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  • Don't Take Bags from Anyone

    Greetings from a former actual subscriber to The Rake.

    I’m
    not sure how I ended up at Ann Bauer’s blog tonight, but I enjoyed several
    pages of it, and only quit reading as it’s long past time I was in bed!

    I’d
    like to challenge her on her attitude about cloth shopping bags,
    though. Although I realize she was going for a humorous take on the
    topic, I was disheartened by it.

    I think I’m
    a bit older than Ann—49 at my last birthday—and was in school
    (Hamline) from ’76-’80, after which I lived in St. Paul for several
    years, working at various restaurants as a baker, cook, and waitress. (I
    finally escaped the business in the late ’80s; I make my living as a
    classical singer.) I started shopping at co-ops in 1980, and those were
    the days when you pretty much brought your own containers for
    everything. I’m not sure they even offered shopping bags in the
    earliest days of Mississippi Market, when it was on Selby, west of
    Snelling!

    Anyhow, as a child of the ’70s, the
    idea of energy conservation always stuck with me, and re-using bags
    (and avoiding excess packaging in general) always seemed like the
    obvious "right" thing to do. I like to generate as little trash as I
    can—not easy in America. Over the years, I’ve accumulated lots of
    canvas bags, and always have one of two in the car. I still bring my
    own containers for bulk stuff, like rice and beans, and spices. I have
    a feeling of failure if I realize I’ve got to use a fresh, new plastic
    bag to bring something home.

    Now, though,
    anyone can see that we’re drowning in those damned plastic bags! I mean
    the extra flimsy ones that you get everywhere… and which are now
    BANNED in increasing number of countries, and US cites here and there.
    As the snow melted at last, right here in our fair metro, didn’t you
    see bags floating about along the freeway? Didn’t you see them in the
    trees? But beyond the Great Plains, haven’t you seen the horrifying
    photos of the gigantic floating plastic HELLS on the oceans? who knows
    where all those bags have come from… But they shall no longer come from ME.

    Since
    January, I’ve had a hobby (added to my previous hobby: avoiding corn
    syrup): I don’t take bags from any retailer. Not Cub, not Macy’s, not
    TJ Maxx. Not only that, I produce my fabulous nylon Acme sacs with a
    flourish, flicking them open to the astonishment of all, and make a
    little speech about my hobby—mentioning that I haven’t used a plastic
    or paper bag in 4 months!

    It’s actually been fun—largely because of these particular bags, which are extremely convenient and light.

    If Ann will tell me where I could do so, I’ll happily send her one in an
    effort to change her mind about taking a bag with her wherever she
    goes. I keep mine on my keyring (or in my purse).

    Next,
    I’ll tell you about my other hobby: never accepting another disposable
    cup or styrofoam to-go container! But that’s for a separate email.

    Best regards, Maria Jette

    p.s. Ann mentioned somewhere that she has children—that should make her
    all the more interested in cutting down on trash in the environment. I don’t have any… but can’t bear the thought of sticking future generations with my plastic bags!

    Maria Jette, MN
    Letter

  • Nabokov's Attempted Murder

    Kill your darlings.

    This is the command given young writers when they’re learning to edit their stories and poems. (It usually comes directly after the first piece of advice for novice authors: Quit now.)

    Kill ‘em dead. The line is attributed variously now to Faulkner, now to Hemingway. Extrapolated, it’s something like, ‘take your best sentences, and get rid of them. Chances are, if you’re impressed with your own writing, you’re being too cute.’ Really it’s just another injunction highlighting the masochistic aspects of this practice. Editing is peeling away dead skin, but there’s some pain involved.

    Vladimir Nabokov compares a first draft to a loogey you’ve coughed into a tissue – it’s this ugly thing that you don’t want to show anyone, but also it came from deep inside you. At the end of his life, it seems the author of Lolita and Pale Fire took the editorial call to arms a step further than most.

    Nabokov died in 1977, leaving behind 138 index cards with a draft of his last novel, The Original of Laura, scribbled on them, and instructions that the cards should be destroyed. (In terms of darling killing, this is something like being an accomplice to murder, I think.) Last week, Dmitri Nabokov – Vladimir’s son – announced he was publishing the manuscript.

    I’m reminded of a scene from Don Quixote, when the beautiful Marcela comes down from the hills and confronts a group of travelers. Anyone who looks upon Marcela, it’s said, will immediately fall in love with her. She’s here to tell them not to look:

    "Heaven made me, as all of you say, so beautiful that you cannot resist my beauty and are compelled to love me…But until now heaven has not ordained that I love, and to think that I shall love of my own accord is to think the impossible…The limits of my desires are these mountains, and if they go beyond here, it is to contemplate the beauty of heaven and the steps whereby the soul travels to its first home."

    And, having said this, and not waiting to hear any response, Marcela turned her back and entered the densest part of a nearby forest, leaving all those present filled with admiration as much for her intelligence as for her beauty. And some…gave indications of wishing to follow her, disregarding the patent discouragement they had heard.

    What always bugged me about this episode was that, if Marcela doesn’t want people to see her, she shouldn’t come out of hiding. I suspect that deep down, like everyone else, she likes to be doted on from time to time.

    I have the same suspicion of Nabokov’s feelings toward his ‘lost’ novel – if he wanted it destroyed, he would have destroyed it. Dmitri, at least, insinuates as much in an interview with The New York Times. "I also recalled," he said, "that when my father was asked, not very long before his death, what three books he considered indispensable, he named them in climactic order, concluding with The Original of Laura – could he have ever seriously contemplated its destruction?"

    The same thing happened about eighty years ago, when Max Brod decided to publish the manuscripts that his good friend, Franz Kafka, had left behind – despite the fact that Kafka wanted his texts destroyed, as well:

    Dearest Max,

    My last request: Everything I leave behind me (in my bookcase, linen-cupboard, and my desk both at home and in the office, or anywhere else where anything may have got to and meets your eye), in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others’), sketches, and so on, to be burned unread; also all writings and sketches which you or others may possess; and ask those others for them in my name. Letters which they do not want to hand over to you, they should t least promise faithfully to burn themselves.

    Yours,
    Franz Kafka

    As Dmitri doubted his father’s intentions, so too did Brod doubt Kafka’s:

    Franz should have appointed another executor if he had been absolutely and finally determined that his instructions should stand.

    I am far from grateful to him for having precipitated me into this difficult conflict of conscience, which he must have foreseen, for he knew with what fanatical veneration I listened to his every word…I never once threw away the smallest scrap of paper that came from him, no, not even a post card.

    Coming to the end of this blog post, I’m finding that I don’t really have a point to make. These are just things that happened. I’m not here to reprimand the authors for attempting -genuinely or not – to destroy their works. Rather I find comfort in the fact that, even on their deathbeds, these writers were still playing head games with those they held dearest. And, of course, I’m thankful to Brod and Dmitri Nabokov for not being the literal-minded readers that might actually have fulfilled their respective authors’ (faux) requests.

     

  • Take to the Streets

    I’m of two minds about street food.

    Personally, I find it unsatisfying. I don’t like to walk and eat (too messy!), and I hate the taste of wooden sticks and skewers. Yet, there’s something about a bustling city street dotted with steaming food stands and vendors that makes me happy. I’ll take a stroll the crowd, even if I’m not moved to stop and nosh.

    But I’m well aware there are diehard fans of hotdogs in waxed cardboard boats, streetside falafel, and chili-roasted nuts served in canny little paper cones. In fact, the great Calvin Trillin made his mark as a food writer by sniffing out the best little stands from Singapore to New York.

    If you’re one of Trillin’s minions, you’re in luck. Because not only is tomorrow (Thursday, May 8) the opening day of MOSAIC Marketplace on the Nicollet Mall, it’s actually supposed to be intermittently sunny outside. And — get this — so far as anyone can tell, it isn’t going to snow!

    Every Thursday from 12 – 5 p.m., these local restaurants will be cooking up global fare:

    Manny’s Tortas

    La Loma Tamales

    Pham’s Deli     &
    Holy Land

    And there will be live entertainment, too. Tomorrow will be a crisp 64-degree day with a gentle northeastern breeze, plus a troupe of Celtic dancers jigging and reeling their way up and down the mall. Here’s the full schedule of acts:

    May 8 – St. Paul Irish Dancers
    May 15 – Tapestry Folkdance
    May 22 – Jawaahir Middle Eastern Dancers
    May 29 – UNL Dance Squad
    June 5 – Mayan Dancers

    Of course, Thursday is also Farmer’s Market day on Nicollet, so after you’re done eating, watching, and — perhaps — dancing along, you can pick up some fresh asparagus. What could be better than that?

  • Pigs on the Wing

    In the wake of the Great
    War there was Dick Tuck, and Dick Tuck begat Donald Segretti, and
    Donald Segretti begat Karl Rove. Karl Rove’s further begetting remains
    undisclosed.

    Dirty
    tricks come to politics when politics become seriously political.
    Before Richard Nixon spends those Watergate dollars burgling Democrats’
    offices and spying on their psychiatrists, Nixon himself is dogged by
    campaign mysteries and malfunctions of suspiciously organized origin.
    Nixon’s hound is Democratic political operator Dick Tuck (his real
    name; you can look it up).

    Tuck
    begins his career with Helen Gahagan Douglas, Nixon’s 1950 opponent for
    US Senate; later he squires for presidential crusades of Adlai
    Stevenson, Jack Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. In each campaign, his best
    remembered assignment is to make Richard Nixon look foolish. Sometimes
    this is not a difficult task. After Nixon’s first 1960 TV debate with
    John Kennedy, legend portrays Tuck hiring an elderly woman, who wears a
    large Nixon button, to greet Nixon as he exits a plane, plant a kiss on
    his cheek, and gush, "That’s all right, Mr. Nixon. He beat you last
    night, but you’ll win next time." In 1968, the lore continues, Tuck
    hires visibly pregnant women to carry signs with the Nixon campaign
    slogan, "Nixon’s the One," at Nixon rallies. And so on.

    Tuck’s
    peculiar pleasure is Nixon’s agony. Tuck is preoccupied with Nixon,
    but Nixon is obsessed with Dick Tuck. The emotional open window
    exposes Nixon’s paranoid and vengeful soul. Hunter S Thompson, a
    darker, less balanced Nixon antagonist, later opines, "Nixon was so
    aggressively evil that he almost glowed at night. His political
    instincts were so dangerous that he made the politics of total
    opposition a very honourable trade for two generations of the best
    people in America." Whatever. Nixon decides to hire his own Dick Tuck.

    From
    Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) in 1972, a friend
    offers Donald Segretti the job. Barely out of Vietnam and the JAG
    Corps, a young and impressionable Segretti stalks Democrats in "black
    advance." His object is to sow dissension among Democratic campaigns.
    Dragnetted in the larger Watergate scandal, Segretti’s labors earn four
    and a half months prison time, on misdemeanor charges of dispensing
    false campaign literature ("campaign literature without proper
    attribution," he recalls), and a two-year suspension of his California
    law license. At trial, Democratic prosecutors flaunt a faked letter, on
    Democratic presidential candidate Ed Muskie’s stationery, alleging
    fellow Democratic candidate Henry "Scoop" Jackson had an illegitimate
    child with a 17-year-old.

    Karl
    Rove comes to CREEP after dropping out of school to become College
    Republican National Committee executive director. Rove labors for
    Segretti on the 1972 campaign. 28 years later and in full control of
    Sauron’s scepter, "Bush’s Brain" finds his old boss on the opposite
    side. Segretti is John McCain’s 2000 Orange County campaign chair.
    Beyond irony, a South Carolina push poll of mysterious origin ravages
    McCain: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John
    McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black
    child?" The beat goes on.

    April 2008, BBC News reports: A helium filled giant pig, born one of Pink Floyd’s Animals
    and now a metaphorical billboard for Roger Waters’ political agenda,
    floats high over the crowd at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts
    Festival in Coachella (where else?), California. Its belly paint spells
    "Obama"; adjacent is a checked box (see approx 3:30 here). The BBC newsreader pauses, then muses whether thousands of stoner
    Floyd fans will vote for Obama per instructions from a flying pig.

    Later
    reports say The Pig "broke free from its tethers" and "drifted away."
    After two days, residents of La Quinta, a country club community
    fingered by conspicuous consumption rag the Robb Report as "the
    nation’s leading golf destination," wake to find the Capitalist Pig in
    pieces — "like pulled pork" says one of the finders — on their
    manicured lawns (no, I’m not making this up). Still later, CNN reports
    "organizers" had cut The Pig’s mooring cables. This assertion is
    unconfirmed. Chris Willman of Hollywood Insider is thinking
    black advance. "Is it possible the shredded pig was blown out of the
    sky by a Clinton or McCain supporter with a rocket launcher?" asks
    Willman.

    Home in Corona
    del Mar, two hours from Coachella, Donald Segretti denies knowledge of
    The Pig’s abduction and apparent assassination. He’s been out of the
    black advance business a long time. Segretti is forthright and more
    than contrite about the Nixon campaign work. He decries the South
    Carolina tactics in 2000 and those between Obama and Clinton campaigns
    in 2008. Why do it? "The job is to get candidates elected," he says
    quietly, "There is no second place." He avers his 2000 campaign work
    for McCain followed the credo "no negative campaigning". "You learn a
    lot as you go along in life." Out of politics, he allows he "wouldn’t
    be unhappy" with an Obama presidency, provided the product is as
    advertised.

    Dick
    Tuck is unrepentant at age 85. He won’t confirm or deny legends about
    pregnant women. Tuck has published a political newsletter for over 30
    years. He called it The Reliable Source until The Washington Post appropriated that moniker. "Don’t even think about suing someone who buys ink by the barrel, " Tuck growls. Still a fouille-merde, he renamed his letter WashPostIt. Tuck has also set up DickTuck.com, but to date the site is pretty bare.
    He says, if it’s worth his while to come, he’ll reserve a men’s room
    stall at the Minneapolis-St Paul airport main terminal for the
    Republican National Convention, but expects "a long line". He dismisses George W Bush as inconsistent: "He lied to get us into war; why not lie to get us out?" Tuck disavows personal knowledge of Coachella events, but claims, "If it had been twenty years ago, they would have blamed me."

    Dead
    since 1994, former President Richard Nixon could not be reached for
    comment on The Pig’s demise. Campaign finance reports indicate daughter
    Julie Nixon Eisenhower has maxed out on primary election contributions
    to the Obama campaign.

    It’s unclear whether these events are related.

  • Siete de Mayo — All Around the World

    New this week: May Day Parade slideshow, Second Runway Show slideshow, Meet Local Filmmaker Jon Springer, and Campfire.

    FILM
    Global Lens, or Fast and Loose

    The Walker’s Global Lens series kicks off tonight with The Kite (Le Cerf-Volant) and All for Free (Sve Dzaba). Tour across four continents over the next 11 days, glimpsing into varied cultures and personal stories via 10 excellent films. The Kite (7 p.m.), directed by Randa Chahal Sabbag, examines marriage and tradition in Lebanon; while director Antonia Nuié’s All for Free addresses rediscovery and loss in Croatia.

    And if you’d rather play it fast and loose (whatever the heck that means in this context), then meander on over to the Edina Cinema for their weekly double feature. It’s an action packed night with two (can’t believe it, but…) classics: Dr. No (1962) and Rocky (1976). We’re talking Sean Connery and Sylvester Stallone, p e o p l e !

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    Republican Strategist Discusses Bad Money

    Yeah, the title sounds like a given, but it’s not what you think. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) Best-selling author and noted Republican strategist Kevin Phillips is in town tonight to discuss his new book Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. Wow. That’s a mouthful — and a head-full. Whew. And it ought to be just about as comprehensive as it sounds. Phillips, who warned us against our dependence on oil and
    credit in American Theocracy, now examines the causes and effects of the decline of the dollar and other important economic shifts.

    7 p.m., University of Minnesota Bookstore, Coffman Memorial Union, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-625-5549; free.

    POETRY
    Poetry Lovers

    Of course, you can always bypass the politics and economics and opt for the language of love. I just received an email from local poet Todd Boss today informing me that his poem, "One Can Miss Mountains," will be in the May 12 issue of The New Yorker. That’s pretty exciting stuff for a writer (and for all of us), so what better way to celebrate than to hear him read his poems? Join the Verse and Converse series this evening for a night of poetry with Boss, Lightsey Darst, Margaret Hasse, and Richard Solly. Tim Nolan will host.

    7 p.m., Nina’s Coffee Cafe, 165 Western Ave., St, Paul; 651-292-9816.

    MUSIC
    DeVotchKa and Basia Bulat

    Do you know about despair? Feeling wistful? Dreaming of a better world? DeVotchKa is just the sound. The Denver-based quartet — self-described as Eastern-bloc indie rock — features Jeanie Schroder on sousaphone, upright bass, and vocals; Shawn King on drums, percussion, and trumpet; Tom Hagerman on violin, accordion, and piano; and Nick Urata on vocals, theremin, guitars, bouzouki, piano, and trumpet. If you thirst for versatility and all that is dramatic, this may be your thing. Accompanying them this evening is Canadian singer-songwriter Basia Bulat.

    7:30 p.m., First Avenue, 701 First Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612-332-1775; $19.50.

  • The Films of Carlos Reygadas

    The
    screen is black. A mass of ambient sounds emerges to pull the viewer
    into an immediate state of hypnosis. Crickets and a plethora of other
    insects are making their voices heard. Cattle and roosters join in,
    birds chirping, all while the camera slowly spins around with the grace
    of a Hitchcock film. At first a bit disorientating, soon it’s evident
    we’re looking at the nighttime sky onscreen, clouds and stars all
    together to form a perfect symbiosis with the soundtrack. The camera
    settles, and some light appears on the horizon. As the sun rises, two
    trees prominently frame the scene. The camera pulls in slowly to take
    in an amazing image of a rural Mexican sunrise over a vast field of
    farmland — the color palate a hybrid of Van Gogh and Monet landscapes
    in one single, real-time, breathtaking moving image. It is now morning, and the film begins.

    Award-winning
    writer/director Carlos Reygadas’s latest film, Silent Light (Stellet
    Licht)    , gushes with pastoral beauty from its memorable opening shot.
    No cold, distant, computer-generated trickery on display here, simply
    the natural world photographed impeccably. The film had its Minnesota
    premiere screening, followed by a Q & A with Reygadas, Friday, April
    25, as part of Cinemateca: Contemporary Film
    from Latin America     at the Walker Art Center.

    Reygadas,
    Mexico City-born filmmaker, began his university career in Brussels,
    studying and practicing law. During his time in Brussels, he would often
    go to the Museum of cinema to see as many as three films in one day. Heavily
    influenced by the works of Tarkovsky, Rossellini, Bresson, Dreyer, Ozu,
    and Kurosawa, he eventually decided he had to go to film school to be
    surrounded by the tools he needed to become a filmmaker. Pushed by a friend
    to make short films, and given a super-8 camera, Reygadas learned how
    to use the tools of cinema by "doing." He immediately knew what he wanted
    to shoot and was full of ideas.

    From
    1998 to 1999, Reygadas made four short films, learning how to draw storyboards,
    produce, write, direct, shoot, and work with actors. He honed
    his style during his early works: Adult (Adulte – ’98), Prisoners
    (Prisonniers – ’99), Birds (Oiseaux – ’99), and
    Super Human     (Maxhumain – ’99).

    Super
    Human    , a six minute, 20 second short, deals with suicide (a popular subject in his features) and Reygadas’s own questions regarding
    God. It opens with a narration. The main character remembers a conversation
    he had with his mother: If you commit suicide should you go to heaven?
    (Reygadas has said in interviews he feels it’s a great human capacity
    to end our lives if we want.) His mother responds by telling him that what
    God gives us, only He can take back.

    —Yes, but if God were
    perfect he would not test us.
    —Life is a
    gift not a test.

    I admired my
    mother, but wasn’t satisfied with these explanations.

    The rest of
    the short plays out a scene at a beach, and shows a man tying himself
    down to be taken by the tide as a boy and his mother discuss an old
    story she used to tell him—leading to more frustration for the
    main character. Throw in an odd sexual encounter with the mother and
    the climactic death of the man on the beach, and you have the beginnings
    of a filmmaking talent whose career knows no bounds.

    Japan
    (Japón)    , released in 2002 and screened at the Walker in 2003, won
    the Golden Camera Special Distinction at the Cannes Film Festival. The
    film, shot in grainy 16 mm, highlights many of Reygadas’s strengths:
    shooting landscapes — it is shot in cinemascope (he got the idea from
    Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone, the first film Reygadas saw shot
    with 16 mm in scope) with an anamorphic lens, squeezing the image and
    showing off the beautiful Mexican countryside and rolling mountains;
    his insistence to work only with non-actors and his ability to pull
    natural, realistic performances from them; big, biblical themes that
    ruminate in nearly every scene, but are culled from the minutia of everyday
    people living fairly simple lives; long takes that pull the viewer into
    the reality of the characters; little use of score, mainly using ambient
    sounds or diegetic music for the soundtrack; graphic sexual encounters
    featuring actors not typically seen in films having sex (i.e. old, unattractive,
    and fat people); focus on characters over story, and characters full
    of contradictions. All of his films feature extremely memorable opening
    and closing shots that resonate in the mind of the viewer and are inescapable
    from memory.

    In
    Japan     and his other two features, its obvious Reygadas has a fondness
    for his actors, and their characters in the film. But he also has deep
    respect for the audience, and isn’t the least bit pretentious. He
    uses his films to speak truths about the human condition and reveal
    his philosophy on life, but never speaks down to the audience, instead
    choosing to show the action and let the viewers come away with their
    own interpretation.

    Another
    common theme is his films’ enigmatic titles. Reygadas hates titles,
    but realizes they’re a necessary evil. He wanted to call Japan
    Untitled, like some of his favorite works of art, but couldn’t bring himself to do it because he thought
    it would be "pretentious and horrible." He finished the film, concluding that
    it was about light coming after dark and the cycles in life, like the
    sun rising again. Three countries came to mind: Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
    Ultimately, he thought Japan had the most significance to rising sun
    in the minds of an audience, so he went with that.

    Japan
    follows a character known only as "the man" (played by Alejandro Ferretis,
    whose untimely death at age 59, in 2004, remains shrouded in mystery),
    a painter from the city looking to end his own life. He speaks bluntly.
    When asked in the opening why he wants a ride to a mountain he responds:
    "To commit suicide." When he meets a religious old woman named Ascen
    (Magdalena Flores) and asks to stay at her farmstead, a loving bond
    quickly forms. We never understand fully why the man wants to kill himself.
    After several unsuccessful attempts at suicide (the last one featuring
    a wonderful 360 degree helicopter shot on the peak of a mountain), the
    man finds solace in helping Ascen (her name short for Ascension, which
    she says is short for Christ ascending to heaven without any help) fend
    off family members who want to tear down her barn wall and transport
    it elsewhere.

  • Standing Ovation

    Thanks for reprinting the 2003 WSJ Opinion piece. I
    remembered it, but couldn’t recall the source. I may print copies and
    hand them out the next time I go to any performance in the Twin Cities. A
    couple of weeks ago, Jorja Fleezanis performed Elgar’s Violin Concerto
    with the Minnesota Orchestra, which was conducted by the regal Sir Neville
    Marrriner. I gladly stood to applaud as Jorja Fleezanis received a magnificent
    bouquet of tulips following her equally magnificent performance. It truly was
    a lifetime event for her and merited a standing ovation. But….not every
    performance of the Minnesota Orchestra, not every traveling production that
    shows up at the Ordway, pleeeaase.

    Bill Levin, Minneapolis
    Letter

  • My name is Melinda Jacobs, and I am a Supermodel—NOT!!

    Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a model? Instead of boring you with a long story, I will be as brief as I CAN.

    I have modeled clothes for designers and done that fake (I am too sexy for my shoes) deal: Knollwood Mall in the ’80s. So, it wasn’t Fashion Week in New York… It was still fun to walk the runway with a guy that had to wear a Boy Scout outfit to match my Girl Scout outfit. Why? Because I—at the time—had a huge crush on him.

    Since he is from a very public family, and I don’t have time to get his consent—and go through lawyers—I will call him Mr. Green Eyes. 🙂

    Mr. Green Eyes and I had a lot of fun getting paired up in fashion shows because you really get to know someone when you are given ONE room in which to change—no privacy—and two seconds to take off your clothes and put on the outfit that was selected for you by the CLIENT and approved by your AGENT. Those moments started out fun, but then they just became awkward, tainted with jealousy.

    After that, I had to take a breather. But who wouldn’t take $250 to spend 30 minutes having their picture taken in Pink PJ’s for the TARGET circular?

    That, too, was fun… until a bunch of my high school friends thought it would be cute to copy that ad and post it all over Orono High School. That Monday—which I refer to as Pink Monday from Hell—I thought had taught me a lesson. But, nope; being Me, I had to keep going.

    After playing a Fruit of the Loom Grape at 3 a.m. on a home shopping channel to an audience of 12 people, it was really starting to get to me and make me realize this whole modeling world was NOT for ME.

    There were a few stand out experiences, of course — like the time that I got booked for a national ad for DAYTON’S. Yep. I got the call from my agent at Eleanor Moore; they wanted ME to be the bride for a national print ad.

    I showed up to the shoot, which happened to be at Temple Israel, and—what a surprise—I was booked as the Jewish Bride, and my Jewish Husband was an Italian guy named Tony.

    The whole experience was just wrong. First, I was in make-up and hair for three hours, and when I looked in the mirror afterward, I didn’t look that different. Then came the Wedding Dress. I sucked in my stomach so hard that my ribs were bruised by the dress. And finally, as I was standing at the alter with Tony (my fake Jewish husband), the director told me to lean in and kiss him for TWO HOURS STRAIGHT.

    That was it. I was a married woman getting paid $$$$$ to kiss (more like make-out with) and "be in love with" a fake Jewish guy (a stranger, at that) in the very same synagogue in which I had married my real husband. This whole picture was wrong, wrong, and wrong.

    As usual, I was nice and took direction—except for having to stop and ask the wardrobe stylist for water and mints, which made the big-time New York photographer accuse me of being a prima donna. My fake husband didn’t say a word, and… you do the math—two hours of kissing and hugging with no water. Let’s just say that I can’t be the one accused of bad breath and sweat. :O##

    Well, that was it. I broke my vows to my real husband for $$$$. I felt terrible. The worst part was going out to dinner that night with a bunch of friends, trying to forget the whole day, until—you guessed it—my fake Jewish husband showed up at the SAME restaurant with his girlfriend. Talk about uncomfortable!

    "Howard, meet Tony, my fake husband"

    "Melinda, meet xxxxxx, my girlfriend."

    Yep. That was fun—also a night that made me realize that modeling was NOT my future career… again.

    Which brings me to this last weekend, when I went back down that uncomfortable path by participating in a fashion show. I had only one reason for getting up in front of strangers in clothes that were (how shall I put this) not picked out for my body type and strutting my stuff on stage. It was worth it for one reason and one reason only: Hope Chest and Barbera Hensley. (That sounds like two reasons, but it’s really not. Barbara founded Hope Chest in 2002, after losing her oldest sister to breast cancer.)

    FYI: The highlight of the show was modeling along side Grandma B (the Cutie Pie Mom of JEROME BENTON AND TERRY LEWIS) and having a lot of money raised for the Dear and Lovely Barbara Hensley & her Hope Chest for Breast Cancer.

    The low part was being told by the "professional" MODEL that my tags were hanging out — to which I responded by saying, "Thank you. I am not a pro, so I appreciate your help." Of course, I wasn’t too crazy about having to show my spandex to let all the woman know that I, too, have flaws; but the cream cheese and bagel breakfast gave me no choice. It was spandex or popped buttons. 🙂

  • A Sesquicentennial in the Spring of Our Discontent

    Older generations often talk wistfully of times past – an
    era when candy was a nickel and hookers cost but sixpence. And with Minnesota’s sesquicentennial occurring this year, the temptation to romanticize is pushed even farther, with tales of subzero temperatures, white out conditions, and devouring small children to survive winter’s lean times bandied about like so many empowering after-school special style messages delivered by Hillary Duff.

    But is it really a terrible thing that our civic and
    nationalistic zeal is at an all-time low? It should certainly come as no surprise when our state legislature and governor have only in the last few days been able to stop offering a combination of absurd budget proposals and Yo’ Momma jokes and actually sit down to hammer out a compromise that may prevent nearly 10 percent tuition hikes at the U, the loss of $450 million in Federal money, and the rising use of ninjas in foreclosure cases. Plus, with disapproval of the president at an all-time high of 67 percent, the country hemorrhaging money and global goodwill in Iraq
    faster than Delta’s top execs , and the American dollar nearly equal to the vile Canadian Loon, it would seem to many that we have precious little to be proud of in
    these troubled times.

    So, with the state legislature bickering over property tax caps and whether Minneapolis police officers will soon have the power to
    pull over downtown revelers, hot chick and douchebag alike, who may be too tipsy to remember their seatbelts, not to mention turning on their headlights, turning off the windshield wipers, or perhaps even closing the door, Minnesota
    Statehood Week could not possibly come at a better time. From May 11-May 18 we’ll have ample opportunity to think fondly of the days when Minnesota’s politicians were simply bald-faced land grabbers, rather than two-faced opportunists. Best of all, to celebrate Minnesota’s statehood, a Dunlap Broadside – one of the original 25 copies of the Declaration of Independence made on the evening of the Declaration’s signing – is on display until the 18th
    at the Minnesota History Center.

    This may seem like grasping at straws to the nihilists out there, but the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence, in combination with our Constitution, are the foundation upon which our country’s eminence
    rests. As such, having this document in the state, touched by the founding fathers and imbued with the words that justified the formation of our country as it is, is a rather momentous occasion. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt anyone
    to reacquaint themselves with these words – especially those in our legislative and executive branches who don’t seem to understand that even well-intentioned political gamesmanship has, on occasions throughout history, been met with
    something less than the accolades politicians hope for from their constituency.

    When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
    connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
    should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
    Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such
    form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath
    shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
    Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

  • Meet Local Filmmaker Jon Springer

    Local
    filmmaker Jon Springer’s new film The Hagstone Demon will be
    shown as a free sneak preview Thursday, May 8, at the Riverview Theater.
    The film stars Mark Borchardt, the subject of the Sundance award-winning
    documentary American Movie, which made him a cult celebrity of
    the indie film set.

    This
    locally produced film — presented by Flat Earth Brewery, Copycats,
    Cine-o-matic, and the MN Film & TV Board — will screen at the Minneapolis
    theater, located at 3800 42nd Ave S. Cast, crew, and guests
    are invited to an informal reception in the lobby beginning at 6 p.m.
    General admission begins at 7 p.m. Mr. Borchardt will attend the screening.

    Jon
    Springer is an award-winning horror writer/director with regional and
    national acclaim, and is regarded as an established cult filmmaker.
    Ain’t it Cool News described Springer’s film Living Dead Girl
    as a "hilarious silent-movie spoof…a grotesque, full-color, Romero-style
    gore fest," and in 2003, Film Threat called him "a filmmaker who
    sees nothing as taboo and whose imagination is something to behold."
    City Pages has described Springer as "the state’s most audacious narrative
    filmmaker." Springer was recently awarded the 2007 McKnight Filmmaker
    Fellowship.

    An
    after party will take place at the new Nick and Eddie Restaurant and
    Bar     (1612 Harmon Place, Mpls 55403.) JUST ANNOUNCED: It has been confirmed
    that Grant Hart of the legendary post-punk band Hüsker Dü will be
    performing live at the after party.

    The
    following is an interview I had with Springer regarding the film:

    The Rake: What is the
    film about?

    Jon Springer:
    I guess you could say "The Hagstone Demon" is about a person who
    discovers his own free will. This character, Douglas, is confronted
    by his past and literally attacked by it. It seems to me that anyone
    confronted with a situation, especially a traumatic or even a horrific
    situation, are then faced with a set of choices on how to deal it. So
    here’s a guy who doesn’t think there’s a choice because he’s
    been so traumatized and so complicit himself. He thinks it all comes
    down to fate and that he has no power to change anything. But at the
    crucial moment he discovers that he does have that choice and that power
    and he acts on it. In the case of Douglas, he makes the discovery simply
    because someone else in his life gave a shit, and that person had the
    strength and the courage to show him the way.

    The Rake: How did you
    get the idea for the film?

    JS:
    The idea for the story came from two sources: my co-screenwriter Harrison
    Matthews said he began with the image of a man vacuuming a long hallway
    in an old apartment building. The story expanded from there. Harrison
    happens to be a caretaker of a Brownstone in Powderhorn Park, where
    most of the film was shot, and I really fought hard to get that location,
    because it was essential to the character of the film. But the point
    is that the character of Douglas was autobiographical from the very
    beginning for Harrison. My own interest in the story stemmed from reading
    the Joris-Karl Huysmans novel "La Bas", in which the author
    includes an infamously vivid description of a Black Mass that he attended
    while living in Paris, during the Occult Revival of the late 19th
    Century. I believe that this actual excerpt from "La Bas"
    was used in the obscenity trial of Oscar Wilde, who was a contemporary
    of Huysmans. Anyway, I had an intense interest in filming such a ritual,
    using Huysmans’ description as a starting point, and from my other
    research. But I should say that the location itself was an inspiration
    for the story. The inside of this thing is amazing, with cracked plaster
    and exposed pipes running everywhere, like the insides of an organism.
    So the idea was that this organism is situated at what might be called
    a confluence of negative spiritual energy that both feeds Douglas and
    slowly destroys him.

    The Rake: Whom did you
    work with on the film? How big was the crew and budget?

    Where did you get funding for
    the film?

    JS:
    The film was self-financed, as were all my other films. This is my eighth
    film and my second feature. I like to work with the same small group
    of people for my crew. I find that I can achieve about twice the visual
    detail of other films in this budget range by using a small, mobile
    crew. It’s like shooting with a MASH unit. We were doing company moves
    in less than 45 minutes. As far as cast, I worked with Mark Borchardt
    on my short Living Dead Girl back in ’04, and at some point
    I thought he might be a good choice for Douglas, although that was not
    the original intention. I remember seeing Nadine Gross in a few local
    films in which she was horribly directed and under-utilized; I saw the
    potential she had and I asked her to play a multiple character role
    in my short Heterosapiens back in ‘02. She is an incredibly
    versatile and technically competent actor. In fact she is one of the
    best character actresses in town…probably the
    best. Diablo Cody was interested in the part of the succubus at one
    point back in ‘06 and we set up a meeting. Her agent found out and
    quickly nixed the idea, citing her many writing deadlines (in retrospect
    I can see that was probably true). Hagstone definitely would have been
    a different movie because Diablo is not an actress per se…but of course
    the film would probably already be in distribution.

    The Rake: Is this your
    first full-length feature? What other films have you made or been a
    crewmember of?

    JS: I don’t usually
    crew on other people’s films anymore. I started out back in the early
    90’s as a commercial and movie cinematographer. I am a DP at heart.
    And I actually relish the thought of going back to shooting movies for
    other directors – which would allow me to concentrate on the photography,
    which I love and not worry about anything else. But I don’t get much
    work as a DP anymore because I think in part most directors don’t
    want another director shooting their film. Although I must say I would
    never try to direct someone else’s film. The strength of a good DP
    is not only the technical competency and ability to make stunning pictures,
    but also the experience to get a director through a 22-day feature schedule,
    for example, or the ability to successfully mount the director’s vision.
    Many first time directors search for a DP and are wowed by a technically
    fantastic reel, but overlook these other aspects.

    The Rake: What films
    and filmmakers inspire and have influenced you?

    JS:
    That is always such an academic and boring discussion.

    The Rake: Who are some
    local filmmakers you like (either working with or their own work)?

    JS:
    I thought Todd Cobery’s trailer "The Dead Won’t Die" was refreshingly
    competent and showed his love for the zombie genre, which I share. I
    shot Jesse Roesler’s "Secret of the Symmetrical Gentlemen" which
    was the Minnesota entry in the National 48-hour Film Contest, and I
    shot Chris Gegax’s "Forgotten" which won the local Screenlabs
    Competition. I thought both of those films were well directed. I liked
    "Sweetland" and was impressed by Ali Selim personally the few time
    I’ve spoken with him. I also share an office with Matt Ehling and
    have great respect for his documentary work and for him personally.

    The Rake: What kind
    of equipment did you use (camera, sound, etc.)?

    JS:
    We shot the film in 720p/24 with the JVCHD110 camera. I used a set of
    Nikon film lenses I had laying around and a Redrock adapter. I did some
    very detailed macro photography in this film, and I also used a film
    grain/dust plug-in in my Avid that was excellently subtle and the results
    were amazingly convincing on an HD display. The company who authored
    the Blu-Ray at Cine-O-Matic in Minneapolis actually thought it was transferred
    Super-16mm – and these people look at different formats and codecs
    all day long. So I was able to fool the experts…and that was a good
    sign!

    The Rake: What is your
    hope with this film? Where do you see it reaching its biggest audience?
    Who is the audience for this film?

    JS:
    Well first and foremost this is a serious horror film. Secondly, it
    is a film that stars Mark Borchardt as the main character. And I’m
    sure both Mark and I would both consider it in such a manner. If you
    watch Mark’s film "Coven", you will see that it is a serious horror
    film, yet Mark’s humor shines through the seriousness of it. There
    is a reason why Roger Ebert loved "Coven" and invited it into his
    festival back in the 90’s. He liked it for the same reason he liked
    "Dawn of the Dead" – because the film took itself seriously, and
    because Mark is an interesting person to look at and listen to. People
    just like to watch Mark…especially in a good, creepy low-budget horror
    film. Hopefully they will like him in this film.

    The Rake: What kind
    of films do you want to make?

    JS:
    The kind that can support me and allow me to remain in the Midwest.