Withering Glance: Riding the rails from one Twin City to the other

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

CP: Field trip!

RN: Look, Ma, we're on public transit, and we're loving every minute.

CP: The LRT Green Line has a monster at either end, one horrifying, one spectacular.

RN: There are so many architectural possibilities here.

CP: I refer to the new Vikings stadium in the west, which no enlightened observer can describe as beautiful, and the spiffed-up State Capitol in the east.

RN: The Green Line offers some pretty spectacular moving-sidewalk-superintendent views of Fleet Farm Field. That's my hoped-for name for the Minnesota Multi-Purpose Stadium, anyway. Scarily, its sinister scale recalls The Machine from the 1997 Jodie Foster sci-fi flick "Contact." As for the House of Cass Gilbert in St. Paul, Hello, gorgeous.

RN: Dreadful. The 1960s and '70s were not kind to the Saintly City streetscape. As we pass by the Soviet-style mishaps that are Town Square and the former Macy's, my eyes are screaming, "It burns! It burns!"

CP: There are great parts here — such as the parks Rice and Mears — but they aren't visible from the railcar route. Speaking of Cass Gilbert …

RN: … we just whizzed past Mr. G's gracious Endicott Building. Forget this Green Line nonsense — this billion-dollar baby should have been christened the Gilbert Line.

CP: The architectural glamour spots are more or less overwhelmed, however, by long stretches of University Avenue dotted with one-story pawnshops, nondescript bars, one-man insurance agencies, Thai restaurants, storefront churches and at least 15 tire shops. OMG, what happened to that Embers where I met my first gaggle of after-bar drag queens?

RN: It has been renovated beyond recognition. Every so often a gem pops out on University. There's the fabulous art deco Old Home Foods building at Western Avenue, and the Louis Sullivan-like Chittenden and Eastman building at Raymond Avenue. Both are living second lives as housing. How great is that?

RN: Agreed. How about this ride? It's as smooth as a shave with a Gillette Fusion ProGlide Power Razor. So unlike the lurch-fest that is the commuter bus I recently started taking to the office.

CP: Here we are, whizzing past Minnesota Public Radio on the specially rubberized rails, so as not to rattle "Morning Edition."

RN: Shhhhhh, you'll interrupt Cathy Wurzer. Should we lunch at the ultra-fabulous Surly? It's a few blocks off the Westgate stop.

CP: Are you kidding? Two pints of draft Furious is my idea of a perfect way to start an afternoon back at the office. (Bosses: Kidding.)

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com