Mr. Collins needs to know that this trash problem isn’t just concentrated in northeast Minneapolis. It’s all over the city, and it’s getting worse. When I first moved here, Minneapolis was described as “the most European city in the U.S.” In the quarter century I’ve lived here, I’ve seen that description deteriorate, as the city grows into a collection of neighborhood landfills, as Mr. Collins describes them. I’ve even seen the air quality deteriorate to the point where I’m not certain how much longer I can survive here.
I was a young kid from St. Paul’s East Side when I first stepped into The Scholar one night. This was about in 1965. I remember vividly the rich scent of incense and herbal tea. And I also recall, as it was in the evening, the dim lighting with reddish hues. The eclectic, young, beatnik folk scene made an indelible impression on me—to this day I look to that very spot where The Scholar once stood on the West Bank longing for a glimpse into its past.
Stories? Stories are boring. They’re also bourgeoisie — just one more opiate known to give a brother brain damage. And brain damage on the mic don’t manage. My dear old pappy used to while away long car trips analyzing passages from Lacan as they related to the popular culture of the day. We might be journeying into the farmlands to ironically appreciate cows or maybe we’d be going to here a guest lecture from Stephen Greenblatt at the local public university. He’d smile smugly, lower the volume on the Pussy Galore cassette in the car stereo, and address me: “Post-gendered subject. Have you ever considered the mirror stage image as it relates to Kip Winger?” Yeah maybe the ol’ man was a little aloof, but beneath that gruff Midwestern exterior was a need to engage me in the political and social culture I was immersed in. This is something you don’t really get from the wan pabulum of narrative. It is also, by the way, the role of an alternative magazine in a deadeningly overcommodified momosociety. So cut the NPR crap and let Steve Perry drop some poli-science.
Pickle juice!!! A primary metabolite of alcohol is acetaldehyde and the cooked vinegar found in pickles helps “push” this unfriendly acetaldehyde molecule into the next stage of metabolism. Recent research also indicates that PJ helps improve atheletic performance, probably by helping your muscles rid themselves of lactic acid in a similar fashion…
PS – Please don’t publish my email address, spam me, etc. Thanks for the great Dylan article, btw.
Dear Rakemagfolks, Athens Cafe (it’s actually more Lebanese style) in Robbinsdale has the BEST falafel in the Twin Cities, not to mention killer kofta and kebob. If you don’t mind the strip mall atmosphere, you will certainly not be disappointed. The restaurant is located at 4080 W Broadway (41st & Hwy 81). I eat here at least once a week and have yet to grow tired of it. I recommend that it be added to your list.
You may also wish to consider adding the Red Dragon in Mpls to your list, based solely upon the virtue of their behemoth Polynesian cocktails. Keep up the fresh media and I’ll keep reading.
My name is Ken Gordon, and I’m a Boston-based freelancer. I’ve written for Boston Magazine, The Forward, Salon, Tikkun, and a whole slew of other pubs, and I have no ideas–not a single freakin’ one–for The Rake.
So why am I writing? Well, I had to. Between your witty editorial guidelines, Steve Perry’s column on Lisa Beamer, and Nathan Rabin walking out of the David Copperfield show, I think you guys are onto something. So much so that I spent a good 10 minutes thinking, “What the hell do I know about Minnesota? Um, Garrison Keillor? Prince? Ice fishing?” In the end, all my “ideas” sounded pretty damned unpublishable. And unless you want, say, “A Northeasterner’s Media-Fed Perception of Minnesota,” I thought it would be best for me to toss my pitches in a different direction.
Guess I just wanted to say that I admire you for launching a new publication in our Godzilla-eats-dog economy. I hope The Rake rakes it in–and that, a year from now, you won’t be writing to editors: “My name is Tom Bartel, and I’m a Minnesota-based freelancer.”
Where might I obtain a print of the artwork accompanying the article “The Hat Stretching Hangover” (The Rake, April 2002, pg. 34)? I would be willing to spend a reasonable amount of pennies to do so. It would look great framed on the wall of the cocktail lounge in my basement. Mind you, I’m not rich (even though I have my own private lounge) so I kindly ask that you do not milk me on this one. Much obliged.
An article was posted on your web site quoting me [Native Son, April 2002]. It stated that I agreed that 200 or so interviews for Lisa Beamer was reasonable. I remember our conversation well. I told you that I would estimate 20, perhaps 30 interviews. You have printed an absolute lie! I suggest that you print a correction in your next issue and send me a copy or I will take this matter to our attorney.
Helen Cook The B & B Media Group, Inc.
Steve Perry responds: I have my notes from our phone conversation. It’s true that you initially said Lisa Beamer had spoken to about 30 media organizations—many of them multiple times, you added. I then said it was the latter number I was interested in: How many times in all has she spoken to people from media? You said you were unsure, and asked if I could phone back later after you had checked. I did, and you were still unsure. So I suggested the figure of 200. You indicated that might be a little high. So, I replied, what then? 150? 100? No, you finally said, 200 was probably a reasonable number so long as I took care to present it as an estimate. Which I did.
After a two-year obligation to the “Peacetime Army” I ended up at the U of M, continuing as a junior in Liberal Arts. It was 1957, but my real education was at The Scholar. I have no bones to pick with either Bobby Zimmerman or Bob Dylan and anyway it matters not a jot what I might think of him/them. What I do find sleazy and irresponsible is your treatment of Scholar owner Clark Batho [“Desire Revisited,” April 2002] whom you assassinate as “a distrusted and despised character” on the word of others who were at that time distrusted by many of us. I would describe Batho simply as a character—which he was in every sense of the word—and that would have been true and sufficient. It may interest you to know that Clark Batho has responsibly grown and sold Christmas trees in Southwest Minneapolis for at least 15 years, and is a much more solid person than your brief, slanderous phrase leaves us with.
Bill Savran, owner The West Bank’s now-extinct Savran’s Books
I got drunk with three educated Basotho gentlemen the other night. We sat at Chocke’s Corner Bar in the scrub-and-bush mountains of Lesotho, sipping a red variety of South African boxed wine. The discussion revolved around colonial America and the situation in Israel. My mind wandered. I debated which of these men was HIV-positive; I considered making the short but chilly trek outside to the loo. Then the mechanic, five years of life in Britain under his tool belt, said something interesting. “Westerners not only live differently, they think differently as well,” he declared adamantly. I thought about what this difference meant to us (slavery, exploitation, apartheid—we whiteskins have always had the upper hand) and pondered what it meant to them. Wealth, no doubt; what else? As if to emphasize the point, the bricklayer offered seven cows in return for my hand in marriage. I chose sleep instead.
Several days later my brother and I made our way through the country’s highlands, on the bare backs of Basotho ponies. After seven hours of peaceful trudging, we arrived at the evening’s temporary home, a one-room hut perched on a hilltop. The stone-and-thatch structure was one of several on the family compound which housed Madame Selima, her unnumbered grandchildren, a cat and dog, some chickens, and a couple dozen feed bags full of Lesotho weed, which Taxman, our minimum-English guide, justified simply as “business.” Though Mme. Selima’s English was also quite poor, she was warm in that grandmotherly way, somehow being both friendly and unobtrusive. The kids, decked in layer upon layer of mismatched clothing cast off long ago by their counterparts in the United States, amused themselves with plastic bags and tin cans. They paused to peek curiously at our pale skin. They were interested in us, but not envious of us. They were also well-behaved, well-loved, and well-trained. The youngest, who still would have been in diapers had she been born in the other hemisphere, ignored us entirely. Instead, she focused her attentions on stripping the fuzz off a peach, an astonishing demonstration of the proper way to use a paring knife from a one-and-a-half-year-old.
Yesterday we made the treacherous journey down the abrupt Sani Pass, descending the 2,000 meter cliff that acts as an eastern border between the “kingdom in the sky” and South Africa. There we said our final goodbye to the rocky dirt roads, to the endless greasy plates of cornmeal and greens and to the drop-pit toilets of developing Africa. Exports from South Africa supply the southern half of the continent with Nescafé, car parts, and diamonds. And after six months of backpacking through eastern and southern Africa, this country that is said to be “the cradle of mankind” appears both lovely and foul, both urban and suburban.
Today I type this letter to Minnesota under the buzzing fluorescent lights of a chain store, surrounded by a vast tarred parking lot. Westerners think differently indeed. Crossing the border into the Africa that whites built, we trade subsistence for abundance, adequate for super-sized, polio and bilharzia for carpal tunnel and attention deficit disorder. It’s an awesome world that western civilization has built. It can also be garish, bland, and overworked. There are countless aid organizations, entrepreneurs, and volunteers determined to create a new Africa, a modern Africa. Perhaps it’s arrived. Tomorrow we head off to the largest Easter party on the continent—thousands of kids are expected to show up at a much-publicized rave in Johannesburg.