Let’s All Kill Constance is a welcome change from Ray Bradbury’s most recent m.o. Whereas in recent years he’s stuck to short stories, this one’s a full-length novel, and an offbeat satire of noir fiction. Bradbury’s best known, of course, for intensely allegorical, morally resonant science fiction like Fahrenheit 451. Constance follows two previous mysteries from a decade or so back—Death Is a Lonely Business and Graveyard of the Lunatics. All three are set in a Chandlerian Hollywood of the 1950s. But it’s not a hardboiled world. Our man Ray is too much the optimist—the softie, really—to start going all James Ellroy on us. (Though there’s a collaboration we’d like to see.) This novel has been in the works for more than three years, interrupted by a minor stroke and ceaseless other writing projects. Well past 80, Bradbury still puts out at least one book a year, and it’s gratifying to see him back in (long) form.
Blog
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Triple-A Toeing
Thanks for covering the Bolshoi Ballet [“Head to Toe,” December]. I’ve never been to a ballet, but my kids liked the idea—so we went. Even though it was the most expensive ticket I’ve ever bought for anything, it was worth every penny. Amazing! I had no idea that the Twin Cities dance scene was as sophisticated and popular as it is. The liner notes in the program, unfortunately, were almost impossible to make any sense out of, so I was grateful for The Rake’s clear and concise overview of the Bolshoi’s productions. I had plenty of time to think about that afterwards, as I sat in the car for an hour trying to get away from the clogged campus of the U. Thank God I had a copy of your magazine in my car. The kids were mercifully asleep in the back, but I would have gone crazy without you.
Nancy Flanagan, Prescot
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Buy High, Sell Low
It was great to discover that I wasn’t the only person who wondered what happened at Supervalu [“Superdeval-ued,” November]. My mother (retired, living on a fixed income) owned 400 shares of Supervalu and she was thinking about selling them. I researched the stock and recommended holding the shares, because the stock had good ratings and with the stock market and the economy not doing so well, I figured a grocery store stock would do well, after all, people have to keep buying groceries. Then the stock tanked. I tried to talk my mother into hanging onto the shares until the price came back up but she sold at the very rock bottom. Of course, my mother and my siblings blame me for all the money my mother lost. It’s great to have your article to show them. Also, I was completely unaware of the class action lawsuits. I hope my mother can still get in on the lawsuits, just in case anything comes from that.
Rick Cheney
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Hat Head
It’s silly to suggest that American men stopped wearing their hats just because JFK took his off during his 1960 inaugural address. In fact, he wore a silk top hat that whole day—and tails! Some people claim that he actually revived this tradition; Truman wore a topper for his inaugural, but Eisenhower wore a homburg. And both men—especially Ike—went around bareheaded all the time. I guess you could make the argument that they weren’t as young and handsome as JFK, and thus had less influence. Still, the hat was undoubtedly already in decline, as the 50s gave way to the more permissive 60s. It’s always been interesting to me that this myth persists. It’s obviously more about glorifying the memory and the martyrdom of JFK than it is about explaining why men just don’t wear hats anymore. And show me the Minnesotan who insists on going hatless through the winter, and I’ll show you a moron with frostbitten ears.
Noel Sims, Cambridge
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Dear Mary
I enjoyed the beautiful pictures of the Blessed Virgin Mary [“Something About Mary, Mother of God,” December]. However, the accompanying article is very offensive to me in a few places. Being that I was raised a Catholic, I want to know the source for stating that Mary is a “figure of adoration.” I’ve always been taught that only God is to be adored.
Stella Lundquist, St. Paul
Jeannine Ouellette claims increased interest in Mary has caused the Church more trouble trying to manage her image, meaning, and legacy. It’s been a problematic, unnecessary, and equivocal sore spot with modernist Catholic theologians, catechists, and in various liberal Catholic circles. This has been especially true in U.S. parishes, colleges, and seminaries since the Second Vatican Council in 1962-1965. Soon after Vatican II, many priests—tacitly approved of by their bishops, and despite the protests of their own congregations—willfully spawned their own iconoclasm in churches, convents, and seminaries. Yet while these misinformed Catholic “experts” were trying to take Mary from her pedestal and lock her in the closet, pockets of Catholics—especially conservative and traditionalist groups—never would or could let Mary “die.” Just as the traditional Latin mass never disappeared depite serious opposition from many bishops and priests, Marian devotions not only survived but thrived, even in parishes where modernism took a powerful hold during the 60s and 70s. There are more churches celebrating the Tridentine Latin Mass today than there were in 1975. Maybe, just maybe, the renewed interest in Mary, especially among secular and Protestant groups, is simply a fad. (A few years ago there was apparently an interest in “angels.”) In those circles, perhaps the “cult of Mary” will stick. I’m not betting on it.
Howard A. McQuitter, Minneapolis
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The Rake Bites
I’m a fan of The Rake, but do you just toss that award-winning attention to detail and critical thinking to the wind when you write about anything concerning animals? In December, you (1) profiled Horst [“The Fine Art of Living Well”] without mentioning a top Aveda selling point—their refusal to test their cosmetics on animals, (2) extolled the virtues of hat-wearing [“Put a Lid On It”], and reminisced for beaver-donning days without mention of the fact that this little fashion trend nearly extinguished Minnesota’s furry buck-toothed population and (3) detailed Katie Quirk’s transformation from vegetarian to butterburger lover [“Minnesota Fats”]. Now, don’t get me wrong, Quirk is a fantastic writer, but shouldn’t something as common as “Former Idealist Returns to Hamburger” be left to The Onion? In November, you published “Oh, fer cute! Ouch!” and offered a glimpse into the hip pocket-pet trend of the year, sugar gliders—from a pet dealer’s perspective. To balance this out, I sent the article to Nick Mooney, a wildlife professional in the gliders’ native Tanzania. It turns out that the cute little animal whom Dan Gilchrist describes as “desperately trying to get out of your hands” is probably “stressed and not happy about being handled,” says Mooney. And even when the glider seems mellow and content—Gilchrist describes owners who put the marsupials in their shirt pockets “while they watch TV or work on the computer”—they’re really freaking out, according to Mooney. Gliders, he says, “curl up and withdraw as a response to stress.” Mooney wrote, “All in all I’m appalled to see our wonderful marsupials become ‘pocket pets’ with little or no dignity, a likely sticky end with no benefit whatsoever to sugar gliders.” Want more? Mooney was also concerned about the impact on individual gliders and the local environment should they escape and compete with hollow-nesting birds and animals, and the temptation to declaw the claw-needing critters. Mooney was curious to know whether welfare legislation protects such unconventional pets. Concerns for animal and environmental welfare have prompted many states and municipalities to make ownership of the marsupials illegal. According to the online store K & D Exotic Pets, sugar gliders are illegal or restricted in nine states (not yet including Minnesota) as well as many municipalities. Keep up the good work, Rake editors. But maybe you could leave the critters be.
Sue Rich, North Minneapolis
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Filling in the Blank
Just a short note to let you know you failed to write about the amalgams in most of your readers’ teeth [“Grin and Bear It,” December]. Yes, I know that my health is better without the mercury in my body. Jesse Ventura was the first governor to appoint a mercury-free advocate to the Minnesota Dental Board—Ron King, D.D.S.
Leland Roth, Spring Park
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I Adore-A Your Fedora!
Eric Dregni should be congratulated on his new fedora [“Put a Lid on It,” December]. I think he’s right, too, in locating the decline of the fedora (and the homburg) from about the time of JFK’s inauguration. I think lower car headroom played a part. I remember my father always wore a hat, and so when I got my first real job in 1958, I bought a brown fedora because that’s what you wore when you were grown up. Trouble is, I never could bring myself to wear it, and it ended up on a Guy (a Guy Fawkes Day dummy) 20 years later. Then a few years ago I read Billy Collins’ wonderful poem “The Death of the Hat” which begins “Once every man wore a hat. / In the ashen newsreels, / the avenues of cities / are broad rivers / flowing with hats.” So, I too wanted a fedora. Because I could not find any in Minneapolis, I got a brown one from Lock & Co. in London. Unlike Eric Dregni, I have met only with compliments. “Wonderful hat!” from a Marshall Field’s salesperson. “Great hat!” from a man on Sixth Street. Headwaiters’ eyes gleam when I enter a restaurant (they never did before). I owe it all to my fedora. Fedoras are back.
George Soule, Northfield
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Boys Will Be Boys
I recently spent a sad evening in a basement in South Minneapolis. An acquaintance was seeking subsidised legal advice about the custody of his children. He had found it pretty difficult uncovering a voluntary agency able to offer advice to men on such matters. But now here he was with six other unfortunates waiting his turn and talking about his experiences.
The stories we heard seemed to suggest that there are areas of Minnesota life where inequality of the sexes has been turned on its head. One wife’s lawyer had apparently suggested a baseless accusation of domestic abuse simply to get the husband out of the house. Other men’s accounts left a similar impression of helplessness, which the legal clinic was striving, with limited resources, to redress. Perhaps it was useful to just get together and commiserate with the boys.
Male friendship is a sensitive plant, growing most strongly when supported by the trelliswork of such institutions as the bowling league, the English pub, or the backstreet tea-house of a Near Eastern town, where mustachioed men sit low to the ground on stools made of old tires and play tric-trac by the hour. I remember a Persian friend once asking me why Americans, such effusive folk when you meet them, spend their evenings shut away each in his home. There certainly do seem to be a lot of lonely men around, and those in this basement, separated from their families, seemed especially bereft.
According to popular belief, the frail flower of American male friendship is often watered by beer—and in the case of most American beer, watered is certainly the word. Thanks to advertising, Budweiser is not only the most popular brew in America, it is increasingly chic abroad. To each his own. But for me, Bud brings to mind the old pub adage that “you only rent your beer.” It is therefore a pleasure to recommend a good solid brew that has a taste.
The August Schell company of New Ulm is one of the oldest breweries in the country and one of the oldest businesses in the state. It was established even before the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, by immigrants from the Black Forest. The German tradition at New Ulm is obvious. The city boasts a statue of Hermann the German (Arminius to you, me, and Tacitus), whose destruction of three Roman legions at the Battle of the Teutoburger Forest in 9 A.D. prevented the expansion of the Roman Empire into Germanic lands. (Professor Peter Wells of the U of M will soon be publishing a splendid new book on this battle.)The German pedigree is a fine omen (though I suppose Schlitz, Schmidt, and Blatz are respectable German names, too). Of the numerous admirable brews produced by Schell’s, the one which pleases me most bears not the name of the company but the city. Ulmer Braun has a gold label with a rutting buck who is either ecstatic or angry—has he just consumed the contents? Or trodden on a broken bottle, inconsiderately disposed of? The beer is a pleasing dark brown, the color of old mahogany, and at less than a dollar a bottle for the six-pack, is extremely affordable. You can taste the hops and malt. If you prefer not to taste your beer, you can chill it in the American style, I suppose.
Ulmer Braun is not so stout as Guinness. Nor is it so muscular as Porter, a beer originally made for the men who carted around the crates of fruit and vegetables at Covent Garden Market in London. (Summit Brewing Company makes a fine Porter for those who really like to get their teeth into their beer.) Ulmer Braun has more heart than most lagers. It is a comforting beverage to have with a pork chop and potatoes on a bitter January evening.
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Cabbage Roles
It was a very snowy January when I ran away to Prague. The family I stayed with lived in one of a cluster of monolithic stone apartment buildings on the outskirts of the city. The grey air outside the buildings smelled of coal and smog, and the air inside smelled of tea and cabbage. Each night after I returned from exploring the city, I would stop by the market to buy the beer for the evening, my contribution to the dinner. And each night I would be surprised by the ingenuity and creativity of the meal, which somehow had to contain cabbage. The Czech couple and their three-year-old daughter Dereska happily cleaned their plate night after night, as did I, with the help of a few Pilsner Urquells.
Cabbage and I, as is the case with most Americans, had not had a loving history. I rather disdained the vegetable for my memories of its bitterness and stinkiness. My first meal of boiled cabbage in their tiny, cramped apartment was choked down with a smile. The next night greeted me with cabbage soup, which proved tolerable. The following week was headlined by turkey and cabbage hash, potato and cabbage pancakes, and cream of cabbage soup and ham. During dinner the family spoke honestly about their economic struggles and their hopes for the future of their country, and sitting in the kitchen which was also laundry room and living room, I realized that they had never taken anything for granted, ever. Maybe it was this new insight or perhaps a simple wearing down of the taste buds, but cabbage had a new place of honor in my life. From then on, cabbage’s starring role in our meals seemed to signify stability. Lenka admitted to me that she often got tired of it, but for her family, the vegetable was cheap, healthy, abundantly available, and versatile. For me it became the flavor of strength and character.
Because it is so easy to grow in so many areas, cabbage has come to be known as commoner’s food, hardly the kind of thing that would show up on an epicurean’s table. Those with a love of cabbage understand that when prepared right, the subtle textures and flavors complement the richest dishes. When prepared with a bevy of different techniques such as stir-frying, steaming, braising, blanching, and sautéing, this Cinderella of vegetables deserves a night at the ball.
Many Americans may remember cabbage from the kitchens of their immigrant parents as they boiled the hell out of it, producing a smell that could ward off the Bolsheviks. Or maybe they remember their parents forcing them to eat it, not letting them leave the table (a la Joan Crawford) until their plates were clean. These parents—like my Czech friends—remembered a time when nothing could be taken for granted. But somewhere along the way, the first-generation children rebelled. Instead of learning to cook, they ordered take-out. Instead of forcing their own kids to eat something that was good for them, they went to the drive-through.
Have we sacrificed fortitude for ease? Have we given up on character? Do we necessarily have to eat stinky vegetables in order to gain it back? Happily, as Lin Yutang said, “Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.”
First of all, let’s be frank: Cabbage can be nasty. When you cook cabbage, especially when you boil it, the mustard oils and isothiocynates break down to form stinky compounds, including hydrogen sulfide, otherwise known as “that rotten egg smell.” The bigger insult is that the longer the cabbage cooks, the more smelly the compounds become, actually doubling in intensity between the fifth and seventh minutes of boiling.
One of the best ways to deal with cabbage is the way it has been prepared over thousands of years, through the process of fermentation. As far back as ancient China, there have been people preserving their cabbage in salt and vinegar. Documentation shows the builders of the Great Wall supplementing their rice diets with cabbage fermented in wine. This tradition took hold in nearby Korea, where today kimchi is the national condiment. Popular enough to be immortalized as a sassy cartoon figure, kimchi consists of fermented cabbage and other vegetables including spicy variations of red pepper powder, garlic, ginger, green onions, and radishes. Spiritually as well as culturally, this cabbage dish is special. Any variation of kimchi will always follow the Korean cosmology—a strict set of symbolic correspondences known as the Five Colors and the Five Flavors.
Genghis Khan is widely credited with bringing the fermented cabbage to Europe, where it was adopted by the Teutonic tribes. There, it was named sauerkraut, or “sour herb.” The Germans and Dutch thought so highly of it that they stocked all sea-going vessels with it, thereby curing the scurvy that had previously plagued their sailors. (Cabbage—and thus sauerkraut—is a very rich source of vitamin C; red cabbage has about twice as much as green.)
The Russians consider cabbage to be their national food. With cabbage dishes that can be incorporated into meals at all times of day, the Russians eat seven times the amount North Americans do. They believe their Schi (cabbage soups, including borscht) strengthen the sight and help chronic cough, and cabbage leaves wrapped around the head will relieve headache.
Yet for many, the pickling and flavoring can do nothing to hide the reputation of cabbage. Perhaps this will help: Instead of thinking of it as a stinky, lowly food, think of it as an ancient fortifier of armies. It feeds nations fighting for freedom. Living its noble life close to the ground, cabbage doesn’t need frilly vines or explosively bright flowers; it bears down and keeps out of the way. Change may take baby steps, so a good way to start is by steaming some of the beautiful leaves and seasoning with caraway and celery seeds, or dill, mustard, oregano, or tarragon. Once the warm virtue of cabbage seeps into your soul, you might find yourself delightfully force-feeding it to the loved ones around you.