The Rake Magazine

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  • In Defense of Hipster Literature

    I like McSweeney‘s.

    This may come as a surprise, because I don’t wear tight jeans. And even though I have thick-framed glasses, it’s because I’m near-legally-blind, so if I had puny little wire-frames the lenses would stick out like half an inch, and I’d be all self-conscious about it. You can call my tortoiseshell frames trendy, even pretentious, but the fact is I need them, and that they look so good on me is purely incidental, a symptom of my otherwise-already-fantastic features. (I’ve been led to believe, maybe because of the movie Juno, that McSweeney’s readers are prone to tight denim and unnecessarily thick spectacle frames. Greasy hair and a moth-eaten scarf might round out the picture. A plaid wool skirt over the tight jeans, for the ladies. Hipsters, if you will. Dirty, dirty hipsters.)

    I like Mcsweeney’s. More so than my sartorial infractions, this may surprise you because I also like n + 1.

    For the uninitiated, n +1 is a powerful little literary/sociological journal printed twice yearly, updated online frequently. Occasionally its editors will get some attention for, among other things, doing a little bash work on McSwy’s.

    The latest barb came in last Sunday’s New York Times, in an article about Keith Gessen, whose book All the Sad Young Literary Men just came out. It was a paraphrase, and only half a sentence long, but biting nonetheless:

    "As a founding editor of n +1… Mr. Gessen and his colleagues have assailed other publications they believe have squandered their eminence, or never merited it (McSweeney’s and anything else associated with the writer Dave Eggers)."

    Here is a bit of extrapolation, taken from an interview Keith Gessen did with the New York Inquirer:

    "When [n +1] launched, it seemed like [McSwy’s] were the ideal representatives of a certain kind of literary position, which states that 1) reading, in any form, is good, that writing is good, that literature is good; 2) all these things are imperiled, and therefore 3) that anything done in the service of these things is good. We disagree with all three parts of that, even #2. And we’ve said so a number of times."

    And finally, an excerpt from the piece that started it all, from a July 2004 post in n + 1.

    "As far as content goes, though, the innovation of the Eggersards [followers of Dave Eggers] was their creation of a regressive avant-garde. The first regression was ethical. Eggersards returned to the claims of childhood. Transcendence would not figure in their thought. Intellect did not interest them, but kids did. Childhood is still their leitmotif.
    … Eggers’s subject reflected the Eggersards’ obsession with childhood as a way of life. From raising a child as the treasure house of one’s own moral genius (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), to the editorship of anthologies for teens (Best American Nonrequired Reading), to a writing-tutor program (826 Valencia) — this is the substitute for transcendence in the Eggersard world."

    I’m not sure I’m smart enough to dismantle everything above…

    But here goes:

    Attacking the first attack — that McSwy’s doesn’t deserve literary merit — I’m just going to list some of their contributors:

    Denis Johnson
    Joyce Carol Oates
    Nathan Englander
    TC Boyle
    Ann Beattie
    Chris Adrian
    Michael Chabon
    Javier Marias
    Sarah Vowell
    David Foster Wallace
    (And more!)

    There are a couple  of Pulitzers in there, among other awards. Not that prizes automatically entail merit, but there are legitimate critics out there who will argue on behalf of everyone on that list. (And I will too.)

    I think the worst you can say is that at times McSwy’s seems more concerned with form than with content. Some of the story structures are a little too cute, but really you get that with any lit mag.

    Second:

    Gessen’s arguments from the Inquirer interview appear to make a lot of assumptions about McSwy’s intentions. I’m looking for a mission statement on the McSwy’s website, but can’t find one. All I know is that the 826 programs, which are set up to tutor English and writing to under-funded and inner-city youth, are good. One might attack 826 on philosophical and psychological terms, but at the end of the day, it’s a damn good organization doing damn good things.

    Finally:

    At root, it seems n + 1 is arguing that the McSwy’s crew is not serious enough about their writing, because they look to their childhoods for substance and content instead of culling meaning from the world we live in presently.

    Gessen and others are assertive, and even persuasive. I, too, believe that the best literature out there is more expansive than a fictionalized memoir — the characters of Tolstoy and Fitzgerald and Flaubert are all products of the societies they inhabit; their novels aren’t about personal stories, but about whole cultures.

    But, sentimental as it may be, to say that A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius didn’t get inside of the Generation X-Y culture is, I think, a bit shortsighted. "Eggers’ subject reflected the Eggersards’ obsession with childhood as a way of life" — I think Gessen is making the Eggersards a bit too niche.

    I would argue that, to an extent, everyone these days has an obsession with childhood as a way of life. Which would therefore bring AHWOSG into the realm of ‘serious’ literature, indicative of the larger world. Just like every reviewer said it was when it came out eight years ago.

    On a personal level, for whatever reason — for various reasons — probably a dozen of my friends’ parents have gotten divorced in the last five years. And with each break-up, it really seems sometimes, from my unsophisticated vantage point, that upon divorce some adults immediately revert to their childhood selves. One friend’s mom moved to New York and began dating twenty-four-year-olds (after a twenty-eight-year-long marriage). One friend’s dad has started going regularly to eighteen-plus shows at First Ave, and frequenting the college bars he went to as a student at the U. Really I could give a thousand examples, but what they all indicate is a societal obsession with childhood. I’m not going to get into the media’s infatuation with youth culture and all that, but it’s there.

    Eggers’ novel is a personal story, but his own character is a function of his encapsulating society.

    Benjamin Kunkel, another founding editor of n + 1, published his first novel a couple years ago — Indecision. Its protagonist, the delightful Dwight Wilmerding, isn’t very different from Dave Eggers’ character in AHWOSG. Wilmerding is petty, childish, and irresponsible. Maybe the only difference from Eggers is his belief in transcendence, his belief that he’s better than his circumstances — but when he actually tries to escape his life, that’s when the book is at its least convincing, even bordering on manifesto.

    A medley:

    How about some Important books based on loose childhood biography? Death in the Family, by James Agee; Call it Sleep, by Henry Roth; The Catcher in the Rye; Swann’s Way; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

    Am I missing somet
    hing here? I must be missing something here. I’m not saying Eggers is on the level of Proust or Joyce, but if they’re allowed to examine their childhoods, why can’t Mr. Eggers? Is it a matter of intellectual analysis? Of storytelling?

    If nothing else, Eggers and his pals are making literature enjoyable for the non-reader. One can pick up an issue of McSweeney’s and not have to have read hundreds of other books to catch the references therein. n + 1 has some ambitious goals for its fiction, but the fact is they need publications like McSwy’s just to establish some ground-level interest in reading, to make n + 1 accessible — possibly even relevant — at all.

    Squash the beef!

  • From Devil's Food to the Dark Side

    Betty Crocker is perfect. She bakes
    flawless pies and gives sage advice, such as: "A fricasse without
    dumplings is like a wedding without a bride." Also, unlike another
    domestic goddess that we know of, she’s never been in the slammer. It’s
    easy to be the perfect woman, though, when you don’t actually exist. An
    invention of General Mills, Crocker was created to sell flour and serve as
    the company’s face.

    Susan Marks, on the other hand — a Minneapolis-based writer and filmmaker — is quite real. In her book, Finding Betty Crocker, she tells the history of
    Betty Crocker and the person who was largely responsible for creating her
    image—Margerie Husted, a woman who was anything but the typical image
    of Betty Crocker. A company exec who married late and never had
    children, Husted served as Betty’s voice on her popular radio show.
    She endeavored to empower women by validating domestic work and later
    lectured about issues such as the inequality of pay and recognition for
    women in business.

    Marks has since moved on from Betty Crocker, however; and her new project takes our homespun peppermint rooms into much darker territory. As her mother says, she has gone from Devil’s Food to the dark side. Marks is filming a
    documentary about murder. And dolls.

    When Corinne May Botz’s book The
    Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death     first came out, Marks devoured
    it and then wanted to know more. Her new documentary, Our Wildest
    Dreams: A True Crime Documentary of Dolls and Murder     explores the
    story behind the Nutshell Studies, a series of dollhouses built by
    Chicago heiress Frances Lee Glessner in the 1940s. Each dollhouse
    depicts a murder scene in minute detail, from the blood spattered
    candy-striped wallpaper to the victim’s stockings (knit by Glessner on
    a pair of straight pins). The dollhouses were built in order to train
    police officers and are still used for this purpose today. Susan’s
    documentary is currently in production with the king of campy noir
    himself, John Waters, providing the narration.

    At first it may seem a bit odd that Susan should go from studying
    strudel recipes to examining miniature murders with a magnifying glass.
    When you talk to Susan though, she’ll tell you that the stories of
    Betty Crocker and Frances Lee Glessner have more in common than one
    might think. Both involve women who yearned to do something outside of
    the role that society had prescribed for them, and both succeeded in
    doing so by taking their "womanly" interests, flipping them upside down,
    and then climbing right up on top of them in order to succeed in the
    male-dominated realms of business and forensic science. However, if you’re
    still left wondering what the hell a fricassee is, I’ll bet
    Susan Marks knows.

  • Campfire

    One
    muggy Minnesota morning during the summer straddling the scrawny divide
    between my fanciful childhood and jaded adolescence, my best friend
    Robby and I found religion. It’d been hiding, not surprisingly, inside
    the whitewashed pine chapel of Lake Bronson Galilee Lutheran Bible
    Camp.

    Robby
    and I first met, with a magnetic force, five years earlier at a
    baptism. Hayseeds both, we each had Elmer’s Glue skin, John Deere
    green eyes, and an electric shock of curly blond hair. We also shared
    a passion for C.S. Lewis’s stories, a furious love of outdoor
    exploration, and a consuming need to spend time together. Bible Camp
    was just an annual extension of that need.

    The morning we discovered religion, head counselor Neil finished Rise And Shine services by directing all campers to join hands around the chapel’s suspended oak cross in a chorus of “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord.”

    Robby took my hand in his.

    Seven
    measures into the round, late morning humidity oozed in through the
    levered windows. Sunlight beamed through the bible stenciled into the
    center of the most prominent stained glass window, angelfying each
    crooning countenance. Robby’s slick and gamy hand swung gently with
    mine in time with the music.

    Just
    before the last bit, Neil twirled his finger in the sunlit dust,
    indicating we should repeat the entire hymn, splitting the stanzas
    between the boys and the girls. With exponential vigor the music
    bounced from us to the chapel walls and back again. This swirl of
    echoes tugged at me with an insistent, muscular strength.

    Something
    was at work. The song, the sunlight, the heat, Robby’s hand,
    collectively they pierced through my skin, infusing a soulful mood. I
    felt sheltered, peaceful, and poised.

    “I
    feel…religious,” I thought. Not a jarring revelation, as I was after
    all in church, in bible camp. But God wasn’t really what I was there
    for, and yet, in some form, He appeared anyway. How odd. Eventually
    Neil axed the air, and everyone filtered out into the muggy broth,
    eager to shed their clammy church clothes for swim trunks.

    But
    neither Robby nor I could recede easily into camp tomfoolery. He too
    had felt simultaneously elevated and anchored by the music. While
    changing in our cabin we discussed that feeling, then religion, which
    inevitably fell to talk of Heaven.

    “Maybe
    it’s like Narnia,” Robby gushed. “Aslan, enchanted candies, talking
    animals!” Any other camper would have saved face by chiding this
    fancy, but I admitted I had a similar hope. Heaven had to incorporate
    some childish magic, or it’d just be eternally dull.

    Later
    that day we sprawled on our coconut-scented beach towels on the coarse
    pebbles above Nestea-colored Lake Bronson. Our conversation hadn’t
    stopped, so naturally we came to hell. On this subject we knew only
    what we’d been taught by rural Lutheranism: whoever accepts Christ as
    his savior has a free pass through Heaven’s Gate, as long as he asks
    regularly, meaningfully, for forgiveness of all sins. But within
    individual families, the rules were murkier.

    Robby’s
    family was bent meekly inward toward his father, Herald, who ruled
    fiercely, religiously, using confusion as a tool and hell as a strap.
    And occasionally he used an actual strap.

    “Sometimes,”
    Robby confessed, “like when we stole those crabapples, I’ll think,
    ‘What if I died, right now? Would I wake up in hell just because I
    haven’t, yet, told God, sorry?’”

    “It’s
    a puzzle,” I admitted. “And what about all the sins we forgot to ask
    God’s forgiveness for? What happens to those when we die?”
    Robby frowned. “It’s not like we see a priest; nobody’s hearing the sins and asking, ‘Sure that’s all of them?’”

    “Right,” I said scraping sand from my taffy. “It’s just God and us.”
    Lutherans
    are proud to have removed the Catholic’s confessional middleman, but at
    that moment I feared perhaps we’d been too efficient.

  • Back up in the 60s

    Get outdoors today and enjoy the weather. It’s going to be "mostly" sunny and back up to the 60s. Considering the weather lately, that’s pretty darn good. And when the evening starts to fall, get out and use some of that sun-fueled brain & body energy.

    MUSIC
    Uh Huh Her

    For a real spring sound, go check out Los Angeles-based music duo Uh Huh Her at the Varsity tonight. Leisha Hailey and Camila Grey serve up some seriously mellifluous indie electro-pop. You might recognize Hailey, formerly of The Murmurs, from the Showtime hit series The L Word. And Camila Grey, bassist and keyboardist with lo-fi rock band Mellowdrone, has worked with Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, Melissa Auf Der Maur, and Kelly Osbourne. How about that?

    8 p.m., Varsity Theater, 1308 4th St. SE, Minneapolis; 612-604-0222; $15.

    BOOKS & AUTHORS
    The Man, the Writer, the Revolutionary, the Legend

    We have a legend in our midst today: Amiri Baraka is in town to share his wisdom with us. This man was one of the leading voices of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the ’60s — the one that essentially laid out the path for a new American theater aesthetics. Author of over 40 books of poetry, essays, drama, music history, and criticism, Baraka has covered virtually all aspects of art, politics, and activism in the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. Yes, that’s a lot of ground to cover, the man is quite the master. It’s not often he comes to Minneapolis from his hometown of Newark, NJ, so be sure to catch him now.

    7:30 p.m., Northrop Auditorium, 84 Church St. SE, Minneapolis; $10.

    Wrack and Ruin

    Don Lee’s latest novel has gotten a lot of attention lately (so I’m guessing it’s quite good), and he’s here in town today to speak for himself (you know, a reading, a discussion, a book signing, and all that jazz). Lee, currently a resident of St. Paul, served as editor of Ploughshares for nine years, prior to accepting an associate professor position at Macalester College, teaching creative writing, of course. And it seems we got him at just the right time, as Wrack and Ruin takes the world by storm. In this latest novel, Lee writes about about two brothers, one a sculptor-turned-Brussels sprouts farmer, the other a charlatan movie producer. If you happen to have read Yellow, his previous collection of stories, you’ll recognize the made-up town of Rosarita Bay, California, the setting for his latest novel. Apparently, having grown up as a diplomatic brat, it’s easier for Lee to make up a fictional home than to draw from his own experience (though, to be fair, it is based on a real town).

    7:30 p.m., Barnes & Noble Booksellers Galleria, 3225 W 69th St., Galleria Shopping Center, Edina; 952-920-0633.

  • Magic Minnesotans

    The Cloud Cult experience can
    be called many names. It is captivating. It is overwhelming. It is bone-chillingly
    pure. It is beautiful. And it is raw in a way that exposes many facets
    of emotion.

    It must be the string section.

    There is something about a
    lush cello and violin washing over a room that cuts right to the core.
    It strips away any posturings and pulls at those feelings hidden deep
    inside.

    Or maybe it’s Craig Minowa’s
    painfully delicate tenor.

    Hidden in that warble is a
    heart ache that hurts the whole way through. As it stretches thinly
    across his tales of losing and getting lost, it breaks through the band
    and turns itself into a victory chant. It sings a theme song for that
    moment when you’ve figured out that everything is going to be all
    right.

    Triumph is Minowa’s story.
    But first there was sadness. The sadness in his song is often about
    his son, Kaidin, who died mysteriously in his sleep in 2002. Kaidin’s
    memories shock through Cloud Cult’s music. The triumph, however, shows
    in his life — in how Minowa overcame grief and has become a conduit
    to reflect and heal all the dark patches in listeners’ lives. Minowa
    is a shaman, a medicine man and a troubadour all in one.

    Minowa wrote Cloud Cult’s
    first nationally released album, They Live on the Sun, shortly
    after his son died.

    "What came out of that was
    because it was so personal. A lot of fans came out of the woodwork that
    had gone through similar losses, and I had felt like the loss of Kaidin
    could have a positive aspect," he says. "If there was a silver lining
    at all — that by being open and honest about the grieving process we
    could perpetuate his legacy in a way — it’s something positive to do
    with the music."

    Cloud Cult tours with two artists
    who slap paint onto huge canvasses while the band plays. One of the
    two is Minowa’s wife, Connie. Kaidin is a theme within her art, as
    well. Tonight a packed crowd at First Avenue looks on through the course
    of the set as Connie’s image comes to life. It’s a family bathed
    in an earthy green hue. But there is a distance in their eyes. They
    are looking at the ground, or maybe to the past.

    Yet there is so much life in
    this band. As much as Minowa eyes the past, he is ever focused on the
    future and works to make it a healthy place for everyone.

    Another theme in Minowa’s
    life is roots. He’s got roots that wrap around the planet. Minowa
    is a never tiring campaigner of eco-consciousness.

    "We have a responsibility
    to live like that," he says about his green lifestyle. "You choose
    to recycle at home. You choose to buy green products for your personal
    life. It’s the same thing [as a band.] The t-shirts are organic cotton.
    For posters we do 100% post-recycled. Touring is tough to really truly
    green."

    The band tours in a bio-diesel
    van. But with earth-friendly fuels becoming big business, Minowa says
    he feels some of the business practices are becoming at odds with the
    ethics he holds. But he has other plans.

    "We’re going to put big
    sails on the van and sail across the street," he jokes.

    Tonight he and Connie are ecstatic
    because they get to spend the night on their farm.

    "I miss our front porch where
    we sit and enjoy the stars at night, and I miss the peace and quiet,"
    Connie says. "The scenery is wonderful, especially in the spring and
    fall. It’s just gorgeous. I miss our garden a lot, too."

    Minowa agrees.

    "It’s getting to be the
    season to start growing things," he says. "It’s really nice to
    walk out to the garden and make your own food for the day."

    Touring, though, has become
    a barrier to their goal of being self-sustaining.

    "Last spring we did our seedlings
    and those died while we were out on the road," he says. "You can’t
    achieve those sustainability goals if you’re not there to take care
    of the farm."

    The future of Cloud Cult will
    likely be a lot different when the band finishes this tour. Minowa
    says he wants to focus on the farm and only play in cities near enough
    that he and Connie can quickly trek back to tend the garden.

    Add that one to Minowa’s
    list. A farmer: a man who can make magic beans grow.

  • NBA Playoff Update

    AFP/Getty Images/Gregory Shamus
     

    Yeah, I know I still owe the second part of the Wolves season recap. But I confess that this steady diet of *quality* NBA basketball has made a return to Wolves-think fairly depressing. I will get to it in the next few days. Meanwhile, here are some thoughts on the playoffs thus far…

    Celtics and Pistons both in a dogfight

    Kevin Garnett and Flip Saunders are back in the pressure-cooker. Both have had very successful careers that are at least slightly besmirched by their (thus far) inability to elevate their game when it matters most. I find it interesting and inevitable that the KG backlash is occurring on the heels of the two losses in Atlanta. First of all, it wasn’t his man torching the club from outside all game–why Doc Rivers chose to ride with Ray Allen on Joe Johnson instead of throwing James Posey or Tony Allen on JJ, or even Rondo, with Allen switching to Bibby, is, ah perplexing. Or incompetent. I could also mention that Garnett had a whopping six steals and a team-best plus +7 in 41:59, meaning the Celts were minus -12 in the 6:01 he wasn’t on the floor.

    But KG was around for the entire fourth quarter collapse. And in addition to Joe Johnson’s 20 points in the period, Josh Smith had 12 points and 5 rebounds (versus KG’s 5 and 2), which included 8-8 FT. Going against Smith and Al Horford, both of whom he can finesse and muscle in the low block, Garnett should have stopped deferring to a dinged up Pierce and a defensively-bewildered Allen and started to go for his. Because with Cleveland, either Detroit or Orlando, and the Western champ on the horizon, it is not going to get any easier. I know this is not in KG’s natural make-up. But as one who named him the year’s MVP and steadfastly defended him ever since Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley unfairly called him out in the playoffs five or six years ago, he needs to see that giving himself and his team the crunchtime dimension of him in the low block is crucial to the Celts success further down the road. No time like the present to sift it in.

    But KG has it easy compared to Flip Saunders. Always a player’s coach (meaning he doesn’t challenge anybody and relies on self-policing) and a stickler for midrange jumpers, Flip simply doesn’t have the tools most vital for guiding a team through the gauntlet of playoff hoops–the capacity to trigger that extra gear the players themselves didn’t even know they had, and the ability to win games at the free throw line. The Celtics’ losses are fairly easy to explain–they were way too overconfident in Game 3 and then got bushwacked by a white-hot outside shooter in Game 4. But the Pistons’ performance has been horrible thus far–raise your hand if you think Philly won Games 1 and 3 more than Detroit lost them. What happened to Chauncey Billups? Seriously, Andre Miller is exactly the kind of matchup he should be dominating–Miller is if anything a poor man’s Billups–and yet Miller is the one coming up large. And isn’t it time to start running more plays for Tayshaun Prince, who remains a 4th option on this club after Rip, ‘Sheed, and Billups, all of whom seem to be both overconfident and lacking synergy while Prince keeps bailing them out with jumpers on the baseline.

    I think the Celts and Pistons will both ultimately prevail. But the second round in the East has suddenly gotten a lot more interesting.

    Magic and Lakers first to advance

    The only great surprise here is that George Karl is apparently coming back for another year in Denver. Okay, if Karl’s not responsible for what may be the biggest waste of pure talent on an NBA franchise, who is? How can any self-respecting coach sit and watch an entire season of opponents consistently getting into the paint–off the dribble, feeding the post, interior passes, transition, you name it–and not take drastic steps to curtail it? All year long, the Nugs frittered away 15 point leads and made 15 point comebacks on games they lost by 5-10 points. They are a bunch of lazy underachievers who have a pile of individual accolades and absolutely no desire to play as a team. Whether Karl is the instigator or merely the enabler of that culture, he’s got to go.

    What won the series for the Lakers was ball movement, which ranks with team defense and superstar wattage as the requisite X factors for a championship ballclub. In Kobe, Gasol and Odom, LA has the perfect front line for the new hand-checking rules, a trio that can all tussle in the paint and extend their games out 17 feet (for Kobe of course it is beyond the 3-pt arc). Each has the combination of height and quickness to be a nightmare matchup one-on-one, so if all decide to sling the rock to the open man, it is difficult to imagine how they are stopped. Then again, they just got through with four games with the Nugs, who can make anyone look good on offense.

    In the underground series that nobody watched, the Magic dispatched the Raps in 5, which makes perfect sense when you consider that there is nobody on Toronto’s roster who can match up with Dwight Howard. And yes, it really is that simple.

    Spurs and Jazz on the verge

    I make no bones about rooting hard for the Houston Rockets in their series with the Jazz. I’ve always regarded Yao as the most overrated NBA player this side of Vince Carter, and so when Houston keep ratcheting up their 22-game winning streak after Yao went down, I egotistically felt validated and started paying attention to what they were doing. And I fell in love with the way rooks Luis Scola and Carl Landry muck it up in the paint at both ends of the court, and noticed the parallels between Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett–their mixture of breathtaking talent and self-effacing teamwork. And Shane Battier needs to be on the USA Olympic Team, as he combines the best of the European style (smart in the half court, good from beyond the arc, passes well without a lot of fanfare) with the American grit of tenacious D. I knew in my head Houston would probably not fare well versus the Jazz, especially with Rafer Alston on the shelf for the first two games at home, but my heart went with Houston as I picked them in 7.

    My head was right but my heart is satiated. Houston has played inspiring ball thus far, with Landry recovering from a slow start to deliver a key block to win Game 3 on the road, this after Carlos Boozer knocked out his tooth with a forearm that the refs didn’t even whistle. Battier has been marvelous and McGrady is a wonderfully tortured soul, sloe-eyed and pretending implacability as the emotions race across his face. It’s just that the Jazz have the matchup that matters, in this case at the point position. Deron Williams gives the impression that he can abuse Alston off the dribble whenever he feels like it. In Game 4, Rick Carlisle said as much before D-Will turned him into a prophet with a pair of almost-casual crunchtime drives to the hoop. Alston simply doesn’t have the bulk to deter Williams, so no matter how much Scola and Landry and Mutombo negate Boozer–which they have, far more than Yao could ever dream–Utah can get to the rack.

    It’s been said many times, but having Kyle Korver along with Okur to stretch the defense makes it absolutely imperative that the opposing point at least throw Williams off stride a bit. If and when the Jazz get by Houston (and I can’t emotionally throw the Rockets under the bus yet), it will be interesting to see how Derek Fisher fares, not to mention Jordan Farmar. The Jazz need a monster series from their point guard to counteract LA’s advantage almost everywhere else, but they just might get it.

    Meanwhile, as someone who grew up in Boston and spent his boyhood watching the Celts rack up 11 rings in 13 years (yeah, I’m that old, and yeah it was as much fun as it sounds–why do you think I write about hoops?), I’ve got to say that with each passing year,
    the Spurs give me more and more vintage Celtic flashbacks. They aren’t exact matches, of course, but it is hard not to notice the similarities between Bill Russell and Tim Duncan, or John Havilcek and Manu Ginobili. You never hear Tony Parker get mentioned as one of the game’s great point guards, yet there is he, dismantling opponents in the playoffs–ditto Sam and KC Jones, back in the day. As for the coaches, well, Red Auerbach and Gregg Popovich both have an asshole streak that gets transferred into a virtue on the sideline. In Game 3 against the Suns, Oberto didn’t rotate over to stop a layup, allowing Phoenix to pull to 27-14, down 13 instead of 15, late in the first quarter. Pops immediately called a timeout and chewed Oberto up and down.

    Think about that for a moment. Or think about Duncan, Ginobili and Parker in crunch time–or, hell, Robert Horry. You think the Suns have three more wins in them to take the Spurs four in a row?

    A eulogy for Phoenix, but not for Dallas

    I feel badly for Steve Nash, one of the classiest players in recent times, and an amazing competitor who more than anybody has had to sublimate his game since the Shaq trade. I go with the conventional wisdom that the Shaq deal both doomed the Suns to an earlier exit than they otherwise might have achieved with the Matrix, and was still a worthwhile gamble for Steve Kerr to have attempted, given that it also marginally increased their chances of winning it all for a roster that is running out of time. So, kudos to Kerr for having the stones to make the swap, but let’s remember that the flameout of the Suns was utterly predictible. All these jackasses who claimed the Suns would beat the Spurs are now blaming Mike D’Antoni, as if this particular coach has ever played any other way but to exploit opponents who had guys like Shaq on the floor. Do people really want to blame D’Antoni for the way the Spurs have destroyed Phoenix on the pick and roll during this series? I seem to recall a pretty good coach, name of Phil Jackson, who couldn’t get Shaq to play the pick and roll either. It requires a lot of stop and go, plant and pivot, and that is something a man of Shaq’s size had difficulty with before he was old and had to work hard to stay in shape.

    But back to Nash: Does anybody else miss the freelancing Nash who flew down the floor, dribbling like a dervish, deciding which hand he was going to use for a delicious bounce pass to a fellow-flying teammate for a showtime slam? Does anybody else miss the frenetic pace that discombobulated opponents and gave the advantage to the selfless passer and deadly long-range shooter who would stick the trey if you sped to guard the hoop and shimmied his way into the paint if you stopped at the arc, secure in the knowledge at least two teammates, and maybe three, were perched at various points outside the arc to take advantage of the driive and kick? The presence of Shaq, and the emergence of Amare Stoudamire’s terrifying midrange game, has pretty much taken the magic out of Nash’s hands, making it extremely difficult for him to build up the rhythms and patterns that bedevil those guarding him. Now when the Suns need Nash to come up with something miraculous, it is totally outside their normal flow of play, and that flow was always Nash’s (and D’Antoni’s) secret weapon. Too bad. Don’t rip Nash or D’Antoni for this debacle; hey, don’t even rip Kerr or Shaq, who have done all they can to turn flax into gold this season down in the desert. But it just ain’t gonna happen.

    There is no way I am going to wax rhapsodically in a similar fashion about the way the Mavericks have destroyed their team. The Jason Kidd trade was stupidity incarnate. Consider that the only "defense" people had of the deal when it was made–smart people anyway, who knew they had to acknowledge Kidd wasn’t what he used to be–was to argue that Kidd really hadn’t lost two or three steps on defense, he just became unmotivated in New Jersey. Ah, I see, he’s not old, just a malingerer.

    No, he’s old. As I’ve said a few times already on this site, he’s not worth Diop and Harris straight up, without the two draft picks. In fact Dallas is old, and unless Stackhouse and Terry shoot lights out beside Dirk in the next few games, they are going down hard, soon to be dismantled. Too bad for Avery Johnson, who did a marvelous job hatching a Maginot Line defense in place of the unsuccessful traps in an effort to stop Chris Paul. And it has worked the past two games. The problem is that Erick Dampier can’t carry Tyson Chandler’s jockstrap, putting pressure on Dirk to rebound as well as score and distribute. That and the fact that Stackhouse and Josh Howard are wilting under pressure, giving the lie to all those citations about the Mavs’ playoff experience–Dallas is experienced like Hillary Clinton is experienced.

    Even if I wasn’t in contempt of the Kidd trade, it would be hard to root against the Hornets. Tyson Chandler is the second-best center in the NBA behind Dwight Howard; better than Yao, certainly, and everything that Marcus Camby is supposed to be. He allows Chris Paul to gamble on defense (or take a play or two off) out on the perimeter, is able to rotate over when the iffy MoPete and Peja lose their man, and has tremendous, almost telepathic, communication with David West when protecting the paint. Then you’ve got heroes coming off the bench–Pargo for 30? The rook Wright in Game 4? Even Peja isn’t choking. So, while I’ll shed a virtual tear for the exit of Nash and (the soon to be scapegoated?) D’Antoni, I’ll cheer the demise of Dallas (despite my affection for Mark Cuban).

  • Fill Your Tank With Pinot Gris

    Back in late 2007, I wrote a blog post called The Seventh Sign: $30 Chianti about a predicted rise in the price of European wines. According to the New York Times, the hike was supposed to hit in three to five months. Right about. . . .now.

    The exchange rate, oil prices, global economic turmoil: all the factors are there. But so far as I can see, wine inflation just isn’t happening. At least not yet.

    As of April 2008, I’m buying the same French, Spanish, and Italian wines I was buying a year ago, for roughly the same amount of money. Low end to high end, everything wine-wise seems stable. Which is, frankly, puzzling to me. . . .because everything else is going up. Gasoline is averaging $3.60 per gallon nationwide. And food prices are going up in a corresponding fashion: milk is up to $4 a gallon and the cost of eggs has risen a staggering 40 percent.

    Perhaps it’s time to stop buying such frippery. Omelets! Who needs ’em? Especially when you can get a decent bottle of Borja Borsao shipped to you all the way from the sun-kissed Spain for $5.95.

    You see, in addition to the weird and inexplicable stability of the imported wine market, Haskell’s is running its legendary nickel sale until Saturday, May 3. This used to mean that they offered customers one bottle at full price and the second for a nickel. Today, it’s more complicated. But basically, it boils down to this: Everything in their 10 Twin Cities stores that has a yellow sign is 30 to 50 percent off. And I spent enough time in the Minnetonka location today to attest, these deals run both long and deep.

    I picked up four bottles for under $7 apiece (including, by the way, a very nice chianti). But there were deals on the higher-priced items as well: Really nice 2005 Bordeaux in the $40 range, a Pouilly-Fuisse for $25. And the really quality wines, those typically in the $250 bracket, are going for about $175.

    It’s a strange world we live in, where it’s cheaper to drink fine French wine than to take a Sunday evening drive or heat the water for a long shower or feed an infant. But this is the reality, folks. So we might as well make the best of it. If wine is the only inexpensive luxury that remains — and the only thing merchants are willing to sell at a fair market price — I say go for it. Buy the really good stuff and enjoy.

    In fact, if you stop by Haskell’s before this weekend, you may pay less per ounce for your wine than you do for the fuel you use to get there. Ironic, isn’t it?

  • Canoeing With the Cree, too

    A half-post:

    In this morning’s Star Tribune, Nick Coleman writes about two high school students from Chaska who just set off to reenact Eric Sevareid’s epic canoe trip from the Minnesota River to Hudson Bay, recounted in Sevareid’s book Canoeing With the Cree.

    As much as we might learn about chasing dreams and fulfilling goals and living vicariously from a couple eighteen-year-olds, I thought it apt to mention Jon Lurie’s heartfelt account of the same trip, which he undertook with a nineteen-year-old delinquent who’d been mixed up with a sawed-off shotgun and had to lay low for the summer. It appeared in the July 2007 issue of The Rake.

  • This Is Media

    FILM EVENT

    Educational Event: New Media

    MN Women in Film and Television     has organized a special event for film and new media lovers this evening. Join local new media gurus this evening for an HDMG tour, iChat demos, and a panel discussion featuring local media gurus Chuck Olsen (co-founder of The UpTake, founder of Minnesota Stories, producer-director of Blogumentary, and Minneapolis correspondent for Rocketboom), Jenni Pinkley (award-winning multimedia producer for StarTribune.com), Julie Rappaport (co-founder and artistic director of Smokin’ Yogi Visions), and me (co-founder of Chasing Windmills and editor of The Rake). We hope to have much to offer in the way of experience (and all the things you shouldn’t do).

    6:30-9 p.m., HDMG, 6573 City West Parkway, Eden Prairie.

    FILM
    Touch of Evil

    More interested in good-old enduring and endearing archetypes than in new media? Take in a classic film noir this evening at the Parkway. A Touch of Evil — starring Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, and Marlene Dietrich — is a dark and twisted story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in a Mexican border town. Regarded as the last film noir of its time, A Touch of Evil is best known for its opening shot — a three-minute shot considered to be one of the greatest long shots in American cinema. You certainly don’t want to miss this Welles classic.

    7 & 9:10 p.m., Parkway Theater, 4814 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis;
    612-822-3030; $5.

    SPORTS
    Twins vs. Sox

    It’s still early in the season, and the Twins have a home game against the Chicago White Sox tonight. Go show your support, lend your voice to the cause, and be sure to check out Brad Zellar’s post-game commentary. (If nothing else, it’s a great excuse to eat a ballpark weiner and have a few beers.)

    7:10 p.m., Metrodome, 34 Kirby Puckett Pl., Minneapolis; 612-375-1366.

    And if you have a few moments to spare today, be sure to check out Denis Jeong’s fabulous Voltage slideshows. You will find photos with which to keep yourself occupied for quite some time.

     

  • When Timmy Met Margie

    Today’s launch of the new Republican "issue ad" blaming
    DFLers for Minnesotans being asked to sacrifice manhood and innocence alike
    whilst pumping merrily away at the gas station is just the latest chapter in a
    textbook Nora Ephron romance. You see, it always starts with the title
    characters loathing one another. And you’d be hard pressed to find more
    animosity and revulsion than early in the legislative session. Much like Harry
    and Sally, our own Tim Pawlenty and the state legislature started off on the
    wrong foot, with the DFL-controlled legislature, after maintaining a certain
    amount of calm and decorum, offending the state’s top executive by raising the
    gas tax a whopping 42 percent.

    As any fan of the rom com genre knows, once the ire is
    raised, wacky misunderstandings and miscommunications must then ensue. And what
    better place for miscommunication and bafflingly wacky hijinx to occur than
    over the state’s budget? When the governor first sent over a proposed bill last
    Monday, including $125 million in
    unspecified budget cuts    , Democrats were quick to point out that they were
    completely baffled as to how they could approve a budget with so little detail.
    Why, they would sooner watch Rep. Margaret Kelliher and Sen. Tom "Sex Hog"
    Saxhaug engage in hot oil
    wrestling     on the Capitol Steps before they would sign such a patently
    confusing document! Of course, last Friday, these same stalwart legislators
    provided Pawlenty with an inscrutable proposal outlining $204 million in cuts –
    when there’s a $935 million deficit.

    Of course, this tete-a-tete provided an opportunity for Rep.
    Tony Sertich to cross the threshold into the next stage of our most improbable
    film – the off-putting infatuation, in which our romantic leads find themselves
    inexplicably drawn to one another, as Rep. Sertich seemed to be after the DFL
    budget offer was rebuffed by the Pawlenty administration. Rep.
    Sertich said, with a tinge of longing in his voice    , "If we keep working in
    this way of finding places where we agree instead of focusing on the areas we
    disagree I think we can build a solution." And as he walked away from the
    microphone, he let out a deeply flustered sigh, shaking his head as if to say
    to himself, "No! I can’t possibly like THAT."

    What’s next remains to be seen, of course. If the formula
    holds true, there will be heated late-night budget sessions, replete with
    frenzied arguments and impassioned debate. When suddenly, upon reaching a
    breaking point, the dams will burst and Rep. Kelliher will find herself wrapped
    in the governor’s sinewy, hockey-toned arms, making use of public
    infrastructure in ways never approved by
    a house ethics committee     whilst the rest of the caucus listens at the door
    with self-congratulatory grins plastered upon their reddening faces.

    And in that one all-too-brief moment of bliss, when
    common ground is found in the sweaty convergence of Republican and DFL, is when
    the healthcare access fund will finally be safe, the Central Corridor funding
    will be restored, the legislature will come to its senses and realize just how
    much it’s truly asking for in a year the state can ill-afford most of it. And,
    if we’re truly blessed, Michelle Bachmann will have her own deli scene whilst
    lunching with Al Franken.