Category: Columns

  • The Unseen Perils of Getting Fit

    I’ve been going to the gym pretty early these days: Monday through Friday, 5:30 a.m, whether I want to or not. I’ve turned over a new leaf, you see. I now realize that abdominal muscles do not appear magically as a result of wishing on Starburst wrappers. I have now reached an age at which…

  • A Calm Panic

    Max Marti’s bus ride home from Capitol Hill Gifted and Talented Magnet School in St. Paul is typically kind of boring—especially for a kid like Max, a budding rock guitarist who loves run-and-gun computer games and ValleyFair thrill rides. On September 15, the lanky fourteen-year-old was among about forty first- through eighth-graders aboard the bus.…

  • that Speaks French

    Of all the depressing novels I know, Jude the Obscure takes the prize for sustained doom and gloom. Don’t let the film mislead you; it is far too pretty. All those authentic Victorian sets (not to mention the delightfully authentic Kate Winslet) undermine the exposition of Jude’s law, that Sod and Murphy were incurable optimists,…

  • Hell in a Hamburglar Glass

    I had a garage sale a couple of weeks ago. I relish regularly purging my home of crap. However, I also think it is a special kind of hell to have to arrange crap artfully on card tables in the driveway, assign a value to each item of crap, and look at the neighbors with…

  • Fighting Over North

    If you were watching the news August 11, you probably saw Rev. Jerry McAfee hijack Mayor R.T. Rybak’s press conference on fighting crime. Rybak and Council Member Don Samuels were standing on West Broadway Avenue when, the cameras showed, McAfee got into Rybak’s face. The next images were of Rybak scurrying to his waiting car.…

  • Antipodean Sweetener

    One of the unsung pleasures of a summer weekend in an English country house is the short shelf of books left in the spare bedroom for the entertainment of guests. If you are out of luck, the row of volumes on the bedside table consists of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, Regency bodice-rippers by the likes…