The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • Spurs Scrabble for Survival

    AP Photo/Matt Slocum

    It occurs to me that the best way to recap the first three games of the Spurs-Lakers series is to point out all the places I was wrong. There are plenty of examples so let’s get to it.

    * A high scoring series

    When I looked over the various matchups between San Antonio and LA, I foresaw a lot of offense. But last night’s combined 187 points has been the most prolific game of the three. Part of this is because the series has been played at a pace more to SA’s liking, which spells trouble for their current one-game deficit. Part of it is because both teams are missing more open looks than is customary (and it is different people different nights, although Odom and Parker have not been able to exploit what I perceived as their mismatches), a likely sign of fatigue and/or pressure. But the bulk of it is simply great defense, particularly by the Lakers in their Game Two blowout. I have never seen Parker’s penetration stymied so effectively, not only by Derek Fisher but by the bigs doubling and switching up coverages on the pick and roll.

    * A loooong series for Derek Fisher

    Fisher has not shone in Games One and Three, but he also hasn’t been toasted by Parker the way I thought it would happen. Again, the Lakers’ superb team D had a lot to do with that in Game Two, but Fisher’s foot speed has been better than I expected, and the vast improvement by Jordan Farmar, who has found his confidence again, is getting him more rest. If he and Farmar can cut the distance in point guard production between the two teams, the Lakers are in good shape.

    * Kobe would toast Bowen and Udoka equally

    Maybe it is just a prejudice against gritty, slow-footed vets, because I also underestimated Bruce Bowen’s value in this series, and overestimated how much Udoka could spell him. Doug Collins pointed out last night that Kobe salivates over getting Udoka as his matchup, and even as he spoke, Pops was getting Bowen up to guard the MVP. I think Bowen slipped a bit on defense during the regular season, and wasn’t that effective in either of the first two rounds. But his ability to slow Kobe down a titch and make him work for points and dimes has given San Antonio hope. Given Kobe’s maturity as a distributor, it is crucial that the double teams aren’t automatic and predictable. Bowen’s inexorable hustle has made that possible–and he’s even hit a few of those patented corner treys of his.

    * The Spurs would trade off nights from Ginobili for off nights from Odom

    Wrong again. Ginobili’s value to his team was borne out again last night–his catalytic role on the Spurs is vastly greater than Odom’s versatile and important, but not crucial, contributions to the Lakers, where he remains a distinct third option. That said, if Odom does start to get his act together, San Antonio is in trouble. What is frustrating for him is that he’s missing makeable shots.

    But back to Ginobili for a minute. First of all, the guy comes up big at the most important moments, giving San Antonio someone akin to a poor man’s Kobe. That’s huge. The fact that neither Detroit nor Boston boasts an equivalent presence (do you still believe Billups is Mr. Big Shot? and who on the Celtics side–Paul Pierce?) is one of many reasons why the trophy will likely be held aloft by a Western Conference team in about two weeks.

    But if you are looking for a reason why the Spurs are still in this series–and are a 18-minute collapse away from being up 2-1, check out how well Tim Duncan and the trio of Oberto-Thomas-Horry have defended Pau Gasol and Odom. Now Odom’s problems are becoming well documented–he’s getting ripped by most of the Laker media, with some justification. After shooting well over 50% in the first two rounds, he’s shot 12-33 in the three games thus far, or barely over 36%, this despite the fact that the Spurs don’t have a natural counter for his size and quickness. But Gasol’s underachievement has arguably been just as profound. He also was much better than 50% for the playoffs coming into the Spurs series, and the dip to 46.5% (20-43 FG) is exacerbated by the facts that his shot selection has been generally solid–he’s missing makeable attempts–and that he has only gotten to the free throw line 5 times in the three games, after shooting 59 FTA in the previous 10 playoff games. He’s also grabbing two fewer rebounds per game, his assists rate has been cut in half, and his defense on Duncan has been, as expected, inconsistent. These dips bear watching as Gasol continues much deeper into the postseason than he has ever been before.

    Before we look at the Spurs side of the ledger, I want to point out something about Jordan Farmar and Sashia Vujacic, who provided such a great lift off the bench in Games One and Two, but much less so last night: They’ve both been gunning fools. Give Farmar credit for being LA’s third-leading scorer (10.7 ppg) in this series despite averaging only 20.7 mpg, a testament to his gaudy 11-21 FG shooting. But Farmar, the backup point guard, has zero assists in 62 minutes. Even on a team where Kobe Bryant justifiably hogs the ball and which features the triangle offense that reduces the importance of a point guard, you’d think Farmar would have dropped at least one dime. Maybe there’s a connection between the low shooting percentages of Gasol and Odom and the jack-it-up philosophy of Farmar and Vujacic, who rank 8th and 7th, respectively, in assists-per-minutes played among the nine Lakers who logged double digit minutes of court time thus far in the series (Vlad Rad is last).

    By contrast, little used Brent Barry came off the bench last night and delivered four assists in 21 and a half minutes without a turnover, chipped in a pair of treys and was plus +11. Properly derided for his shooting, Horry’s defense on Odom and tenacity in the paint got him plus +11 in 18 minutes. Add to the bigness of the Big 3–Ginobili had 30 and sparked the resurgence with a pair of first quarter treys; Duncan pulled a 20-20 game (actually 22-21) and is averaging more than 18 board per game in the series, and Parker was a game-best plus +26–and these savvy veteran role players have an acute appreciation of what is required to bag a ring. The Lakers are without question the more talented of the two teams, especially in the depth of their talent. But with the obvious exception of Kobe, and Fisher, they don’t know what it takes to win this deep into the postseason.

    Specifically, they didn’t realize Pops would emphasize nothing but offense–an unprecedented move for the coach–in the practice between Games Two and Three, to counter the sliding traps and pick-and-roll D that Phil Jackson had instituted so effectively. And they didn’t appreciate how many times San Antonio has been counted out in the past few years, only to come up big when it counts. It will really count in Game Four tomorrow night. Will Kobe decide to seize the game with a 30-shot effort, something his miraculous 4th quarter stint in Game Three indicates might be a way to vanquish the Spurs in San Antonio, or will he continue distributing and hope his backcourt mates follow his lead and that his front line finally comes to play in the paint? I’m guessing a little of both, and that the wild cards for the two ballclubs–Ginobili and Odom–will determine the winner.

    But, as we noted at the outset, I’ve been wrong before.

     

    Tomorrow, a look at the Celts-Pistons after four games.

  • Shiraz Update: Fish Kabobs, Belly Dancer, and More

    I stopped in at Shiraz Fireroasted Cuisine for dinner the
    other night, to check out the new menu and the belly dancing, and at 8:30 on a
    Saturday night, the place was nearly empty. That’s really a shame, because it
    is a charming little restaurant, with good food and an ambience of Persian arts
    and crafts that’s stylish enough for a date. On earlier visits, I grumbled
    about the lack of vegetarian and fish entrees, but that flaw has been fixed — they now offer salmon kabobs, a spinach pie, and a couple of meatless Persian
    stews.

    Maybe Persian cuisine sounds too exotic, but it’s really
    not: the heart of the menu is the grilled kabobs of beef or chicken. There are
    a few more exotic items on the menu, like the fesenjan, chicken in a
    pomegranate and walnut sauce, and the gheimeh, a beef tenderloin stew with
    yellow lentils and dried limes, but many other dishes are familiar from other
    Middle Eastern cuisines: hummus, eggplant dip, stuffed grape leaves.

    You can check all this out on their website, which also features
    an entertaining video about Persian cuisine, narrated by a very folksy
    Midwesterner.

    Prices are extremely reasonable. The koubideh (skewers of
    seasoned ground beef or chicken, highly recommended) served over saffron rice
    are priced at $10, including flatbread and soup or salad, and the most
    expensive entrees, shish kabobs and the salmon kabobs are priced at $14.
    They’ve got a full bar and a limited wine list, including wines by the glass
    for $6-$8.

    The belly dancing, featured Fridays and Saturdays from 7 to
    10 p.m., was pretty low-key, but it’s hard to play to an empty house.

    6042 Nicollet Ave S., Minneapolis, 612-861-5500

  • Max Ross: Published Poet

    Welcome to a possibly special edition of Poem Worth Reading. The very title of this Cracking Spines segment — that is, Poem Worth Reading — is jeopardized with today’s entry. But because this is a blog, and should thereby not be held to any qualitative standards (self-imposed or otherwise), and because I got the go-ahead from my editor, who said I could post "basically anything…," I’ve decided to go ahead and put up some of my own scribblings. I figure it’s Memorial Day, so maybe there’s less readership, anyway.

    The back-story (feel free to skip): My grandparents own a cabin not far from the Twin Cities, and I was up there this weekend to celebrate the holiday, incidentally by myself (there was leftover pizza, there was beer, there was NBA basketball [if you know my family, you know they don’t know what a tent is, let alone a cabin…yes there’s cable here, but I don’t have it in my regular home, and that’s how I justify watching it]).

    On Sunday, at about five o’clock in the evening, my aunt called, waking me up from my nap. Naturally I was pissed. She said thunderstorms were headed my way. Though normally rain has a soporific effect on me, the ringer of the cabin phone is kind of like a dog whistle for humans, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I said, “Screw it” — sadly, I said it out loud — and went out onto the screened-in porch to watch the gathering storm.

    I may appreciate a poem from time to time, but I don’t write ‘em. Nevertheless, immersed as deeply in the woods as a member of my family can hope to get (there’s no Wi-Fi here, at least, and my cell phone is on ‘roam’), watching the boats on the lake return in unison to their docks, then watching the rain fall from a strangely low sky, I realized there was a pen in front of me, and a blank piece of paper.

    "Haikus," I thought (thankfully silently). I don’t mean to take anything away from the Japanese poets that have mastered brevity, nor imply that my haikus are as meaningful or worthwhile as theirs (sadly, a couple of mine tend toward Yoda-esque syntax and conjugation). But let’s face it: As far as poetry goes, the haiku is a fairly accessible form — concise, quick-striking, sometimes poignant. They’re kind of like puns (except sometimes poignant). So really, though Freud may say otherwise, the ultimate goal of this post isn’t necessarily to get more exposure for my writing and launch a new career. Rather, I hope it’s a sort of call-to-arms for all the would-be poets out there, too intimidated by meter and rhyme to grab their journals and head for their various solitudes.

    And I invite all you fearless readers (I really do love puns) to post your own haikus in the ‘comments’ section. (Though please refrain from the likes of "Max Ross: Egomaniac/ where’s Whitman? Or Eliot?/They’re better than you" and so on. Unless you have one that’s really, really good.)

    Also, for those interested, I found the header illustration here.

    So here goes:

    Fat green leaves beaten
    by rain. I’d have picked them from
    their twigs, anyway

    At least the pontoon
    has a canopy. Thank God
    our boat won’t get wet.

    In grade school I learned
    to make rain sounds with clapped hands;
    microwaved popcorn.

    Glass door is open,
    screen door is shut; sound of rain –
    but no rain – enters.

    Something literary
    about rain: its ambition
    to rise back up

    Polaroid lightning
    to remember later how
    hard it really rained.

    I stand here wearing
    my grandfather’s sweatpants, and
    write about the storm.

  • Fly the Flag at Half-Staff

    Happy Memorial Day! Happy Memorial Day? We get so used to wishing happy holidays that we end up saying inanities like these. Is it a happy day — a holiday to commemorate loss of lives, casualties? What do you make from a holiday whose best venue is the cemetery? A celebration of life, perhaps — rather than mourning?

    It’s ok to decorate the grave and fire up the grill on the same day. We just need to stop and find that historical point of balance somewhere within all the beginning-of-summer, commercial, barbecue hype that overwhelms the day.

    Whatever you’re doing at 2 p.m. (3 p.m. Eastern time), stop for a moment. Join others across the country for a national moment of remembrance to commemorate the men and women who have perished while in military service to our country. This isn’t a statement on war. This is not a declaration of violence. You are supporting nothing but the people who have died. You are supporting nothing but life… and humanity.

    MEMORIAL DAY EVENTS

    A number of events across the Twin Cities will pay tribute to our veterans. You’re likely to find crowds and activities in most any cemetery and/or memorial. And you’re likely to find small parades and gatherings in just about any town. But, of course, there’s plenty going on at the State Capitol as well. Join Minnesota Veterans for Peace at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at 9 a.m., and join the Vietnam Veterans of America at 2:30 p.m. for live speakers, music, and a color guard march.

    Fort Snelling might be the best place to spend the day and get a true feel for military life with a living Timeline of the American Soldier. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., costumed staff will map out 225 years of U.S.
    military history for you through period clothing, accouterments, artifacts, and
    firing demonstrations. Guests can explore recreated military
    encampments. And veterans and current military families are admitted free
    of charge.

    Or you can choose spirit over realism and commemorate the day with a traditional Native American ceremony. Honor your veterans, your people, and your land at the Mille Lacs Memorial Day Pow-Wow. Enjoy the beautiful two-hour drive up north to Onamia for a day of Native American dance, music, food, crafts, and games. The outdoor event is sponsored by the local American
    Veterans Post 53 and is held on the museum grounds on the beautiful
    shores of Lake Mille Lacs.

    Also today, Vive Minnesota! continues — with a special veteran’s remembrance at 11 a.m.

    And if you’d like to forget Memorial Day altogether, then I have just the thing: It Came From Another World at the Parkway Theater.

  • Come Join the Vicious Circle

    "That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment."
    -Dorothy Parker

    Over ten long, occasionally checkered, years as an art critic here in Minnesota, here’s one thing I’ve learned: Making your way in the world today, as a visual artist anyway, takes everything you’ve got. Upfront there are studio costs, exhibition costs, materials costs, opportunity costs, and the constant expense of keeping in coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol (although this last is probably true for most of us). And the money you get back from what you pour your heart and soul into creating is scant, at best. Mere pennies on the investment. And you know how valuable is a penny today, right?

    I don’t even begin to know how a person in this day and age sustains an artistic practice.

    Here’s another thing I’ve learned: The life of the art critic is no quiet afternoon at the corner bar either. You’re often up all night writing, even when you can’t pay your light bill. And your editor keeps telling you the check is in the mail; that is, when there still is an editor to report to, because you can no longer count the number of publications you’ve written for that have unceremoniously shit-canned the entire staff when you weren’t looking or else closed their doors altogether.

    Sometimes I wonder how in hell I’ve lasted so long doing this crazy thing called arts writing.

    And here’s another thing I have long wondered about: If we assume for a moment that we’re all–artists and arts writers–compatriots in the struggle to keep alive the dying, flickering light of artistic goodness in our culture, why, then, don’t we artists and critics get along better? Why aren’t we, at least metaphorically, raising beers to each other in the spirit of collaboration and mutual support for the cause? After all, we all have the same goals at heart, right? We all seek to advance the cause of art in Minnesota and to ensure the survival of ancient and honorable traditions that are much bigger than any single one of us? Right?

    Or, are we all, like everyone else, just in it for ourselves, and ourselves alone?

    Here’s what I know: I list these questions and postulations not to keep you up at night (as often happens to me), but rather to explain something about how we formulated our name for ourselves for this new visual arts blog, "The Thousandth Word," which you happen to have stumbled upon.

    We are six arts writers and critics (some of us also–as explained below in our brief bios–artists and art lovers, friends and neighbors). And we’re calling ourselves "the Vicious Circle," mostly because we acknowledge that the art world itself is just that: a Vicious Circle. No one is getting rich. No one is getting along much. No one seems particularly happy. And yet, our troubles are all the same. We’re caught up in this circle together, against our better judgment. And we all love it despite ourselves in much the same way.

    "The Vicious Circle" works as a name for another reason, because it acknowledges that sometimes, in the service to art, the critical person has to write somewhat negative reactions to what he or she has seen. A good critic simply, from time to time, has to be vicious. It’s part of the secret initiation to the club. Or as Groucho Marx put it, in regards to membership in the original "Vicious Circle" (which is how the Algonquin Round Table referred to themselves back in the 1920s): "The price of admission is a serpent’s tongue and a half-concealed stiletto."

    We are not in this to be mean-spirited, though; we’re art critics, not Sicilian knife fighters. Our goal is to address the art we see with only the utmost lucidity and honesty. And if anything we write lifts your neck feathers, you can always throw a few sharp comments right back at us. It will show you care!

    We hope, then, that you’ll come back often to read and engage with "The Thousandth Word." In the meantime, here are bios for the six writers of the Vicious Circle.

     

     

    Rich Barlow: Rich Barlow has an MFA in visual arts from the University of Minnesota. He works as an artist, arts educator, musician, curator, and fringe theater and music producer. He is a founding member of Flaneur Productions.

    Michael Fallon: Michael Fallon is an arts writer and arts administrator who’s written for more publications than he can count, really. But he’s proud that he’s been a member of the International Art Critic’s Association since 2000, and that he founded a local arts writers association, the Visual Art Critics Union of Minnesota (VACUM), in 2002. His other blog blatherings, and more about what he’s up to in his copious spare time, can be found at Art Happy Hour and the Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America.

    Glenn Gordon: Glenn Gordon is a writer, sculptor, and photographer. He was born in the Bronx, grew up in L.A., spent the sixties in Berkeley, lived for many years in Chicago, and moved to the Twin Cities about twenty years ago, working at many biographically colorful jobs all along the way. He’s written widely on architecture, sculpture, photography, woodworking, furniture, craft, and industrial design for national magazines and art journals, and locally for The Rake, Architecture Minnesota, Rain Taxi, and mnartists.org.

    Christina Schmid:     Christina Schmid’s writing on the visual arts is informed by the years she spent at universities but seeks to go beyond the narrow confines of academic discourse. Her aim is to chronicle her encounters and experiences with contemporary art in order to render the process of meaning-making that art demands of its viewers both more accessible and transparent. She holds advanced degrees in contemporary literature, philosophy, visual and cultural studies from the Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

    Andy Sturdevant: Andy Sturdevant is a Minneapolis-based artist, curator and writer whose work has appeared in ARP!, The Rake, and Bejeezus magazines, and on mnartists.org. He curated the History Room: 20 Years of No Name and the Soap Factory exhibition at the Soap Factory this year, and is currently working on an accompanying book about the gallery’s history. Andy is also a contributor to the Electric Arc Radio Show music and performance series, which is beginning a new season at the Ritz Theater in Minneapolis this fall.

    Collier White: Collier White is a writer and filmmaker who lives and works in North Minneapolis. He attended the University of Minnesota where he edited the newspaper’s film coverage. After freelancing for several print and online arts journals, he co-founded Object, an online pop-culture journal that garnered much acclaim before dissolving when he left for film school in Denmark. Since returning to Minneapolis, he has written for Ruminator magazine, City Pages and mplsart.com whil
    e continuing to write and direct short films.

  • Annihilating a Collective Memory

    "Hitler believed modernists
    couldn’t see color as it was in nature, or humans as they were in
    life," remarks one of the scholars interviewed in The Rape of Europa
    —     a documentary on the artistic pillaging perpetrated by the Nazi
    army during World War II. "He viewed this as a racial deficiency."

    And with that, we learn yet
    another aspect of the Führer’s demented psychological make-up, thoroughly
    extrapolated over the two-hour course of this captivating film. Religion,
    race, politics, and apparently artistic leanings – Hitler was thorough
    in his prejudices. And with art, just as with all his other biases,
    his distastes seem to stem from his own insecurities.

    In 1907, an eighteen-year-old
    Adolf Hitler was rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts. The
    film would have it that this occurrence was the seed for his misanthropic
    leanings: "Many of the members of the academy were Jewish," we’re
    told, and it’s suggested that this may have fueled his resentment
    later on. Perhaps it’s a tad over-speculative, but nevertheless one
    wonders what path young Hitler might have taken had he been admitted
    to the school.

    More disturbing (and convincing)
    than the film’s psychoanalytic probing into Hitler’s iniquity is
    its analysis of raw data and records. We see the dictator as he composes
    a list of paintings and sculptures he wants for his collection, which
    he will eventually exhibit in a national museum of the Third Reich.
    Before raiding a given country, a team of art historians and forensic
    specialists pinpoints what masterpieces to plunder before letting the
    troops wreak their havoc. According to the film’s website, by the
    end of the war, the Nazis had looted one fifth of all the known artworks
    in Europe. (Perverse as it may be, I found myself wishing that our nation’s
    leaders had such a high regard for the fine arts.)

    In addition to dismantling
    their military and political infrastructures, Europa
    clearly depicts Hitler’s desire to dismantle nations’ cultural infrastructures,
    too. In France and Italy a certain delicacy is shown (as Hitler respected
    their traditional artists), but in Russia and most of all in Poland,
    the seizing of art is meant to symbolize the felling of an ‘impure’
    society. Decimating a population is one thing, but annihilating its
    art is tantamount to annihilating its collective memory; Hitler contrived — actually contrived — not just to destroy countries, but their
    histories as well. Cultural obliteration is usually a by-product of
    war; here it was the plan. This is exactly what made Hitler so evil,
    and The Rape of Europa for the most part does an effective job
    showing it.

    Speaking now strictly from
    a cinematic standpoint, the film endeavors to be perhaps a bit too thorough.
    While all the stories herein are captivating, they do get repetitive.
    The evacuation of Russia’s Hermitage Museum, for example, is a reiteration
    of the Louvre’s evacuation, which is shown earlier in the movie. While
    both have their tragically fascinating aspects, and both were incredibly
    important events, on screen one does not reinforce the other, but merely
    echoes it.

    Later on, the narrative strays
    when we come to Italy, and the Allies are shown to be the ones destroying
    the art in the air raids on Axis positions. In this instance, the destruction
    is     incidental, and the segment does little to prove the documentary’s
    central thesis of art appropriation being an integral part of the Nazi’s
    plot.

    Nevertheless, this meandering
    by no means detracts from the overall impact of the film. The Rape
    of Europa     is a shocking — but easily palatable — study of an
    otherwise unexplored phenomena of the Holocaust, and proves (yet again…despite
    what certain Iranian politicians might say) that we still feel the reverberations
    of World War II today.

  • Kevin Spacey. Naked.

    I usually take my coffee black. I prefer the same color in comedies, and particularly in that rare dark comedy that can be called a film.  

    As you raid your video store or netflix account this weekend, finding a good dark film can be difficult–particularly when they are packaged as standard-blend comedies of the Carey/Farley/Sandler variety. 

    Swimming With Sharks,* produced in 1994 is that rare film in the wrong wrapper. It is a comedy of the darkest shade–with stellar, emotionally raw performances from Kevin Spacey, Frank Whaley and Michelle Forbes.

    The film was written and directed by George Huang, who, along with Richard Rodriguez were two "hot young director" names to drop at Chateau Marmont in the mid-90s.

    RR hit payday later but I am not quite sure what happened to GH. All I do know is that he directs Kevin Spacey in a role that strips comedy to the bone. It’s not very funny. And that’s just the point.  

     (* If you want the story line and reviews you can read the link.)

     

     

  • Are You Lonesome for Me, Baby?

    All day a dragon in a rented crow costume was installed in the tree outside my house, shrieking imprecations and keeping me at bay.

    A few months back I reversed the mat on my doorstep so that each time I opened the door I would encounter the word “WELCOME.” My hope was that this would somehow strike me as a greeting or an invitation from the world. So far it hasn’t quite had the desired effect. If anything, in fact, it’s made me increasingly self conscious about what seems almost like a gesture from a self-help book.

    Two days ago I was out walking my dog when I encountered two little girls in matching pink princess costumes selling rocks from an excavation going on in the yard behind them. I asked them how much rocks were going for these days.

    “It depends,” one girl said, “on whether they are space rocks or indian rocks.”

    “How about this one?” I asked, taking a rock in my hand.

    “That’s a space rock,” the girl said. “It fell to earth during a moon storm. Let your dog smell it.”

    I dutifully held the rock to my dog’s nose, and he dutifully gave it a sniff.

    “See?” the girl said. “One dollar for a moon rock.”

    I handed over a dollar, and as I went on my way I heard the girls erupt in laughter behind me. I was momentarily chilled by the unmistakable cruelty in that laughter.

    Now, though, it’s late. A fox is frozen in me, paralyzed at a point in a journey beyond which I cannot yet take him. Perhaps, I thought earlier, his fate has something to do with the charms of the night sky, but I now see no reason in the world why it should.

    I would so love to do something extraordinary.

    But who wouldn’t?

    You reach that point where when you look in the mirror you sort of do so with a very evasive, soft-focus glance –you’re essentially looking right through or around yourself, trying, perhaps unconsciously, to work your way back into time and memory. When you’re most successful at this you manage to see not the person you’ve become, but the person you once were, or –even better, or maybe sadder; I can’t decide– the person you most hoped you’d become.

    My sleeping dog raises his head and briefly peers across the room through eyes a half step removed from dreams. As if he seeks reassurance that this is still the same world that he closed his eyes on an hour ago, that the man in the green chair is still there, keeping watch and squinting into his book, more lost than ever beneath a giant cowboy hat that makes him feel exceedingly small and foolish.

    Somewhere in the world tonight, I’m sure, someone is playing an accordian and people are dancing. Somewhere a broken man is wide awake and screwing up his nerve to do something entirely unexpected and perhaps even extraordinary. All over the world couples are curled up together in bed. Some of them are completely unaware that only one of them will wake up to see another day. Ambulances are streaking through the universal night, through sleeping cities in every country on the earth, their drivers speaking urgently in a hundred different languages. And in every one of those same countries, under one improbable moon, thousands upon thousands of hands are folded and stricken faces are searching the dark continent behind their eyes, and the huge sky beyond, for God.

    This morning –or later this morning, when and if the sun makes things official– I’m going to listen to James Brown.

    I’m going to take my dog for a walk.

    I’m going to take another crack at the world.

    And when all is said and done, well, I guess all will be said and done.

    Hey there. You.

    See me.

    Take a look at me now.

    Take a look down here.

    I’m on top of the world.

     

  • Get the #Q)*?!#$ Off My Lawn

    On the well-manicured lawn that is the Democratic primary,
    there resides a two large groups of little old men shouting epithets at
    one another, screaming for "these kids" to get
    the fuck off their lawn    .

    Sadly, these arthritic individuals aren’t Edina’s most senior residents, as one might
    expect of these wizened figures glowering at any who would dare trespass on
    their pristine grass. No, these crotchety creatures shaking their fists at one
    another are the splintered remnants of the once proudly unified Democratic
    party. Now, after months of spewing bile and vitriol in the most closely fought
    primary in U.S.
    election history, the party is split – a camel toe on the hot pants of American
    politics, if you will.

    One group sides with the party’s Luke Skywalker – Barack
    Obama. With the Force as his guide and a lightsaber wit he has
    systematically thwarted the ambitions of his opposition in most states without
    a reputation for incest or goat
    love    . Up until a few months ago, Hillary Clinton was the presumptive
    nominee – basking in the collective adulation of the left-hand of American
    politics with a nigh-unbelievable midichlorian count. Now she has been pushed off her pedestal and is seeking to parlay her
    grip on America’s crotch into a last
    desperate hope for a presidential nod.

    Regardless of who is eventually chosen as the Democratic
    nominee, the party is in trouble. With a significant percentage of each
    candidates’ saying they’d
    never vote for the other    , what used to look like a potential majority in
    congress along with a nigh-certain seat in the Oval Office, complete with
    nubile interns ready to provide service with a smile, is turning into a potential tossup if
    Democrats embittered by the primary stay home or vote Green. Minnesota is a prime example of this phenomenon, with thousands of Obamites crying for blood in the event of what now looks like an unlikely Hillary win.

    Normally, this all or nothing mentality would seem to be
    something to be respected, or at least be a compelling argument for instant
    runoff voting    . And I have nothing but admiration for those who are willing
    to shoot themselves in the foot to take a stand against a cause they believe to
    be immoral. However, in this case it’s not shooting themselves in the foot so
    much as it is packing their collective rectum with C-4 and handing the
    detonator to the Evil
    Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight    .

    Voting Green isn’t equated with explosive asses as a general
    rule, but those are the stakes set by Democrats this year. According to
    virtually every one of them, this next election is the one that will determine
    the country’s position on the world stage – a plausible theory given that
    Canadian money is now as valuable as the U.S. dollar. If that’s not a sign of America’s
    pending doom, what is? But why is such a significant percentage of Hillary
    Clinton and Barack Obama’s supporters so willing to throw away the chance to
    set the direction of the country for years to come when the candidates’
    policies bear incredible similarities, especially when stacked up against the
    Republican competition?

    The bottom line is that the entire election campaign has consisted
    of talk about the necessity of change, about change for the better, about the
    country being unable to afford four more years of the same failed foreign
    policy. So why are so many Democrats already so bitter that they’ve made up
    their minds before the chosen candidate, whoever it may be, has a chance to
    make his or her platform known without getting a Democratic donkey punch
    after every speech – thus risking the very change they claim to want more than
    a sweaty night on a circle
    bed     with Scarlet Johansson and the winners of The
    Rake’s Most Beautiful People at the Capitol contest    ?

  • Hmong Cuisine, Six Buck Hank, and More

    The menu at the new Red Pepper in Saint Paul combines
    Vietnamese, Thai and Hmong dishes, but since the first two cuisines are pretty
    widely available elsewhere, I decided to try one of the Hmong dishes. Number
    27, sweet pork belly with eggs, turned out to be a savory stew with big chunks
    of roast pork, (not nearly as fatty as I had feared), hard-boiled eggs, red
    bell pepper, fresh pineapple green onions and ginger, in a rich brown slightly
    sweet gravy accented with star anise (I think), served with steamed rice.
    Delicious, and served in very generous portion.

    There is a lot more on the menu that I would like to try,
    including the squash curry, made with butternut squash, bamboo shoots, peppers,
    onions and coconut red curry sauce, available with beef or chicken ($7.50),
    shrimp ($8.50), or a combination of shrimp, squid and scallops for $10.50. The
    whole fried tilapia with sweet pepper curry sauce ($10.50) also sounds
    promising. A friend reports that when she ordered the kow poon, a Hmong/
    Laotian dish made with shredded chicken, bamboo shoots, red curry and
    lemongrass, the broth was delicious, but she couldn’t find any actual chicken
    in the dish. Still might be worth a try, but I would ask about the chicken
    first.

    Otherwise, the menu offers a variety of familiar southeast
    Asian dishes – Vietnamese pho (beef noodle soup), plus variations with seafood
    and crispy pork belly ($5.50-$7.95); pad Thai ($7.50-$10.50); green papaya
    salad ($5.95 / $8.50 with beef jerky), and a variety of stir-fried noodle and
    fried rice dishes.

    Red Pepper Cafe, 864 University Ave., St. Paul, 651-292-8800. Closed Sundays.

    Six Buck Hank?

    Henry Chan at Giapponese Sushi in Woodbury is starting a new
    promotion this Sunday: selected wines for $6 a bottle. Here’s the fine print:
    the offer is open to everybody on Sundays, and to people in the hospitality
    industry on Tuesdays. As soon as the outdoor patio is open – Chan says that’ll
    be a couple of weeks – the offer will be good on the patio every day.

    Don’t expect Chateauneuf-du-Pape at these prices – the
    labels are trustworthy old cheapies like Oxford Landing Chardonnay and Shiraz,
    Penascal Sauvignon Blanc, Stella Pinot Grigio; and Shiraz, Riesling, Chardonnay
    and Cabernet Sauvignon from from Banrock Station, an Australian winery that
    donates a share of its proceeds to environmental causes. Still, a great deal.

    What Would Gandhi Do?

    Coming Tuesday to 27th and E. Lake: Gandhi Mahal, a
    new Indian restaurant, next door to Midori’s Floating World. The menu seems to
    be pretty much the standard north Indian repertoire, but owner Rahman Arshad –
    whose family also owns the Little Taj Mahal in Dinkytown, and several Indian
    restaurants in New York City – is promising some unusual touches, including a
    lassi bar, serving several flavors of the traditional yogurt beverage, plus a
    tapas-like assortment of Indian finger foods. A lunch $9.99 lunch buffet will
    be offered daily, and eventually, live music on weekends.

    The restaurant
    will be decorated with images of Mahatma Gandhi, who might not have approved of
    the meat and seafood dishes on the menu – the Indian spiritual leader
    was a strict vegetarian.