The Rake Magazine

Category: Blog Post

  • The Beginning of a Story That Doesn't Yet Have an Ending

    We asked the captain what course

    of action he proposed to take toward

    a beast so large, terrifying, and

    unpredictable. He hesitated to

    answer, then said judiciously:

    "I think I shall praise it."

    —Robert Hass, from Praise

    Every once in awhile he would experience a disorienting moment –these instances were almost like seizures– in which he would find himself wondering just what the hell he thought he was doing. He couldn’t spend much time with that question or he’d be paralyzed. He knew this.

    He’d allowed himself to get pinned down a few times, and things would start swirling in his skull and he’d feel like he’d been turned inside out and salted. It was an ugly business.

    He recognized that at this point he didn’t have any good answers. It had already gone too far to be justified or explained. Once, though, he had not been this man, and wouldn’t even have been able to imagine the man he had apparently become, or any man like him.

    He didn’t know quite what he was doing, but he had a vague notion for why he was doing it. If anyone were to ask him, if he were caught (and this seemed increasingly inevitable), he would be able to offer up only the shortest and most pathetic of explanations: he was lonely. If pushed he was prepared to elaborate. He had lost everything, everything he’d ever had that he wanted, along with every hope and dream and brief, confused vision of what his life might one day be.

    Yet he was alive, which was remarkable in and of itself. He’d spent years –most of the last two decades– trying to imagine and will himself dead. He’d made plans, done research, presumably gone as far as a man could go without actually succeeding in killing himself. At a certain point it had occurred to him that he might well be one of the world’s foremost experts on suicide. He had read dozens of books on the subject, and literally thousands of articles in newspapers, magazines, and journals. He had scrapbooks in which he’d compiled almost two thousand different examples of successful suicides. By his last count, these people had utilized upwards of two hundred different methods in taking their own lives.

    He had started to think of this business, which had taken up the latter half of his forties and much of his fifties, as perhaps the one great undertaking of his life.

    Then, a week before his fifty-sixth birthday, he started stealing dogs.

  • The Three Pointer: Bad Loss, Good Loss

    Copyright 2008 NBAE (Photo by D. Clarke Evans/NBAE via Getty Images)

    Game #35, Road Game #18: Minnesota 82, Houston 113

    Game #36, Road Game #19: Minnesota 88, San Antonio 105

    Season record: 5-31

    1. The Emergence of Gomes

    Let’s begin with the good news. In terms of being a complete, synergistic basketball player working to enable his team toward victory, Ryan Gomes has put together the best three-week stretch of anyone in a Timberwolves uniform thus far this 2007-08 season–better than any comparable peak period from Jefferson, McCants, Jaric, you name it. The numbers by themselves are mildly impressive: In the 12 games beginning with the Indiana win on December 21, the 6-7 forward has averaged 14.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per game while shooting 47% from the field and 86.7% from the line (39-45 FT, nearly 4 FTA per game). But three factors bolster the value and context of those figures.

    First, consistency: If you throw out his horrible performance last Sunday against Dallas, Gomes has scored in double figures every game in the past eleven and snagged at least five rebounds in all but one of them (getting just two versus Seattle). Second, role-playing: Gomes is getting his points despite rarely having plays called for him as happens with Jefferson and McCants, and is snagging rebounds despite rare appearances at one of the two frontcourt positions that would ensure him more boards. Third, intangibles: This goes beyond role-playing and addresses basketball intelligence, the trendy way of saying Gomes knows how to play the game. When Gomes was mired in his mysterious doldrums in late November and early December, it was remarkable, and depressing, to see how much the Wolves’ basketball IQ was elevated when long past his prime vet Antoine Walker stepped out on the court. Aside from Walker, the guys with half a clue seemed to be the two Florida rooks, Brewer and Richard, and ‘Toine, despite his admirable spunk in response to the thudding career comedown of joining the Wolves, still was a guy ultimately most comfortable in going for his. Ditto Jefferson and McCants, without the court savvy. And while point guards Telfair and Jaric seem to know how to play, they each exhibit crippling flaws (for Telfair, shooting; for Jaric, lack of quickness in playing the point) that prevent them from executing.

    That’s what has made Gomes so invaluable during this stretch. As mentioned in the last trey, he’s a glue guy, doing the things that don’t always make the stat sheet; not so much an initiator or a finisher in the half-court game as a linchpin between the two, not only fostering ball movement for its own sake, but making the smart, slightly creative, yet still high-percentage pass that exploits the defensive seam in a way that forces adjustments and opens larger seams for open jumpers and layups that generate assists on the next pass. If basketball were scored like hockey, with multiple assists, Gomes would rank just behind the two point guards for dishes. He’s already second on the team in rebounds per game, and fourth in points per game (and seemingly destined to pass Craig Smith in the next few games to be third behind Jefferson and McCants). He rates alongside Jaric, and just ahead of Brewer, as the most versatile defender on the team, committing fewer stupid fouls–a huge Wolves bugaboo–than anyone getting regular minutes. Now all he has to do is stop jacking up treys: After shooting 44% (15-34) from behind the arc in November (while clanking from two-point range; which I believe was the psychological catalyst for the overall deterioration in his game earlier this season), Gomes has been wretched from outside. Take away his 10-36 performance from treyville since 12/21 and he’s hitting 54% from the field (54-100 FG).

    Unfortunately, there was a glaring gap between Gomes and everyone but plugging center Michael Doleac in terms of consistent aptitude on the Wolves roster during the two losses this weekend. He was the only Wolves player with a pulse in the first half of the blowout Friday night in Houston, tying for the team lead in rebounds with 4 and the sole Timberwolf converting more than half his shots–Gomes went 4-7 FG while the rest of the squad was 8-28 FG–as Houston rumbled to a 61-31 lead at the break and transformed the entire second half into garbage time.

    Last night in a much better team effort against San Antonio, Gomes was again Minnesota’s clearcut MVP. Responding to the Spurs’ opening gameplan of denying McCants and Jefferson easy looks, he burried a couple of open jumpers, then, as the perimeter players began closing out on him, fed McCants for a pair of treys to knot the game at 24 in the first period. By halftime he had a game-high 6 rebounds, was second only to Jefferson in the game with 11 points (again on 4-7 FG), and committed no fouls nor turnovers in 19:14 of action. Yes, he was on the court for most of the second half as the Spurs outscored the Wolves by 18 points, and contributed to that deficit by not responding quickly enough to the Spurs inside-outside offensive ball movement (at 250 pounds, rapid defense from paint to perimeter in the half court is not Gomes’s forte). But anyone watching the game would acknowledge that the Spurs’ full court pressure on defense and ability to score (or provoke mismatches) inside were the two biggest factors in their win.

    For the game, Gomes had 21 points (9-15 FG), second only to Jefferson’s 24 (on 10-18 FG) and a game-high 9 rebounds. As color commentator Jim Petersen noted two or three times, he continued "taking what the Spurs gave him" in the Wolves’ half-court offense and added a pair of opportunistic baskets in transition to close out both the second and third quarters on a strong note.

    It is a long season, of course, and even a consistent three-week run by Gomes doesn’t guarantee that his role or his performance will continue unabated on a team that has a surfeit of unproven performers it must cull through before next year’s draft. Wolves’ stat guru Paul Swanson has informed me that Gomes is a *restricted* free agent at the end of this season, meaning the Wolves can match any offer, a vital distinction not indicated in the salary figures for either hoopshype.com or shamsports. Even if the Wolves feel compelled to take Michael Beasley as the top talent in the NBA draft–who, folks tell me, clones the best of Gomes and Jefferson–Gomes is exactly the sort of smart, consistent player that will always be a valuable commodity.

    2. Jefferson: Spelled with an O, no D

    On a ballclub without stars, it is difficult not to love Al Jefferson, who turned 23 last week, and is already giving the team 20 points and 11 or 12 rebounds per night by dint of mucking hard in the paint. Throw in his acceptance of a longterm contract that certainly could have been higher had he waited a year–and screwed the Wolves by signing elsewhere–and he’s a feel-good story and burgeoning cornerstone on a ballclub crying for a public identity in the post-KG era.

    But here’s the rub: Nearly halfway through his fourth NBA season, the evidence continues to mount that Al Jefferson is a lazy defender. Perhaps what damns him most of all in this regard is the huge disparity between his doggedly refined low-post game on offense and his frequent willingness to get undressed on defense. When the Wolves set up in the half court, Jefferson’s precocious footwork, vast array of shots (jump hook, funky push jumper, up-and-under scoop, beneath-the-rim baseline banker, and well-calibrated wrist flick), cunning in avoiding predictible patterns on his moves and fierce determination to go up and finish in traffic already make him a top ten NBA scorer in the paint. To develop such multi-faceted skills takes dedication and intelligence. Neither of those virtues are apparent, to put it charitably, at the other end of the court.

    Yes, Jefferson has been yo-yo’d between his natural power forward spot and center all season since the injury to Theo Rat
    liff. And it seems that physically he is a ‘tweener on defense–lunched by leviathians such as Andrew Bynum yet zipped past or feinted to a faretheewell by small, savvy post performers like Houston’s Luis Scola on Friday. But how does that excuse all the times he shows too hard and can’t recover on the pick and roll (or, conversely, allows the p+r shooter an open look on the switch), or is caught napping on an interior pass for an easy layup, as happened twice with Francisco Oberto last night? He also doesn’t get back in transition very well, and his rotations are adequate at best–and inferior to Michael Doleac or the undersized Craig Smith.

    Again, what is especially aggravating about these consistent lapses is that Jefferson continues to improve on offense–even on weak spots such as passing out of double teams, or raising the accuracy of his midrange jumper–while the fundamentals of his D remain fundamentally flawed. It bespeaks of ignorance to that part of his game, and diminishes his otherwise well-earned rep as a blue-collar stalwart. I understand the incentive for such imbalance in a league where Vince Carter is a fan favorite for dunking at one end while tanking at the other, and where no one wants to talk about how the universally lauded Yao Ming is totally ineffective on defense against a half-dozen NBA teams, and couldn’t guard relative lilliput Carlos Boozer when a playoff series was on the line. But despite Jefferson’s gaudy offensive numbers and my overall admiration for what he has accomplished, albeit only when his team has the rock, I don’t believe he deserves to be an All Star this season. Let’s not start handing out carrots to a young player with a marvelous upside who is currently staging perhaps the most impressive half-assed season in Timberwolves history.

    3. Hosannahs and Brickbats

    After alternately arguing for first Doleac and then Richard to be slotted in at center beside Jefferson, this weekend’s performances had me agreeing with Doleac’s starting assignments and Richard trading in his uni for street clothes on Saturday. As well as Richard recognizes rotations and hustles on defense, he simply abandons any pretense of offense–he’s even more unbalanced than Big Al. Twice on Friday his teammates,against all odds, bothered to pass him the ball, simply because he was so wide open. The first time Richard fumbled it; the second time he sent a carom so strong off the glass and rim it would have flown to half-court if not rebounded. Hard to say whether it is nerves, overdoing the self-effacing defensive-oriented role, or simple lack of talent at that end of the court, but Richard isn’t such a stud on defense that he can afford to let everyone take him for granted on offense.

    Meanwhile, Doleac showcased that midrange jumper I kept harping on while arguing for some playing time for the Pale Rider earlier this season. He also knows how to commit the hard interior foul that prevents "and 1" from happening when someone loses their man in the paint. He play at both ends of the court was obviously bedeviling the Spurs on Saturday, as they ran multiple plays right at him after he’d picked up his 4th foul. Finally they were able to draw the fifth infraction with 5:50 left in the third period, sending Doleac to the bench for Smith. San Antonio promptly extended a 58-55 lead to 73-60–a 15-5 run–over the next 4:42 and that was essentially the ballgame. Word is that Theo Ratliff will be in the lineup soon. A Ratliff-Doleac platoon at the 5 gives the Wolves a fighting chance–and consistent minutes for Jefferson where he belongs–against squads with legitimate big men. Let that happen with Foye at the point and then we can finally see what we have on this roster.

    Ah yes, the point guard spot. It is becoming more and more dramatically obvious that Telfair’s future will be determined by his ability to hit an open jump shot. Houston and San Antonio both gave Bassy a wide berth out on the perimeter–to the extent that it was almost 5-on-4 with the other players–and Telfair shot 1-10 FG in a combined 69:58 of play. That’s one shot every 7 minutes, or less than 7 per 48, a huge reluctance when the opponents are daring you to score–and yet, as Telfair’s wayward aim demonstrated, a wise reticence on his part. Meanwhile, brickmeister Bassy got the minutes because Marko Jaric may as well have been sidling in quicksand against the likes of Tony Parker, Rafter Alston, Jacques Vaughn and Aaron Brooks. Jaric himself shot 1-3 FG in a combined 39:06, fewer FG per minute than Bassy. Hmmm, maybe it is time to spot McCants in at the point every now and then, with Brewer, Gomes, Jefferson and Doleac. It would give the ego-laden tattoo aficionado incentive to distribute the rock and perhaps prompt him to be more turnover conscious. A gamble, yes, but the current alternatives aren’t exactly delivering dividends.

    Even when he was going 7-9 FG in the meaningless second half against Houston, Brewer’s form is enough to give Fred Hoiberg an ulcer. Can he make NBA defenses respect him with that mid-air flailing? Well, Telfair certainly looks pretty going up, and the ball doesn’t go in. But the burden of proof to turn that mess into points is squarely on Brewer.

     

  • Carjacked

    A friend forwarded this classified ad to me in an email:

    OLDS 1999 Intrigue
    Totally uncool parents who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling
    his car. Only driven for 3 weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a
    life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on
    the planet.

    I thought for sure this was an urban myth making the cyber rounds.
    But after a quick Google search, I found a supporting article in the
    Iowa newspaper that carried the classified.

    So, it’s real. The mother who wrote it, Jane Hambleton, is being
    lauded across the country by parents, emergency room personnel and the
    like for the outrageous vehicle sale.

    I’ll admit it; I laughed when I read it. And because the ad is well
    written and this drama isn’t going on under my roof – it’s hilarious.
    Can’t you just hear this teen telling his mom to “get a life” and
    calling her the “meanest mom on the planet?” Those words coming back to
    haunt him is an instant classic for parents everywhere.

    I plan to save the article and whip it out when my children become
    drivers. And for that reason alone, I’m glad she did it. But it’s a
    guilty pleasure.

    One could easily argue that this meanest mom on the planet
    (it’s a shared title) could have sold the car without publicly
    humiliating her young college student. All this attention certainly
    can’t help the parent/child relationship in a family who must carry on
    long after the phone stops ringing.

    But whether you agree with Hambleton’s methods or not, this dust-up
    has created buzz. As colleges are experiencing binge-drinking deaths
    with an alarming frequency, the timing is right on. (Minnesota Public
    Radio has recently completed an extensive series on the subject.)

    It’s a double-edged sword, for sure. The best-case scenario is for
    Hambleton’s young pedestrian to escape an alcohol-related death, so he
    may enjoy a long life of pissiness over his public carjacking.

  • Sushi a la Francaise, Chinese-Style

    We stopped in last night at Musashi, the new Japanese
    restaurant in the former Olive Garden space at 6th and Hennepin,
    downtown, and took a seat at the sushi bar.

    When I asked for omakase, the sushi chef who greeted us gave
    me a puzzled look.

    "Teppanyaki?," he
    asked – or something that sounded like that.

    "No, "I said, "omakase."

    "We don’t have that."

    Just then, a second sushi chef, Noua, overheard our
    conversation, and stepped in: "I can do that. How many courses do you want? How
    much do you want to spend? Four courses? Five?

    Omakase means, roughly, "chef’s choice," and when I have
    tried this gambit before, the results have ranged from spectacular (Fuji-ya in
    Saint Paul,) to the same stuff we could have ordered from the menu.

    We never did agree on a price, but a series of off the menu
    dishes started to arrive, starting with a pair of martini glasses, filled with
    chunks of raw tuna and salmon with thin slices of cucumber in a soy marinade .
    The novelty of this dish was the fake ice cube at the bottom of each glass,
    each with a little blinking light that changed colors from to blue to green.
    (Actually, mine was stuck on blue.)

    Round two was four pieces of raw salmon wrapped around
    spears of fresh mango, served over leaves of aromatic Japanese chrysanthemum.
    partially cooked with a blow torch by the first sushi chef, presented with a
    mound of shredded daikon at the center, topped with a little dollop of lumpfish
    caviar. Buried beneath the daikon was
    another light cube, again flashing red, blue and green. A little less novel
    this time, but still an attractive presentation.

    Then came a third course – a sort of seafood medley covered
    in a spicy mayonnaise the color of Thousand Island dressing, dappled with
    orange flying fish row. Actually quite tasty.

    And for the grand finale, four little rice balls wrapped in
    eel and white tuna, again presented with a flashing litecube by chef #1. This
    was, he informed us, "French-style sushi."

    I have never seen anything like it in France, but the
    phrase, French-style sushi rang a bell. The last place I went that offered
    "French-style sushi" was the Mt. Fuji in Maple Grove, which serves up neon
    day-glo fantasies on the theme of sushi far more elaborate than anything
    dreamed of in the land of the rising sun. The chefs at Mt. Fuji are Chinese, as
    are the owners of Musashi, and Wasabi, which opened last year near the
    Metrodome.

    It turns out that Minneapolis may be prt of a global trend. According to a December 2006 report from Agence France-Presse, an estimated 90 percent of all the Japanese-style restaurants in France are Chinese-owned.

    So I asked sushi chef #1 where he was from, and he said,
    China. "Are you all from China?" I asked. "We’re from Asia," sushi chef #3
    offered, helpfully. "Not me, " shouted out Noua, in perfect English " I’m from Saint
    Paul."

    Overall, some of the off-the-menu omakase dishes were pretty good, some of it was just okay, and mostly it was kind of weird. It certainly didn’t seem very Japanese, but maybe that’s okay. Neither is teppanyaki, really, nor California rolls. I did see a lot of "normal" sushi come out of the sushi bar while we were dining, and it looked the same as it does everywhere else.

    Bottom line: dinner
    with the four omakase dishes and a spicy tuna roll, plus tax, tip, and a couple
    of drinks apiece came to just under $120.

  • Get Your Blood Boiling

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Heads Will Roll, Blood Will Flow

    William Shakespeare’s epic revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus, opens this weekend. Directed by Paul von Stoetzel, and starring Charles Hubbell, this Cromulent Shakespeare Company
    production tells the brutal, yet beautifully poetic story of revenge
    between Roman General Titus and Tamora Queen of the Goths. Expect a
    great deal of blood and death. This is Paul von Stoetzel’s return to
    directing theater after his first feature film, SNUFF: a documentary about killing on camera.

    Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m., Bedlam Theatre, 1501 S. 6th St., Minneapolis; 612-338-9817; $15.

    MUSIC
    Abbado Conducts Schubert

    Italian conductor Roberto Abbado
    knows the difference between flair and flash, or sophistication and
    ostentation. After a series of typically elegant performances with the Minnesota Orchestra earlier this decade, he became an artistic partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra two years ago and ascended the podium for five weeks of solid Beethoven
    last February and early March for performances that enhanced this
    undeniably crowd-pleasing music with rigorous exploration. This
    season’s three Abbado dates concentrate on another early nineteenth
    century Viennese master, Franz Schubert. The program includes Schubert’s Ninth Symphony, the “Great C Major”, preceded by his Overture to Rosamunde and Kirchner’s 1960 Concerto For Violin, Cello, Ten Winds, and Percussion, featuring Steven Copes (violin) and Ronald Thomas (cello). —Britt Robson

    Friday at 10 a.m. and Saturday at 8 p.m, Ordway Center; Sunday at 2 p.m., Ted Mann Concert Hall; 651-291-1144; $11-$59.

    Also on the musical agenda for the weekend — Charlie Parr is playing at the 331 Club on Friday at 9 p.m. You never want to miss Charlie.

    MUSIC & DANCE
    It Takes an Orchestra to Tango

    Lacking
    a little passion in your life? This is the perfect event to heat things
    up a bit. Dancers Florencia Taccetti and Somer Surgit join the
    Mandragora Tango Orchestra this weekend for a steamy tango performance.
    Arrive at 6 p.m. for a tango lesson of your own (in the Jaycees Studio)
    prior to the show — the perfect cure for the post-holiday blues.

    Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Hopkins Center for the Arts, 1111 Mainstreet, Hopkins; 651-209-6799; $12-$24.

    ART
    Closing this Weekend: Lynn Geesaman

    Lynn Geesaman’s photographs always draw one in. And after that, you
    stand around in the image, thinking, Now what am I doing here? I came
    here to get something; what was it? The fuzzy, melting landscapes have
    the memory-dissolving qualities of a late spring day—and, quite
    honestly, who knows whether that’s good or bad? But these days, which
    seem to be an era of doldrums in the art world (however well masked by
    stratospheric speculation and its attendant glamour), art that affects
    its spectator with this kind of subtlety is worth a second look. —by Ann Klefstad

    Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thomas Barry Art Gallery, 530 N. Third St., Minneapolis; 612-338-3656.

    Closing this Weekend: Nicola Lopez’s Constriction Zone

    Creativity is a double-edged sword. This was something I first
    realized after reading a detailed account of the torture regimen used
    by the Sforzas, a Renaissance-era Milanese family whose fortune had
    been made in arms sales. They called it “Lent”: forty days of inventive
    and excruciating pain-inducing practices almost guaranteed to leave the
    victim alive at the end. And the Sforzas were renowned arts patrons to
    boot; Petrarch did their PR, in fact. What does this have to do with
    Lopez, who is getting a lot of attention in New York for her big,
    complex, print-based installations? These works, which explore
    infrastructure and built environments, are baroquely inventive, while
    also enacting the menace of urban sprawl and so-called progress; Lopez
    herself is an artist with enough sense to see not just the beauty in
    human creativity, but also its potential detriments. —by Ann Klefstad

    Friday and Saturday from 12 to 5 p.m., Franklin Art Works, 1021 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-872-7494.

    FILM
    Summer Love in Winter

    The story is not a new one: Man and
    woman are together. Woman gets antsy and wants a new life. A stranger comes to town.
    Guess what happens next? I won’t get into the details, but let’s just
    say man loses woman. What makes Piotr Uklański’s Summer Love
    unique isn’t the spectacular storyline. It’s all in the presentation.
    The film is visually stimulating, more a series of images than an
    ongoing dialog — something you’ll notice immediately as the film begins with a bang, a shot literally, and a bloody stranger dying on screen. And just as the film begins with a bang, it sets the tone for the upcoming Expanding the Frame
    film series.

    Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-375-7600; $8 (members $6).

  • Juiced

    January is the month of cleaning and organizing, and how I found
    myself in the way back of my closet holding a silk maternity blouse.

    I had gained a lot of weight for my second child – A LOT of weight.
    It was a complicated pregnancy and not once did anyone accuse me of
    glowing. 84 lbs can do that to a gal.

    But to my surprise, my massive maternity became almost a disguise.
    Walking in the Minneapolis skyway, people no longer saw me as another
    yuppie on the way to work. I was more of a cartoon character. And as I
    paraded around as this living caricature of myself, people seemed to
    lose their ability to self-censor. They would say anything to me.

    Sometimes it was a just a startled, “Oh my God!” as I unexpectedly
    rounded a corner. The inquisitive, “December baby?” to which I was
    forced to reply a pitiful, “next June.” Or the frank, “You are the
    biggest pregnant woman I’ve ever seen.” (Um, okay.) My personal
    favorite was from the large black woman with dreadlocks who stopped,
    put one hand on her hip and said, “Whooeee girlfriend!” I nodded and
    gave a weak smile – yes, whoo-eee indeed.

    I clearly remember wearing the blouse. It’s adorned with a pattern
    of large, ripe fruit. (Take a moment to picture that.) Honestly, it
    looked really cute on the hanger, but on me it prompted the snide
    skyway comment by a young man, “Bringing juice to the meeting, huh?”
    And it hit me: I had become Violet, the girl from Willy Wonka blown up
    into a giant blueberry just waiting for the Umpa Lumpas – or Northstar
    building security – to roll me away.

    I started brown bagging lunch and kept clear of the pedestrian pattern of downtown.

    It had been the first day I wore the expensive blouse and I never
    wore it again. And when I looked at it today, still perfectly new, I
    bypassed the Goodwill bin and dumped it directly into the garbage. I
    don’t want anyone else to get juiced.

  • The Idiot's Guide to Ending Hunger

    I haven’t a clue how to fix most of our huge national scourges. Global warming, gang violence, reality TV. These issues are just too big and ghastly and amorphous. What’s one person to do?

    But hunger. Now there’s a solvable problem. People are hungry, you feed them. Even tiny efforts make a difference. And every single person who has enough to eat can help.

    It’s been an era of wretched news from the nation’s food banks. Need is way, way up; donations are way, way down. In some states, homeless shelters simply don’t have the raw materials it takes to feed all the cold, hungry, ill, and marginalized people streaming through their doors.

    Luckily, that’s not the situation here in Minnesota, where being homeless in winter is a genuinely lethal prospect, and eating a decent meal can be the difference between weathering the cold and freezing to death. The organizations that feed our most vulnerable brethren actually do have enough in the coffers and cupboards to get by.

    But according to Heidi Stennes, director of communications for Second Harvest Heartland Food Bank, an organization that distributes food to 950 agencies and programs serving the poor, demand is going up among low-income working people. And that’s a need the current system can’t quite meet.

    "Half of the people using Minnesota food shelves have a child at home; half have a job," says Stennes. "Why is this happening? The price of gas is up. The price of groceries is up. A lot of folks are losing their homes. People get to the end of the month and after paying the heat bill and the rent and child care bills, they’re going to food shelves just to try to make ends meet."

    And the situation is getting worse. . .as it does each January. Shoppers tend to be happy and generous throughout the holidays, tossing coins into bell ringers’ buckets and volunteering at soup kitchens Christmas week. But come the long icy stretch of early year and a lot of that goodwill dries up. Suddenly, no one’s showing up to wear a frilly apron and ladle out chicken salad. Everyone who can afford to be is worried about taxes. Food donations slow.

    But there is something you can do.

    Second Harvest accepts already-prepared food from restaurants and suppliers (currently Leeann Chin and Target Greatland delis are among their top donors) and donations of both money and food from individuals and corporations. Workers there sort and box items appropriately — putting ingredients together with boxed meals, for instance, so the meat and/or butter a family might need to make a noodle dish come at once. The organization even has a $400,000 two-year grant from the state exclusively to buy milk. That’s a lot of milk. . . .

    But what gets me is, any one of us can do some good by spending an extra $2.59 on a can of beef stew or a box of whole wheat pasta. Throw it into the bin at Lund’s or collect a few shoppings trips’ worth and take them to a drop-off location. That’s it. This genuinely is a case where a little bit goes a long way.

    And if I can put my own little plug in here: the poorest people in our community consume far too much salt, sugar, fat, and preservatives, because that’s what’s in the food available to them in their local stores and through nonprofit agencies. If you can pay the extra dollar to donate something that’s organic, whole grain, or (at least) contains no MSG, artificial dyes, additives, high-fructose corn syrup, or synthetic sweeteners, all the better.

    The items most needed by Minnesota’s food shelves include:

    • canned fish (tuna) and meat
    • hearty soups and stews
    • complete boxed dinners
    • pasta, rice, cereal, crackers
    • peanut and other nut butters

    • canned or dried fruit

    Now I have to admit, I’m feeling all mawkish and chipper and Tiny Tim-like here. But dammit, it’s true. Feeding people — when done right, with respect and a sense of equity — not only sustains their lives, it preserves their dignity. And if we have the time and resources to debate restaurants, chefs, and gourmet ingredients, I think it’s the least we can do.

  • It's Got Punch

    MUSIC
    Learn about the Bird and the Bee, LA Style

    The middle of January may be the best time to warm up to The Bird And The Bee’s stylish,
    airy continental pop sounds. Steeped in bossa nova, solid-gold AM pop and classic
    new wave, this fetching boy/girl duo from LA are favorites of both critics and
    crowds. They also don’t ignore the nearly forgotten art of the succinct,
    economical EP — as of September they have eclipsed their ratio of EPs to albums
    by 2:1 with the release of Please
    Clap Your Hands    . It’s a five song document of simple, sexy retro-pop that comes
    off something like the prodigal kid siblings of the Brazilian Girls or Nouvelle
    Vague, minus the pretentious clubbiness and the sophomore slump, respectively. Also
    performing is Charlie W.

    —Christopher Hontos

    8 p.m., Varsity Theater,1308 4th St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-604-0222; $12.

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Fight: Or, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You’d Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking

    Well, the title is a mouthful, but it certainly has that fabulous Fight Club appeal. Who can resist? I mean, really — who amongst us hasn’t wanted to kick some ass at one point or another? Even if you don’t use it, it would be nice to know you could. Trigger any interest? In his new book — Fight: Or, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking But Were Afraid You’d Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking — Eugene S. Robinson exposes an underground world of hand-to-hand combat — knife fighters, soccer hooligans, mobbed-up boxers, prison yard pugilists, and mixed martial artists — and he among them. "When Robinson and his fellow fighters mix it up, they live completely for the moment: absorbed in the feel of muscles slippery with sweat; the metallic tang of blood mingling with saliva in the mouth; the sweet, firm thud of taped knuckles impacting flesh. They fight because it feels good. They fight because they want to win. And even if they lose, they fight because they love fighting." Yup. Sounds pretty Fight Club-y to me. Maybe after this evening’s presentation, Robinson will give you an ass-whooping of your own.

    7:30 p.m., Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-822-4611.

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    Raw Stages

    The History Theatre has
    hit its share of fouls lately—last fall’s production based on the life
    of Kirby Puckett was uniformly blasted, and the recent Hormel Girls
    had a lackadaisical score and a script wholly reliant on stereotype.
    But this institution also boasts a singular and noble characteristic:
    It commissions more original works by living, local playwrights than
    any other Twin Cities theater. Its annual Raw Stages
    series bundles four samplings of works-in-progress, each with a certain
    destiny for the History Theatre mainstage. This year’s lineup includes
    the chronicle of a haunted Summit Avenue mansion, by the edgy
    Minneapolitan Deborah Stein (see “Heavy Rotation”); and the story of Tyrone Guthrie and Ralph Rapson’s collaboration building the landmark Guthrie Theater at Vineland Place—by the prolific, Minnesota-based playwright and screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher. —Christy DeSmith

    History Theatre, 30 E. Tenth St., St. Paul; 651-292-4323; $10/show or $25 for a full pass.

  • A Killing Cold

    Typically, it is heat that frightens me. Perhaps this is because I grew up in Minnesota, but sweltering temperatures seem more sinister — thick and canopy-like and unavoidable — whereas cold has always struck me as surmountable. Until now.

    It was just last week, on what I assumed then would be the coldest night of the year, that my son suffered a relapse of a condition called Autistic Catatonia. We imagine catatonic patients as still and statue-like. Frozen, even when they are warm to the touch. What we do not consider — what I forgot — is that catatonia actually signals an exponential speeding up of the brain; it is what doctors call a "paradoxical condition," meaning the body’s stasis is masking a panic of mind. And it’s often preceded by a bout of mania in which the afflicted individual moves wildly in an effort to shake off the coming storm.

    It was in this incipient period that my son began wandering, desperately, after dark. It was 14 below zero the first night he stepped out the door and nothing we did or said could stop this giant young man.

    We spent 24 hours, my husband, my younger son, and I chasing, coaxing, begging, warming. We slept in shifts. When dusk fell the following evening and the temperature began to drop again, we knew we couldn’t last through another night. Finally, we called everyone we knew to call. They came, blowing through our front door with a killing cold. And they took my son away.

    Tonight, the thermometer will go even lower. But my son is safe. Or rather, he is as safe as a fragile, shuttered soul can be. But there are other people out wandering. I know this, because I’ve come close enough to touch the life they have. And no matter where they seek shelter — in bus shelters, abaondoned buildings or skyways — it’s unlikely they’ll every truly get warm.

    Even our house is failing to keep out the cold. Granted, it was built in the 1920’s, and the windows are like loose dentures, rattling with every windy sigh. Our wine rack sits in the south corner of our dining room, and when I removed what promised to be a very nice bottle of Domaine Olivier Bourgogne Pinot Noir tonight, it felt as if it had been thoroughly chilled.

    We opened it and toasted, my husband and I, in thanks that our son was not only inside but beginning, gradually, to emerge from his whirring state of mind.

    But the first taste was not what we had hoped. "Maybe it’s corked," my husband said. "It’s awfully sour."

    I swallowed a bit of wine, its cranberry flavor as sharp as a knife. "Let’s let it breathe," I said, "and warm. I think it will be fine."

    In fact, I, too, would have thought the wine was bad, but the finish was too nice. Corked and cooked wines always end badly: raggedly, with hints of sulfur, mold, or lye. This one did not.

    We left the bottle open for 20 minutes, then poured individual half-glasses and warmed them in our hands. When we tasted again, the Olivier was entirely different: full and sweet and delicate, with scents of lemon and eucalyptus, and the flavor of wild strawberry, oak, and mint.

    By the end of the bottle — and yes, in our relief, we did polish it off — this pinot noir had expanded kaleidoscopically. It was not at all the same as the chilled liquid we’d poured originally, two hours before. Never have I experienced such a profound change in a wine over the course of a couple degrees.

    Watching my son come out of his delirium had been a little like this on a much grander scale. The doctors gave him 2 milligrams of Ativan (such a tiny pill!) and suddenly, he calmed to the point where he could, once again, talk and focus and move.

    "What were you thinking?" I demanded as soon as he could listen to me. "When you went out in the cold. . . .do you remember? What the hell was going through your mind?"

    He tilted his head and really pondered the question. After a full minute, he spoke. "Eric Clapton’s Layla," he said soberly. "The second version — the acoustic one — not the first. That one. . . ." We’d been playing Cribbage and he glanced at his hand, as if to remind himself of the game. "I believe it might have been Eric Clapton with Derek and the Dominos. I like that version, too. But I don’t think it was in my head at all the night I got lost."

    Then he put down a card for the count. And that’s how I knew the cold had receded and my son was back.

  • Stone Crabs

    It’s almost time for those beautiful little pink stone crab claws to hit the market.

    The first time I ever put claw to mouth was in a kitchen cooler with my friend Wade, the guy behind the fish at Oceanaire. We stood in the chilly box furtively dipping the black-tipped gems in a little mustard-mayo and sliding the sweet, soft meat from the claw with our teeth. It was just a perfect moment, that’s all.

    I used to wonder why all the fuss was thrown over some crab. I like crab, but I’m not gaga over it. A well-honed crab cake can be quite satisfying, but I feel cracking and dealing the big spidery crab legs to be too much of a bother. And you with your "imitation crab" salad, get out.

    But stone crab claws are different.

    First of all, harvesting stone crab is very ocean-friendly. Fisherman take only one claw from a crab before returning it back to the ocean. The stone crab is genetically gifted with a speedy regeneration process, a natural trick that favors their habit of losing limbs to get away from predators and out of tight spaces. With the help of warm waters, it can take as little as a year for the claw to grow back.

    And then there’s the taste. Crack a claw and the meat inside is a translucent white. It has a fresh and clean flavor with a light sweetness. Hit it with a little lime and the citrus will brighten the flavors. Dip it in a little mustard-mayo to add a touch of creamy bite and you’ll be the one who’s caught in a trap.

    Stone crabs are usually harvested from October to May, but the restaurant industry likes to promote them in January and February to help pump up business during the post-holiday blahs.

    I think it also helps us all take a break from the heavy stews and pot-roasts of the season, reminding us that there does exist a warm place where things regenerate.

    The recent chilly weather in Florida has delayed shipments because the crabs tend burrow into the sand when it gets colder. But keep your eye out for announcements from Oceanaire, McCormick & Schmicks, Stella’s, as well as many steakhouses or have a go with them on your own from Coastal Seafoods.