar Avenue watering holes.

8:30 p.m., Bedlam Theatre, 1501 S. 6th St.; 612-341-1038; $6.

ON THE NET
What’s Going on in Our Own Backyard?

For those of you who missed the Konono No.1 show at the Cedar Cultural Center last Wednesday, here’s a clip.

Did you miss the Bright Eyes concert on the same night? Check out clips here, here, and here.

Remember the Bent Festival I wrote about on the 19th? Here’s a clip of Beatrix*JAR live at Bent Fest 2007. See, you really should have gone.

Critical Mass rally on Franklin and Hennepin this Saturday.

Saturday night at Pi, the hottest new gay club for women.

Granted, it’s an ad, but this one happens to be produced by Carmichael Lynch, here in town.

And for the grand finale… and old (1947-1961) video of someone’s great grandfather and his friends performing an acrobatic act from the Minneapolis Aquatenials. Cirque du Soleil meets Charlie Chaplin.

April 30, 2007
Tenet Sells the Revision

The question I’ve always had about George Tenet — seen this evening on “60 Minutes” getting feisty with Scott Pelley — is this: How exactly did he, a Clinton-appointee running the goddam CIA, pass muster with Dick Cheney and hang on into the Bush 43 administration? I mean, here was a crowd gone obsessional with doing everything the opposite of Bill Clinton. North Korea? No talking and no deals! Measured fiscal prudence? Gargantuan tax cuts for the Top 1%! And every disposable FOB anywhere in Washington … overboard! But they leave Clinton’s guy running the CIA? The Coast Guard, maybe. But the CIA is one job where you want an unequivocal Kool-Aid partisan, like, uh, Porter Goss.

From what I’ve read Tenet plays the man’s man game pretty well. He is cocksure and smokes a good cigar. But someone like Cheney had to have some kind of deep assurance that Tenet was not going to be a problem, either with him or with the Richard Perle-Paul Wolfowitz crowd squeezing the Iraq alarm even before 9/11, to survive the Clinton cauterizing going on everywhere else in the federal bureaucracy.

But here is Tenet now selling his version of history. Granted, it is a version pretty much lacking in surprise and neatly in step with everything else we’ve learned — and Condoleeza Rice, Cheney and Bush continue to deny, to their further utter marginalization.

I’m all for public officials stepping up and admitting they screwed up — even if they do it by way of fulfilling a $4 million book contract — but the primary strike against Tenet, which maybe he’ll answer better when he testifies before Congress, is why he didn’t step up and scream, “Bullshit!” two years ago, when he realized that either Cheney, Bush, Rice or Andy Card had sold him out to Bob Woodward.

If he stays as combative as he was with Pelley it’ll be one of the more interesting book tours in recent years. (Must check to see if he’s doing Stewart).

April 30, 2007
Thus Far, A Season Without A Script: The Weekend

The Twins have now lost three of Johan Santana’s last four starts, which would be disastrous were it not for the surprising performances of Ramon Ortiz and Carlos Silva.

Everybody, of course, is just figuring that anything positive that Santana can give the team in April is gravy, given his slow starts in recent seasons. I think that’s about the right way to look at it, and it’s sort of easy to look at it that way when the team has had an erratic April and is still 14-11 and in second place in the Central. It’s easy to look at it that way when two of the big rotation question marks coming out of spring training have thus far silenced critics.

There was no reason to expect that the team that lost five-out-of-six to Kansas City and Cleveland would go to Detroit and take two-out-of-three, but therein lies the basic truth about baseball: there’s really never any reason to expect anything, other than the unexpected. The Twins’ season has already had more highs and lows than a Hold Steady record, but they’re sitting in pretty good shape as they head to Tampa Bay for what should —should— be a little breather (it won’t be, of course, if only because Sidney Ponson takes the hill in the opener) before heading into one of the toughest stretches of the first half: a homestand featuring series with Boston, Chicago, and Detroit, and then a three-game set at Jacobs Field.

Today’s game –a 4-3 loss on a Brandon Inge walk-off homer against the struggling Jesse Crain– demonstrated how much the Twins depend on their middle of the order guys. Gardenhire shook up the lineup; Punto led off, and Bartlett hit second, and they were on base five times, but didn’t score any runs owing to the fact that Mauer, Cuddyer, and Morneau were a combined 0-10.

So far ’07 is looking like a repeat of last season in that the three-through-six guys in the batting order (Mauer, Cuddyer, Morneau, and Hunter) are the top four on the team in both RBI and runs scored.

As far as Crain’s wretched April goes, I’m not going to get too concerned until we get a couple more months out of the way. He was awful last April as well (12 IP, 20 hits allowed, and a 7.50 ERA).

April 29, 2007
RetroRama Redux

The Minnesota History Center certainly hit upon a fetish last night. The place was so crowded at the first-ever RetroRama that a girl couldn’t even get a pink martini. Note to self: Next time, heed that time-honored tradition of packing a flask in your stockings.

Even though I couldn’t get a drink and didn’t come close to the retro hors d’oeuvres, I did get an eyeful of fabulous vintage wear. The partygoers were decked out in all manner of dandy suits and New Look-inspired dresses. I ran into such throwbacks as Lit Sixer Stephanie Wilbur Ash and Southern gentleman-about-town Andy Sturdevant. (Pardon the horrible lighting here. This is but a low-tech blog and I am but an idiot with an Elph.)

People-watching aside, the evening existed in four or so parts:

Part One: Shop. Succotash and Up Six were on hand to sell lots of nifty stuff. But, because I had to rush off to the fashion show, I wasn’t able to snag these gorgeous silver ankle boots.

Part Two: Fashion Show. (I just said that …) Various local designers took inspiration from the History Center’s archives, and came up with …

A tie skirt, and it was cool as heck …

A bad-boy suit with some bad-ass details … (The model wasn’t bad either.)

Slinky satin lingerie …

A sexy, showgirl-style headdress …

And last, but certainly not least, this gorgeous, New Look-shaped dress made from upholstery fabrics and stitched together with gold and black thread. The dress, designed by Allyson J. Thornton, was inspired by a dress worn by Miss Minnesota 1948. Here we have Miss Minnesota 2007 modeling what was everyone’s favorite piece of the evening.

And here we have a detail shot of the fabric. Mmm, Mmm.

Part Three: Arts and Crafts. The History Center crafts council kindly provided us with plenty of leather scraps and duct tape. I made this deco-esque clutch, whereas my friend Adam made the artsy tie below. Sadly, both items are headed straight for the trash bin. (Note: Adam’s tie, cool though it may be, had to be taped onto his shirt.)

Part Four: The New Standards. None for me, thanks …

April 27, 2007
Predictably, the Paulose Connection Deepens While Strib Group-Think Muddles

One of the mustier traditions of newspaper writing is the amount of group-think involved in crafting the first paragraph of a story — in journalism jargon known as “the lede”. Tradition says that the first paragraph should contain the essence of all the information to follow. Tradition also implies that that first paragraph represent the newspaper’s institutional attitude toward the story.

Despite abundant evidence that modern readers value a little punch and style as much as a, uh, “fair and balanced” recitation of facts, when you read a story like this morning’s Star Tribune piece titled, “Concerns over Heffelfinger reportedly raised at Justice”, you can smell the hands of nervous, second-guessing, group-thinking editors all over it.

As I and many others having been saying for weeks now — including the Strib’s editorial page and, most prominently, columnist Nick Coleman — the Strib, there’s no kind way to put this, has flat-out failed to properly (i.e. adequately) explore the high likelihood that the abrupt departure of US Attorney Tom Heffelfinger may in some way be related to the rather large, politically and ethically significant firing of eight other US Attorneys that erupted into a national scandal five months ago and is still building.

A group-think lede, with handful of editors re-re-re-re-crafting that all-important first paragraph to properly assert the paper’s institutional thinking/position on a given story gives you a contrast like we see today between the original reporting from D.C. and the Strib’s massaging for local consumption.

Here, first, is the lede paragraph in the latest story from the Strib’s former D.C. bureau, McClatchy Newspapers.
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WASHINGTON – The Bush administration considered firing the former U.S. attorney in Minnesota, but he left his job voluntarily before the list of attorneys to be ousted was completed, two congressional aides said Thursday.
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(The entire piece is here).

Not a lot of style. But punchy and direct to the key point … that thanks to new testimony by a former Justice Department official with knowledge of the whole affair — Kyle Sampson — the story has now taken a leap well beyond “presumption” vis a vis Mr. Heffelfinger.

Cut now to the Strib’s “crafting” of the same news:
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WASHINGTON – Senior Justice Department officials raised concerns about then-U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger sometime after October 2005, according to a congressional aide familiar with what a former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told House and Senate staff members last week.
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Never mind the complete absence of style and the convoluted splatter of dulling bureaucratic verbiage like “senior”, “aides”,”officials” and “staff members”, how about the complete avoidance of the rather essential and connective word, “fire”? Note also how the McClatchy report — the latest in a series of precisely the sort of professional, skeptical reporting newspapers normally expect of their DC bureaus and that the Strib has declined to re-print — distills the essence of the whole business into THE FIRST SENTENCE.

Namely, “The Bush administration considered firing the former U.S. Attorney in Minnesota … ,” while the Strib committee prefers instead, “Senior Justice Department officials raised concerns … ” yadda yadda. (Other recent MCClatchy reports here, here and here.

Can we agree that by now all arrows are pointing well past and beyond the hapless Alberto Gonzales and directly at, “The Bush administration”? Note to Strib political editor group: I think it is now … safe … to say that the “Bush administration” had something to do with this.

Also note that despite the appearance of a long-awaited link — courtesy of “a congressional aide familiar with … [zzzzz]”, the Strib plays the revelation inside on A4. (On the front page — breaking news on eating disorders). As I say, Strib group-thinkers have consistently decided against re-printing their former colleagues’ work on this story, preferring instead to either ignore McClatchy reports entirely or re-craft them into something more, shall we say, “appropriate” for their institutional voice. (Shades of punching up those New York Times pieces they run every so often.)

At this point in the US Attorneys-Heffelfinger-Paulose story, with Monica Goodling, Paulose’s close-personal friend, having been granted immunity in exchange for her testimony on the matter, with Gonzales being asked to prepare, you know, actual answers to all the questions he could not “recall” last week and with subpoenas approved for Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, I’m guessing the Strib’s group-thinkers are praying for an asteroid impact to distract public attention from the bizzare lack of editorial judgment they’ve displayed in this significant, substantive matter.

And while I’m at it, yes, if it weren’t for Nick Coleman pushing and prodding and writing on this story, the Strib would have as much relevance on the Heffelfinger angle as the Excelsior-Shorewood Sun Sailor. Coleman hit it again this morning with a “lede” that plays like this:

“Minnesota’s U.S. attorney, Rachel K. Paulose, has waged a public relations campaign to salvage her position since allegations were raised that her appointment was part of the Bush administration’s efforts to place political loyalists in U.S. attorney offices, especially in states expected to be “battlegrounds” in the 2008 election.” The whole column is here.

I’ve read more style out of the boy, but that lede gets directly to the heart of the story — a significant local angle on a major national scandal — that the Strib’s group-thinkers have chosen instead to minimize/suppress/downplay/ignore/hope will go away … take your pick.

April 27, 2007
Movies for the Young (and the Young at Heart)

Once again, your best bets this weekend, cinema-wise, are to be found at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival, and the Childish Film Festival within it in particular.

This weekend sees a pair of international features for kids and some awesome animated shorts. On Saturday, take the young ones to Flights of Fancy, wonderful shorts from around the world (11 am at the Oak Street Cinema). Later, older kids (pre-teens, still), will get a kick from the delightful Lepel (Spoon). Lepel is yet another manic Danish film, this time about a kid whose lost his parents when their hot air balloon spirits them away. And once again, like in Bonkers a week earlier, Lepel doesn’t shy away from some tetchy adult issues, like falling in love. You and your kid will have a blast! (Saturday at 2:30 at the Oak).

I didn’t get a chance to screen the South African film A Boy Called Twist, but I’m thrilled at the thought of catching it on Sunday. Again, this is ostensibly a kids’ flick. But Twist is billed as a “contemporary telling of Dickens’ Oliver Twist“, which, I have to say, is an awesome idea (and reflects Roman Polanski’s lack of imagination that he didn’t do it himself with his recent, dull-as-dirt adaptation). Set on the streets of Cape Town, with a young boy joining Fagin’s den of thieves and miscreants, Twist promises to be a wonder. Showing Sunday at 11am at the Oak Street Cinema.

April 27, 2007
B Happy, B Pudding

ramps, my dears, ramps!

It looks like a nice weekend for a drive, no? Choose wisely and head down to the historic LeDuc Mansion in Hastings for a little food festival sponsored by the Northern Heartland Food and Wine Learning Center.

Check out wine and cheese pairings with Nan Bailly of Alexis Bailly Vineyards and Patrick the Cheeseguy (he’s funny). Get into the kick of Spring by sampling some local wild edibles (I’m thinking ramps and morels), maple syrup, duck eggs, honey, herb plants and more. Saturday from 1pm – 4pm.

If you’re going to stay metro, you can at least rejoice that it’s an open weekend for both the Mpls and St. Paul Farmers Markets. Even if you’re only buying flowers, at least you can start the season off right with freshly squeezed lemonade and a Polish for breakfast.

I plan to muck around the yard this weekend. I stopped by Lucia’s Take Home the other day, and the fresh bread of the day happened to be the Aztec loaf: slightly laced with chili spice and dotted with nubs of dark chocolate. It’s that earthy/spicy chocolate and heat combination that I love. Two loaves please.

The first, I turned into a bread pudding. Not too sweet, just custardy and dusky enough to hit the spot. If you lean on the sweeter side you can either add more sugar or pair it with freshly whipped cream touched with Kahlua. It may not seem Springy, but thankfully there is no season for bread. The second loaf is destined to become Sunday morning’s French toast.

Aztec Bread Pudding
1 loaf Lucia’s Aztec loaf, ripped into 1 inch pieces
5 eggs
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 T Penzey’s pie spice
1/4 cup sugar
sprinkling of brown sugar

Butter a 13×9 baking dish, pre-heat oven to 350.
Rip or cut bread into hunks and set aside in a big, big bowl.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, cream, vanilla, spices, and sugar. Dump over the bread hunks and mix thoroughly, bread should soak up much of the liquid and look plump and squidgy. Pour into pan, cover and refrigerate for a couple hours. Uncover, sprinkle with brown sugar, and cook for about an hour or until the custard is set and the top looks crunchy.

April 27, 2007
One Moment Sometimes Doesn't Lead To Another

The little house with its peeling paint and mossy shingles was set well back from the street and appeared to be floating in a sea of saffron grass bleached by the sun and burnished by the fleeting sweep of twilight.

It was hot. There wasn’t a shadow left in which to take refuge, and there wasn’t a single thing moving in any direction.

If you stood in the middle of the street you would hear the unreal, thrumming silence of dusk in a dead-end place and you’d smell the rain that would creep in after darkness fell. If you stood still and listened hard you could probably hear the surf of truck traffic on the highway at the edge of town. And if you stood there long enough you might eventually see a child aboard a bicycle glide silently like a dream fragment through the intersection at the end of the block.

You might.

But you might not. There weren’t a lot of children around anymore.

If you took a few steps up the front sidewalk you’d smell the cigarette smoke that was drifting in almost rhythmic waves through the window screen. And if you were bored or curious enough to press your face to the screen you’d see an unfinished jigsaw puzzle spread out on a card table, a windmill and a field of red tulips shot full of jagged holes. You’d see an orange plastic ashtray with a burning cigarette wedged in one of the badly-stained slots, and an abandoned game of Solitaire lined up on a coffee table. An old woman would be sitting there in a faded sun dress imprinted with a pattern of what might have been sunflowers. Across the room from her, sitting utterly still in a recliner, his bare feet just jutting into the left side of the frame (you’d have to move or crane your neck to take him all in), would be a shirtless man wearing nothing but boxer shorts and holding a pistol in his lap.

From another room in the house you’d hear the disconsolate burst of a television laugh track.

You wouldn’t necessarily know this, though, so I’ll tell you: I’ve fired that gun before, but I’ve been waiting my whole life to really shoot something.

April 27, 2007
Friday's for Music, Saturday Sports, and Sunday Dining

Ok. If you want to meet Sarah Jessica Parker, stop by Macy’s at noon. She’ll be there promoting her new Lovely fragrance — and talking to those starry-eyed enough to spend over $125 on a gift set. 12:00 p.m., first floor cosmetics, Macy’s, 700 On The Mall, Minneapolis; 612-375-3199.

Good, now let’s get to the good stuff…

MUSIC
The Books

“Using samples from obscure movies, as well as their own singing, mixing, and instrumentation, Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto construct melodic sound collages and electronic songs so catchy as to be genre defying. On the Massachusetts duo’s 2003 release, The Lemon of Pink, for example, the title track alone contains seamless movements between folk song, art singing, and acoustic picking. In ‘Be Good To Them Always,’ from their latest, Lost and Safe, a squall of reverb and electric guitar is paired with the intoned refrain: ‘You know, I simply cannot understand people.’ However, the Books’ technique and repertoire, while rock solid, don’t always translate to the stage. And so their live concerts are a whole other beast — sometimes inconsistent, but worth checking out.”

8 and 10:30 p.m., McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600; $16 ($13 members).

Afro-Cuban Jazz Legend in Our Backyard

There’s actually quite a lot of decent music tonight for all musical tastes, but for a guaranteed great jazz performance, plan on spending the evening at the Dakota. Start the evening off with former ¡Cubanismo! pianist and bandleader Nachito Herrera. I simply cannot get over how lucky we are to have this Afro-Cuban jazz legend as a neighbor. And I can’t get enough of him. See him every chance you get, folks. And this evening, you can stay for the late-night show as well — a tribute to trumpet great and the elite of ennui vocalists, Chet Baker.

8 p.m., The Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet Ave S., Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; $15.

SPORTS AND PERFORMANCE
Leave Saturday for the Girls

Saturday night brings to an end the Minnesota RollerGirls’ third season. Go cheer on your team — or all of them — at the Season Championships. The winner of this bout will take home the first prize and the Golden Skate Award. In celebration of the season closer, there’s a lot going on before, during, and after the bout, so you might as well make it a full evening fare. Start out with a fan-appreciation barbecue in Rice Park — right behind the Roy. You could win a Minnesota RollerGirls polycarbonate water bottle or — if that doesn’t turn you on for whatever odd reason — a brand new scooter. Then enjoy two back-to-back periods as the four Minnesota RollerGirls home teams battle it out. And it doesn’t end there. Top off the night with an after-party at Station 4.

Saturday from 4-7 p.m., BBQ, Rice Park, St. Paul. 7:30 p.m., Roy Wilkins Auditorium, RiverCentre, 175 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul; 651-265-4800; $12-$14. After hour, Station 4, 201 E 4th St., Saint Paul; 651-298-0173.

DINING
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is — Literally

Top the weekend off with a palate pleaser. Join Mike Phillips of The Craftsman Restaurant for a special chefs dinner. Phillips has invited six Slow Food Minnesota chefs (Steven Brown, Ken Goff, Scott Pampuch, Alex Roberts, Lenny Russo, and Tanya Siebenaler) to create a seven-course meal with seasonal, local, sustainably produced ingredients. Each chef will be responsible for one course, and each course will be served with the appropriate wine. Call 612-722-0175 to see if you can still reserve a spot.

Sunday at 5:30 p.m., The Craftsman Restaurant, 4300 E Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-722-0175; $130 ($115 Slow Food members).

Have a great weekend!

April 27, 2007