I had to laugh at your article, “The Dog’s Lover” [July]. You see, I, too, have a similar problem with my male Yorkie. His toy, a poor stuffed animal, is now missing an ear, eye, and portions of his head, which I have had to stuff and sew numerous times. I made the mistake of … Read more
The summer is fading. The moon is easing down to sleep in the trees, even as the stars step back into the dark country of heaven. They look like a small cluster of island villages in the North Sea, seen from an airplane at night. A fox, interloper here in the middle of a city … Read more
Got Me a Movie, I Want You to Know: The Best Songs About Movies and the People Who Make Movies A bee got into my bonnet the other day, and I started thinking about my favorite songs about the movie industry. Not songs from movies—those are a different beast altogether. No, I want songs that … Read more
Twelve hours before the U.S. government issued a terror alert for its citizens in India, I stopped by the Fatima Burqa Collection shop in Mumbai (officially known as Bombay until 1996). Located on Ebrahim Rahmatulla Road, a teeming shopping street in a crowded downtown Muslim district, the diminutive outlet is distinguished from its neighbors by … Read more
Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Hutchinson [“The Only Other Job I’d Like,” August] is an enigma. He speaks like a progressive, but is hellbent on sabotaging the election for neocon Tim Pawlenty. The issues are clear. If you support regressive taxation, gutted public education, discrimination against gays, denial of women’s rights, punitive transportation policies, environmental … Read more
Dave and Cathy Burrows, of Green Bay, Wisconsin (frequent Twin Cities visitors), did a three-week tour by a Norwegian nature cruise company that featured Argentina, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Islands, Orkney Islands, and finally (as shown here), the Antarctica Peninsula. The Gentoo penguins, normally comical, weren’t doing much as they stood in the active … Read more
A friend and I saw your article about Lois Mansberger in The Rake [“Tomb of the Unknown Domestic,” June]. It struck us both to the core. As we talked about Lois more and more, we decided we needed to make a pilgrimage to her grave. We invited two other women friends we knew would want … Read more
I could hardly believe what I was reading when I found the article about Hunky Dory [Rakish Angle, August]. I grew up on that resort. My mother Elna was a cook there from about 1942 to 1950. My brother and I have many fond memories of everything you wrote about. Al Sr. and Lily were … Read more
As a born-and-bred St. Paul West Sider who lived for two years just a couple of blocks from Jerabek’s New Bohemian Cafe, I have to correct what—to a born-and-bred West Sider, no matter where he lives now—is a big, honking error [Rake Appeal, August]. The cafe (which is everything you write it up to be, … Read more
Rich Feely of Eden Prairie writes: My son Jack and I vacationed on the southwestern coast of Sweden in June. The granite island of Smogen maintains its fishing-village culture while hosting weekend vacationers from throughout Sweden. The Rake’s cover matches the brilliant sky over the West Sea. Author(s) and Location: Rich Feely