The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

I was so thrilled by this afternoon's sunshine and 30-degree weather, I took a stroll through Loring Park. It was mostly deserted. But as I rounded the northwest edge, I could have sworn I saw one of the members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers smoking a cigarette outside Nick and Eddie. So I walked over to investigate.

It is an established fact that we human beings want what we cannot have. When exorbitantly priced iPhones hit the market—already in limited supply—people line up at 2 a.m. And by telling a couple they are not allowed to have sex for a week, therapists say they can cause even the most uninterested spouse to churn with desire.

So it is with absinthe, the drink preferred by Ernest Hemingway, Vincent Van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, which supposedly drove each of them crazy and was outlawed in the United States in 1912.

It is a firmly established fact about human beings that we want what we cannot have. Once stores run out of Furbees or fetal Cabbage Patch babies or giggling Elmos, suddenly every mother's child must have one. When exorbitantly-priced iPhones hit the market already in limited supply, people line up at 2 a.m. I've heard this is even a paradigm used by sex therapists: by telling even a couple they are not allowed to have sex for a week, experts say they can get even the most disinterested spouse to churn with desire.