The Wake

Guys, is there anything more singularly terrifying than the possibility of some unexplained ailment in your favorite area? Such feelings could cause one to propose a question: What’s worse, a splintering pain rocketing through your nads every five minutes, or having to explain this feeling—with visual aids—to some estranged nurse in a cold doctor’s office between classes?Once I was staying at my sister’s house in Oregon, and in the shower there was a laminated poster that described how women should perform monthly breast exams. It had cartoon pictures similar to those of airplane exit strategy cards: bland, thoughtless faces angled …

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For a limited time, McDonald’s is offering a guide for a healthy, exercise-filled lifestyle with the new Go Active! Happy Meal for adults. Instead of getting a toy, however, McDonald’s is offering a virtual personal trainer. The meal includes any Premium Salad, a Dasani® water or medium or larger drink and one of four 15 minute exercise DVDs from Yourself!Fitness featuring Maya, the virtual personal trainer. The offer is part of a campaign launched in May 2004 called the McDonald’s Go Active! American Challenge. But 15 minutes might not be enough, since many of the salads offered are not …

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Our quest began bright and early on a Sunday in May. The goal: find a perfect hang out spot to drink high quality, made-on-the-spot microbrew. Our team consisted of three; Rob Fisk, co-founder and charter member of the University of Minnesota Homebrewing Club, chef Leair Caudle of Kincaid’s restaurant in St. Paul (as well as an Oktoberfest veteran) and myself. After many hours, countless empty glasses, and one middle-aged male admirer, we’re prepared to declare our choice for local favorites.We started at Great Waters Brewing Company in downtown St. Paul. The bartender knew nothing about beer—he even claimed that we …

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Ol’ Dirty Bastard blasted through the speakers as I walked into MC Frontalot’s 21-plus show on May 28. To my left, a stuffed dear head occupied the center of a small stage, while around me was a sea of guys in ponytails and glasses, who seemed less concerned with looking tough than making sure the Galaga arcade machine stayed occupied. This was not a typical hip-hop crowd, but it gave a look into the scene that Nerdcore is beginning to create.A man in his 20s who occupies himself with “Dungeons and Dragons” rarely conjures up thoughts of a hip-hop emcee. …

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As I drove into North Minneapolis I saw four people standing on each corner of the ramps to Highway 52, holding signs on a 100-degree afternoon that read, “Homeless. Please help.” Four blocks down is the intersection of Emerson Avenue and West Broadway, a throughway where cars sit impatiently at lights and pedestrians walk by broken-down buildings. The intersection hinges three Minneapolis neighborhoods: Jordan, Hawthorne and Near-North. The vast majority of their population is minorities, with somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of families that fall below the poverty line—a rate more than double Minneapolis’ average.Amid the decay and desolation …

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There are a lot of questions and distractions when two lovers star in a movie together. Interest in the actual plot is often discarded, replaced instead by an insatiable curiosity over whether the leads can communicate their private chemistry to public audiences, and whether these tensions will float the ship—or sink it.Matthew Barney, the writer and director of Drawing Restraint 9, probably meant to inspire deeper interpretations amongst his audience than just a display of romance with his longtime off-screen partner Björk. The man responsible for the sprawling, nightmarishly surreal Cremaster Cycle film series never did have a flair for …

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The bands that have emerged from Montreal obscurity in the past few years have damn near created their own genre. The Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Belle Orchestre, The Lovely Feathers— and they all to possess a sound that is consistently big and always building.. Though somewhat thieved from the Byrnes and Bowies before them, the sound is still undeniably epic in that chase - after - your - estranged - lover - in - an - airport - before - they - board - a - plane sort of way.Sunset Rubdown (arguably the frontrunner for best band name), is …

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After months spent hibernating inside, isn’t it time to get out? Summertime in
Minneapolis brings with it innumerable events and activities—truly, something
for everyone, if only you know where to look. Luckily for you, we’ve done the
work, so get the lowdown with our calendar.Thu, June 8
Boy Least Likely To w/ Bicycles @ Varsity TheaterSat, June 10
Brother and Sister scavenger hunt showThu, June 15
Dykes Do Drag @ Bryant-Lake BowlSat, June 17-18
Stone Arch Festival of the Arts @ Stone Arch BridgeSun, June 18
Battle of the Underage Underground @ First AvenueThu, June 22
Enemy Entropist @ …

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By now you’ve probably heard the name, now it’s time to face the music. Only a completely nonsensical moniker like Gnarls Barkley could be responsible for the scatterbrained perfection that is St. Elsewhere (Downtown/Atlantic). Is it hip-hop? Gospel? Funk? Doesn’t matter—classify it simply as your next party record.Gnarls Barkley is the pet project of the oft muumuu-clad, Goodie Mob crooner Cee-Lo Green, and wunderkind DJ Danger Mouse. The unlikely duo make music like a manic preacher praising heaven’s bad-ass beats. Nearly three years in the making, St. Elsewhere is a well-tuned catastrophe, sprinkled with schizophrenic confections that tackle feng …

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When Keats states this epic line in “Ode to a Grecian Urn” he is demonstrating the power of literature; something that is taken for granted in our society. In this quote, Keats is announcing the ability of the image-poem-lie to speak a truth more powerful than the truth itself. The writer of today looks upon poetry as a way to “vent”, as if its greatest power lies in the personal. All the memoirs and self indulgent poetry take up the majority of our literature. Why? Is it because people are now incapable of thinking about what they are reading or …

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I Started To Write Poetry Again
By Molly WickOne bored night in a hot sticky flat
On a small, strange island
Between reality and a dream
Between Africa and a immense expanse of nothing but wind and water
Underneath a cosmic ceiling of pinhole stars and shooting boots
I started to write poetry again
Because here there is nothing else but
Beach and sun and salty air and salty water
And also the people with their coffee skin and ebony hair
Husky bon soir’s on the street and crow’s-feet eyes with a twinkle
Women in stunning …

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For the Copilot
by Travis HetmanI wish I had a passenger seat on my bicycle
No handle bars for you but a view
Just the same to be shared like an icicle
On the ground with the rest of the dewGoggles and pilot caps to wear on head
No bandanas but we’d have style
Just the same to be shared like bread
On jam, in the spring, meanwhileWe will race the wind
But before it can beginWith welding and hammer, pails and nails
In a dirty garage filled with a mess
I’ll build you the box car hoping it …

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Crimson
By Benjamin FaltesekCarelessly caring, mindlessly sharing,
I went through meetings never meant to meet
While, through capillators thoughtless bearing,
Our minds bead on anti-absorbent sheets.How now brown cow? too true blue moo she said
To you and I as we lay fitful dying.
His throat and wrists ran crimson as he bled,
Departed, and never thought of crying.Trying to put conjecture into verse
Goes easier with a little liquor,
But the headache next morning makes it worse
And shows better goes not always quicker.Quicker to go by gas, they told him blithely,
Shut their doors and argued when …

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A young man was on the phone and engaged in a heated fight with his girlfriend outside in the stairwell. Obscenities were screamed, curses were muttered, under-the breath-threats were offered and countered. And then…a faint beep. A meep really, to tell the truth. The hormonal young man had hung up on the words of the offending female. For the eavesdropper in the next room, this climax of the young lovers’ angst was terribly anti-climactic. The second meep through the wall indicated the temperamental young man to be equally unsatisfied as he pushed buttons in anger. But instead of inspiring images …

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In what could very well be considered a cruelly inhumane joke on the part of UofM Housing and Residential Life, every year thousands of helpless incoming freshmen are thrust into the psychotic roommates, horrible music, abysmal food, and binge drinking-fueled vomiting. Join us for a dorm-by-dorm analysis of the good, the bad, and the ugly of living in the university’s much-maligned student housing.Bailey
By Amy Fink
If you prefer the quiet life and having big, strong horse legs, Bailey is the residence for you. Located atop a hill on the west edge of the St. Paul campus, Bailey is …

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