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Archive for 2006

Pinning The Competition

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The Gopher Wrestling team has been upsetting opponents throughout the season and during the process they have become ranked No. 1 in the nation. But before the Gophers could take down opponents on the mats, they had to win in the gym. The success of the Gopher wrestling team is due in part to excellent training. Thus, it seemed fitting to talk to one of the strength and conditioning coaches for the Gophers team. Also, with spring break approaching, I figured I might be able to gain a few workout pointers. When I asked Kevin Roberts, assistant coach and the …


My Hybrid Will Break My Tax

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A lot of people would love to save money and help the environment at the same time. Anyone who has ever considered going vegan, thought about buying a hybrid vehicle, or had to pay to recycle knows that thriftiness and earth-friendliness are not always compatible. Wouldn’t a little incentive be nice?Last year our government agreed on a set of rules regarding energy policy in the United States in an attempt to combat the growing energy crisis. Like many other components of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, this year the Hybrid Tax Credit has gone into effect. The small “Alternative …


Bragging Like the Bonobos

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A light wisp of golden sunlight has broken the concentration of a lovely dream. She wakes slowly, yellow crust still in her eyes. With careful ease, she lowers her hand and rubs tight circles around her nipples. She fondles the silky, long brown hair on her breast and dives south to release an early morning onslaught. Dressed in only a fresh glow of orgasm, she rises and greets her mother with a quick genital fondle. She heads out, dry humps a palm tree and is ready to face the day: to take on the world, to fight for her rights …


The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Toast

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The Guthrie Theater is an eclectic institution chock-full of thespian magic and musical genius. When they hosted Leigh Fondakowski’s The Peoples’ Temple, they threw a little arsenic-laced Kool-Aid into the mix, too. The play centers on The Peoples’ Temple cult led by Pentecostal preacher Jim Jones that ended in a mass suicide in Guyana, South America in the early ’70s. It was written to mark the 25th anniversary of “Jonestown,” as the event is called. Fondakowski based the play on actual interviews with relatives of those who died in Jonestown, journalists, scholars and public officials. The story is told through …


Sincerity and Rock Comes From Apparently Nothing

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At first it was hard for me to figure out what it was I found appealing about Apparently Nothing’s new album Sprawl as I listened to it in my car. The lyrics are serious, the hooks are catchy and the production is clean, but something beyond that was motivating me from one song to the next. At last, the answer arrived to me somewhere around track four. As I glanced down at the back of the CD case—while trying my best to stay on the right side of the road—I noticed that I was listening to a song called “Reason …


Match–Point–Beer

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Not unlike Ron Burgundy, the new Woody Allen movie Match Point is apparently kind of a big deal. While at the time of this article it’s only playing in a handful of theaters around the metro area, the matinee showing I attended was packed to nearly the last seat. I was forced to take a second row seat after spending at least ten minutes trying to find a parking spot. I never imagined myself being so uncomfortably close to Scarlett Johansson.In a very convoluted nutshell, Irish lad Chris (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a former tennis pro who ends up courting …


Vashti Bunyan - Lookaftering

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It is remarkable that history and hype did not completely smother as delicate an album as Vashti Bunyan’s Lookaftering (Fat Cat/DiChristina). A sophomore release 35 years in the making, it follows her 1970 debut Just Another Diamond Day. Her first album’s inability to be pigeonholed led to its initial rejection, though it earned Bunyan a cult following. Fast forward to the current folk revolution, where we have this humble, nurturing earth mama rubbing elbows with emulators Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, all while being hailed as one of the finest artists of 2005.Even more surprising is that Lookaftering …


Is the Oak Street Closing?

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Issac Gale opened the doors to the Oak Street Cinema on Jan. 20, 2006. He also started making popcorn in the broken machine, sold tickets in the box office, and ran the movie projector. Gale was the only one working at the early show that night. Usually there are two or three volunteers helping him out. Some of the volunteers have been with the Oak Street since it opened, about ten years ago.“Since I started here, I’ve had to deal with a situation where people constantly think you’re going under,” said Gale, who has worked at the Oak Street for …


Art: A Dish Best Served Cold?

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Ice fishing: the sport of catching fish with hooks and lines through an opening in the ice. To some, yes. To others “ice fishing” means gathering on a frozen lake in January to participate in the annual Art Shanty Projects. Over 30 artists and artist teams helped create this unique public art exhibition on Medicine Lake this winter. The Art Shanty Projects, presented by the Soap Factory and funded in part by the McKnight Foundation, is an eclectic collection of works described as “part art gallery, part residency, and part sculpture park.” It’s hard to believe that what began in …


Livening Up Russian Literature

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History can be drab, but not when it’s in the hands of Robert Alexander, author of The Kitchen Boy. Through the eyes of a servant, Alexander paints the final days of the Romanov family before their secret murders that lead to the Russian revolution. Alexander humanizes the facts to create an enthralling book that addresses the mysterious nature of Nicholas and Alexandra’s fall from power. As a local writer, Alexander lives in Minneapolis and has spent nearly 30 years traveling and studying in Russia. He will be reading and discussing The Kitchen Boy as well as his other book, Rasputin’s …


Molestation of Love

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The mark of a virgin
Blush
Downward glance
Men would look greedily
Fingernails
Deep in palm A former priest, John J. Geoghan, went on trial in Middlesex Superior Court this week on charges of molesting a 10-year-old boy in 1991. He has been accused of molesting more than 130 boys during the three decades he served in Boston-area parishes.Love: noun
1. an intense feeling of tender affection and compassion
2. a passionate feeling of romantic desire and sexual attraction
verb
1. vti to feel tender affection for somebody, for example, a close relative or friend, or for something such as …


At Last…Home Sweet Home

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Move-in weekend. After a few semi-awkward calls to new roommates, plenty of shopping, a whole summer spent thinking about college, and long drives in stuffed cars, thousands of energetic freshmen arrive on campus, eager to fill their tiny rooms and meet everyone on the floor. But what happens when, instead of a permanent space in a residential hall, you are granted a “temporary housing space” in the expanded housing program? For a number of University students, this meant that they experienced their own “extra” move-in weekends just a couple of weeks ago. As much of a hassle as it …


Traffic Jam

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Imagine you are a student in the very near future. You wake up one morning, log on to your computer and make a reservation. You then walk several blocks, bypassing the congested traffic on Washington Avenue, the hordes of students, some carrying large grocery bags or towing heavy backpacks, waiting for any of the number of buses that serve the area, and even some bicyclists who plow through the snow banks wrapped in scarves and coats. You come to a car parked at the Washington Avenue ramp at Union Street, wave a keycard over the windshield to unlock it, start …


Everyone, Meet the West Bank

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For many, heading to the West Bank is not the most exciting part of the day - whether we bike, walk or hastily thrust ourselves onto overcrowded Campus Connectors to make it over the river. But while we press on through the slush or in a bus packed tight with fellow students, do we appreciate where we are headed? How many of us really know the West Bank, its neighbors or their cultures?For the past month a tribute to the West Bank community has been housed in the Elmer L. Andersen Library: “Community/University: Students Explore West Bank History.” The exhibit, …


The Super Bowl Is Over The Hill

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The Super Bowl turns forty this year and what better way to celebrate, than with a halftime show featuring The Rolling Stones, a band that’s been rockin’ for over forty years. In terms of on the field action, The Wake will show trends from the past and apply them to this year’s match up between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks. The HistoryTo understand what will likely happen in this year’s game, it is necessary to look at the past. Historically, the NFC has had a slight edge over the AFC, winning 21 of the 39 Super Bowls. However, …



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