The Rake Magazine

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  • History Lessons

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    Never mind Osama, here’s Neville

    When I was in eighth grade, there was a question on my American History final exam that read, “Who was the person most responsible for starting World War II?” The answer the teacher was looking for was, of course, Adolf Hitler. I wrote Neville Chamberlain.

    If Don Rumsfeld had been grading it instead of Mr. Peters, I’d have got it right.

    In Salt Lake City yesterday, Rumsfeld called all of us who oppose the war in Iraq, in effect, “Chamberlains”.

    If that’s right, I guess Rummy must think of himself as Winston Churchill, who did, after all, have it completely right about Hitler while Chamberlain was acquiesing while Germany took over Czechoslovakia in 1938.

    Of course, when Churchill did come to power, he didn’t advocate starting a war with, say, Equador, to name one country which had nothing to do with attacking Czechoslovakia or Poland.

    Franklin Roosevelt, on December 8, 1941, didn’t call for a declaration of war against Mexico after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

    It’s as if Rummy got the same question I did: “Who was the person most responsible for starting the current war?” and he got it totally wrong, too.

  • Conversations Real and Imagined: Rain Downriver

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    The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942. Directed by Orson Welles, written by Welles (and fully credited to him), with additional dialogue by fellow legerdemain Jack Moss and pal Joseph Cotten. Starring Tim Holt, Anne Baxter, Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, the incredible Agnes Moorehead, Richard Bennett, and narrated by Welles.

    Available on DVD exclusively at Cinema Revolution.

    In this state, which is not madness
    but Michigan, here in the suburbs
    of the City of God, rain brings back
    the gasoline we blew in the face
    of creation…

    From the files of street critic Sandoth “Guy” Fresno.

    I’ve spent a good quarter of my life looking for the lost hour of The Magnificent Ambersons. I’ve trudged through old warehouses, stolen into the archives of RKO, been locked away for a month waiting for a lawyer just to give the world what it deserves. Because Ambersons is a signpost, a warning. It’s Michigan, man. Sure it takes place in Indian, God-freakin’ Indiana, home of the Danforth Quayles, but it’s about Michigan, Damnit. Or: it’s about what was coming to ruin us all.

    Welles was looking for something lost, a time of innocence, of simplicity. Just like always, he wanted the dreams of childhood which, when he grew old, he mistook for reality. Check out those Ambersons in their buggies! Dancing in a ball, laughing, scraping their upturned noses against the sky. Bastards. It kills me to watch the thing, knowing I’m supposed to care about these sons-a-bitches. Only I don’t. Care about them, that is. Who I care is Joe Cotten, reeling over what he’s done. He’s brought the gasoline-soaked clouds down on top of all of us. And now he’s sorry.

    And I care about Agnes. Agnes Moorehead. It’s the movie that made me think Agnes Moorehead is a beautiful woman. That’s saying a lot because she seemed to make it a point to play spinsters, to tie her hair up tight and harden her features. Even here. Watch her while Tim Holt shovels his God-damn dessert down his throat and Agnes swallows her pain. Your throat will hurt for the rest of the movie, or you’re dead.

    It’s the typical Welles soaker about lost love, an innocent past, men and women who don’t realize what they had in their hands until it had flown away, never to return. The Mighty Ambersons, holding onto the past, wasting their money in creaky investments and turning their nose up at progress. Only progress eats them alive.

    Bratty little Tim Holt confronts Joe Cotten over the coming of the auto-age. No, not because he really gives a rat’s-ass about the automobile, but because he’s spoiled and his widowed mom is paying just a bit too much attention to old Joe. And Joe Cotten, doing what he does best, loping around, bewildered, even as a successful man knowing that he can’t hold onto the reins. He gives a little speech, when he’s been insulted and knows he, too, can’t have what he really loves. And it’s beautiful, man, a sweet punch in the face in a small but testy fight in some backwater arena.

    Listen to Joe for a moment:

    With all their speed forward, they might be a step backward in civilization. Maybe they won’t add to the beauty of the world or lift our souls, I’m not sure.

    But automobiles have come. And almost all outward things will be different because of what they bring. They’re going to alter war and they’re going to alter peace. And I think men’s minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles.

    And it may be that George is right. Maybe that in ten to twenty years from now, if we can see the inward changes, by that time I shouldn’t be able to defend the gasoline engine.

    I don’t know if Booth Tarkington wrote that, or Welles, or who, but that’s it, man, that’s Michigan. That’s the ruined wasteland of Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, Jackson, the whole rotten constellation of half-empty blue collar towns. A story of the bastard rich that reaches right down and scratches our flea-bitten heads. Rich and poor: we all breathe that gasoline air. We all punch our clocks and drink away our pain and then go through the same thing over and over and over again. Sometimes we quit drinking to think we can live better, but then the clouds clear and we sit over a ruined plate of eggs and know that life isn’t going to get any better than this, without any more color than the Saginaw Bay in February.

    Ambersons is a wreck, though. You can see what a masterpiece it would have been, if they hadn’t taken sixty God-damned minutes out of it. From 150 to 88 minutes? Holy shit. I spent two years nonstop, with the memory of Detroit haunting my every step, just looking for the footage they lost. And keeping my eyes and ears open since. Everyone said it was gone, melted down for the silver, but I just couldn’t believe that. Those moronic scholars speak of it in hushed tones, but movies should never be analyzed, just felt. And I can feel in my bones that that sixty minutes is out there somewhere, like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

    It was a corporate decision to hack the thing, just as it is a corporate decision to belch carbon monoxide into the air, just as it is to invade countries, just as it is to grind the human soul into a lubricant to run the machines.

    I don’t know, man. Sometimes the movies just bring you down.

    …If the Messenger entered now
    and called out, You are my people!
    the tired waiter would waken and bring
    him a coffee and an old newspaper
    so that he might read in the wrong words
    why the earth gives each of us
    a new morning to begin the day
    and later brings darkness to hide
    what we did with it.

    —Philip Levine, “Rain Downriver”

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  • The Wagon Wheel

    Again, there’s not a lot of interesting stuff going on today. I guess we’re in a pre-holiday “slumber” (or something). Sigh… The State Fair’s still happening but, pfft!, that’s not much of a secret. The Twins are playing. Plenty o’ shows to see at the all-new Guthrie. And speaking of which, Jeffrey Hatcher, who penned the current “Dowling Studio” production, is giving a talk about how to be a screen/playwright, which I’m certain will be of interest to plenty of folks since everyone under the moon dreams of makin’ the movies someday. The most exciting thing I have to report is that I’ll be venturing out into the uptown area of Minneapolis this evening; and I’ll be accompanied by my very good looking, very single, soon-to-turn-thirty first cousin, Sheryl. If you spot a pasty white, frizzy-haired lady in ballet flats standing next to a sparkling, angel-headed glamazon, rail thin and wearing fashionable platform heels, you’ve found us.

  • Butterflies Walk

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    I’ve had one too many fucking nickels pulled out of my ear, the younger of the two men said.

    He was sitting on the floor, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, pajama bottoms, and badly worn bedroom slippers. He had declined the offer of a seat on the sofa, choosing instead to slump down against the wall and cross one leg over the other at the knee. He was nervously jostling the slipper on his left foot, slipping it on and off and tapping along to some beat in his head or blood.

    Butterflies walk, he said.

    They fly, the older man said.

    But they must also sometimes walk. Some of them probably spend a good deal of time walking.

    The older man shrugged, removed his glasses, and placed them upside down on his desk.

    This shit wears you out, the younger man said.

    What shit is that?

    This query was followed by a prolonged silence. The older man eventually repeated the question. What shit is that? he asked.

    Oh, the younger man said, I think you know what shit I’m talking about.

    Why don’t we make an attempt to narrow it down, the older man said. Perhaps we could isolate some specific things that are wearing you out.

    Shit, the younger man said. The shit. This shit. We’ve been over this before.

    Well, the older man said, the problem as I see it is that we never seem to get beyond this same general complaint. I think you need to dig a bit deeper into things.

    Into the shit? the younger man asked.

    If that’s how you choose to think about it, yes.

    What is this music? the younger man asked.

    It’s Chopin. The Nocturnes.

    Please turn it the fuck up, the younger man said.

     

     

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  • Cheese Parade 2

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    A few nights ago, we started a dinner partywith a cheese tasting. I would have posted pictures, but it was like a frenzy. Honestly people.

    Old Kentucky Tomme / Capriole Farms, Indiana
    This was an aged, raw milk goat cheese (much like my beloved Humboldt Fog). It develops a natural rind that helps develop the rich flavors. Raw milk cheeses are greatly influenced by whatever the goats have been eating, grassy fields, natural woodlands, etc. This cheese was great because there was a hint of earthiness a little like mushrooms that you don’t usually find in goat cheese.

    Roquefort / Le Vieux Berger, France
    This Roquefort comes from Aveyron, the smallest of the AOC designated cheese caves. I think Mother Nature specifically carved out the land so that there could be a place where cheese would mature and mold to such a tangy and brilliant intensity.

    Ubriaco del Piave / Italy
    Our friend, the notable Doctor From New Zealand, was wild about this cheese. The legend of this cheese comes from the Veneto region during the first World War. Wanting to hide precious cheeses from invading soldiers, someone threw some fresh rounds into the wine cellar, in the vats of must under the fermenting vinasse. Genius! Now called Ubriaco, meaning “drunk”, the cheese is cured about 4 months with the must from cabernet and merlot wines. The flavor has a touch of fruit, but has an earthy mellowness that makes it a great wine cheese. Duh.

    Sottocenere / Italy
    If you’re a truffle fan, this is your cheese. Because it’s not overwhelmingly truffle, like some people think things should be, which leads to too much of a good thing like lobster ice cream and foie gras burgers and ridiculous heaps of caviar. Stop the madness. The beauty of the truffle is that one only need a hint, an airy breath of flavoring to bring about the perfect bite. This cheese is studded with bits of black truffle and the ash-coated rind includes nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, fennel and coriander.

    Ossau-Iraty / France (Basque)
    A raw sheep’s milk cheese from the Pyrenees, Ossau-Iraty kicks Manchego’s ass. That’s it.

    All cheeses available at the new cheese heaven, Premier Cheese Market on 50th and France in Edina.

  • The Pugilist At Rest

    Jesus H. Tapdancin’ Christ on a popsicle stick I’m busy. So I’m going to be lazy and lead you to an obituary of a very interesting person. I love characters like this, and would’ve given up fifteen weeks of coffee and beer (not mixed) to have sat with this gent and just listened, over drinks, in some cozy New York bar.

    Notice the crooked eyes, the weary smile. “You don’t have to tell everybody. They already know.” A classic line from what appears to be a classic fellow. Mr. Roger Donoghue, RIP.

  • Lowering the roof

    Not much going on ‘cept the cheaper showing of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Tonight it’s fifteen dollars as opposed to the usual eighteen. How many times can she recycle one secret, you ask?

  • Guide Dog

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    The way you throw your head

    back and show your broken

    teeth to the stars.

    How you laugh laugh laugh,

    nodding, your eyes pinned

    back to your perfect ears.

    I love that.

    The places you take me

    and the way you allow

    yourself to be taken,

    wherever you might be,

    so suddenly by sleep–

    I love that.

    Especially that.

  • Early

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    Early Berleson had long since grown accustomed to the static routine of his middle years. He would sleepwalk through the day at work, make his way home in a sort of empirical blackout, and then, eventually, the night would just fall out from under him and leave him floating in murky space, listening to the strains of Mahler from someplace far off. It sounded almost like a transmission from a ghost satellite.

    The planet felt frozen in his skull like a starfish paralyzed in amber. He could sometimes convince himself that his bones were locked up in his skin, and he supposed he would never again shimmy to an ecstatic piece of music.

    As a younger man, life had rolled through his veins like a carnival ride, and he had found great and simple pleasure in those moments alone in his bachelor apartment, lunging around –often enough naked– to his old records. It frequently depressed him to recognize that he would in all likelihood die from shame if he were ever subjected to a videotape of himself in the midst of his happiest moments.

    Now, outside his windows in the night there was a humid scrim crouched on the neighborhood and he could hear the dense rattle of bugs and the sound of idling air conditioners and sprinklers shaking their sand maracas up and down the block. Beyond that, the city, a wash of white noise interupted by the occasional burst of something sleepless.

    It would likely be fair to say that people who wrote about concrete for a living couldn’t write for squat, and Early had made his peace with the fact that it wouldn’t do him any good to try to sprinkle a little fairy dust on the copy. Who really gave a rat’s ass?

    Even after editing the damn magazine for almost ten years he still didn’t have the foggiest idea who read the thing, but assumed increasingly that no one did or could. It was clearly just one of those things that people in the trade received and threw on the coffee table at the office.

    The journal had a peer review process that essentially made Berleson’s job unnecessary; he was supposed to edit the thing for grammar and style. If he was feeling particularly bored or ambitious he might go through the copy and clean up obvious messes, but lately it took more gumption than he could muster to read through most of the stuff even once.

    Every once in a great while he’d receive a letter from someone complaining about the virtually unreadable nature of the journal, and these letters gave him immense pleasure. Berleson relished one letter in particular, so much so that it was hanging in a frame above his desk. “I realize it’s only a concrete magazine,” this person had written, “but, Jesus Christ, I’d think you could at least find some better writers.”

  • Greg Brown

    This Iowa singer-songwriter, whose low-down, come-hither grumble is to women in Birkenstocks what Barry White’s silken mumble is to women in heels and negligees, has kept a low profile the past few years. But now the prolific fellow has a new album, The Evening Call—and a new wife, the singer Iris DeMent, about whom he does not much talk. If American roots music had more fans, this super couple would be outrunning the paparazzi in a dusty pickup. The razor-shirking, work-boot-wearing Brown will pop into town for his first Twin Cities show in two years, perhaps offering a duet with his wife—we can always hope. 651-290-1221;
    www.fitzgeraldtheater.org