The Wake

Laura Gatz is a white female of average build, with brown hair and large eyes. She is standing in a black jacket next to a table in front of Coffman Union, next to an arch made out of red, white, and blue balloons. The table is staffed by several other students—white males—who are also wearing the appropriate clothing for an unusually mild November afternoon. I know that I am looking for a female named Laura, and since there is only one at the table I walk towards her with confidence. “Hi, I’m Jenny from The Wake, we spoke on the …

Read more →

In a recent Gallup poll, they found that twenty percent (that’s one in five) of Americans believe in witches.Fucking witches.I would’ve understood if something like 0.015 percent of Americans believed in people with supernatural powers and flying broomsticks and talking cats as I’m sure that 0.015 percent also has been hit in the head with baseball bats over and over again until they became very brain damaged and gullible at some point. I feel like twenty percent is an unacceptable number. There’s only a twelve percent difference in the number of people who believe in witches and the number of …

Read more →

Last year, I made plans to move out of the stifling dorms with my friends to the promised land of an apartment. In our heads danced ideas of swanky bachelor pads with wet bars that swung out from the wall at the push of a button, or living rooms torn from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. It was to be the most glorious home ever created, famous in its time among college students everywhere. They would blink their eyes in wonder as they wept for their own living arrangements. Friends, I am here to tell you that there …

Read more →

To those among us who enjoy a good old fashioned down and dirty rock show, you’d have been in for a real tasty treat had you made your way over to the 400 Bar on Nov. 1 or Nov. 2. Radio On, a free-wheelin’ rock band from Minneapolis, played for a packed house.. They opened for the band, The Heartless Bastards. The group, thanks in part to 400 Bar owner Tom Sullivan, has been sharpening their teeth at Twin Cities venues for a few years. Now it appears they have the catalog of songs and the live act to make …

Read more →

Often it is said figuratively that a business starts with a dream. For Steve Poreda and his Mystix juggling sticks, however, this was quite seriously the case. Poreda, also known as Mr. Fun, has a gift for getting people to try new things, and skill toyz, easy to learn but complicated enough to challenge, are just the things to get people to try.After graduating from Whittier College Poreda taught 6th grade in California and Maine before he realized he had found something he could teach better. “I knew that teaching was in me,” Poreda says, “but really out of …

Read more →

Imagine: evening, a large empty room. The pleasant smell of paint, woodchips, something else; the lonely twang of an electric bass rising through the wooden floorboards from the music studios downstairs. Jamie Schumacher, Altered Esthetics’ gallery director, begins to describe her vision for the upcoming videogame-inspired exhibition, “Level 13: Bonus Round,” and the empty room fills before your eyes. Pan around: See Pacman murals on the walls, a big projector for playing retro video games, a couch in the corner, a shag carpet, maybe some scattered checkered Vans sneakers—a perfect home for forty-something works of art which are, much like …

Read more →

Fairytale inspired reality last week when actress Katie Herron attempted to answer questions posed by Margery Williams’ Velveteen Rabbit, when the stuffed animal wonders: What is real? And does being real hurt? Through movement, math, music and monologue, Herron’s solo performance “Mirror, Mirror,” explored what it is to be real, what it is to be beautiful, what it is to be perfect, and what it is to struggle to find the balance. Holding a public mirror up to her own battles with perfection and media-enforced images of female beauty, Herron gave everyone in the Intermedia Arts crowd something to reflect …

Read more →

This gross thickening feeling
Collecting in my stomach
At my base,
I feel weighted down
She gives off a stifling musty air
Suffocating
My short little breaths
I do not want this
Pain in my legs
Below my waist
Tingle in my wrist
Disdain for my face
A reflection I can’t touch
A girl I couldn’t name
She swarms around me,
With her bony little fingers
Wrapped around my hair
Pulling back with ease
The strands slip through her fingers,
Coming out in clumps,
They fall loosely to the floor.
I stand abaist
Reflected in a frigid mirror,
Emotionless, cold…

Read more →

East, West are just words
Wind’s direction matters not
Lonesome traveller

Catharsis feels good
I bet you think that’s epic
But truth is, I’m fucked

Usually Dia de los Muertos, which translates to “day of the dead” in English, is a time to remember and honor lost loved ones, but this year the celebration was politically themed. The Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence, the Department of Chicano Studies and La Raza Student Cultural Center sponsored the event, which is very common in Mexico, and each built an altar devoted to democracy in an attempt to raise awareness for the concerns of the Chicano and Latino communities. “Historically the day of the dead is celebrated where those who have died come back,” says Michael Duenes, a …

Read more →

Usually, when Halloween weekend rolls around, the U of M campus becomes a ghost town. Students flock in the thousands to our eastern neighbor for the second biggest party in the country (besides Mardi Gras, of course). Madison has always complained of the costs out-of-towners cause the city in damages and clean-up, so this year they charged admission to the famed State Street in Madison, and to that students said: Forget it.According to a news release from the city, last year’s Halloween in Madison cost the city $600,000, mostly spent in public safety and clean-up.In order to cover the costs …

Read more →

Five hundred years ago, halfway across the world, the eternal flame of romantic love was fueled by poets and artists now forgotten by most. But professor Walter G. Andrews has devoted his career to letting these poets reshape his perceptions of this primal feeling.On Friday, Nov. 3, I tore across campus on my bike in hopes of making it to the Social Sciences Building’s Ford Room before noon to attend the presentation “Love, Gender, Poetry and Politics during the Ottoman (and European) Renaissance.” I succeeded, but upon entering the David Bowie-esque labyrinth of the 14-story West Bank building, I …

Read more →

Thursday November 2, the Anti-War Committee and Al-Madinah Cultural Center sponsored an event that hosted three local experts who spoke on U.S. conflict in the Middle East. Marie Braun, Ramla Bile and Jess Sundin offered insight into what the United States is doing in the Middle East and advocated a change in U.S. foreign policy with the Middle East, which includes an immediate end to occupation in Iraq. “Oil Arabs and War: Learn the truth about U.S. Policy in the Middle East,” was held in Blegen Hall on the University of Minnesota West Bank. The event sponsors hope to …

Read more →

“Our mission is to encourage, facilitate and support the involvement of University of Minnesota students and staff with disabilities in active recreation, exercise and sport,” says John Lukanen, president of the adaptive sports club. The University already offers a disabled student cultural center where students can go to socialize or study, providing learning opportunities for all students, ensuring an accessible environment and ultimately serving as a social area for disabled and non-disabled students. The new adaptive sports program takes that idea a step further and looks at a broad range of athletic activities. Lukanen’s mission is to bring an athletic …

Read more →