Thank you, and Brian Lambert, for pointing out the inadequacies of our local newspapers. [See Lambert’s blog Lambert to the Slaughter, at www.rakemag.com.] Many of us have given up on the mainstream and instead look to your magazine and other free venues for intelligent, comprehensive, and well-written journalism, telling us what is going on in … Read more
As the executive director of The Wildcat Sanctuary, the only accredited sanctuary in the Upper Midwest, I wanted to thank you for your insightful article “Cat Scratch Fever” [May]. The article helped raise awareness of the exotic pet trade in Minnesota and the United States. In one year alone, The Wildcat Sanctuary assisted authorities in … Read more
The other day, sitting in a little pizza place with a friend, I thumbed through a copy of The Rake and found “And Now This: Breaking the Spirit of Your Newborn Child” [May]. I just couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I had to do my own research. Now, the publisher you cite exists, … Read more
This avid and perhaps dangerously optimistic reader traveled to the island of St. Lucia in June with his wife in order to celebrate the couple’s tenth anniversary. “I got a good chuckle out of the ‘Beware Of Falling Coconuts’ signs on Jalousie Beach,” wrote Mark Ferry of Wayzata. “I never had one fall on me, … Read more
Greetings from Carnival 2007 in Rio de Janeiro! Copacabana beach and Sugar Loaf are in the background. Having a great time. Wish you were here! Author(s) and Location: Dale Stenseth, St. Louis Park
Because I am writing this column almost two months before it will show up in print, we can have ourselves a little scientific experiment. See, I just read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, a book designed to help me tap my hidden personal powers, and I’m going to think convincing thoughts in order to test … Read more
It’s a bit like motherhood. You can’t be against “localization”—the revolution in reporting that every second- and third-tier newspaper in the country is embracing as vital to its salvation. Like motherhood, “localization” is something you can dress up in pretty sentiment, fake, and do badly, or you can do it well by applying tenderness and … Read more
Chucho and I were searching for golf balls in the protected wetland on the twelfth hole when my feet found a body. There were already several hundred golf balls sitting on the edge of the marsh ready to be cleaned and sold and I’d dug my feet into the mud expecting to feel the cool … Read more
Paintings by Edvard Munch, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Carl Larsson, August Strindberg, Harald Sohlberg, Akseli Gallén-Kallela, Eero Järnefelt, and Fanny Churberg will shimmer on the walls of the MIA. The show explores Nordic attitudes toward nature and the past and present significance of landscape in Nordic culture and thinking. Expect a beautiful show—rampantly pretty as well as … Read more
The work in SAD, says curator Diane Mullin, “probes conditions of light, atmosphere, and isolation, addressing how our northern surroundings affect and define us.” Mounting this show in summer is a counterintuitively interesting idea: When the weather gets too good, go and soak up a little soggy gray despair (maybe we’ll discover we’re even SADder … Read more