The Wake

Deborah Keenan’s reading at the Weisman Art Museum, an occasion for the release of her newest work, Willow Room, Green Door delivers a large audience. The poetry reading, packed with prospective grad students, the faculty, the public and myself, was in fact a concert. Deborah cites Stephin Merritt often, using his influences in her poetry. Her relationship to music ties with her diction as she reads. Keenan twists the line in both a delicate and precise, if not surgical fashion. Such abilities, coupled with her distinct rhythms propel her poems, giving them a song-like resonance. The composition of the reading starts first with selections from earlier poems. This delightful necessity to the reading helps newer readers grasp the history of her language. Keenan puts into context some of her poetic life history by introducing poems …

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I could spend this article discussing every detail of the lecture on how Kabbalah, a mystical sect of Judaism, relates to rationalist thought, but instead I’d like to focus on the simpler theme of the discussion: happiness. More specifically, what it has to do with astrology, incest, Britney Spears and Christian rock.All of these subjects began connecting in my mind as I sat in a sunny, rose-colored library and munched on a free lemon bar. I was in the Nolte Center library, where the only book spines I could read were about Hebrew verbs, listening to Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, an Israeli scholar of Judaism. It was part of the Institute for Advanced Study series, which brings in a new speaker every Thursday at 4:00 p.m. I felt slightly out of my territory among the small crowd …

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A little less ambiguous than the “wild beasts” and “true flames” predicted by Nostradamus, the predictions of 1930s-era writer Sinclair Lewis have caught the attention of writer, blogger and radio personality Joe Conason, without even needing to be translated into English and out of metaphor. On Monday Mar. 5, Conason visited Coffman Union’s bookstore to discuss his new book, It Can Happen Here, a current analysis of the Big Brother-like scenario in Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here. Upon unearthing the mostly-forgotten book, Conason noticed a few parallels between the book’s distopian government and our current administration. The president in the book, a man named Buzz Windrip, gains public support by being a “regular guy,” with a dozen skims of the Bible under his belt and a “brain” for Vice-President. He advocates anti-intellectual, traditional values, all …

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About twenty students gather every Wednesday night on the third floor of Coffman Memorial Union. Starting at 7 p.m. they each pick a partner and begin to dance. They move around the room slowly at first, leaning into each other, spinning counterclockwise occasionally. Every now and again there is a small collision, one couple bumping into another unsuspecting pair of dancers.They begin to move a little closer as the night goes on, their bodies becoming loose and the steps becoming more familiar. Once or twice a toe is crushed or a cue is missed, but they never get frustrated with each other. They are all about learning and having fun, each member contributing to his or her neighbors experience. They are Utango.The Argentine Tango Club was founded in the summer of 2004, in their words …

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What’s one of the major differences between the United States and other industrialized countries? Healthcare. It’s not just that most other first-world countries provide healthcare to their citizens under a universal system. In the United States, healthcare is tied to employment in a way that cripples the unemployed.“The U.S. is unique [because] we have an employer-based system,” says Steve Parente of the U’s Medical Industry Leadership Institute at The Current and Citizens League’s presentation, “Policy and a Pint: Healthcare Handcuffs.” And it’s not as if this issue hasn’t come up before,” adds Chris Farrell, MPR’s chief economics editor on stage with Parente and 89.3. The Current’s Steve Seel, moderator for the evening at the Varsity Theater on Wednesday, Mar. 7. In fact, Farrell explains, it’s come up about every 15 years for the past several …

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Humans have always found the sea to be a mysterious force. Deep, dark and vast, the ocean has held a fascination for us since we became intelligent enough to build boats. Although the University of Minnesota is far from any ocean, the campus now has the opportunity to experience that same awe-inspiring feeling. Lurking deep within Coffman Memorial Union is the Coffman Art Gallery, which is currently featuring “Aquatic Oddities,” a new exhibition by local artist and recent U of M graduate Martha Iserman.Looking at Iserman’s artwork, it’s apparent the artist treasures a deep fixation for the murky depths of the ocean. Martha Iserman describes herself in her artist’s statement concerning the exhibit as “a recent BFA graduated from the University of Minnesota with an odd and unsubstantiated fear/obsession of sharks and the sea.” Like …

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This semester the Institute for Advanced Study is hosting a weekly series of events titled “Thursdays at Four.” As one might assume, the lectures are held each Thursday at 4 p.m. in room 120 or 125 of Nolte Center. The series hosts a broad range of lectures and features people from all disciplines and areas of work. On Thursday, February 22 University of Minnesota psychology professor Bruce Cuthbert enlightened listeners on the new science of emotion.Feelings and emotions have always been regarded as mere roadblocks on the way to higher human intellect; a not-so-close second to the sophisticated realm of cognition. Recent advances in approaches to studying emotion, however, have brought the science of emotion into the same league as natural science. Cuthbert was selected by the Institute for Advanced Study …

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Leonardo da Vinci once said, “For once you have tasted flight you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.” This philosophy has possessed skydivers’ lives since the dawn of the parachute and continues to do so still. But skydiving is in danger of losing its population. Not from skydiving related misfortunes, but from low participant numbers. The media only likes to focus on extraordinary survival stories of skydivers hitting the ground from parachute malfunctions and ignores the amazing breakthroughs in the world of human flight. In the past 15 years, the sport has seen huge advancements in equipment and safety measures that the sport is safer now. It’s less risky than driving in your car, which nobody will even bat an …

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“Evolution’s not dead! It’s dancing in the middle of the floor with a lampshade on it’s head!” stated University of Minnesota, Morris Professor Paul Meyers. On February 13, just one day after Charles Darwin’s birthday, the Bell History Museum held a discussion on the topic of evolution as a part of its Café Scientifique series at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown. This evening was, of course, not without incident. Many a voice was cautiously raised in acts of interjection, bold by our mild mannered Minnesotan standards. Things failed to genuinely heat up until moments before the evening reached its conclusion, but when it did, shit was hot. The room was a torrid mix of long-winded proclamations and unrelenting rebuttals, well worth the price of admission, which was a five dollar suggested donation. Professors Mark …

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Each year a graduate student in the University’s Art History Department gets the chance to work with Wilson Library’s art librarian to curate an exhibit from the Gorman Rare Art Book Collection. This year Sarah Sik created “The Birth of Celebrity Culture in the City of Lights (1880 – 1900)” — an exhibit that focuses on the Parisian preoccupation with celebrity culture at the turn of the twentieth century.The exhibit, which is presented by the University of Minnesota Libraries in conjunction with the department of art history, runs now through April 27, in the James Ford Bell Library on the fourth floor of Wilson Library. It is free and open to the public.The outside of the exhibit is adorned with a makeshift blue and red striped awning. The sign on the glass door reads: “Bienvenue!” …

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Physicists and theologists, academics and armchair astronomers have long wondered what it was that sparked the beginning of the universe. Now, mathematical physicist Roger Penrose is investigating what happened before the universe began. Two years ago, Stephen Hawking gave the conventional answer to the question—What happened before the big bang?, Hawking says the big bang was the event to begin all events so it makes no sense to ask what came before it.Lecturing to a small audience at the University of Minnesota on February 2, Penrose admitted that his own investigation of pre-big bang events breaks with convention.The Big Bang Theory holds that the universe began about 13.7 billion years ago when it exploded from a very dense hot state and began to expand. An illustration of the big bang would show the explosion happening …

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On February 1, Abdi Samatar, professor of geography and global studies at the University of Minnesota, spoke to the public about the causes and effects of the war in Somalia. Samatar was born in Somalia and has spent years discussing the situation in the country. He also addressed what it will take to help the country become more safe and stable. He spoke about the history of Somalia and how he believes the civil unrest started.The speech, part of the Headliners forum, was sponsored by the College of Continuing Education. Minnesota has the largest population of Somalian citizens in the country according to Mary Nichols, Dean of the College of Continuing Education. She explained that after 15 years of civil unrest in Somalia, the situation has recently escalated into a state of war.“Somalia, in my …

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When I heard that Coffman would be hosting a workshop, “Defense Against Dogma” on February 1, I had a good idea of what I was getting myself into. From what I’d heard, I knew that the workshop would teach intelligent arguments to use against Bible-hugging, dogmatic friends when they try to pick a fight. I assumed that the event was being put on by a public speaker, maybe a professor, or you know, someone distinguished. Boy, was I in for a surprise. When I walked into the room on the third floor of Coffman, the first thing I saw was a guy wearing a shirt that read, “Jesus is coming. Look busy.” I thought it was funny, until I saw the whiteboard at the front of the room. It read “Campus Atheists …

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At the entrance of the Atrium Gallery in the Andersen Library, an old-fashioned marquee reads: “Now Playing: Blackface(s) in Film, The Givens Collection of African-American Literature.” The exhibit celebrates black film pioneers like actor Sidney Poitier and directors Oscar Micheaux, Spike Lee and Gordon Parks, who became Hollywood’s first major black director with The Learning Tree, 1969, and also happens to have spent some of his life in St. Paul, Minn.I walk the miniature red carpet into the exhibit and am greeted at the end by a mannequin, dressed like a ticket-taker in black pants and a gray suit jacket with gold buttons. Movie posters line the wall, some of which include Mo’ Better Blues, 1990, and Shaft, 1971. Exhibit curator Karla Davis says that she hopes the exhibit’s design adds to a visitor’s overall …

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The story of Bob Dylan is as mythological a tale as any ever told. No iconic figure has loomed larger in the cultural conscience over the last forty-five years. How could any single tale or any body of work claim such longevity? The new Weisman Art exhibit does its best to piece together the puzzle while paying due tribute to Minnesota’s favorite son. The exhibit kicked off on the night of February the 2nd via a preview party featuring several area musicians. “Spider,” John Koerner, and Tony “Little Sun” Glover, Dylan’s contemporaries on the Dinkytown folk scene, were the first to perform. The duo is as true a testament as can possibly be paid to those times of old. They sat on a makeshift stage, howlin’ and stompin’ their way through a much appreciated set. …

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