Attention, restroom patrons. Please do not assault the tall, dark-haired, suspicious-looking man taking pictures in there. He is not a deviant who will soon be cackling over his snapshots like Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death. Jon Thompson is the co-founder and creator of Restroom Ratings, a pithy online guide to public conveniences. He is … Read more
One cool winter afternoon, an attractive young Jewish woman enjoyed her new bungalow in southwest Minneapolis. She’d finally moved back home, after a decade in New York City. She’d come to realize that life is much too hard in a place like Manhattan or Brooklyn. In New York, you cannot live like an adult—with a … Read more
Lynx number one was a hard-luck kitten. He was barely a year old, in March 2003, when he walked into a box-like trap near Isabella, deep in the Superior National Forest. Isabella is an old logging village bisected by Highway 1 as it slices inland from Lake Superior to Ely. Beyond the village is a … Read more
For ten years, Low’s music has seethed with quiet rural rage—the undercurrent of emotional tension that hums in austere Midwestern places, among people whose deeper feelings are seldom expressed. From the band’s home base on Duluth’s Central Hillside, it has built an international cult following for creating rock music that’s intelligent, intense, ambient, and awesomely … Read more
COUNTRY MUSIC RECONSIDERED It seems to me that Mr. Eisenbeis needs to listen to a little more country music before he tries to explain its popularity or lack of same [“It’s My Country…,” November]. In today’s music world, pop hardly exists, and no one can understand the lyrics of today’s rock. There is no longer … Read more
Back in the seventies, when I was tender and impressionable, my mom used to chat with her houseplants. “It helps them grow,” she’d explain to me as I followed her around from one beaded macramé hanger to the next. “They don’t understand the words, but they can tell you’re talking to them. They like the … Read more
Maybe driving along slick January roads while the radio bleats its incessant lose-the-fat/cut-the-carbs/celebration’s-over messages doesn’t bother you, but it whips me into a frothy rage. Your hangover has only just barely passed (with the aid of a nice greasy burger) before all these diet people start making you feel horrible about the past few weeks … Read more
My son Isaac and I were playing Scrabble at our dining room table one recent evening when the phone rang. As always, Isaac ran to answer it. He heard his sixteen-year-old sister’s voice on the other end of the line. She was calling from her father’s house in St. Paul. When he heard that she … Read more
Guy Nelson, Guy Nelson–someone please tell us why we’re stuck on this Guy’s name. He’s certainly making a splash at SooVAC, having filled its space–no mean feat–with a host of found-object sculptures and five large-scale paintings. We were drawn to the paintings’ mix of abstraction and primitive/cartoonish representation, along with their goofy titles and a … Read more
Behind every news exposé, be it sporty (Barry Bonds and steroids), vengeful (outing CIA operative Valerie Plame), or just plain titillating (those tidbits about Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress), there is almost always a confidential source. Without confidential sources (and the reporters who love them), Watergate would simply refer to an upscale Washington hotel and C.J. … Read more