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Given Edgar Allan Poe’s well-known fear of being buried alive, the
claim that the horror writer and poet "must be rolling over in his
grave" at the prospect of Sylvester Stallone writing and directing the
biopic Poe is more than rote recitation of cliché. It’s definitely a
curious way for 61-year-old Sly to follow-up the cinematic Cialis he
recently gave to both the Rocky and Rambo franchises.

It’s also yet another bizarre turn in the trajectory of Poe’s
pop-culture legacy. First an NFL team, the Baltimore Ravens, takes its
name from his poem (its raven mascots are named Edgar, Allan, and Poe).
Then Poe’s great-great nephew, actor-musician Edgar Allan Poe IV,
appeared as the ghost of his great-great uncle on the sitcom Sabrina,
The Teenage Witch. A fictionalized Poe was also found sleuthing murders
with King of the Wild Frontier Davey Crockett in The Alienist-ish novel
Nevermore.

Yet it’s not the idea that the star of arm-wrestling epic Over The Top
or Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is doing a Poe movie that bothers me (the
man did write his own ticket with his script the original Rocky; let’s
show him some respect).

Even Stallone’s rumored casting notions (Robert Downey Jr., Viggo
Mortenson) seem on target—if too buff—for his portrait of the tortured
genius. So what’s the problem? It’s just that prospect of any Poe movie
being made renders Michael Jackson’s long-dormant dream of starring as
Edgar Allan Poe even more unlikely-and that’s a problem for me. Could
Wacko Jacko fall in the footsteps of Apollo Creed and Clubber Lang, and
become yet another black man knocked out by the Italian Stallion?
That’s no way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Thriller.

Some background: In 2000, USA Today reported that the King Of Pop had
finally seen the "very scary" script for his European-funded vanity
project The Nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe and was gearing up to "devote
himself full-time to preparing for the role" of the author.

It was mind-blowing news, even by the (high? low?) standards of
tabloid staple Wacko Jacko, one that lends itself to jokes: Will he
instruct "The Tell-Tale Heart" to "just beat it?" Could we next expect
Jacko’s opportunistic sister Latoya to star as Virginia Woolf in A Room
of One’s Own? Would Emmanuel "Webster" Lewis be cast as Poe’s
child-bride Virginia? Would "The Raven" be replaced by Bubbles The
Chimp? Would we quoth The Raven "Mama-Say-Mama-Sa Mama-Tu Sa?"

And yes, the racial angle of the MJ casting also raised questions,
among them: How confused would’ve the late playwright August Wilson
been? But, let’s be honest — casting MJ as Poe is not as problematic
as, say, casting El DeBarge as Nathaniel Hawthorne. Whether it’s
because of the skin disease vitiligo, cosmetic bleaching or a
combination of both, Jackson’s pallid complexion looks even more Goth
than portraits of Poe’s pale visage. The issue here is not casting a
black man to play a white man; it’s casting an alien mannequin drag
queen apparently sculpted out of soap to play a white man.

Nonetheless, the King of Pop insists that he feels connected to Poe,
and maybe—DEFINITELY—because of the fact that I was obsessed with both
Jacko and Poe in elementary school, I believe him. Before we give
Michael’s movie a premature burial, let us consider the connections
between these two eerie American icons, "thrillers" both—and implore
Sylvester Stallone to do the same.

Both Jackson and Poe are arguably the most popular American export in
their respective fields, and major influences on those who followed.
Baudelaire was said to make his morning prayers to God and Edgar Allen
Poe, and Justin Timberlake and Usher are obviously both Michael Jackson
impersonators trying to moonwalk in MJ’s fleet footsteps.

There is also symmetry to their scandals. They both have been accused
of pedophilia; at the very least, they share a penchant for PYTs
(Pretty Young Things): Poe married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia, and
Jackson has hosted many a sleepover with 13-year-old boys. Thus, their
sexuality has been wildly speculated about. In a posthumous
psychoanalysis of Poe, Dr. Maria Bonaparte theorized that Poe was
celibate, entertained thoughts of necrophilia and suffered from a
castration complex (her mentor, Dr. Sigmund Freud provided the preface
for this study).

Despite vehement assertions to Diane Sawyer, many said the same (well,
minus the necrophilia and castration stuff) of Jackson’s marriages to
Lisa Marie Presley and later, to his plastic surgeon’s nurse, Debbie
Rowe, even though they had two children together. (I’d also bet that
the paternity suit of a certain Billie Jean would get thrown out of
court in a hurry.)

They both struggled with financial difficulties despite being among
the best at what they did. Many historians say Poe was an opium addict;
Jackson revealed he had an addiction to the painkiller Demerol in court
papers. They both explored the pull of drugs in their work. Here’s
Poe’s narrator from "Ligeia," seeing visions of his dead lover: "In the
excitement of my opium dream (for I was habitually fettered in the
shackles of the drug), I would call aloud her name …"

Here’s Jackson, from Blood On The Dance Floor’s "Morphine":

Demerol Demerol Oh God he’s taking Demerol
Hee-hee-hee Demerol Demerol Oh my oh God it’s Demerol
Hee Oooh

Then there’s the Vincent Price connection. Price, of course, was the
on-screen embodiment of Poe’s work in such Roger Corman films as The
Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque Of The Red Death, and The Cask Of
Amontillado. He also provided the rap and maniacal cackle on the title
track of Jackson’s Thriller.

That’s not all. They both had a less-talented, oft-maligned brother
named Tito. Yep, that’s right — Tito Allan Poe. They both (except
Jackson) are widely credited with inventing the modern detective story.
They both (except Poe) were known for wearing a single white sequined
glove, allegedly wanting to buy the Elephant Man’s bones, and getting
their scalp burned by a pyrotechnic mishap while shooting a Pepsi
commercial.

Sure, skeptics may assert that Poe has a better chance of writing a
sequel to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym before The Nightmares of
Edgar Allan Poe would take any Oscars, or even Golden Globes. Then
there’s always the camp that will insist that Prince does and will
always do everything better than Jackson. But those people obviously
haven’t seen Under The Cherry Moon lately, and I think Michael’s turn
as The Scarecrow in 1978’s The Wiz proves he can update classic
material,) These maybe nonexistent critics are also forgetting that
Jackson has worked with both Francis Ford Coppola (Disney’s 3-D Captain
Eo, to these eyes, a primary influence on The Matrix and Neo) and
Martin Scorsese (MJ’s "Bad" video, which featured Wesley Snipes as a
gang-banger challenging prep-schooler MJ’s manhood) back when that
meant really something.

Whether Jackson as Poe is bad meaning bad, or bad meaning good, or so
bad it’s good, who knows? But even if you don’t take into account
movie’s off-the-scale camp genius potential (R. Kelly’s "Trapped In The
Closet" would be rendered a trifle by comparison); think of Jackson as
an ambassador of American literature. I don’t know how big Poe’s work
is in Filipino prisons, but I bet he’ll be huge there after this movie.
So it is with this argument that I must ask Sylvester Stallone
resurrect another ‘80s icon, and cast Michael Jackson as Poe. C’mon
Rock, make a nightmare come true.

In the corner of St. Croix Antiquarian Booksellers, over by the color-coded antique maps, is a framed edict that’s actually more of a poem:

"I, Richard Booth
King of Hay
Lord of all booktowns
& their protector in perpetuity
hereby declare that
Stillwater Minnesota
Is the first booktown
In the western hemisphere.
Let no one gainsay
Or dare to dispute
This is my official decree."

I’m writing this too late: Booktown has now mostly disbanded. Gary Goodman, who owns the shop, pointed across the street. "There used to be thirty-two booksellers in that building," he said. Now, like much of historic downtown Stillwater, it’s an antique mall. Goodman then began to count in his head the number of tomes that used to fill the stores by the St. Croix. "I think there used to be five-hundred-thousand books in the Stillwater area," he tallied.

Not anymore. The number of bookstores has dwindled down to four. There’s St. Croix Antiquarian, which is the biggest and most impressive; The Valley Bookseller, which is this town’s Wild Rumpus, with its vast childrens’ section and its cage of assorted, fluorescent birds; Chestnut Street Books, a new-and-used shop which has limited hours that coincide with likely tourist rushes (they’re closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and generally don’t open before noon); and then a theologically based bookstore that’s a bit off from the main drag, in a spot which residents refer to as, "Up the hill."

It’s the usual story of Amazon, EBay, and AbeBooks, Goodman explained, all of which allow individuals to unload their books at better prices than stores might pay for them, and to do so more conveniently. Even Valley Booksellers – by far the most conventional of the shops – seems to be feeling the unfortunate tug of the Internet. For the local high school’s required summer reading, they’d ordered twenty copies of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. As of today, nineteen were still on the shelf. "Maybe by August, when school’s closer to starting, most of them will be gone," a blond clerk said hopefully.

I had the idea for this blog post since last summer, but hadn’t gone back to Stillwater until this week. It was supposed to be about how their downtown had an incredibly impressive wealth of independent bookstores, their inventories unmatched by most sellers in the Twin Cities. (Hell, in terms of rare, out-of-print, and first editions, some of these places gave The Strand a run for its money. Antiquarian still does.)

I’d wanted to focus part of the piece on a new-and-used shop that had been on the corner of Main Street and East Chestnut Street, which Goodman estimated had once held 250,000 books. Now it’s the Summit Boardshop, a place that sells skate- and snowboards, its title written on the building in faux graffiti.

Nevertheless, those bookstores that remain, while they remain, are worth checking out. (And this is the real tragedy – they really all were worth checking out…now there’s just fewer of them.) Their stocks are varied, unique, and unpredictable. At Antiquarian, my booknerd friend found an illustrated first edition of The Little Prince author Antoine de Saint Exupery’s memoir, Wind, Sand and Stars, as well as an early translation of Kafka’s The Castle, whose introduction reads, "Franz Kafka’s name, so far as I can discover, is almost unknown to English readers."

These are treasures, and the booksellers in Stillwater that are left are full of them. My suggestion? If you have any interest in books, which if you’ve made it this far in the post I’m guessing you do, go while you still can.

^{Wolves News, NBA photo from 2005}

No great secrets were divulged in the 15-minute phone conversation I had with Fred Hoiberg this morning, nor did I expect him to spill the beans about what will happen on Thursday. But he was kind enough to give me the time during his busy schedule and what follows is as close to verbatim as my flying typing fingers would allow. If I were to handicap what he said, I’d say it is a tossup between Mayo and Love if the team stays pat, and that a trade of the #3 down to anywhere between #12-13 isn’t out of the question.

Rake: Rather than give away any strategy or involve ourselves in the sort of guessing games and myriad scenarios that have filled your days lately, why don’t we start with you telling me who you like from this class that you’ve seen, regardless of whether the Wolves will take him at #3 or #31 or whatever. Who will you feel a little proud about if they go on and have a really good NBA career?

Fred Hoiberg: Well after the first two guys-it is pretty clear Rose and Beasley are one-two. But in that next group there are a lot of guys we like-Mayo, Love, Lopez, Gallinari. We just saw Bayliss and Gordon, two guys who get to the free throw line better than anybody in the country, which is something we need to get better at, so those two guys make some sense. There are strengths and weaknesses in all their games, so what you do is try and find who fits best with your team and what you are trying to do. We feel it is a very deep draft and all will be solid NBA players. You can go all the way to 12 or 13 and get a very good player who can possibly start.

R: Which brings up the possibility of a trade, if you can leverage one of those 12 or 13 guys you like and still add another piece.

FH: Yeah as Kevin [McHale] has been saying all week, teams won’t really come out with their best offer until the last minute. Right now nobody has offered anything that is jumping out at us and we have the pick of the litter after the top two so we’re happy with where we are.

R: What areas of the game are you looking to bolster beyond the improvement of the guys on your roster, and how likely can those areas be addressed in this draft?

FH: I think shooting is a priority. Just so the defender is not always sitting in Al Jefferson’s lap. O.J. Mayo will be as good a shooter as anyone in this draft. We saw him in Chicago and he was filling it up. Kevin Love is a legitimate three point shooter as a big and is a great passer. Bayliss is a good shooter. Gordon has a great shot. Gallinari made 23 out of 25 college threes in the workout we saw. It was against a chair, but he missed the first one and then hit 23 of his next 24 and he’s a legitimate 6-10, just a quarter inch shorter than McHale.

Otherwise you just get somebody who is going to fit into your group. Lopez fits our needs because of his size and his wide shoulders. Love does because of his savvy and smarts–he fills gaps defensively and immediately helps our fast break because of his outlet passing and just does so many little things. Mayo averaged 21 points in the toughest league in country last year and has had the spotlight on him since he was growing up in Kentucky.

R: You’ve already done this to some extrent, but let me throw four names out at you and have you respond as if the Wolves just drafted this guy. Describe why you picked him and why he fits in with your ballclub. The first one is Mayo.

FH: I think OJ Mayo when we look back in 5 years we’ll say he was the best shooter in this draft. He has very good range, he is very consistent and he is a guy I don’t think the moment will ever be too big for him because the spotlight has been on him for so long. He defends well and you can play him at both [guard] spots-he’s not a pure point but he can get you into your basic sets.

R: What about Love?

FH: Looking at this draft class I think he is the smartest player. He is a skilled big which is something we need and there are not many in the league right now. His passing ability is just unbelievable–he sees things before they happen and already knows where the ball is going to go before it hits his hands. He is a great rebounder and shoots the ball well, with legit three-point range, so we’d be able to space him around Al.

R: Lopez?

FH: Lopez probably fills one of our biggest needs which is a legitimate center. He averages almost 20 points per game and did that although he got double-teamed almost every night. We saw him have a big game against Texas. He runs pretty well for his size and is a legitimate 7-1.

R: Finally, Gallinari.

FH: Gallinari grew up as a point guard–two years ago he was a 6-5 point guard and then he shot up 5 inches, so now he’s a small forward with point guard skills. He can go right or left and has great shooting skills. He has the potential to be a star in our league.

R: If you were to make a trade, would it likely involve a more established player and/or a better draft pick?

FH: I think both those scenarios will be there. I don’t think we’ll see the best offers on the table until Thursday. But [then] we’ll probably see different scenarios with draft picks or getting rid of a contract or a [established] player who makes sense for us or all of the above. But if it doesn’t make sense for us we don’t need to do it, we’ll just go out and get the player we want.

R: Because you’re already a young team is it important for the players you pick to be NBA-ready? Is it possible you guys would take a project?

FH: I think the guys we are looking at are all NBA-ready guys, considering that all could step in and play next year.

R: Do all the workouts you guys schedule change your mind ever or just reinforce opinions you had?

FH: More reinforce opinions. You try and put guys in spots where they are uncomfortable to see how they handle it. And if they don’t handle it well, you don’t cross them off but you go back and look at the film and see how they handled those situations [then]. And you do your thorough background checks and you have your sit down interview, which is a very important part of process.

R: Without naming any names, did anyone dramatically screw themselves or improve as a result of this process?

FH: I don’t think so. You’ve got to remember that these guys are flying across the country and doing five or six workouts in six days, and that this is only one performance that you are seeing. But you do get a look and you want to get a look. It is part of the process but not the most important part.

R: I’m figuring that if you don’t land a big man with your first pick, that, given the depth of bigs later in the draft, you will probably get a big with one of your two later picks. Is that a fair assumption?

FH: I would think so unless somebody drops who we feel can’t pass on at 31 or 34. But you’re right [about the depth], there should be somebody there for us.