Sorry to hear about The Rake--it was generally a good read.

Brian, I've enjoyed your writing, and your politics, since you were with one of the daily papers. Snark on.

LAMBERT: Yeah, i take no pleasure in this. Thanks for the kind words.

I loved The Rake. Never paid attention to the publication date so I just checked the stands every time I passed them. It gave me a "happy" moment each time a new edition came out.

Very sorry to see it go . . .

LAMBERT: What I liked was that it was unashamedly aimed at people who enjoy reading -- something the dailies have ignored at their peril. There's an interesting publishing debate to be had over choices The Rake made along the way. It was, I argue, much too heavily "polished" when it might have been livelier and more entertaining had it given more leash to idiosyncratic writers. But, it wasn't junk. It demonstrated respect for adults with a wide range of interests.

I am really saddened by this. Your last paragraph nailed it straight on. I thought they struggled to create a niche, as opposed to filling one, but then your last paragraph indicates there is indeed a hole that will continue to need to be filled. I generally loved The Rake and looked forward to it each month. It helped me discover not only your writing but after greatly lamenting the defection of key City Pages scribes I found where some of them went and there were stories that were told that no one else had been doing for quite awhile. Especially the aforementioned CP (and their long-running downward quality spiral is another post!).

LAMBERT: Uh huh. Tom might be a bastard (and I say that in a good way) but he's a well-read bastard. He has an appreciation for nuanced arguments. (Remember those?) But the print model for something like The Rake is getting closer and closer to impossible. The upside comes when, as the majority of the reading public acclimates to on-line journalism, the print version of a literate alternative becomes pointless. The market isn't there yet.

It's a sad day when any alternative closes down. I was a huge fan of Metropolis (geez, I'm so old now I'm not even sure of the name anymore)in the late 70s-early 80s. Didn't it merge with Sweet Potato to become the Twin Cities Reader? Whatever. All I know is that the demise of a well-written periodical like The Rake makes the community a little more narrow and a lot more dull. Kudos, belatedly, for all their good work, including the fine recent story on Lowell Pickett.

I was truely saddened to get this information. I am currently a mis-placed Minnesotan stuck in a small town in the mountains of Colorado. The Rake was my connection to the electricity and social culture that the Twin Cities is best know for (unfortunately, the town that I am in is sorely lacking any culture beyond skiing, ranching and hunting). I am tickled to find out that my favorite culinary guide, Stephanie March, will be joining another publication so that the search for the new and exciting will continue. Farewell Rake.

Say what you will about the old bastard; he’s a publisher who has what it takes to survive. He and Kris had the toughness and tenacity to create hundreds of jobs and add richness to the MSP culture during their 30 years in the business.
As Tom’s former boss, we helped him set and wax his first columns of type for the fledgling Sweet Potato; we helped edit Marty Keller’s prose and get the pasteups out to the Young America plant.
Back in the 80’s,Tom introduced a rickety spreadsheet to the business and was proud of the way it dispassionately monitored the relationship of revenues to newshole, adding needed discipline to his rock and roll staff.
Tom and Kris have been rewarded with success, as they should be. There is no quit in them, shutting down the Rake is just a strategic retreat.
Stan Rolfsrud

LAMBERT: Whether they continue on in another form, or if Tom decides he'd rather call it quits and sample Spanish wine on the Costa del Sol, they've added to the town.

JEH:

"Skiing, hunting, and ranching" culture?

You're living Bertram Jr.'s dream!

I'll bet there ain't no Obama bumper stickers 'round there!

LAMBERT: There's something predatory about you.

Given the business trends in this profession, John Donne came to mind when I learned of The Rake's hard copy demise:

"Each [publication]'s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in [journalism].
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee."

But over at Mendicant Pauper Radio they use this sort of thing as fodder for pledge patter. Just the other morning, the pledge hosts were prattling on in affectedly sonorous tones about how many journalistic enterprises were struggling financially. "But we're fine here at MPR, as long you send the money." They went on to pat themselves on the back for not covering Britney Spears (unless, of course, you count WNYC's "On The Media," which did so quite intelligently).

Using your peers' financial and career misery as a sales tool to prime the pledge pump makes an already mawkish enterprise all the more insufferable.

Just the sort of behavior The Rake surely would have wittily pilloried.

LAMBERT: Have you copywrited, "Medicant Pauper Radio"?

A friend who has written for the Rake since its inception told me she was going to be paid $600 for every column. I found that hard to believe for any local publication, let alone a startup, but I also didn't know Tom Bartel. And as the Rake aspired to become the Twin Cities' version of the New Yorker, I watched the advertising base grow -- large, full-color ads certainly fetched the Rake a pretty penny (now that I'm at the Walker Art Center, I know how much we paid to advertise there) -- and I admitted to friends I was wrong about the magazine's long-term prospects.

Brian argues that something less polished (and, by extension, less expensive to print) might have survived, but that would conflict with the aesthetic Bartel/Henning probably saw as critical both to their own souls and to the magazine's bottom line. If you do get what you pay for (and if the opposite is also true), that accounts for the general consistency of quality the Rake delivered, and also why we're not likely to see another local publication like it -- online or off.

LAMBERT: By "polished" I was making an intentionally opaque criticism of The Rake's overly-fussing editing. Given that I am a troglodyte when it comes to structure and syntax please do consider the source. But I argue that a small cultural commentary magazine like The Rake needed a lighter hand on editing, not heavier. If you hire people for their voice and point of view ... let them deliver in their words, not yours. Moreover, the amount of staff time consumed with substituting their "six of one thing" for their writers' "half a dozen of another" seemed a little cost ineffective. But that is really just me.

Brian asks: "Have you copywrited, 'Medicant (sic) Pauper Radio'?" Nope. Feel free to use it, like that'll ever come up.

LAMBERT: Gary Eichten. In my bulls-eye.

Perhaps we ALL underestimated Clinton Collins.

Count me as one who never really "got" the Rake.

But then, I left the "city" several years back...

LAMBERT: And the city is richer for it.

Bertram, Jr.

Come on out! This is a place where men still beller "Woman! Get me my lunch!" and, I kid you not, that most of these women do! YIKES!

In this area, the intellect is mainly centered around bumperstickers that read:
"DOW (Divison of Wildlife - Similar to DNR in Minnesota)... the Evil Empire"
"So many prairie dogs... so little time"
"Honk if you're a redneck"

We're the coldest spot in Colorado and daily I hear, "It's so cold around here. There can't be nothing 'bout that global warming..." Hello, GLOBAL! These folks don't have a clue.

LAMBERT: And that makes those folks perfect for bertram.

I'm not sure I like your tone, Lambert.

LAMBERT: Well you can always turn back to Michael Savage.

Saddened to hear of The Rake's passing. I was the editor of another one of Tom's former properties, Tampa Bay Weekly, way back in 1988. Tom was commuting between Tampa and the Twin Cities, trying to manage alt-weeklies in both cities and it wasn't going well here in Florida. And he absolutely hated firing people, so I imagine laying off another staff gave him no pleasure. I share your experience of the two Toms -- he's very easy to hate some days, and on other days he's a great guy to shoot the bull with for hours on end. We've actually hung out several times in the years since and it's always been a pleasant memory. And I'll never forget the incredible opportunity he gave me as his Tampa editor in '88 -- although we eventually shuttered that paper, too. Good luck on whatever is next, Tom and Kris!

As someone who has owned a print property or two and worked at a number of magazines, newspapers and webzines--it's sad to see another one bite the dust. Yet, this is not unexpected. In fact, I always thought it would happen earlier, but then kept seeing newer advertisers and bigger issues--so I felt that maybe I had it wrong. Guess not. The magazine was stuck somewhere between artsy, smarmy, literal and laughable. It was always a bit intimidating for the majority of readers and eventually the competitors with their simpler (read: dumbed down) concepts won out. It's too bad, because most of the other stuff is unreadable crap. Except the Onion. It's readable crap.

I stopped reading the print version of The Rake a while ago, but rediscovered them online as you kept me up-to-date on my former boss and employers at the east side daily. I'm glad you escaped ahead of time and now keep me knee deep in the local media gossip I used to live. Kept it up, I'm sure we haven't heard the last from Tom and Kris--it's too hard to wash off the ink if it's flowing from your own veins.

LAMBERT: A year ago Tom claimed to be pleased with where the magazine was financially. But the market started rolling down hill pretty fast last summer. Having worked pretty hard to get where they are I have the feeling Kris and he had no desire to blow all their assets keeping this particular enterprise going ... and I don't blame them.