The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • Bohemian Rescission

    After days of agonizing over much hard work lost to a dead hard drive. After weeks of researching digital news media for an upcoming story. After months glued to my laptop for your reading pleasure. I took refuge last night in a friend’s home, where I can always turn for the simplest bohemian pleasures. Five to seven bodies huddled in a dim-lit room strumming guitars and plucking banjos, blowing blues harps and crafting verse.

    But even the most sacred of spaces has been infiltrated by the net, even the doggerel.

    Charlie has a daughter who’s 19 years old. His name’s not Charlie, but he has a daughter, and his daughter’s name’s not Ann. Ann lost her billfold, he says, this man that’s not Charlie, of his daughter, who’s not Ann. She lost her billfold with her driver’s license, credit cards, $70 in cash, and a check for her rent. She really lost her billfold.

    Some man found Ann’s wallet. Or he found someone else’s whose name is not Ann. And he looked her up on Facebook. And he found this girl, not Ann. And now he wants to meet her, though he knows her name’s not Ann. And now she wants to meet him, to get her billfold from the man.

    My advice: "Don’t go alone."

    A conversation about Puerto Rican nationalism — yes, I confess, not a rare topic of conversation when I’m around — leads to an argument over who was president when four Puerto Rican nationalists held up congress in 1954. Why wonder when Google lies awake in the next room? Was it I who woke the beast?

    Truman. It was Truman. No, not this Truman, Harry S. Truman.

    And now twenty minutes spent on Sneezing Panda and the like. Six million people across the globe have done the same.

    And close to a million have watched three-year-old Kassie tell us what she’s going to do if a monster comes for her.

    There was a dachshund in the house, which explains this one. "Wait. Wait. Listen to what she says at the end," says another Charlie, who is not Charlie, to another Ann, who is not Ann."

    "Have you seen Dramatic Chipmunk?" 5,752,712 people have now wasted five seconds of their time. That’s a total of 479,393 minutes, or 7,990 hours, or 333 days. Good thing it’s short. We’ve wasted close to a year.

     

  • From the Wayback Machine: My Brief History of Magic

    Elmer Gylleck was a Chicago architect who did a bumbling
    comedy-magic act built around a character he called Dr. Clutterhouse. Dr. Clutterhouse would come on stage clutching a briefcase and carrying
    an umbrella. The briefcase was possessed, full of odd spirits; ghosts
    would fly from it, and gunshots would ring out whenever Clutterhouse
    opened the thing. When the briefcase wasn’t bedeviling him, the Doctor
    would be having table problems (he invented a wonderful collapsing
    table prop) or any of a number of other slapstick scenarios that were
    reliable crowd pleasers. Gylleck had a nice, clean act, with solid
    magic chops and plenty of laughs. Very influential. I’ve seen I don’t
    know how many third-rate Clutterhouse knock-offs over the years.

    In the ’60s there was a shift, and the theatrically baroque Clutterhouse sort of thing pretty much disappeared. There were all of a sudden these balloon workers all over
    town. A guy named Jim Davis was working Old Town, making thousands of
    balloon animals a week and drawing crowds and making lots of money.
    This fella was actually pretty good. He’d make giraffes, elephants, all
    sorts of interesting stuff. He actually wrote a useful little book on
    the subject —One Balloon Zoo, I think it was called. And
    there was another guy, Jack Dennerlein, an ad-man who also did good
    balloon work –tremendous birds– and he did a book, New Twists For Balloon Workers.
    Don Allen was one more Chicago magician who cashed in on the whole
    balloon thing. He’d gotten his start, I seem to remember, as a
    bartender who did magic tricks for the customers, which is something I
    don’t believe you see much anymore. Which is really a shame, because
    little pocket and card tricks are things that can help a bartender pick
    up a few extra tips, not to mention the occasional private party or
    corporate gig on the side. Anyway, I think Don Allen did a book on
    balloon tricks as well, Don Allen‘s Balloon Work…or, no, it was Don Allen‘s Rubber Circus. That’s right. That’s exactly what it was.

    For a long time I was kicking around the idea of doing a little book
    of my own, something more like a history of balloon work, maybe even a
    historical overview of balloons in general, but to be honest with you
    it just seemed like too much fucking work. Steve Martin, of course, had
    some wild early success with balloon work. Everybody knows Steve
    Martin, but guys like Jim Davis and Jack Dennerlein are pretty much
    forgotten.

    When I graduated from college I used to hang out at magic shops,
    great old places like Magic, Inc. in Chicago, or Eagle Magic in
    Minneapolis. I was never really much of a magician myself; I didn’t
    really have the discipline to get much beyond the hobbyist stage. But I
    always loved the whole culture of magic, and for a number of years I saw as
    many magicians as I could, and for a time I got steady, small-paying
    work writing patter lines for a number of magicians around the Midwest.
    I also did a short-lived newsletter that ran profiles of regional
    magicians, history pieces, a patter column, and a lot of
    advertisements for mail order gags and pocket tricks. We had quite an
    impressive roster of subscribers and the thing made money on a
    shoestring, but it just got to be too much work for me, and I’ll be the
    first guy to admit that work has never been my strong suit.

    When it comes to magic buffs I’m kind of an oddball in that I’m
    happy as a fucking clam if I have no idea how a guy did what he just
    did, if you see what I’m saying. I don’t want to know. I still like to
    be fooled. That’s the appeal of it for me. I want to be one of the
    slack-jawed yokels in the crowd, shaking my head in dumb amazement. I
    like the history more than the how-to; the history of magic is full of
    tremendous characters, genuine oddballs, and, frankly, a number of guys
    who were crazy as shithouse rats. I like a magician who has a spooky
    little something in his eyes; the very look of the guy should raise a
    few questions in the mind of the audience. If the guy’s already got you
    wondering before he’s even done a single trick, well, hey boy, he’s
    got you right where he wants you.

    Magic’s an amazing thing. The same basic repertoire of tricks has
    been baffling and entertaining people for generations, and precisely
    because the majority of the people in the audience feel exactly like I do –they
    don’t want to know how all those old tricks are done. Which is why
    you’ll still see these characters in tuxedos doing tricks with scarves
    and pigeons, and sawing women in half and pulling rabbits out of hats.
    If Joe Blow really wanted to he could figure out how every one of these
    tricks is accomplished with one visit to a library or a little poking around on the internet, but he doesn’t want
    to. And that’s a beautiful thing. That’s the real magic.

    The other thing I like to tell people is that magic is a whole lot
    more than just the usual elaborate smoke and mirrors productions you see
    so often these days. A great magician can still blow your mind with
    nothing but a quarter or a deck of cards. I remember Max Holden, a hand
    shadow artist who could hold an audience and mesmerize them every bit
    as effectively as these guys who move Winnebagos or make elephants
    disappear. I never did figure out how Holden did his famous "Monkey in
    the Bellfry" number. And for my money there’s still nothing better than
    a real professional close-up man like Milton Kort, a cups- and-balls
    fella who was also a virtuoso with coins and a deck of cards. A man like that
    could fool and entertain an audience in even the most casual and
    intimate of settings.

    Another terrific old
    balloon performer who I should mention just came to mind: Jim Sommers, who used to do a
    routine with balloon animals at the Pickle Barrel North in Chicago, and
    also, I seem to recall, did his own little book on balloon magic, Blow By Blow.

    I’ve also seen some dandy cigarette acts in my time. That sort of thing is, of course, taboo these days,
    what with attitudes about smoking being what they are. But I still
    remember a fat redhead –for some damn reason I can’t recall the
    fellow’s name to save my soul– who did a masterful bit he eventually
    marketed to the trade with the high-falutin’ title, "Ireland Simplex
    Cigarette Production." And then there was Ed Marlo’s brilliant "Cigars,
    Cigarettes, and Pipes" routine, which I saw a half dozen times in the
    early ’70s. That guy did things with a cigarette I still can’t believe
    are possible. As I was saying, I’ve always admired a man who can work
    without fancy props, stooges, or floozies.

    And despite what some of the Bible-bangers might think, magic
    doesn’t have to be at odds with the teachings of the Good Book. I have
    fond memories of a fellow by the name of Joseph White, a magician who
    called himself "God’s Magical Midget." This guy did an entire act built
    around Bible stories and religious lessons. A very effective little
    production all around, a dynamite show, and I’ll be the first to admit
    that I’m not exactly a holy man. A fellow who could learn to perform basic
    routines with a Biblical theme or religious patter was guaranteed
    steady work at chuch functions, socials, and Bible schools.

    I still remember when "Industrial Magic" was a new concept, and guys
    were learning that they could use magic presentations to sell product.
    In the mid-’60s it seemed like every trade show, convention, sales
    meeting, and grand opening featured a magic act. It was damn good
    business all around until the bottom pretty much fell out of the whole
    thing. These days they hire motivational speakers or they get
    half-dressed broads to stand around their booths to hand out
    promotional materials.

    I have a precise memory of the very moment magic first got me in its
    clutches. I was at a little carnival somewhere with my grandparents,
    and there was an aging illusionist who broke a slab of granite over the
    body of a purportedly catalepsed subject who was suspended from the backs of two
    chairs.

    "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Human Bridge!" the old magician shouted, and then he swung his sledge hammer.

    This was a long time ago, of course, and I think what I saw that night was magic. Like I say, though, that’s the beauty of the racket. All these years later I still don’t know, but I remember that moment like it was yesterday.

  • Wi-Fi Vampires

    photo by McClatchey News Service

     

    It was, says Lisa Berg, a "humbling" note to write.

    The single sheet of paper hangs inside the restroom at her coffee shop, Blue Moon Coffee Cafe, and describes her plight. The place is nearly always full — in that there’s nowhere for walk-ins to sit — and people are reading, writing, typing away. But there’s often only one customer to a table. Few people are talking, and those who do are shushed. Worse, patrons will order a single drink and sit for hours, occupying a four-top spread with computer, books, legal pads, and pens. Business is down more than 30 percent. For the first time since she opened the shop in 1994, Berg is afraid she might have to close.

    "This has been happening since last summer," says Berg. "We look out and the place seems busy. And I love the company and love our customers and I’m grateful. But what we notice is that even though it’s full and people will come in and leave because there’s no place to sit, is that people will linger with one cup of tea for three or four or five hours, getting water refills while they do their work. And I don’t think that’s going to work much longer for us."

    Granted, Blue Moon and other Lake Street businesses were dealt a blow by the year-and-a-half-long construction project that routed traffic away from their doors. Profits began to flag back then. But though they’ve had Wi-Fi for more than three years, Berg has noticed a shift recently. In short, people are treating her coffee shop — and others, according to her friends who own similar places — like a public facility where they can get a free Internet connection, ice water, and bathroom facilities.

    "We’ve always had lots of writers and students and teachers," Berg says. "That’s the coffeehouse culture. But the atmosphere used to be about conversation and it had that sort of vibrancy. Now that the shift is to study hall, it’s so quiet. People are tippy-tapping on their computers and I want to accommodate that but I also want to have people be mindful that this is a business, not a library."

    Several times lately, she’s had to mediate when a customer who was working became irritated because there were children gabbling and playing nearby. She’s even watched people come in with a bag lunch and bottles of their own drinks, claim a table, and sit for an afternoon buying absolutely nothing.

    Friends have told her to shut down the Wi-Fi when freeloaders park and use it. Other coffeehouse owners use this method, whispering to their regular, paying customers that the outage is temporary but leaving it off until the vampires pack up their gear and leave.

    Berg thought she’d try writing a civilized note, instead. After all, most of the offenders are themselves writers and scholars. A month ago, she says ruefully, this seemed like the best way to get their attention.

    Not so.

    There was little response to Berg’s plea. A few customers mentioned it and were concerned, she reports. One was offended. But nothing changed. Even people who acknowledged her situation and talked at length about the sad state of the economy did not start buying more. So Berg is faced with a few tough choices: She can raise prices, increase seating, or hang signs — similar to the ones at Coffee News and other high-volume, college-area coffeeshops — insisting people buy something, share tables, and vacate within one hour during peak times.

    "I think the solution is to provide more seats and maybe to raise our prices a little, which we haven’t for a couple years," she says. "We serve mostly organic and stuff has gone up but I just hate raising prices because this is a humble neighborhood in a lot of ways and I want to keep Blue Moon accessible to people."

    Of course, she admits, it won’t be accessible if it’s gone.

    As for the last option — demanding that people buy something and sit for no more than an hour — Berg says for partly selfish reasons, she is unwilling to go that far.

    "I want to keep this a place where people can just come be and hang out," she says. "I love seeing people doing their day, whatever that means: reading the paper or writing a dissertation or doing the crossword. I wouldn’t enjoy what I do so much without that kind of thing."

  • The Three Pointer: Getting Past the KG Hangover

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)


    Game #48, Home Game #24: Boston 88, Minnesota 86

    Season record: 10-38

    1. Kevin Garnett, Over and Out

    The big man came, he smiled, he waved, hit his heart once or twice, and left. The applause from the fans was long and genuine, but not so enthusiastic as to induce goosebumps, or to make either side of this classically Minnesotan, passive-aggressive relationship believe that something historically special was taking place.

    It’s another small but significant step of separation, and I’m glad it is over. As someone who has covered the Timberwolves on a near game-by-game basis since 1991, I’ve struggled to be a person of perspective, to suck it up and take the long view, and to give this current squad a chance for their talent, and their potential, to be judged on its own merits. I’ve tried not to be baited by the inevitable but absurd KG-Al Jefferson comparisons, by the various members of the media who say they’d rather have Jefferson than Garnett in a Wolves’ uniform, by the folks who seem enthusiastic, almost giddy, about the trade that occurred this summer. So I am going to dive into this one more time and then hopefully leave it alone.

    When Kevin McHale was named the most successful executive in pro team sports last year by Forbes.com, the hoots and hollars of derision were appropriately widespread. People who didn’t look at the methodology wondered how such a conclusion could possibly be drawn. And the answer is, in the context of the dunderheaded Wolves management that had existed before, be it Bob Stein or Trader Jack McCloskey or the Musselman-McKinney power struggle, McHale did indeed look like a genius. The Wolves never won more than 29 games in an 82-game season before McHale came on board. And because he was instrumental in acquiring Gugliotta for Donyell Marshall, drafting KG and Stephon Marbury, installing Flip Saunders on the sideline, and weeding out the Laettners and the Riders, McHale laid the groundwork and then filled in the pieces, culminating in Spree and Cassell, for a franchise that *averaged* 51 wins per season from 1999 through 2004. That’s a hell of an improvement, and that’s what impressed the statistical formula Forbes.com was using.

    The Garnett trade can be regarded with a similarly diverse, contextual perspective. For those who endured the increasingly dysfunctional, dispiriting decline in the team’s fortunes the last three years, ending the inexorably fractious KG drama in exchange for a bona fide cornerstone player in Jefferson, a couple of draft picks, huge cap relief in Theo Ratliff’s contract, and a couple of keepers in Gomes and (surprisingly) Telfair is a very good trade indeed. When the trade occurred I considered the circumstances and endorsed it. I still do. It was the right move and–*in context*–a good deal for the Wolves.

    But proponents of the trade should stop right there. Don’t blame Garnett for the Wolves’ failures, or proclaim that, all things being equal, you’d prefer to have Jefferson instead, because you risk looking like a fool. Yes, I understand that Jefferson is just 23, already averaging 21.5 points and 12.3 rebounds a game, whereas KG at a similar age was averaging 18.5 and 9.6. I was there when KG was 23. He was putting together a season in which, if Jefferson’s current averages hold out, had him block 37 more shots than Jefferson will block this year, steal the ball 55 more times, and, on a team where a relatively selfless Marbury was the point guard, passed for more than triple the number of assists Jefferson will deliver this year. Then there is the small matter of the 24 minutes when the Timberwolves don’t have the ball.

    Right now, the Celtics are 38-9 and Kevin Garnett is on a very short list of MVP candidates. Meanwhile, Leon Powe went 8-10 FG on Jefferson last night, and when Powe ran down and tipped in Ray Allen’s missed layup with one-fifth of a second on the clock, Jefferson had not yet stepped over the half-court line. I say this out of no disrespect for Jefferson, a marvelous player who did not ask for this comparison, and who will make my job infinitely more pleasurable over the next five years. I say it out of disrespect for clueless homers suddenly contorted into revisionist history, who, because they don’t want to think about how little this franchise reaped of a utterly distinctive and magical performer during his dozen years here, are overpraising what was salvaged via the KG yard sale.

    Now you know why I’m glad this latest Garnett frenzy of attention is over. It brings out the grumpy old man in me. Because when it is all said and done, I miss the athletic beauty, and the consistency of effort and execution. I miss, with an ache and a surly passion that will now hopefully go back under wraps, the opportunity to watch Kevin Garnett display his multifaceted virtues on a near daily basis, including live and up close at least 40 times per year.

    2. Now About The Ballgame…

    You can probably blame it on such a young and inexperienced roster, but aside from Ryan Gomes, there is not a single player on Wolves who sports a balanced overall game of solid offense and solid defense, a fact that was apparent throughout last night’s enjoyable game of roller-coaster highs and lows. Corey Brewer not only throttled Paul Pierce as well as can be expected for the second time this season, but was a whirling dervish of steals, rebounds and defensive rotations for most of the game–it ranks up there with his 18-rebound, 5-assist performance against Atlanta as his best game of the season. (Wittman, who started Brewer over Rashad McCants at the 3 to get the matchup on Pierce, says he thinks Brewer’s length is the key, that Pierce likes to clear space for his jumper and Brewer is too long and tenacious to let that happen.) But Brewer was only 3-10 FG, a total that didn’t appreciably diminish his 35.2% field goal accuracy for the season. Marko Jaric likewise hounded Ray Allen into 5-16 FG, but when Jaric went up for an uncontested jumper with the game on the line, did any Wolves fan feel good about the probable outcome?

    On the flipside you’ve got Jefferson and Craig Smith. Be it Big Baby Glen Davis or the smaller, quicker James Posey, the Rhino cavorted at will in the paint, shooting 7-10 FG that included a desperation trey miss. But on defense especially, Smith is a ‘tweener without position, unable to handle the behemoths backing him down or the larger 3s and quicker 4s who roam beyond the paint. As for Jefferson, once he was rid of his old practice partner– the Celts starting center Kendrick Perkins, who wrenched his left shoulder late in the third period–he was unstoppable whenever Boston couldn’t prevent him from getting the ball. It is easy to forget how much of Jefferson’s post-game relies on guile; his upfakes, the footwork, the spectrum of options he has at his disposal and the unpredictible ways he combines them. But Perkins went against him every day in practice during most of that formative process, and defends Big Al with uncanny clairvoyance. Last night, Jefferson was 4-11 FG, had two shots blocked and committed six turnovers before Perkins went down. After that he was 5-6 FG without a miscue. But, as with Smith, defending people is more problematical.

    On the perimeter, it is blatantly obvious that McCants is Minnesota’s premiere scoring threat via perimeter jumpers or dribble penetration. The seemingly effortless elan with which he twice dribbled through two or three Celtics en route to a layup during the first 2 minutes of the second period was simply the latest in a string of constant reminders this season that no one on the Wolves can get his own shot more effectively than Shaddy.

    And yet, with equally numbing frequency, it is apparent that McCants is endurin
    g a star-crossed campaign. Despite three steals and disciplined play at both ends of the court during the first half last night, the defense of Jaric and Brewer deprived Shaddy of court time until the final three minutes of the third. Then, with 8:51 to go in the game, a fateful play occurred that began with a steal by Antoine Walker. ‘Toine got the ball to McCants and the Wolves were 3-on-2 on the break. But McCants, whose skill set certainly gave him cause to try and take it all the way himself, instead followed the bball catechism of rewarding the ball-hawk if logically possible, and dished to Walker on the right wing. Walker flubbed it on the dribble, the Celts converged, and the ball rolled down his back and was up for grabs. McCants did not go down on the floor to get it, Tony Allen did, and fed it to Eddie House for a layup. At the next stoppage in play, Wittman subbed in Brewer for McCants, berated Shaddy as he went by, and left him on the pine the rest of the way. During the postgame, without naming names, he twice specificed the importance of getting down on the floor for loose balls as one of the little things that decide a ballgame. Whether this is tough love or residual disgust, standard discipline or a delayed blowback to Shaddy’s snit the other night, is difficult to know. But the drama continues.

    Then there is the point guard position. Randy Foye is the incumbent in waiting, the guy expected to sidle beside Jefferson for unquestioned team leader status. But Foye isn’t ready yet, and that’s being charitable. Readers are forgiven if they don’t recall that one of my mantras last season was that "Foye is not a point guard," but I didn’t remember either. But a few games seeing the difference between Telfair running the offense and Foye dribbling out on the perimeter has refreshened those impressions. Wittman was actually telling the truth when he said of Foye that last night was "one of his best games," although he once again reiterated that Foye is taking way too many three-pointers. The line on #4 was 3-12 FG, including 1-5 3ptFG, plus 3 assists and 2 turnovers, in 25:15. What the line can’t show is the lack of grease in the team’s offensive execution with Foye at the point instead of Telfair. The problem with Bassy, as always, is he can’t hit the broad side of a barn with that jumper. He was 1-8 FG tonight in 22:45, which puts a large dent in that otherwise nifty 6/1 assist-to-turnover ratio, if you regard missed shots as the onset of a probable turnover.

    Even Foye’s defenders don’t claim him to be Anthony Johnson, let alone Magic Johnson, when it comes to conscientiously doling out the rock. That may eventually came back to haunt the Wolves–as it currently stands, their future is Jefferson, Gomes, Foye, Brewer, and a center, which is a pretty shaky quintet on the handle. But for even that to pan out, Foye has to play defense better than the statuesque poses he’s been making thus far this season, and he has to not only find his offense but incorporate it into a sharing philosophy. The best sight of the night for Wolves fans had to be the time Foye drove the right lane and–in a more pleasant flashback from the glorious of last season–hung in the air waiting for the contact before banking the shot home. As Wittman said, you spend 3 and a half months not playing, it is a long and slow road back. Foye showed too much to imagine that he won’t bounce back. But, flat-out, you give Telfair Foye’s 4th quarter minutes last night and Wolves win that game. As it was, Foye missed 9 shots in 25:15 to Telfair’s seven misses in 22:45. That’s a collective 4-20 FG from your point guard position, added to Brewer and Jaric playing a collective 63:11. And that’s 86 points on 41.7% shooting, despite a combined 16-27 FG from Jefferson and Smith.

    3. Two Big Deals

    With the All-Star game just a week away and playoff positioning beginning in earnest, I will be devoting this third point in the trey increasingly to various observations about other teams around the league. Today, it’s my quick take on the recent blockbusters swung by the Lakers and the Suns.

    The Lakers now boast arguably the best player in the Western Conference in Kobe Bryant, and arguably the deepest team in the NBA. If Bynum comes back healthy, they are the biggest threat to the Spurs’ return to the NBA Finals. What’s great about Gausol in this context is the flexibility he provides their roster. LA is large–7 guys on their roster are 6-10 or above, only 3 are less than 6-5–yet remarkably quick for their size. Guys like Kobe, Luke Walton, and Lamar Odom are matchup nightmares for most swingmen. the two-headed point guard situation with Farmar and Fisher is a great mix of flashy kid and savvy vet. Ronny Turiaf, Sasha Vujacic, Vlad Rad, and even Trevor Ariza, should he ever find some minutes in edgewise, are the kind of players who can burn a second unit that isn’t paying attention or merely going through the motions. The roster’s personnel is well suited for the triangle offense, mobile and fairly smart (losing Kwame Brown boosted the BBIQ), and yet the team can ambush you in transition. The only questions are whether Bynum can be the stud in the paint that he was becoming before the injury, and whether team defense with respect to Gausol, Odom and the two point guards is sufficient in a rugged playoff series. I know Memphis clears lots of cap with Kwame and wants to feature Rudy Gay, season their point guards and line themselves up for the lottery, but even so, advantage Lakers.

    The Shaq to Phoenix bombshell is a little different. As with the Lakers’ trade, I’m probably not saying anything that hasn’t already been said, ad nauseum (fortunately I haven’t had time to read it, just getting it through osmosis in hoops talk with friends), but it is obviously a matter of Steve Kerr going for broke, figuring that spending tens of millions on a potent tub or lard is better than spending tens of millions on a cancerous swiss army knife (that would be Shaq and Shawn Marion, respectively). Phoenix’s odds of winning the NBA Championship go up about 10 percent with this deal. Unfortunately, their odds of being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs go up about 30 percent.

    How does a team getting the most out of Shaq also be a team that gets the most out of Steve Nash? It is difficult to think of two stars whose offensive games are less compatible. One of the precious few blessings of the deal will be that D’Antoni can significantly cut Nash’s minutes, and I would imagine they won’t share the court for any more than 12-20 minutes a game, tops. But it is hardly a secret that both don’t defend very well–who guards Duncan in a matchup with San Antonio? For that matter, who is their premiere low-post defender–Brian Skinner? Losing Marion puts pressure on a physically fragile Grant Hill and a mentally fragile Boris Diaw.

    The greatest justification for this trade is that Phoenix needs to do exactly what Kerr did–push all their chips on to a longshot hope of taking it all this season, because after that, the window is closed. New Orleans and Portland will soon take their place alongside Dallas and the Lakers as championship threats over the next 4-5 years. Better to get rid of the bitching Marion–who, even more than Joe Johnson, wins the Mr. Clueless award for wanting out of Phoenix–and have the aging Nash and the aging Shaq coming off the books; take the team down to the ground and start from scratch. But before that happens, see if D’Antoni can use his offensive genius to get a two-headed horse to go in the same direction. See if the change of speeds discombobulates opponents. See if Shaq and Nash can put their phenomenal talents and their considerable pride ahead of what common sense would say is a disastrous marriage.

    As much as I love and have defended both Shaq and Nash in recent years, I think common sense wins out. I’ve already made a wager with a colleague on the regular season: He wins the bet if the Suns finish among the top three seeds; I win if they finish between sixth and eighth. (Four an
    d five seeds are a push.) And, to bring it around to the Wolves, that Miami draft pick owed Minnesota in 2010 is going to be a lot worse with Marion joining Wade plus a high pick this season on the 2009-10 Heat roster.

  • Exclusive Sneak Peek of Voltage 08

    Unbeknownst to most folks, there was a public preview of the
    Voltage ’08 fashions at last night’s 10,000 Arts Party. Mostly I spent the
    evening being a bugaboo to the models backstage. (Don’t they look irritated?) But I also managed to take
    these snapshots of the looks:

     

    My favorite dress of the night was this casual number
    (above) by Annie Larsen. This piece is very youthful, which is in accordance
    with Larsen’s previous work. However, what truly captured my heart was the defined
    waistline. And that’s no belt, my dears. It’s stitched right into the dress. This,
    I think, makes it friendlier for wearers who are getting up there in years …

     

    The above dress is by Amanda Christine, who seems to be
    gaining more and more momentum as well as a fan base. You can buy her clothes
    at Cliché, mind you.

     

    This ensemble seemed fairly characteristic of designer Laura
    Fulk    –what with the asymmetrical cuts and juxtaposition of fabrics. However, I found
    it to be much more feminine than her previous work, probably because of the
    transparent top and the fur shrug.

     

    George Moskal is genius. It’s as if he innately knows how to
    flatter the female form. Here’s something I recently learned (through the
    grapevine) about him: His day job is designing Liz Lange maternity clothes for Target.
    Suddenly I see why the tent dresses jump to me from the clearance
    racks.

     

    And finally, here’s what’s new from Katherine Gerdes, who is
    still up to her old tricks as far as draping goes. However, she’s added a new
    twist, as you see here: hand dying the jersey fabrics.

  • Diet Coke Will Make You Fat & Other Truths

    So it’s not just your imagination, it actually is true. Those zero-calorie sodas people are popping left and right and up and down, ordering with their cheeseburgers and large fries and drinking instead of coffee in the morning or wine at night, actually lead to (or, as they say in medical-speak, "are linked to") metabolic syndrome, which is a fancy way of saying fat and all its attendant ills.

    An article in the New York Times, based upon a study done partly at the University of Minnesota, states that people who drink diet sodas are 18 percent more likely to have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and abdominal obesity. Now, I have to admit, there’s a part of me that wants to lecture here because WHAT after all did you expect, drinking something that contains not a single natural ingredient (except water) and floods your system with something called Aspartame — which is, by the way, one of the most widely-tested "foodstuffs" in history because it has been "linked to" (again, those words) a variety of different cancers and neurological disorders?

    Not that I blame you. I don’t mean to be churlish. Big advertising did a huge number on the population of the entire world. But come on, this isn’t rocket science. What it is is rocket fuel.

    Moving on, after years of pushing decaffeinated coffee on us, calling coffee a vice, and putting it on the health questionaires alongside queries about things like seatbelt use and unsafe sex (How many sexual partners have you had in the past year? How many whose health history is unknown to you? How many that hung out in heroin parlors with dealers named Rufus or Big Mama and had a strange, yellow tint to their skin? Oh, also, how many cups of coffee a day do you drink?) — surprise!!

    Coffee is good for you. Really good for you (unless, am I the only one jaded enough to think this?, Starbucks paid for the research). Scientists are now saying that coffee has more antioxidants than any other food: blueberries, green tea, even — you’re not going to believe this — red wine. It’s long been known that coffee prevents certain chronic diseases, such as Parkinson’s and diabetes. Now, the news is, it also has cancer preventives and more fiber than Metamucil. You know, that beverage you’ve been eschewing all these years in favor of caffeine-free Diet Coke. . . .

    Well, who could have known? Except, of course, those Abyssinian goatherders who used to chew on the berries from coffee bean trees back in the 5th century. Under no circumstances would you catch those guys drinking carbonated N-L-alpha-aspartyl-L-phenyl-alanine-1-methyl ester.

    Now, to switch topics entirely, about that recession that isn’t coming? Funny thing, it seems to have arrived. (Quick, someone go break the news to W.)

    Here’s what I don’t understand. I’m a lowly writer living in the Midwest, a Gen X’er who tends to be blasé about dire economic situations — I graduated from college and landed smack into one of the most humbling, after all — and is utterly distracted by the business of raising teenagers. Yet, I saw the signs.

    Gas prices, layoffs, housing. Hmmm. I was prepared for this problem. The Feds, apparently, were not. Of course, they’re not living down in the trenches, gassing up their Saturns at places with security cameras that record the license plate numbers of those who fill up and fly. They haven’t scaled back their grocery budget from $200 a week to $175 in order to save up for the winter heat bill, which is going to be a beast this year. They aren’t talking to friends of theirs: service providers, mind you — people who own cafes and coffeeshops — who say they may have to close if the numbers don’t stop plummeting.

    So are you ready for the good news? God, yes, I know you are.

    OK, here it is: Castello di Monsanto Chianti Classico Riserva 2004 (does it make you think of chemically-enhanced spaghetti sauce, too?). A $23-25 wine, available at Costco for somewhere in the neighborhood of $15. No Aspartame, tons of antioxidants, pretty much recession-proof. This is as smooth as a rugged Italian wine dares to be, made from mostly the standard Sangiovese grapes, but also Canaiolo and Colorino. Then it’s aged in Slavonian oak casks and French barriques.

    I’m not even sure what Slavonian oak is, but the result is a wine with equal parts raspberry, chalk, and loam, as well as a sweet, mushroomy flavor that brought to mind the colorful, spotted toadstools of fairytales. (I imagine Slavonia to be a place where tiny gnomes frolic in the grass with pointed Italian hats on their hairy little heads.) The finish on the Chianti is clear and clean and oaky, like a single note drawn on the G-string of a violin.

    The only downside here is that you must go to Costco in order to get the Monsanto at an affordable price. And this is a place where very unhealthy looking people, clearly suffering the effects of a nonexistent recession, are buying enormous flats of Diet Coke. Please be kind to them, for they know not what they do. And forge on, holding fast to these truths.

  • Dreamin' of Puppets, Power, and Oceans

    FILM
    California Dreamin’ (Endless)

    As part of a
    Romanian themed movie series showcasing the new wave in said country,
    the Walker will screen the final film from late director Cristian
    Nemescu, called California Dreamin’ (Endless).
    It was completed in 2006, when the director and sound editor were
    involved in a tragically fatal car crash. Chronicling the true story of
    an American NATO train traveling to Kosovo it imbues an honest realism
    and a potent political agenda. The film won Un Certain Regard at the
    2007 Cannes festival and it’s of a piece with another Romanian movie
    that is currently all the rage and soon to open in area theaters. But
    California Dreamin’ is its equal in terms of the virtuosity and beauty
    displayed by an incredibly talented director. —Christopher Hontos

    Friday at 7:30 p.m.,     Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600; $8 (members $6).

    Also today, Taxi to the Dark Side opens at the Lagoon Cinema.

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Eleanor’s Cabinet

    The finest puppeteer in Minneapolis,
    Michael Sommers (he’s also a painter and comic artist) presents this
    new, family-friendly work based on the children’s poems of Eleanor
    Farjeon    . It must be said, though, that childless theatergoers shouldn’t
    not be repelled by this subject matter-in fact, there are more than a
    few grown-up theatergoers (who fancy themselves especially
    sophisticated) counting themselves among Sommers’s biggest fans. You
    see, Sommers has a special talent for, again and again, conjuring up
    miniature worlds of magic. And he does so whether he’s working with
    hand-made puppets or engaging in object theater, for which he creates
    characters and spectacles using nothing but, say, kitchenware. He’s
    truly a Minneapolis treasure! —Christy DeSmith

    Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 4 and 7:30 p.m.; Open Eye Theatre, 506 E. 24th St., Minneapolis; 612-874-6338; $15, kids $8.

    ART
    Paul Shambroom: Picturing Power

    Shambroom,
    our fellow Minneapolitan, is not a trendy name in contemporary photography, but
    he’s revered by insiders: In one recent book surveying 121 heavy hitters in
    this medium, more space is devoted to him than to any other. One reason for
    that might be his dedication. Shambroom doesn’t just address a topic, be it
    nuclear weaponry or municipal government-he becomes thoroughly immersed,
    conducting mountains of research, traveling across the country, and taking
    years to create a series of images. None of that effort is wasted: His
    photographs are by turns majestic and menacing, eerie and absurd. This survey
    brings together, for the first time, work from Shambroom’s most important
    series: Factories, Offices, Nuclear Weapons, Meetings, and Security. Picturing
    Power     will travel to Columbus, Atlanta, and Long Beach. —Julia Caniglia

    Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Weisman Art Museum, 333 East River Road, Minneapolis; 612-625-9494.

     

    BOOKS

    Laura Flynn — Swallow the Ocean: A Memoir

    Flynn’s
    debut about growing up in 1970s San Francisco with a paranoid
    schizophrenic mother sounds like the sort of overwrought therapy
    masquerading as literature we’ve been inundated with for years—but it’s
    actually as convincing as it is harrowing, and is ultimately a
    beautiful testament to the remarkable resilience of children and the
    power of imagination and (it really does hurt to write this) love. As
    her mother’s illness spirals out of control, and her father (presumably
    worn out from accusations of Satanic proselytizing) leaves the family,
    Flynn and her two sisters find solidarity and survival in books,
    fantasy, and, most touchingly, in the sorts of imaginative flight
    they’d originally learned from their mother. —Brad Zellar

    Available in bookstores nationwide on Saturday.

     

  • Homosexual Hot Rods. OK.

    Its no secret that I am an afficionado of both hot rods and message boards. The two form a less than poltically correct union however. For example, a old favorite of mine the Honkey Ass Message Board or H.A.M.B has been an exceptionally well-crafted and written forum.

    Till some egits began posting their thoughts on the origins of the term "hot-rod" asking, in their own scintillating syntax whether the term is "totally gay."

    Do me a favor and enter this forum as it seems some more issues need to come out.

  • Polish Fusion: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

    Last night in the bar-restaurant at the Bedlam Theatre, I
    couldn’t help feeling like I was in a play – to judge by the funky décor, maybe
    Lanford Wilson’s Hotl Baltimore, or something by Beckett. Every few minutes,
    somebody would trudge through the bar – a woman carrying an enormous potted
    plant, a man pacing with a look of intense concentration. The bartender had a
    shiny metal ring in his nose. The bar and theater occupy the former Baja
    Riverside / Knickerbockers building, a few steps from the West Bank light rail
    stop.

    The menu seemed like a perfect set up for a comedy: it’s
    billed as Polish fusion. Head cook Jim Bueche, whose mother is Polish, decided
    to put an eastern European spin on the current trend towards local and
    sustainable fare: he tries to buy everything from local producers and
    distributors, and to offer a seasonal menu, which in mid-winter means lots of
    cabbage, beets and beans.

    The limited menu offers pirogi, a kielbasa plate, a dish of
    beans and barley, or chicken stew and barley, and a list of small thin crust
    pizzas ($7.50) that includes a Polish pizza
    topped with sauerkraut, beets and mushroom, a Polka pizza with sweet-potato sauce, chipotle chicken, spinach and
    red onion; and a John Paul II pizza, which commemorates the Polish pontiff with
    a pizza topped with olives, sun-dried tomatoes, red onion and feta.

    I
    ordered the kielbasa plate, which came with a small piece of juicy Polish
    sausage, three delicious pan-fried pirogi, (obviously homemade), stuffed with
    cabbage and mushrooms, pickled beets, horseradish, and a generous dollop of
    sour cream, all for $9.50. The salad of goat cheese, pickled beets and pecans
    with balsamic dressing wasn’t quite as refined as it might have been at, say,
    Lucia’s, but for the price ($4.50), it wasn’t bad. Ditto the John Paul II
    pizza.

    There’s
    a nice selection of cheapy wines by the glass, mostly priced at $4-$5. We
    arrived a bit, too late for the 4 to 7 happy hour, but the bar tender offered
    us the wine special anyhow: any bottle of wine for half price. This knocked the
    price of a bottle of La Vielle Ferme Syrah down to $10 or so, and the bill for
    dinner for two came to a whopping $39.83, including tax, tip, and a bottle of
    wine.

    It turned out there was a play going on, or rather a
    rehearsal, behind the red curtain that separates the bar from the theater: the
    20% Theater Company’s production of After Ashley, by Gina Gionfriddo, which
    opens Friday. Tickets are $15, or $12 for seniors, students and Fringe Festival
    button owners, and you get a $2 rebate if you arrive on foot, by bike, or by
    public transportation.

    I still haven’t made it to a play at Bedlam, but I like
    their style. Bedlam’s website says their mission is to "produce radical works
    of theater with a focus on collaboration and a unique blend of professional and
    community art…" and describes their "distinctive aesthetic as "combining an
    overtly playful performance style with low-tech spectacle, bold visuals,
    experimental absurdism, both cuttingly-direct and nonsensically-obtuse satyric
    barbarism, socio-political imagination, and usually some live music."

    That sounds like it’s worth going back for. Especially if
    you arrive in time for happy hour.

  • Oh, Yes It Is!

    SPECIAL EVENT
    All the World’s a Stage

    Join us tonight for what might be our best 10,000 Arts party yet (and believe me, that says a lot). The evening’s music and art extravaganza offers a flashy, live 2008 Voltage: Fashion Amplified preview, with performances both on- and off-stage. Meet
    the artists featured in the new issue of 10,000 Arts, Minnesota’s creative quarterly. Sample fine complimentary foods, spirits,
    wine, and beer (plus cash bar). And enjoy the musical stylings of MC/VL, the 7 Corners Quartet jazz ensemble, and Scott Mateo Davis’s flamenco guitar. You’ll get a little bit of everything this evening – seriously – with the addition of 7 Deadly Sins by the University Opera Theatre, and yes, the Authur Murray Dance Center. All for the low, low price of… your company.

    7 to 10 p.m., Northrop Auditorium, University of Minnesota, 84 Church St. S.E.; Minneapolis; free.

    MUSIC
    Celebrate the Spirit of Carnival

    Black Blondie brings you a night of music celebrating Pan-African, Caribbean, Balkan, and American rhythmic musical roots with performances by the Brass Messengers, Maria Isa with full band, and the sexy slick chicks themselves. Dj Shannon Blowtorch, former dancer for local glam metal band All The Pretty Horses, will be spinning between bands. You won’t know whether you’ve stumbled into the French Quarter, the Puerto Rican streets, or the Côte d’Ivoire, put it won’t matter one bit, since you won’t be able to sit still for long anyhow.

    9 p.m., Pi Bar,
    2532 25th Ave. S., Minneapolis; $6    .

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Checkit, Chekhovians

    Fans of the Russian dramatist will find plenty to like about the first-ever Twin Cities Chekhov Festival, including a full production of The Seagull and Mu Performing Arts’ excerpt of Three Sisters with an all Asian-American cast. But two plays (on a double bill) are sure to suit the tastes of Chekhov lovers and haters alike: A Rain of Seagulls and Our Vanya, Ourselves, presented by the Ministry of Cultural Warfare and directed by former Fringe Festival executive director Leah Cooper. Rain of Seagulls—get it? In other words, the cast is packin’ and taking all manner of sloppy shots. —Christy DeSmith

    7 p.m., Bryant-Lake Bowl, 810 W. Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-825-8949; $10-$15 (pay what you can); also on February 22 and 28.