The Rake Magazine

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  • Spinning out hate

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    He’d be assassinated today, too.

    I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh or cry yesterday when I heard that Michele Bachmann had “scolded” the God Hates Fags protesters at the funeral of the Minnesota soldier who had been killed in Iraq. As Bachmann explained, it’s not that God doesn’t hate fags, it’s just that he doesn’t hate them enough to desecrate a soldier’s funeral.

    No, really. She just wants it put to a vote of the people of Minnesota as to whether or not God hates fags. Michele, do you really think the people of any state should get to vote on what God does or doesn’t hate? That’s what we have a legislature for, right? So, if you can just get your Senate colleagues to vote on what God hates or doesn’t hate, that will just have to do. Leave the people out of it, because, frankly, if we’ve learned anything about what people will vote for these days, it’s that they’ll vote for damn near anything that fills their little minds with hateful crap.

    Michele, you should consider the possibility that appendicitis is only the first warning that an overload of vile prejudice can cause pain…maybe pain sent from, yes, God. Sent to punish you. Yeah, I know the mind of God, too. That’s it. You are in deep shit now.

    I was sort of wondering as you were about to go under the knife, as the pain in your side gave way to the anasthesia, if a thought flashed through your mind: “God, please don’t let my surgeon be gay.”

    The only thing that saved Michele from being the real highlight of my day, however, was the thought of George W. Bush spreading flower petals at the memorial to Mohandas Gandhi in India. You can’t make up stuff like that.

    It gives me a huge pain to even mention those two men in the same sentence. God, please give me a tiny portion of the Mahatma’s capacity to forgive.

    Never mind. Someday, Bush, when someone explains to you who Gandhi was (other than some guy in a Ben Kingsley movie) you’ll be ashamed.

    Actually, you probably won’t.

  • Elsewhere: Things That Are Not This Thing

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    —Michael Thompson

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    —Michael Hernandez De Luna

    Bad Press Books, The Stamp Art And Postal History Of Michael Thompson And Michael Hernandez De Luna

    The Museum of Bad Art

    Soviet Children’s Picture Books From the Twenties and Thirties

    The Golden Age of Iron Men

    Dictionary of Hobo Slang

    Vintage Drug Ads

    Thump Queen: Meryl Truett Photography

    Blue Note Album Cover Art

    Polish Poster Gallery

    Lateral Science

    Dream Anatomy Gallery

    Belly Dancers and Harem Girls

    Briefcase Full of Meat

    The Enchanted World of Rankin and Bass

    World Wide Wounds

    Film Titles By Saul Bass

    Snow Globes by Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz

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  • All Arabs Look Alike

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    “Ok, Cheney, just you and me. Shotguns at 10 paces.”

    I just couldn’t let this go, but it popped onto my computer a few minutes ago when I used Yahoo for the first time in months. The headline that jumped at me was this: Bush Confident Bin Laden Will Be Captured.

    Big talk from a guy who has spent four and one half years “hunting” Osama, which, in case you are keeping score, is now one year more than we spent on Adolf Hitler. And three years more than we spent deposing Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with attacking the United States, and couldn’t have done so even if he wanted to…because he had no weapons.

    The only more preposterous crap we’ve been hearing lately is from all the flacks telling us that there is no civil war in Iraq. Here’s a clue, Sean Hannity: when there is a country that has two factions and those factions are trying their best to kill each other, that’s the definition of a civil war.

    I guess you could say it’s not a civil war only if you don’t admit that Iraq is really one country, and that countries don’t really matter much at all in the Muslim world anyway. What does seem to matter is whether you are Sunni or Shiite. And if you define your boundaries that way, we don’t have a civil war, we have a world war in the making, with the world’s oil supply right in the middle.

    And when that all goes to hell, Hugo Chavez will be holding a lot of cards in the big game. When are we planning to topple his statue in Caracas?

  • Safety Glass

    Peter Beinart went quietly into the night as the editor of The New Republic, and no one noticed except David Carr, who is of course paid to notice such things. TNR has lapsed into almost complete irrelevance, along with the putative political party it was long associated with. In fact, if it is possible to be even less relevant and engaging and more conflicted than your typical mainstream Democrat, TNR managed to do it by dissassociating itself even from him. The new editor-in-chief, promoted from the ranks, is Franklin Foer. He says he looks forward to carrying TNR’s “momentum” forward, but considering the fact that the magazine has hemmoraged forty percent of its circulation in the last few years, and now prints fewer pages per issue than your typical government pamphlet, it’s not clear what momentum he is referring too, other than maybe the subtle force that carries us all inexorably to the same destination–our final resting place. The fact of the matter is that TNR needs what Stephen Glass once pretended to give the magazine–actual reported stories from the fringes of Americana that were damn fun to read. The world needs more humorless liberal armchair commentary about like it needs another Canary Island, so here’s hoping Frank Foer all good luck with a magazine that desperately needs some fire in the belly… like it had in the days of Rik Hertzberg, Michael Kelly, and even the waxen Michael Kinsley.

  • This Planet of Dreams

    Surely you’re aware that there are dreams all around you.

    You’re moving through them everywhere you go. They’re on every block and corner of the city you live in, and flickering behind the curtains and shades up and down every street. Open the Yellow Pages of your local phone book –what is that if not a catalog of dreams?

    And beyond or behind all of those dreams just blooming or being born are millions –tens of millions– of dreams that have not yet been recognized or realized, and dreams that are withering from neglect.

    It boggles the mind how many things the human heart can invest itself in or wish for, the myriad directions in which it can be cast by hope (so seemingly arbitrary, so heedless, so often ridiculous).

    How can the world contain so much longing? And how can any of us live surrounded by so much disappointment? How can we all be so blind and careless with our attention?

    How many dreams might be salvaged if each of us spent a little more time thinking about how and where we were going to spend our money? Or even if we made the slightest effort to be more curious about the cities and neighborhoods we live in? If we would just poke around a little bit and notice all the little, sometimes out-of-the-way places that represent such brave investments, such modest dreams?

    Because so many of those dreams can only be fully realized when they are embraced by others, when they are finally seen and recognized and nurtured by the attention of strangers.

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  • The Blah-Blah Cha-Cha-Cha

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    In this moment my body wants to evacuate my skin, rattle its bones, and, dancing, dream itself free. Or dreaming, dance itself free.

    But my mind swings so wildly, and in this moment –a moment later– I feel like I am blindfolded, with a broken broomstick in my hands, flailing at a cement pinata.

    Meanwhile, everything is huddled out there in the darkness, waiting for the truth. And terrified, of course, that it will be the awful truth.

    It’s odd how the moon just disappears.

    It’s not funny at all, really, how the night moves.

    (Sits for a time, jangling his restless legs and staring numbly out the window at nothing in particular. Eventually is seized by a burst of what passes for inspiration at five o’clock in the morning.)

    Allen’s appetite appeased, another appetizer appeared.

    An apple almost appears arbitrary.

    Aboard an aeroplane, accordianists amused an audience, almost all All-American acrobats and affirmative action adherents.

    Ask anyone about Arnold; all agree.

    At an art affair, Ashleigh acquired an admirer –an artist, actually, and athletic.

    Acquiring acres as an accomplishment? Alas, all across America.

    Nice try, but I can’t take that idea [sic] any further.

    One last dubious revelation before I shut down this third-rate carnival: the best fishing is when you recognize that you’re both the fisherman and the fish.

    Right now I just feel fished for.

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  • The Basic, The Fundamental, Aspirations

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    To be a good man.

    To do no harm.

    To see clearly.

    To do my laundry.

    To keep an open heart and mind.

    To acknowledge my blessings, to share them.

    To eat something.

    To give away happiness even when I have little or none to spare.

    To feel the pain of others.

    To laugh at myself.

    To turn down this racket.

    To reach out.

    To find the courage of my convictions.

    To find an ottoman at a thrift store.

    To recognize and speak the truth.

    To be gentle.

    To be fearless.

    To allow myself to be known.

    To clean the dog vomit out of the backseat of my car.

    To listen.

    To hear.

    To forgive, and beg forgiveness.

    To wake up and smell the coffee.

    To call my mother.

    To hope.

    To dream.

    To fucking sleep.

    To believe in all the big, clumsy, impossible things.

    To be merciful.

    To be compassionate.

    To either find the fingernail clipper or walk to Walgreen’s and buy a new one.

    While I’m there to also buy some red licorice and a box of crayons.

    To bite my tongue when to do so will spare someone pain or embarrassment.

    To express gratitude.

    To see beauty.

    To pause, to wonder.

    To take out the garbage.

    To praise, to glorify.

    To be whole.

    To be holy.

    To sacrifice, compromise, and comfort.

    To finally go see fucking Brokeback Mountain, even if I have to go alone.

    To reconsider.

    To think carefully.

    To change my mind.

    To be a part.

    To belong.

    To drive like a bat out of hell.

    To spend less time on the floor.

    To alphabetize my record collection.

    To love.

    To be beloved.

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    We asked the captain what course

    of action he proposed to take toward

    a beast so large, terrifying, and

    unpredictable. He hesitated to

    answer, and then said judiciously:

    “I think I shall praise it.”

    —Robert Hass, from Praise

  • SF Jazz Collective

    Saxophonist Joshua Redman put together the SF Jazz Collective in 2004, and in two short years this ensemble has become one of the more adventurous and diverse jazz outfits working today. The roster includes hotshot New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton, pianist Renee Rosnes, and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, a man with one of the most eclectic and distinguished resumes in jazz; plus alto saxophonist Miguel Zen—n, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland. You’ll rarely get so many brilliant players together in one room, and their repertoire sprawls across jazz categories and generations. The collective has already made a couple of local visits to the Dakota, but this time out, a larger, more formal setting should give them the opportunity to really stretch out. 2128 4th St. S.; Minneapolis; 612-626-1892; www1.umn.edu/umato/

  • Peninsula Malaysian Cuisine

    This is not just another Asian place on a street lined with Asian places, as evidenced by the drink menu alone: Peninsula offers a refreshing green bean with grass jelly freeze and a smoothie made from durian, a spiky Southeast Asian fruit that has an odor reminiscent of very old gorgonzola. In fact, the entire menu challenges the palate with authentic but mostly very approachable Malaysian and Southeast Asian dishes, including lemongrass jumbo shrimp, roti (Indian pancakes), beef stew curry soup, clay pot soups, and crispy onion steamed duck. 2608 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-871-8282

  • Place

    Since Minnesota is not a noted home to the polar bear, one might wonder where the name White Bear Lake comes from. If you believe Mark Twain, it originated with an Indian legend. In his 1883 book, “Life on the Mississippi,” he tells of a Romeo and Juliet type romance between a Sioux maiden and a Chippewa brave. Because the lovers were from quarreling tribes, the story goes, they met secretly on an island in the lake, soon to be known as White Bear Lake. One day, as the brave approached in his canoe, he saw a giant white bear (perhaps an albino) mauling his girlfriend. He rushed to her rescue. “The warrior, with one plunge of the blade of his knife, opened the crimson sluices of death,” wrote Twain, “and the dying bear relaxed his hold.”

    So impressed was the maiden’s father with the brave’s deed, that he gave the couple his blessing, and they lived happily ever after with the white bearskin on the floor of their home. The lake, the island, and the town-to-be, on the other hand, would be haunted by the bear’s spirit for all eternity. That’s why the legendary island is named Manitou, which translates from Ojibwa to mean “great spirit.” Sometimes, if you drive down County Road F, the bear can be spotted still, holding a Chevy sign in front of Polar Chevrolet/Mazda. It also occasionally appears as an ornament on neighborhood lawns.

    As with many lakeside towns, White Bear Lake had its turn as a fashionable resort community in the late nineteenth century. But then, in the 1890s, the town fell out of favor with the leisure class and an anchored community sprang up. Rows of century-old mansions—once summer homes—still tower above the lakeshore, lending the city an air of import. Just twenty miles north of St. Paul, White Bear Lake has its share of stripmalls, fast food joints, and auto dealerships. But near the lake itself, there is still an old-fashioned, clustered downtown that’s quite pleasant. Next to such precious shops as the Avalon Tearoom, where one can get a macaroon with her cream tea, many old buildings are left in their shabby splendor.

    The architecture downtown ranges from Alsatian half-timbering to squat, seventies-era plazas crowned by cedar shake shingles. There are the requisite faux limestone storefronts, of course, but it’s not uncommon to see one-hundred-year-old tin buildings either. The business mix is similarly patch-worked. White Bear Lake has the Twin Cities’ only parrot shop, a Bikram yoga studio, and a store called Needlepoint Cottage. Fifty-year-old Ciresi’s Liquor Store shares its beat-up brownstone with a relatively new Christian bookshop. Boxy, old Hollihan’s Pub looks fortress-like with its dark green façade. The saloon sits kitty corner from Washington Square Bar and Grill, a stylish restaurant and bar housed in an airy, Frank Lloyd Wright-style structure with a low-pitched roof and floor-to-ceiling windows. Here, just as in the old days, we find quarrelling cultures shaking hands.—Christy DeSmith