Amnesty and Rebuke at Caribou Coffee

Wife is spending her last week of unemployment getting ready for the holiday weekend and the upcoming shift in household duties. She's been doing dishes and laundry like a champ lately since she's been home and the place looks amazing for probably the last time in a while once we are both working all the time. Yesterday, she went to the dreaded Target to pick up things we had been running short on for months due to unemployment. Today she stopped at the grocery store and went to get some work shoes since hers are all shot.

During this, she got in a car accident.

Everyone's OK, so no worries.

She was stopping at the Caribou Coffee drive through in Medina for a pick me up and was waiting in the drive through line to order when the car in front of her started reversing. It bumped into her before she could react.

Wife got out, and two young teen girls pop out of the other car. The rider takes over talking, she says her friend literally got her license today, and they were going through the drive through for the first time. The driver was not talking, but clearly just to keep from crying.

Wife: "Well, let's see about any damage!"

They look over the car, my Pontiac Bonneville '99, which is a piece of shit car that got a death sentence 2 years ago and somehow keeps on kicking. Nothing seemed amiss. Wife called me to make sure and let me know she was fine. I said, what the hell, it's a crap car, even if it had a dent, no biggie, we're just driving it to death at this point. No need to do the insurance bull crap.

Wife told the teens that ordinarily they would trade insurance, numbers, etc. But no harm no foul. And then she said probably the best thing a new teen driver could hear: "Well, you got the first accident out of the way already, so now you can quit worrying about it!"

If there is an antagonist in this story, it's the Caribou Coffee employee who came out, not to check that everyone was OK, but to tell wife and the teen to get out of the drive through (though there was no one waiting behind them). So congrats to Caribou for probably making a new driver's first drive through experience with anyone rather crappy. There's one customer with a lot of life ahead of her that won't be coming back anytime soon.

Minnesota Opera Under the Stars (with racism?)

Tonight the wife and I took in a free public performance of the Minnesota Opera company at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. We got there about 70 minutes before the curtain, which was enough time to get to the back of the first hill of people.

If you plan to attend an event like this at the Lake Harriet Bandshell, and you are a guy, be sure you don't drink much all day, cause while there is a women's room, the only facilities for men in sight are unisex family bathrooms. Luckily, I was in a good way tonight, which isn't usual for me. TMI.

What really got my knickers in a bunch, though, was the group parked right in front of us. This was wife's view of the stage.

Apparently the Phi Beta Kappa Twin Cities Association was meeting up at this Opera event, and they wanted EVERYONE to know, especially the people behind them. I told wife not to worry, surely they would take it down when the opera began. At 15 minutes to showtime, I went to find out that there were no designated men's facilities, and waited in line for the "family bath" rooms. There are so many things wrong with calling a room the "family bath" room, but let's leave that one alone. 

When I got back to wife, she relayed the following to me. 

Two guys, obviously college students, perhaps grad students, who spoke with thick accents, from somewhere where soccer and cricket are likely popular, asked the guy by the sign "I want to know, if we sit over there or here, will you take the sign down when the event starts?" The first guy ignored them. They moved on to the guy standing up by the sign and asked the same question. The standing up guy said "no matter where you sit, you won't be able to see the stage anyway, so it doesn't matter." 

The two guys walked away. Another college aged girl carrying a Barnes and Noble bag, long dark curly hair, comes over and points to the sign. The guy starts to get defensive. She asks "are you the Phi Beta Kappa group?" He says "yes." She says "I'm here for you." he changes demeanor completely into Nice Guy Ned. He makes room for her, offers her a cookie and stuff to sign. 

Then a woman in pink comes and asks if he's the Phi Beta Kappa group, as if the sign isn't RIGHT THERE.

This woman, the one wearing pink and a hat: 

They make room for her. then they discuss what happened with the sign. She said: "Good for you, you want to make sure that they know their place." 

That ACTUALLY HAPPENED. 

Now, I can't say if this was a racist comment, or a class-based comment. In any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't a comment that can be painted over with some easy explanation unless she has a really dry sense of humor that makes no one laugh. But perhaps that comes from being part of a honor society that makes you feel superior to other people. 

.Anyway, racist/classicist/classist(?) groups aside, I assured wife that I would step up to the plate and be an ass if I needed to be. The music began, and the sign wasn't going down. After a few measures, and a tweet, I  said rather loudly "Hey, Phi Beta Kappa, could you take down your sign now?" the guy turned and looked at me, blinked, probably gauging if I could see the stage if he moved the sign, and moved to take down the sign. I thanked him "thank you very much." and we moved into the Opera. 

They put the sign up again at intermission, and had to be verbally reminded again to please take it down thank you very much.

The concert was of "La Boeheme" a story of a group of friends at the end of the 19th Century who party hard, fall in love, and lose love to consumption. If you have seen "Rent" you know all the basic beats of the plot and characters. Me, I had an unhealthy obsession with Rent in high school, so reading the synopsis before the opera began I felt like I was treading on familiar ground. 

The music was rather hard to hear at times, even though we were closer than half the people attending. Though there were microphones around the stage, they weren't used by individual performers. Only when people really belted out an aria's glory notes would the audience really get excited, partly because of the beauty of the music, but also partly because they could actually hear it. 

I loved the introduction of love in the first act, signaled wonderfully by the light, romantic turn in the music, and aided by the diving sparrows around the park as they hunted bugs in the pink, Minnesota dusk. The setting was lovely, the picnic wife made of bagels with cream cheese and turkey was divine, and the whiskey and ginger drinks we brought in a thermos the shiny cap on a wonderful event. Wife took this picture of the feet of someone who knew exactly how to enjoy this time.

I'd entirely recommend going to such free opera in the park events, but be sure to get their plenty early to get good seats, hopefully not behind haughty signage.

St. Anthony Art Festival

Today we spent about 2 hours continuing our summer of craft experiment. Part one here. While the Edina Art Fair is going on, and it's billed as Minnesota's second largest art fair, we decided to take our chances with a smaller event.

The St. Anthony Art Festival on Como Ave. in St. Paul keeps things small - 80 artists in all. After our time at the last event - the American Craft Council Show - this one was a huge step down the crap hole in quality.

After parking the car and walking back to find wife, I passed a few booths. This one caught my eye.

I found wife and told her about the booth full of pottery that resembled birch trunks. 

"Birch pottery? This is what someone dedicated her life to?" I said. 

"Let's try positive husband," wife responded.

I'd like to say things got positive, but they didn't. We were done with half the art booths in 20 minutes. Wife's eye was caught by a few things, but usually the people in the booths would turn her off. One woman was selling necklaces, and we overheard her explaining the significance of salt and pepper shakers on the necklace as black slavery items. From what I could gather, white guilt was her selling point, but then I wondered what you do when you get home or wear it out later. "Nice necklace!" "Yeah! And it reminds me of how horribly we treated fellow human beings!"

But really, I need to be more positive. What did I like? I liked the atmosphere. Although the booths were sparse, and the quality of items circumspect, and the booth merchants overzealous (one calling out that she had my wife's size in clothing), the neighborhood was pleasant. I could imagine living there. Lots of old trees, bike paths, cute shops and access to the basic needs. And a nifty old library that was benefiting from the fair. It'll be under renovation starting Monday, but they had a used book sale. 

The book sale was pretty packed, but I nabbed a few choice books for the summer's reading. I got a historical fiction trilogy by Norwegian Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset, an early book by J.M. Coetzee and a John LeCarre novel. All for 6 bucks. 

We also stopped in a small wine shop, very small, like European shoppe small, but nice. We're drinkin' wine tonight!

By this point, wife's morning caught up with her. I had woken and done my normal morning routine of eating cereal. Wife, however, wanted to just get going, so she skipped breakfast, took some meds, and had half an energy drink on the way to the event. This led to feeling crappy. 

We got some fresh squeezed lemonade (which by the way is my favorite thing at any fair outside of turkey legs, and I will keep a running tally of our lemonade purchases over the summer on this blog). The lemonade didn't do the trick. Getting wife to make any sort of decision during such events just leads to frustration on her part and mine. "Do you want to sit?" "Um." "OK, how about I get a gyro?" "Or we could go to that cafe." "Sure." "But I don't know."

Eventually, we stopped at a food truck for spicy cheese curds, which wife could handle about four of before they became too much. We also found some mini cookies, but she didn't like them either. Food at this fair was difficult to say the least.

They also had activities for the kids. One such activity was helping kids to make their own pottery complete with clay and wheel. Sounds fun, but when you take a second to think, there's no way they have a kiln available or the time needed to complete the process, right? Right. This became apparent to parents after the fact. While I was getting some stuff back to the car to be less burdened, wife overheard this one between a man and wife who's young son was carrying around his newly created clay pot. 

"So, what are we gonna do with a bunch of wet clay?"

I also need to mention the abundance of lutes and mandolins. I swear to Christ every one who plays lutes in Minnesota outside of Ren Fest was at this thing. Now, I think it's great for lute and mandolin players to have a place to perform, where they can feel safe from the years of bullying, but you just can't unhear Beatles tunes being PBS-ified to death by straining them through a mandolin quartet. 

This guy was good though. 

Could be that he was playing a Greek bouzouki though, a point of order he made sure to note. 

I was not alone! Wife was severely disappointed at the quality of this fair. We were not 4 booths into our second half of the 80 art booths when I swear to god I heard our future selves behind us. A woman was saying to her husband "Do you think you could be more positive?" and the husband was saying "Maybe." 

Seriously though, I haven't described it well, but this fair felt like the castoffs of Minnesotans who couldn't get into the Edina fair. It's just not worth describing and I don't have the energy to do so beyond one more. 

We walked quickly past, but it was a booth of drawings and copies of those drawings, intricate pencil pieces of people. The elderly woman at the booth was busy arranging the pieces. You couldn't help but notice that she had talent. The pieces were intricate, but unsettling, like she was going for R. Crumb, but not on purpose. You felt bad for her, to have so much talent, but not quite enough to be really good, and knowing she was old enough that it wasn't likely to be a matter of needing more practice. 

At this point, wife said to go get the car. She looked ready to faint, so I found her a chair and went back to the car, passing by a booth full of homemade beanie babies and groaning while at it. 

While I was getting the car, wife heard this passive aggressive conversation take place behind her by a woman with a small child. 

"Oh, I just wish I could get a chair her so my child can sit down for a bit."

Aimed. Right. At. Her. 

Wife did get up eventually, but the woman is seriously lucky she didn't drop kick that kid. Wife has been known to shove misbehaving kids out of her way in public restrooms (she came charging out that time, grabbed my arm, and said "We must GO now" and we hightailed it out of the restaurant.) We're not kid people, and on top of that, we're not fans of people who feel their children should be entitled to everything at the expense of others. 

Tomorrow, if we can stomach another outing, we're going to the Edina Art Fair. Pray for us. 

2013 Lemonade Tally: 3

2013 Cheese Curd Tally: 1

Quickie

Just a short entry this time, rolling off the fingers.

Been a year since I got my job. It's been a good year overall. We got out of pre-foreclosure and pre-bankruptcy, we can afford to live. Wife is rocking the unemployment right now, getting an insane number of interviews, each of which brings her closer to a job. Hoping like balls her interview tomorrow goes well, cause that job is on the same damn block as mine and we could move and not have to do this driving for an hour or so every day.

Went to the first Farmers market of the year for us on Saturday. Got two bags of lettuce (5 bucks for one, 3.50 for the other). It's pricey, but DAMN you notice the difference. You forget that lettuce is supposed to taste good after a winter of the stuff shipped in from wherever in the world is warm. We get by in the winter on green leaf heads, which is okay. Once wife got iceberg because it was on sale, and it was like eating tasteless garbage (if that word pairing makes any sense). So if you learn anything from this post, it is to try Farmer's Market lettuce. Trust me, it'll change the way you see salad. I also bought a 6 dollar bunch of asparagus, which was not noticeably different than the stuff at the store. But with the goat cheese and green onions I also got, I was able to make a delicious quiche.

This farmer's market was at the Mill City Museum, so it had the added atmosphere of industrial river folk with girders, old train tracks, and tin roofs. I felt like I was in that black market place in The Hunger Games. It was awesome. Will definitely return later when prices have gone down as supplies grow around here.

Until then, wife and I will continue to cram in a salad every night, which even when it tastes awesome begins to feel like a chore to finish a five dollar bag before it goes bad.

Opera is Awesome (And so is Taco Bell)

So with the bonus I got at work in March, I paid off a loan to finally be rid of a 200 monthly bill. We had enough left to invest in entertainment options throughout the spring, including two Wits shows, two Red Sox/Twins games, and a few other things, including tickets to last night’s opera outing. It gives us things to look forward to while wife goes through the crazy job hunting process. (five interviews last week and already has four scheduled this week!)

My history with Opera is very slim. I went to part of a Beethoven opera that was at the Vienna Opera House during my backpacking through Europe phase. I got the super cheap 4 dollar standing room ticket and watched the first hour from the back of the top balcony. No idea what the hell was going on. It was more cheap to do that than pay for a tour of the building though. I had to leave partway through to catch my overnight train to Venice.

Whenever I talk about such things, wife characterizes me in a snobby voice “well, when I was in Europe, I simply HAD to see the Opera.” I assure you I don’t mean it that way. I didn’t get anything out of it. I went, didn’t get it, and left. Actually, I was hoping the interior would look more like one of these places.

But it didn’t. The pics I find online don’t refresh my memory much. From my obstructed standing room view I couldn’t see much of anything of the place.

My other history with opera is taking Italian for two years in college, where two of my classmates were taking it as part of their opera training. They wore scarves a lot.

Beyond that, I absolutely love movies that involve opera like Amadeus and Topsy-Turvy.  I actually like Topsy-Turvy more because it speaks to the creative process as a mix of hard work, collaboration and inspiration rather than the God-given genius only bestowed on a select few that shit out art with little effort that Amadeus is (still love the movie). Topsy Turvy is available on Netflix Instant watch BTW, and the trailer doesn't do it enough justice. 

Wife had not been to any opera beyond the MSUM straw hat players once, and I don’t think that counts.

So in effect, we were both breaking our Opera cherry together with a full fledged professional production complete with subtitles so we could follow along.

Our experience would be Minnesota Opera Company’s take on Turandot by Puccini. Here’s my retelling of the plot of this in a few paragraphs.

Act 1: We open on a young dude getting beheaded for failing to answer the three riddles of Turandot correctly in his bid to marry her. A prince in the crowd runs into his blind and long-deposed king/father and the father’s servant, Liu. Not much is said about this random coincidence or what caused them to be apart so long. The prince sees Turandot in the distance and falls in love. He decides to ring the gong to take on the three riddles despite pretty much everyone in existence saying not to.

Act 2: Three ministers talk about how they miss their homelands and how many people have died from this crazy ass riddle thing. The prince answers the three riddles correctly, but it turns out Turandot is a crazy bitch who doesn’t want to marry because of something someone did to her ancestor 1000 years ago or something. So despite having killed several dozen people with her riddles, she doesn’t want to play by the rules SHE SET UP. The prince says OK, if you can tell me my name by dawn, I’ll submit to death.

Act 3: Turandot has ordered no one to sleep and that EVERYONE will die if the prince’s name is not discovered. The prince, still in love with this crazy ass bitch who is killing people left and right in order to find someone who knows his name, sings one of the most recognized songs in Opera.

Turandot finds the prince’s father and Liu, and starts torturing the fuck out of Liu to get the name. Liu sings a killer song, then slices the shit out of her own throat rather than reveal the name and dies. The prince sees this and STILL WANTS TO FUCKING MARRY TURANDOT!! The prince sings another song to Turandot and reveals his name to her. And then, out of pretty much nowhere, Turandot accepts his love and decides OK, lets do this thing, while you know, everyone is still walking around in the blood of Liu, because she is FUCKING NUTS and I’m sure in two years, the prince is going to severely regret his decision. The end.

So the love story leaves much to be desired, which makes sense after discovering that Puccini died before he was able to finish the thing. Critics agree with this view of the bat-shit craziness of the main character as well, I find out, and feel a bit better that I wasn’t missing something.

Despite the drawbacks of the actual story, the opera was still incredibly moving. The stage used a series of circular elements, steps dripping with the blood of former suitors, grimicaing heads on poles in the air. The costumes were absolutley stunning.

I got misty a few times in the third act, mostly with Liu’s part, and it’s hard to listen to Nessun Dorma and not get a bit misty cause something about it cuts to the fuckin core of human souls even before ever reading a translation.

Wife and I enjoyed pre-ordered champaign and big gingers during the two intermissions, looking out at Rice Park and the Landmark where we got married. It was a magical night at the Ordway, surrounded by people all gussied up, some even wearing opera gloves and tuxes. Me, I was wearing my new beige duds that make me look like a nice retiree in Florida ready for a game of canasta. Wife was stunning as always.

Two blocks away, people were beating eachother up on the ice during the Wild game.

Time on the weekend always gets away from us, and since we barely got to the theater in time for the show, we hadn’t eaten before. It was now 10:30 and we were hungry. What better way to top off a night at the opera than hitting Taco Bell. I improvized a song for wife while driving the half hour back to our neighborhood Taco Bell and waiting in the drive through line already 4 deep.

This is to the tune of Abba’s Take a Chance on Me.

T-t-taco Bell, T-t-taco Bell, T-t-taco Bell, T-t-taco bell.

When the bars are closed,
And you need tacos,
Go where we all go,
T-t-taco Bell.

It’s all in the shell,
And your farts will smell,
But you need to go,
To T-t-taco Bell.

As for the Minnesota Opera, we're now planning on going to two shows next year. 

I Hate Toddlers/Review of More Real at MIA

If there is one thing you should do before going to an art show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, it is this: Check their schedule for kid events.

If there is an event for kids, such as Sunday’s Rock the Cradle with 89.3 The Current, DO NOT GO. You can be sure that every 2 year old in the metro area will be there.

You will find this out when you get to the museum after backroading through south Minneapolis because the GPS decides you need to visit every pothole in Minnesota on your way there. You will begin a spiral shaped pattern of driving around the museum in ever widening circles and narrow streets as you search hopelessly for a parking space. “Surely this street will have openings,” you think. “Parents wouldn’t want to walk their 2 year old in this cold for half a mile.” But you would be wrong.

Finally, you find a spot seven blocks away in a neighborhood that has several run-down apartment buildings daring the laws of gravity and good taste.

You walk the seven blocks in dampness, each step screaming “this better be worth it.”

Kids are everywhere as you get closer. Without wife along, as she was feeling sick, you start to stick out as the only tall guy, wearing a black coat and hat, without a kid hanging off a limb. You begin to feel as pedophiley and suspicious as a guy with a van and candy at a playground. But dammit, you’d punt a kid if you weren’t surrounded and actually rather terrified they might turn on you. And you have the lingering knowledge that if you have a sudden poop attack, there will be kids in each fucking stall in the place to make your life more miserable.

You begin to have conversations with these parents in your head. One-sided conversations where you pretty much yell at them.

“What the hell do you think your kid is getting out of this? Every kid here is about 2. Two! They don’t even understand the concept of fucking TIME yet, but you think you can force culture on them and they’ll get something useful out of it. Like the four cardboard tubes they tied together with string that they are carrying around like a fucking badge of genius rather than the worst craft project known to man? I can understand if your kids were 8 or so. At least then they can discern the concept that other people in the world think different thoughts than them, and they might actually remember what they saw today a month from now. You fucking liberal douchebag parents want to cram your 2 year olds into the genius class and want to grab on to the fact that your kid spent two seconds looking at a piece of art that they might just be the next Picasso or some shit. I hate you. This much.”

That’s the conversation I had while walking behind a mother who was letting her 2 year old walk up the stairs in front of me all by herself. I had a lot of time to think. 2 year olds are shit at climbing stairs.

I got up the stairs and dodged and weaved my way to the More Real show. I knew that there would be solace there, because tickets to get into this exhibit are 14 bucks, unlike the free rest of the museum. 14 bucks is a small price to pay to get away from munchkin land.

The full name of the exhibit is MO/RE/AL: Art in the Age of Truthiness. They already have a 300 or so page souvenir book about it you can buy for 40 bucks at the gift shop. Ugh. Also the site just linked to has more annoying gifs than a geocities refugee center.

If you don’t know what truthiness is by now, here you go.

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The idea of art as a lie that gets to the truth is an old one. I’m a fan of unreliable narrators and metafiction, but the pieces here did not impress like the collection at the Real Life show, which used a lot of the same thematic organizing devices, yet managed to group the pieces in more useful and digestible clusters.

Unlike the other shows I’ve been to at the MIA and the Walker, I had a lot of trouble getting into this one. The first three rooms, in fact, were a bit of a bummer and I was wondering if I could get my money back if I left early enough. Compared to the Sports Show and the Until Now shows at MIA and the Real Life show at the Walker, this exhibit was sparse. Most rooms had one or two artists, sometimes just one or two works to examine. It makes you jealous of MoMA visitors who have a chance to see Tilda Swinton in a box. 

I turned around a bit on the experience when I got to the “Phantom Truck” by Inigo Manglano-Oralle. This piece takes up the largest room in the wing, so much so you wonder how they got it in there. The whole room is dark, like photo-room dark, with little more than the exit sign illuminating anything. Out of the darkness you can make out the vague massive shape of an open top semi trailer with big, boxy and air-compressor shaped equipment loaded and strapped down. It’s rather menacing, and for good reason, since it is based on the idea of the chemical weapons trucks that were supposedly our reason to invade Iraq.

You wanna feel bad about your fellow social internet surfers? Like, shit we are doomed bad? You can check out this piece called “NoFun” Two artists decided to use Chat Roulette (You can go there anyway if you need to feel like we’re doomed) and put up a hanged body. People laugh about it, even though nothing about the scene looks fake. Out of the many people who saw the scene, one called the cops.

Another point of interest was Vik Muniz’ “Verso” pieces. A Rembrandt hangs on the wall, but around the room are other paintings, leaning up against the wall so you can only see the backs. On the backs, there are mailing labels to say what they are “Starry Night” or “American Gothic” and where they have been. The idea here is to give the museum goer a look at the story of the life of the painting, where it has been, which is typically only seen by the museum staff. I think this is where I get a bit perturbed by this.

The act of recreation here is impressive, don't get me wrong. Obsession like that usually is. However, pointing out to me that there are other stories behind great works, that they go to different museums, is about the least insightful thing you could say about artwork. I know that they keep making commentary tracks for movies, but I quit listening to them years ago after the point where they all pretty much say the same damn things and you aren’t really going to learn anything new about the movie business that you really cared to know. Exception: Anchorman commentary – it’s like another hilarious movie. Back to the Verso pieces, this insight isn’t even as good as a commentary track about how people got along in the making of the movie or which scene was shot first. It’s the intellectual equivalent of telling me that the book I’m reading was shipped to a Barnes and Noble once.

Much more interesting, and in the same meta-fictional realm of the backward paintings, was the nearby room showing a 10 minute film by Eve Sussman called “89 Seconds at Alcazar.” The film is a recreation and behind the scenes look at the minutes before and after the scene depicted in “Las Meninas” by Diego Velazquez. Here’s that painting, which I’m sure you’ve seen:

What’s so interesting in this one shot scene is the constant fluid motion of the people involved, the intricate costumes recreated from the painting, the way everyone eventually lines up, and the fact that Peter fuckin Dinklage is in a dress! And it’s way more interesting and says more about the piece it’s commenting upon then the back of a painting. There’s also a bit with a dog.

At the risk of apples to oranges comparisoning: here’s a list of novels concerning nature of mixing fiction/art/life that you will get more out of than spending time on the same subjects at this gallery:

Atonement

Lolita

The Neverending Story

The White Hotel

The French Lieutenant’s Woman

Emotional Gut Punch at the Minneapolis Photo Center

Today I went to the Minneapolis Photo Center because a friend of mine, Dan Koeck, had a couple photos in one of the three exhibits they opened up yesterday.

I'm planning to write more eloquently about the exhibit to see if I can't get my foot in the door at one of the magazines in town that cover such things. Tonight though, I'm still trying to come to terms with what I saw and how it affected me to the point where I just had to leave the building, go back to my car, and cry it out.

First exhibit:

Mark Seliger, a former Rolling Stones photographer who has probably shot your favorite photos of bands and actors, has a book out of the same name as the exhibit. The poster is a bit misleading, since the other 20 or so photos are portraits of Holocaust survivors, and most of those seen out of context don't scream Holocaust survivor. Take this picture for example: 

What was tough about the exhibit wasn't so much the photos as the quotes from the interviews. I don't have a copy of the book, so I don't know how they got these people to give such mind-blowing quotes, but I would be reading along and come across emotional gut punches that turned any preconceptions I had into dust. "The day we received the tattoos was a good day for us; we had received them as if they were passports for life."  

"Sometimes people ask, "Did it make you a stronger person?" I don't think suffering makes you strong." 

One sole survivor of her family talks about leaving her mother in the bunk, knowing she would be dead when she returned, how she escaped and moved to New York. "I never discussed the Holocaust with my husband." 

Another: "I find that the best ones went, and we who survived are the worst. My father and brother could never survive, not even a day. They were fine, sensitive, idealistic."  This same person discusses suicidal thoughts after the war. "I gave myself a year. I told myself that, if I could make a human being out of myself, I would continue. And if not ..." 

Those three dots still bring the tears to the surface. 

Holy fucking shitballs, I was glad to be the only person in the exhibit, reading these stories, writing down the quotes that suckerpunched me. 

Then, in the hallway, the second exhibit. The theme and name is "The Human Condition: A Survey of Humanity" 

So after reading the stories of Holocaust survivors, I was taken through a wide array of photos showing the best and worst humanity has to offer, the joyous and the depressing, the weird and the amazing. Here's the winner of this show, titled "My Father, Pensive" 

And it just makes you want to fucking wrap yourself up in puppy kisses and orphan dreams cause I see myself, too, sitting there in 40 years wondering what the hell's next. 

Another photo had me creating a hell of a story for two little girls and the state of their lives when this is where they live: Check it out here. They apparently live in those mini-tubs? Shit, man. 

And this one, the second place winner, must be seen in person. It's called Before the Briss, and the lighting is just unreal. 

So, after being primed with Holocaust survivors and then washing through decades of photos that detail atrocities and triumphs of the human soul since then, (more here), you come to the third exhibit, Photographer Doug Knutson's portraits of Nobel Peace Prize winners. 

Now, you'd think after the raw nerve scrubbing of the past two galleries, that portraits of nice people would be just the thing to help salve the open wounds of your soul. Not so. 

Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, The Dalai Lama and others look right at you, in you, and you can see their goodness and feel how you pale in comparison, and you finally can't hold it back any longer and have to leave to go back to your car and back to your wife who is in her fourth day of sickness but getting better, and back to your life of personal and interpersonal struggles. It's a cold day. The first layer of snow sticks to the pavement in this rather dismal, industrial section of north Minneapolis. Winter is coming, and we're all going to need some emotional super-juicing to get through it. The exhibits run through Jan. 4, so go see them. 

The Lexington Makes Wife Forget Her Shitty Job for A Magical Night

It's hard to shake off a horrible week at work sometimes, and Saturday was no different for the wife. She spent the morning in a familiar pit of "When the fuck will one of my resumes hit and get me out of this horrible job?" Her pit has the added benefit of mice and bats. She used a microphone at a meeting to tell the entire staff and administration about the mice and bats that live with her. The next day, there was a box of mouse traps in her office.

It's hard not to think it was a prank, rather than a really lazy custodian's way of dealing with the issue.

But we had plans, and I was able to talk her out of the pit to take a short nap before one of the best nights out we've had since moving here.

First, we drove over to St. Paul to the block where they filmed Grumpy Old Men. The three houses were nestled into a block with beautiful trees. The colors in Plymouth are absolutely the best I've seen anywhere in years. Seems that fall is always a bunch of yellow trees that lose their leaves with the first stiff wind. This year, with the drought, the leaves are all sorts of reds and oranges and yellows. Everywhere you look, it's like the label on an Oktoberfest bottle.

Our next stop, Fitzgerald Theatre for the Prairie Home Companion. Wife has always wanted to go to this. We had tickets for the top corner of the top balcony, which is vertigo inducing. After I walked back down to get a couple drinks, whiskey for me for some reason, and rum and diet for the wife, I walked the five million steps back to the top. The last few steps before I got to my row, I seriously wondered if my legs would give way while trying to tip toe down the row to my seat. I made it though.

The Minnesota Opera opened the show, and got us both misty eyed even though we had no idea what they were singing. It was a wonderful evening of music and drama, but the thing that oddly enough got to me the most was the program notes about the show.

After the show, we went to The Lexington, where we had our groom's dinner last December but hadn't been since. That was a serious mistake, because their food was amazing. We started the dinner with some Old Fashioneds, which were whiskey central and took one sip for the wife to get a bit loopy.

I'm good at making steaks. They look weird, but they taste better than anything I have had in a restaurant, so I don't get steaks. I got the seafood linguine, which was excellent, particularly the whitefish part of it. Wife kept reading about their steaks though, and took her chances on a steak, medium rare.

I swear, they must age their meat in a room filled with shamans and Buddhist monks who do nothing but put out positive energy, then douse the steaks in angel tears and Care Bear blood because holy Jebus Wife's steak was incredible. Absolutely incredible.

We then got this Wellington thing for desert on the house brought out by our awesome goddess of a waitress. It was a pastry wrapped around a brownie, marshmallow and melted chocolate and even though I don't care for chocolate I would sacrifice my future children for this desert maker to live with us and make us deliciousness every day. We topped it all off with some Irish coffees and called it a night.

A night out at the ballpark becomes a deathtrap

We were spoiled by the RedHawks. There isn’t much more to it. But our evening trying to capture that summer joy of being at a ballgame with the St. Paul Saints quickly became a disaster, filled with danger.

Wife had bought tickets through Groupon, which meant we had to pick them up at the window on Thursday, the opening day for the Saints. This was our first game with them, the first of many we planned. The RedHawks had been a staple of our summers. We’d come to enjoy each player’s quirks, and mourned when they moved on or were traded away.

First thing is parking. For literally two miles along the road the field is on, people are parking along the street. Luckily, there are a few lots close by, and we coughed up 6 bucks to park there, in a field of grass.

We made our way to Midway Stadium, at 5:50. They don’t open the gates until an hour before first pitch, so we had some time to stand there and look around. There’s a sign that says that stadium waves are not allowed at Midway. “Do they hate fun?” I said. “Maybe” Wife said.

Finally we get through the turnstyles built for 10 year old beanpole kids, and start heading to our seats. We end up in the next to last row on the far right field side of the main bleachers. Bleachers? Yes, these seats are silver colored metal steel bleachers (with back rails at least). We’d grown used to nice, cool, plastic fold down chairs with cup holders, like adults use. I can’t imagine these seats are any sort of comfortable in the heat of mid-summer.

At this point, I was daunted a bit. I can’t say I was undaunted anymore. I'm plussed. We puffed our way to the seats. I tried to make the best of it by taking our remaining 32 bucks and get some food. I got a brat and a pulled pork sandwich and two beers for 18.50. The food was good, even better than similar fare at the RedHawks, even if the price was more. I also can’t get over the $12 per seat at this stadium for bleachers in the hot sun high above the stadium. RedHawks were $8 and you could sit right by the on-deck batter as he warmed up.

So now it’s still early. The announcer is testing his mic, and it isn’t going well for him. His station is a fold out table on top of the hometeam dugout. This mic is picking up parts of words here and there, which could be a problem when it comes time to announce a player named Hiscock. After 10 minutes of “mic check” and trying to get through his script and failing miserably, someone goes out to the stage behind the pitchers mound to grab the mic from there. This mic is the only working one in the stadium.

I decide to go get some more food with our remaining money. There are no hot peanuts, my wife’s favorite game food. But they have regular. I get myself a big pretzel, which is my favorite game food. I also try to get some soda, but can’t figure out why they don’t have anything. It’s three bucks a bottle, and all I can see is RC cola and 7up. I leave without soda.

The teams are announced, then the Governor is there, and the Mayor, and all these military people. They wait for the mic to be delivered back to the stage on the field. It’s military night at the ballpark, and they play a video that reduces wife to tears because her best friend is in Afghanistan, and she resents the team for playing so heavily on emotions. The mic is run out to the podium, where the speeches begin.

The pretzel is the worst. The absolute worst I’ve ever had. It was stale as hell, as if it had been waiting since last season. Oh my lord was it aweful. It’s hard to describe how bad it was. My unborn children’s children will carry the stain of this pretzel on their souls. And yet I ate nearly all of it because we had almost no money left and it was going to be a long game. We agreed for me to take the last 6 bucks and get to bottles of soda.

I’m done listening to speeches. It’s now 7:15 and the game isn’t even close to starting.

Turns out that RC and 7up are the major brands of pop at Midway. I get two bottles of Hawaiian Punch and head back up to the seats.

Before I get there, Wife is coming down the stairs. “Let’s go” she says, as if she can hear my battered psyche breaking its nails on the stone walls of this prison well of an experience. I love her. She’s never left a game early except for once, at the RedHawks one July 4 when it was so hot I was turning pale and vomity. Even then it took 5 innings.

This time, we weren’t even going to make it to first pitch, which was now 20 minutes behind schedule.

We walk to the car and start to drive home. “You know, when I got up to leave, the people next to me wouldn’t let me through,” wife says. “What?” “I asked to get through, and they said no.” “Seriously?” “No shitting.” “That’s ridiculous.” “Yeah. Fuck the Saints and their fans.”

Then about the time we get into Minneapolis on 94, the car sounds like something fell off the back end. What the fuck?

We pull over as soon as possible, with each bump making this horrible death rattle. I find a parking lot and get out to look under the car. Nothing is hanging on the ground, everything seems OK. I try to wiggle the muffler, but it’s steady. Now we have a car that runs, but feels like a death trap, and we are in downtown Minneapolis, ten miles from home. We get back on the road, and start driving. The gas is on the last eighth of a tank. So at least when we blow up, there won’t be a lot of fire.

Every bump on the road becomes a new reason for my heart to stop beating. The car clangs away in staccato triplets. Chung chung chung. Chung chung chung.

We make it through half way of downtown when we get to a stop light on Nicollete, and there’s a fucking race going on. A bunch of runners take off and we have to wait for the cops to let us through. Mental math on the state of the car tells me that it wouldn’t handle the cobblestone streets I would have to go on to get to 55, so I get on interstate 394. Going 40. Cars honking, piiiiiissed off, wanting us dead. I go north on 100 to get onto 55. Again, every single bump is another nail in our coffin. Wife is crying at this point. My first paycheck arrives tomorrow, and we may already lose it to the car. “Things will never be good for us.” She says. Part of me wonders if it is true.

We get home an hour after leaving the game. I’m exhausted. The sun is going down. Wife uses the last of her credit card to order pizza. She ends up spending the night throwing up in the bathroom.

Our groupon gives us two more tickets. We will give them another shot, only because the game is with the RedHawks, and they’ll need support to get through playing at this devil field.