Author: Sarah Askari

  • Specimen Days

    Boys will be there but your parents will not,” promised the summer camp brochures that came in winter’s mail like seed catalogs. There were pamphlets for marine biology camp in Florida, space camp in Alabama, and some sort of geology road trip called the Central Rocky Mountain Institute. “I hear scientific greatness calling me,” I…

  • Intro to Cubism

    The other day, the McNally Smith College of Music held a press conference to note the creation of a special scholarship in the name of producer, actor, and rapper Ice Cube. The school is housed in St. Paul’s old Science Museum building, and the feeling one has in its familiar corridors and public spaces is,…

  • Rake Appeal { Fashion

    Native Minnesotan women spend the majority of each year with their bodies covered from head to ankle out of environmental necessity. Somali women residing in Minnesota have a similar head-to-ankle requirement, although the practice of wearing a modesty-preserving veil, or hijab, has its roots in tradition rather than meteorology. Pitted one against the other: Which…

  • Dude, Don't Say "Bong"

    A hand-lettered, unprofessionally illustrated sign appeared in midsummer outside the university area’s Santana grocery. It said, “We Rent Hookahs.” Now, there are actually two small bodegas that bear the proud Santana name, and they are located within blocks of each other, where Interstate 35W crosses University Avenue and Fourth Street Southeast. But only one Santana…