The Wake - Fortnightly Magazine

Ross Hernandez

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Swearing Patterns

I took my meal near the window. The glass was replaced by a membrane of plastic that alerted me to every mention of my name. I locked both doors in my kick drum house from the inside, something I hadn’t done since nineteen ninety-five. It went like this:

Mund: Can you tell her to stop?

Cue: Sure, but it’s not a guarantee.

Mund: We got young kids right next door fer chrissakes.

Cue: Can you take your …

Measure for Measure

The sophomore BFA class’s performance of Shakespeare reminds the audience that being lewd was often central to performances in English Renaissance Theater. In this production of Measure for Measure the pre-show consists of a flamboyant striptease, often involving audience members in lap dances. This seemingly “bad behavior” was for a purpose: showing the audience the city of Vienna in a state of flux while the Duke passes legal responsibility to his magistrate, Angelo (played …

Hey News, I’m Internet

news_danielleattinellaOn Nov. 17th, MPR aired “The Future of Journalism,” a program that hoped to discuss concepts of media both new and old while exploring the possibilities of the future. Host Carrie Miller’s main question for the hour was “How will investigative journalism look in the future?” Miller’s question was directed at guests Tom Rosensteil from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and …

Chuck Klosterman: Eating the Dinosaur

Chuck Klosterman’s new book, Eating the Dinosaur, is a series of fragmented cultural studies essays that reads like a mix tape. The logic in all of the essays relies on the reader’s previous knowledge of Klosterman’s work in order to get to his admittedly convoluted points. About an eighth of the book is Klosterman’s apologies to the reader for the “irrelevance” (a topic that is discussed …

Barron Bannister & The Mischiefs – Falling Farther For You

Built to Spill – There Is No Enemy

builttospillBuilt to Spill has always been political, but never like this. There Is No Enemy’s opener, “Aisle 13,” uses the phrase “Cleanup in aisle 13” as a loose conceit for America. It’s a song about passing the buck which is sort of what Mr. Martsch does in writing a song about it. Most of There Is No Enemy is entrenched in this brand of whiny finger pointing that I’ve never heard from …

D-Books (Books Gone Digital)

burning book BWActor, comedian and author, Amy Sedaris is Sony’s ambassador in its venture into the world’s next frontier of digital media: the book. In her ad on Sony’s web site Sedaris jokingly says, “People always are asking me: Amy Sedaris, how is it that you’re so amazingly well read? And I say first of all it’s true, thank you very much. But I like to …

Shit We Got in the Mail

cds
The Van Gobots – Guantanamo Beach Party
From a band name like the Van Gobots, I had expected to be listening to a kitschy oddball synth-driven band. At least I had hoped there would be quirk. But alas, the album was synthless, quirkless, and rife with pentatonic scale dual-guitar boogery, including a beefy guitar solo on the first track. The singer comes out washy and indistinct, is lacking dynamically, and spews out lyrics …

CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, LEYTON TOWNSHIP

BULLETIN

Dear Friends in Christ:

Due to the persistence of slanderous rumors now circulating our fair parish community, it has become my duty as parish leader to address and dispel the untruths that riddle our aisles, our halls, and our homes.

First I would like to attend to the rumors regarding the dearly missed Olivar family. Three months ago Mrs. Catherine Erickson watched from her next-door window as Percy Olivar buried a statue of …

3D Movies: A Gimmick or the Future

The difference between 3D movies when I was a child and 3D movies now is palpable. As an eight-year old at Disney World, I was taken by my mom to see the Muppet Movie in 3D, and I remember making a mental effort to help the movie create the illusion of three dimensions. I wanted to see the movie in 3D, so I strained and strained to …

New Year, Old (and New) Traditions

DSC_0020I arrived a few moments late to the celebration and found the seating in the Great Hall at Coffman Union completely filled. Standing room on each side of the hall was steadily shrinking. When I took my place on the left side of the hall, the performance was already underway as two women quietly collaborated on a plum blossom painting in the center of the stage.   

The Chinese American Student Association (CASA) held their …

A Love Poem for the Smallest Exhibit at the University

rahima schwenkbeck oddities of natureAbove the chirping of dead birds,
Where no one seems to go,
Under low lights like Thomas Kincaid
Sits the Mermaid skull
As well as a shell,
A bench,
A fur and a
Pinecone.

Past the last photo of The Man Who Walks With Bears
Lies the stand with the giant clam
And a tiny unborn egg.
Nothing stands at its right height,
Like one-tenth of a story,
Except a sideways …

The Little Student Group That Could

DSC_8154The University Railroad Club found its home in the basement of 1701 University in 2003. Room 4 is the club’s headquarters where members hold meetings, discuss field trip plans, and, most importantly, build extensive model railroad systems. Room 4 is less of an office and more of a recycled kitchen-turned-railroad museum.

Davidson Ward, a University of Minnesota junior and the Railroad Club president, welcomed me at …

Documenting Our Lives

October 14 marks the unveiling of a new exhibit at Andersen Library that documents the Somali immigrant experience in the Twin Cities. “As I See It: Documentary Images By Students at Ubah Medical Academy” brings together the world-class research of the Immigration History Research Center (IRHC) and the communities that the organization hopes to preserve in its archive collections.
Various Twin Cities organizations, the Ubah Medical Academy and the Immigration History Research Center’s Children’s Literature Research …

Help is not far away

The Wake has a reputation for being a sarcastic, part-time irreverent contributor to the free newspaper racks here at the University of Minnesota. I hope that you enjoy the articles about undercover federal agents posing as our friends and the governments’ sterilizing pigeons in downtown St. Paul for the Republican National Convention, but this article is notfunny (inasmuch as feds can be).

The Aurora Center is part of Boynton Health Services, located on Church Street. The …