The Wake

As spring semester gets underway, plans are being put together for this year’s installment of the University of Minnesota’s annual Spring Jam event, albeit with more tension and preparation this time around. The now-infamous Spring Jam 2009 proceeded as usual until riots broke out late Saturday, April 25, and continued into the next day. About 500 students took to the streets in Dinkytown on the 1300 and 1400 blocks of 7th Ave. Revelers set several fires, trashed houses and cars, and disrupted traffic throughout the area, resulting in a riot squad of more than 70 police officers descending on the …

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The State Legislature, which reconvened February 4, wants to change the way the state budget is balanced. Any bills that increase the deficit will be discarded immediately. Not only are they looking for bills to help solve the state budget, but they are also asking the people of Minnesota for ideas on how to solve the budget crisis.

In a move rarely seen before, the State Legislature will be taking up to six of the best reform and redesign ideas submitted by state residents and put them into a Citizen Redesign Bill that will receive a hearing before …

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As of press time, the Minneapolis City Council’s new “social host ordinance” simply awaits approval from Mayor R.T. Rybak to make it a misdemeanor to host gatherings where underage persons possess or consume alcohol. Whether that threat will actually affect the habits and safety of underage drinkers remains to be seen. One thing is for certain, however. Most students hate the idea.

“It’s not fair to anyone to make it so you are responsible for someone else’s choices,” Shana Conklin, a first-year law student, says. The …

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There were air canons and circuit-bent Gameboys. There was The Game of Life, a two dimensional cellular automaton (a computer program that makes calculations based on rules. When this program is run, it shows a visual representation of the calculations; it creates mathematical, abstract animation). There were guitars made out of cigar boxes, a life-sized version of the game operation, and a three dimensional printer. I was in a warehouse packed from the entrance to the exit with onlookers talking with DIY engineers about …

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When I was growing up, I thought that all babies came from the airport. Which was true, at least for me. I was born Jang Hye Ryeong on June 15, 1988, but Jessica Hobson was born at the airport on Dec. 16, 1988. The picture of a six-month-old child coming into the arms of her parents is one that hangs proudly in my parent’s home, indicating the start of our family. It’s as if I sprang to life at that moment, Athena-like. As Jessica, maybe I did begin a life there at the MSP airport when the social worker brought …

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My mother hates Jesus in the way some people hate George ‘dub-ya’ Bush. The world’s problems, even the most minute, are that person’s fault. While most ostentatious liberals of this generation would ignore all self responsibility and blame their two hour wait at the DMV on George W., my mother is the crazy (and don’t forget loud) lady cursing Jesus. In fact, if you like, and especially if you love Jesus, and just so happen to consider him your lord and savior, my mother probably hates you too. My mother is about as Jewish as they come (if you are …

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It finally happened. Steve Jobs and Co. have fallen from their mighty tower of hip. After months of buzz surrounding Apple’s new product, the much anticipated iPad was released to the sounds of bad puns and nervous laughter rather than the obligatory cash register ka-chings that one would expect from the prodigious technology provider of recent years.

Yes, the moniker attached to Apple’s sleek new life-enhancing gadget is an easy target for the internet hive mind, which has dubbed it the “iPeriod.” the “MaxiPad” and my personal favorite the “iPad Smear.”One could spend days simply contemplating the social and psychological …

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Phantogram

This duo has been garnering a tremendous amount of buzz around the blog circuit, gaining accolades for their infusion of standard hip-hop beats and the angelic croon of lead singer Sarah Barthel. If you were in a Starbucks within the past month, they were the download of the week, they just signed to the esteemed labels, Barsuk and Ghostly International (Ra Ra Riot, Menomena, Mates of State, School of Seven Bells), and they’ll be at South by Southwest this March in Austin to support their debut album, “Eyelid Movies,” which has already been designated an NPR focus of the week. …

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Frosted tree tips just outside the city, products of last night’s sleet barrage, greet me on yet another beautiful Minneapolis morning. Except this time, the frozen white fingertips of the tree line, stretching heavenward, are ushering me out of the metropolis and into the great northern realms of the state. Besides being drenched in freezing rain the prior evening, Minneapolis experienced a different blow of the cold kind—another talented young band forced to hang up their hats and call it a day.

The band I’m referring to is a little-known hardcore group called Cowards. Somehow, after witnessing their “last” set …

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Eric Brew

It may simply be my aversion to any discussion of morality that marks my distaste for The Machinist. It could also be the high hopes I had for its’ seemingly intricate and inquisitive plotline. Even until the end, despite the better part of my ego telling me precisely what the protagonist’s reality was, I refused to accept the obviousness of the resolution. I was set on a conclusion that I still couldn’t decipher—something I was waiting for the film to show me. Instead the film gives an overdone facsimile of the …

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Kel Mitchell

Remember Kel Mitchell? That funny bastard who loved orange soda on all of those Nickelodeon shows in the 90s? “Kenan & Kel”? “All That”? “Good Burger”? What the fuck ever happened to that guy? Answer: He’s gone off the proverbial deep end and has begun a new life of making bizarre YouTube skits. This is genuinely crazy stuff, folks. It’s like he’s been on a different planet for the last ten years and the only thing he brought back with him was a batshit sense of humor. Watch the breakdown commence on his YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/mrkelmitchell

What This Is:

I asked as many people as possible to review the same album for this issue. My idea was to showcase the essential and inescapable subjectivity of criticism, and to that end I chose a challenging record: The Purging Trilogy, a two-hour-long avant-guitar album by guitarist Mick Barr. The record is split into three parts: Ixoltion, Sacreth, and Hymns. As I expected, every assertion put forth in one of these reviews is contradicted in another, and above all every reviewer displayed their personal style of criticism.

Pete Noteboom
It’s a massive translucent pirate ship filled with damned souls …

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Make no mistake about it, folks:America’s biggest banks are the bogeyman of the American economy. They engineered the economic collapse for profit, and they passed the bill on to you, the taxpayer. They refuse to lend to underwater consumers. With one hand, they shower their employees – the very same ones whose schemes almost collapsed the economy – with seven figure bonuses while looting public coffers with the other. They actively battle legislation and policy aimed at preventing another crash.

But how did this happen? In 1977, the well-intentioned Community Reinvestment Act went into effect. Designed to prohibit discrimination in …

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The Jersey Shore has ended with the coming of fall, perhaps symbolizing the downfall of our society and our morals. Jersey Shore is a triumph of symbolism over substance. The show managed to shock many with its brutal displays of machismo and the search for fame without thought, without reason. My most prominent thought, while watching the show, was happiness that I’m not like the over-exercised, over hair-gelled cast. We leave the show with a unadulterated and unspoken joy that lets us all be happy, …

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