Stompin’ at the Loft and the Dakota — Jazz and Poetry

My friend John Gaterud and his daughter Abbey have created Blueroad Press, and their newest offering, Stompin’ At The Grand Terrace, is being celebrated tonight at The Loft in Minneapolis and Sunday at the Dakota, also in Minneapolis.
If you need a break from baseball or from the shock of cold weather — I could see [...]

Ann Coulter Gets Roughed Up On the Right

Ann Coulter offends me on so many different levels it’s almost impossible to know where to begin.  Because of my feelings in this area, I have tried to ignore Ms. Coulter and in so doing deny her the one thing she absolutely needs to survive: attention. Like other forms of bacteria, Ms. Coulter can live [...]

John Updike’s Reputation, Overshadowing Better Writers

John Updike died this week, and his passing was marked by a front-page New York Times article and two full pages inside. That treatment is indicative of what is, in my humble opinion, his inflated reputation.
I loved reading the early Updike. His stories about a marriage breakup, the Maples stories, collected in a little volume [...]

Driftless

Apparently Christmas is coming up pretty soon. If you’re looking for a gift to give someone, or something to ask for, consider a wonderful novel from Minneapolis’s Milkweed Editions — Driftless, by David Rhodes.
Reading Driftless, I had a weird assemblage of writers come to mind — a little like the bar scene from Star Wars. [...]

Do You Doodle Like A President?

Probably.
The other night I was wandering the stacks of a discount bookstore when I spotted a book simply titled Presidential Doodles (text and introduction by David Greenberg. Basic Books, New York. 2006).
Presidential doodles. Somehow, I’d missed this. OK, I thought. I’ll bite.
Turns out, you can judge this book by its cover. It’s a collection of, [...]