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Withering Glance: 'North by Northwest,' Ruth Bader Ginsburg and more things we love

February 13, 2015 at 8:23PM

Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in the 1959 movie “North by Northwest,” directed by Alfred Hitchcock. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

CP: Let me start small: I love those new thingies one uses to clean between one's teeth.

RN: You've lost me.

CP: They are like tiny bottle brushes — a boon to dental care on a global scale.

RN: Oh, we're doing a things-we-love litany. OK. I'll go with "Seth Speaks," Seth Rudetsky's fabulous show tunes talk-a-thon on the SiriusXM Broadway channel.

CP: Watch out, other drivers, if Rick is tuned to show tunes on his car radio. We all know how you lose yourself.

RN: It's not as if I'm texting. My eyes remain on the road as I belt.

CP: Perhaps more important, I am pleased to read that the Supreme Court, led by non-liberal Chief Justice John Roberts, is likely to let gay marriage go nationwide.

RN: Well, don't count your decisions before they're written. We won't know until June. But I'll happily add the national treasure that is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to my love-love-love list.

CP: Besides granting equal protection, there may be an added benefit: making smoke billow from the ears of Mr. Huckabee.

RN: Three cheers to the person who downloaded the current season of "Downton Abbey" on YouTube. You're my new best friend for life, whoever you are.

CP: Really? Haven't watched that in two seasons. I loved the movies "Selma" and "Mr. Turner."

RN: Ellsworth Kelly's "Double Curve" in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Snowplow drivers. Lynne Rossetto Kasper.

CP: The fact that French artist Jean Dubuffet worked as an armed forces meteorologist in the 1920s, stationed atop the Eiffel Tower.

RN: That first thrilling glimpse of Lake Superior from Interstate 35 as you descend the hill into Duluth.

CP: The new seats at the Uptown and St. Anthony Main movie houses, although these remodels do rob us of about half our usual stock of complaints.

RN: The restoration of the Pillsbury A Mill. The Toccata from Charles-Marie Widor's Symphony for Organ No. 5 in F Minor.

CP: Ginger snaps, by the bag. Deschutes Inversion IPA. The airport charter terminal.

RN: The vast and altogether glorious beer hall at Surly Brewing Co. The sudsy gay love triangle on the otherwise unwatchable "Days of Our Lives." Artist Robert Smart's fantastic sculptural contribution to Sheridan Veterans Memorial Park in northeast Minneapolis.

CP: Travel writer Lawrence Osborne's novels: "The Forgiven" and "The Ballad of a Small Player."

RN: The moment in "North by Northwest" when Cary Grant asks Eva Marie Saint, "How does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?" Actually, all of "North by Northwest."

CP: Getting a TSA stamp on my boarding pass. John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig on Broadway. Waking up, with no alarm, and having no immediate idea what time it is.

RN: Ditto, to all of the above.

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com

Twitter: @claudepeck and @RickNelsonStrib