Item: I received in my inbox (not the Rake email, but my personal address for friends and family) this little note from the folks at Motive Entertainment, the good people who helped make Mel Gibson’s S and M Undead Masterpiece The Passion of the Christ such a big hit. These folks have set up a … Read more
Happy May Day! (Grumble-Grumble.) The interminable rain foiled my weekend running plans of course, although it didn’t stop me from making it Brave New Workshop way. Also swung into the Soap Factory (two opposable thumbs up for the 8x8x8 exhibition–they had felt art!) and Theatre in the Round. But I’ll report back on all that … Read more
um … hello? If you have dinner plans at a restaurant tonight, expect the unexpected. Latinos are the backbone of the kitchen industry: dishwashers, prep cooks, line cooks, bussers. They happily and successfully do the work that many native-born Americans refuse to do. Will they be there tonight to support your meal? It’s important to … Read more
Death had become bored with humans and their ridiculous rituals, their lip service to life and its preciousness. How could he take them seriously after all the centuries they’d been mucking up his once mostly orderly routine? Once upon a time he’d had a pretty cut-and-dried job description. It wasn’t pleasant work –it wasn’t meant … Read more
This piece of information doesn’t exactly qualify as comfort, but on a rainy Saturday in late April it will perhaps serve as a grim and modestly entertaining diversion: For two days, late in the first month of the 2006 season, the Minnesota Twins were the worst baseball team on the planet. And maybe this will … Read more
Every day, every day I hear enough to fill a year of nights with wondering. –Denise Levertov, from “Every Day” Bring me all your dreams, You dreamer, Bring me all your Heart melodies That I may wrap them In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too-rough fingers Of the world. —Langston Hughes, “The Dream Keeper”
United 93 and Akeelah and the Bee “United 93”, 2006. Written and Directed by Paul Greengrass. With a cast of unfamous actors and actresses and many of the grounds crew, air traffic control, and, perhaps the star, Ben Sliney. Now showing at theaters throughout town. Around the turn of the last century, the Coney Island … Read more
Ah, the weekend lineup. They just about write themselves. I’ve been looking forward to it all week… There’s yet ANOTHER Minnesota Book Awards reading tonight, and this will be the last since the official awards are being handed out tomorrow. Guess who’s “moderating” tonight’s reading? Tha’s right. Me. (Sorry Tex!) But with a lineup that … Read more
Here’s the frustrating and telling thing about last night’s half-assed performance in Kansas City: Sure, the Twins scored just one run off Runelvys Hernandez, but it’s what they did –or didn’t do– when they weren’t scoring that one run that was so pathetic. Hernandez was making his first 2006 start, this after going 8-14 with … Read more
I know these things about my barber: He refers to his wife as “the battle-ax.” Or, alternately, as “the fucking battle-ax.” Though uncommonly foul-mouthed, even by my debased standards, his favored exclamation remains the sturdy and old-fashioned, “Oh, my stars!” The project of his old age is reading all thirteen volumes of the Lewis and … Read more