In just a matter of days, the new toll lanes on Interstate 394 will open, giving thousands of commuters in the western suburbs the option of paying to escape the bonds of gridlock as they make their busy way to and from downtown Minneapolis. The last time we drove west on I-394 it was not … Read more
SHEIK OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN—THE BLIND SHEIKOne of fundamentalist Islam’s most exalted spiritual leaders; resided in Rochester between 1998 and 2002 at the Federal Medical Center prison. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for conspiring to blow up the United Nations, New York’s FBI office, and all the bridges and tunnels going into … Read more
My dad loved a buffet, or, as we used to call them growing up in Minnesota, a smorgasbord. These giant, mind-blowing restaurant spreads were still something of a novelty for a Midwestern kid in the 1960s, even if the basic concept wasn’t that far removed from those familiar church basement potluck suppers and extended family … Read more
Opera is not for entry-level art patrons. Generally, it’s something you dabble in only after mastering theater, orchestra concerts, show tunes, music videos, and punk rock. When you finally arrive at the altar of a 225-pound operatic Valkyrie, well, it’s sort of like what Richard Gere said to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: “Those who … Read more
The past few years have seen an outpouring of books that deconstruct, describe, and frequently denounce contemporary maternity. Recent celebrated titles reveal much of the genre’s slant: Faulkner Fox’s Dispatches from a Not-So-Perfect Life: Or How I Learned to Love the House, the Man, the Child and the ever-quotable The Bitch in The House: 26 … Read more
Minnesota boasts no defining fine artist, no painter of universal renown. Alexis Fournier, Seth Eastman, Nicholas Brewer, Wanda Gag, Dewey Albinson, George Morrison—any of these names may ring a distant bell. But Minnesotans have no Albert Bierstadt or Winslow Homer, no Grant Wood, Georgia O’Keefe or Frederic Remington to lionize. The central Minnesota town of … Read more
In the forty-eight years that Playboy has run an annual music poll, can you believe that only this year did it begin including a best jazz artist? That seems like a big oversight, considering that jazz makes an excellent backdrop for a little boot-knocking (as Playboy itself put it, the genre “holds a special spot … Read more
Now that we’ve all been turned on to Pinot Noir thanks to Sideways, here’s a documentary to explain why that same film so brutally maligned Merlot. Mondovino is a two-hour-plus primer on the controversies and conspiracies that make up the deliciously lurid wine world, investigating the grapes and the growers, the winemakers and the wine … Read more
This visually gorgeous 1990 drama is one of the pinnacles of Hong Kong Cinema. Director Wong Kar-Wei and cinematographer Christopher Doyle spy on a lazy charmer as he works his way through a string of beautiful and damaged women during a sticky hot Hong Kong summer. Set in the 1960s and suffused with a cool … Read more
The Enron story is far from over, since the guys who walked away with the most money are still working their way through the legal system and, naturally, balking at every turn. But apparently, these perps were mighty pleased with the ways in which they carried out one of the biggest business scandals in history. … Read more