I read Tom Bartel’s article “Discounting the Value of Work” (February). I would like to comment on it:
I have worked for over forty years in the baking trade, with a lot of six-day weeks and Sundays. I also worked twenty years as a part-time janitor for a church.
In the coming election, I hope we can elect some people who can work for the average guy and not for corporate white-collar people.
I agree with his article one-hundred percent. He tells it right!
I enjoyed my niece’s observations on “evangelicals” (“Do You Really Believe?” February) and attended the church she speaks of in Phillipsburg, Missouri. when I was her age. I don’t recall a fervor for a literal interpretation of the Bible particularly espoused, but I know many of the church members there did have those views. I did not hear anyone say that the farmers and wives attending the Presbyterian church across the unpaved road were definitely bound for the Lake of Eternal Fire—although again, it’s no doubt that some in the church felt that way. The belief in God, the proper view of His plan, and the correct way to worship Him, were of high importance to most of the community—so much so that a local church was divided over the picture of the church founder hanging in the auditorium. Half the church split away and built their own church, without any portraits of founders. One town had no less than four different kinds of Baptists. Despite the fractious appearance, however, the members of all these small rural Missouri churches were united in their certainty about one thing: Atheists like Alyssa (and me) were definitely going to Hell. Even a Catholic, a Mormon, or a Muslim had a better shot at the Pearly Gates than a godless heathen.
Me, I liked going to that church growing up, because of the friends and family that went there. The people there are warm, generous, and giving to a fault, and love me even though I don’t profess to love their God.
Keith Ford, Fort Mohave, AZ
Lowell Pickett might want to downplay the Dakota’s beginnings at Bandana Square (“Planet Pickett,” February), but for many of us the club’s move was the lamented end of a lovely era
And not just due to the loss of that family feeling, either.
The Bandana site was cozy and intimate, with nary a bad seat in the house. Such cannot be said of the new location. Sit in the balcony and you have to look over/through/around the annoying railing, and if you don’t choose your seat extremely carefully on the floor you’ll end up looking at the drummer’s back all night … by all means never sit by the brick wall!
While the A-train membership used to be a great deal, ever since the move it has become far more restrictive, with a disturbingly increasing number of less-than-A-list national artists excluded from the ticket advantages contained as a member perk.
I’m glad the move has solidified the club’s financial stability, but for my money more was lost than gained.
Last fall Erik Bergling made a pilgrimage to the jungles of Vietnam to visit the army base where his father served during the war. Needless to say, his devotion is admirable. But so, too, is his curiosity. This photo he sent us shows him across former enemy lines, where he took a moment to peruse The Rake while touring the Chu Chi Tunnels, the network of tiny subterranean arteries that played such an important (and frequently devastating) role in the Viet Cong’s strategy against U.S. troops.
Recent conversations with Jon Ferguson,
that rising star of the local theater scene, revealed a topical theme:
The man is headlong in love. Since he and his partner, performer Megan Odell of Live Action Set,
recently welcomed a baby boy into the world, Ferguson—formerly an
itinerant, couch-surfing bachelor—finds himself an unlikely inhabitant
of a state of domestic bliss. His latest show, fittingly, explores the
gradations of romantic relationships: from love at first sight to (with
any luck) a committed coupling. A cast of fine, crush-worthy
collaborators lent their own romantic histories to the project,
including Jennifer Davis,
whose vivid paintings Ferguson finds distinctly feminine and beautiful,
and Sara Richardson, a stellar (and dismayingly under-used) performer
who somehow manages to be both physically lovely and goofy as all
get-out.
Southern Theater, 612-340-1725.
As part of its celebration of National Poetry Month, Open Book will host The Face of Poetry, an exhibit of Margaretta Mitchell’s photographs of celebrated practitioners of the art, not one of which is recognizable to the average American (March 7–April 30) … One such luminary, Edward Hirsch—an excellent poet and a truly great writer about poetry—has a new collection just in time for NPM: Special Orders (available March 11) … Go ahead and try to name five living American short story writers better than Tobias Wolff. His Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories (available March 25) is long overdue … I suppose we should hear this woman out before we commence our howling. At the moment all we can say about Mikita Brottman’s The Solitary Vice: Against Reading (available February 28) is that the early press suggests irresistible provocation, and a bit of Trojan Horse subversion … There was a time—believe it or not, children—when you couldn’t consider yourself a serious reader if you hadn’t at least dipped into the work of Leslie Fiedler. We spent a couple hours browsing through The Devil Gets His Due: The Uncollected Essays (available March 28) and were pleased to discover that the old fellow really was a sharp and entertaining critic.
St. Paul filmmaker Ali Selim’s Sweet Land, a Minnesota-made indie labor of love that garnered critical acclaim and spawned a minor cult, was adapted from Bemidji writer Will Weaver’s 1989 short story “A Gravestone Made of Wheat.” The Rake’s Cristina Córdova will moderate the latest installment of The Talk of the Stacks series, as the auteur and the author discuss the long journey Weaver’s story took from the page to the screen. Both Selim and Weaver have interesting back stories (Selim has had a high-profile career as a director of television commercials, and in recent years Weaver has been working on a series of successful young adult novels and teaching at Bemidji State), so there should be no shortage of topics for discussion.
Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.
Bronx born and bred, Richard Price is arguably the country’s grittiest version of a zeitgeist Renaissance man. Following his first two novels The New York Times Book Review dubbed him “The Fonzi of Literature,” which may or may not have been intended as a compliment. But if early Price seemed like a flyweight greaseball with a Mean Streets obsession that verged on the romantic, his 1992 crack masterpiece Clockers established him as a writer without peer when it came to breathing life into a subject that hadn’t yet become an abstract hip-hop cartoon to millions of white kids. These days Price may be better known as a screenwriter than a novelist, but his work on HBO’s The Wire has been offered as conclusive evidence that television can possess all the power of great literature. In Lush Life, his first novel in five years, Price returns to his hometown and finds the streets as mean as ever.
William Mitchell College of Law, 875 Summit Ave., St. Paul; 651-225-8989. Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-822-4611.
Sarah Ruhl, Sarah Ruhl, Sarah Ruhl. We’ve been writing up, and seeing,
our fill of plays by this hotshot. Still, we’d be fools not to note the
occasion of the regional premiere of Eurydice, the play that made Ruhl
a certified superstar (thanks to last summer’s extended Off-Broadway
run). This production marks Ten Thousand Things’ first tangle with the
playwright, and their choice of this spirited, fairly modern take on
the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice (retold from the young woman’s
perspective) should fit nicely with the company’s visually spare yet
emotionally direct aesthetic—something it more often applies to
Shakespeare and the ancient Greek playwrights. Among a strong, all-star
cast, the key players include Sonja Parks, a local actress who performs
with remarkable force in the title role, and the stately and
heavens-to-Betsy-he’s-handsome Steve Hendrickson as Eurydice’s father.
Ten Thousand Things at Open Book and The Minnesota Opera Center, 612-203-9502.
Ok, while I sit here in my favorite Karen Neuburger house clothes, it dawned on me that there is no time like the present to talk about why I won’t be attending many social functions anymore.
As you may know, I recently turned 40, and along with feeling a little bit older, I feel a little bit wiser and most definitely more comfortable in my own skin.
You see, much of my career has been about going to glamorous events and talking to glamorous people, but it recently dawned on me that I am bored with the whole social — phony, get dressed up, and make nice to a bunch of people that I really don’t give a flying f* about — scene.
My favorite social outing is going with my family to Costco and seeing which one of my kids can distract the sample person long enough for me to try to get a double sample, and sometimes — if I am lucky and the kids are really charming — I get a triple sample, which means that while my husband is shopping for deals, I can surprise him with a "Look, honey, I got you something to snack on." It always works so well that when we get to the register he has no idea how many things I have hidden in the cart.
So, what does Costco have to do with being a so-called socialite? Nothing, but at least you get an idea of where my priorities have taken me this past year.
After spending many years actually getting paid to cover social events, I have come to the conclusion that I would rather pay someone else to go than to deal with the superficial B.S. that goes along with many of these unnecessary functions.
Are we not going through a recession? And should I not be saving my money for my children’s future? Yeah, I think that would be wise.
Now, I am not going to stop enjoying great restaurants and fun social gatherings, but if it means that I would be better off staying at home and watching "Louie" crack up my husband or having my kids show me how much smarter they are than me, I will clearly take the home front.
Yes, I have been assigned the role of the Rake’s Social Butterfly, but I hope that you will understand that I will be picky about whether or not to attend an opening of a restaurant or another event — versus staying at home and trying to cook the pre-packaged food that Trader Joes has on special.
Lastly, I would like to give a shout out to Carolyn Peterson who is THE best female voice-over woman in the business and who inspired me recently, while I was working on a radio commercial, to take a deep breath for six seconds before recording a 60 second spot. Carolyn was the very first person to ever give me a break in the radio biz, and it brings a smile to my face to get to work again with her at Hubbard Broadcasting!