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

In case you haven't heard, The Rake recently published a Guide Book to the Twin Cities. So far, we've sold a couple thousand copies, including a few to some of the Republican Convention delegates. Actually, we don't have any way of knowing that for sure, but we surmise that at least a couple of them might have seen it in the book stores and were getting tired of hotel food.

Note to "media types:" Your power by using sexual innuedno to get the "prized audience" isn't working so well...anymore!

I have been spending a lot of time lately doing research on what people read and why. There are a few important areas that seem to bug the future of this country and the ones who will ultimately be the ones to make or break the disastrous state of our economy.

First of all, kids, for the most part, are honest about everything. They are informed, sometimes too much, and can smell a phony from miles away.

Photos by Denis Jeong

Back in January, I submitted a blog called Sex and the Fat Man that was about my forthcoming novel in which a large hero has a lot of quality sex and fesenjoon -- the dish over which he and the lady with whom he has all that great sex fall in love.

Sex is the great equalizer, for does not the rich man conduct his doggy-style in much the same way as the poor man? Granted, the rich man conducts his to the tune of $5,000 per night while the poor man's might've cost him a bottle of Strawberry Hill at the liquor store down the block, but in the end, both situations result in guttural noises and a tattered web of ego-salving lies.

I learned again last week that any blog, book, or article with the word "sex" in the title will be read. Not that this was news to me. But it's a lesson that was reinforced by our nifty Popular Today list, which proved that sex sells better than anything except basketball. Which, when you think about it, is an interesting commentary. . . .

I’m feeling very married these days. More than when I stood in front of the judge, more than when I opened a joint checking or co-signed a mortgage. And even more than when I drove away from the hospital with our first child.

While my marriage has seen its share of compromise, we’re on the brink of its biggest conciliation to date. We’re moving for my husband’s career – to Duluth.

So how was JesusChristmas for you all here in the United States? I have been away over the holidays but I have not been wasting time.

Au contraire.

You see I have been busily working in France test driving cars that most people can only dream about. Cars even hotter than France's new President's bride to be (a former supermodel, shamelessly so). I've included a shot of the F40 I picked up in front of the Ritz on the Place Vendome'. This is the Ferrari that everyone wants due to its umitigated brutality (the last full car designed by the Holy Devil himself.)

So. I was at the Jewish Community Center on Christmas Day — along with what appeared to be every other fitness-minded non-Christian in the western metro — on the elliptical trainer, reading Self magazine, when I ran across an article entitled The Great Sex Diet. And out of a deep sense of professional responsibility, I read.

So, maybe by now you have seen Lars and the Real Girl. It’s a comedy set in Minnesota and the title character, Lars Lindstrom, is the sort of Norwegian bachelor Garrison Keillor never mentions. You see, Lars is a social misfit who sends away for an anatomically correct sex doll, falls in love with it, and begins bringing it along on visits to relatives and out to dinner.