The Wake

Most people have heard the encouraging expression “count your blessings.” Well, for me, my number one blessing is my Grandma Barthel. With all due respect to my other grandmother, grandma Ceil, Cecilia Jeannette Barthel, is a blessing who’s been of great inspiration to me in innumerable measures.My college years have extended far beyond the timely ideal and financially appealing four-year-graduation plan. What began in 1998 at Bethel College in St. Paul will soon come to an end here at the U. And, while I cherish the many opportunities, experiences and memories these years have afforded me, I’ve definitely had several …

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In developing American society, around the emancipation of the slaves, there was a movement in popular entertainment to further oppress African Americans: blackface. The form of entertainment initially put burnt-cork makeup on a white performer to make him look black. Then, towards the turn of the twentieth century, even black performers themselves would put on blackface. A performer in blackface depicted African-American culture as disorganized, lustful, ignorant, savage and inferior to whites. Ultimately, the blackface image (along with Jim Crow, Plessey vs. Fergusson and the government forced end to Reconstruction) managed to repress the progression of the African-American race in …

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The 1 Second Film is a collaborative animation project that will literally be over before you can say, “One Mississippi.”The film, which lasts one second and is followed by 90 minutes of credits and a “making of” documentary, is financed by donations from thousands of producers who can buy a credit for as little as $1. Anyone from Kevin Bacon to your mom will be listed as producer. Additionally, to fulfill every movie maven’s wet dream, each producer’s name will be posted on www.imdb.com. The one-second animation is created with 12 giant frames that were painted simultaneously by hundreds of …

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Russ was doing his job, shoving rowdy fans back into the mosh pit to protect the camera guy. He didn’t even see it coming.A fist flew—thwack! Blood poured. His retina detached. Russ, part of the film crew, was helping local production company MarcusBrox Ideas shoot footage to create a documentary about the thriving music scene of the Twin Cities. The documentary, Find Your Own Way, debuted March 9 at the Varsity Theater, following performances by local bands Throw the Fight and Down and Above.In an orgy of stylish film work and raw amplification, co-directors Jason Brox and Tyler Marcus interviewed …

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The year is 2020. The world is in many ways different, and in many ways the same. Using fear and xenophobia, a totalitarian government similar in appearance and function to the Nazi party has taken over Britain. Personal freedoms are non-existent. Censorship and lies rule the government-controlled media outlets. This is the kind of place heroes were made for. However, the hero of this place is pretentious, deranged and not entirely moral. He’s like Batman with a better vocabulary and little regard for others. He also wears a Guy Fawkes mask (Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the British Parliament …

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A Perkins menu with none of the Perkins ambiance: This is the vibe given off by the Dinkytowner Café and More, located on 14th Avenue. With an all-day breakfast menu and reasonable prices, one would assume that this restaurant would be clean-cut and family-oriented. One should never assume. The Dinkytowner looks like a bar. In fact, it is a bar that moonlights as a café, and it would be hard to miss if it weren’t for the large yellow and black awning above its small door on 14th Avenue. To enter The Dinkytowner, you have to walk down a …

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The voices of incoming guests rose steadily at The Black Dog Cafe as my conversation with Nick Golfis turned towards the Chinese influence and delicate chaos of his work. Golfis, an employee at the Guthrie Theater, was joined by four other co-workers and artists in the inaugural showing of the recently created painting collective, G5 (Guthrie Five). Their work, while not uniformly themed, managed a unique balance of the artists’ skills and emphasis. There was Ben Olson’s large, color-soaked portraits with paint heaped onto faces and poses of torpor-laced expression. Hanging beside Olson’s work was the gentle atmospheric paintings of …

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When I first heard Chris Koza’s debut CD, Exit Pesce, I was blown away by the album’s consistency. It had the maturity of a well-planned record—something you don’t usually hear the first time around. His follow-up, titled Patterns, proves that the success of the first CD was more than just a fluke.It was only recently that local critics started paying attention to Koza’s music. Several months after its release, Exit Pesce began to get good reviews, and Koza was named Best New Artist of 2005 at the Minnesota Music Awards. “It’s no big deal to me,” he says. “I haven’t …

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It took me half an hour to find the cluttered practice space that Tapes ’n Tapes shares with the likes of Cowboy Curtis and Dave King in a run-down St. Paul building. The room is so littered with speakers, amps, guitar cases and old lamps that I can’t take one step without tripping over something. The walls are half-carpeted in an ugly red and smothered with posters advertising old shows by local artists such as Seymour Saves the World and Happy Apple. There are also a few vintage items, including a poster of Teem lemon-lime soda. The unkempt scene is …

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The members of Doomtree, a local hip-hop crew, have been ravaging the Minneapolis music scene for some time now. They have probably done more to get in touch, lyrically, with their listeners than even Atmosphere and the rest of the Rhymesayers.When I was given an opportunity to speak with one of Doomtree’s members, Dessa—a hardcore M.C. who is described on the crew’s website as the quiet, brainy member; but is in fact a well-spoken critical thinker and speaker—I couldn’t resist. The Wake: I know this is a generic question, but what are your influences, in terms of spoken word or …

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Two minutes until we measure a yesterday by the weight of wet sand beneath our feet. A white sky, white clouds, white raindrops, maybe a white sun if it ever appears. Wind-chapped grass awaits the lotion of raindrops. We mount one of the hills above the beach—it stretches for miles until it eclipses with that white horizon—and we stare at an ocean. The wind dribbles sugar-sand over our shoes; we sink a little.
One minute until we descend down the dunes, down into decades ago. But we stop awhile for reasons we don’t say. This canvas of saltwater before …

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After black student leaders took over Morrill Hall demanding better academic and student services in 1969, the department for African American and African studies was born. Almost 40 years later, on March 7, over 55 people gathered to discuss the past, present and future of the university’s departments of ethnic studies in the face of strategic positioning.At the “Transformative Education: Ethnic Studies for the 21st Century” forum, several undergraduate and graduate students raved about the university’s ethnic studies programs, before a panel of faculty and chairs voiced concerns about the future of the departments. “Ethnic studies can help the university …

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“Culturally sensitive housing” is a term that evokes both curiosity and skepticism from much of the university community. Interior design professor Tasoulla Hadjiyanni and her students aim to change that. “Building Ties: Culturally Sensitive Housing Designs for Hmong and Somali Refugees,” an exhibit of housing designs by Hadjiyanni’s students, runs until May 2 at the Hennepin History Museum. The drawings illustrate plans for affordable housing units that cater to the cultural needs of specific immigrant populations here in the Twin Cities. “Just having a roof over your head doesn’t mean you’re not homeless,” says Hadjiyanni, an immigrant herself. She wants …

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On a gray, cold day, anything on campus can look ugly. The brick buildings, the dirty grass in the mall or those rascally squirrels. But even on a sunny and bright spring day, the Science Classroom Building is still “the worst looking building in the universe,” as University President Bob Bruininks says of the white building found at end of the Washington Avenue Bridge on the East Bank campus. Thankfully, university students won’t have to tolerate the insufferable eyesore much longer—the building will be demolished and rebuilt to house a science teaching and student service center for chemistry and physics …

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David is a 20-year-old native of Switzerland and has been making his way via buses and trains from Las Vegas to San Francisco, but needs to be in Los Angeles in a couple of days to catch a flight back to Zurich. John, 21, is a philosophy major from Arizona State University Tempe who is sightseeing in San Francisco before heading to his father’s house, an hour and a half away. Phil is a recent Pharmacy graduate who found a job in San Francisco but not an apartment—as of yet. The one thing these three men have in common is …

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