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In a beastly world, beauty is precious
I recently found myself in one of these modern hotel ballrooms, the Bougie kind of space that half the population never sees unless they are paid to clean it. Amid a roiling sea of business chatter I looked up at the ceiling the way a sailor might note the moon through a gap in storm…
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Notes from the basement
The world seems awash with news and events I’d have blogged about in recent years. Mining industry scuttlebutt. Duluth fighter jets shooting down UFOs. Fortunately, some other writers are on the job, including Jerry Burnes and Leah Ryan of the new Iron Range Today. It was no surprise that former State Sen. Tom Bakk signed…
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Get wise to the age
I tend not to subscribe to doom and gloom. Even as real world problems stack up, I know from history and experience that humans remain a crafty species, capable of adapting to all sorts of hardships. But there is one area where I think we struggle more than we know. As we humans grind through…
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Shoulda, coulda, woulda
It’s tempting to imagine alternate realities. We hear talk of the “multiverse,” a philosophical theory suggesting that infinite parallel universes exist, one for every imaginable outcome. The animated show “Rick and Morty” explores the multiverse with hilarious nihilism. But that’s not the only place we dabble in the multiverse. You don’t have to be well…
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Grading on a curve
When our boys were younger we went on vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We took them to one of those old timey Gold Mine attractions where they got to pan for real gold in authentic local sludge from a nearby creek. The tour guide told us we could keep any gold we…
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Bass-booming dinos warn against historical assumptions
People have an odd relationship with time. The future, as imagined, seems dreadful. Can’t believe how bad it will be, especially for other people, doubly so for the children. Maybe our children, but especially other people’s children. Those little bastards really have it coming. The past, meanwhile, was ideal. Don’t you remember how it used…
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Return to suffering
This isn’t the sports page, so I hesitate to talk about sports. Not everyone scorches time tracking the intricacies of professional athletics. There are more important things in the world, such as gambling and Netflix. But I think everyone understands the nature of disappointment and suffering. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ve all stared…
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The old roads are rapidly agin’
Today you can read my latest column for the Minnesota Reformer. Don’t tell anyone, but there’s a Bible verse etched above one of the entry doors to the Mesabi East High School in Aurora, Minnesota. It reads, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18). Though the biblical meaning is distinctly conformist and…
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The future comes free in 2023
“Grey’s Anatomy” is a lie, I tell myself. There is nothing less sexy than an actual hospital. Soiled linens. Tubes pumping who knows what into heaven knows where. Some patients gasp for life; others whine for a better breakfast. Beleaguered staff members might collapse in a heap were it not for the slurry of adrenaline…
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‘Gaslight,’ ‘denier’ top words for 2022; no, really!
If an abuser can’t control their partner, they might instead try to control their reality. To control reality is the ultimate power, one easily exploited in the wrong hands. So it can’t possibly be a good sign that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists “gaslight” as its 2022 word of the year. Nor can we be any…
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MinnesotaBrown’s Top Posts of 2022
↔ Another year has come and gone, and what reason — what good reason — could I give you to look back at my written work of 2022? Are we not awash in such tripe? Is there no end to the vainglory that impels the propagation of a “website” run by a “newspaper columnist”? Well,…
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For the unmerry on Christmas
As Dec. 25 approaches, regional writers of my ilk begin searching for whimsical ways to describe a Christmas holiday that so dominates America’s public calendar. In previous years I’ve penned stories about my kids, shared my own Christmas memories or tried my hand at holiday farce. Obviously not everybody celebrates Christmas in the religious sense,…
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The true stories and lasting injustices of ‘the noble experiment’
United States history remembers the period between 1920 and 1933 as Prohibition. During these years the U.S. Constitution barred the production and sale of alcohol. Historically speaking, thirteen years is neither a short time nor a long time. It’s an aberrant generation, frozen in time. Prohibition became the only constitutional amendment to be repealed. This…
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Season of the long nights
I’ve been seeing a lot of cable television ads for motion-detecting LED lights. Apparently, we all desperately need to flood our yards with torrents of photons upon even the slightest provocation. Consider the homeowner’s greatest known threats, a garden-lusting rabbit or a bumbling potential thief (wearing a tight fitting knit cap so you KNOW he’s…
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Those fabulous electrical thinking machines
We know the philodendron as a pleasant, low-maintenance plant suitable for shady gardens and indoor display. But have you ever wondered what it could do with a machete? Now we don’t have to guess. Visual artist David Bowen recently rigged some sensors to read the natural electrical impulses of a plant, in this case our…