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

America's shoppers, determined to single-handedly drag the U.S. economy forth from its dark and lonely apartment before it's found, wrists slit, in a warm bath with a hastily scrawled suicide note containing shitty poetry, had a field day on Black Friday.

I don’t mind shopping malls, really. But I intend to avoid them this Black Friday, not to stave off those bouts of claustrophobia, but to procure a series of gifts that are either high-quality second-hand or awfully, awfully special. Here’s the action plan (a working document):