Andrew Stark
Minnesota Mild: North to Bemidji
How do I write about something normal? This is the challenge at hand. In my professional career, I’ve rubbed latex elbows at the Bondesque Rubber Ball USA Fetish Party; attempted to down a pint at every brewery in Los Angeles County in a single day; made contact with Hazel, the long-dead daughter of Ralph and…
The Pride of Minneapolis – In Conversation with Nur-D
Nur-D is the musical personification of Minneapolis-based activist Matt Allen, who routinely drops fun-in-the-sun bangers, party rock with heart, anthemic singles with a message. Allen himself seems inexhaustible, a songwriting and performing machine, engined by the love for and from his fans. His energy is electric, his mission inspired. He is, in short, a hell…
Beer Thirty at Three Twenty – On Writing and Beer (And Writing About Beer)
Writing is not fun, and anybody who claims otherwise is merely stringing words together. Dave Eggers, in his introduction to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, attested that, among the 1,067 pages, “there is not one lazy sentence.” The poet Joe Millar told me over drinks in Portland one night that “writing is work; it’s like roofing…
Getaway Cabins – Be Kind, Unwind
This little getaway couldn’t have come at a more welcome time. Pardon the metaphor right off the bat, but the fault line of my life has shifted, creating a new topography, new crests and valleys, what seems like a new world. And, at 39, I finally feel like I’m standing at the precipice of a…
Dark Bunny – We Only Come Out at Night
Dark Bunny is a vibe. Their music stings like a hit of nostalgia, sweeping, lush, hazy, filled with epic flourishes and mood; introspective jams for the lovesick, -lorn, -less. Think Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine—something beyond flimsy descriptors: Mazzy Star sharing a rehearsal space with Tamaryn and something else is born, a melting together of sound, style,…
MidModMen+friends – Make Like the Phoenix and Rise Anew
People who shop at MidModMen+friends in Saint Anthony Park know what they’re doing. They furnish and decorate their living spaces with intention, a curatorial flair. This sofa’s a stunner, that walnut table lamp an objet d’art. The bedroom becomes a refuge, the living room a showroom. It isn’t just about feeling stylish and cool in…
From the Editor- Currently Vibing
I want to take a brief step away from what’s become my typical format for these letters, and discuss a little bit about what I’m feeling/vibing/loving right now. 2021 was a tough year (like really, really tough, personally and universally), but there were definitely highlights. I’ve discussed music in some of my pieces before, but…
Iliana and Anna Regan: Milkweed Inn – These Trees Dream in Technicolor
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a wild place, rivaled in its wildness—in my personal experience, if we’re talking North America—by the Canadian Yukon and Alaska. The U.P. is Ernest Hemingway’s turf, Jim Harrison’s (who both seemed to favor the central U.P., which is largely wooded and flat and desolate, especially as US-2 meanders through Blaney Park…
From the Editor: Sports!
Let me apologize in advance. Most sports, especially football, are white noise to me. Ostensibly, yes, I get the camaraderie and togetherness, the fellow feeling among fans that their team is winning, which is of course representative of something larger within each spectator—the illusion of victory. But I simply cannot remain upright during a football…
From the Editor: Reinterpreting Rejection
I was having absinthe with a friend recently, at Estelle in Saint Paul, talking music. This particular friend has an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure hip-hop, soul, funk, and pulls no punches when it comes to my own musical endeavors (it’s apparently cooler to like Aesop Rock over A$AP Rocky, etc.). He had a date that…
