January 2010
51 posts
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I’m getting ready to go out in a few...
December 2009
38 posts
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Surprised to be face-to-face with a world so...
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"Your Man for Fun in Rapidan." →
When I first moved to Minneapolis in 2005, I met a writer we will call “Jergie Bergen” at a party in Uptown. I’d been giving everyone I met a copy of a 3x5 photocopied book of drawings I’d made at Kinko’s, and I gave him one of the last. He leafed through it, and look up at me.
“Do you have more?” he asked.
“Not many,” I told him.
...
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"A missed opportunity and, at worst, a big... →
“There’s something wholly unsatisfying about staring up at Jawlensky through binoculars wired to a bench, like a hotel remote control, while trying to adjust the focusing mechanism.”
Here’s a mixed review I wrote for mnartists of Benches and Binoculars, now showing at the Walker.
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Missed opportunities to spread chaos in the...
When Nate and I didn’t approach those two kids and offer them $5 a piece to stop raking the leaves in their front yard.
This was Nate’s idea when we were both at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve taking a walk. The kids would have taken it, right? “Hey, you two, raking leaves, huh? We got five dollars for both of you if you stop.” They take the money, we split, and...
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A sloppy, sentimental life, 190 bytes at a time.
This is a problem many of you readers probably don’t have, because many of you (most of you?) have iPhones and Androids and other nice non-drug phones that you didn’t buy from a combination Western-wear store/semi-legit wireless franchise on Lake Street.
I, however, did buy my drug phone from a combination Western-wear store/semi-legit wireless franchise on Lake Street, and that is...
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S. 12th's decade in review: Jenny Tatone's 10-star...
The first in what may be a series of highlights from the past ten years.
“This blog doesn’t strike me as very interesting when I write about anything other than rock music.”
So writes your correspondent in his blog, as a 21-year old in the year 2001. For your safety, I am not linking to the blog in question, but I do love and cherish that quote. Ha! Can you imagine if S. 12th...
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On the 16.
College girl #1: So Betsy's having a guest over at the dorm tonight.
College girl #2: Who?
College girl #1: Da-a-a-a-a-an. Dan the man.
College girl #2: Who?
College girl #1: Dan. Dan the man.
College girl #2: Which one is Dan the man again?
College girl #1: He's the man one.
College girl #2: Oh.
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When Nate and I were kids, and we would come to...
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Jim Norton on fourings.
If I can drop into David Plouffe mode here for a moment, vis a vis Word Idol…
You were one of the first few people to own a piece of this fourings campaign.
You helped build this movement when the odds were long and Voting Day was far in the future.
But we’re not there yet.
Etc., etc. God, I hate those emails. And I still get them.
Anyway, regarding fourings, I thought now...
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“Does anyone know where to get a translation of this? — if I were single I...”
– YouTube commenter “spookymotion” posts her thoughts on the video for “Jaan Pehechaan Ho,” by Mohammad Rafi (the number at the beginning of Ghost World). There’s either a great post-racial romantic comedy in that anecdote (“they were from two different worlds and...
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Mark Dinning, “Teen Angel.” One of the...
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What throws S. 12th's game off?
flashing lights
muscle cars
powerful odors
atmospheric phenomenon (i.e., Northern lights)
tight socks
the subprime mortgage lending crisis
European men in turtlenecked sweaters
economic downturns
frisbees
Gore Vidal
sudden stops or starts
punch to the face or neck
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“Blueprint’s Twin Cities Consumer section covers recycling, solar energy,...”
– I’m working on a project now that involves a lot of long, happy hours going through microfilm of long-defunct Minneapolis periodicals.
In particular, I love this bizarre subscription card boast from a 1980 issue of a short-lived weekly called Blueprint. I mean, recycling, solar energy,...
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Ben Katchor's "Julius Knipl, Real Estate... →
Wow, I’d had no idea these were online. This is a pleasant Thursday surprise, reader!
Above is a link to a collection of “radio cartoons” that Ben Katchor created for public radio about ten years ago. I recall hearing them at the time, and then going out immediately and buying all of Katchor’s books that were available. He’s been one of my very favorite...
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"Dakota Street is in Wilder Park which might count...
Nate sent me this list last week, and it’s too good for no one to see it. So now you get to see it.
One of the great secret facts about S. 12th (more of a secret shame, actually) is for all its touching tributes to my old Louisville hometown, my readership there is very, very small. I have more regular readers in the borough of Queens, a locality I have visited maybe three times in my whole...
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In ongoing discussions of the enduring importance...
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Make or break.
There is something about President Obama’s sense of drama and timing that is very canny, and that makes me wonder if his true political education was in watching English midcentury boarding school dramas. In the two years or so that we have known Obama as a public figure, how many times has this exact scenario played itself out?
A problem arises, and the problem needs to be solved. The...
