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The marine iguana, which is found only in the Galapagos archipelago, spends most of its time sunning itself on the volcanic rocks and sneezing. For nourishment, it dives in the sea and feeds on algae. Consequently, it has to rid its body of sea salt somehow. To do so, it expels a salty mist out through its nostrils—unmistakeably a sneeze—leaving a white coating of salt on its crown until the next time it goes swimming.

I found myself trying to hold my camera still, waiting for the large orange lizard to erupt. Inevitably, the moment my arms gave out and I put down my camera, the iguana would let loose a torrent of sea snot worthy of a National Geographic cover.

The peculiarity of the animals on these islands has fascinated visitors for the past 500 years. Although Charles Darwin spent only a few weeks on the archipelago, the observations he made and the samples of species he took back to England were the basis for his theory of evolution.

Today the Galapagos still attract scientists, and they were among the first places that biologists were able to do what Darwin had thought impossible: to observe natural selection in action over just a few years rather than thousands or millions of generations. Evolutionary biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant have observed finches on the small island of Daphne Major for over a quarter century, and, after painstaking measurements and number crunching, they’ve been able to track how different types of birds’ bodies and beaks are selected for different environmental conditions over time.

The casual Galapagos visitor can’t see natural selection in action, but the peculiar specialization of shape, habit, and diet that the islands’ wildlife has developed over millions of years of isolation is on prominent display. The absence of large land predators has left the birds and animals indifferent to tour groups traipsing through their habitat. Bird mating dances and giant tortoise copulation go on uninterrupted, even with the clicking and whirring of thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment nearby. Snorkelers are themselves observed by curious sea lions that dart around them in the water.

Although many visitors sport Darwin T-shirts and marvel at walking in his footsteps, the draw of the Galapagos is much more Dr. Dolittle than it is Darwin. Even my brother, a hard-nosed evolutionary biologist who spends more time on computer models than he does observing nature in the flesh, admits that the main attraction is being as close as we are to very cute and intriguing animals. And who can blame him? If birds landed on our heads at home, or if deer didn’t dart away at the slightest sound, it might be easier to see ourselves as nature’s friend rather than its foe.

Tucked neatly into a shelf of dainty Victorian houses on the bluffs of St. Paul, the home of Charles Arndt and Kelly Bjorklund was the site of U.S. Senate incumbent Paul Wellstone’s February 9 fund–raiser. The Rake was in attendance to savor the food and sample the politics.

Contributors to the Wellstone campaign were confronted with a buffet that looked almost too good to touch. Sliced vegetables, presented attractively alongside a neat array of dips, were crisp on the tooth. In addition to the de rigeur spinach dip and its many variations, Bjorklund gave a clever nod to the Lebanese history of the neighborhood with a bowl of excellent hummus balanced with lemon and garlic. Fresh fruits dominated the west end of the table, where there was a striking presentation of fresh raspberries mounted in a hot pepper raspberry preserve on a foundation of cream cheese.

Senator Wellstone held the center of attention, but a tray of baby shrimp in whipped cream cheese and cocktail sauce with Spanish olives was popular too. Also favored was a creamy artichoke gratin with blue cheese, sweet red peppers, and garlic, though many were kept at bay as the senator’s sincere gesticulations over this area of the table did not stop for quite some time. But with a great selection of red and white wines and a truly international bin of beers within easy reach, guests were happy to a number. And at an entry fee of $25, the value was truly Democratic. Four out of four stars.

On the other end of the cities and the political spectrum, donors to Norm Coleman’s Senate campaign were invited for face time on February 12 at Jazzmine’s on Third Street, just around the corner from Sex World in downtown Minneapolis.
While Coleman has left little doubt that he would eat anything Dick Cheney feeds him to win this election, The Rake sincerely hoped the $100 minimum would win better fare for the party faithful. Alas, after the tedious battle for downtown parking at 6 p.m., Republicans found themselves paying their own way at the expensive bar and filing past a short table of uninspiring victuals.

The dim lighting of the cheese tray was of no consequence, as the selections all tasted about the same. The main attraction, barbecued pork in a sterno-heated tub, was odd given Coleman’s Jewish heritage. It had long since progressed from tender to mushy. Equally underwhelming were the grilled chicken skewers which, though blackened with grill lines, offered no hint of smoke or any other flavor unless dipped in the adjacent green sauce that tasted strongly of rancid mayonnaise. Excusing the pork, a staffer indicated that Norm does not eat at fund–raisers. That may augur a long season of dyspepsia for GOP contributors. One out of four stars.

Thanks mostly to the Walt Disney Corporation, Hans Christian Andersen is generally remembered as a kindly composer of innocent entertainments for children. But the real Andersen was far more interesting. He was a tormented soul who larded his tales with his own psychic misery, apparently in the belief that what kids want from a story is a stew of self-pity and repressed eroticism. Needless to say, the CTC’s new adaptation of The Snow Queen favors the Disney Andersen over the real one; the casting, for example, pretty much rules out any thought of a future romance between the two central characters. Nevertheless this production does manage to capture much of the story’s inherent spookiness. Scenic designer Michael Sommers turns the rather flimsy script into a parade of strikingly beautiful and weird images. Ruth MacKenzie’s pastiche of Scandinavian folk music—the same stuff that made her recent show Kalevala so popular—provides another layer of eerie atmosphere. Co-directors Sommers and Peter Brosius keep the images and songs moving energetically along. And if the show’s message about friendship seems a little tame, well…the CTC is a theater for children.

April is, among many other things, a time for fools and taxes. Not coincidentally, it’s also the time of year when we’re forced by law to take a break from fishing. Your Minnesota angling license expired just in time for you to get your ice shack off the lake, and you can’t renew until May.

A little mandatory distance from rod and reel is a good thing. It’s like a secular Lent: Giving it up for a little while allows us to reflect on how important fishing is to the Minnesota soul. Confronted with increasingly brazen terrorist attacks and health insurance premiums, we find nothing soothes the spirit like staring into the waters of Cedar Lake, say, or Lake of the Isles. As you know, Minneapolis got its awkward name thanks to the 12 highly fishable lakes within city limits. (Whoever proposed combining the Greek polis with the Lakotah minne remains a mystery. Apparently they weren’t too proud of the silly word.) Still, few people have taken the time to plumb the depths of this metaphor. Fishing is all about revelation. Sometimes you send down your worm, and up comes a thing of beauty. Other times, well… the less said the better.

Witness the recent flap over Jackie Cherryhomes. After being chased out of office last December, the former city council president made fish meal out of most of her files from the Brian Herron years. We’re assured this kind of vandalism often happens when bullheaded incumbents lose their jobs. Still, we can’t help feeling like a fishing expedition onto Cherryhomes’ former hard drive might have pulled up some real whoppers.

Although the Star Tribune chose not to run their fishfinder through Cherryhomes’ waters, they have discovered something else. A March 3, 2002 story claims that “Every day, untold thousands of people fire up their computers and log on” to something called “the internet” where self-publishing mavericks create an astonishing array of “web logs.” Apparently they caught wind of this trend because one of their own—the redoubtable Mr. James Lileks—is one of the nation’s most prolix bloggers, and other newspapers around the country have noticed. We’ve long wondered why the Strib chooses to isolate their columnists in the remote backwaters of the Metro section. But it hadn’t crossed our minds that no one at the paper was actually reading their best-paid staffers. It occurs to us now that www.Lileks.com may actually be a cry for help.

Also noted: KARE-11 news was recently awarded the National Press Photographers Association top honors. In reporting this happy news, Strib reporter Darlene Pfister captures KARE-11 photojournalist Gary Knox in action, on the scene last year where two boys were feared to have been swept away in an icy river: “Over the rush of the water and the scraping of a backhoe,” writes Pfister, “Knox’s earphone caught a softer sound. It was the voice of Olivia’s police chief, consoling the father of one of the boys… He zoomed in as the chief stood close to the grieving father. ‘If you want to be with your wife, that’ s a good idea,’ the chief said gently, his words captured by the wireless microphone Knox had attached to his uniform hours earlier… In living rooms across the Twin Cities, that scene made the news report personal. It’s typical of the intimate, storytelling moments that metro-area viewers have become accustomed to in their broadcast news.”

We’d call that a typical case of eavesdropping, but who’s complaining? The Rake itself was recently the subject of a KARE-11 mini-documentary and a Strib investigation, which certainly stroked our egos in the right direction. We storytellers run in packs, and we know that sometimes a carefully placed eavesdropper is precisely what’s needed. You might call it poaching for good publicity, but these lunkers pretty much jumped right into our boat.

You want Russian? This place is real Russian (or as Russian as you can get in the old Robbinsdale American Legion building.) Russian owners, Russian cooks, Russian wait staff, Russian décor, Russian music, Russian customers, Russian food, Russian vodka. Lots of Russian food. Lots of Russian vodka. We’ve been there three times now and have 10 pounds and three headaches to show for it. It starts with the appetizers. Get the smoked fish plate (serves three) and the pickled vegetables. The fish plate comes with salmon, sturgeon and, as you’d expect, caviar. Good bread with lots of sweet butter under the fish gets you going. You cut those nutritious Omega 3 fatty acids with hot pickled tomatoes, spicy carrot slaw and cabbage. Wash it down with the signature St. Petersburg martini, which they should call the Chernobyl, and then proceed to the Chicken Kiev or the Bolshevik sirloin. Or even better, just order another fish plate and martini. Have a salad tomorrow.

On the eastern edge of Minneapolis, in the beautiful, aging-hippie enclave of Prospect Park, stands the witch’s hat tower, a landmark known to anyone who’s lived here more than five minutes. Two blocks to the west is another neighborhood landmark known mainly to the localest of locals: the Signature Cafe. Since 1999, Mahmoud Arafa and his wife Zeinab have been serving home-cooked Egyptian fare that’s fresh, flavorful, and affordable. All the regional favorites are on hand, from taboule and baba ganoush to shawarmah (that’s gyro, if you please) sandwiches and a robust lamb stew with couscous. “Unassuming” might be a nice way to say “dingy,” but despite the plastic table cloth covers, the Signature’s sunny, hardwood, plant-filled atmosphere is pretty and pleasant. And by next month you ought to be able to take your hibiscus tea or Egyptian coffee at an outdoor table on this quiet street where the loudest noise—other than distant freeway drone—will be neighborhood kids at play. Lucky you!

The Loring Pasta Bar—the second coming of owner Jason McLean’s original downtown success—is as fantasmic as anything Disney could have dreamed up (after his third martini) for a night of debaucherous eye candy smothered in gorgonzola and crimini mushrooms. It’s high theatre and nobody in town heaps it on like McLean. No stone—or tile or light fixture or napkin—is left unturned in this 120-year-old building, formerly Gray’s Drugs (you can’t miss the restored signage). The extravagance of detail is dizzyingly sensuous all the way to the bathrooms. But if the downtown location drips of faded elegance, the new locale drips of Las Vegas: Just remember you’re there to have a good time and drop some cash. Late evening entertainment and dance (the lighting system is one of best in town) flips from salsa on Saturdays to swing on Sundays with midweek movies every Wednesday at 9; cover charges vary. By the way, they serve food too! Appetizers and salads, mostly familiar, accompany about a dozen pastas (all around $10).

To fill the Sunday night void following the third season of The Sopranos, HBO launched Six Feet Under, created by the Academy-Award winning writer of American Beauty, Alan Ball. That Ball boy happens also to be a recent winner of the Golden Globe for best drama series, thanks to this new gig. The show follows the darkly comic trials of two brothers who take over their father’s funeral home business after a municipal bus broadsides Dad’s new hearse. Set to the twinkling theme composed by the same guy who scored Beauty (Thomas Newman), each episode opens with a death-of-the-week upon which the story is built. Frances Conroy plays the frazzled matriarch to tortured soul David (Michael C. Hall), prodigal son Nate (Minneapolis native Peter Krause) and troubled teen Claire (Lauren Ambrose). Their storylines get complicated with a rich supporting cast that includes Oscar-nominated Aussie Rachel Griffiths as Nate’s girlfriend, Jeremy Sisto as her psycho brother, Freddy Rodriguez as the under-appreciated mortician Rico, and the occasional cameo by dead dad—Nathaniel Fisher—the second ghost dad to appear in this edition of the Broken Clock, do we have a trend going here? Deadly funny!

Let’s just get this out in the open right away: Is Xena a lesbian, or merely bi-curious? Even if it’s been twelve months since the series ended its five-year run on network TV, it’s important to dwell on these questions of ancient history, rather than the soft issues of “female empowerment,” say, or “historical accuracy” on the Fox network. Of course, it hardly makes a difference if she prefers the company of women. There’s nothing wrong with that, we’d just like to know. Gabby is clearly gay, 100 percent, only the completely naïve would think otherwise. By the way, Hercules was first, but Xena was best in the 90s crush of late-night comic book-inspired TV. While pioneering producer Rob Tapert could never swing the resources—nor the literary pedigree—of a Lord of the Rings, he certainly has the satisfaction of paving the way for today’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden CGI bust-em-ups on the big silver screen. Incidentally, he is also singlehandedly responsible for the film industry’s bumrush of New Zealand as the Led Zep of shooting locations. Best of all, scads of people are going back to the source—real comic books, where it all began and where it will all end (one day). Did we mention Xena may be a lesbian? Cool!

It began with a simple question: “Kirk or Picard?” No sooner had our lips formed the letter P than the wretched geek leaped from his barstool and set upon us with his Palm Pilot stylus, jabbing us repeatedly in the left kidney and unleashing a spit-drenched litany of Klingon epithets. Only hours later, laid up at the Abbott-Northwestern ICU with a morphine drip and eleven different insurance claim forms in our lap, did we fully grasp our folly. Trek is Trek. To rank any single captain over another—except Captain Janeway—is to unduly divide the Trekker nation. We’d once felt so sure that the venerable Jean-Luc’s glistening pate was a vessel for a mind much greater than that of any generation before him. We’d poured studiously over seven discs with assorted behind-the-scenes featurettes documenting his first tour of duty, repeatedly driven to dumb astonishment by the superhuman steadiness of his command, the genius of his reasoning, the quiet triumph of his most vulnerable invocations. Of the many dastardly villains that lurk in our vast universe, had our very own DVD player proven to be the most treacherous?