The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • Surprised? A Little Bit, I Guess

    (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

    If you haven’t been paying attention, you’ve been missing a strange, maddening, encouraging, teetering-on-the-brink-of-disaster one day, triumphing-over-adversity the next, almost wholly improbable stretch of baseball from the Minnesota Twins.

    The Twins season to date doesn’t really add up, and they’re certainly not going about their business the way past teams have. Yet, somehow, every time they get knocked down they seem to find a way to get back up. Bitch all you want about whatever you want (and there’s been plenty to bitch about), but you have to give the Twins this much: they’re battlers, as evidenced most recently in the just concluded four-game split with the Yankees –three one-run games, all sorts of lead changes, and the by now expected assortment of weird plays.

    Obviously nobody expected the Central to be such an undistinguished muddle, and just as surely very, very few people expected the Twins to be a half-game out in the first week of June. Still, it’s probably not really such a surprise that the Twins would be three games over .500 at this point. The real surprise has been how inconsistent –and even awful– the other clubs have been. As erratic as the Twins have been, they’ve been almost a model of consistency relative to the rest of the division.

    I guess it’s also been something of a surprise how the Twins have gotten to where they’re at. Is anybody else sort of taken aback to realize that, among American League teams, Minnesota is now trailing only Boston, Detroit, and Texas in runs scored, this despite the fact that the club is still next to last in homeruns? Is anybody else surprised that the Twins are 18-9 against the Central, easily the best mark in the division?

    I’m not terribly surprised by all the runs the Twins have given up (274 –only Detroit, Texas, and Seattle have surrendered more), so much as by the manner in which they’ve given them up. I think most of us figured going in that the starting pitching would be a sketchy proposition, and we’ve mostly been proven right, even as I’d argue that, Boof notwithstanding, the starters have done a pretty damn good job of keeping the team in games.

    This is a bit of an aside, but here’s a stat I can’t quite get my head around: Nick Blackburn has a WHIP (walk plus hits per innings pitched) of 1.38; Boof’s at 1.40, and Livan Hernandez is at a ridiculous 1.52. Boof leads the starters in strikeouts, and there’s not a huge disparity in homers allowed –Hernandez, in fact, has surrended one more. So what’s the problem with the Boofster? Situational pitching, I suppose, Boof’s inability to work his way out of jams and avoid innings that snowball; a bad inning followed by several good innings, followed by another bad inning; in a word, inconsistency. Translation: Boof’s problems are mental as much as they are mechanical, and, at the very least, he’ll be a much-needed warm body in the pen.

    God knows his presence will be welcomed by the other guys slumped on the bench down the leftfield line. Because the bullpen absolutely got killed in May. Some of this was almost certainly a product of being overworked (an obvious concern in the second month of the season, particularly with so many question marks), but the numbers really were alarming. In the 27 May games in which the bullpen appeared, relievers allowed runs in 19 of those (and that doesn’t take into account inherited runs they allowed to score). For the month the pen pitched 97 innings in those 27 games, giving up 106 hits, 46 walks, and 46 runs. Beyond Guerrier and Nathan, there really isn’t a guy left in the pen that inspires supreme confidence, or even tenuous confidence.

    The obvious remedy to this, or the only way to keep the pen from further implosion (hard as that is to imagine) as the summer wears on, is for the starters to settle in and start grinding out more innings. There are at least tentative indications that these guys –Baker, Blackburn, Slowey, certainly Hernandez, and possibly Perkins– are making progress toward that goal. The guys with the bats in their hands have showed that if the pitching staff can at least keep the game close, they’ll keep hacking and battling until the last pitch.

    The other early concern, of course, has been the defense, but –and I may be in a bit of denial here– I really do expect that to work itself out. I’ve been sort of amazed by what a stabilizing presence Alexi Casilla has been both in the field and at the plate. He doesn’t look anything like the guy we saw last year, and he was scuffling at Rochester before the desperation call-up. So while it’s possible that he’ll regress, I’m cautiously optimistic that he’s here to stay, and is finally ready to deliver on the promise he showed when he was the Twins’ minor league player of the year a couple seasons ago.

    I’ll say the same thing today that I said on opening night: This is a fun team to watch, and consistently fun, which is saying something when it comes to Major League baseball in the 21st century. And with both Cleveland and Detroit struggling to maintain any sort of positive momentum, and Chicago threatening to any day now get swallowed up by the spontaneous human combustion of its manager, the division that was widely regarded as the best in baseball a few months ago could actually go to a team that wins 88 games.

    And, hey, just possibly the Twins –a club that has at times been as frustrating and disappointing as any in recent memory, yet which has nonetheless managed to creep within a half game of the division lead– could be that team, even if that notion still seems somehow utterly ludicrous.

    Finally, I’ll leave you with these mind bogglers: Justin Morneau leads the Twins with 109 total bases, the exact same number that Cristian Guzman now has for the Washington Nationals. And in 88 at bats with Pittsburgh, Luis Rivas has as many homeruns (three) as Delmon Young, Joe Mauer, and Michael Cuddyer combined.

  • Mating Season, Anyone?

    SINGLES NIGHT
    Silver + Gold

    Now
    that summer is slowly but surely staking its claim, it’s
    time to put that pent up Spring fever to good use! Each and every
    Tuesday, Clubhouse Jager puts on a hip and sizzlin’ singles night with hot, hot tunes by Jonathan Ackerman,
    2-4-1 drink specials, and of course, plenty of beautiful (and
    available) people. This weekly dance night is especially special because yours truly
    co-hosts along with the lovely ladies of l’etoile. You also don’t want to miss out on a missed connection, so check l’etoile’s nifty text message-based flirting service
    the day after to see if anyone noticed you, or post about someone YOU
    noticed. If you somehow need more convincing, Clubhouse Jager also boasts THE best outdoor patio in the city, super-cool bartenders, friendly patrons, and of course, perfect cocktails.

    10 p.m., Clubhouse Jager, 923 Washington Ave. N., North Loop, Minneapolis; free.


    MUSIC
    Islands

    It’s not often that I am thoroughly charmed by a band after hearing a single song. However, Canadian indie-electro-dream rockers the Islands
    are a pure pop delight that I just can’t deny. Tonight, the 7th Street
    Entry comes alive with fresh sounds off Islands’ latest release Arms Way, an eclectic and fun must-own of 2008. Awol One and Crayonsmith kick things off the right way.  

    6 p.m., 7th Street Entry, 701 1st Ave. N., Downtown Minneapolis; $10.


    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Talk of the Stacks Presents Tim Weiner

    Attention
    conspiracy theorists and American history buffs! Tim Weiner, a
    Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and author who has been reporting on
    American intelligence for over 20 years, makes a stop at the Downtown
    Central Library     this evening for an intriguing discussion on his latest
    work, A Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA,
    which won the 2007 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a
    Finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. Get there
    early and check your tinfoil hat at the door; seating is limited and
    is first come, first serve. Book sales and signings will follow the
    presentation. Co-sponsored by The Rake!

    Doors at 6:15 p.m., talk at 7 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Downtown Minneapolis; free.


  • June Book Releases

  • 12 Things about the Mighty Ducks Movies that Bothered Me

    The Mighty Ducks trilogy is easily the best movie franchise ever to come out of Minnesota (as far as I know). Still, I take issue with a few things in the movies. Specifically, twelve things.

    1. Coach Bombay must have been on something if he was under the impression that he had a shot at pro hockey. Considering that the reason he started coaching the Ducks in the first place was related to community service for his drunk driving transgressions, it’s safe to say that he was more than likely on something — and Disney neglected to inform viewers of this fact. (D1&2)
    2. How many kids play hockey in Trinidad and Tobago? Are there even enough hockey-playing kids in Trinidad and Tobago for kids to scrimmage against each other in order to improve their skills? Even if there are, how the hell did Trinidad advance to the World Championships while Canada didn’t? (D2)
    3. What kind of gerrymandering put a rich kid from Edina on a team with a bunch of poor kids from Minneapolis, yet preserved the rest of the Edina team? Wait, Adam Banks lives within the poor kids’ boundaries? How did no one else figure this out before Bombay? How didn’t the rich parents on his team take care of this by relocating him to one of their homes? FAIL. (D1)
    4. At the very least you’d need a helmet to be out on the ice playing; it’s highly unlikely you’d be able or want to play without all the necessary equipment. And lassos and whatnot are neither necessary nor legal .(all)
    5. The image of a fancy hockey hall loses its impact when you know that it’s really the Blake Lower/Middle cafeteria. (D1)
    6. Mickey’s Diner: Not in Minneapolis. Not even on the same side of the river as south Minneapolis. Try St. Paul.
    7. MSHSL rules would make the team ineligible for varsity for a year due to transfer rules. That means you, Adam Banks. It seems like there would be some provision banning giving out athletic scholarships too. I’m just not sure. (D3)
    8. Anyway, why would you give athletic scholarships to a bunch of people who aren’t good enough to play varsity? (D3)
    9. Also, there really wouldn’t be that big of a conflict between the Ducks and the rich hockey players of Eden Hall because, well, that many rich kids complaining would probably get their way. (D3)
    10. Olympic/Goodwill/Global Domination Championship teams are usually made up of the best players in the country not the best team in the country. (D2)
    11. The "Flying V" doesn’t really work that well as a hockey strategy. My JV hockey team tried it in a game against South St. Paul. We won that game but failed miserably when it came to the "Flying V." (all)
    12. Rollerblading is not allowed in the Minneapolis Skyway system. Those kids would have been sent to juvie — or at least gotten kicked out of the skyway. Wait, there were kids of color. They totally would have been sent to juvie. (D1)

     

  • Bags Save Lives

    Today marks the opening of Imaginary Bags at One On One Bicycle Studio (117 North Washington).

    For one week, a limited series edition of messanger bags — with one-of-a-kind graphics by eight local and national artists — will be on display at One On One, and open for auction bids.

    The weeklong event — a collaboration between Crumpler Bags, One On One, and the artists/designers —  culminates on June 7th with a fundraising party featuring a silent auction to raise money for the Mark Loesch Memorial Fund. Mark Loesch is a Minneapolis resident who was killed last fall while riding his bike.

  • How Much is That Metaphysical Totem Pole in the Window?

    I was recently talking to a Minneapolis artist who was, as many Minneapolis artists of a certain generation are wont to do, rhapsodizing about the glory days of the Warehouse District art scene in the 1980s. Before it was home to a hundred thumping dance clubs and one of the most heroically awful franchises in the annals of professional basketball, downtown Minneapolis’ Warehouse District was a primo fine arts destination where one could live, paint and party in relative peace, on the cheap and with minimal interference from police, creditors and obnoxious suburban disco jocks. During that decade, there were a few dozen arts spaces which had carved out homes for themselves in the many spacious, abandoned buildings on and around First Avenue, and collectively created a little scene that carried on until the Target Center and the Federal Reserve muscled everyone out in the early 1990s.

    One of the most attractive aspects of a lot of the Warehouse District galleries, my artist friend went on to say, is that many of the best spaces were situated in storefronts. Storefronts are, in many respects, the perfect venue for an art gallery. They’re right on the street level and generally built all the way up to the sidewalk line in pedestrian-friendly parts of town, so they interact directly with passers-by. The windows encourage the viewer to engage the art inside, creating a sense of (literal!) transparency into the gallery’s inner workings. Storefronts are usually fairly cheap to rent and maintain, and modest enough in size that an emerging artist can focus their work in a clearly-defined space without having it be completely overwhelmed by cavernous ceilings or an all-consuming sea of white drywall. Art museums and more prosperous established galleries can seem citadel-like and exclusive – think of the MIA’s imposing neoclassical façade, or the Weisman’s metallic tangles sitting up on that river bluff. Storefronts, on the other hand, invite the casual person on the street to peer into the window and come in for a plastic cup of wine. They’re a fully integrated part of the city, and if they’re sitting next to a taquería or piano repair shop or discount plumbing service, all the better for that elusive "street life" your urban planner friends are fond of chattering on about.

    So theoretically, the most perfect way to interact with the community would be to strip down the storefront gallery to its most basic essence, and eliminate all the superfluous elements so that you’re left with just a front window. That’s the concept, anyway, behind south Minneapolis’ Shoebox Gallery, where the idea of the storefront gallery really is distilled it to its most basic essence. The Shoebox, run by artist Sean Smuda out of his upstairs apartment, is almost literally just a shoebox: an 8′ x 8′ display window on the Chicago Avenue side of Roberts Shoes on Lake Street (you know, "hardly a foot we can’t fit"). The window is two feet deep with drywall backing, and that’s it – minimal lighting, no floor, no front door, and certainly no wine and cheese table. When there are openings or performances, they happen out on the sidewalk on Chicago Avenue. It fulfills the basic democratic promise of an alternative arts space in essentially making the city itself a physical part of the gallery.

    The Phillips-Powderhorn neighborhood in which the Shoebox is located has come a long way in the last couple of years – an early opening was interrupted by an on-street five squad-car drug bust – but it still isn’t an area that one would tend to think of as an arts Mecca. Artists had lived in the building for several years, but there was no real sense of interaction between them and the community at large. When Smuda moved into an upstairs space in the Roberts Shoes complex six years ago, one of the first ideas he had was planting some traveling vines in a problematic, crime-ridden back alley to add some green space. He then went about installing a video camera back there and looping the footage in one of the store’s display windows 24 hours a day for public viewing – putatively to monitor the growth of the vines, but also to reflect the everyday life of the neighborhood back on itself. X-Ray Alley, the first show at the Shoebox, went live in July, 2003. Indeed, criminal activity in the alley dried up almost immediately, and the owner of Roberts asked Smuda if he wanted to continue to program art in the window on an ongoing basis. He and early contributor (and current UofM printmaking professor) Jenny Schmid dubbed the space the Shoebox Gallery. It has been going ever since.

    There are, of course, certain inherent limitations to running a gallery in such a space. Potential exhibitors are presented with a checklist of every conceivable calamity that could befall a piece of artwork: the space is uninsured, in direct sunlight much of the time, separated from the outside world by a mere sheet of plate glass, and alternately furnace-like or freezing, depending on the season. Moreover, it’s run by Smuda out-of-pocket, so work must be shipped by the artist at their own expense. Despite these limitations, Shoebox has consistently shown strong work by well-known artists and performers such as Schmid, Xavier Tavera, Alexa Horochowski and Emily Johnson in the last five years. The current show by Tynan Kerr, Metaphysical Totem Poles, is a charmingly ramshackle collection of art objects obsessively cobbled together from paper scraps, geometric shapes, photos, found text, wood, brick and paint. They look, sitting in the window, as if they could be the remnants of a fire sale for a psychedelic shamanistic wholesaler. Kerr left a number of his colorful, garish paintings on wooden panels outside the gallery, which over the course of the show have disappeared from the sidewalk, absorbed into the bustle of the gallery’s surroundings – who knows what southside bedroom wall they’re presently decorating? The line between the gallery and the environment it interacts with is blurred further.

    For the gallery’s fifth anniversary, a group show called Beautiful Deleuzers/Guattari Hero, based on the writings of post-war French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, will be opening June 21 with a performance on the sidewalk by Kelly Meister. That’s the beauty of a storefront gallery like Shoebox. It serves as a counteractive measure against both the idea of fine art as something mystical and unapproachable, and the idea of the American city street as an alternately bland and disintegrating public space being choked to death by corporate greed, rampant crime and/or civic shortsightedness. The storefront gallery promotes the almost utopian idea that in the marketplace of ideas, Felix Guattari can exist right across the street from Wireless Toyz.

  • A Tip on Thai: Bangkok Thai Deli

    Finding good Thai food in the Twin Cities isn’t easy — the best I have found recently has been at
    True Thai on Franklin Ave. E. in Minneapolis.
    I have been very disappointed with what I have tasted at the Thai
    restaurants in Uptown, and though I have only sampled a few dishes at Otho and
    Kindee, and the re-opened Ruam Mit in downtown Saint Paul, none of them seemed
    to get it quite right. (My usual test is to order a hot and sour tom yum soup
    and a green curry, both complex and pungent dishes; too often, the green curry
    is bland and insipid, and the tom yum is out of balance, or missing some of the
    essential ingredients, such as straw mushrooms, or galangal or lemon grass.)

    To be fair, all of these judgments are based on very limited samplings; now
    that I am spending my own money when I dine, I am reluctant to return to a
    restaurant a second or third time in hopes of getting a better meal than I had
    the first time around.

    So I was really delighted to get this tip from a reader:

    Hi Jeremy. I work at the University of Minnesota and there are a few
    people from Thailand there and they had been telling me to try a restaurant
    that is on University Ave down toward the Capitol. It’s called Bangkok
    Thai Deli. Although I have never been to Thailand, they tell me that the
    food is as close as you can get.

    I went there a few times and it was phenomenal. Very tasty dishes;
    flavors that I have never experienced at other Thai restaurants in the area,
    and very classic cilantro, lime, basil combinations you would expect
    also. It is inexpensive as well; when I was there last we ordered three
    dishes and the bill was well under $20.

    315 University Ave, Saint Paul, MN is the address. It is kind of a
    dodgy looking building but the people inside will give you some of the best
    service you’ve ever had. I’m always pleasantly surprised at the level of
    kindness I encounter there.

    I followed up on the reader’s advice and stopped by yesterday. The place
    looks pretty much the way Kevin described it: a well-stocked Asian market with
    a big dining room off to the side. The décor is minimal, unless you count the
    color photos of menu items, on the wall behind the counter. A handful of diners
    were watching Thai music videos on a small television.

    I was on my bike, and ordered takeout, so I had to avoid the really sloshy
    dishes, like tom yum, but overall I was pretty impressed. My green curry with
    beef was lively and complex, made with baby Asian eggplant, kaffir lime leaves
    and fresh basil. My other entrée order was apparently misunderstood – I had
    asked for stir-fried Thai banana with shrimp ($8), but got a dish of stir-fried
    beef with red and green peppers – lively and very tasty.

    Bangkok Thai Deli, 315 University Ave. W., St. Paul, 651-224-4300.

    While I waited for my takeout order, I wandered a couple of doors away to the 88 Oriental Foods Deli, 291 University Ave. 651-209-8388, and ordered a couple more dishes from the cafeteria counter in the back of the store. The Laotian-style tom sam (shredded green papaya with garlic, tomatoes dried shrimp and fish sauce, $3.49) was pungent and delicious, and the combo special has to be one of the best deals in town: a generous mound of rice with two toppings – I chose the chicken curry and stewed pork belly – for $3.99.

    On my way over, as I pedaled down University Ave. I spotted a big banner outside
    Krua Thai Restaurant (432 University Ave., St. Paul, 651-224-4053) advertising Thai boat soup. Then, on the menu at Bangkok
    Thai, I saw Thai boat soup listed again. I was intrigued, so I asked the guy
    behind the counter, but the language barrier got in the way. Still curious, I
    googled "Thai boat soup" when I got home, and found the following description
    on the Chow.com website:

    Boat noodle is a Thai specialty that is … well, it’s not for the easily
    frightened. True boat noodle is deeply beefy, funky, with hard assaults of
    tang, sourness, spice, sweet, and good… Boat noodle style gets its
    characteristic cloudy appearance and extrafunky flavor from its primary
    thickener, beef blood. But once you’ve had it funky, you can’t go back to the
    clean stuff. You’re dirty forever… It’s kind of like sucking nectar directly from
    the mouth of the goddess of the Thai…"

    I can’t wait to go back. If you get there before I do, please drop me a
    line, and tell me all about it.

     

  • Wax Me Poetic

    PERFORMANCE

    American Poetry Slam Idol



    Unlike the creepy commercial beast that is the American Idol
    TV show, this evening combines the dark and nostalgic atmosphere of the
    Artists’ Quarter with some of the Twin Cities’ most brilliant and gutsy
    spoken-word artists. The poets will be judged by rowdy audience members
    and even a few local celebs (as always, I’m crossing my fingers for Fancy Ray)
    in three rounds that include a costumed, deliberately terrible
    "audition" round, a reading of another poet’s work, and finally, a
    competitive performance of their own original work. The Artists’
    Quarter’s monthly poetry slam nights are always an inspiring riot, so get thee to St.Paul tonight for your beatnik fix.    



    7 p.m., Artists’ Quarter, 408 St. Peter St., St. Paul; $5.



    MUSIC
    An Evening with Adele

    While a bit of my editorial credibility may fly out the window for admitting this, I am an avid reader of Perezhilton.com.
    He’s just so sassy! Not to mention, he’s got pretty awesome musical
    taste, which, through his massively popular blog, has helped launch
    many a talented up and comer into the spotlight — Adele
    being one of them. Touring in support of her latest album, 19, which
    is also not-so-coincidentally her age, this charismatic and spicy Brit
    with a sultry, soulful voice is often compared to Amy Winehouse, but
    with a lighter pop sensibility and no crack addiction.

    7 p.m., Theatre de la Jeune Lune, 105 N. 1st St., Minneapolis; $17.50.


    Not-so-secret: Death Cab for Cutie rocks the Orpheum Theater tonight at 7:3 p.m.

    DINING
    Prix Fixe Mondays

    Uptown eatery Barbette
    definitely knows how to set the mood. A perfect date night for friends and/or
    lovers, Prix Fixe Monday keeps it classy with a predetermined 4 to 5
    course meal thoughtfully prepared by Chef Peter Botcher.
    Menus often include locally farmed meats, but vegetarian and vegan
    options are available as well. After 10 p.m., jazzy piano trio Supreme Privacy creates a sexy ambiance to compliment Barbette’s popular late-night happy hour, which includes
    $3 select taps, $4 house wines and bubbly, and $5 select appetizers. How can you go wrong?

    Barbette, 1600 West Lake St., Uptown Minneapolis; $32 for Prix Fixe dinner.


  • HOLY STACKS! Your Favorite TV STAR Sits Here

    After having a fun conversation with Jason DeRusha about what people’s desks say about them, he was kind enough to get approval for me to come down to WCCO and take some candid snapshots of the areas that our favorite TV STARS call home when the lights, cameras, and action go out.


    Frank Vascellero

    I first ran into Frank Vascellero, who as always was his funny outgoing self. When I asked Frank if I could shoot a picture of his desk, he didn’t even give it a second thought.

    Here he is with a hammer that I am assuming he has just in case anyone steps over the line with his lovely wife Amelia — mother of those gorgeous kids, and his Co-Anchor at ‘CCO — who happens to sit right across from him.

    Did I mention that Frank has a background in Finance, which explains why his personal opinions on the economy and the future of Media are actually backed up by facts. Well, I mentioned it now. 🙂

    How do these two do it? Working side by side at work and at home, raising a family. They clearly do it well, and with a sense of humor.


    Amelia Santaniello

    As I was snapping my photos, Amelia walked in, right pass Frank’s desk with a mere "Hey, Frank," and straight into the girl talk. Even without makeup, she looked like a million bucks and smelled delicious(a scent she smelled on a girlfriend and liked so much she starting wearing it — a fragrance by Philosophy).

    When I asked Ms. Amelia if I could take a picture of her desk, again there was no hesitation: "Sure, go for it." No pomp and circumstance; just a hearty and confident "no problem."

    I knew I liked this woman from the day I met her many years ago, when she was doing a story about Sesame Street Live and grabbed my son for a sound bite. He was all of five at the time, and even though the sound bite never made the news, Amelia made a lasting, good impression on me. She is confident and comfortable in her own skin, which says a lot in a business where your audience tends to forget that you put in LONG ours, give up your PRIVACY, and god forbid your Hair Do isn’t to their liking.In other words, she has my greatest respect and admiration for more reasons than I am willing to share.

    Jeanette Trumpeter

    Next was Jeanette Trumpeter, who I ambushed without notice. She, too, was surprisingly fine with me taking a picture of her Space without notice. Jeanette wanted to put on a little makeup, but the truth is she is also naturally very beautiful and doesn’t need a stich of makeup.

    I like the fact that Jeanette had this Barbie Action News book that belts out clichés from the business, such as "Breaking News" and "Action." She was very witty and down to earth despite the guy at the window, on Nicollet, trying to peak through the windows to get a close view of his favorite TV Stars.


    Jason DeRusha

    Next came our lovable Jason, who I know has worked his little butt off to make a name for himself and has earned "The Good Question" segment the old fashion way: He worked hard for it! As you can see from Jason’s photos and his description below, he has a quirky sense of humor and likes things organized and clean. 🙂

    My desk is fairlyblank right now, because I’m waiting for our creative servicesdepartment to design some elements for it for our "Good Question"feature. I shoot a lot of things for my stories at my desk, and Iwanted it to look cool. Instead, there’s a 10-year-old picture of mywife and I from our wedding day which desperately needs dusting. There’s a dirty oversized soup spoon from the Lotus Restaurant nearLoring Park (I didn’t steal it, I swear).

    Thereare a couple awards on my desk: in this picture I’m holding my employeeof the month award from October of 2004 (that’s the last time I didanything productive at WCCO). There’s also a national award for somevolunteer work I did with the Family, Career and Community Leaders ofAmerica (FCCLA). It’s a high school leadership group. And there’s amirror. Because when you have the impressive head of hair I’msporting, you need to make sure every strand is in its place. And by"every strand," I mean, the ten strands.

    —Jason DeRusha

    Don Shelby

    Last came the desk of a guy that I go way back with, from years ago when my father and he used to partner in the Don Shelby Fishing Tournament.

    Don’s desk was stacked with piles of papers, a few bottles of aspirin, and I could not make out anything else because there was so much "stuff." Don is still one of the best Anchors in the business for two reasons: First, he is constantly on his game and is willing to take chances by offering his opinion in a news segment — a huge no-no in journalism. And he has his ear pierced, a fact made even sexier by the story behind it. Of course, that’s HIS story to tell, not mine.

    I called a couple of other peeps in the business to give you an idea of how their desksreflect their personalities.


    Robyne Robinson

    Robyne Robinson, of FOX 9 — who created The Buzz, which in itself was way ahead of the game — sent me this picture along the email below, describing a typical day at her desk.

    Mel: A cluttered desk the sign of a cluttered mind? Whomever came up with that OBVIOUSLY was NOT a multi-tasker!

    This is a typical day at FOX 9… a little gossip TV with Deborah Norville… reading scripts and surrounded by pics of my nephews, my new cousin and my guy…

    And what about those fierce shades? Killer… news is always in fashion…

    But I must admit: I do sneak in a little ROX jewelry time. Lots of good stuff happening there.

    We’ll talk soon!

    Ciao, Chica —

    R.

    I called Eric Perkins (known as Elvis by his buddies), too. And though he was more than willing to send me pictures and quotes, my deadline and his work hours just weren’t in sync. I will follow up with Mr. Perk-at-Play in the future, and you can count on me giving him Sh%#! about his dance moves.

    There are so many people that I wish I could highlight, but with limited time — and being way overdue on my blog — this will have to be it for now.

     

    I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. While I was putting together this blog someone in the office had a Birthday, so the header shot is me in My Space, enjoying one of my favorite things about working in my office: Birthday Cake. It seems it always someone’s birthday around here, which means there is always birthday cake in the company kitchen. (I was told this cake came from Cub Foods, and it was DEVINE.)

     

  • Read Your Heart Out

    I still can’t say whether the act of reading is more exit or entrance. Even as books and criticism concern about half of my professional life – and my professional life concerns about half of my life-life (er, carry the one…) – when I’m reading a novel, assigned or otherwise, I still feel like I’m avoiding something else that’s probably more important.

    In "Jumbo Lit," an essay in this week’s NYTBR, Joe Queenan writes about how he lets his house and car and basically his existence deteriorate if he’s in the middle of a book.

    I was 1083 pages into Robert Musil’s majestic novel "The Man Without Qualities" when my wife burst into the living room and said that my 1991 Toyota Previa was leaking oil. The Previa is a fantastic vehicle, requiring virtually no upkeep, but "The Man Without Qualities" is even more fantastic…for at least four years I’d been having trouble with the van… but I’d never taken care of these problems because I’d rather lie on the couch reading gargantuan books.

    Definitely dishes and laundry have piled up for weeks as I’ve powered through Chris Adrian’s "The Children’s Hospital" or Proust’s "In Remembrance of Things Past." A few times I’ve even tried Musil’s tome, but haven’t yet made it past the first hundred pages or so. (Usually it takes me a few tries – sometimes spread out over a number of years – before making it through an epic, kind of like kick-starting a motorcycle before taking it cross-country.)

    What I’m more concerned with than the household avoidances, though, are the emotional ones. Looking back at some of the books that have had the biggest impact on me, I can relate them to some fairly tumultuous experiences. I read "Anna Karenina" during a particularly bad break-up; Eggers’ "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" and Safran Foer’s "Everything is Illuminated" came out around the time of my parents’ divorce. I have to consider that the investment of my external sentiments into these books is the reason from my strong associations with them – not their literary merit. And there’s an element of escapism here. My most vivid memories of reading while growing up are those times that, for whatever reason, my then-ten-year-old sister got into shouting/door slamming matches with my parents. (Family CandyLand matches often ended with a thrown board.) I would close my door and turn out the lights, clip my book lamp onto the back cover, and enter the anthropomorphic world Brian Jacques conjured for his "Redwall" series – and these books definitely constituted the beginning bookwormishness.

    I’m reminded of a scene from "High Fidelity" (the movie version) when John Cusack is autobiographically organizing his record collection. "To find Velvet Underground’s ‘White Light/White Heat’ album, you have to know that I bought it just to impress a girl when I was in ninth grade, in 1978." (Okay that was a pretty gross misquotation, but the point is still there.) Our impressions of artworks are probably pretty vastly informed by what’s going on in our lives at the time of encounter. So while everyone may be able to ‘connect’ with a given story, it (a story) can really exist only on an individual level. An unopened book is kind of like a foreign, unvisited country – I know New Zealand exists, and that several million people have had meaningful experiences there, but it doesn’t mean much to me because I haven’t been.

    And yet I can’t discount the feelings these crucial books stirred up – and intended to stir up. Scott Turow calls "Anna Karenina" "The fullest rendering I know of the complexity of human motivation." There was a ‘connection,’ and not just the distant observance of a story unfolding before me, as might have happened had I picked up "The Da Vinci Code" instead.

    In Papercuts last week, Gregory Cowles asked readers to list off their favorite ‘novels for heartbreak.’ There are thirty or so respondents with fifty or so suggestions, many of them detailed and desperate. Maybe something therapeutic actually takes place when intertwining your emotions with a book. Maybe reading is a healthy way to cope with (not just avoid) one’s problems. Maybe reading isn’t a question of entering or escaping life, but is simply an advisable, vitaminlike supplement to it.