The Rake Magazine

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  • Too true to be strange

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    And after we bomb Cambodia, I’ve instructed the National Guard to shoot four students at an Ohio college…

    Michael Smith, the London Sunday Times reporter who broke the story of the Downing Street memo has followed up with two more pieces. It seems, in his piece from last Sunday, that the Americans were bombing Iraq in order to provoke Saddam six weeks before the American Congress authorized military action against Iraq.

    Today in the LA Times, he explains it a bit further.

    So what we have here is pretty good evidence, supplied by the British government itself, that Bush actually started the war in Iraq without Congressional authorization. I seem to recall secret U.S. bombing under a previous president.

    Is it just me, or does that seem a little more serious than a few stains on a blue Gap dress? But, I could be wrong. What do you think?

    (Thanks to my friend Kit for pointing out Smith’s LA Times piece today.)

  • Get the Lead Out

    One of the dumb things about the New Yorker’s website is that it is virtually impossible to find recently outdated articles. You can actually guess, by looking at the naming conventions, and discover that most of the content they have published on the site remains anchored in placid waters to a permanent URL. But the site search engine does not index this material, and they have apparently put up the barricades to the Google spiders as well. (The happy consequence of this, as we’ve mentioned many times before, is that a publication like the New Yorker or the New York Times simply cannot prevent most of its content from migrating out onto the greater web. If you know what you’re looking for, you will eventually find it, because someone will have posted it.)

    One of the nice things about the New Yorker’s website is their little archive feature that brings back some of the magazine’s greatest hits. As our pal TMFTML points out, this classic Calvin Trillin piece is presently screening. It is a fine, recursive piece that in the lead describes the colorful leads of two Miami Herald crime reporters. We won’t reiterate that stuff here, you can read it for yourself. But we thought we’d riff a little bit on this whole topic of story leads.

    Story leads tend to be the kind of thing that editors get really excited about. There’s a sort of pointless culture of “the perfect lead” that probably contributes to hundreds of thousands of cases of debilitating writer’s block every year. True enough, you eventually have to start your story somewhere. But in terms of actually getting the thing going, you know, one foot in front of the other, qwerty-style, we prefer to just jump in wherever it feels most compelling or interesting to do it. You can worry about the perfect lead at about the same time you’re worrying about the perfect kicker–after you’ve said the bulk of what it was you were itching to say. (If you weren’t itching to say something, you should check your records and see where the assignment came from.)

    When it comes to leads, the main commandment that we try to observe is to avoid anything that smells funny, that doesn’t fit, that overpromises what the reader might be getting into, that in retrospect is too self-aware of being a lead. (This is true of conclusions, too. Overarching summaries and loud pronouncements about what the foregoing all means have a sort of belittling effect on the readers, we fear, as if they weren’t smart enough to reach the same conclusions the writer has spent several thousand words trying to lead them to.) A good lead should not stand out like a big red nose on an otherwise unpainted face. Though it’s undoubtedly sacrilege to say it, we think some of Edna Buchanan’s leads were clownish in this way.

    Our friend Beth, who has had many wonderful little editor-style observations in recent bloggish posts, pointed out a few weeks ago the real violence that has been done to the standard newspaper lead in recent years… you know, the devolving, inductive, anecdotal quip that is normally a newspaper’s version of, “Once upon a time, in a land far away…” We think our local daily paper has generally improved in its news sections when it comes to just getting to the point, rather than making a desperate play for our heartstrings within the first fifty words. The columnists, though… We enjoy watching a pro like Beth take ’em apart.

  • The Blah-Blah Cha-Cha-Cha

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    All summer I’ve had a retired shop teacher in my skull, trying to teach himself to play the marimba. I liked it better when he stuck with hammers and power tools.

    I know my tongue’s tucked away somewhere in my face, but I can’t feel the damn thing. The world outside my windows looks like a silent Bunuel movie, and I keep trying to find an appropriately disconsolate soundtrack that’s just loud enough to drown out the marimba. I’m not having much luck. I’m open to suggestions. I’m thinking creaking violins and accordians might do the trick.

    I’m always open to suggestions, whatever that means.

    You can’t believe how fucking hot it is, unless you’re one of these people who will believe anything. There are trails of perspiration running down the walls. However hot it is to you, it’s at least ten degrees hotter for me. At least. My body is a furnace. I’ve taken off all my clothes and I wish like hell I could take off my skin. I wish I could turn my body inside out. Every hour represents a pendulum swing between collapse and plodding stupor.

    I watch presumably religious people wearing ties come up my sidewalk and ring the bell. I think about answering the door naked to ask them if they can get God to do something about the weather, but I don’t have the energy to climb up off of the floor.

    The last time I left the house the old Swedish baker (I think he’s Swedish) up the street told me a story that, unless I am mistaken, had something to do with a farmer feeding a bucket of diamonds to a cow.

    As I sprawl on the floor staring up at the ceiling it occurs to me that what I’m up to is really pretty simple, if nonetheless hopeless: I’m looking for revelations. At the very least this epiphany, repeated over and over in the monotone voice with which it took shape in my head, should prove useful when dealing with telephone solicitors.

    A magic wand would be useless to me right now. What I need is a magic weapon, and I’m not even sure what I’d do with that. I’m pretty sure I could find something to do with it, though, something useful and satisfying.

    Suddenly, I realize, it’s grown dark, but it doesn’t seem to have gotten any cooler.

    Among the thoughts that crawl across my head as I stare at the ceiling is this: It’s never a good sign when a town has more than one fudge shop. And: This could almost be the moon, if little bastards next door shot off firecrackers all night long on the moon. And: I’m not even sure what tense I’m living in.

    And, finally, this: No, sir, this is not a comfortable situation. This is not a comfortable situation at all.

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  • Desperate Times Require Desperate Measures, Or Whatever That Old Line Of Nonsense Is

    Look, there’s not a bigger Tom Brunansky fan in all of Twins Territory, but this team’s in trouble and in dire need of some pop in the middle infield.

    So, as much as it pains me to say this, I think it might be time for Andy MacPhail to pull the trigger on that long-rumored Bruno for Tommy Herr trade. Herr could be just the guy to light a fire under this ballclub.

    Also, bad news, I’m afraid, for the lonely bachelors out there: Baseball knowledge will not help you pick up girls.

  • Lies, Damn Lies, and Body Counts

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    The body count our government doesn’t want us to remember

    I started to laugh today at David Brooks’s piece in the NY Times. But then the feeling turned more to nausea.

    According to Brooks, we shouldn’t run our Iraq policy based on polls that say most Americans think we should pull out. I couldn’t agree more that government policy of any kind shouldn’t be run by what the people want, because let’s face it, the American people are, in general, ill-informed and easily manipulated. (Hell, supposedly a majority of Americans believe in the six-day creation story. And you want to trust something as complex as our Middle East policy to them? Sheesh.)

    But what really got me, though, was the different set of numbers Brooks offered up as ones we should give credence to in deciding what we should do in Iraq.

    Here they are: “U.S. forces have completed a series of successful operations, among them Operation Spear in western Iraq, where at least 60 insurgents were killed and 100 captured, and Operation Lightning in Baghdad, with over 500 arrests. American forces now hold at least 14,000 suspected insurgents, and have captured about two dozen lieutenants of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.”

    For those of you too young to remember, we used to get this sort of “information”, i.e. body counts, in the last moronic war we let our lying government get us in to. In that war, we certainly killed over one million of our enemy, but they “only” got 55,000 or so of us. Strangely, even though we out-killed them over 20 to 1, we lost.

    If you need a further hint as to what I’m talking about, the Prime Minister of that country was here this week to visit Bush and Rumsfeld. And oh yes, now we’re going to send him some military advisors.

    Honesty, I’m not making this up.

    —————————————————————–

    One more brief thing today: if you need more evidence that the wrong guy got to take over the White House 5 years ago, read this.

  • Laax, Switzerland

    Jeff Wechter writes:

    These pictures were taken in Switzerland on March 10, 2005.

    The Crap Bar was at a ski area called Laax. Crap was everywhere.

    www.laax.com.

    The other was taken in a small town near Flims called Sogogn.

    Jeff Wechter

  • Gathered Here

    Your mission this coming Saturday afternoon: without upstaging the happy couple. It behooves you to be both fashionable and appropriate, because the mother of the bride might cast you a disapproving glance if you are anything less. So grab your pastel neckties, dust off some chic but not overly sexy footwear, and wiggle into those strapless gowns. Provided your dress is dazzling enough, even the bride¹s imminent mother-in-law can’t be too shocked at your tattoo.

  • Dead Sea, Israel

    Two pictures were taken at sea level on the decent to the Dead Sea in Israel. We thought it appropriate to read about conservative politics in The Rake while visiting the places where it all started. The other pictures are at the River Jordan where John the Baptist did his work. Note in particular the ghostly aura descending on my wife Leslie’s shoulders as she reads The Rake on the banks of the River Jordan. Is The Rake truly a heavenly publication?

    We enjoy you publication very much. It is particularly good to read on long trans-Atlantic flights. Keep up the good work!

    Mark Schuman

  • Mailly de Chateau, France

    Took the Rake to France with me, just for giggles. Spent a week on the Yonne Canal floating on a barge with two other couples, drinking cases of cremant, (the local name for champagne) and speaking French very poorly. This photo was taken from a 16th Century bridge in a town called Mailly de Chateau. The barge came equipped with bicycles so I pedaled to it for the photo opportunity.

    Cindy Darling

  • Pacific Northwest by Midwest

    One hundred and fifty years ago, when a Methodist pastor stumbled into
    what became Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, he thought he’d found the
    Garden of Eden. Dotted with apple trees and surrounded by lush green
    bluffs, no other place, he argued, conformed so closely to the biblical
    description of Eden. Even now, despite upstream polluters that have
    wreaked havoc on Trempealeau’s stretch of the Mississippi, the town of
    Trempealeau continues to offer a slice of Midwestern paradise.
    Trempealeau’s distinctly easygoing character, along with a persistent
    mist that hangs in the air, brings to mind many of those woodsy havens
    found along the beautiful Pacific Northwest coast. Driving to
    Trempealeau from any direction is a pleasure, pocketed, as it is,
    within a cluster of rolling knolls and crags (typical in this part of
    Wisconsin, especially along the river). Every which way, hills offer
    panoramic views of farmland furrows and wooded wildlife preserves. A
    road down the back end of one such hill deposits you into the town’s
    modest commercial area, where two city blocks are lined with gift
    shops, law offices, taverns, and lawns that are often overwhelmed by
    the Mississippi. (In French, Trempealeau means “soaked in water”.)

    Downtown’s centerpiece is the Trempealeau Hotel, a nineteenth-century
    inn, restaurant, and saloon that has become a fashionable destination.
    Dining rooms paneled in natural wood, wall-to-wall bay windows, and
    Green Bay Packers paraphernalia set a laid-back tone. Couples gaze out
    on the river as they nosh on kraut ’n’ cheese or walnut burgers—yes,
    this rural restaurant serves a number of vegetarian dishes. In the bar,
    which is darker and cozier than the dining areas, the walls are covered
    with antlers, taxidermied fish, and autographed celebrity head shots.
    Because the town’s population is just 1,600, most of whom make their
    livings in nearby Winona or LaCrosse, the bar seems to service more
    spandex-ed cyclists and city slickers than it does locals.

    There is no doubt that during the warm seasons, the town draws a
    far-flung, outdoorsy crowd. That’s because it’s surrounded by miles and
    miles of gorgeous trails that trace the riverfront and wind around
    mountainous bluffs. Off-road cyclists can cruise alongside prairies and
    buffalo farms or take grueling, uphill treks. Trempealeau even
    organizes a series of bike races, including the Catfish Days 50 Mile
    Bike Race and Tour on July 9. Hikers are free to hopscotch
    stone-studded footpaths in Perrot State Park or bird-watch in the
    wetlands of Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge, one of the nation’s
    best spots to see bald eagles.

    For those who don’t feel like sweating, Trempealeau Hotel proprietor
    Jim Jenkins offers another option. A blues and reggae aficionado,
    Jenkins organizes a summer concert series that sends couples and
    families alike out into the hotel’s grassy backyard, where they can
    lounge before a rickety concert stage featuring regional bands.
    —Christy DeSmith