The Rake Magazine

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  • Ask the Experts

    CONFERENCE
    Mondale Speaks on the Vice-Presidency

    As we continue to watch what has proven to be a very interesting presidential primary race, one question will become more and more important: who will the candidates choose as their running mates? Now is the time to start the guessing game, so perhaps it’s a good time to learn about the various factors that influence the selection. And who better to hear it from than a former vice-president himself. This morning, Walter F. Mondale will join leading experts from across the country to discuss the selection of vice presidential nominees. What should we look for in the next vice president? You decide.

    8:30 a.m. to noon, Cowles Auditorium, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, 301 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612 625 3421; free.

    LECTURE
    MPR Presents Bob Garfield

    If money is the root of all evil, advertising is the horse manure that ensures its growth. Yeah, that’s silly, but perhaps a fair introduction to a man who has been an ardent advertising critic for over a decade, Bob Garfield. Don’t get me wrong here, a critic is often an industry’s staunchest supporter: the man has done much for the advertising industry, both good and bad. But more than that, he has helped us to understand it. He has enlightened us. And he has entertained us. In addition to serving as co-host of National Public Radio’s On the Media, Garfield writes "Ad Review," a TV-commercial criticism feature for Advertising Age and maintains his own blog, called The Bobosphere. (See, he MUST be important.) He has written for some of the country’s top publications — including big important ones like Sports Illustrate — and he even cowrote a song with Willie Nelson. Whoop. Whoop. (Try as I might, I couldn’t find a video of it for you.) Maybe you can ask him to sing it tonight.

    7 p.m., Weyerhaeuser Memorial Chapel, Macalester, 1600 Grand Ave., St. Paul; free, but tickets are required and are available at Bibelot Shops.

    THEATER & PERFORMANCE
    King Lear

    While dual-roling was common in Shakespeare’s time, this meant that one actor often played two roles — not that two actors played one role, as in the Minnesota Shakespeare Project’s current production of King Lear. Ok, this is just a little misleading. At first I thought, really? It takes me long enough to figure out who is who and follow the story, and now they’re going to throw multiple actors at me? Interesting. But it’s not that complicated at all. It’s just a double role rotation, so that you can actually see the performance more than once and get a whole new experience — and so that the actors can mix it up and have some fun with different roles, of course. And who doesn’t love a perfect tragedy?

    7:30 p.m., Old Arizona, 2821 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis; 612-871-0050; $22, student and seniors $20 (tonight is industry night).

    MUSIC
    One, Two, Three Days Grace

    Start your week with a jolt tonight with a triple-whammy alt metal show at the Target Center: Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, and Seether. Three Days Grace took the rock world by storm five years ago when their self-title album produced two number one hits: "I Hate Everything about You" and "Just Like Her." Then two years ago, in 2006, they struck gold once again when the first three singles off their One-X album topped the charts — all of them! It doesn’t get much better than this. Of course, Breaking Benjamin seems to be on a similar path, with a number one single from their 2007 album, Phobia, which made it to number two on the Billboard 200 last year. And though their success is perhaps a little newer than the others, Seether is still riding high with the release of their last album, Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces, which debuted at number nine on the Billboard 200 last October.

    6:30 p.m. (doors 5:30 p.m.), Target Center, 600 1st Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612-673-0900; $35.

     

  • The Three Pointer: 3-1 for Patsy Week

    AP Photo by A.J. Olmscheid

    Game #68, Road Game #33: Minnesota 113, Indiana 124

    Game #69, Home Game #36: New York 93, Minnesota 114

    Season Record: 18-51

    1. Illusions of Mediocrity

    Let’s start with the good news. Over the last five or six weeks, Timberwolves coach Randy Wittman has challenged the team’s three most prominent building blocks to upgrade their respective games in specific ways. For Al Jefferson, it has been better defense; for Randy Foye, more overt point-guard related behavior; for Rashad McCants, less holding of the ball and more dish or penetration. And all three have made tangible progress in these areas, with the sort of slow, steady improvement that creates optimism about the future. Much more than in the previous three seasons, the Timberwolves do indeed look like they are putting specific pieces in place and rebuilding the right way–from the ground up.

    But here’s the nasty chaser: Despite its 13-17 record over the past two months, and 8-10 mark since Foye claimed the point guard slot in the starting lineup, the Wolves continue to be routinely trounced when playing quality ballclubs. Over the past 30, their record is 9-5 against sub-.500 teams, 1-0 against the .500 Philadelphia 76ers, and 3-12 versus teams that have won more than they’ve lost. In the 18 since Foye took the point guard reins, those figures are 6-3 versus sub.500, 1-0 against Philly, and 1-7 against over-.500 ballclubs.

    This week offered a pretty decent view of whether the Wolves could achieve mediocrity. They faced four sub-.500 opponents. Three of them are absolutely horrible ballclubs at the present time: A Clippers team with Chris Kamen out, Al Thornton dinged, and Sam Cassell released (not to mention Elton Brand, shelved for the season with an injury); a Memphis team that unloaded Pau Gasol for nickels on the dollar; and a wretched Knicks outfit that is destined to produce at least two or three best-selling accounts of the abject stupidity, mendacity and incompetence of their dysfunction. Almost by default, then, the gut check game for the Wolves this past week came on the road against an Indiana Pacers team still improbably in the hunt for an Eastern Conference playoff spot despite what at the time was a record of 27-41.

    To Minnesota’s credit, the club took care of business against the weakest trio of patsies. This is not to be discounted: I think it’s fair to say that two months ago, the mark versus these same Clips/Grizz/Knicks would have been at best 2-1 and probably 1-2 (there is probably no point in their season when they couldn’t have beaten these professional imposters known as the Knicks). But the loss to Indiana is just as meaningful a gauge of the apparently limited ceiling of this club. The Pacers play horrible defense, and with Jermaine O’Neal out, the don’t have a reliable low-post threat. Yet they were able to blitz the Wolves for 66 points in the first half, largely because Minnesota’s "small" lineup was still too slow for the rapid ball movement that usually resulted in made treys–the Pacers racked up 16 assists (6 by backup point guard Travis Diener, who was plus +18 in 15:20) and Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy nailed 7-8 from beyond the arc. All this in one half.

    Meanwhile, the ever-underrated Jeff Foster and the relatively tall lineup that enabled Indiana to bring size to the double-teams frustrated Al Jefferson into just 5 points. The other Wolves didn’t necessarily pick up the slack. although a stupid foul in the final seconds of the half enabled Foye to hit three FTs and finish with 12 at intermission. Jefferson, Foye and McCants were a combined 5-20 FG. The Wolves were down 17 at the break, and, despite some gunner heroics from McCants in the second half, were doomed by Jefferson’s foul trouble and the ongoing inability to the Pacers perimeter game.

    Aside from building a little confidence, the Knicks game was a waste of time. There hasn’t been a worse performance by a ballclub thus far this season than what the Knicks showed at Target Center Saturday night–no mean feat when you consider the Wolves are half of every matchup there. All the hullaballoo about Jefferson’s improved defense looked silly when David Lee and Malik Rose took turns abusing him down low. (After blocking four shots and taking a charge in the first half of the Pacer game, Jefferson played more like the guy leery of picking up cheap fouls a la the second half in Indiana.) But it didn’t matter that Lee and Rose were a combined 14-19 FG (led by Lee’s perfect 6 for 6), because "point guard" Jamal Crawford was busy chucking up 19 field goal attempts all by his lonesome and making only 6.

    Jeffeson’s weak D was not the only example of how the three and a half quarters of garbage time that comprised the Knicks game allowed the Wolves to engage in half-assed habits without penalty. Take Shaddy McCants’s Jekyll-and-Hyde halves versus Indiana and New York. On Friday, McCants was 0-5 FG in the first half, and defended poorly as well. But his saving grace was ball movement, with 4 assists, including a gorgeous bounce pass to Chris Richard, in just 8:48 of action. Then, in the second half, McCants went off for 8-12 FG, including a couple of unbelievable shots over the Pacers’ tall perimeter pressure. After he nailed a pair of treys to bring the Wolves from 17 down to 82-93 after three, Indiana ratcheted up the coverage, especially when Jefferson was sidelined with foul trouble. McCants squeezed off two Js he had no business releasing, let alone converting, as he went up in perimeter traffic: the first a step back two-pointer to make it 90-103 with 7 minutes-plus to play and the other a prayer-bomb for three to pretty-up the margin to 106-120 with about two minutes to play.

    This is the rub with McCants, that he gets hot when it doesn’t matter. While that may be so thus far, particularly compared to Jefferson and Foye, there is no denying his passing and overall teamwork have taken a quantum leap forward lately, which is why his second half of the Knicks game was so negatively funky. After some shooting practice against New York’s nonexistent defense–he shot 9-13 FG, giving him 41 points in the four quarters comprised by the Indy second half and the New York first half–he clanked for 1-8 FG in the second half, making him 1-13 FG in the wrap-around halves to that 41-point middle. The difference yesterday was, zero assists in 16:46 of the second half. Asked to explain the difference between the two Knicks halves, Wittman replied that "he settled more. He attacked in the first half, and got to the free throw line for those 15-foot, 18-foot shots. In the second half it was more threes." And less vision. Oh well, at least he wasn’t holding the ball–just chucking it.

    To return to square one from our wayward path on this point, the Wolves now face six straight opponents with over-.500 records. By the lights of even their recent "surge" (and yes, the word match is intentional), they figure to win but one of these games, going into the final 7 with 19 victories. The draft pick isn’t going to the Clips, in other words, but karmic intervention will be necessary (or very shrewd talent evaluation) to land a collegiate or foreign-born stud.

    2. What’s Needed

    Different folks have different ideas about the abiding priority for this club, in part because there is clearly more than one glaring need. I maintain that it is a defensive-oriented center who can step out and hit a midrange jumper on occasion. And no, I don’t mean Craig Smith, who has upped his quotient of 8-to-15 footers in response to advice from the team’s braintrust on how to be a better complement to Jefferson on the front line. I mean a center, who can snuff David Lee when he gets past Jefferson on the baseline, and slide ov
    er to cover when Big Al is inevitably too slow returning from the show on the pick and roll. Is it a coincidence that as Jefferson’s blocks and defensive focus has gone up that his scoring has dipped some? Don’t know, and don’t want him to get a pass at the defensive end, but when someone is as gifted at putting the ball in the hole from the paint as Jefferson is, you want to ride that horse as much as possible. A guy like Marcus Camby would be ideal–tremendous on-ball and help defender who mostly shoots midrange jumpers–but since Cambys don’t grow on trees, any large, stanuch defender who can keep defenses even a little honest will do nicely.

    Personally, my second priority would be an uber-athletic small forward. I resist a strong internal pull for lanky, defensive-oriented point guard–a Rondo type would really be good–because Randy Foye has shown enough at the point in recent weeks to see if he can continue to develop. Make no mistake: Foye at the point is a vital part of the Wolves’ foundation in that if it doesn’t work out, the rebuilding scheme could easily come tumbling down. If Foye is ensconced at the point, Brewer and Gomes can swing from 2-3 and 3-4 respectively without squeezing McCants out of the picture because you need to play Foye more as a combo 2. If Foye can’t hack it serving a majority of his minutes at the point, McCants is more redundant, and Brewer, Gomes and Jefferson must contend with more smallball or fall by the wayside. A stud small forward, on the other hand, makes Gomes a valuable 7th man at both forward slots and lets Brewer defer shots and score more in transition running the floor with Foye and the new guy.

    Teams don’t do well in the playoffs going 6-10 and 6-7 in the frontcourt. And they don’t do well without someone who can both pounce in transition and run the half-court with aplomb in the backcourt. That’s why, even during their recent hot streak, the Wolves are losing at least 5 out of 6 to over-.500 opponents.

    3. Quick Hits

    Jefferson’s family was here for the Knicks’ game (and presumably for Easter). I assumed the guy with the very prominent, Al Jeffersonian brow had to be his biological father, but a recent City Pages feature said his father had died. In any case, this guy was impassive; whereas the three females in the group about a half-dozen rows up behind the Wolves’ bench boisterously clapped and hollared for everything pro-Jefferson and -Timberwolves, the father-figure clapped only when Jefferson dished for an assist. And wouldn’t you know it, Big Al set his career high with a half-dozen of those dimes versus the Knicks.

    One thing about Gomes at the 4, he can step out on a big and hit that midrange, and then when the guy comes out to greet him, can put the ball on the floor and create. As Gomes’ confidence in his offense increases, we are seeing more and more of that. Despite his 8 rebounds to go with his game-high 26 points yesterday, however, Gomes is less impressive defending the paint, especially on-ball defense.

    Tough times for the Florida duo. I’ve been on the Chris Richard bandwagon all season, but it is hard to ignore his delayed reaction when a big flashes into the paint on him. He’s a piece of oak in the low block–precious few backing him down are able to sneak through, and must resort to the baby hook or something–but slow to react to good perimeter passing. But Brewer is the real disappointment lately. After displaying pretty savvy shot selection all season, he seems determined not to let his accuracy woes affect him–only to have it affect him by his pulling the trigger too soon (and thus way too foolishly) on the shot clock. His clanking was a significant factor in the snuffed comeback against the Pacers and he hasn’t made more than a third of his shots in four straight games. Worst of all, Kirk Snyder pushing ahead of him in the rotation seems to have affected his Flying Wallendas defensive persona.

    By contrast, Snyder is playing with great confidence and carving out a spot for himself on somebody’s roster next season. An unrestricted free agent in less than 4 weeks, it will be curious to see if he can bag anything more than the $1 M exemption from anyone looking for a relatively hard-nosed 24-year old with an intriguing upside. Snyder barged into the rotation by becoming a hairshirt on Kevin Durant in the February Seattle game. But lately he’s impressed with his ability to get to the rim (and/or the free throw line) via dribble penetration, and his throttle-down mindset when he snags a rebound on the defensive end. He could be a sleeper-steal in the trade for the already cut Gerald Green, or a fleeting footnote in Wolves history.

     

  • Cribbage Night at the Grand Café

    I’ve got a great week of eating ahead of me, and I hope some of you will be able to join me.

    On Monday, (March 24th) I am planning to stop by at the Grand Café,
    (3804 Grand Ave. S., Minneapolis) for their first ever cribbage night.
    (I actually majored in bridge in college, but I minored in cribbage.) I
    haven’t decided yet whether I am actually going to compete in the
    double elimination tournament and compete for the fabulous prizes (gift
    certificates and other stuff, I am told) but I do want to dip into the
    buffet, which will include a lamb stew, vegetarian stew, cheese board,
    fruit, bread and crackers, and the Grand’s legendary pignole (pine nut)
    cookies for dessert. The excitement starts at 6 p.m.

    Here’s the
    fine print Cost is $25 plus tax and tip, with tap beers on sale
    for $3 a glass, and wine for $5. Reservations are required – call
    612-822-8260 – and you are requested to bring your own cribbage board
    if you have one – they’ll supply the cards. Owner Mary Hunter cautions
    that this tournament is not sanctioned by the American Cribbage Congress,
    and that you need to already know how to play the game – lessons will
    not be provided. (It really isn’t all that complicated: you can find
    the rules online.) Ordinarily, the Grand Café is closed on Monday
    nights, so don’t show up two weeks from now looking for hot card action.

     

  • "God talked to me today"

    The first time it happened, he was sitting in the kitchen behind me.

    I was at the counter cutting vegetables for dinner when my older son said, "When God talked to me earlier today, before I went to school…"

    That’s how he spoke as a child. He was only 11, but his diction was formal, biblical almost, and he habitually attached clauses to make his points more precise. If he heard from God, it would be important to know not only that it was today and that it was early but also that it had occurred before school.

    I turned. "What did he say?" I asked. But Andrew was already gone, concentrating on something midair, eyes soft behind the thick lenses of his glasses. "Sweetheart?" Then I fell silent, too, forcing myself not to prod. Andrew has autism, and I’d learned that repeating a question only increased the amount of time he needed for mental processing. Patience — or even just the appearance of it — was the only way to get through.

    By the time Andrew emerged from his reverie and began humming again, wagging his pencil back and forth above a rumpled page of history homework, dusk was settling in the room. The air outside had turned dim and coffee-colored. I switched on the overhead light.

    "What did he say?" I repeated.

    "What did he say?" Andrew muttered, as if this were a puzzle.

    I grew itchy waiting this time, which may have had something to do with the light. The gloaming of evening: It was dangerous for me. My mind slowed and things tended to happen or be said before I’d thought them through.

    "He said …" — I barely breathed for fear of interrupting my son’s fragile train of thought — "no."

    The word — though small and softly spoken — rang like a bell, echoing through the gloom. No, no, no.

    I waited for it to finish before asking, "No what?"

    Andrew shrugged, looking for a moment like any boy. "Just no. Because I knew the rest of what he meant."

    He made a hesitant mark on the sheet in front of him but erased it immediately. Maybe God could help you with your homework, I almost said, but I didn’t because Andrew wouldn’t find it funny. Maybe he could explain a few things to me.This was not so much a joke, because there were things I really wanted to know, like why my son’s thought process seemed tangled one moment and profound the next, and why my mostly devoted husband sometimes disappeared on a drinking spree, and what the point of life was anyway.

    Then I watched as Andrew wrote an answer on his history sheet. Then another, and a third. I hovered over his shoulder, looking down. France, 26, Petroleum and Coal. I had no idea if these were correct, but they were there on the paper, legible.

    I looked at Andrew’s face. But his eyes were closed, as if he were still listening. Classic autism is a disorder of divisions. There is no sense of "I" and "you" as being whole and separate in the world. Either that, or there is a lack of understanding that "I" and "you" are even of the same species, any more similar to each other than, say, a human being and a walrus. I’ve never understood exactly which it is.

    The "test" for autism — back when my son was diagnosed, in 1991 — was simple. A child suspected of being autistic would be placed behind a one-way mirror to watch this scene: A little girl in the neighboring room was given a toy and told to put it in one of three baskets. Then she was taken out for a snack. While she was gone (but the test subject still watching) someone entered the room and switched the toy from one basket to another. This question then was posed to the witness: When she returns, where will the girl look first for her toy? A "normal" child would point to the basket where the girl had stowed the item. But an autistic one would choose the basket to which it was transferred after she left, not understanding that even though he knew it had been moved, she did not.

    In other words, to know or remember or feel something as an autistic person is not a subjective experience. It is, rather, a matter of fact.

    I cannot recall if Andrew ever had the hidden toy test. But throughout his childhood there were a series of meetings, odd questions, games, expert heads nodding. It was clear: My son was, in their lexicon, mind blind — unable to process the "otherness" of people … or the "peopleness" of others. Add to this the evidence that he had problems with both perspective and pronouns when he started speaking again. "The boy is cold," Andrew might say, when he himself was shivering. "You smell," he once told me, even as he was pointing to his baby brother whose diaper needed to be changed.

    By the time he’d reached adolescence, most of these problems were gone. Andrew had been through speech therapy, where he was trained in pronominal relationships — I, you, he — and I’d spent several years pointing out to him that there were also things he knew that the rest of us didn’t. Square roots, exact latitudes and longitudes, his private thoughts. Tentatively, Andrew began locating himself in the universe, figuring out where he left off and everything else began.

    Then this God thing cropped up — an echo, I decided, of all the old problems. Whereas Andrew had learned to differentiate his thoughts from mine or his teacher’s, he didn’t seem to understand where he ended and God began, or which of the two was speaking to the other.

    To continue reading, go to page 2 on     Salon.com.

  • Lynne Rossetto Kasper: Tuscan Princess and Peasant Chef

    Southern Italy is full of svelte young women running around in black leather coats and exquisite, sharp-pointed shoes who eat pasta every day. I don’t know how they do it.

    Yes, I’m referring to the shoes in part: torturous contraptions that look as if they could cause hammer toes within about an hour. But more than that, I’m talking about the diet which is full of simple carbs: pasta, bread, citrus fruits. And cheese, which as protein sources go is unusually rife with fat and sugars. During the time we were there, I did as the Romans do. . . .and despite the fact that everything was tasty — the noodles flaxen, homemade, and cooked al dente (which, by the way, lowers the glycemic index by quite a bit) — after about three days I felt tired and irritable and all gluey inside.

    It was a great relief to me when we crossed over the transparent border into northern Italy and entered Tuscany, where the cuisine trends more toward meat, vegetables, and one of my favorite dishes in the world — a stew typically made of tomatoes, garlic, sage, and cannellini beans called fagioli. We had dinner one night in Lucca, a beautiful little walled Tuscan village, at a place called Trattoria da Leo: boiled sausage with fagioli and a side dish of cauliflower covered in a thin blanket of parmigiano-reggiano.

    Even better was the meal ate in Florence, at a lovely sidestreet cafe called Ristorante Cafaggi, on our last day overseas.

    Rare duck breast in a savory balsamic vinegar sauce with arugula, braised Swiss chard, and — of course — fagioli, only this time it had bits of sweet, sundried pomodoro and hot pepper folded into the bean stew. The place was run by an honest-to-goodness Italian grandmother and her son, who served us personally. They welcomed us like family and came out from behind the counter to say goodbye when we left.

    I am not, of course, the first food expert to come out with a preference for the peasant cuisine of northern Italy over the Americanized pasta-and-sauce offerings of the South. In 1992, Lynne Rossetto Kasper wrote The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food, which won both a James Beard award and a Julia Child Best Cookbook of the Year. In this book, Kasper — who went on to parlay the name The Splendid Table into a great radio show for American Public Media — sang the praises of simple, regional Tuscan fare including balsamic vinegar, prosciutto di Parma, rabbit, and pot-roasted lamb.

    Forget such drivel as Under the Tuscan Sun, Kasper did more to convey the beauty and bounty of Tuscany than any soft-core romance memoir ever could. What’s more, I’ve known Lynne for years — interviewing her perhaps a half dozen times — and she is in person exactly like her radio personality. Warm, generous, open, and wild about good food. She’s also a fine, formidable lady who’s told me honestly about her past in the theater, her shoestring budget at the outset of Splendid Table, and her very personal struggles with weight and body image.

    Next month, Lynne’s newest book, The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio’s Award-Winning Food Show, will be released. And the incredibly cumbersome title notwithstanding, I expect great things. Stay tuned for a description of the book, which I will receive for review very soon. And meantime, check out Kasper’s original publication if it’s not already in your cookbook library.

    You’ll need some cold-pressed olive oil and a really good bottle of balsamic. Then, I trust, you and Lynne can do the rest.

  • The Durable Roots Lexicon of Ray Bonneville

    Like most all country-blues artists, Ray Bonneville doesn’t try to knock your socks off so much as fit you into a comfortable old pair of shoes. But the Canadian native separates himself from singer-songwriter cliches with a slow but steady revelation of his myriad talents. His (mostly electrical) guitar and harmonica work is economical and wise, abetting vocals reminiscent of JJ Cale for their fine-sandpaper tone and conversational aplomb. What cinches these gifts together, and makes Bonneville such a durably consistent pleasure, is his assured yet humble songwriting.

    I’ve only heard two of the man’s six discs, the ones for Red House, Roll it down from 2004 and this year’s Goin’ by feel. Both are unusually user-friendly, the kind of soundtrack that’s jaunty enough to help you cook breakfast or fold the laundry, sufficiently easygoing to climb into the back seat of your brain when other priorities or daydreams emerge, and yet insightful and incisive enough to reward careful listening without a lyric sheet. On each disc, the songs go together, not so much by topic, but, as the second record puts, "by feel." They’re generally plainspoken narratives sewn with the classic instrumental braid of country blues, yet enough care has been invested in the craft to yield different shadings, meanings, and resonant riffs with every new spin.

    Let’s get specific. I love the way Bonneville will occasional tumble for the sheer phonics and punning of songwriting, like the way "Tiptoe Spider" (from Roll it down) is so tiptoe-spidery in its clamber-prancing guitar lines, with the added bonus that the antagonist in the narrative is a fairly creepy character. Or, from the new one, "What Katy Did," which has a birdlike flit–the vocal hopping on the hard vowels while the guitar and bass worry the groove–but also is a case study in trust and intimacy (would you tell a secret?) masquerading as a tale of crime.

    I also love the quality of the marriage between the lyrics and the music. On "Walk With Me" (from Roll it down), for example, the sentiment is one of muted infatuation, a guy tamping down his ecstasy to both keep feigning coolness and to protect his vulnerable heart, perfectly expressed not only in the vocal inflections but the gentle spangles in the blues guitar phrases and the extra dollop of elbow grease in the beats. Most of the time, however, Bonneville dawdles for effect. The wistful slide guitar on "Oxford Town" (Roll it down) is perfectly paced for reverie, and even the New Orleans groove of "You Know What I Mean" (Roll it down) stays with you because it feels like its done at 3/4 speed.

    Goin’ by feel is more spare and New Orleans-centric than Roll it down, and after thinking it didn’t measure up, it’s begun to suck me in. There are obvious tracks like the postcard/valentine "I Am The Big Easy," with its picaresque recitation of dice-rollin’ judges and crawfish boys, and the sleek, cantering rhythm of "Run Josie Run." But lately I’m more taken with the wending "Sabine River," the way it manages to sound simultaneously epic and self-effacing; the taunting edge in the talk-song of "Reckless Feeling;" and the way "Cool Cool Rain" closes the disc with such a palpable sense of relief. They’re all like watercolors–not fancy oils, yet something you don’t mind encountering as part of your regular routine. And I imagine tonight’s (3/21) live show at the Cedar will deepen and expand those impressions.

  • The Fish Fry Report: Part II

    Our faithful correspondents Anthony Kaczor and Sid Korpi report on their latest Lenten dining discoveries:

    This week we’ll finish up the Fish Fry Days at the Tri-City American
    Legion in New Brighton. Thank you for your input and keep us in informed for any fundraising events you are involved in or are aware of!!!

    First last week we went to St Bonaventure in Bloomington when parking
    in the lot we thought it was sparsely attended then someone said to
    go around back of the church to the community center where we found
    what seemed to be the entire city of Bloomington lined up for the
    meal!!! The smell of the fish frying was heavy in the air and even if
    we didn’t have somewhere to be in short order the scent didn’t
    warrant a wait in that line like you might at a County Fair. Our walk
    back to our car gave us our true reason for being there, which was a
    mystical experience from a totally blind Black Lab within his white
    eyes he seemed to be a very old soul that walked right up to us as if
    it could see us.

    We then stopped at the Bloomington Knights of Columbus which
    advertises many fundraising events one being Fish Fries in Lent.
    Unsure as to the set up we found this to be a sit down restaurant
    style setting which had very slow service for a not to busy evening,
    we left after nearly 10 minutes without even being served and had to
    hit the Hub Shopping Center Burger King for fish sandwiches on our
    way to the SW High Sock Hop which we were to do a Swing Dance demo.

    Hope all is well in your life and this week it’s Good Friday starting
    the Easter weekend. One church I know of still has a meatless meal is
    at Our Lady of Guadalupe which we were at a couple weeks ago (Mexicanfood) So this week we’ll be wrapping up Fish Fry-Days and we’ll send out a review of them all!!!

    This is Good Friday March 21st being most church Fish Fry events
    are over. We’ll try out Tri-City American Legion in New Brighton, 400
    Old Highway 8. We’ll be there around 6pm (after dinner head into the
    bar area and find Anthonys 20 Gallon Blood donation picture).

    *******Upcoming DADs BELGIAN WAFFLE Fundraisers*******
    Saturday April 12th White Bear Lake

    Saturday April 19th Blaine Sports Center

    Sunday April 27th Shriners in south Minneapolis this is a MUST being
    the Steel Drum Band plays at this event!!!

    ******Upcoming Other Fundraisers**********
    Lebanese Dinner at Holy Family Maronite Church 203 E. Robie St. St
    Paul (west side)
    Sunday April 27th 11:30-4:30 (full meal $15.00 half meal $8.00)
    Tickets on sale now (and sell out) 651-291-1116

    ******Keep us informed of Fundraisers**********
    Do you know of a Fundraiser we can come to and tell others about???
    Along with food Sid and I especially like events with dancing and
    music!!!

    Best,
    Anthony (& Sid)

  • Happy Fun Friday!

    It’s Friday, and like that girl you had in the backseat of
    your dad’s Buick back in ’82, Spring just ain’t giving up the goods. And while
    the putrid grey color of today’s sky and frozen water the clouds vomit
    forth inch by cursed inch may bode well for today’s opening of the new North Face store in Uptown, it may
    well drive many in our fair state to crack open a bottle of Jameson and toast
    to today’s freezing over of the Nine Hells.

    Now, women
    in fleece and quilted coats     turn me on as much as the next guy, but does
    the melting of the polar ice caps really have to signal warmer weather and
    coastal living for everyone but the masochistic souls of the Upper Midwest? Do
    we not deserve some warmth when we’ve been subjected to a winter of arctic air,
    partisan bickering, and a plague of douchebags?

    In any case, while it’d be much more effective to offer
    everyone in the Twin Cities metro area free pharmaceutical-grade opiates,
    instead, we of The Defenestrator bring you Happy Fun Fridays – a new
    potentially regular feature straight from the land of make-believe and unicorns
    meant to bring you, our valued reader, the joy that is so profoundly and
    painfully missing from your life.

    So dry your tears, stop touching your outer child
    inappropriately and get in touch with your inner child as you play the Obama:
    Race for the White House     game! Think Obama is a hypocritical, albeit
    charismatic, opportunist? Then you’ll be thrilled to offer universal health care
    as America’s favorite battle-axe in Hillary:
    Race for the White House    ! Or perhaps you’re a geriophile
    with a firm belief that we’re winning the war in Iraq? Then relive the glory
    days of the war with a little Baghdad
    Bowling.

    Or maybe you’re tired and just need some sunshine in your
    life and some help figuring out what you want for dinner tonight. Well, before
    there was Obama Girl, there were bikini-clad cooking tips from the superheroine herself.

     

    Obama Girl Cooking Tips

     

    So dry your tears and take heart that even though
    today’s weather and the state of our legislature is evidence that God doesn’t love you,
    you’ve got a friend at The Rake.

  • Report from Yucatan

    After a week of bouncing around the Yucatecan countryside, I
    have come back with an increased respect for the Mexican eateries we have right
    here in the Twin Cities. We ate all over the place – from thatched beachfront
    seafood joints in a quiet fishing village and market stalls in a small colonial
    town to the kinds of upscale restaurants where white-jacketed waiters prepare
    guacamole at tableside.

    At the upscale restaurants, service and presentation were certainly more refined than at, for example, Pancho Villa on Eat Street, or El Paraiso at 35th and Nicollet, or at the little food stalls inside the Mercato Central or the Midtown Global Market, but the preparations were often very similar. And the little panaderias (bakeries) we visited in the Yucatan offered a much smaller selection than you can find locally at Panaderia Marissa on Eat Street, or the other Mexican bakeries you can find around the Twin Cities.

    (Our local Chinese restaurants wouldn’t stack up
    nearly as well in a similar comparison with typical Hong Kong eateries, and I
    know the local Thai eateries aren’t in the same league with what Bangkok’s
    dining scene has to offer.)

    It isn’t quite a fair comparison, because the Yucatan has
    its own distinctive regional cuisine, while most of the Twin Cities’ Mexican
    restaurants, like our immigrant population, are rooted in areas closer to the
    US border.

    We headed straight from the Cancun airport – where the
    dining options include Bubba Gump’s, Johnny Rockets, pizza and food-court
    Chinese – to the downtown Cancun bus station, and boarded a first-class ADO bus
    to Merida, the state capital. First class bus travel in Mexico means action
    movies on the tv monitors – we got to see Once Upon A Time in Mexico with
    Antonio Banderas and Selma Hayek twice! –
    and air conditioning, both cranked all the way up. When the locals pay
    extra for a.c., they get their money’s worth – our driver kept the cabin temp
    right around 60 degrees for much of our trip.

    Our first dinner in Mexico was at the Portico del Peregrino, in a stately old colonial building not far
    from Merida’s main square, where I sampled a couple of Yucatecan specialties – a
    lively sopa de lima (lime soup) of shredded chicken, chopped tomatoes and
    tortilla strips in a savory lime-flavored chicken stock; and pollo pibil,
    chicken marinated in sour orange juice and baked in banana leaves. Other
    highlights of our two days in Merida included a lunchtime visit to Los
    Almendros    , which offers an extensive menu of Yucatecan specialties in elegant
    surroundings. I opted for a combination plate, which let me try four different
    local specialties – cochinita pibil (slow-cooked pork, baked in a banana leaf),
    poc chuc (a grilled pork steak marinated in sour orange juice), turkey en
    escabeche, cooked in a sour and spicy sauce, and longaniza, a dark and spicy
    dry sausage. Unlike most Yucatecan
    restaurants we visited, Los Almendros offers no fish or seafood entrees, so
    Carol opted for the papadzul, corn tortillas stuffed and topped with
    hard-boiled eggs, and bathed in a savory pumpkin seed sauce.

    Two more tips if you ever make it to Merida – a little hotel
    with courtyard and fountain called Luz en Yucatan, run by a very friendly Irish
    expat named Donard, and a breakfast café and bakery called Flor de Santiago,
    that looks like the Mexican version of a 40’s-era diner, frozen in time.

    The fishing village of Celestun is a couple of hours away
    from Merida on a second class bus – no loud movies, no air-conditioning, and
    lots of stops in Mayan towns and villages along the way. It’s a sleepy and
    charming little town that is just starting to welcome an influx of tourists who
    are looking for a sleepy little fishing village that doesn’t get a lot of
    tourists. (More are on the way: at the poolside bar at our hotel, a real estate
    investor from Merida handed me a Cuban Cohiba and boasted of his plans to buy
    up miles of unspoiled beachfront nearby, and carve it up into luxury
    properties.)

    In the morning you can walk along the beach and watch the
    fishing boats come in with their catch, and then in the afternoon you can dine
    on fresh fish – or shrimp, blue crab or octopus –at any of half-a-dozen
    restaurants that line the shore. Our favorite was the Restaurante Chirivico,
    which offered all the usual fish and shrimp dishes, plus a lively seafood
    cocktail, a pounded steak of caracol (conch) prepared like a breaded pork
    tenderloin; and a tender and garlicky octopus al mojo de ajo.

    On the way back, we stopped in the beautiful little town of
    Valladolid, built by the Spanish conquistadors where an older Mayan settlement
    once stood. The finest hotel and restaurant in town are at the Meson del
    Marques,
    right on the main square, with the usual Yucatecan repertoire of pollo pibil,
    cochinita, and pok chuk, plus steaks, pasta and seafood. For the more
    adventuresome, though, the Bazar Municipal next door is a covered marketplace
    with tables and chairs in the middle, and tiny stalls along the side, where
    vendors sell tacos, tortas, pozole soup, and the Yucatecan versions of the
    tostada – the panucho and the salbute, fried tortillas topped with shredded
    chicken and pickled onions.

  • Brandy of the Damned

    Today is the birthday of legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., the man behind Ziegfeld Follies. So take a moment to view this old trailer for the 1936 film, The Great Ziegfeld.

    We have a rather gray and wet weekend in store, but we can certainly warm our hearts with a little brandy of the damned. (It’s rather fitting for Good Friday, no?) Who was it that said music is the brandy of the damned? I think it was Shaw, but I’ll leaving the Googling to you.

    MUSIC
    Ray Bonneville and Tim O’Reagan

    I’ve never been much of a label whore; I could care less what label any given musician is with, and for the most part, I don’t even pay attention to it. But I have to say, I’m getting to a point where I’ll pretty much go see anyone who’s with Red House Records. What can I say? They just seldom go wrong, if ever. And tonight’s performer is no exception. Having recently released his Goin’ By Feel album on the Red House label, poet-singer-songwriter Ray Bonneville brings his folk-blues fingerpicking stylings to the Cedar this evening. Think Dylan, but with a low, mellifluous voice. And you won’t want to miss the opening act, either: Tim O’Reagan, former drummer for the Jayhawks. O’Reagan only recently stepped out from behind the drumset and is spreading his singer-songwriter wings quite eloquently.

    Friday at 8 p.m., The Cedar, 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-338-2674; $16.

    Saturday Selections

    There’s a lot of great music to choose from on Saturday night. For starters, Crosby, Stills & Nash tickets go on sale, so if you want to catch their July 11th show, be sure to act fast. Then choose from the mnSpin kick-off party at the Nomad
    World Pub    , L.A. punk-rockers X at the Cabooze, or Self the Remix spoken word at the Playwright’s Center. Or, for an evening of first-rate local music, with a meaningful film, see below.

    BENEFIT, FILM & MUSIC

    Rock The Red Tail!

    Pack in an evening of assorted amazement. Support a filmmaker. Learn about an industry — and the workers behind it. And enjoy some of our most established local rockers. Filmmaker Dawn Mikkelson and her co-director Melissa Koch invite you to Rock The Red Tail. The event, aimed at raising funds and awareness for their new film, will include a preview screening of The Red Tail — a documentary that examines the harsh realities of globalization through the impact of Northwest Airlines’ struggles on Twin Cities families. But the evening isn’t all of such a serious nature. Lighten up and celebrate with performances by Lori Barbero (Babes in Toyland), Artifact Shore, Martin Devaney (3-time MN Music Award Nominee), JoAnna James (2005 & 2006 MN Music Awards “Female Vocalist of the Year”), and Mike Gunther (City Pages’ “Best Male Vocalist” for 2007).

    Saturday from 7 to 11 p.m., In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, 1500 East Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-721-2535; $25.

    FILM
    Married Life

    Based on the 1953 pulp mystery novel Five Roundabouts to Heaven, Ira Sach’s new film, Married Life, follows the relationships and ethical dilemmas presented by a
    man and his wife, a man and his mistress, a wife and her lover, and the
    rakish friend that likes the mistress. Chris Cooper, with pain and disillusionment fused into every pore, delivers the sort of nuanced performance that we’ve come to expect from him. Rachel McAdams is similarly able to shock a semblance of life into Kay, the thinly written object of affection for both leading men. —Brandon Root, read his full review

    Opens Friday, (1:50, 4:30) 7:20, 9:35 p.m., Edina Cinema, 3911 W. 50th St., Edina; 651-649-4416.

    Also opening this weekend: Snow Angels and Paranoid Park.

    ART
    Last Weekend: Soul on Ice

    The Art Within Us artist group embraces the cold for the final weekend of Soul on Ice, featuring work by some hundred African-American and immigrant artists on view at the Soap Factory—which is, mind you, unheated. Don’t let a little frost distract you from the artwork, though; the show spotlights the value and depth of black culture. And on Saturday (2-4 p.m.) join an open discussion with community leaders on the subjects of raising culture consciousness, the future of culture through our children, and cultural leadership.

    Friday from 2 to 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m., The Soap Factory, 518 Second St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-623-9176; free.

    SHOPPING
    The North Face Opens Uptown Store

    Just in time for the warm weather, a new North Face store is opening today in Uptown Minneapolis. Go buy some summer toys to get you movitated and start the blood a-flowin’. There’s nothing like zipping those two sleeping bags together after a full-day hike.

    Opens Friday, North Face, 3008 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis.

     
    Oh, and be sure to read Linda Morganstein’s new Rake Appeal piece: "Minnesota Couples: Beware IKEA!"