The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • Ain't That Pretty At All: Fun With Numbers

    You pretty much have to trot out ever dis– word in your arsenal to describe the nightmares of the first five weeks of the 2006 Twins season: Discouraging. Dismal. Disheartening. Disgusting. Disgraceful. Disappointing. Discomfiting. Discombobulated. Distressing. Disastrous, E…T…C….

    A team can be some of those things and still manage to be entertaining, but thus far this hasn’t, alas, been one of those teams. I guess there was that thrilling little blip in the early going (the series with Oakland, New York, and LA), but from this vantage that stretch now looks like just a blurry and miserable tease.

    If you’re a glutton for punishment or just literally have nothing better to do with your time, you can comb through the numbers all you want, but I can assure you that outside of the performances of Luis Castillo (and please explain to me how a guy can replace Luis Rivas and be even better than advertised and still make absolutely no difference) and a few other guys (who also have made absolutely no difference) you won’t find much in the way of encouragement.

    Unless, of course, you find this sort of thing encouraging:

    The Twins have now scored three or fewer runs sixteen times.

    They have been shut-out four times, and scored just one run in three games.

    Opposing teams have more doubles (65) than the Twins have extra base hits (62).

    Minnesota has been out-homered 38-22.

    The team leader in victories (with three wins) has a 7.29 earned run average.

    The team on base percentage is .307, which just happens to be Luis Rivas’s career OBP.

    Opponents have compiled an .860 on base-plus-slugging percentage against Minnesota pitching. The Twins’ team leader, Castillo, has an OPS of .858.

    Should I expect     the clouds to lift anytime soon?

    I should not.

    Yet I will, nonetheless, expect the clouds to lift, because I am a dog, and I cannot live without hope.

  • Once Upon A Time, Etc.

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    I spent much of my early life looking for fables, and can remember the days when the spring woods would be full of them. If you climbed back up into the bluffs above the Bitterroot creek and nosed around under rocks and in the shady areas beneath the stands of big oaks, you’d find fables growing wild by the dozen and burrowed in the roots beneath the trees.

    Some afternoons, after the sun had faded beyond the rolling hills to the west, I’d hike back home with a burlap bag full of fables. My boots would be caked with mud, my back would be aching, and I’d be exhausted from all the sun and fresh air, but I couldn’t wait to empty that bag on my kitchen floor so I could look over my recent acquisitions.

    I once lugged home a bag full of squirming trolls. On other occasions I pulled from my sack a turtle with wings like a dragonfly, and a tiny pirate ship full of mice. Yet another time I found a stooped and tiny man with flowing white hair and a long beard. Fairies were nesting in his beard. The old man was both a fable and a repository of fables. He sat at my kitchen table and told me the story of a giant who once upon a time went about with the moon in a pack on his back. On windy days he would fly the moon like a kite in a meadow full of wild flowers.

    One late afternoon, the old man related to me in his squeaky little voice, as the sun set and darkness descended, a hawk was perched at the edge of a long valley, admiring the spectacle of the giant’s luminous kite hovering above the meadow. The bright object, the hawk thought, made such a nice addition to the night sky.

    As it sat there taking in this quiet scene, the hawk saw an arrow suddenly strike the giant squarely in his chest. He toppled straight backwards, and then the hawk witnessed the giant’s huge feet rising momentarily like a seesaw before disappearing again into the tall grass and flowers. And as the giant fell, he lost his grip on his kite’s tether and the moon drifted skyward, growing ever smaller as it rose, until it had assumed its now familiar place in the heavens.

    With its keen and beady eyes, the old man told me, the hawk also saw a cat (wearing a little red felt hat and in possession of a bow and a quiver of arrows) dash off into the dark woods at the edge of the meadow.

    I always inspected and interrogated the fables I brought back with me from the woods, and I also unfailingly released them before I retired for the evening. Some of the fables I found in those days would leave me dazzled and mulling for days and even weeks. They changed me, and changed the way I looked at the world and my place in it. They made me want to live to an old age.

    As I grew older, though, it became harder and harder for me to get back there to my old fable hunting grounds. My life was crowded with work and other responsibilities and obligations. When I did manage to get away to the bluff country I found that the fables were increasingly difficult to find, and eventually they seemed to disappear entirely. Again and again I returned home empty-handed and numb with disappointment.

    I have since read that fables have become almost completely extinct in America, or have been reduced to little more than grim little lessons, morals without the magic. It is my understanding, however, that patches of fables still survive in parts of Latin and South America, in obscure corners of Eastern Europe, and in small pockets of Africa and the Middle East, and I hope to one day venture to some of these places in search of that old lost magic of my youth.

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  • Corona, si vous plait.

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    Many people wrongly believe that Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican Independence Day. It’s actually a day celebrated in memory of the Battle of Puebla in 1862. On this day, the struggling Mexican army rose up and defeated the stronger (and probably very well dressed) invading French army.

    What if they hadn’t had the moxie to dispel the French? What would the effect have been, culinarily? Think about the influences of the French occupation on Vietnamese cuisine: bahn mi is a popular Asian sandwich on a baguette. Pa tes chauds are little meat filled pastries sold from street carts all over Saigon.

    What would have become of my favorite breakfast item? Chilaquiles are tortilla chips fried with salsa, topped with onions, cheese, chicken and a beautiful fried egg. Would it have ended up as a croissant topped with shallots, chicken paillards, a hunk of brie and a poached egg drenched in a lemony buerre blanc? Actually, they both sound good right now.

    Would burritos have been wrapped in puff pastry? Would foie gras have replaced frijoles refritos? Would the queso fresco on freshly grilled corn cobs (elote) have been supplanted by camembert? And what of the chiles? Would they have been eschewed by the French, banned as unpleasant perspiration-inducing berries from hell? Invariably, everything would have been muted by cream and butter.

    French food is glorious, there’s no doubt, and it has always been recognized as a Great Cuisine. The food of Mexico has lacked such global recognition, yet I would argue with anyone that it, too, is one of our Great Cuisines. Today should be a celebration of the tenacity of the Mexican spirit, the vivacity of Mexican food, and its sweet freedom from overbearing cream sauces.

    Viva Mexico!
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  • I'm all about it

    This weekend is all about festivals. The Cinco de Mayo Fiesta is all about Mariachi, salsa, and the lowrider car show and hydraulic showdown. The May Day Parade and Festival is all about puppets and maypoles. Am I missing anything? I’m all about being comprehensive.

  • Conversations Real and Imagined: The Proselytizer

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    Mission: Impossible III, 2006. Directed by J. J. Abrams, written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Abrams. Starring (and that’s all you can call it) Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Maggie Q, Michelle Monaghan, Simon Pegg, future Dracula Michael Berry Jr., and Saginaw, Michigan’s own Ty Williams! (you can see that I’m already bored by this review).

    Now playing at far too many theaters around town.

    PLOT SPOLIERS BELOW (DO YOU CARE?)

    “Excuse me, excuse me–what are you going to see? Really? Do you mind if I ask why? You don’t really want to waste your time with Mission: Impossible III do you? Look at what else is playing! Uh, Hoot? No, no, I agree. Ice Age? Saw it? (Jeez, too bad). RV? Good Christ, why isn’t Robin Williams in jail? Well, Inside Man is Spike Lee… no good, huh? United 93? No interest? I can’t blame you, really it is a downer. Lucky Number Slevin… you want something new. Well how about this for new… why don’t you go out to dinner or see a play? Something challenging, something far from stupid…

    Listen, the film is without plot. OK, there’s a plot, but you’re not supposed to care about it or follow it one way or the other. Besides, it’s insane–something about the supreme biological weapon, bombs inside people’s heads, some traitor inside this fake spy organization. Hell, there’s a scene where the bad guys shoot missiles and fire machine guns into a bridge outside of Washington, D. C. in broad daylight! I know it’s Mission: Impossible, but for God’s sake, this is post 9/11–you can’t just fly a plane or helicopter around D.C. and start firing away. I mean, there’s even a point in which someone will die if Tom Cruise’s cell phone coverage cuts out, and another where these espionage experts toss baseballs at a skyscraper to distract the enemy, and…

    “You want to see this movie? You like Tom Cruise? Well, be my guest, I can’t stop you… Tom Cruise is hell itself!”

    …

    “Hi guys, how are you? What are you going to see? Oh, Mission: Impossible! Why that movie? Sure, I’m a reporter, far as you know. Is it Tom Cruise? No? Ving Rhames, huh? I like Ving, too, he was great in Pulp Fiction. And you, you love Jonathan Rhys Meyers? Well, he was so good in that new Woody Allen movie. Um, Match Point–no, I’m aware that Allen is a creep, but Match Point was still pretty good. None of you are seeing this for the effects and violence? Interesting. And who do you like? Philip Seymour Hoffman? Really. Because of Capote you’re seeing this?

    “No, I’m not laughing, I have allergies, scratchy throat you know. Ah, say, you guys, listen, Philip Seymour Hoffman is awful in this movie. I mean, just terrible–he mumbles his way through it, it’s just a paycheck. Same goes for Rhames and Laurence Fishburn and Meyers and Billy Crudup and the woman who looks like Katie Holmes but isn’t. How do I know? Obviously I saw it, that’s how I know, and as you put it, I’m a member of the press, it’s my job to watch things like this. Don’t you get it, I spent two hours of my precious life to see a movie that’s not bad enough to make fun of and not good enough to remember. Don’t make the same mistake I did–you wouldn’t haul garbage, right? Leave that to people like me.

    “Where are you going?! Didn’t you just hear what I said? Hey, when the movie opens, Cruise’s wife is shot in the head. But get this–the girl lives at the end! His wife doesn’t die! Some other woman was wearing a mask, you know, like Scooby-Doo. Now you know the end–don’t make the same mistake I did!”

    …

    “YOU THERE! Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Say, you look like a smart couple, tell me you’re not seeing… you are. Why? Look at your glasses–they’re too cool, you must’ve bought those in Uptown? Well, a girl like you should be checking out Drawing Restraint 9 or hanging out at Chino Latino and you, what are you doing taking your girlfriend for a date out here in the ‘burbs? What kind of a guy takes a girl to a mall for Mission: Impossible? What’d you go to the Cheesecake Factory, too? There isn’t anything better to do in Uptown? Jesus, clean your house, have group sex, join a cult, do anything but see this movie! Ah, for God’s sake, go see your damn movie. Capra had it right, youth is wasted on the wrong people…”

    …

    “Me? Well, I’m glad you asked–got a minute? Less than a minute, then, I’ll walk with you. Look, I’m trying to get people to stay away from Mission: Impossible. Are you kidding? Look at it, I mean, look at it! Unbelievably, they try to brain-up this idiot-fest with references to Ralph Ellison and H. G. Wells’ Invisible Man. There’s a reference to the intelligence failings of the Bush Administration. The bad guy refers to affirmative action. Yes, it is amazing, as is Tom Cruise’s flexing his physics muscles later in the movie. I don’t know, he’s going to swing from one skyscraper to another, has to figure out angles and fulcrums, beats me, I failed that class. Anyway, best of all there’s this scene, right in the middle of the film, where Simon Pegg, who starred in and wrote Shaun of the Dead (a decent movie, pal) has this line–and Pegg’s the only good thing in this monumental waste–where he tells us about this Anti-God, which doesn’t make any sense even if you see the movie, because the weapon everyone’s after is called the Rabbit’s Foot. Anyway, the Anti-God, according to the character Pegg plays, is this theoretical device that incorporates so much technology that it lays waste to everything, cities, people, mountains, anything of beauty.

    “Don’t you see–Mission: Impossible is the Anti-God! This movie eats little movies like cotton candy. Look at all the people going in–it’s wasting everything! Think of how much business a little playhouse would make if these people went to watch real actors in some decent drama! Or play with their kids, have conversations, anything! In Hollywood, Paramount Pictures is choosing this over something with a real plot and real acting! Maybe even decent special effects. That’s why I’m trying to keep people away. Wait, what? I thought you were going to see… You’re going to see Mission: Impossible? After what I just told you? My God, they got to you, too…”

    …

    “Ma’am, better think twice about taking junior, there–Mission: Impossible’s got soft porn in it. That’s right, the Katie Holmes look-alike starts shaking her bezungas and thrusting her hips over Cruise in slo-mo right at the end. It’s the money shot. Well, it’s supposed to be, like, she’s doing CPR on him, well I think it is supposed to be kind of hot, she’s wearing a skimpy tank top, sweating, mouth open… I’m telling you this ’cause you’re taking that kid in there. PG-13 or no, you’re going to expose your kid to some intense wet dream material. C’mon, go see Akeelah and the Bee, it’s a good movie, it’s fairly real. Or stay home, read your Bible, watch the stars come out. OK, whatever, you want to raise a sex offender, that’s your kid, not mine.”

    …

    “Hold on, hold on, I got a right to be out here–public property. Wait a minute–do I really look like a threat? I couldn’t intimidate a sack of baby mice. Listen, officer, I get to talk if I want to, it’s a free country. It’s Mission: Impossible, officer, it’s evil! It’s the worst movie of the year so far… What? You agree? Jesus, you’re my hero…”

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  • So Not Not Funny

    A couple of notes to add to yesterday’s gathering fumes. I see my old friend Chris Lehmann has written at length about the Colbert routine, and as usual it’s a smart and biting essay worthy of his best work back in the day at Suck. Still, I think he’s wrong. So is this guy. It may be true that Colbert was not belly-laugh funny–I certainly trust Lehmann more than anyone else on this judgement from ground zero–but that is entirely not the point. I don’t know of anyone who is complaining this week about side-ache from laughing uncontrollably; the point is that Colbert scored an almost perfect game in political whack-a-mole. And those who idiotically claim that Colbert “bullied” the president or the press had better look up “irony” in that unused Webster’s over there. It continues to amaze me how few people see what Colbert is really up to–a straight-up parody of Fox TV’s Bill O’Reilly. It’s sort of the televisual equivalent of what The Onion has done to/with USA Today all these many years–just follow the recipe, and double the hyperbole.

    Anyway, this whole episode points up to me the disparity between media professional’s perception of an event and the general public’s. It’s a relatively rare atmospheric phenomena, but like the Green Flash, interesting when it happens. Other than Woolcott, I don’t think I have yet read another “media professional” who saw what I saw at the WHC dinner.

    Last night, when I cranked up the old AOL dial-up from home, I was confronted with one of AOL’s clever little serial surveys. This one presented five of Colbert’s jokes, and asked subscribers to give them the thumbs up or the thumbs down. Now, I don’t want to make broad generalizations about how lame and mainstream AOL home subscribers like me are–but the voting looked like a massacre. Ten to one, AOLers approved of Colbert’s jokes, every one of them. What was that you were saying about the “media elites” in this country? I’m listening now.

  • America Wins

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    You lost this one, Osama

    For probably the first time since we invaded Iraq, the U.S. can claim a victory in the war against terror. Zacharias Moussaoui said “America, you lost. I won,” but that shows just how crazy he is. The citizens of the United States, as represented by 12 people in an Alexandria, Virginia jury, actually won a big one today when Moussaoui got life instead of death.

    Because, let’s face it, the government was trying the latest version of their color coded “We’re actually doing something effective” bullshit by trying to kill someone who hadn’t actually succeeded in doing anything except being a schizophrenic wannabe. The government’s case boiled down to: “This guy should die because he refused to admit he was guilty under interrogation.”

    In case you need a reminder, this is the relevant cause from the Bill of Rights’ Fifth Amendment: “No person shall be … compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Gonzales must have missed the day they taught that in law school. Sort of like he missed the “no torture” day.

    As long as we’re on the topic of terrorists’ trials, have you ever asked yourself why we haven’t brought the guys we have in custody in secret prisons in Europe and Guantanamo to trial? Do you suppose it’s because we have tortured them? Do you think that the government doesn’t want to take the chance that 12 regular moral Americans might not like that?

    I’m going to continue to have faith in the American people as long as we can continue to get Moussaoui-like results. And I’m going to continue to have no faith in those in our government who would, if unchecked, turn us into the same sort of murdering thugs that attacked us on 9/11.

  • They're All Thay Way! They're All That Way!

    Last time I ventured to give my opinion on the modern state of opera, there was a little bit of a backlash. It’s sort of understandable, I guess. I have been accused of being a dilettante in this area, which could be something of the truth. I don’t have a master’s in voice or anything like that. I didn’t go to Indiana University, nor did I go to St. Olaf. After sitting through a four-hour Wagner, I won’t stay after for the post-show discussion. Nor will I show up early to the pre-show talk on the mezzanine.

    But here’s the thing: I really like opera. And therefore, I’d like to remind members of the non-profit establishment that I am your friend.

    Here’s a trend I neglected to mention in that old opera piece: The semi-staged opera, generally put on by orchestras in want of cashing-in on the opera trend. Gone are the elaborate set pieces. Stayed are the orchestrations and world-class singers, even some of the enormous costumes. The Minnesota Orchestra’s been doing this all the time–with Bernstein, Puccini, and Humperdinck. Next August, they’ll do it with Carmen, which is just about everybody’s favorite opera these days. But tonight and through the weekend, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra is doing it with my favorite opera: Cosi fan Tutti. And I don’t care what the Mozart and Italian scholars of the world have to say about this one–thematically, this is an incredibly ridiculous and misogynistic piece, of marginal merit! But the music is gorgeous, and so I continue to listen. The opera house is not a good place to resolve one’s feminist beliefs anyway.

    So my best friend periodically changes the signature on her emails, generally tossing in a quote or two she finds relevant. Before I go on, there are two things about her I must tell you upfront: She’s a foodie, and she is a trained opera singer. Here’s her best quote of all time: “Never eat more than you can lift.”-Miss Piggy. And this is her current quote, and here’s where we get back to the original subject: “People are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what’s wrong with it.”-Noel Coward

    Never thought I’d say this but I concur with Coward. Now that there’s renewed interest in opera, I think it’s great that there are these few, no-fuss micro-trends trying to reclaim the spirit and relevance of the operatic voice. And let’s be clear here, this is all about the voice.

  • That chicks too old to fry

    I have no idea what to expect of tonight’s Shiek’s Singers Reunion. Somewhere along the way this event entered my consciousness, probably because of some press release that slid across my desk, with great velocity, and into the waste-paper basket, ultimately ending up right there with the rest of ’em.

    In any case, just this morning, I painted a vivid mental picture of all the elderly Judy Garland-types who constitute Shiek’s Singers, all writhing on the piano in their feathered bathrobes. But I guess I’ll never know what the real Shiek’s Singers look like, or what they’ll wear, because I have running cult tonight. I’ll have to miss it. Drat.

    Postscript. A Parenthetic thought related to running and clothing: a press release came across my desk yesterday that I remember quite well. It seems that Paiva, a store that sells designer workout wear for women, is coming to the Mall of America. I just checked out the Paiva website, and it isn’t that impressive. The stock of Brooks sports bras looks no better than that at my local running store, and that hasn’t been good. But Paiva’s press release promised that the store would stock Stella McCartney for Adidas, and that stuff’s all eyeleted and gathered, with “artistic cutouts,” metal doodads, good-looking dragstrings, and shit. I’m totally there, man (at the grand opening later this month)! I’ll report back!!

  • Colber Repor

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    You want truthiness? You can’t stand the truthiness.

    Well, I’m a little late to be commenting on the Stephen Colbert performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner except to say I wish I’d been there to see him ram the rubber chicken up the press’s ass in person.

    I was reminded of Mencken’s comment: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

    The stunned silence both at the dinner and since in the MSM (that’s internet talk for Main Stream Media; the connotation is definitely derogatory) proves that when the media gets it good and hard, they can neither dish it out, nor take it. He won’t be back at the dinner next year because he had the guts to point out the press’s complicity in the mess we’re in now.

    God bless the satirists.