These days you can’t turn on a television without encountering an advertisement for some pharmaceutical sleep aid, and sleep centers have sprung up all over the country. Yet for experts like Dr. Mark Mahowald, that explosion of treatment options—and the ceaseless wave of sleep-deprived patients seeking them—is both a blessing and a curse. That’s because … Read more
Tom Bartel’s editorial [“To the Barricades,” July 2007] based on Michael Moore’s film Sicko, was misleading in many ways. The sub-headline mentions health care but the article focuses on health insurance. There is hardly a subtle difference between the two. Few would disagree that the U.S. offers the world’s finest health care, and what’s more … Read more
Dear Rake, The author of your July fiction piece—which I edited—was actually Dan Hendrickson, and not Don Hendrickson as was printed. I’m sure you regret this embarrassing error as much as I do. I’m also sure that you, like I, would very much like to apologize to Dan Hendrickson, his friends and family, and everyone … Read more
We love it when readers take us along on trips to the world’s loveliest places. (We also get a kick out of the occasional dispatch from seedier destinations.) Siri and Bent Iversen of Northeast Minneapolis recently toted The Rake to one of Norway’s great geological wonders. While visiting Bent’s homeland of Vågsøy, an island off … Read more
Cheers to The Rake for recognizing that bicycling (and walking) is indeed taking off in the Twin Cities; one need only look to the streets to see how many people are using their own two feet (and increasingly creative wheels!) to reach their destinations. As you mentioned in your June 2007 issue [“Twin Cities on … Read more
Among the 14 Pioneer Press employees who took the latest buy-out and departed last Friday was Matt Peiken. Perhaps not a household name like Joe Soucheray or Bob Sansevere, Peiken, 44, is the sort of character who shouldn’t be completely out of step with modern newspapers, but is. I first met him in 2000, not … Read more
I came up with a rule, of sorts, that I would refrain from talking about cars on Sunday. But heh, I am also a modernist (at times) and modernists don’t follow every rule (even their own). Modernism (and schmodernism) aside, here’s another way of looking at it. What’s a man to do when he spots … Read more
by Peter Schilling Jr. This could be the best episode ever and still not live up to the hype. After all, the movie is, what, nearly twenty years in the gestation? Give Matt Groening and company credit for assembling the best writers from seasons’ past and pulling in David Silverman, co-director from Pixar’s superior Monsters, … Read more
If you’ve ever fallen in love too quickly or divorced with ire or married the same person twice or threatened to maim your new spouse on your honeymoon (and meant it), you must see Private Lives, the 1930 Noel Coward comedy now showing on the McGuire Proscenium Stage at the Guthrie. As someone who’s done … Read more
Here’s something for all you folks reading the Saturday paper (and getting really mad that there is nothing of substance to read) or perhaps streaming that silly show “Car Talk” online. I say silly in a good way. The two guys are a hoot. However I think they discuss really boring cars for the most … Read more