Our humble, and often slighted, dance community is hosting its own version of an awards ceremony: tonight at its flagship, the beautiful Southern Theater. Rumor has it that this event is going to be “less pretentious” than last week’s Ivey Awards. (As in less sponsored, probably–and I’m quoting an anonymous source here.) Tickets are just five bucks, in any case… And if that doesn’t strike your fancy, well then, you just might consider some live music, because it’s going to be a fine evening: as in, The Bad Plus, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the Charlie Parr CD release show…
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And A Strapping Lad Shall Lead Ye Back Upon The Path Of Righteousness
Is it not against all natural reason that God out of his mere whim deserts men, hardens them, damns them, as if He delighted in sins and in such torments of the wretched for eternity, He who is said to be of such mercy and goodness? This appears iniquitous, cruel, and intolerable in God, by which very many have been offended in all ages. And who would not be? I was myself more than once driven to the very abyss of despair so that I wished I had never been created. Love God? I hated Him!
–Martin Luther, in Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand
America is always in desperate need of new heroes, and what could be lovelier for this cynical, hard-hearted nation (not to mention for a sport with a spastic, rubber-jowled, spit-spraying, pencil-necked, talking lapdog for a commissioner) than a hero named Boof?
Honestly, I can’t think of one thing.
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And On The First Day…
Pop-ups, Nick Punto, Barry Zito’s curveball, the wondrous Johan Santana, and a measure of redemption for Rondell White. 55,542 screaming fans. The tying run on third base with two outs in the eighth and the AL batting champ at the plate.
And the guy who killed the Twins was a player that pretty much everybody –including Minnesota– passed up in the off-season because he could barely pass a physical.
Forget the bullshit noon start, that was a prime-time baseball game if ever there was one.
And, sorry, but I have no idea why Jesse Crain was the first guy out of the bullpen.
Before the game some guy in the press box gloated to me that he’d picked the Twins to win it all before the season started. I felt compelled to point out that while he may have picked this team, he sure as hell never picked this team.Finally, I’m happy to report that Wayne Hattaway was in the house –he arrived in the second inning– and looking fantastic in full cowboy outfit. The medical news so far is nothing but good, and Wayne says he’ll be on the plane to Oakland.
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Localvores Unite!
Lenny Russo was made for this.
On October 3rd, check out a special dinner at Cue that challenges you to Eat Locally. The Bon Appetit Management Company, which runs the hospitality show at the Guthrie, has challenged Russo to come up with an entire meal made from ingredients within a 150 mile radius of the restaurant. Piece of cake for Russo who has been committed for years to the beautiful jewels that are plucked from our frosty soil.
Amuse Bouche
Star Prairie Trout Farm Wisconsin smoked trout mousse with heirloom tomato sour cream.First Course
Pan-seared Singerhouse Farm rabbit loin with garlic-braised chard and Pepin Heights apple cider reduction.Second Course
Hill and Vale Farm roasted rack of lamb with Minnesota wild mushroom-black barley risotto and Alexis Bailly Vineyard Hastings Reserve lamb stock reduction.Dessert
Donnay Dairy goat cheese-pie pumpkin cheesecake with maple syrup creme anglaise and wildflower honey-roasted hazelnuts.Bon Appetit chefs from 29 states nationwide will be taking part in the challenge, but I’m cheering Russo on all the way.
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Forgetting My Cynicism for a Moment
I try not to be a cynic. When the “fall color watch” is on the cover of the newspaper and local magazines run “top drives for fall colors” articles, I can’t help but think there must be something better to cover.
But maybe there isn’t. Don’t get me wrong. I can’t stand the manner in which many of those are written. However driving across the Mississippi River Bridge on 94 at 7:30 on Saturday morning reminded me that it is still possible to find wonder in this world. The banks were lit up by the morning sun and the trees glowed with yellow and orange hues. Luckily at that time of the day the road was empty so slowing down to 35 miles per hour didn’t cause an accident.
It also brought me back to the ritual of climbing the fire tower back in Side Lake every fall when the leaves were changing. Now up on the Iron Range there are a lot more pine trees so the colors aren’t as dramatic, but the opportunity to look out over the tops of the trees from the 108 foot tower and have no cities in view for miles drew us up there with every season change. The fence surrounding the base was topped with barbed wire and getting over that was always a trick and probably more of a challenge than a deterrent to 16 year olds. I think my name is still etched in the paint at the top.
If leaves changing color can elicit that sort of spiritual connection from a cynic, perhaps they are worthy of front page treatment.
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Faith Of Our Fathers
–Michael Langenstein, “Play Ball”
Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
–Mark, 9.24
Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
–Isaiah, 53.1
And ye shall gird yourself for battle and go forth against that city where the wind blows without rest, and against the unbelievers for whom gold is more precious than blood, and ye shall smite and quench, and flay them in the streets and homes, and where they are at work in their fields and counting towers. When there is not a mouth left moving to utter blasphemies, ye shall offer their fat to the Lord.
–The Additions of Esther, 34.7-10
There is, of course, only one conclusion a reasonable person can make at this point: The Twins are God’s team.
None of us has ever seen anything like the 2006 season, and there isn’t a person on the planet who can offer an explanation for the things we’ve seen.
I’ll confess that my faith had been shaken –shaken by the dispiriting and punchless 2005 season, by the March death of Kirby Puckett, the steroid scandals of the off-season, and by the Twins’ hamstrung break from the gate back in April.
Shame on me. Shame, shame, shame on me.
I have a thing about numbers, though. I like to add them up, isolate them, and basically move them around until they cough up some sort of magic. The day Kirby died I turned to the numbers to distract me from my devastation. March 6 was the date of Puck’s death: 3-6. There was some good Minnesota baseball mojo there; Both three (Harmon Killebrew) and six (Tony Oliva) have been retired by the Twins. Put the three and six together and you have 36, Jim Kaat’s old number, which currently belongs to Joe Nathan. Add them and you have nine, which was worn at one time or another by Larry Hisle, Bombo Rivera, Slick Gardner, Mickey Hatcher, and Gene Larkin.
Stetch it out to 3-6-06 and add it up and the magic starts to fade a bit. Fifteen has sort of a lackluster history with the Twins (Disco Danny Ford, Tim Laudner, Ron Coomer, and Cristian Guzman have all worn it). Make it 3-6-2006, however, and it’s considerably better so far as numerical omens go: 17 was the number of Camilo Pascual, Leo Cardenas, and Rick Aguilera, not to mention Joe Grzenda and Fred Manrique.
There’s some point there, I’m sure, even if I can’t quite put my finger on it. I do know, though, that when I get to monkeying around with numbers it’s almost always a prelude to a fit of religious mania. Numbers inevitably drive me to the Bible, where they tend to make even less sense to me than they do in real life.
As spring rolled into summer, and as the Twins rolled out of a miserable early spring and into history, I was wearing my hairshirt and poring over my dog-eared Bible, all the while keeping at least one ear tuned to the Twins on WCCO. I was alternately muttering imprecations and howling hosannas (from the Hebrew: “Save, we pray”).
I spent the season –the first one in a long time– as just another fan. I listened to the games, went out to the ballpark occasionally, ran through the boxscores every morning, and chatted about the Twins with friends and folks at work. I was tired of the dissecting game, and learning to fall in love all over again with the game of baseball.
It was thrilling.
It was absolutely thrilling.
It is.
It continues to be.
My gratitude for what I –I who am so entirely undeserving– have been given knows no bounds, and so, late on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in autumn, I collapsed in the grass in my backyard and showed my teeth to God.
I also asked him to look out for Wayne Hattaway, one of the greatest characters and human beings it has ever been my privilege to meet.
As a feeble –a so, so feeble– token of my gratitude I’m going to do my damndest to return here to grind out some sort of appreciative or anguished nonsense throughout the playoffs.
I’m going to do what I can.
The Twins, though, are in God’s hands.
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Who's thirsty?
Thirst Theater embarks on another performance season tonight–this time at a new venue, Jitter’s. If you don’t know what Thirst is, it’s basically a program of little playlets by local writers, as performed by card-carrying union actors. And the brains behind the deal is none other than Alan Berks, the writerly fella responsible for this year’s very well written Fringe Festival hit, How To Cheat. Here’s something to ponder: I suspect that Thirst is part of a larger movement to take some sorts of professional theater out of the more expensive and, in some instances, intimidating traditional performance venues, in favor of putting on shows in more communal spots where a girl can more easily get a drink!
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You Call That A World?
I’ve got the world on a string. I’ve got the whole world in my hands. I’m on top of the world. I’ve got all the time in the world.
Wonderful world. World of wonders. World of the future. Mattress World. Disney World. Sea World. Auto World. Tractor World. Reptile World. Sex World. Robot World. Sound World. Drowning world.
A world of fine dining.
The world is your oyster.
The luckiest guy in the world.
World champion. World expert. World renowned. World leader. World class. World record. World War. World Peace.
World above. World below. World within. The afterworld. The underworld. Crime world. Invisible world. Dream world. The hidden world. Strange world. Beautiful world. Troubled world. Spirit world.
The world in a grain of sand.
Off to see the world. World Traveler. All over the world. Out of this world. A world of difference.
The old world. The new world. Brave new world. The lost world.
Third world.
The world of our fathers.
End of the world.
Man of the world.
Light of this world.
For He so loved the world.
In his own little world.
Hard world.
What in the world?
Why in the world?
How in the world?
Welcome to my world.
Any world that I’m welcome to.
I’m in a world of pain.
I’m a stranger in this world.
Stop the world, I want to get off.
World without end.
Cruel world.
World of Pants.
Amen.
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Let's Go Demo
Here are the rules of the demolition derby at the 150th Vernon County Fair, as explained to me by the 68-year-old lady who sat to my left for the evening’s entertainment.
1. No hitting the driver’s side door; all the doors are painted a different color from the rest of the car to help with following this rule.
2. If a firefighter shines you with a flash light, you’re done. The last car moving wins.
3. If the firefighters wave red flags and the trucks flash their lights, then stop – they have to put out a car fire.
4. Umm…That’s right, the 150th Vernon County Fair ‘s demolition derby. I’m not quite sure how many of the 150 years have featured the demolition derby, but my dad remembers sneaking into them as a child in northeast Wisconsin, so it could be almost 50.
This year, the power system overloaded and we had to wait a half hour until they decided to just position the fire trucks around the track and use their spotlights to illuminate the track so they could get the thing started. We sat in the grandstand in the dark, soaking up the smell of fried foods that is all too familiar to Minnesotan fairgoers. Don’t they know that stuff should come on a stick?
Some highlights:
– I guess I didn’t expect this at a demolition derby, but the National Anthem was sung, and loudly.
– Two in the first group (called a heat) of cars raced full throttle at each other in reverse. The impact crushed their trunks like beer cans.
– One of those cars continued to compete without a trunk or rear axle until the firefighters decided it was too dangerous to have cars repeatedly slamming into the back of it with only the back seat to protect the driver.
– The third heat was won by a woman in a Beretta that was christened “The Queen Bee” (stinger included), and whose seat broke while backing into her final adversary, prompting the announcer to yell: “I think she ended up in the trunk on that one!”
– The announcer. On someone stealing tools: “If you catch that guy don’t tell the cops. Give him some self justice.” Even the locals looked around uncomfortably, until he corrected himself, “I guess that’s a good way to get the cops mad at me.” On the social utility of firemen derby officials: “They get valuable experience for dealing with highway accidents.”
– The lady sitting next me saying that there was no way one of the drivers was 70 years old (as the announcer had claimed) because she’d gone to grade school with him and “If I’m 68, he’s 68”.
Next year I’ll have to follow the lady’s advice and come back for the tractor pull.
Some photos:
New Friends
Firefighters in Training
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Cool Water
I could be mistaken –I could always be mistaken, I often am– but this seemed to be the scenario: I was asking for a glass of water. I was begging for a glass of water. I was so fucking thirsty that I could barely swallow. My tongue was all fat and fuzzy. It felt like a dried cow tongue lodged in the middle of my face.
I’d been crawling for days. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many days. Crawling across empty suburban strip mall parking lots, across busy city streets, along old state highways, and right out into the fields and the darkness. I crawled across creeks and rivers.
If you spend enough time crawling across fields, I can tell you that eventually those fields might as well be deserts. You get parched. You get thirsty as the devil himself for a glass of water. Your hands and shoulders and knees throb. Your whole body hurts.
These days not one person will bat an eye at a crawling man, let alone stop to offer him a glass of water. You crawl long enough, though, and the law is eventually going to get tired of what they’ll call your “routine,” as if you were a gymnast or a ventriloquist.
The police will drag you up off your hands and knees and haul you away. They’ll want some answers, which you will be unable to provide. They’ll put you in a room with a plain table and bad fluorescent lights. You will ask them for a glass of water. You will beg them for a glass of water, and they will bring you a styrofoam cup of scalding hot coffee.