Month: December 2005

  • Christmas Eve

    Those soft, colored lights that make such a comfortable compromise –almost a real peace– with the darkness. The shiny glass bulbs and talismans that have the power to both cradle light and build tiny fires from memories that are almost lost. The warmth from those fires is powerful out of all proportion: a window, a…

  • The Santa On Sixth Street

    —Irwin Norling My grandfather played Santa Claus for more than twenty years, purely, I liked to believe, out of the goodness of his heart. His annual ritual was completely a volunteer effort and a solo undertaking. This was in a small town in the Midwest, and every November my grandfather would build a tiny candy-striped…

  • Vulcanized Rubber: Nine Lives of Modano

    I seem to have worked out the losing streak, in that I can watch the Wild now and they can win. But I don’t seem to be able to see it through to the end. Three games in a row now–Boston, Montreal, and Dallas–have had quirks of one kind or another. In the middle of…

  • A horse is a horse, of course, of course

    This is a mule This is an ass. Know the difference. Not that Pawlenty’s screed against illegal immigrants left much doubt about the Republican position on what to do with them, but in case there was any lingering uncertainty, State House Speaker Steve (The Hammer) Swiggum weighed in today on the matter in an op-ed…

  • A Brief Inventory At Five A.M.

    There were increasingly more mysteries than he could get his head around. The puzzle of texture, pattern, and repetition. The idiot wonder prompted by even the most prosaic mosaic or randomly occurring stain. Prompts, responses, and resolute silences from the interior continent. Sounds of no clear origin. Desires of no clear etc. Desires. Desire. The…

  • Love of Country

    Sure, Minnesota’s not the Old West, but we do have plenty of cattle, and some prairie, too. Nor are steel-toed boots, Wranglers, and Stetsons a rarity—it’s just that cool cowboy duds became a bona fide fashion trend once hipsters began putting them on with an ironic touch. These days, Western gear can be spotted at…