The Wake

Take a walk through the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis. Amid the shops and sidewalks, around the Brian Coyle Community Center, you’ll find large congregations of Somalis and Somali Americans, whose move into the neighborhood en masse, due to almost two decades’ worth of trials and tribulations, is still creating excitement today. Yet despite being another group within Minneapolis’ vast racial spectrum, the Somali community deals with some of the most negative press around, due to the issues that plague their homeland, issues which still affect them half a world away.

Somalia has been mired in civil war since 1991, when militant factions and clans overthrew decades’ worth of dictatorial government under the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party; it was granted its independence in the 1960s after decades …

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A Serious Man is a dark comedic tragedy that borders on a parable of a dismantled existence. The story is set in 1967 suburban Minnesota and centered on a beyond–unfortunate—possibly curse —middle–aged Jewish father, Larry Gopnik. As a professor of physics at a small university, Larry clings to the routine of his life and the freestanding equations that supposedly describe his surrounding world. He is so far detached from this world that he lingers before he falls—as a cartoon character might after unknowingly speeding off a cliff.

Like most of the Coen brothers’ characters, Larry is a victim of his environment. As an academic living in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood, Larry finds himself lost and beleaguered as his wife leaves him. …

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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 in a barky and sometimes awkward sequence. The production is fairly clean and straightforward, which emphasizes a fairly tight drummer and well orchestrated, albeit wanky, angular guitar interactions. I probably wouldn’t walk out if they were opening for a better band and only played for 20 minutes.

MISC - Happiness is Easy
While some sound like the unfortunate offspring of pop ballads …

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In 500 words, explain the established concept of the spherical shape of the Earth as a physical given. Be sure to include important figures and dates, as well as the logic developed in astronomical and geometrical fields of study.

In the beginning, the world was flat, and all men stood upright with their face to the gods. Men stood where the gods put them, and wandered very little. A man on one side of the world did not know a man on the other. This all changed, however, one day with a fisherman called Linus. He was greedy, and always took out of the sea more fish than any man should ask for. This angered the sea, so the sea created a new sort of fish that when eaten, sends the devourer to a long fast …

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Your life, your friendships, causes, groups and fan pages—even your death—all on a social network’s terms. Death is difficult enough. In America, there is an expectation that everyone has to have everything figured out when they die: finances, funeral arrangements, cancellation of magazines, etc.; faith, bills, insurance, the soul’s final resting place, and who will care for loved ones. To this, I submit to you, we now must add the obligations that web 2.0 bring us.

In the summer of 2009, in Chippewa Falls, Wis., three young men lost their lives. One died in a fire, one drowned, and one died quite unexpectedly, according to a local paper, with no further explanation given. Aside from the obvious fact that these three knew one another and may …

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Believe it or not, some of the esteemed professors at the University of Minnesota spend a lot of time on Facebook. And Myspace. And Twitter. And Second Life. In spite of the obvious reasons why these professors are wasting their time on social networking sites, they aren’t griping about how silly their students are. In fact, they’re studying how their students and other people interact with each other online, and analyzing how we use various communication functions like forums, instant messaging, video and audio clips, posts, blogs and other common tools associated with today’s cutting edge technology. Yet social media studies is only one aspect of a broad range of interdisciplinary research going on in tandem with the Institute for New Media Studies, the U of …

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When discussing the state of the film industry, one can easily become overwhelmed by the seeming ever-growing number of questions one might confront. However, by venturing to answer these questions we can envision an aura of potentialities for the future of cinema. In an effort to promote transparency in the future of film, here are a few questions and issues begging to be given attention today.

One evening not long ago, I found myself in some of the most luxurious and accommodating seating I had ever encountered in a cinema. Where one might expect an armrest, I found a small table with recesses – one to hold the Spanish coffee drink set ablaze by a barista wearing a sport coat just moments earlier. This was the new …

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It’s difficult to blame the denizens of the world if they incur mental whiplash on the issue of climate change. The world has long been in uproar over the unsustainable nature of a system overburdened with contradictory demands in the name of ever-expanding productivity and the externalization of costs. Media rhetoric has an astonishing way of coming full-circle through discovery, investigation, popular spin and resolution precisely in sequence with the ebb and flow of sensational news cycles. Humans are, above all else, adaptive to their environment. We are the only species to shape the planet so deliberately and dramatically. Of course, the ultimate irony of this adaptability is our constant resurveying of the long-arbitrary line in the sand regarding the environment.

With a plethora of media increasingly available around the world, it has become comfortable …

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Circling a dimly-lit bar crowded with trendy twentysomethings, listening to talk of spring lines and independent boutiques, I feel a bit lost. Watching Zoolander is about as close as I’ve come to high fashion before this and it’s hard not to think of the vapid, self-congratulating models and designers of that movie as I weave among the denizens of the Twin Cities’ fashion world. The DJ spinning “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood—was that a deliberate reference?—doesn’t help.

But as I keep talking to the attendees of this Preview Party for MNfashion Week, held at AZIA’s Caterpillar Lounge on April 9, I realize they have nothing in common with Zoolander’s fashion stereotypes. For one thing, not one of them looks a day over …

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The aptly titled Bromst, Dan Deacon’s newest album seems to bring together exactly what the title implies. Part new sound, part old, Dan Deacon took Bromst in a somewhat new direction, while largely adhering to his old standbys of crazy and absurd. The songs are as packed with noise as ever, while Deacon distorts his voice through out the background like some sort of acid-tripping, cat-stuck-in-engine sound that I couldn’t possibly describe any better.

Of the newer twist to his sound, Deacon makes ample use of digital synth drums and computerized sounds. Every track is filled to bursting with noise and sound, but Deacon, showing an incomparable ability to make sense out of the absurd, winds it all into coherent and catchy songs. In fact, this album has even more structure than …

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There appears to be no limit to which facets of life are infiltrated by the ecological mindset. Consumers are in a market that targets this mindset by “greenwashing” products. “Greenwashing” is branding an unsustainable product in a fashion that boasts an earth-friendly image. Think images of landscapes on laundry detergent, forests on drawing pads, or perhaps on a larger scale, British Petroleum’s adoption of a green and yellow sunflower logo in 2000. Consumers are slowly questioning their products with a keen eye and mind. Greenwashing, however, has been drawn to new levels outside of general advertisement: think of an entire industry being greenwashed.

Sex is typically viewed as a low carbon dioxide emitting activity. In lieu of some heavy breathing, which equates to about the same carbon dioxide …

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Albums like Crack the Skye are very troubling. They aren’t good, so you won’t get the satisfaction of hearing a new masterpiece by one of you favorite bands, but they also aren’t bad for any easily identifiable reason. You can’t just say “they sold out” or “their new drummer sucks.” You have no choice but to maybe, just maybe, acknowledge that somebody’s run out of ideas.

That’s the feeling I get from Mastodon’s new album. Either that or they’ve decided to play to all of their weaknesses. I mean, why else would they pull the ages-old “let’s go prog” card? Why else would they decide to sing rather than scream on nearly every track when their sung vocals are probably the weakest part of …

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Unlike the recent regeneration of old-man clout in the music industry (Morrisey! Leonard Cohen! Yes, they’re still alive.), the film industry has been experiencing something a little different. We might call it the Nicolas Cage Phenomenon: a dirty rash of films characterized by disaster, ancient talismans, and men sporting long, formless hairdos that try to combat receding hairlines. That is to say, a bunch of middle-aged actors with exhaustive repertoires, such as Nicolas Cage and Tom Hanks, have been turning out increasingly successful but mediocre films.

Besides telling them to JUST CUT IT OFF! Bald is distinguished!, it might help to remind these guys that their current fame rides on their quirky roles from the past. There’s no point hoping actors will relinquish the way they …

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There is an uncomfortable reality in the world’s food system that people are either unaware of or ignoring. Environmentalism is continuing to grow as both a fad and a philosophy—but the general public has little to no idea what the term really means. When it comes to sustainable eating, the reigning dictum is that local and organic foods are the solution to sustainability in our diets.

The public has learned to look for the familiar, green “USDA ORGANIC” labels on grocery items. Cooperative grocers also feature bright labels next to food items that came from local farmers or bakeries. Convenient. The Seward Co-op Grocery & Deli even informs its customers of their percentage of local food items purchased on each receipt. Small acts like these breed the mindset …

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As students pass through the University of Minnesota, it may be easy to feel insignificant or boxed-in. We have over 50,000 students on the Twin Cities campus—one of the largest student bodies in the country—and countless local functions that may live and die by University-budgeted decisions. It’s easy to feel that the University’s mandate starts at the West Bank and ends on the East, and indeed I have talked to students who have not even been so far as the Saint Paul campus. However, the U of M has its hands in all aspects of Minnesota’s functioning, and this point must be impressed again and again for each incoming generation.

Without stepping on the toes of the U’s promotional material, the unique makeup …

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