The Wake

March 3rd – Zep fans will rejoice and the spirits of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones will rock in full glory as the Minnesota Orchestra performs the music of Led Zeppelin at the Target Center. Whether or not the entire orchestra has been sentenced to an eternity in hell for playing devil’s music is yet to be determined. But we do know that this is not the first time that orchestra members are letting their hair loose, so to speak. The one-night-only, March 3rd show is actually an encore in response to enthusiastic feedback from …

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The English language had no way to articulate the kind of immeasurable human suffering of WWII that can dismantle an entire people. We said “never again.” But in fact, it is happening again -Africa, and again the United States is unable and unwilling to act; unable to prevent genocide. Maybe it’s because the American public cannot face a crisis in which men are being slaughtered while their families look on, while their wives are being raped by man after man after man. Maybe it’s too unimaginable for us to do anything more than shake our heads while reading the World …

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Who: Terry McAuliffe
What: Author discusses ‘What a Party.’
When: Wed, Feb. 7th, 7:00 pm. FREE
Where: University of Minnesota Bookstore (Coffman Memorial Union)Who: Ray Suarez
What: The senior PBS correspondent discusses ‘The Holy Vote.’
When: Thu, Feb 8th, 7:00 pm. FREE; tickets required. Call 651.696.6203.
Where: Macalester College
1600 Grand Ave, St. Paul; 651.696.6000Who: Nuruddin Farah
What: Author discusses his writing
When: Thu, Feb. 8th, 7:00 pm. FREE
Where: The Loft Literary Center
1011 Washington Ave S, Ste 200 (Open Book), Mpls; 612.215.2575Who: Writers of Color Reading: Julie Bates; Jessica Lopez Lyman
What: Authors read from …

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Standing at the bus stop, I scratch at my chin,
feel rough stubble growing.
my sweat smells like cigarettes.A mantra runs through my head, A poem fueled
by alcohol and late nights sanitizing, purifying my thoughts:
:
I take it all back,
It bein’ The Fear
I’ll mail you the change.I’m told of an old man,
He smells of antibacterial soap and war stories.
He is going back to Energy soon.
Decades of stress leave the old man’s face
visibly every day, every time he exhales
the wrinkles smooth out and ancient toxins hiss into the air, …

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A basement room in Ford Hall was filled with a crowd of people who looked like they would be attending a talk about transgender rights. By this, of course, I mean people like me had gathered to hear Consolidating the Gendered Citizen: Trans Survival, Bureaucratic Power, and the War on Terror, a lecture put on by the Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies Department. The tattooed and pierced and poorly dressed bleeding hearts of the University of Minnesota had shown up full force, and it made me sad that the wrong people were going to hear the right message. It had …

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On Monday, January 22, Associate Professor Erika Lee of History held a lecture and discussion in the Elmer L. Andersen Library on the West Bank about transnational methodologies and how this cultural shift played a vital role in the response to Asian migration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The lecture, called “The ‘Yellow Peril’ in the Americas: A Transnational History of Asian Immigration and Exclusion,” was one of a series of seminars sponsored by the Immigration History Research Center. The seminars are open to all students and, according to Lee, tend to attract a diverse …

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Thrust into a world of complete independence, we first-year students have reacted in a number of ways. No longer under the watchful eye of our parents and guardians, we were forced to step out of our comfort zones, and into a world of fresh faces and new obstacles. Twelve freshmen were selected through application to document their first semesters as freshman at the University of Minnesota. Through photography and journaling, these students captured this time of personal discovery, uncertainty, and stress. Would they fold under the pressures of increased workload? Could they survive the sheer size and population of the …

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Every weekend all over the country, if you know where to look, you can find a motley assortment of warriors preparing for battle in brightly colored arenas. As the seconds count down, plans are made, equipment is checked and cleats are dug into the turf. When the horn blows, it’s high noon at the OK Corral. It’s Pearl Harbor, Rorke’s Drift, the Battle of the Bulge. In less than a minute, several thousand projectiles fill the air.Paintball, with over 9.8 million players around the globe, is the third largest extreme sport in the world behind in-line skating and skateboarding. Paintball …

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