The Wake

I could not have possibly known how intensely introverted I am without going to Coffman Memorial Union at lunchtime. I used to know just how much of a self-conscious ball of anxiety I was, but I thought I had changed since the fourth grade.I had some time between classes the other day so I decided to go chow on my old favorite: Einstein Bros. puff of delight called the chocolate chip muffin. Last semester I devoured the chocolaty mess—eventually transporting the entire napkin dispenser to my table—twice a week between classes.“What can I get you?” the employee asked.“Banana …

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“Indians get screwed, again!” Not by whites, but by ourselves! Sometimes I think we are our own worse enemies. Although Pawlenty did not create the division, he has certainly has taken advantage of the tremendous disparity between the haves and the have-nots. He has created a win- loose situation. Guess who’s the winner? Not the Indians! The northern reservations with the largest native population have nothing. On the other hand, the smallest reservations in the south have great wealth. You would think after centuries of “divide-and-conquer” practices, we would have learned. …

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Hacking flesh, a dense and labored sound. A machete is raised into the air. Silhouetted in the light, the blade is coated with blood, hair and tiny pieces of flesh baked on from hours in the hot African sun. As it comes whipping down there is a shrill cry. The blade penetrates perhaps below the shoulder, wedging itself so deep that it requires a quick jerk to release it. Rarely does the machete do the job on the first blow. Again the knife is raised and lowered, but this time it hits bone, like nails along a chalkboard. It is …

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There are bad thrillers and there are good thrillers. And then there are good thrillers that manage to be socially relevant at the same time. I’m very pleased to tell you that “The Interpreter” falls into the last category.A Secret Service agent (Sean Penn) is assigned to investigate when a U.N. interpreter (Nicole Kidman) overhears a plot to assassinate the president of a fictional African nation. Is the plot coming from a rival from his country looking to change the power structure? Or is there more involved? The current president is accused of the genocidal killing of his own people, …

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At a time when pharmacies are akin to candy stores, appealing to those sent by their shrinks to help cure any and all ailments from anxiety disorders to Zoloft addictions, and the majority of teens getting high are doing so with the help of their parents’ prescriptions, “What the Bleep Do We Know?” searches for answers to life’s problems in other ways than pill-popping. Director William Anrtz’s first film focuses on issues surrounding existentialism and why we are the way we are. The part-documentary, part-fictional drama, part-animation genre mix promises that this film is one of the more original ones …

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Photographer Angie Buckley has warped the space-time continuum in her show “The In-Between,” now at the Larson Art Gallery in the St. Paul Student Center. Buckley takes the photographic past and brings it to the present, while manipulating the faces and spaces that make social and ethnic backgrounds. Buckley uses atypical techniques to bring social identities to the forefront of art. The gelatin silver prints play with scale and composition, as well as reality. For example, in “Blending” the portraits of two young men hover in the foreground of the New York cityscape. The viewer can see the buildings and …

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Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai’s 1991 film “Days of Being Wild” is set in 1960, but 2005 audiences will relate to the characters’ longing for intimacy when the movie hits the Oak Street screen next week.“Days of Being Wild” follows charming but irresponsible York through his courtships with two unfortunate women and his resentful relationship with his adoptive mother who refuses to reveal the identity of his birth parents.York’s dissatisfaction with life is a virus that infects everyone he meets. He finds Su Lizhen, a pretty and quiet young woman, minding the counter at her sleepy concession-stand job. But …

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Bodies swayed with a trance-like rhythm at First Avenue on April 17 as Medeski Martin and Wood collectively jammed their way into a frenzy. MMW like to test the boundaries of jazz and funk, walking a tightrope of music and noise, and they never fail to deliver a spectacular show. Playing a venue like First Ave. allowed the trio to reiterate the fact that they craft a good groove like no one else.With his Hammond organ, electric piano, synthesizers and baby grand Steinway, John Medeski has a wide palette of sounds to show off his talents. Drummer Billy Martin …

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She strides the streets pounding
the ground with her feet.
Her arms are strong, waving taxis
to us with neon echoing off her.She wears her stripes like a cheetah,
sturdy and locked in her skin.
She hands me her coat
in her city, and I’m different.I wear her coat and I’m different.
I’m lost in Chinatown,
telling people I’m from Portland,
Olympia, Pittsburgh, Denver.
Start myself over with anyone who asks.I wear her coat and I’m different.
It’s heavy. The cotton gets inside me,
changes my skin to something stronger.

You were asleep, and I lay on the couch beside you, staring at you, my brain trying to comprehend that I loved you. And for some reason I thought of a day three years ago, before I ever meet you. It was the last summer that my friends and I all lived in the town where we were raised. It was after our first year away at different universities. In church one day, Charlie saw Ahsley, still in high school, and wanted her. That was one of the last times I ever went to my parent’s church.Later in the summer, …

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What would you do if I was hurt?
What would you do if the perpetrators believed I didn’t suffer while I was in agony?
If you could stop this pain, would you?What would you say if someone told you I was just property?
What would you do if I was wrongly imprisoned?
If you could free me, would you?How would you feel if you saw me ripped away from my mother’s side after birth?
How would you feel if I was forcefully raped?
Would you worry about me?What would you do if you saw somebody mutilate my body?
What would …

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if revenge is a rite of passage i need you dead
just as i am dead inside you
the night bleeding like a wound
listen you don’t recognize me eyes wild as rice
bloody fingers shaped like claws at your delicate neck
our pulses thumping mutually to some ancient rhythm
my wounds are scarred tainted black and bubbly with infection
your wounds are healed with tender loving care and perfection
flawless mirrored version of me i am
ripping through precious arteries and veins
and meat and chewy fat just to get at you
damned heart pumping with wild abandon …

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