Hardening your heart is difficult, stressful, and taxing work. You’ve never been much good at it. You’re getting better, though, as you learn to accept how necessary this work is to your survival in a world where the heart is mostly useless anymore beyond its function as pump and plumbing. The heart, you recognize, has … Read more
New issue is up. Print edition–the real thing–will hit the streets on Monday. This is what we’re doing most of the time.
With the news that our publisher and son have taken the reins of the ab fab MNSpeak, I was reminded of an ongoing monologue I’ve been developing (I know, among all the other ongoing monologues) about the variety of blogs. Just within any particular medium, there are so many varieties that creating a typology is … Read more
Your ideals are invisible clouds So try not to suffocate the poor, the peasants, with your sympathies. They know that you’re staring at them. —Jim Harrison, from “Easter Morning” Dance on, you pigs, what concern is it of mine? —Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1914 Could any of this possibly be true, these things you tell us? … Read more
“The Winter Carnival suspended the 2005 Vulcan Krewe and ordered future krewes to wear their real names on their costumes. In the past they have used character names, including ‘Baron Hot Sparkus’ and ‘Grand Duke Fertilious.’ The new Vulcans will also stop placing garters on women’s legs and attaching pins to their clothing. They will … Read more
By summer, the hulking, multi-ton blade sharpening machines of Printers Service Inc. will be gone, hauled out through the big front windows of 716 Washington Avenue North. For more than half a century, Ken Springer has run his business here, with the help of various employees who tend to stick around like family, and his … Read more
Enough was enough, she thought as she stared out her kitchen window at the falling snow covering her garden. Growing things now bored her to tears. It was a brutal and masochistic hobby in such a harsh climate. She’d have three mostly satisfying months, preceeded by two months of dirty work and followed immediately by … Read more
Cindy Jindra writes: Much to the delight of our Overseas Adventure Travel companions, we brought along our Rake as we enjoyed a two-week trip on the back roads of Costa Rica. This issue was passed around until it fell apart. Of course, the volcanic mud bath really took a toll on the condition of this … Read more
Dave writes: We took this while in Glacier Bay, Alaska a couple weeks back. PS- I really enjoyed Musicapolis (6/05). I am 44 and grew up watching and listening to many local and regional bands. Thanks, Dave Author(s) and Location: David and Kelli Muller, Minnetonka
Christine writes: This photograph was taken in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia while doing medical work there in October 2005 with forheartsandsouls.org. Christine Larson RN of Stillwater was part of a team of 21 doctors and nurses who went to Mongolia to screen children for heart defects. The team also taught surgical repair of minor heart defects … Read more