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Robert Bly has so many projects going on at once, it’s hard to know whether to believe him when he threatens to publish another collection of poetry or razor-sharp social commentary. People know him as the man who launched a movement on behalf of his gender, and they may even know he’s a world-class poet. But heÕs also been a first-rate translator his entire career, a rare art unto itself. He has worked on canonical Europeans like Knut Hamsun and Rainer Maria Rilke, as well as offering the first English translations of world-movers like Rumi and Pablo Neruda. This volume is a terrific testament to the man’s command of the international language of truth – poetry. Available Now

August 18, 2004

For a wine drinker, especially one who prefers the big reds, cool August weather is not all bad news. Out the other night to the Metrodome, to witness the trouncing of my beloved Yankees (I can’t help it, I grew up there!) by those bully Twins, I was intimately aware of how summer is all about beer.

Even as I scan the local retail shops in search of wine features, most are highlighting beer sales, even a few special beer tastings. Now, Louie the Wine Guy appreciates a frosty brew from time to time, but I am glad for the return of “wine season”. All those fall sales, the release of Nouveau Beaujolais, and so forth.
As for what wine action is in fact going on at the retail markets, here’s a brief overview:

Aurora Wine Shop in Chaska is featuring a German wine sale through August 25, with all German wines in stock at twenty percent discount.

Cost Plus World Market wine shops around town (five locations) are featuring the wines of Bonny Dune and Cline’s Red Truck. As a side note, Pat Miles’ WCCO radio show last week carried the topic “fun wines and new trends.” Bonny Dune has long been a leader in both these categories, with fanciful labels, good values, and, of course, those novel screwcaps. Cline’s Red Truck is a fine example of “meritage” wines, blends that make the most out of the grapes that don’t make the grade for the higher-priced single varietal wines.

South Lyndale Liquors is featuring Clos du Bois this month, with the whole line of regional varietal wines at $8.99 a bottle. Clos du Bois is a big name in the industry, an operation that puts out wines at several quality and price levels.

France 44 has a similar feature going with the wines of Washington State’s Hogue Cellars. From the Johannisberg Riesling (quite decent) at $6.97 to the Genesis Series(good to very good) at $11.97, this is a sale worth checking out. And you can taste the Hogue wines Saturday, August 28 from 2-5pm. France 44 will also offer its monthly “Values Tasting” on September 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m. There is so much going on at this shop (with classes etc.), that you might want to visit their website at www.france44.com.

The big boys, Surdyk’s, Hennepin-Lake, Haskell’s and Byerly’s/Lunds, are laying low until September. Stay tuned.

As for events and tastings to report, we need go no further than the latest, and some might say the greatest, Napa Valley Block Party on Lake Minnetonka on August 14, hosted by yours truly. This Saturday night affair featured wines from the four locally owned Napa Valley vintners: Terra Valentine, Ladera, O’Shaughnessy, and Fantesca. Leading up to the tasting of the featured wines, we sampled from the following list. I add my very brief tasting notes, with a zero to four star rating.

White wines: (remember that this is not Napa Valley’s strong point)
+ Coppola Bianco($10): not pleasant; sharp, perhaps even sour; no stars
+ Hess Select Chardonnay($10): great value, nice fruit; 2 stars
+ Chappellet Chenin Blanc ($12): a bit sour; not soft; 1 star
+ Napa Wine Company Pinot Blanc ($15): a nice sipper; 2 stars
+ Napa Wine Company Sauvignon Blanc ($15): ok food wine; 11/2 stars
+ Beringer Chardonnay ($14): surprisingly smooth; 2 stars
+ Coppola Diamond Chardonnay($15): a bit sharp; 1 star
+ Markham Chardonnay($17): very good, best value under $20; 3 stars
+ Long Vineyards Pinot Grigio($20): very fine; great food wine; 3 stars
+ Chateau Montelena Johannisberg Riesling($25): exquisite; 4 stars

Red Wines: (meritage)
+ Barlow ’01 Red ($31): amazing extract; fabulous! 3 ½ stars
+ Buonocristiani ’99 OPC Red ($27): very smooth; delightful; 3 stars
+ S. Anderson Stag’s Leap District Claret ($22): a crowd favorite; very fine cab merlot blend; 3 ½ stars
+ Bennet Lane ’01 “Maximus” ($25): the latest creation of Dave Phinney of “The Prisoner” fame; unbelievable, for the price; 3 ½ stars

Varietal Wines:
+ Castle Rock ’03 Pinot Noir ($13): very pleasant sipper; great value; two stars
+ BV ’01 Cabernet ($15): a disappointment; one star
+ Pope Valley ’01 Merlot ($20): rich and velvety; yum!; 3 stars
+ Frank Family ’99 Cabernet ($30): a crowd pleaser; solid; 3 stars
+ Kennick ’01 Zinfandel ($27): zinnnngg! A fruit bomb! 2 ½ stars

Featured Wines:
+ Ladera ’01 Merlot ‘Howell Mt.’ ($48): very soft; almost subdued; 3 stars
+ Terra Valentine ’98 Cabernet ($40): still tight, tannic; bordeaux-like; 2 ½ stars Terra Valentine ’99 Cabernet ($40): more accessible; 3 stars
+ Fantesca (Shadow Lace) ’01 ‘Spring Mt.’ ($50): great body & fruit; 3 ½ stars + O’Shaughnessy ’01 Cabernet ‘Howell Mt.’ ($58): yowza! Clearly the powerhouse of the group; a perfect wine; 4 stars

Dessert wine:
+ Prager Port Works ’01 Royal Escort LBV Port ‘Paladini Vineyard’ ($50): once again we see testimony to the reality of how good a Napa port can be; incredibly delicious! 4 stars

Before closing this report, I wanted to mention my pleasure at meeting with Duane and Susie Hoff, the owners of the new winery Fantesca, who live here in Chanhassen. They introduced me to their wine over dinner at their home, and the experience confirmed for me again how lovely it is to know the people and the stories behind the wine.

When I begin to lead tours in Napa Valley this October we will spend a day on Spring Mountain, visiting Fantesca and Terra Valentine and several other places where the people and the stories add so much to the glory of these wines. Getting off the valley floor, to some of the smaller operations, opens doors to relationships with the owners and winemakers that makes visiting wine country so special.

To find out more about upcoming Napa Valley Block Party cruises and about these California wine country tours, log onto my website: www.louiethewineguy.com

See you in September!

August 9, 2004

We Minnesotans lament that our summers fly by so quickly, trying to pack so much into so few months of pleasant weather. Then again, we appreciate this yearly opportunity more than, perhaps, residents of southern California. During San Diego’s recent “Battle at the Bridges” golf tournament, a commentators mention the perfect weather: “Yes, another boring day in paradise.”
Something to think about. On the local wine scene, we roll back the calendar to July 20th and The Kitchen Sessions, hosted by The Kitchen Window at Calhoun Square, and sponsored by The Rake. It was my first experience of this venue, and the state of the art cooking classroom was quite beautiful. Muffeletta’s executive chef, JD Fratzke, dazzled with the depth of his culinary knowledge and the wizardly display of his craft.

Unfortunately, I only partook in the third of three courses – grilled grass-fed tenderloin over asparagus spears with a beurre blanc sauce with lemon and thyme. It was quite divine, and pleasantly accompanied by an Argentine Tempranillo, which was well introduced by Muffeletta’s sommelier. The next Kitchen Sessions event is scheduled for August 18, and you can find the details on here on The Rake’s website.

A second event, also sponsored by The Rake, was TC-Uncorked’s inaugural event on July 27. Held at Louis XIII at Southdale, this wine tasting featured quite a variety of bottles supplied by The Cellars, who were kicking off their summer “Progressive Sale.” TC-Uncorked is the rebirth of the now-defunct Wine Brats. Liz Andert and her associates Mark and Chris have restructured the company which organizes events geared toward those learning about wine (and beer-check out their event August 23 at Great Waters Brewery in St. Paul). For more information, go to their website at http://tc-uncorked.org/index.html.

The wines at the Louis XIII event included three whites, one rose, and four reds. Of the lighter wines, I enjoyed the white Bordeaux (Graves) the best. For $10, this was a delightful summer sipper. Toad Hollow’s Chardonnay was disappointing, as I have enjoyed many of their wines in the past. I found the rose, a Spanish Grenache called Mirasol, very pleasant. Again, at $10 retail, this is a great summer picnic wine, or one to take out on the boat. The world of rose and blush wine is transforming itself overnight with many dry wines that possess great varietal character. Watch for more on this subject in future segments.

The red wines included a Spanish rioja which was rather sharp (acidic), but would make a decent food wine (as is their intent). Next up in this international potpourri was an Italian Primativo, which, again, for $10 was a decent food wine. The Australian cabernet from Leasingham was another story, very vibrant and complex. And it retails for $20, so you would expect more. Sadly, to my taste, the French Bordeaux was “skunky” (herbaceous), as I find many young Bordeaux to be. Surely not worth the $30 price tag.

On to a third event! This time a fundraiser wine tasting for the IFDA, an association of artist and designers, held Friday July 30. Liz Andert, of aforementioned TC-Uncorked, was kind enough to assist me in this Napa Valley wine event. Almost twenty wines were sampled – eight whites, nine reds and two dessert wines.

Here are the abbreviated tasting notes: (Wines available locally came from Excelsior Vintage in Excelsior; the wines with an asterisk are wines direct from Napa Valley- information about ordering wine directly from Napa can be found at my website www.louiethewineguy.com.)

– Sebastiani Chardonnay ($12): surprisingly complex and bright two and a half stars
– Napa Wine Co. Pinto Blanc ($15): a smooth sipper two stars
– Honig Sauvignon Blanc ($15): nothing special one and a half stars
– Sterling Chardonnay ($18): the name without the quality two stars
– Conundrum ($24): this is always a favorite; wonderful picnic wine three stars
– *Chateau Montelena Johannisberg Riesling ($30 at the vineyard; not available elsewhere): ask Liz about this wine; she flipped; spectacular four stars

For the reds:
– Napa Ridge Merlot & Cabernet ($10): mellow; not noteworthy, one and a half stars
– Rex Goliath 47 LB Rooster Cabernet ($8): wow! Great wine for the price two stars
– *Lorca Petite Syrah ($20 at Trader Joes): only 200 cases produced; great spice and backbone; a great barbecue wine two and a half stars
– *Bennet Lane “Maximus” ($24): by the same winemaker, David Phinney, of “The Prisoner” fame; a great meritage wine; jammy and powerful! three and a half stars
– *Elizabeth Spencer Cabernet ($25): a truly delightful Napa cab; the essence of valley floor cabernet; as good as Silver Oak at less than ½ the price three and a half stars
– Duckhorn Decoy ($28): some guests loved this wine, perhaps influenced by the name; I found it pale compared to the Maximus; still a nice wine two and a half stars
– *Elyse Zinfandel ($29): many were begging for a second sip of this ambrosia; truly stunning was all I could write four stars
– *Amethyst Cabernet ($34): the epitome of Napa mountain grapes; huge extract; why I believe Napa to the simply the premiere wine region in the world; this wine had those savvy guests drooling! four stars

And for dessert:
– *Prager Port Works Tawny Port ($35): a lighter style port than I prefer; very nutty; a sweet sipper; many loved this wine three stars
– *Joseph Phelps ’98 Late Harvest Riesling ($30, at the vineyard): wow, wow, wow!! Everyone who tasted this nectar could not believe how good it was; I expected as much, with Phelps long the standard bearer for great late harvest Riesling; a perfect bottle five stars

With two more Napa Block Parties wine cruises on Lake Minnetonka yet to come this month, August promises to finish well. And it’s not too early to start thinking about Napa Valley and 3 “insider” tours that I will be guiding this October. Check it all out at www.louiethewineguy.com.

July 22, 2004

Hot time, summer in the city… and everyone is off to the cabin or congregating on Lake Minnetonka. Not a big boating enthusiast, my excursion to Lake Minnetonka on Sunday for the Napa Valley Block Party Wine Cruise was my first nautical venture in quite some time. I was amazed by the lake’s activity level on a Sunday afternoon, especially the traffic jam of boaters around Big Island. I marveled at the central role this lake boating scene must play in many of their lives.

This is truly a wide world in which we live. Everyone finds his comfort, carves out a little niche. For me it’s Napa Valley, and I am very excited to announce the beginning of a regular schedule of trips to my slice of paradise. I will be escorting a group of travel agents to San Francisco and Napa Valley in August before beginning tours for the public this October.

There is no better way to learn about wine than to see how it is made. An idea like “terroir” becomes simple and clear when you actually walk on the soil, see the varied topography, and learn why these factors influence the end product. The slogan you can see on the famous Napa billboard, set smack in the middle of a vineyard with rolling hills in the background, reads: “To a grape, this is Eden.”

Back in Minnesota’s slice of paradise, Lake Minnetonka, the wine cruise offered a unique view. Minnetonka’s lakefront homes, many opulent beyond description, are all oriented towards the water. If you tried to view them from the road, you would either see the “back door” or nothing at all. While I served samples of wine from the best wine region in the world, guests viewed architectural splendor.

So about the wine: We sampled a wide range of bottles, all from Napa Valley. Many of these featured wines were samples from my spring trip to Napa, wines not available in the local retail market. One of my goals as a wine educator is to teach people about the ease of ordering wines directly from Napa, whether from the winery itself or a Napa retailer. I picked up the phone on Monday, talked with my buddy Dan at Back Room Wines, and will receive my shipment of Bennett Lane’s “Maximus” on Friday.

Bennet’s “Maximus” is made by winemaker Dave Phinney, of “The Prisoner” fame. Since “The Prisoner” has reached cult status and is not scarce, “Maximus” is an able replacement. Check into one of my upcoming events for an opportunity to try this fabulous wine. Then you can order your own supply and experience Napa heaven without the high price. “Maximus,” like its predecessor, sells for under $25 a bottle.

Other standout bottles from the wine cruise include:

Crane Brothers Syrah ($28) Ripe, lush & meaty, it makes a great summer wine.

Chateau Montelena Estate Zinfandel ($30 at the vineyard, less in our local market) A real crowd pleaser, everyone wanted more of this gem.

Duckhorn “Paraduxx” ($45) Naturally a popular wine, and as Duckhorn has made quite a name for itself here in Minnesota, the wine did not disappoint.

Whitehall Lane ’99 Reserve Cabernet ($80) Understandably elegant.

Prager Port Works Petite Syrah Port ($50) People went nuts over this stellar dessert wine; even those not familiar with port loved this ambrosia.

Long Vineyards Botrytis Johannisberg Riesling ($30) Like the port, this wine was a new experience for many and absolutely stunning. “Better than sex” is often used to describe a wine like this!

Greg Varner, owner of Excelsior Vintage and sponsor of the Napa Valley Block Party cruises, received great feedback on several wines from his collection: Rutherford Ranch Cabernet ($15 – everyone was impressed that, for this price, a cab could be so smooth and lush); Sterling Chardonnay($18 – simply put, a solid Napa wine); Luna Pinot Grigio ($20 – one of the best white wines coming out of Napa); even the inexpensive DeLoach White Zinfandel ($10) received rave reviews for being a great picnic/boat sipper.

The upcoming Napa Block Party Wine Cruise on August 14 promises to be as grand. A special touch will be the opportunity to sample the Napa wines from wineries owned by Minnesotans which the Star Tribune recently showcased. Ladera (their merlot is to die for!), O’Shaughnessy, and Terra Valentine will be among the featured wines.

And in the works is a potential vertical tasting of Frias Family Cabernet to celebrate its representation in Minnesota by The Wine Doctor. The Frias collection at the Napa Valley Vinter’s Association tasting back in May greatly impressed Mikael Thollander, the Wine Doctor chief. For myself and many others this was the hottest winery of the whole event. Stay tuned for this event.

And another opportunity with Louie the Wine Guy looms on the horizon. I will be leading two private tours of Napa Valley this October. Arrangements are being made by World Class Travel, and details will be available soon.

Keep enjoying our fabulous summer!

 

I have been in close personal contact with both President George W. Bush and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. I am embarrassed to admit I don’t recall my previous dealings with either gentleman, but somehow each has become convinced that he can count on my fervent support in this year’s presidential race. Awkward. What to do?

It was awfully nice of Mr. Kerry to write me a personal letter describing his repugnance for the Bush administration. I was especially flattered that he took the trouble to address the envelope by hand. He employed a distinctive, non-smearing blue ink. I tested it with my thumb, and nary a smudge. Very considerate of him.

Mr. Bush’s letter, which arrived the same day, was actually written by Mr. Marc Racicot, chairman of Bush-Cheney ’04 Inc. For a moment, it’s true, I felt snubbed. Certainly Mr. Bush is a busy man, preoccupied with those hourly phone calls from Vice President Cheney demanding more war spoils for the Halliburton Corporation. But just the same, I thought, if the fellow can’t be bothered to scribble me even a quick P.S., perhaps Mr. Kerry is the more deserving candidate after all.

Two things gave me pause. First, Mr. Racicot took pains to let me know that Mr. Bush does, indeed, regard me as a particular chum. When he read over his letter after typing it, he went so far as to cross out his original salutation, “Dear Friend,” and replace it with “Dear Jack.” (Mr. Racicot appears to own the same type of blue pen as Mr. Kerry, and if it weren’t so far-fetched, I would even swear that the handwriting of the two political foes is identical.)

Furthermore, Mr. Racicot assures me that he “would be thrilled to tell the President you are with us.” Evidently I am much in Mr. Bush’s thoughts, even though he was forced to delegate the actual letter writing.

But the second and greater thing was this: Looking further into the contents of the oversized envelope, I discovered that Mr. Bush did, after all, take the time to dash off a handwritten personal note—and quite a gracious one. “Grassroots leaders like you,” he says, “are the key to building a winning team.” What’s more, those kind words are scrawled on the bottom of an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch color photo of the president and his wife, Laura, addressed specifically to me and signed by both of them. They are standing together on a lawn, in front of some trees. Mr. Bush is dressed as a sort of cowboy. Both his own mischievous smile and Laura’s long-suffering one make you wonder where his right hand is.

This is not a picture that some anonymous secretary would mail to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. No, when he selected this shot, the president definitely had me in mind. Good grief, you’d think I would remember meeting the man.

Upon closer reading of Mr. Kerry’s letter, I noticed that he makes no mention of my leadership qualities. In more than one instance, in fact, he appeals quite boldly for money. As you can imagine, my allegiance swung to Mr. Bush. But once again I found cause to hesitate.

The card that Mr. Kerry enclosed to facilitate my personal reply gives me four boxes to check by way of indicating my degree of enthusiasm for his candidacy. The amounts range from $25 to $100 (plus “other”).

Mr. Bush, believing me to be a Republican, set his expectations higher. His card offers seven boxes, the amounts climbing to a staggering height of $1,000.

Now, it’s true that Mr. Bush’s card comes with a postage-paid envelope, described as an “added gift” (in addition to the photo, he means), while Mr. Kerry evidently expects me to buy my own stamp. But this only worsens the dilemma.

It would be one thing, having paid for the stamp, to check Mr. Kerry’s “other” box and send him a dollar, along with my policy suggestions regarding health care, jobs, education, and the four or five other issues he chose as topics with which to begin our correspondence.

It would be quite another thing to send my dollar and my recommendations to a man who not only has given me a swell photograph and a pre-paid envelope but who is sitting in the Oval Office anticipating a check for a thousand bucks. Might this not poison my budding friendship with Mr. Bush? Indeed, might not Mr. Racicot deepen the rift by allowing an edge of sarcasm to creep into his tone when he says, “Mr. President, I am thrilled to tell you that Jack is with us?”

These are the headaches you run into when you develop personal friendships with politicians, I suppose.

I shouldn’t have let either of them get so close. Now someone’s feelings are bound to be hurt. Maybe I’ll pretend both letters got lost in the mail—and go spend my dollar on one of those neat blue pens. If anyone calls to ask in a wounded voice why I failed to respond,
I only hope it isn’t Laura.

 

He was the blind man who lived in a library. That fact alone is worth a biography, never mind that Jorge Luis Borges is easily among the top ten most important writers of the last century. His short stories – no novels, alas – were masterpieces of breathtaking and abstruse complexity; some say his repeated metaphoric use of the library and the labyrinth anticipated the Internet by decades. (It also earned him a starring role as the villain in Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose.) But he’s never been the recipient of a thorough biography, until now. This painstakingly researched work by Spanish-language lit scholar Williamson is worthy of Borges’s talent, offering a detailed and sympathetic look at his difficult relationship with Argentine politics, his troubled family, and, of course, his writing.

Click on the PDF below!

HBO unveiled Six Feet Under in 2000, at a time when nobody thought TV could top The Sopranos in terms of first-rate drama. But Alan Ball’s show, centering on a family that runs a funeral home in Los Angeles, immediately proved to be as addictive as the mafia saga, and even more so. Having just begun its fourth and much-anticipated season, the show has become as rich and engrossing as a skillfully written novel.

Despite their improbable setting, Six Feet Under’s characters are hardly preoccupied with death. They’re struggling, like the rest of us, to find ways to be happy during the short time we’re here. At the center of their sometimes poignant, often lyrical stories is Nate Fisher, one of two sons of the recently deceased patriarch, who reluctantly agrees to help his brother keep the family business afloat. A refreshingly modern protagonist, Nate is at once difficult and eminently relatable. In television’s lineup of cardboard male types—gruff cops, happy-go-lucky dads, wise-cracking slackers—Nate’s intelligence, wit, and despair are so three-dimensional and vivid, he starts to feel like someone you know.

What’s it like to act in the role of such a complex, smart, and often overwhelmed character, particularly for so long? Peter Krause, who plays Nate, explains that it’s just as rewarding—and sometimes exhausting—as it sounds. Krause, who grew up in Detroit Lakes and suburban St. Paul, took time out in between filming Six Feet Under and rehearsing for a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s After the Fall to talk to The Rake about the show—as well as suffering, the irrelevance of marriage, and how Nate’s misery has helped Krause find more happiness.

THE RAKE: I find it interesting how people refer to Six Feet Under as a soap opera—they don’t know how else to classify it.

PETER KRAUSE: It’s a family drama. There are soap-opera elements to it. It’s like a soap opera in its sensationalistic storylines.

Yeah, but all shows have sensationalistic storylines. Six Feet Under is a family drama, but it’s not a happy, upbeat family drama. It’s about the regular course of human lives outside of hospitals, courtrooms, and police headquarters. It’s amazing that there aren’t more shows that just focus on ordinary life and do it really well.

Well, how do you get those sensational storylines? How do you make it dramatic, you know? A funeral home is something that nobody thought they could get away with, but of course it has the same backdrop of life and death that M*A*S*H did, except it’s not wartime, it’s just everyday life. People live and die and battle demons and each other and their own self-destruction every day, and it’s just as dramatic as any two politically opposed countries, or showing the hospital where the wounded go. On Six Feet Under, the wounded are everywhere, the war is happening on a personal level everywhere.

And how, especially for Nate. I can’t believe he is having such a tough time again this season. How is it for you as an actor, to play a character for whom the stakes are so high for such an extended period of time?

It’s very intense. I didn’t expect his downward spiral to be never-ending, which is what it’s been. It’s difficult because it’s not like doing a movie for a couple of months where you play a tortured character and then you move on.

What’s your overall take on the show, now that you’re wrapping up your fourth season?

I’m still really enthusiastic about what the show has to offer. I don’t think there’s anything else like it on television. We’ve never seen the role of Nate Fisher before in any fashion that I can think of, except perhaps David Janssen in The Fugitive, years ago. I don’t think anybody has suffered quite like Nate has on television. He’s also quite an original character in terms of what he does. He’s not a cop, he doesn’t carry a gun, he doesn’t wield any great power. He’s not a doctor, so there are no life-and-death issues. He doesn’t hold any political office. He’s just a guy—and what’s more, a guy who isn’t living where he wants to live or doing what he wants to do for a living. He hasn’t experienced a satisfying relationship, and tragic things happen to him.

Those are the reasons why people can relate to him. He may be the most honestly average character that television has seen in quite some time.

I think so. The departure at this point is that having a number of tragic events happen to you, and to those around you—I think it starts to change you. It wakes you up, and you’re gonna go one of two ways: You’ll get so despondent, you’ll be in such despair, so depressed, maybe to the point of putting a bullet through your head. Or you’re gonna move the other way and choose to be really happy in the face of everything, and develop a kind of “screw it” attitude and just work on your own happiness. I really lean more toward that direction, but that isn’t necessarily what’s happened to Nate, so it’s a bit strange.
Yeah, I think I’ve been expecting Nate to sort of bounce back. Particularly because Lisa didn’t seem to be making him happy.

It’s interesting to look at the show in its entirety and think about how individuals make decisions when they’re coerced by events in their lives. I don’t know if Nate would’ve necessarily married Lisa if he hadn’t just gone through what he went through with Brenda, and if he hadn’t found out that he had a potentially fatal brain ailment. Those were the things that were surrounding that decision. Then you have the specter of his own childhood, his relationship with his father. I think that he really wanted to be there for his daughter, and I understood him trying to make an imperfect situation workable.

You’re a father now, too, right?

Yes, I have a two-and-a-half-year old, so my fatherhood happened to coincide with Nate’s fatherhood. My understanding of what he’s going through as a new parent is about as good as it can get from moment to moment. Taking care of a new person in the midst of starting a new relationship, especially with someone you wouldn’t be married to if you weren’t having a child together—it asks a lot of questions of the audience: What is marriage? Why do people get married? Has marriage outlived its goodness in the world that we live in?

Sounds like you’re a little skeptical about marriage.

The reasons for getting married are baffling to me. I am not married, and based upon the vision that I had of adults during my childhood, nobody seemed to be that happy with marriage. So I always felt like if a team of wild horses can’t keep me from getting married, only then I should get married.

But otherwise, no way?

I just think that most people go into it with a sense, on some level of their consciousness, that it’s something they should do, that they ought to do. But it’s a choice.

Well, I think for some people it’s a symbol of security.

Absolutely, but it’s steeped in societal dogma. I think it’s steeped in a desire for acceptance and approval of the family and parents. That’s just my own opinion.

A lot depends on your experiences with family.

Yeah, people tend to repeat the relationships that they developed with their family as kids. It’s hard to break through all that stuff. I just think it’s deadly when you think that you have to behave a new way or a different way than you wish to because you are now a husband or a wife.

It can be stifling to the self, definitely. But there are a lot of people who prefer to have that structure.

Definitely. As a child, you’re witnessing your parents, together or separately, dealing with other adults, and that’s a template for how people get along. It’s very important to find a way to have a workable relationship, whether together or apart. And I think that’s what Nate was doing with Lisa and it felt odd to him because he wasn’t used to that much compromise. But he’s already compromised himself a lot—by moving home, by being a funeral director. You know, I don’t write the show. But there are times when it feels like the character of Nate is an average guy who gets swallowed up by the world, and can’t find it within himself to fight back and make himself happy. In the midst of things, I try to show how Nate is very happy to have his daughter and he’s trying to be a good parent. I don’t think that it’s believable or truthful that he’s happy to be living in the Fisher family funeral home, except that he’s near his family. He hates his job through and through. He finds a way to be valuable to the people who come in by consoling them, and that’s about all he can take away from his job.

So much in Nate’s life is wrong. Doesn’t it get exhausting to play him for that reason?

It does, but it doesn’t on its own. What’s exhausting is balancing it all. Last year I finished the series and the next morning I was on a plane to Vancouver to start We Don’t Live Here Anymore.

That screened at Sundance, right?

Yeah, Laura Dern and Mark Ruffalo and Naomi Watts are also in it. It’s based on a couple of Andre Dubus short stories about two couples who end up sleeping with each other’s spouses. Slipping right into that film wasn’t necessarily the best thing for me personally, but it was a good thing professionally. I really enjoyed doing it—the director was great, the cast was great. And now after finishing this season of Six Feet Under, I fly to New York and do Arthur Miller’s After the Fall. But that’s what ends up being hard about playing Nate—piling other work on top of it, and it just so happens that the other work is also very… tragic. And dramatic. I’m ready to do comedy again.

You started out in comedy, and suddenly you’re in this torture chamber! When did you get into acting?

During college. I had done one play in high school. I hurt myself doing track and field, and there was a girl I wanted to get to know who was into the theater, so that’s why I auditioned for that play.

I’ve made so many decisions based on that.

Based on libido? Yeah! That was how I chose my college. There were lots of cute Swedish blond girls running around. I went to Gustavus Adolphus College, named after a king of Sweden. He killed a lot of heathens during the Crusades, I guess, so they Latinized his name and gave him a college.

Your most recent Minnesota address was in the Twin Cities, right?

Yeah, it’s a nice place to be a kid. I was born up north in Alexandria. Then my parents moved to Detroit Lakes, and then to Roseville.

Your earlier work—Sports Night, The Truman Show, Carol & Company—was mostly comedy. Were you drawn to comic roles when you began acting?

Not so much. I had gone to graduate school at NYU with the idea that I wanted to be able to play anybody or anything. I had the idea that anybody around me was a character I might play. My job was to study human behavior, to be as flexible a person as I could possibly be so that I could understand another person’s circumstances and life rules and desires—fears, belief systems, all that stuff. That was part of the training at NYU, learning how to neutralize yourself. You learn how to do that physically, mentally, emotionally…

In other words, erase your influences?

Let go of your own identity. Of course, you can only do that to a certain extent, but that training certainly teaches you a lot about how identities are fashioned and accumulated and how there is the essential self that each individual is born with. How do I put it? You could look at it like God has done a gesture drawing, and that gesture never really changes. So the essential self basically stays the same. But of course, tragic things happen to people and, you know, they get banged around a little bit.

How did you make the transition from Sports Night to Six Feet Under? Did you audition?

I auditioned for the role of David first, then they called and said, “You know, we’ve been having a difficult time finding Nate, Alan really feels like you’d make a great Nate, and we have some strong choices for David.” I kind of felt like, “Oh great, now I’m going to be neither.” But I reread the script from the viewpoint of Nate and realized that was the character that was probably more terrifying for me to play because it’s closer to myself. But the transition was a very nice one. Sports Night was very language-oriented. It was very verbal, we talked really quickly, and picked up our cues. It was also, though, a very modern show. Casey McCall on Sports Night and Nate Fisher on Six Feet Under are a couple of modern men in imperfect relationships. For Casey, his work was his home, and he really loved being there, but that’s not the case with Nate. The relative tone of the shows is quite different, but both feature conflicted modern men. I was happy to get more into the acting after that, rather than just delivering the language. The behavioral and emotional terrain on Six Feet Under is far more sophisticated than it was on Sports Night.

What do you think Nate’s essential self is like?

Nate is like a lot of people. I think Nate just wants to be happy, and unfortunately for him, he finds that difficult sometimes. He doesn’t let suffering move past him or through him. He’s very frustrated by the fact that there is so much suffering in life. But of course, that frustration causes more suffering. So he definitely has a few things to learn about hanging onto suffering. The more you can let things that are damaging and miserable pass through you, the happier you can be. Nate gets pummeled around pretty good by the cosmos.

It’s kind of remarkable that he doesn’t really have any coping strategies after all the hell he’s been through.

Well, he’s been shutting down. I mean, over the course of time on Six Feet Under, you see Nate sleeping a lot. And a lot of things happen in his dreams that he needs to work out in his conscious life. You know, that’s certainly one way of moving through life. If you don’t address something on the conscious plane, your growth is just going to be slower. So Nate in some ways chooses to be asleep. He’s a person for whom what’s happening to him is simply too much.

I just have to say, I’d like to see Brenda and Nate get back together.

As an actor, Nate’s relationship with Brenda is confusing to me, too. Once your father dies, you’ve encountered a fatal neurological condition, you’ve had a child with someone you didn’t plan on, and you got married and it wasn’t all that great, and then she’s dead and now you’re a single parent with this job you don’t want, living in this house you don’t want to be living in… At some point, you have to start thinking a little more consciously about what you’re doing. I just can’t believe you’re gonna stay fast asleep, continue to stumble all over the place.

Do you think Nate’s relationship with Brenda is destructive?

I don’t see it as necessarily destructive, but I don’t find it to be overwhelmingly happy or healthy. At a certain point, I think the unrelatable issues are things that either the writers don’t know how to write about, don’t want to write about, or haven’t chosen to write about yet. I disagree that dysfunction is the only conflict you can show on television. I think you can show functioning conflict and have it be compelling. Brenda and Nate are ripe for having a very expressive, communicative, conflict-filled relationship—one that’s not about what isn’t said, but about what’s said: disagreeing about things, having disparate experiences of reality, but being able to allow their realities to overlap and also have realities that don’t. They don’t always have to be so protected and uncommunicative.

For someone who doesn’t believe in marriage, you sure sound like a marriage counselor! But I get it. Instead of always showing wildly dysfunctional behavior, they could focus more often on low-level conflict within a functioning structure.

Yeah, exactly. I feel like we’ve seen that, and after Brenda loses her father and Nate loses his father, and they deal with the infidelity in their relationship… and don’t forget about her crazy brother Billy. I mean, they’ve gone through a lot separately and together, and I don’t buy it that they wouldn’t communicate on a very high level.

It’s true, there are so few movies or TV shows about real, slightly flawed relationships. Seeing Nate and Brenda actually work things out could be dramatically interesting.

Yeah, I think it would be fabulous to watch that.

Sometimes TV writers tend to dream up more fantastical stuff instead of going back to the characters and figuring out what the next stage in their development might be.

There’s nothing wrong with telling really great, compelling stories. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did it wonderfully with Sherlock Holmes, but I don’t think that’s ever been Six Feet Under’s strong suit. I think its strong suit has always been the revelation of truthful human behavior.

So you’re trapped in the abyss of the incredibly tragic character!

Yeah, but it’s therapeutic. It’s actually made me a person who gravitates towards happiness a lot more when I’m not working. I’m not very serious outside of work these days. I just like to screw around.

Everyone thinks they could be a writer, and everyone thinks they could run a restaurant. Folks don’t realize how much work, tedious work, is involved in either enterprise. Well, we confess that our second-best idea—after starting this magazine—was to open a good fish-and-chips joint, in the classic British style of a walk-up chippy. True, you can find fish and chips all over town, but other than Mac’s in St. Paul, none is dedicated exclusively to this noble cause. Now Minneapolis has a proud contender, in an amazing location: The Tin Fish is the Minneapolis Park Board’s seasonal restaurant in the boathouse at Lake Calhoun. The prices are a little steep (running $10-$15 for an actual meal) and the wait can be unsettling, but the quality (walleye, salmon, cod, cross-cut fries, slaw—upscale!) has us beaming with civic pride. Each of the city’s great lakes deserves a delightful gathering place like this. Now how about a model yacht club at Loring Pond?