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  • No Tyrants’ Tipple

    Freud and Strauss offer contrasting impressions of the nightlife of old Vienna. Hitler painted a verbal picture of the same city as it was seen by those who could not afford Sacher Torte and waltzes, let alone dream therapy with the good doctor, those for whom the opera (the solemnities of Wagner, one gathers, rather than the gaiety of the Gipsy Baron) could be only a very occasional indulgence. Mein Kampf is a book more reviled than read. It certainly earns the revulsion. Like most emetics that really deliver, the effect is gradual. The reader is invited to pity the poor painter, scraping a living as a builder’s laborer, excluded from art school by the shortcomings of the education system. Slowly it emerges that it is all someone else’s fault, the Jews, the unions, the Hapsburg monarchy, parliamentary procedure, you name it. Cringing self-pity metamorphoses effortlessly into snarling resentment and contempt. This is as unhappy a study in the mental genesis of tyranny as you are likely to find. One doubts if Hitler could ever have painted bold bright landscapes like those of Churchill.

    Hitler, as is well known, was not keen on wine (though his ambassador to London, von Ribbentrop, had an earlier career as a champagne salesman). Other tyrants have been less teetotal. Saddam Hussein, despite being a Muslim, had a favorite wine. It is a liquid which many of us remember from those anxious years between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP, when bepimpled youth wished to do the right thing by the lady they were entertaining, but did not know if the right thing was red or white. Yes, Mateus Rosé, sweetish, pink, faintly fizzy, to look at not unlike the colored carbonated water some dentists give you to disguise the blood when you “wash out now please.” Maybe you still have one of the dumpy bottles, stoppered with a light bulb, caked in oodles of candle grease.

    One ought not to suggest guilt by association. Some of my best friends have moustaches. The taste of Mateus Rosé is at least consistent, even if I am not an admirer. But it is a pity that it is by far the best known table wine from Portugal, a land of many interesting grape varieties and vintages. There is Vinho Verde, a white wine which is indeed green and fresh in taste and color, as the name suggests. And recently I enjoyed a really heartening bottle of Portugese red, Quinta do Crasto 2000, named after the vineyard which clings to the vertiginous slopes of the valley of the River Douro in the north of the country and conveniently available in the valley of the upper Mississippi for substantially less than $20.

    The Douro valley is, of course, the area from which port comes, and this red table wine is made from some of the same grapes as port, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barocca, Touriga Francesa, and Touriga Nacional (the names are as evocative as those of old English apple varieties—listen to Bramley Seedling and Worcester Pearmain, James Greave and Ribstone Pippin). Port, though, stays sweet because its fermentation is arrested. The yeasts get busy in the barrel turning the sugars into alcohol only to have their activities curtailed by the fortifying addition of substantial quantities of brandy. The sugars sit back and let the resulting blend mature into the noblest of all dessert wines.

    Quinta do Crasto table wine lacks the sweetness of port, but has much of its nobility. The wonderful dark color is matched by a magnificent dark taste, which not only fills the mouth but swells up into the soft palate and the sinus, making you puff out your moustache (if any) like a walrus. There is soft tannin, enough to give good road-holding qualities, and a slight tang of fresh apples, enough to induce salivation but no sharpness. This is well-balanced wine.

    Take it this summer if you are asked to the better sort of barbecue. With the help of a small steak, a baked potato and Savoy cabbage (you know, the crinkly kind) lightly steamed with a knob of butter, it lifted me out of the miry slough of Hitler’s prose. “Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace.” The answer to tyranny must, I suppose, be hope.

  • Best of the Wurst

    Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s food poetry is some of the most beautiful ever written. He transformed tomatoes into heavenly beings. His ode to wine should be every serious vintner’s mantra. Even ordinary and unpoetic subjects—the artichoke or conger chowder—receive his divine dressings. But as far as my searches have revealed, Neruda seems to have skipped the sausage. Does the tubular treat filled with tasty meat offend? Does it lack in characteristics worth lauding? Is the sausage so unapologetically phallic as to render sausage prose better suited to public bathroom walls than to literary antiquity? Still, I feel Neruda was remiss in ignoring the opportunity to glorify one of the most prolific foods created by man.

    Strange and ugly though it may be—with its pale skin and lumpy contents—the sausage is something most people would rather not do without. What would summer be without a tasty bratwurst? Some of us can’t enjoy a ballpark game without a jumbo frank. Even the health-conscious have a hard time turning down the occasional link when cruising the brunch buffet. How can you not love a slice of something named mortadella, the sausage of death? A food adopted by almost every culture and created over and over with differing shapes, flavors and techniques, defined by the people who love it, deserves some consideration. I think it was Jimmy Dean who said, “My sausage, my country.”

    Sausage is more or less a minced-meat mix stuffed into a tubular casing, and the practice of making it is thought to have originated with the concept of “saving the rest of the pig to eat later.” So winning did the technique prove that it was soon adapted for different situations, thereby changing the definition of a sausage and its composition.

    First the filling. We may think first of pork or beef, but fish sausages have been around just as long. (And the sausage-loving Brits make one filled with cheese and leeks but no meat.) Second, sausage isn’t always tubular. That Scottish dare of a delicacy, haggis, is round, since its casing is usually the sheep’s stomach. And casing itself is the third factor. Natural casing may come from various areas of the animals interior, not just the intestines. Artificial casing can come from animals or plants. And some sausages are made with no casing at all, formed into a cohesive shape held together by composition.

    These variables contribute to a complex and fascinating world of portable treats, but most sausages can be lumped into one of three categories. Fresh sausages are made of raw meat and need to be cooked before eating. Cured sausages have some raw meat, but have been dried or cured and are intended for keeping and slicing (think salami). And last, cooked or partially cooked sausages are either sliced and eaten cold or heated.

    But, let’s face it, casing or no, jumbo salami or lil’ smokie, it’s what’s inside that counts. It’s the red pepper flakes or touch of fennel, the mingling of veal and pork or trace of cumin that create sausage memories—and distinct sausagieres. At Kramarczuk Sausage Co. in northeast Minneapolis, the deli case is jammed with sausages made from traditional methods passed down from one family member to another. On Saturday mornings you can wait in line for hunks of samples of their amazing meats, but you should definitely walk away with the garlic sausage—which will have you reeking pleasantly for the rest of the day. Or sit and gnaw on a sandwich while the smells blend with accordion music and Slavic banter from behind the counter.

    Tradition merged with innovation and a healthy sense of humor might be the best way to handle sausage-making. If that be true, then the folks at Sausage Sister & Me have found the key. Armed with time-tested techniques and recipes from their German Poppa Joe, Cherie Peterson and Merry Barry decided to create a sausage company based in Old World tradition and contemporary fun. Instead of going for the straight-faced and serious sausage-as-artesinal-art shtick, their sausage ingredients are zippy and the names even zippier. Try their Leave it to Cleaver (a.k.a Minnesota Nice) made with pork, wild rice, grated carrot, and onions, or Ring-A-Ding Risotto made with chicken, rice, artichokes, mushrooms, and parmesan cheese. You may have caught the two siblings hawking their Twisted Sister (porketta sausage wrapped in a twist of dough on a stick) at the State Fair last year. If not, you can catch them at the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market. Maybe sausage shouldn’t be the subject of an artful ode. Maybe it lends itself better to something more fun, more lively. I feel a limerick coming on…

  • Foot in Mouth Disease

    Up till now, I thought I had absolutely nothing in common with G.W. Bush. Then, I was taking my daughter to the what-not shop in Dinkytown to find a birthday gift for a friend, and we saw a slew of magnets with ridiculous quotes from the prez. For example, “I know how hard it is to put food on your family,” and “More and more of our foreign imports come from overseas.” I’m a sucker for this stuff, even if I understand that anybody, after all, can become tongue-tied and say embarrassing things. It happens to me all the time. Still, I wouldn’t consider this common ground with George. Especially considering his attitude toward the French. Just last week a pal of mine who is himself married to a Frenchie asked if I’ve been getting any flak for my heritage. If I have, I haven’t noticed.

    For example, immediately after leaving the gift shop, I took my kids to sip some lemonade at an outdoor table at the Loring Pasta Bar, and since the sun was so radiant in the sky, and since my name is French, I encouraged us all to speak with French accents and pretend we were dining at a Parisian café in springtime. I was instantly reminded of my brother-in-law’s recent experience in Paris, because somehow Harry, like G.W., has a way of getting into scuffles. It began with the hotel not offering any coffee in the morning, thus forcing Harry to go in search of it. As you may already know, Paris is not yet dotted with strip malls with Starbucks and Caribous on every corner, so Harry had to get his coffee at the only place that offered it: McDonalds. As it happened, the French McD’s coffees were petite by U.S. super-size standards, so Harry needed a few. Six to be exact, except he had his numbers in fractured Spanish. “Seis?” asked the cashier. “Oui, seis,” said Harry. “Seis?” “Oui, seis.” “Seis?” And so on. God, I love being French.

    But still, it wasn’t until much later, back at home, doing research of another sort, that I happened upon this little jewel that G.W. uttered back in April a year ago, while ruminating on the challenges of educating children: “Sometimes when I sleep at night I think of Hop on Pop.” Really? He does? So do I! There is this mournful passage that goes something like, “Dad is sad, dad had a bad day, what a day dad had.” That one lingers every time I read it, and if you haven’t read it yourself recently, pick it up, you’ll see what I mean.

    Of course, I’m a teacher, and that’s how it is working with kids. You never leave it behind. It follows you home, joins you for dinner, and crawls into bed with you at night. You never get it out of your head and for the most part, you don’t even try. Of course, you’re not also running the nation with a head all full of Hop on Pop. If you were, you would not have the time and clarity for urgent matters such as international relations. Which helps to explain why Bush admitted, only a few weeks after hopping on Pop, “This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating.” Yes, apparently. Finally, an explanation, albeit certainly not an excuse.

    You see, what I’d like to explain to George is that it’s frustrating for me, too, this foreign policy stuff of his. War and its aftermath gets me all distracted from putting food on my family, let alone concentrating on my work. It makes me feel helpless and out of control, because I believe I ought to be doing something, and don’t know how or what. I keep wondering about those Iraqi kids and what really happens next, what’s really going on over there. It sends me into immediate overload. I have so many kids on my mind already. For better or worse, the most I can do is what’s in front of me.

    Which happened this morning to be two robins, behaving very oddly. They appeared to be sparring, and though you might surmise it was mating and I just didn’t recognize it, I don’t think so. My son and I agreed that they were fighting, perhaps over a mate. “But they won’t kill each other, Mom,” he assured me, sweet golden-haired ten-year-old that he is. “Because humans are the only species that kill their own kind.” He’s thought a lot about violence in these last months, so much so that he’s actually considering retiring his squirt “guns” for less overtly violent “water shooters.” I’ve been around the “ban all replicas of guns” block already, and for the moment I’m leaving it all up to him. Even to the extent of not questioning his assertion about which species kill. Finally, I’ve learned to shut up and let my kids do some figuring out on their own, right, wrong, or somewhere in between. After all, just like G.W., most things eventually speak for themselves.

  • Hero or Dope?

    I first heard of Colorado mountain climber Aron Ralston’s daring self-rescue on the radio. I thought: “Wow! What an adventurer!” I stood daydreaming in the kitchen, up to my elbows in dishwater, and let my imagination fly. It was the fifth day… pinned to the north face of a brutal cliff… my water—gone. My hopes that someone might happen along, someone within earshot even—dashed. Listed among my assets: rope, the clothes on my back, and perhaps the most important ingredient of all—steely resolve.

    I never got to the part where I sawed off my arm with a jackknife and rappelled down the cliff only to walk five miles before finding help, because I know myself too well. I’d never have made it. Once pinned by the 800-pound boulder, I’d have faced a toss up—how to expel fluids fast enough to pass out from dehydration and welcome sweet death? Crying or wetting my pants? Could I do both at the same time? Probably, yes.

    As for the DIY surgery, forget it. I can’t even cut my own bangs. Even mall-walking is too risky for me. I’m smack dab in my mid-30s, and I’ll tell you—I’ve got my limitations pretty well categorized. What’s intriguing to me about this hike gone wrong are the other little bits of the story that get lost in the shuffle. Time magazine headlined their chronicle of his ordeal, “Survival of the Fittest.” I’d call it “Lucky Fool Cheats Death—Again!”

    Here’s the timeline. In the late 90s, Ralston saw the movie Everest, the one about the climb gone fatally wrong. It spurred him on to quit his day job and devote his life to exploration and following the jam bands Phish and String Cheese Incident. (After reading this, I could give Ralston the benefit of the doubt and assume he is not also a fan of illegal herb, but I won’t. I mean, come on.)

    So, for me, the next part makes total sense—the part where he forgets/neglects to leave an itinerary. (Do you think Ashton Kutcher will star in the movie version of Ralston’s hike? Dude! Where’s My Arm?) The more you know about it, the more the story degenerates into a Super Dave Osborne fiasco. Ralston’s made a habit of climbing with nothing more than water, candy bars, and an ice axe. No cell phone, no global positioning system, no rope. When I’m walking on the treadmill at the Y, I’ve got a 20-oz. Cherry Gatorade, the latest Jackie Collins potboiler on tape, and if I didn’t think people would look sideways at me, I’d bring caramel corn.

    I know I shouldn’t blame all of this guy’s irresponsible behavior on the demon weed. Scientists say there’s an internal chemical reason folks like Ralston skate the edge. They call it the thrill-seeking gene. Boy, when you hear it described that way, don’t you just get visions of handsome Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier? Plane disintegrating around him? His broad rugged shoulders seared by his flaming jumpsuit as he plummets to Earth? But the same gene must then include Houdini. And Evel Knievel. The guys on Jackass (who have, incidentally, elevated that word to an entirely new level of disrepute). And that goofy kid I knew in third grade who thought he’d be able to jump off his garage roof, Wile E. Coyote-style, and scare the skittles out of us girls. (Sure, we felt bad, but it didn’t stop us from laughing before we ran to get help.)

    So when thrill seekers are out for information or money, the rewards seem pretty well explained. But how about those rambunctious few who venture outside the fence of science or show business? Are they merely threats to themselves and others, or could they be valuable research subjects? Could we harness their brain chemistry to create an elite force of rodeo clowns? Should we have volunteers from the Raptor Center ear-tag them like other endangered species? Or should we do what we’ve always done—let these guys roam free to inflate our rates on life, health, and casualty insurance? I’m glad to hear that Ralston is on the mend, but I still worry about him. He doesn’t strike me as a quitter. And there’s a lot of mountains left out there.

  • Son of the South

    On March 20, 2003, Quinn Keating Collins made his grand entrance on planet Earth. On April 29, 2003, his grandfather, Clinton Clarence Collins, Sr., took his final bow. My two oldest sons, Joseph and Alexander, knew their grandfather and heard, probably more times than they wanted to, the stories of Mississippi cross-burnings and ducking bullets on Omaha Beach, homemade bootleg brew and the “come to Jesus” meetings between me, my father, and his dancing leather belt. Those stories are now safely fermenting in their minds for all the family retellings yet to come.

    Alas, Quinn, the newest Collins, will not have his own personal memories of his grandfather. So it will be left to our family and particularly to me to conjure in Quinn’s mind his grandfather’s life and legacy. I’ll start right now with this column.

    Clinton Collins, Sr., was born in Wiggins, Mississippi, in either 1923 or 1924, depending on whether you believe the old, weather-beaten family Bible or the birth certificate that mysteriously emerged from the bowels of some bureaucratic computer about a decade ago. His mother was named Judia and his father was a “professor” (which is what any black male teacher with even a whiff of college was called in those days). My dad thought his last name was Johnson. “Professor” Johnson never married Judia, who died when my father was four or five years old. Judia’s brother, Isaac Collins, took him to Laurel, Mississippi, and raised him there.

    Clarence was his “Sunday-come-to-meeting” name, but his everyday name was “Boy.” No, not “boy” as in the white put-down. “Boy” as in “ain’t you one of them Collins boys?” In fact, the name stuck so hard that even when he made his last trip to Laurel a few years ago, he was still “Boy,” albeit “Mr. Boy” Collins. Boy Collins lived the life that black people lived in Mississippi in the 20s, 30s, and early 40s. He attended segregated, dilapidated schools, went to the Mississippi state fair on “Colored Day,” and tried to avoid the ire of “white folks.” Unfortunately, that was a very hard thing for a young black manchild coming of age in the “Solid South.”

    He dropped out of tenth grade, picked cotton for a hot minute, and was ultimately drafted into World War II. During the war, he landed on Omaha Beach and drove trucks for the famed Red Ball Express, a group of black soldiers that kept Patton juiced during his dash to Germany. After the war, he came back to Mississippi determined to make sure that his native land gave him his due as an American citizen and as a man.

    By 1949, he had finished high school and college, earned an officers’ commission in the newly integrated Army, and was applying to the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”) law school. Ole Miss rejected him because he was black. After a year at an all-black law school in Missouri, Mr. Boy went back to Mississippi and became one of the youngest public school superintendents ever. Now, because Mississippi was still caught up in the fallacy of “separate but equal,” he was only responsible for the “colored” students in his district. Outraged at the substandard equipment and poor treatment, Mr. Boy bought an hour on a Laurel radio station in the 1950s, a time when most Mississippi blacks were afraid to even look a white man in the eye, and told those crackers exactly what he thought of their racist world.

    In 1957, he married Carrie Beatrice Holloway, a kindred spirit who did not take any abuse from racists either. Together, they risked everything to take in young Freedom Riders who traveled Dixie’s bus lines to break segregation’s chokehold on the South. In 1962, Mr. Boy became the first black man to run for public office in Mississippi since Reconstruction. He told his terrified neighbors that if he was going to die, as his good friend Medgar Evers did in the awful, bloody summer of 1963, he was going to do so on his feet, not his knees. Even after the Klan burned a cross on our front lawn, Mr. Boy took no unanswered blows. He simply ran for public office again.

    Like most sons, I had my “issues” with my father. He was not perfect. Yet, not a day passes, when I do not gain a deeper appreciation for the many life lessons he taught me. The most crucial, one that I have taught Joseph and Alexander and will teach Quinn, is this: You gain nothing by blaming white people, the world, whoever, for giving you crap. And you have no one to blame but yourself if you take it.

  • “It’s A Wild!”

    All those late nights in April and May spent watching the Minnesota Wild’s astonishing West Coast playoff run left many bleary-eyed observers across North America rubbing their eyes and wondering the same thing: What the hell is it? On fleet forward Marian Gaborik, it looks like a cheetah. On plodding veteran Andrew Brunette, maybe more like a three-toed sloth. Of course, it could be a meerkat, a chinchilla, or a bloodthirsty panda.

    We’re talking, of course, about the Wild logo, that mammalian Rorschach test that adorns the jerseys of the State of Hockey’s favorite underdogs. Its actual identity is… well, let’s hear it from Matt Majka: “We’ve never said what it is,” explained the team’s vice president of marketing. “It’s a Wild.” Well, of course it is. How could we have doubted it?

    “The question we get most is, ‘What is it? Is it a cat? A bear? A wolf?’” Majka said. “It’s a Wild, and it’s whatever you see in there. It was purposely designed to be interpretive.” A female hockey fan with whom I am closely acquainted said, “It’s got to be some kind of a cat. It’s not a wolf or a dog—wrong ears, wrong head shape.” And I thought, Ears? Man, I thought those were the eyes…

    “We get the ‘a-ha’ factor a lot,” Majka said. “People step back and see things they hadn’t seen before. Some don’t even see the animal head at first.” True, there’s plenty to see in the pictogram: pine trees, the northern lights, a full moon, all icons of the Minnesota wilderness. And the team surely gilded the lily with the official, regionally inspired name of each color, too: “Forest Green,” “Minnesota Wheat,” “Harvest Gold,” and “Iron Range Red.”

    After Minnesota was awarded an expansion franchise in 1997, one of the first steps was to settle on a nickname. At the time, “Wild” drew some criticism, but now it feels like a comfy old sweatshirt, especially compared to the other clunkers that comprised the final five: Blue Ox, Freeze, Northern Lights, Voyageurs, and White Bears.

    Majka said the fans were instrumental in the next step, too: developing the team’s brand—the logo and colors. With the help of the marketing agency Hall Batko and creative firm SME Design, the team conducted some 300 fan interviews, and the top choice quickly became obvious. “It was a landslide,” Majka said. “The fans led us right there.”

    It was the beginning of a torrid affair; the fans love what they see. The Wild’s jersey was the top-selling NHL sweater in the country for the team’s first two years in the league. The numbers aren’t all in yet, but this year it’s bound to make another strong showing. “NHL jerseys are generally popular locally and regionally,” said Majka. “It’s unusual to attract national attention. But we’ve got a unique logo and it’s really been a mysterious attraction.”

    Now the only mystery is the design of the team’s third jersey, which will be unveiled this fall and worn in select home games. Majka, who is, after all, a marketing professional, wouldn’t give many advance hints. “We’re going to keep it simple. It will honor the heritage and tradition of hockey in Minnesota,” he said cryptically.

    Due to a change in NHL rules, road teams will wear their white jerseys next year, so the Wild will don their fetching green sweaters at home when they’re not wearing the new alternate jersey. The league stipulates that teams with third jerseys shall wear them 15 to 18 times per year, but given the superstitious nature of hockey guys, head coach Jacques Lemaire (who went sockless for much of the playoffs) likely will make the final call. “If Jacques wants to wear the third jersey every night, I’m sure we’ll wear the third jersey every night,” Majka said with a laugh.—Patrick Donnelly

  • College Girls Gone Mild!

    Feminist leader Gloria Steinem worked in a Playboy club in the 60s to show women everywhere the working conditions of Playboy bunnies. But more than 30 women from the University of Minnesota had no problem putting their mother’s feminist ideals on the shelf for a little exposure in April, when Playboy arrived searching for women to pose for their “Girls of the Big Ten” pictorial. In September, ten million readers will have the opportunity to see the full measure of Big 10 co-eds who epitomize Playboy’s idea of beauty. But only a few University students achieved bunny status. It comes as little surprise that our successful applicants were unapproachable; the magazine is keeping the top-secret winners under wraps until the issue comes out. That left it to us to ask: How did the rejected feel?

    Rebekah Saunders, a pretty 19-year-old freshman, was a bit apprehensive after her initial “interview.” She said, “I went right to my boyfriend’s room and said ‘I think I made a mistake.’” With her dark hair and svelte figure, Saunders does not resemble the busty bottle-blondes that seem to prevail in the magazine. When she didn’t receive the phone call from Playboy representatives telling her they wanted her for the pictorial, she wasn’t disappointed. “I was more relieved,” she said. “I knew right away after the interview that I wasn’t going to do it.” Chantelle Owens, a cheerful psychology major, said she talked to Playboy to do something fun for her senior year of college. When she didn’t receive an offer from the magazine to pose, Owens was disappointed, but not devastated. “It was just for fun anyways, and it probably won’t happen again.”

    Owens said her parents and her boyfriend were incredibly supportive of her decision to try out, but Saunders said her parents were relieved that she was not chosen. “I think they kind of knew all along that I wouldn’t have done it, anyways,” she said optimistically. Owens said even though she has not had any experience with nude modeling in the past, she would definitely try out again in the future if the opportunity arose. She remains a fan of Playboy. “I still think they kick ass,” she said.

    Would Saunders audition for Hugh Hefner again in the future? She seemed undecided. “Um, no, well… I, yeah, I guess I would. But I would be really clear that I wouldn’t pose fully nude.” Saunders had hopes that an agent would notice her picture, because she was interested in the entertainment industry. After this experience, though, she has decided to put her entertainment dreams on hold. “I’m not going to go out of my way to do it, because I am for sure going to get my degree,” she said, although she is undecided what she wants to major in.

    So who “won” the callback and photoshoot? Playboy’s keeping their secret, but The Rake was able to track down one bunny. We’re happy to report that the lucky young lady is, at the moment, more concerned about the mind than the body. She told The Rake she was too busy with finals to talk.—Emily Ayshford

  • from the Economy Class: Masked & Innocuous

    Late on a Sunday night, Northwest Flight 19—MSP to Tokyo Narita—is nearly empty. Alone in row 37, I sprawl across thousands of dollars’ worth of lost airline revenue while enjoying the latest Harry Potter film, tiny pretzel bag in hand. The mood of the few other passengers seems similarly contented (that is, unless those passengers have paid for first class tickets and gotten a look at the extra space in coach). Even the three elderly Japanese women who boarded wearing surgical masks seem to have relaxed. After all, 12 hours is an awfully long time to keep one’s mouth covered, even during an epidemic.

    Hours later, as we taxi in Tokyo, a flight attendant announces that “passengers continuing on to Shanghai are required to fill out a health questionnaire before boarding.” As I disembark I am given the questionnaire; among other things, it asks whether, over the last 48 hours, I have experienced “fever, cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing.”

    Narita Airport is unusually subdued, no doubt because of the surgical masks worn by a third of the passenger traffic. Most masks are either of the cloth or paper variety, and thus incapable of filtering tiny viral particles. This is irrelevant. It’s the fashion statement that counts. “Hello Kitty” masks are popular with teenage girls, Louis Vuitton masks are the rage among middle-aged Japanese women in expensive mary janes. The N95 mask, widely acknowledged to be the only effective filtering agent against SARS, is preferred by cheeky American college students who like to wear it idly around the neck, like swim goggles.

    Northwest Flight 85 to Shanghai is 80 percent empty. Most of the passengers wear masks, and those who don’t are eyed warily by the flight attendants. Yet it is the rare passenger, masked or not, who is able to resist a complimentary beverage service. As the drink cart moves up the aisle, the masks are stowed below.

    When we arrive at Pudong Airport, the flight attendants ask that we notify the “authorities” if we have any symptoms so that we may “be given appropriate medical care in Shanghai.” Eyes roll, wry smiles are exchanged. As we disembark, we pass a sign notifying us that the terminal has been sterilized. The ominous empty white corridors stink of chlorine.

    We proceed in a somber single-file line, but just before reaching the customs desk, we are halted by two temporary checkpoints staffed by masked individuals in white lab coats. Conversation ebbs immediately and disappears entirely. The only remaining voices are those requesting that passengers submit to a thermometer in the ear. The reading takes a few seconds, and when no fever registers, I am directed to customs.

    As an officer examines my passport, I look back and see a woman diverted from the thermometer line for further examination due to a mild fever. I pause: On the plane she had occupied a seat three rows ahead of me. But it’s no matter. My passport is stamped, and I am free to enter China.—Adam Minter

    Adam Minter

  • “A Small Half-Domesticated Polecat”

    It’s a beautiful spring afternoon and there’s a costume contest going on at Eagles Aerie Number 33 on St. Paul’s East Side. The contestants—an Indian, a bride, a hillbilly, and a witch—are decked out in gorgeous homemade finery. Their handlers hover nervously, while judges with clipboards move in for a closer look.

    My personal favorite is the hillbilly, with his patched denim overalls, straw hat, and curly wig, but, predictably, the judges go for the showier Indian, with his regal feather-decked headpiece à la early Village People. After the ribbons are passed out, the witch squirms out of her peaked hat, and the white-veiled bride slumps dejectedly, like a skinny, beady-eyed Miss Havisham.

    “Isn’t this the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” asks Barbara “Grandma” Martin, leaning in to pat the winning contestant, a furry, pointy-nosed ferret named Kinsey. I’m at Ferret Funfest 2003. It is a gathering of ferret enthusiasts and a fundraiser for Minnesota’s only no-kill ferret shelter, a place called In the Company of Ferrets. Hardcore ferret enthusiasts call themselves ferreteers, and this crowd is definitely hardcore. The games now finished, dozens of ferrets snooze in specially designed hammocks, rest on shoulders, or scamper around the hall on leashes, making skritch-skritch noises on the polished wooden floor.

    This annual event is the brainchild of Laura Palmer—not the cheerleader from that creepy TV show Twin Peaks, but the founder of both the shelter and a nonprofit ferret club called FROLIC (Ferrets Require Our Love, Involvement and Companionship). She is arguably Minnesota’s leading ferreteer.

    “Old-style ferret people tend to be alternative types,” says the husky-voiced Palmer, on a cigarette break near the back door. On second thought, she does seem jaded in a David Lynch kind of way. “Now there’s a whole new generation of ferret owners—yuppies and soccer moms who don’t understand that having a ferret is like having a two-year-old child.” Palmer’s shelter is actually more of a network of foster-ferreteers willing to care for abandoned animals in their homes. She started it seven years ago, after Petco began selling the animals in their 18 Minnesota stores and the state’s ferret population began to skyrocket.

    As the local ferret count rose, so did the number of animals abandoned at the humane societies, in parks, and even on the side of the road. “Ferrets are not a good pet for someone who’s anal-retentive or germ-phobic,” Palmer says. “They’re little hellions. They will trash your house. People who tell you that ferrets are easy to care for, like cats, are all wrong. They’re practically a full-time job.”

    In the United States, ferrets are domesticated animals, and on average they live to be about 7 years old. (They are prone to certain cancers, often escape from houses, and can even be killed by hairballs.) Ferrets are also notoriously difficult to housetrain. Each year, a few of the shelter’s ferrets are adopted, but many are too old, frail, or unstable to move. “Our vet bills run around $10,000 a year,” says Palmer, who keeps the oldest and sickest animals in her Stillwater home.

    Vicki Collins, a slim, soft-voiced woman with short, spiky hair, loaded her family and her four favorite ferrets, Cami, Kinsey (the Indian), Romeo, and Naughty Tawney, in the car and drove all the way up from Osceola, Wisconsin, for the Fun Fest. “There’s no pet better than a ferret,” Collins says, her eyes glittering enthusiastically. “But they are a lot of work. They’re not something just to be pretty and looked at. They’re like little children. They train you.”

    Deb Carlson, a tall, flushed woman also known by her fellow ferreteers as “Big Deb,” takes a break from her duties as master of ceremonies. “I got a new man in my life,” she says, her voice hoarse from yelling over the din. “He came over to my house and I gave him a ferret to hold. He’s like this,” and she pantomimes a man holding a ferret gingerly at arm’s length. “I said to him, ‘I suggest you bring that ferret close to you because if you want to be with me, you better get used to having that little fucker around.’”—Andy Steiner

  • Speedy Recovery

    With the economy stalled in first gear, strip-mall stalwarts like Kmart have left cavernous buildings in the wake of their demise. This is bad news for shoppers, of course, but good news for motorsport enthusiasts. Built inside one of these defunct discount centers is Brooklyn Center’s Thunder Alley, the nation’s largest indoor go-kart track. Business there is booming, showing little respect for the recession.

    The other night, I found myself strapped into a bucket seat and prepared to burn rubber in my maiden go-kart race. I was nervous. It might have been the exhaust fumes choking the air. It might have been the three high-testosterone teenagers revving their engines behind me. Especially the one with the all-star wrestling mohawk and the pentagram necklace.
    Though teenage drivers dominate the ranks at Thunder Alley, it’s worth noting that the all-time speed record is held by a gentleman who races under the moniker Ol’ Sarge. He’s 74.

    So it was with trepidation that I eyed the grey-haired father next to me, whose personal fan club leaned against the chain-link fence (just under a sign warning “do not lean on the fence”) screaming “daddy, daddy, go, go, go” before breaking into a chorus of dog howls. He assured me it was his first time “on this track.”

    REO Speedwagon blared in the background (“take it on the run, baby”), and I strained to hear 17-year-old race marshal Tony Richter. “These are race cars, not bumper cars. Take your first lap slow. After the straightaway there’s a hairpin curve at the end. Slow down! Hittin’ the wall at forty is not fun.” Indeed, the 6.5 horsepower Honda engines can rocket the tiny machines to 40 mph with an involuntary twitch of the ankle.

    “If you see me waving the yellow flag, slow down, there’s a crash. Blue means let the kart behind you pass. You all know what the checkered flag means. The black flag is the penalty flag. If you see it, pull over; I need to talk to you about your driving,” Richter bellowed his over-rehearsed lines to us with a lackadaisical authority. If a driver declines to follow the rules or has a panic attack, all of the cars are equipped with a computerized system that allows track officials to slow down or stop any car from a keyboard.

    One by one we peeled out of the pit. Leaning back in the low-riding kart, I jetted down the straightway with a visions of trophy girls on my arms, their breasts heaving, in the winner’s circle. The fantasy was quickly nixed, as my go-kart fishtailed and threatened to eject me into the blue and yellow barrier lining the first hairpin corner. I recovered just in time to crank a hard right, wheels squealing.

    I managed to work my way through the snaking passages and suddenly found myself jockeying for position with two of the kids. Setting them up on corner number three, I went wide before diving inside. They were soon eating my dust.

    Just as I was basking in my future NASCAR glory, the senior driver nudged my kart, deftly lapping me. We were only halfway through the race. Humbled, I realized the memory of Dale Earnhardt was safe from my driving prowess for the time being.—John Tribbett