The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • Lost in Translation

    I guess I find most reports on online media interesting, but I thought this MediaPost email was spot on:

    by Kory Kredit, Thursday, April 24, 2008

    What is the value of an established print media name? Let’s take a
    simple test to find out. Which of these URLs do you recognize?

    ·
    www.desmoinesregister.com
    ·
    www.eastvalleytribune.com
    ·
    www.drudgereport.com
    ·
    www.perezhilton.com

    For those of you who claim to recognize the first two, you are either
    lying, or you have lived in both Iowa and Arizona, as I have. While
    both the Des Moines Register and the East Valley Tribune are print
    newspaper companies that have been
    in existence for decades, you’ve probably never heard of them or
    visited their Web site unless you live in those metropolitan areas.
    Even if you do live in those regions, the chance that you’ve never
    visited one of these sites
    increases as your age bracket skews younger.

    Ask any college-age or 20something man or woman where they get their
    news/information/gossip, and he or she is increasingly likely to cite a
    pure-play Internet site like DrudgeReport.com, PerezHilton.com, a
    favorite news aggregation site
    or RSS feeds before listing a local print media outlet.

    While national newspapers like The New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today are growing, local newspaper sites are loosing market share to pure-play Internet sites like Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN, as
    well as aggregation sites like newsvine.com and topix.net, as reported in a 2007
    study     from The Shorenstein Center at Harvard University.

    This raises a perplexing question for local newspapers, which are more
    and more reliant on their Web sites for advertising revenue to either
    supplement or replace decreasing revenues from their offline product.
    Does a traditional media
    brand name (i.e. Seattle Times, Kansas City Star, etc.) provide
    significant value to an online audience, or does its value get lost in
    translation somewhere between the printed word and the 19" flat-screen
    you’re currently staring
    at?

    As circulation rates and ad revenues drop across the board in the newspaper industry (ad revenues in 2007
    plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006    ),
    the brand recognition of the local newspaper drops along with it. It
    has also proven increasingly ineffective to try to apply the
    traditional offline business model to an online news site.

    Gone are the days when the local newspaper was the self-appointed
    guardian and exclusive voice of news and information for the masses. In
    traditional media, the journalist and the media outlet handed down the
    news to the public and that
    was typically where the story ended, with the exception of the filtered
    and approved-for-print Letter to the Editor that might follow in a day
    or two.

    In the Internet age, news is now a "shared enterprise between its producer and its consumer,
    according to Jonah Peretti    ,
    founding partner of The Huffington Post. To be successful, Internet
    news and media require an ongoing conversation, multiple methods of
    engagement, the addition of user-generated content and a wide variety
    of opinions and views.

    Today’s savvy online consumers also want control over what they read.
    They want to customize their entire experience for their personal
    preference. Not only do they want to choose the stories that are
    relevant to them, they want to
    modify the layout of the site and the navigation to suit their needs,
    as they can on sites like newsvine.com, topix.net and netvibes.com.

    In an effort to recapture some of their local readers on the Web,
    newspapers might consider abandoning their traditional print brand
    online, reinventing an entirely new media brand for the Web. This
    allows a great deal of autonomy to
    operate — much the same as an Internet company, not a newspaper
    company with a Web site.

    The challenge that lies ahead is whether or not traditional newspaper
    companies can become agile enough to adapt to this new paradigm. Can
    they leverage their most important asset, which is their depth of news
    and information at the local
    level, and deliver it in a way that engages and interacts with readers,
    giving them more control over the experience?

    Simply relying on their offline brand recognition to draw readers to
    their Web site will prove to be a losing strategy as readers continue
    to gravitate towards pure-play Internet sites that cater to the
    preference of an ever-savvier online
    audience.

    Can newspapers adapt quickly enough to remain relevant — or are they
    doomed to become this century’s version of the telegraph machine?

     

  • Automotive Irredentism

    pictured: The Yukon XL—"the national car of Texas"

    I recently finished reading a book on TFK terrorism (essentially) called The Bullet’s Song. As pretentious as this lead-in sentence sounds, I really did read the book and, in the process, learned some fascinating words.

    Like irredentism. It’s from the Italian for "unclaimed territory." I believe it came into fashion as the Italian poet and social libertine Gabrielle D’Annunzio formed the break-away and short-lived Republic Of Fiume after World War I. Great story. Which leads me to my headline.

    I just returned from a trip to West Texas (Houston—close enough). It’s clear to me that people in this part of Texas will not be happy until every last stretch of asphalt has been claimed and/or reclaimed for the largest possible SUV you can put on the road. In fact, it is terrifying to to rent anything less than a Town Car when you travel in this part of the country.

    Which makes me fear for my friends in Austin.

  • Then She Found Me

    Families
    comes in all shapes and sizes, but the two main ingredients are
    certainly love and trust. Helen Hunt’s directing debut, Then She Found Me, brings the life and passion of Elinor Lipman’s characters to the big screen.

    After
    being left by her husband (Matthew Broderick), mere months after their
    wedding, April (Helen Hunt) is tracked down by her birth mother (Bette
    Midler) in hopes of starting a relationship. At the same time, April
    begins to form a bond with the father (Colin Firth) of one of her
    kindergarten students. As she struggles to determine the meaning of
    family, she discovers something missing, driven by the burning desire to have
    a baby of her own.

    At
    first I was skeptical of Hunt covering the ground both in front of and behind the camera, but she quickly set my mind at ease. The film maintains an
    undeniable intensity, from Hunt’s tired eyes to Midler’s
    vigorous attempt at motherhood; the rapport between the
    characters is genuine and sincere. In fact, what the plot lacks in originality, the characters make up for in chemistry. Adept at captivating audiences in movies such
    as Beaches and First Wives Club, Bette Midler weaves in and out of this one eloquently, as little more than a shoulder to cry on for her newly discovered
    daughter. Colin Firth’s witty Englishness lightens
    the mood at the most needed times. And Hunt, who has played some questionable roles (What Women Want and Dr. T
    and the Women)     since winning an Academy Award for her performance in
    As
    Good As It Gets    , reinvents herself with the direction of this film.

    The
    story and characters are tied together with some great music, too, including Iron & Wine’s "Naked As We Came" and Bonnie
    Raitt’s "Cool, Clear Water," — highlighting the tone of the heartwarming
    love story.

    With a title like Then She Found Me, it’s easy to assume
    the story would revolve around the search for that
    mother/daughter bond, but the bulk of the film actually centers around Hunt and
    Firth’s relationship. Not an unwise choice by Hunt, but an ironic one. Digging deeper into the title’s meaning, you’ll discover it’s not only a film about
    finding family and love, but the self-discovery that comes with
    finding these things. A truly touching film about the realities of family, Then She Found Me has proven beyond a doubt Hunt’s talent as an actress and a filmmaker.

    Starts Friday, May 2, at the Edina Cinema.

     

     

  • Groovy New Moves for Both Genders

    RAKE EVENT
    Gallery Grooves

    It’s time for another Gallery Grooves tonight, and we’ve got a very cool spot lined up that you likely don’t even known about. This
    month, enjoy an open studio, shop, and classroom exhibit at Vesper
    College    , a new venue focused on sculpture and ecological architecture. Ecological architecture — how cool is that? Socialize and discuss the latest jazz with Kevin Barnes
    from KBEM, view artwork for sale, enjoy wine info and sampling courtesy
    of Artisan Vineyard, and delight your palatte with hors d’oeuvres by Raja’s Mahal.

    7-9 p.m., Vesper College, 201 6th St. NE, Minneapolis; free.

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Riding Shotgun

    Being
    a mother may not be the easiest of jobs, but being the most influential person in most women’s lives
    has its rewards. In Kathryn Kysar’s journal Riding Shotgun: Women Write about Their Mothers, various authors, teachers, scholars, and mothers tell the
    heartwarming and powerful stories about the mothers who have loved and
    raised them. A true Midwesterner, Kathryn Kysar has won numerous
    awards for her poetry and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Minnesota State Arts Board.
    Kysar, along with several other writers in the collection, will be doing a
    selection of readings from Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their
    Mothers     tonight at the Minneapolis Central Library, and in various locations throughout the Twin Cities in celebration of Mother’s Day. —Hannah Simpson

    7 p.m., Minneapolis Central Library, 612-630-6174.

    DANCE
    Zenon’s 25th Spring Season

    Zenon celebrates its 25th Spring Season with a powerful performance featuring two world premiere works by New York choreographers Jeanine Durning ("Where are these days, again?") and Seán Curran ("Hard Bargain"), two audience favorites (Wynn Fricke’s "Garden" and Cathy Young’s "The Secret Life of Walt and Kitty"), and Susana Tambutti’s sultry "Mysteriously, This Won’t Happen." Expect to be wowed by the choreography. And expect to be outraged by the content. (Ok, maybe not outraged, but this is no sweet, fairytale performance. After all, it ain’t easy being a woman.) Zenon, as always, takes dance into a whole new realm. And this production takes Zenon into a new era as founding company member Christine Maginnis performs her final dance with Zenon. —photo by Jeffrey Austin

    8 p.m., Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-340-1725; $25.

    Email us (contest@rakemag.com) to win two free tickets to tonight’s or Sunday’s performance. Write Zenon in the subject line, and be sure to include your prefered performance date, along with your name. The first two people to respond will each receive a pair of free tickets.

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Border Crossing

    Off-Leash Area
    brings us yet another inventive physical-theater production — this time
    told through the voices of the Sonoran Desert. Two-time Ivey Award
    honorees Jennifer Ilse and Paul Herwig team up to direct Border Crossing,
    written by Jerome Fellow and Anishinaabe playwright Marcie Rendon, with
    an original score by Ben Siems. Rendon’s story follows a young girl as
    she traces her immigrant parents’ footsteps across the Arizona/Mexico
    border, crossing the Sonoran Desert along the way. True to Off-Leash
    Area’s visual style, the production fuses dance, ritual, and puppetry
    to illustrate the much-traveled journey to a better life. With a cast
    of 17, portraying the desert air, creatures, and migrants, Border Crossing brings to light the complexity of the current political debate.

    8 p.m., Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-436-1129; $24.

    FILM
    Pond Hockey

    Anyone who spent their childhood in Minnesota knows the importance of lakes here — above all, the importance of a frozen lake. We skate on them. We drive on them. We fish on them. We flip snowmobiles on them. And yes, we beat each other up on them, too. We play pond hockey, of course. (Or must that happen on a pond, then?) Or at least we used to. It seems, perhaps, that times have changed. With new climate-controlled hockey rinks in every town, the ponds are losing their allure. But we are the pond hockey people, folks. And so is Tommy Haines. Haines, director of the new documentary Pond Hockey, hails from the Iron Range and has much to say about the changing culture of hockey in Minnesota. Through his new film, he examines these changes through interviews with countless hockey greats like Wayne Gretzky, Lou Nanne, Neal Broten, Phil Housley, and even MN Governors Tim Pawlenty and Wendell Anderson. Don’t miss the world premiere this evening as part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. See the trailer.

    6:30 p.m., St. Anthony Main Theaters, 115 Main St., Minneapolis.

  • Ashwin Madia – the Man, the Myth, the One Democrat Who Won’t Call Michelle Bachmann Bat-Shit Crazy

    If the ongoing
    national embarrassment that is the Democratic primary hasn’t yet caused you to gouge
    out your eyes     with a rusty spork, you may have noticed that the local political
    campaign season is in full swing. And because this year’s campaigns are already
    shaping up to be nearly as contentious as the debate over whether the spawn of Billy Ray is
    just penance for the Western World’s sins, or if her popularity is simply a
    sign of the end times, The Defenestrator has been tasked with ferreting out the
    secrets of this year’s crop of candidates for local and national office.

    Why have we been
    saddled with this thankless task? Because the staff of The Rake wants nothing
    but the best for its readers, except Ann Bauer, of course. That
    lush wants nothing more than to get you loaded and avail herself of your firm and
    nubile body. But in these times of rapid-fire political rhetoric and
    skyrocketing consumer prices, knowing is half the battle. Yo, Joe!

    In any case, the
    first in our series of candidate interviews takes us to scenic Congressional
    District 3, encompassing most of the Twin Cities’ western suburbs. Ashwin Madia
    recently took home the DFL endorsement in the race to replace longtime GOP
    stalwart, Jim Ramstad, in the House of Representatives. Madia, having never
    held office anywhere but in the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Student
    Association     – where once upon a time Homer Simpson
    managed to make a serious run at the presidency    , was not expected to make a
    strong showing, let alone beat the presumptive nominee, Teri Bonoff.

    But he did beat her.
    He beat her like a bad bad donkey, in fact. And now he’s all but certain to move on to the general
    election against GOP candidate Erik Paulsen. We caught Madia in the midst of a
    fundraising frenzy just after the nominating convention and he was gracious
    enough to to give us an interview, a few talking points, and at least a little
    insight into why anyone might want to vote for someone insane enough to
    put a lucrative law practice on hold after returning from a war zone so he can
    take a shot at gaining membership to the DMZ otherwise known as the United
    States House of Representatives.

    Defenestrator: So,
    how’s the fundraising coming?

    Madia: We set a state record for an unknown candidate. We
    raised 161k in two months last year. In Q1 of this year we raised 196k. To be
    able to raise that kind of money, it shows that we’ve got a good message. It’s
    resonating.

    D: What made you
    decide to run for U.S. Congress, rather than trying for the state legislature
    or other local office first?

    M: Because I care about these issues, the Iraq War – I want
    to find a way to end it. I care about global warming. I care about civil
    liberties. Those are federal issues. Some people think there’s a path you have
    to take, city council, local government. We’ve all got something to contribute.
    I don’t think you have to be a politician already to contribute to our
    discussion. We all have a voice in this.

    I thought this was an opportunity to serve our community and
    instead of complaining all the time about where our country was going, I
    figured it would be more productive for me to step forward and actually try to
    do something about it.

    D: When did you get the idea? Did Iraq drive you so
    insane that you had to come up with ways to torment yourself when you got back
    home?

    M: I pretty much started to think about it when Jim Ramstaad
    retired. I wasn’t really thinking about it in Iraq.

    D: Apart from
    scamming on babes in
    burqas    , what were you doing in Iraq?

    M: I was creating a strategic system to establish rule of
    law in Iraq. It involved coordinating with the State Department, Justice
    Department, UN, European Union and Iraqi judges to develop a strategic plan to
    establish rule of law in Iraq. It was a lot of phone calls, a lot of meetings,
    a lot of supervision. A lot of meetings with different interest groups and
    brokering compromises to come up with plans everyone could agree on.

    For example, I went down to meet with the British in Basra
    and the British foreign service to find out what plans and strategies they were
    implementing to strengthen the Iraqi legal system and take that back to Baghdad
    to fit that in strategically with what we were trying to do throughout the
    county. We would get assessments of the status of rule of law programs around
    the country and go brief the generals that were leading the multinational
    forces on what was going on and the way ahead.

    D: Why’d you join the
    Marines?

    M: It was a good way to serve and I really wanted a
    challenge. Whether you’re a grunt or a pilot, you do the same training and I
    wanted to see if I could do it. I really enjoyed the challenge.

    D: The DFL tried to
    position you as a former Republican intent on undermining the party from within
    by encouraging SUV use and alienating the party’s base from the wisdom of Al
    Gore. Republicans are trying to position you as a hedonistic Communist, bent on
    legalizing drugs and using tax dollars to help Eliot Spitzer open a brothel.
    Who’s right?

    M: I don’t think either one of them is right. What I am is
    an independent voice for MN. It’s true that most of my principles line up on
    the democratic side now. But 10 years ago Republicans wanted to amend the
    constitution to balance the budget. They obviously don’t now. I think the
    labels have gotten so mixed up that I prefer to go issue by issue and say where
    I stand. In the end I’m a fiscally responsible and socially moderate democrat.

    D: So why not go the
    same direction but stay Republican?

    M: I don’t know. It seems like a lot of that party has
    adopted the philosophy of spending all that they want, cutting taxes at the
    same time and borrowing from China to make up the difference.

    D: You mean you don’t
    want to give the Chinese the opportunity to finally take their revenge on the
    white man for hooking them on Opium?

    M: No comment on that one.

    D: Coming out of a
    particularly vicious cat fight with the wily, but oh so short Terri Bonoff, How
    do you feel about parties having presumptive nominees? What’s it mean for the
    political process?

    M: Terri was a fantastic candidate. She ran a very spirited,
    very classy race and I’ve got a lot of respect for her. I think what this
    election shows is that even today if you’ve got a strong message, you can trump
    money and endorsements and name recognition and all the other things
    politicians use to win elections.

    D: Do you see this as
    a sea change?

    M: I think this is an election where people are much more
    willing to consider candidates who are from outside the political mainstream
    and just love our country. They’re willing to consider values and authenticity
    over traditional political experience.

    D: What do you think
    has changed to allow that? Why are people looking for that change    ?

    M: Because the country is in the shape that it is. Because
    they think the country is on the wrong track and they want someone who’s going
    to get it back on track and in the right shape again.

    D: People seem to think
    the country might function better if Washington nuked itself and became a
    post-apocalyptic wasteland populated only by the mutant spawn of Newt Gingrich
    and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Any thoughts on how you’ll change that perception?

    M: In my mind, good policy is good politics. What that means
    is that Washington needs to start delivering. We need to end the Iraq War. We
    need to balance the budget and we need to get our economy back on track. We
    need to address global warming. If we start delivering on actual results for
    the American people, then I think they’ll start to have more faith in
    government.

    D: How do you think
    you can make that change? And don’t give me any of that one man can make a
    difference crap. I mean, sure, Keanu Reeves was kinda cool as "The One" in the
    first Matrix movie, but the only thing worth watching in the sequels was Monica
    Belucci    .

    M: By working my tail off. I think there are a lot of people
    throughout the country who feel the same way I do – That we need a new kind of
    leadership in Washington. I think, and I hope, that we’ll see a new kind of
    politics in the coming years.

    D: Iraq – get the
    hell out? Stay the course? And
    now for something completely     different?

    M: I think we’ve
    created a very tough situation over there. It’s hard to leave and it’s hard to
    stay. So what I favor is a gradual withdrawal. Phased out over about two years.
    With a limited number of forces left behind to protect our diplomatic presence,
    to target high ranking members of Al-Qaeda and to prevent genocide if we start
    to see it on massive levels.

    D:
    How would that withdrawal occur? Benchmarks? A phased drawdown?

    M:
    A phased drawdown over about two years, with a force left in Iraq to protect
    our diplomatic interests, target high ranking members of Al Queda, and prevent
    genocide in conjunction with other nations. Ultimately, it’s up to the Iraqis
    to reach a political solution. We can play a role in helping with security in
    the interim, but a lasting peace has to be an Iraqi peace.

    D:
    And what happens if Muqtada Al-Sadr takes over Basra and, being too impatient
    to wait for the afterlife, holds nightly 72 virgin parties in the streets with
    the Iraqi army powerless to stop him?

    M:
    Hopefully, by drawing down gradually, and by leaving some forces in Iraq for
    the missions discussed above, we can decrease the possibility of chaos in
    Iraq. But ultimately, it’s true that Iraqis themselves hold the power for
    their own destinies.

    D:
    Apart from the ability to kill a man 6 different ways, courtesy of the USMC,
    what are you bringing to CD3?

    M:
    I’m fiscally disciplined, socially tolerant, independent-minded Democrat.
    I am a Democrat, but my biggest focus is on finding answers to the big
    challenges facing our country, not party affiliation. I think that makes me
    similar to most voters in the 3rd District.

    D:
    Most people think politics is about nothing more than money. Now that you’re in
    full-on fundraising mode, what do you say to that?

    M:
    There are many good, honest, and decent people who are kept out of public
    service because of money. When I got into this race last October, I made
    a commitment that I wouldn’t be one of them. So my team and I have worked
    very hard to raise what we need to get our message out. Having said that, real
    campaign finance reform is long overdue because the fundraising demands on
    candidates are really out of control.

    D:
    How would you contrast yourself with Erik Paulsen?

    M:
    I’m an independent-minded and pragmatic problem-solver who is more committed to
    getting our great nation back on track than advancing a political
    ideology. I come from outside the political system and I’m not an insider
    – I think that will be an asset as I seek to bring real change to Washington.

    D:
    If anything, the state legislature has become even more contentious than the
    Federal, with DFLer and GOP alike focused more on sticking it to the other
    party than on conducting business in the people’s interest. Do you think this
    is how politics is trending? Or are we just stupid enough to elect a room full
    of assholes?

    M:
    No, I think politics will start trending in the reverse direction. People
    are so hungry for something different and a new kind of politics that they’ve
    been reaching outside of traditional areas to find new kinds of leaders, who
    lead based on ideas, not insults. It’s true that sometimes politics gets
    out of control in terms of the nastiness involved, but I think those are the
    exceptions, and for the most part, people are voting for good leaders committed
    to change.

    D:
    How do you feel about party unity? Does being a member of a political party
    give you a responsibility to that party, or are you ultimately responsible
    elsewhere, as Ron Erhardt has mentioned on numerous occasions after he was
    buggered by his own party.

    M:
    Party unity is important and as Democrats we’ve been at our best throughout
    history when we’ve come together to tackle the big challenges facing our
    country- leading our nation through the Great Depression and fighting to bring
    long overdue civil rights for all to our nation, for instance. But at the end
    of the day, I think a legislator’s biggest responsibility is to his or her
    constituents, not a political party.

    D:
    You’ve mentioned George Bush is the reason you switched parties in 2003. But
    I’ve seen chimps on Discovery Channel do a better job of portraying
    conservative values than him. What makes you a Democrat? Why not a Libertarian,
    apart from that whole actually "wanting to win" thing?

    M:
    I’m more concerned about getting things done for our country than what label
    people put on me. I want to responsibly end the Iraq War, balance our
    budget, address global warming, make health care more accessible and
    affordable, and stand up for civil liberties in our country. I want
    government to work efficiently and effectively, without taking a dime more in
    taxes than it needs while still ensuring the Federal government runs properly,
    and I also don’t think government has a role in pushing its social values on
    citizens. It’s my belief that my values and positions are shared by more
    Democrats than Republicans, though if there are Republicans out there who
    believe in some of the same things, then I want to work with them to get good
    bipartisan legislation on each of these topics.

    D:
    What about the pending Senate race? Franken vs. Coleman — other than the fact
    that this race feels like it should be run in New York, what’s your take on
    what’s shaping up to be a particularly vicious contest?

    M:
    I think Al is a great candidate, as is the other candidate running for the
    Democratic endorsement, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. Either one will make for
    an exceptional US Senator.

    D:
    Before you started running for office, you know – back when you had a life,
    what’d you do with your spare time? Defending our fair city from the undead
    predations of Cindy Brucato, perhaps?

    M:
    You’re right that when you’re running for office, you really don’t have time
    for too much else – it takes over your life. Before I got into this, I
    liked playing pick up basketball, watching old movies, and going out for dinner
    with good friends – typical stuff. My friends stopped taking my calls a
    few months ago (I think they think I’m calling to ask them for contributions),
    so I’m looking forward to spending some time with them after the campaign.

    D:
    Michele Bachmann – direct connection to God or just bat-shit crazy?

    M:
    Now, now – be nice. I disagree with a lot of what she stands for, and I
    think she’s out of step with most Minnesotans on a variety of issues. I
    think she’s in for a tough reelection race.

  • Rare Chinese Animal Born at the Zoo

    Ok. This is just too funny to pass up. We just received a press release from the Minnesota Zoo, with some exciting — though strangely vague — news. The email reads as follows:

    For Immediate Release
    04.23.08

    Rare Chinese Animal Born at the Minnesota Zoo

    News release & photo attached.

    Great, but what the heck animal is it? Is this not important enough to include in the email? Seems a bit odd.

    My sources, however — better known as Google and Wikipedia — tell me it’s a Takin, "a goat-antelope found in of the Eastern Himalayas." I wonder if it’s not also a rare Nepali animal, or a rare Afghani animal. Perhaps a rare Pakistani animal. Perhaps not.

    OK. To be fair, the email was supposed to have come with a press release, as stated, which was later sent to me. It has all the missing information and more. Here it is:

    Apple Valley, MN – April 23, 2008:  A rare Sichuan takin calf was born on exhibit this morning at the Minnesota Zoo.

    The calf, whose gender is unknown at this time, is currently on exhibit with its mother, father, and two other takin. (The calf will likely be off exhibit on Thursday and Friday to ensure its health and safety, and also to undergo a neonatal exam).

    Considered national treasures by the Chinese, takin are rare in North American zoos: only 50 takin are found in 12 zoos in North America. Tim Hill, a zookeeper on the Minnesota Zoo’s Northern Trail, manages the North American Regional Studbook for the takin. Studbooks help zoos manage a small captive population of animals. Listed as "protected" by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), takin are mysterious animals. Found in forest mountainsides in China, the Sichuan takin prefers mid-altitude mountains, dense undergrowth, and rocky hillsides. They also share the same ranges as pandas and golden monkeys. "Little is known about their numbers in the wild due to their inaccessible habitat," says Hill. "Illegal hunting and habitat destruction, due to an increase in human population, threaten these animals," he says.

    The Chinese refer to the takin as "Ling Niu" or "antelope cow." This unusual-looking relative of the musk ox looks like a small moose, climbs like a mountain goat, has short curved horns like a gnu, and snorts. Takin, who stand 3-4 feet high, eat shrubs, grasses, and leaves. They are even able to stand on their hind legs and reach branches 10 feet off the ground.

    There are three subspecies of takin: Mishmi, Golden, and Sichuan. The Mishmi takin, found in India, Bhutan, and Burma, can be recognized by its chocolate-brown coat. The Golden takin – named for its golden color – is found in China, as is the Sichuan takin, whose appearance can be considered a "mix" the other two subspecies: a golden face with a dark-colored body.

    The Minnesota Zoo participates in a breeding loan agreement with other zoos, a valuable tool allowing zoos to breed unrelated animals. All takin are managed cooperatively between the zoos.

    The Minnesota Zoo is located on 500 acres in Apple Valley, only minutes south of the Mall of America. For more information on the Zoo, call 952.431.9200 or visit mnzoo.org. The Minnesota Zoo is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums.

    Congrats to the Minnesota Zoo. Be sure to stop in and say hello to our new Minnesota baby! 

  • The Young Ones

    It is commonly accepted that the population of Europe would be declining in a pretty startling way if not for constant immigration. Unlike Americans, the people of Western Europe are simply not having very many children. Who can blame them? These are heady days for the European economy and I assume the citizens who work hard to make their nations prosper would like to benefit from their labors without having to think of the next generation.

    When I walk around Edinburgh, though, what’s right there in front of me is at odds with these statistics. Experts say how the population of Scotland, in decline since the 1970s, will continue to shrink unless immigration reverses the downturn. When I walk around the city, though, I usually encounter many, many people who look like they are in their teens. Many of them are schoolchildren cutting class to shout and cuss around beautiful St. Giles Cathedral. Others are chavs (in Scotland called "neds") playing silly games between sips of Scotland’s famed hangover cure, Irn-Bru. Indeed, not a day has passed that I haven’t seen kids on Edinburgh’s main streets and thoroughfares loitering and whiling away their time.

    Now, at my tender age, I must admit, I have little to warrant a dislike for the more unseemly behavior of foolhardy youth. At the expense of sounding like a stick in the mud though, I will say that sometimes I see kids here do things that I think are pretty stupid. For example, recently I saw a crowd of chavs congregate around a KFC, and two of these wannabe street toughs began to take swipes at each other. Their dozen or so companions watched as the violent horseplay escalated. The boys began to punch each other in the face: a brush on the chin, a cutting hit across the cheek, and so on. The kid’s smiles contorted into scowls and, as their punches got more and more audible, the crowd around KFC got bigger. I looked to my left and right and saw old ladies, men in ties, thirty-something-looking couples, all of us pulled to this spectacle by our shameless voyeurism. The kids continued to fight, until finally one pulled away, but fell. The other fighter, his faced stained red with exhaustion, lunged towards him. The boy on the floor jumped up and ran away, and then his opponent followed briskly, with a band of eager street-fight aficionados behind him in pursuit of the show.

    Sometimes the aggressive urges of the urban young are filtered in other ways, as when a group of older teens scrawl angry political manifestos like "END LONDON RULE!" and "SCOTLAND IS NOT BRITAIN!" in chalk, usually after a drunken night out. Of course, feelings of nationalism are not limited to the young or the bored. Respected Glaswegian author, Alasdair Gray of Lanark fame is an avowed nationalist, as is Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister (the equivalent of a prime minister in the local parliament). The young Scots who make a patriotic mark on the sooty walls of their capital, in some not-too-distant future, might be likened, to the Irish freedom fighters of yesteryear, voicing the wills of a growing multitude. Their future countrymen may refer to these graffiti as a sort of shorthand "St. Crispin’s Day Speech," helping to rouse the feelings of millions of potential Bravehearts. For my part, I think it’s a better pastime than watching your friends get beaten up outside a fast-food place.

    Still, it’s wrong to judge kids so harshly, I suppose. Most adults probably fantasize about getting into spats about nothing and punching their colleagues across the mouth. I imagine that some of those weekday warriors watching the fight, their ties wound up to 11 and their palms sweaty with anticipation, were probably living through those kids, thinking at the time, "God – beating my best friend up would probably be so much cheaper than fucking therapy." But then they immediately think of potential complications like apology letters and anger management and other things society demands of the civilized, and all those violent fantasies disappear the way the dreams of getting a hot wife and a yacht did all those years ago. Mr. "Maybe Next Year" sinking irreversibly into the quicksand of casual Fridays and postponed pleasure. At least those kids seem to get what they want: a big, visceral smack in the face, the publicity of gladiatorial combat and a feeling of idiot grandeur.

  • Living Room Chit Chat

    Sitting in my living room, having a beer with a neighbor (and my love), and thought I’d share the chat.

    My neighbor, making small talk over his Corona Light, asks if we know that the Aborigines are killing themselves.

    "Ah, of course," I say. "It only stands to reason. Eventually we all begin to imitate and support the American way."

    He’s confused, of course. This isn’t what he meant.

    No, they’re refusing to procreate, he explains. Apparently, the world is just too horrible. Who can blame them?

    The love of my life says this is hubris. "Do they think they’re better than everyone else?"

    "Yes! Yes, thank god," I chime in. "Isn’t that the only thing that drives us to be decent — to be better than all of this?"

    Our neighbor tells us that they have a tradition of a walkabout, in which they travel about looking for spiritual guidance. It’s like a vision quest.

    I explain that there’s a film about this, a documentary that follows one boy’s/man’s walkabout. Is this true? Or did I make it up. The only film I found by google (because it’s now a verb and many other things) is certainly not a documentary. Oh, well, false information once again. (Such pain and humiliation.)

    I’m saved by an even more ridiculous prospect. "There’s a movie called Vision Quest. It’s about a wrestler."

    (He’s trying to be ridiculous, and doing so well. That’s the brilliance.)

    "There was a really hot chick in it."

    We go back to the Aborigines. (With an interjection of her name: Linda Fiorentino. It figures.) "They’ve been around for a long time." (No shit!) "Their name literally means ‘Real People’."

    Things have just gotten too hard, and they’ve concluded that they can no longer go on the way they used to.

    "Well, have they ever considering finding a new way to go on? They call it adapting."

    The love of my life gets agitated. Hubris. Hubris. Who do they think they are to stand in the way of change? Who do they think they are to refuse their most basic human instinct, to reproduce?

    Who do they think they are?

    You tell me. I don’t know. Change is beautiful and necessary. It is everything. Almost everything. But where do you draw the line and say, no! This flow must stop! This is not the right way! Where? When?

     

    ARE YOU OUTAGED, AWED, OR FLOORED? SEND ME YOUR RANTINGS (within reason), AND I’LL CONSIDER IT FOR PUBLICATION.

     

  • Passing the Torch

    Four kids are sauntering toward
    Jeff Allen. Their arms are crossed and they look a little scared.

    "Hey guys," Allen says,
    affecting a cool older brother tone. "When do you go on?"

    "Eight minutes," says one
    of the boys.

    This is why they’re scared.

    Exactly eight minutes later,
    the quartet of three 16-year-olds and a 14-year-old drummer take the
    stage. The band’s name is Shoe Shiners. Expect to hear it a lot in
    the next few years.

    In a lot of ways, the upstarts
    remind Allen, The Plastic Constellations singer, of himself at that
    age, except that they’re better.

    "The Shoe Shiners are a special
    case because they are so talented for their age," Allen says. "They
    are so good that it almost makes me retroactively jealous that I wasn’t
    that good when I was that age. When we were 14 we played really shitty
    pop songs, and these kids are light years ahead."

    When the Shoe Shiners were
    14 they released their first album.

    Still, the Shoe Shiners have
    yet to grow into their talent. On stage they look nervous. This could
    be because their parents are in the audience snapping up photos. That
    and they are opening for their idols in the biggest rock club in Minneapolis.
    Musically, they are spot on. They play grunge infused with a hefty dose
    of pop. And, yes, they are way too good for their age.

    Two bands later when The Plastic
    Constellations go on, the Shoe Shiners are standing front and center
    studying them. This is a special night—not just because their favorite
    band is playing but because this could also be their last show. This
    is simultaneously a CD release party for The Plastic Constellations
    and a farewell concert. The band recently announced its "indefinite
    hiatus."

    "We had a great time [touring]
    with the last record, but all of us are in long-term relationships or
    married. The idea of doing it again sounded like something we didn’t
    want to do," Allen explains. "So we decided if we’re not going
    to do that, are we comfortable being a local band that just plays every
    once in a while? Not really. We want to leave when we’re in our prime.
    If we play again, great. We’re not breaking up officially yet, but
    we might not play again, either."

    The Plastic Constellations
    do sound in their prime. They play the kind of music that is perfect
    for the last day of high school. Only, it feels like tonight the band
    is officially graduating into adulthood. The music playfully flirts
    with punk. It’s too happy to be emo. It’s not contrived enough to
    be truly indie rock. So it’s just rock—happy, wonderful rock with
    lots of "la-las" and the errant "wooh." It is, however, rock
    that focuses on the subjects of wizards and dragons.

    The highlight of the show comes
    during a song about a fire-breathing serpent. The band tosses close
    to a hundred cardboard swords into the crowd and suggests the audience
    do what they want with them. This, of course, means a lot of hitting
    and throwing and whacking them about. The mood is too fun to be sad,
    even if it may be the band’s last concert.

    And at the end of the night,
    The Plastic Constellations invite half of the Shoe Shiners on stage
    with them.

    "It’s coming full circle,"
    Allen says. "Here we are, 11 years later playing 1st Ave.
    at our sort of final show with a young band."

    Consider the torch passed.

  • Look Who's Coming to Seder

    This week is Passover. Christians everywhere are saying, "Great, I love Passover! Matzoh’s so fun!" Meanwhile Jews lament eight days of indigestion.

    What’s kind of interesting, if you’re into this sort of thing, is that more than any other (Jewish) holiday, Passover is based on a narrative. If one were to try and place the narrative in a genre – other than "Religious studies" – it would be a pretty difficult task. The story has the literary elements of an epic saga, magical realism, an immigrant tale, and contains the best car chase in (fictive) history.

    But the Seder isn’t simply about re-telling the book of Exodus. It’s an analysis of and an embellishment on it. We don’t use the Old Testament to guide ourselves through the evening, rather the story is transplanted into our Haggadot, or prayer books. This distancing of the text from its primary source immediately opens the story up to interpretation. If you search for Haggadot on Amazon, there are over one hundred different entries — one hundred different interpretations of the same story.

    The old joke is, if there are two Jews having a conversation, then most likely there are three opinions. Not to stereotype my own religion, but it seems we take and make our theologic meanings by letting our separate sentiments disperse and then converge, rather than everyone working from the same origin.

    A few years back, my father found this fairly esoteric haggadah compiled by Gérard Garouste and Marc-Alain Ouaknin, and we’ve been referring to it on-and-off at our recent Seders. Perusing it last week, I found this kind of incredible passage on the meaning of re-telling the exodus story, which I think has ramifications for writing and reading in general (N.B. – the portion of the Seder specifically designated for relating Exodus is called the maggid):

    "Maggid" means, "he tells." Maggid is the most important part, at least qualitatively, of the Haggadah. It is the account of the Exodus from Egypt, an anthology compiled from texts chosen by the Sages of the Talmud.

    Maggid is preceded by the breaking of matzoh. The words of the telling emerge from that break, from the empty place left between the two pieces of matzah. That breaking is an invitation to the reader to enter the text to say his own word there. That is why the following part is called maggid, "he tells," rather than "the account." The two pieces of matzah indicate that there must be two in order for the text to exist – the author and the reader. The reader of the Haggadah is not merely the keeper of the text, but also its co-author. The break thus comes to draw the readers out of passivity to make them enter the play of writing, to give them access to the enchantments of writing. The reader is not the dazzled or bored spectator of a story made elsewhere, with which he or she has only a distant relationship. The text speaks to us, about us, and about our own history.

    This duality thus becomes that of the text and its commentary. To read is always to comment.

    "To read is always to comment." — Isn’t that great stuff? I feel like they’ve nailed down the magic of reading a great book — those moments when you feel a bit more connected to the text, as if you’d predicted what would happen before you read it, as if it was something you’d wanted to say, that a particular author happened to say for you.
    Speaking of — to take this post in another direction, I thought I’d just mention a couple books that have come out of Seder literature. First of all, the character of Merry Levov in Philip Roth’s American Pastoral re-enacts the Exodus. During the Vietnam War, she bombs a post office to protest U.S. Policy, much as Moses was protesting Egyptian policy when he murdered a harsh slave driver. Soon thereafter, Merry goes into underground exile, just like Moses, to hide from her would-be punishers. I’m making it sound a bit blatant, but Roth, as per usual, establishes this subtly and beautifully.

    Second, though I won’t expound on it, I’m pretty sure Saul Bellow’s epic The Adventures of Augie March can be read as an Exodus journey.

    Lastly, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot could be said to come out of the tradition. At Seder, we are commanded to set an extra place for Elijah, the prophet, whose coming signals the coming of the Messiah. We leave our front doors open (neighborhood depending), and fill the extra plate with those symbols so central to the holiday. But he never comes. Obviously.

    Unless you happen to be in my family. Around sundown on the first night of Passover, we are visited by Elijah, who happens to be four-foot-ten, maybe ninety pounds. He sports a cotton-ball beard, and a caftan my grandparents picked up on an elder hostel to Morocco about a decade ago. He brings wishes of peace and brotherhood, and then disappears into the bathroom from where, five minutes hence, Superman-like, my grandmother emerges.