Metro Transit vs. U of M
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Bikes!
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Neanderthal Cloning March 03-31 2010
The Women's Student Activist Collective Presents:
NOW HIRING!
The Editors of Feministing.com!
March 10, 2010
COME TO OUR NEXT MEETING: –Monday, March 22 @ 8:30 PM (1313 5th St SE)
Coffman Union Theater 6pm Free Food @ 5:30
Sponsored by:
Women’s Student Activist Collective The Queer Student Cultural Center Queer Women University Pro-Choice Coalition
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Editorial Editor-in-Chief Eric Brew
Sound & Vision Editor Deniz Rudin
Managing Editor Maggie Foucault
Humanities Editor Ross Hernandez
Cities Editor Trey Mewes
Bastard Jonathan Knisely
Dear Readers,
Voices Editor Matt Miranda
As the (new) production manager, I’ve stumbled a few times on the road to Wake perfection. Luckily for me, third time’s a charm, right? This issue will be in stands all the way through spring break, so enjoy it. And enjoy your break. Speaking of spring break, I’ve compiled a list of advice you should consider for your single week off this semester.
Production Production Manager Tarin Gessert
Photography Editor Ben Lansky
Graphic Designers Tarin Gessert, Jonathan Knisely, Lucy Michelle, Ryan Webert
Art Director Keit Osadchuk
Distributors Maggie Foucault, Tarin Gessert, Matt Miranda, Pammy Ronnei
1. Don’t work. Duh. But if you have to, don’t do it too hard. 2. Wear appropriate clothing. Even though it may break 40 degrees (woo hoo!) you still need to wear a coat, and pants for that matter. Unless you’re going on vacation. In that case, go to a nude beach and don’t wear anything.
Copy Editors Katie Green, Brady Nyhus
3. Don’t get arrested. Since you won’t be working, and you won’t be sick from not wearing appropriate clothing, you’ll probably want to party. Party hard dudes, but not so hard that you’ll be sleeping in a jail cell.
Business Business Manager Colleen Powers
This Issue Cover Artist Keit Osadchuk Illustrators Talia Carlton, Meher Khan, Lucy Mitchell, Rachel Mosey, Guy Wagner
4. Stress less. Have fun! School will be waiting for you when you get back, so take some time off. And just think, we’re halfway done! Advisory Board James DeLong, Kevin Dunn, Courtney Lewis, Eric Price, Morgan Mae Schultz, Gary Schwitzer, Kay Steiger, Mark Wisser
Contributing Writers Matt Carlson, Sophie Frank, Timotheus Gordon, Michael Hessel-Mial, Andrew Larkin, Zachary McCormick, Mark Thompson, Krista Webb, Mark Thompson
Photographers Collin Hughes
Thanks for reading!
Tarin Gessert Production Manager
9:3 ©2010 The Wake Student Magazine. All rights reserved. Established in 2002, The Wake is a fortnightly independent magazine and registered student organization produced by and for the students of the University of Minnesota.
The Wake Student Magazine 1313 5th St. SE #331 Minneapolis, MN 55414 (612) 379-5952 • www.wakemag.org The Wake was founded by Chris Ruen and James DeLong.
The Wake is published with support from Campus Progress/Center for American Progress (online at www.campusprogress.org).
disclaimer The purpose of The Wake is to provide a forum in which students can voice their opinions. Opinions expressed in the magazine are not representative of the publication or university as a whole. To join the conversation email ebrew@wakemag.org.
voices by eric brew
HOPE LES
gEOmETRIC BlObs
birthed at (a HALF) university edge
cut like sci((men)ance)
classroom
a portrait to UN*sustainablility
*(over the “TEMP” bldng that lasted longer than the age of the average student in attendance (26 > 23)
YOU NOW FRESHMAN WONDER
YOU CRASH
YOU make me throw up
my arms and take them down
because I don’t care for you, inner curves
by your outer squareness
WHERE WILL YOU
find Your rigid CLOSE(d)-UP mind
in the CHILD of the modern you commute without community
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03 – 31 march 2010
S
voices
building: do you recalling memoried knowledge: when the seeker was too the sought? (that is to say, when we were the ob jects to be developed in our education - can you recall this?
I explicate it here because it is necessary, remember when we didn’t need the edifice to learn of ourselves?)
BU
IL
Down
BU
IL(L)
Dup
BU
IL
Danger
admit this www.wakemag.org
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voices
Bikers Have Needs Too: Minneapolis Should Adopt a “Complete Streets” Policy by Zachary McCormick As a Minneapolis cyclist, I do my share of whining about the conditions of our city’s bike infrastructure. The roads are a veritable minefield of potholes, the city’s priority level on bike lane upkeep seems to hover somewhere below stop-sign graffiti removal, and I have no clue what the city planner was on when they decided to put a bike lane between car doors and the curb on 1st Avenue downtown. Most cyclists in the area will be able to regale you with the myriad of injustices we face on a daily basis at the hands of our fair city. Still, deep in our hearts, we know that we have it pretty good compared to, say, our neighbors in St. Paul and far better than our suburban and rural counterparts. Ever tried to take a walk in Brooklyn Park , or any other suburb/exurb for that matter? One quickly starts to notice the absence of sidewalks, crosswalks, or any real indicator that people do anything but drive. Most of our transportation structure was built at a time before mounting gas prices and carbon emissions started giving people second thoughts about car ownership so, naturally, most of these streets are designed to accommodate the maximum amount of cars possible and not much else. There’s a new bill going through the legislative process on the state level that would change this. It’s called “Complete Streets,” and the idea is simple: rebuild roads in a way that balances the needs of cars, bikes, pedestrians and public transit. collin hughes
Let’s start with an example: Snelling Avenue in St. Paul is a state highway. Under the policy of Complete Streets, when it’s bridges over Energy Park Dr. and Como are redone, city planners would take into account that the freeway style on/off ramps put cyclists and pedestrians, who frequently use the two streets as connectors between the cities, at higher risk. The streets could be made more accessible to pedestrians and bikers, and speed limits could be lowered to make things less dangerous. Complete streets would also allow for communities to have more flexibility in development projects for their cities. White Bear Lake is currently locked in a battle with the state over development on Highway 61 that runs through their downtown. The community wants to make changes to lower the 45 mile per hour speed limit and make the lanes narrower in order to make their downtown center more liveable for their residents, but certain state regulations require streets with an average traffic volume (ATV) of a certain level to be 12 feet or wider and have a certain number of lanes, severely limiting the city’s interest to develop wider sidewalks and bike lanes. Laws seen as “bike laws” have a hard time gaining traction with a certain type of driver, but Complete Streets is far from cycling-supremacism. The law simply looks to allow city planners to develop streets in a way that suits the needs of each community. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
A Drop in the Bucket: Reid’s Jobs Bill Fails to Impress by Krista Webb Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has managed to get both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to pass his new job bill, which will spend $15 billion on creating new jobs. Mark Zandi, an economist and former presidential campaign advisor to John McCain, estimates 250,000 new jobs might result from the bill. Though at first that might sound like a reasonable number, it’s only around 3 percent of the jobs that have been lost since the economy became anorexic. Part of the bill would give hiring businesses a tax break until next year, freeing them from shelling out Social Security tax for any new hires that were previously unemployed. If the companies keep any of these new workers for a year, they can also rack up $1,000 per employee in tax credit. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass, has made headlines through his promotion and support of the bill. But even he admits that the bill has some problems.
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The bill would benefit from “deeper and broader” tax cuts, Brown said. The U.S. unemployment rate is currently hovering around 10 percent. This last year has seen the highest unemployment rates in the last 20 years. Clearly, a reduction of 3 percent is not acceptable. If the government has to spend $15 billion to fix 3 percent of a problem, no wonder the country’s in a deficit. The bill would be great for the 3 percent of unemployed workers who benefit, but it’s not going to mean anything to the remaining 97 percent still out of jobs. Should taxpayers’ money really be going towards a bill that will make so little of a dent? What we need is something that will generate new fields of jobs. We need a bill that will kick the economy back into shape. Here’s the simple math. Around 8.4 million people have lost their job since the economy went south. Even with the pass-
ing of this new bill, only 250,000 of those people are going to be earning a living again. That still leaves over 8 million of those recently unemployed still jobless. It’s wonderful that bipartisan forces are working together on a bill. But it would be even better if Republicans and Democrats could pull their best talent together and come up with a more effective bill. Some of Reid’s Republican opponents criticized him for not allowing amendments to be made to the bill. They have a point. Since the bill has been quasi-popular on both sides of the political table, it seems Reid has been provided with a good opportunity to tap talent from Democrats and Republicans. He should at least be open to hearing suggestions, which could possibly help the measure have a greater impact on reducing unemployment. Reid can hardly snub his nose at the idea of amendments, unless he thinks he can improve a system that has worked successfully for one of the founding documents of our government - the U.S. Constitution – for over 200 years.
voices
A Fruitopian Society by Matt Carlson I enjoy reminiscing about being a kid. I would assume most people do. My memories about childhood are channeled through particular objects and occurrences, mostly. Impromptu Super Soaker battles were fun, and so was going to my aunt’s house in the Middle of Nowhere, Minnesota. Memories and experiences make us who we are. Video games hold a lot of memories for me too. Twisted Metal and Command & Conquer were huge and I’m a fan to this day. Likewise, movies like Jurassic Park and Back to the Future were equally influential. While media, toys and my aunt’s house can always be revisited, however, some things cannot. I’m of course talking about the best beverages to ever cross my lips. It’s a crappy feeling when something you like comes to an end. All good things do, right? An ode to these things this is not, but more a remembrance to the how they helped to craft me. Let us begin with a beverage we hardly knew: Surge. Surge popped onto the soda scene in 1996 and was only around for five years. As a 2nd grader, I heard rumors of a soda so sugary that parents recoiled at the thought. I had to try it. It was love at first chug. There was nothing like it. It was definitely super sweet, but it was more than a citrus flavor: it was fruity; it was sublime. I recall science project where kids in my class subjected loose teeth to cups of soda and logged the results over a period of weeks. Surge was the most damaging, followed by Coke. Coca-Cola stopped producing Surge in 2001. The syrup is rumored to still be in soda fountains down south, but I can’t confirm that. It is also said a 12-pack will occasionally show up on eBay. Surge had a chance at least, though. One of my favorite sodas never even made it to the limelight. It was called 7up DnL, and it was only around for about three years, first appearing in 2002. I always called it “Seven Upside Down.” I thought that was clever. Anway, DnL was caffeinated and bold, far different than its predecessor. It was also bright green in color, with a robust, yet nondescript fruity flavor. I won’t say much about it, but sometimes the little guys deserve some attention too. That’s enough carbonation; let’s talk juice, or faux juice. My all-time favorite sugary beverage was Fruitopia. It was fruity, but it wasn’t juice. It was marketed by Coco-Cola, but it wasn’t soda. It was hip and in between. Nearly all of my days in middle school were punctuated at two o’clock with a Fruitopia. There were many flavors, but the green one was the best. It was called Kiwiberry Ruckus. Again, it was a full-bodied flavor, different than whatever else was out there. Fruitopia was axed in 2001. It can still be found in various incarnations in other countries, but us Yanks are out of luck.
Guy Wagner
The item on the list with the longest tenure in super markets was part of the Hi-C line. Ecto Cooler was a citrus juice produced in 1987 as a tie-in with a cartoon based on the Ghostbusters movie. Astonishingly, it was made until 2001. One night I read an article about an Internet sleuth who figured out that it had been renamed to Shoutin’ Orange Tangergreen. I can only speculate the Ghostbusters licensing had expired. I was ecstatic and enjoyed the product all the way up to 2006 when the formula was permanently discontinued. Rest assured, though, I’ve saved the best for last. As I reached high school, I got into Gatorade, Powerade and the like. Gatorade was fine, but Powerade had a real zip, its flavors were distinct and had sharply cool names. Who wouldn’t be drawn to titles like Arctic Shatter, Green Squall and Infra-
red Orange. There was one, however, that reigned over the rest. It was called Jagged Ice. It was dark blue, almost appearing black in color. When the light hit just right, it was the most amazing iridescent blue. The flavor was something along the lines of a berry fruit punch. When you went to a high school that didn’t have air conditioning, cracking a frosty Jagged Ice was indescribable. It was discontinued of course, and you know what they replaced it with? Grape. Yep, grape. Surge now resides in Scandinavia. DnL was pushed aside in favor of 7up Plus. Fruitopia was marketed to kids, but it was the most sugar-packed drink available. Minute Maid took its place. Ecto Cooler’s license ran out. Nobody cared about Jagged Ice. Corporations can take my beloved beverages, but they’ll never take my memories.
www.wakemag.org
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cities
Smudging The Issues In This Election by Trey Mewes
Once again
, the election cycle is starting to turn on, its rusty gears sputtering and whirring to life even earlier than usual, as more and more candidates for political office are declaring their intention to run, dropping out of the race or simply saying nothing. Since the political machine is already underway, the issues politicians must address have taken shape, the big questions on a state and national level are already being asked and dodged with aplomb by both media and politician. Thankfully, the American public will begin to weed out the fringe politicians who either preach a bizarre, negative platform or those politicians who simply aren’t aware of what issues aren’t affecting the population. That doesn’t stop some…interesting people from running, considering running or even pretending to run for political office. Here at the Wake, we received an interesting letter from a contributor who simply calls himself Smudge. According to Smudge, he wants to run for governor this November on “a tall and grassy platform.” The rest of the piece is similar in tone and weird campaign promises. However, Smudge’s pitch to the people can be used as an example of what issues are affecting the governor’s office, as well as a primer on how not to sell your image to a crowd of voters. The following is an analysis of Smudge’s open letter, as well as an explanation of what issues potential gubernatorial candidates will have to contend with come November.
My name is Smudge, and I want to be your governor. I want to play the game and roll the dice and throw my cards on the table and my hat in the ring. I want to lead you into a sparkling future, bereft of care and worry. I want to heal your ailments and fund your businesses and make it so you don’t have to struggle to survive anymore. I want to make life easy for you. With you, I want to share my dream. Remember, my name is Smudge and this is a chariot and this will set you free.
Smudge’s opening paragraph is well written, filled with good rhetorical devices such as his promise to make it so the public doesn’t have to “struggle to survive.” His brief mentions of health care and the job economy, the issues that are widely seen as the most concerning to American citizens currently, sets a good tone for campaign promises he might make later. Unfortunately, Smudge makes a few awkward statements, especially the metaphor he uses about his campaign which will set people free.
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cities
My platform is a simple platform; my stance is an open stance. I will strike out at everything you despise. I will attack your ghosts and skeletons. My left hand is nicknamed Mr. Clean and my right hand is nicknamed Sir Gerhard Von Kreig, Champion of Sound! I will clap these hands together and I will bring down the rain. I will grow the corn the cattle eat. I will grow the cattle the cattle eat. I will grow the people the cattle eat, because the cattle do eat the people, technically, in a very roundabout way of things. I will feed the people! To cattle, I will feed the people!
This paragraph is the beginning of Smudge’s downfall as a viable political candidate. Modern science doesn’t support Smudge’s claims that he can summon rain by clapping his hands together. His claims to feed people to livestock would also turn off most, if not all, potential voters.
My platform is a hopeful platform; my tongue is a necktie knot. I want you to have a favorite television show. I want you to be able to watch your favorite television show at the same time each week! I want to share with you messages from my associates while you watch your show. They have many things they wish for you to have; my associates feel as though they can make your life better. They can make your life better, you just have to allow my associates to do their work as you do your work, unhindered and unfettered and free of bother and concern. I want you to have emotional connections to the people you watch on your television screens. I want you to cry when they cry and laugh when they laugh. My associates and I feel that you would be much happier involved in the lives of the characters on the television screen than trying to repair your own life and your failing relationship and your lack of work and your own lack of worth and just sit right down and watch your television screen. My platform is a tall and grassy platform. I will paint my tongue and teeth and toenails green for you! I will make responsible decisions regarding our future. I will make sure we keep regarding our future. I will always put the future first! I will invest in new breeds of corn and flowers that grow big red blossoms out of the bodies that we put in the cornfields to rot. I will reuse every plastic bag. I will ban the production, import, and distribution of plastic bags! I will revolutionize the shipping industry with the first cargo ship that burns no fuel! We will row it, Minnesota! We will row that great, grey ocean liner! There will be hundreds of us working together in the belly of a rusty whale. We will all row that boat together, because that boat is being rowed for all of us. And we will name it after Marilyn Monroe! We will resurrect the corpse of Duluth and make a modern ghost. We will be the bones and we will be the muscles and we will row the boat together! We must ignite Duluth, we must set it ablaze!
Smudge’s attempts to destroy Duluth wouldn’t help the state’s economy, contrary to his earlier campaign promises. However, his attempts to highlight alternative fuel research reflects state incentives and initiatives such as the grants provided by the University of Minnesota’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and Environment that research biofuel and bioenergy projects among other things. One of the more interesting projects funded by the U of M is an attempt by University researchers to take large amounts of algae, which can be farmed for their lipids, or natural fats and oils among other molecules, which can then be converted to biodiesel. This project received $290,000 for a three-year project which is scheduled to end by July of this year.
I will build trains for you. I will connect each important city with a train. Smaller communities will be given pamphlets on how to cope with the fact that they are not important to Minnesota. We will connect the train to Rochester, and here we will cure your ailments! Oh, Minnesota I want to make you healthy! We will run tests on you. Sometimes we will run fifty tests. Sometimes we will run one hundred tests. But we will always medicate you. Under my leadership, all medical procedures are free. We will inject you for free. We will give you Dialysis for free. We will operate to amend any malformations in your internal and external organs for free. I will kill your children and your children will become corn and flowers and the cattle will eat the corn and we will eat the corn and the cattle and the cattle will eat us and it will all be a wonderful circle of life and I promise you that! But you will be cured! You will be in perfect health. With our help, you will be perfect. The medicine will make you perfect. Perfect. We will make your body the way you wish it were made. I want you to look exactly how you want to look. I want you to be a five foot seven inch Mediterranean woman who fits against every other body like a sheer piece of fabric. I want you to be a Russian man who has eyes that do all the talking for him. I want you to look perfect. I want you to look perfect for free, because everybody deserves to get what they want.
www.wakemag.org
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Smudging Cont. While Smudge’s rants about health care all but ensure his campaign would be dead in the water, other health care plans are currently in the works in the state legislative chambers. The expiring General Assistance Medical Care program and MinnesotaCare program are part of the focal point in the latest political struggle between Governor Tim Pawlenty and a largely DFL-controlled state legislative branch. As of last week, Gov. Pawlenty vetoed a plan which would have maintained the GAMC plan, which covers adults who make less than $8,000 and families that make less than $10,000 annually. Pawlenty had already vetoed funding for the GAMC plan last year, leading to the stripped-down version that both the state House of Representatives and the Senate passed legislation on in February. Because the GAMC is set to expire on April 1, more than 32,000 people are going to be switched to Minnesota Care this week, a plan which has higher income limits for its participants, as well as access to services like hospice care, pregnancy-related care, physical and occupational and speech therapy. However, Minnesota Care won’t allow participants to have health care provided by employers who pay for at least half of their insurance premium. In other words, it may be more expensive for the low-income families who are currently covered under the expiring GAMC plan. Minnesota Care is only available for permanent residents of the state as well, so homeless people who have GAMC will most likely not have access to hospital care through the Minnesota Care plan. On top of this, Smudge clearly doesn’t seem to pay attention to state demographics : 729,000 people of color lived in Minnesota as of 2005, according to the State Demographic Center. That population is projected to have increased to 891,000 or almost 20 percent of the population. By claiming that Smudge wants people to be Mediterranean or Russian, he is ignoring much of the civil rights legislation passed over the past 50 years as well as the current demographic trends, which project the state’s population of people of color will grow to more than 1.7 million people by 2035. Of course, actual state demographic data will be put together during this year’s census, and the projected growth of the state’s population will certainly change because of this.
I never want to see you working. I always want to see you at work. Everything should be effortless, but you must always be working. You may watch your television shows and enjoy your leisure time, but you must always be working at having a good time. I like leading people who have a strong commitment and a strong work ethic and that means that you should always be working. I want to lead you. I want you to be working all the time. Remember that you should never be doing anything for yourself and you should always do things for other people. This is a simple rule and will be observed as law. If you follow this simple rule, you will never have to struggle with anything else. I will pay for everything. If you give your life to me as constant work, I will give you all the money you need to live. You will never be charged rent because I will pay your rent. You will never go hungry, because I will send you groceries made by several of my associates. I will allow you to do your work from your home. I will deliver all goods and services directly to your door. You will never have to leave your house again. You will never leave your house. You will never have to leave.
Here, Smudge’s ideas on job recovery would in all probability fail if they were ever implemented. However, Smudge can rest easy knowing that the state department of Employment and Economic development is projecting a decrease in job losses and a stabilized job market by the end of 2010, citing an up-and-down job market and a slow recovery as reasons why monthly job losses will decrease in size and job gains will be more and more prevalent. Although the job market won’t rapidly recover in the near future, it’s made enough of an impact to decrease the amount of home foreclosures in Minnesota by 12 percent last year.
Now do you see what I want for you? I tried to make myself quite clear. I want you to be happy. I want what is best for you. I want you to live and be happy about your life. I want to put the future first. I want you to give your lives to me. I want to hold them in my hand I use to hold my pens and cigarettes. My name is Smudge and I am a chariot and I will set you free.
Yes, this letter was actually sent to us. No, we didn’t make this person or this letter up. Although it is unlikely that Smudge will make a serious attempt at running for governor(heck, we don’t even know his real name or whether he’ll refine his campaign promises to propose solutions that would be economically and democratically feasible) Smudge’s light-hearted attempts at making the Wakies laugh serve to remind us that running for political office means studying up on the issues. While the election is still early, and there are most definitely hot-button policies that will crop up later in the summer and into the fall, at least Smudge could identify some of the bigger concerns the state has and make proposals based on them. Hopefully, we won’t have to find out whether he could debate in a clear and sane matter with other gubernatorial candidates.
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Understanding the Parking Ban
cities
by Matt Miranda
This winter, Minneapolitans were subjected to the usual snowstorms and their requisite snow emergencies. But residents were in for a surprise when it came to snow removal rules: a total even-side parking ban for the second half of the snow season, ostensibly implemented because emergency vehicles were having trouble navigating narrowed streets. Whenever the city does something annoying, it’s tempting to blame it on some sort of nefarious plot, ulterior motive or government screw-up. When the snow starts piling up on the roads, a whole slew of angry speculations directed at our fair cities public services come to mind. Sometimes such complaints and innuendos are warranted, and sometimes they’re not. Here, we examine some of the most common accusations and try to get to the bottom of the issue, with a little help from Mike Kennedy, Director of Transportation Maintenance and Repair for the Minneapolis Department of Public Works. This is Minnesota! We get snow every year. Why is this one so much worse? It’s true that total snowfall this year has been relatively unremarkable; according to the State Climatology Office at the Department of Natural Resources, precipitation totals have been roughly average this year. The issue isn’t totals, though, but accumulation. Kennedy says temperatures have been low enough that snow hasn’t had a chance to melt and evaporate between snowstorms. Plows push snow onto boulevards, and there’s a limit to how high they can stack it before it starts swallowing sidewalks. This year, that capacity was exceeded. “It’s simply a matter of too much snow on the ground,” Kennedy says. But we’ve never had a ban like this before! Actually, the evenside parking ban is a pre-arranged last-ditch measure in the
city’s snow removal plan. According to Kennedy, when the plan was implemented in 1983, the even-side ban actually went into effect at the beginning of the season and lasted until April 1, regardless of weather conditions. City officials have since made it a discretionary measure. Kennedy says the ban was last invoked in February 2001 and has been used roughly once every five years. It’s Tim Pawlenty’s fault! He cut state aid to city governments! Kennedy says snow and ice operations are funded through the city’s General Fund, with 70 percent coming from property taxes and some revenues from state gas taxes. Both of these revenue streams have declined in the recession, as property tax collections plummet with property values and consumers drive less to save money. State government aid to the fund has seen large cuts since 2003, and snow and ice removal hasn’t been spared; the department has seen almost $1.4 million of their budget disappear, almost 16 percent of the budget. Still, Kennedy says the department has been able, so far, to find creative ways to do more with less. One strategy has been to move some 54 formerly full-time plow drivers into a reserve force that is only called on when needed. These reserve workers are paid the same as unemployment, but retain their benefits. Kennedy says the department has also been training drivers of other city heavy vehicles, like garbage and sewer trucks, as backup plow drivers. The net result is reduced costs without reduced service, Kennedy says. “The parking ban has nothing to do with budget cuts. No matter how many plows we have, there’s still just too much snow.”
This year the Twin Cities got a very white Christmas, with major snowstorms dumping 9.4 inches of snow on the city in two days. So did city officials bungle handling the storm? Kennedy doesn’t think so. He stresses that the long, slow moving storm was handled to the best of their ability. While the centers of the streets were plowed constantly during the storm, the city decided to wait until the storm ended to declare a snow emergency and plow parking lanes. This was because of the holiday, and because many residents would be out of town, unable to move their vehicles. This would have been a good call, except that overnight the snow turned to rain and then refroze, forming three to six inches of ice on roadways. In January, temperatures dropped dramatically and “the ice got bulletproof,” says Kennedy. “The Christmas storm was a factor, but it had nothing to do with the misperception of late plowing.” Those greedy jerks in city hall are just trying to make a few quick bucks! The ban is all about revenue from parking tickets. Tickets for violating the parking ban are $42. With citations coming in from all over the city, this has to add up to a big pot of money, right? Not so, according to Matt Laible, Communications Officer for the city. The city actually only receives about half of any given ticket; the rest goes to the state, he says. After paying the costs of enforcement, like towing and police salaries, there’s very little money left over. Any leftovers go into the general fund. “This isn’t anything that has to do with revenue generation,” he says. “We’re doing this to make sure our emergency vehicles can do their job, and it wouldn’t work if we didn’t enforce it.”
The city screwed up with the Christmas storm! It all “snowballed” from there!
Who’s Replacing the Dinosaurs? by Zach McCormick
The first hints of nicer weather in the current season make us Minnesotans do very strange things. There’s a special brand of optimism that we’re imbued with, a mild delusion that persuades us that temperatures that are barely above freezing qualify as “sweatshirt weather” provided the sun is up. Some brave souls were even spotted jogging in shorts during last week’s “warm snap” (quotes added because most of the country considers temperatures in the mid thirties to be incredibly cold). Perhaps some of this spring fever is making its way to the capitol over in St. Paul, because a surprising contingent of state senators have recently announced their transition to the greener pastures of civilian life. Chief among them are veritable lions of the state senate: James Vickerman, a Democrat representing District 22 and Pat Pariseau, a Republican representing District 36. Vickerman, boasting an impressive 24 years in legislature, isn’t facing any democratic contest for reelection and recently carried 58% of the vote during his last bid for office but declined to return for the upcoming election. District 22 is prime southwest MN farm territory, and the Senator spent his extensive tenure in office representing the interests of farmers and veterans in the capitol. Current contenders vying for Vickerman’s empty seat are Kim Hummel of Jackson County and Bill Weber of Luverne, both Republicans. Hummel, a newbie to the MN political scene, comes from a
background of long haul trucking and has voiced support for tax-breaks for business and fiscal responsibility in government, as well as the usual farm issues from the area. Bill Weber faced off against Vickerman for the chair back in the 2006 election. Pat Pariseau will also end her storied 22 year career in the state senate this fall, announcing Monday that she wound not seek reelection to represent Dakota county in District 36. Pariseau is probably best know for her authoring of the controversial “Conceal and Carry “ legislation that allows handgun permits to be issued to most Minnesotans, a move that has won her the support of gun activists across the state. Pariseau has also been involved heavily in outdoors issues, although she voted to scrap the metro vehicle emissions program, a test designed to test metro-area driver’s vehicles for polluting exhaust. While the DFL hasn’t endorsed a candidate for the seat yet, the GOP field is considerably more hectic, with three candidates in the running: Bob Erickson (no, this isn’t the same one that crashed the tea party rally at the capitol a few months back), Theresa Stokes and Dave Thompson. Stokes identifies as a conservative Republican and is entering the running with little political experience under her belt. A Farmington resident, Stokes worked in management in the private sector until her husband, a lieutenant in the Marines,
Keit Osadchuck
was stationed in Okinawa. She moved with her family and became active in community involvement in the base, which inspired her to move into politics. As a candidate, Stokes walks the party line, emphasizing immigration control, and nuclear power as a form of alternative energy. Dave Thompson is a bit of a bigger name in this race, popular with conservatives in the metro area for his eponymously titled show on KSTP AM1500 as well as his appearances on the local politics television show “At Issue with Tom Hauser.” Thompson ran for Minnesota GOP Party Chair in 2009 but was defeated by Tony Sutton. The candidate seeks to return Minnesota to a policy of limited government and the creation of jobs. In addition to Vickerman and Pariseau’s resignation, Republican senator Dick Day of District 26 stepped down midterm and is to be replaced by Republican Mike Parry, who was voted in via special election in January. DFL senator Steve Murphy of District 28 has declared that he will not seek reelection, a sentiment echoed by Steve Dille, Republican, of District 18. www.wakemag.org
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feature
talia carlton
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feature
Light rail, light rail, light rail. After the weather, the proposed Central Corridor light rail line has become the next most popular topic of conversation in Minnesota. If only this were a good thing. The majority of light rail-related talk is overwhelmingly negative; businesses are going to lose money because of construction, the U and Minnesota Public Radio have expensive and sensitive equipment that will be disrupted by the vibrations from the new line, and residents of the Twin Cities, (U students especially) are going to be bombarded by traffic issues in the three years of construction required to complete the project.
Suck It, Metro Transit By Maggie Foucault
But even before this new nuisance, U students were getting screwed over by Metro Transit: rising U Pass costs, buses that are constantly late or don’t even show up, not to mention the ever-present crazies. Like most University students, I ride the bus everywhere. The area where I live, like many other areas with high populations of students, has very little parking available. Metro Transit is the only way for many of us to get anywhere, especially during the winter. A large number of Metro Transit bus routes involve the U somehow, or at least intersect with a route that goes to the U. Why then, do U students seem to be lowest on the Metro Transit totem pole? Currently, during rush hour traffic Minneapolis Metro Transit riders pay the same price as New Yorkers pay to take the subway. While at first $2.25 doesn’t seem unreasonable, the service we receive is in no way as convenient as the New York system. I personally have been abandoned by express buses to the U, as have many other students. A friend of mine was abandoned by her once-per-hour express bus during finals week. Again, this would not be a problem if these buses ran more than once an hour at their peak service time. Luckily, the U Pass is still available to University students in order to lower the cost of commuting, but even this has become less and less of a value. For $97 per semester students can ride any bus or light rail route as often as they please. For a student who commutes four days a week, this is a 75 percent savings each semester. However, the price of the U pass continues to rise, making it more and more obsolete. When the U pass program began, it was accompanied with federal funding to encourage students to ride the buses and to lower traffic from commuting students. In 2000, when the U pass was created, it cost $50. The price of the U Pass didn’t rise again until 2006, when it crept up to $62. In the past 3 years, the price has gone up over $30. While it is true that the price of fuel and bus fare have gone up, so has the number of students participating in the U pass program. It seems that the raising of prices in no way corresponds to ridership, otherwise it would certainly not be increasing so quickly.
Currently, the light rail is most contested issue for Metro Transit, as well as for the University. The newly approved Central Corridor route will connect downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul by way of University Avenue. Construction is slated to begin this summer and is expected to take three years. The total estimated cost of the project is $957 million, with fifty percent of that money coming from the Federal Government. The Hiawatha Line cost $715 million dollars, and since opening has made over $15 million dollars in revenue each year. While the light rail may initially have high costs, over a relatively small amount of time it will pay for itself. No one is going to argue that more light rail routes are a bad idea. In theory, the light rail is convenient, quick and brings a huge amount of revenue to Metro Transit, which in turn helps to improve other Metro Transit facilities. The addition of another light rail line will also encourage the use of the new commuter train from the suburbs. In reality, the construction and subsequent trial and error process of traffic routing will disrupt traffic considerably and pedestrians and bikers at the U will have one more hazard to watch out for. In all of this, Metro Transit is not interested in making this light rail convenient and effective for everyone. Both the U and MPR have filed lawsuits over the effect of vibrations from the trains on sensitive research and recording equipment respectively. From the responses on their website, Metro Transit finds these claims ridiculous and unnecessary, but these problems are far from petty. Specifically for the U, if this expensive research equipment on Washington Avenue needs to be moved, it will cost money. This money is going to have to come from somewhere, and with the already cut down budget from the state, the only place to take from will be students. Students will also be affected by the lengthy construction period that will most likely shut down the Washington Avenue bridge for at least a few months. Instead of using the space already provided on the 35W bridge, and routing the trains through the already hollowed out, empty space in Dinkytown, Metro Transit plans to spend an extra $30 million to put the light rail through the already clogged main artery of Washington Avenue. In the end, Metro Transit is just trying to squeeze as much money from the Feds as they can. They aren’t interested in regular ridership, only in ferrying people from park and ride lots to the stadium of their choice. So why don’t we just have the Twins pay for it?
www.wakemag.org
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sound & vision
Discourse & Music:
Why words never match sound By Eric Brew The section editor, drunken and reeling, clots of spittle and half-chewed food hanging in his beard like butterfly pupas, pulls two rusty and unsolicited pennies from his pocket and throws them in Eric’s face: It is completely impossible to describe a work of art meaningfully—be it music, film, literature, or work in any other medium. There are only three legitimate uses of the ostensible description of individual works of art: 1) To evaluate the work in relation to the reader’s assumed aesthetic interests; to let a reader know if it is a thing they might want to check out or a thing they shouldn’t waste their time on. This is accomplished by a good review. 2) To clarify something about the work for someone who already has experience with it; to focus somebody’s thoughts on a particular characteristic or quality of a work they’re familiar with. This is accomplished by a good piece of criticism. 3) To describe a personal aesthetic experience derived from a work, disguised as a description of it. This is accomplished by a good literary description of a piece of art. None of these can properly be said to be meaningful description of the work itself: the first is about the reader’s presumed values; the second takes familiarity with the work for granted; the third is about the writer’s personal experience. In none of them is the actual substance of the work evoked.
For the purpose of discussing music, we almost prefer an average musical experience to a great one because of what happens when something is so great: there’s nothing to be said. If we heard some average music, we might have criticized which of its flaws stuck with us the most. We may each have different flaws to note or perhaps one of us would have found it unremarkable enough to nod ‘yes’ through the others’ critique and we would soon be discussing other concerns that affect us more deeply.
This is consistent with the idea suggested by Schopenhauer that music is inherently nonrepresentational and stands out from other arts in this regard; even if music does have a physical representation (the collision of air molecules) it does not explicitly relate to any physical object. We may argue that we can learn to associate a note or sound with something in the real world, as we do with any language. One might counter that this symbolism in music is not as explicit or concrete as in a constructed language or physical work of art.
But when music is truly great, we are left still in our words. We could talk about, but it would amount to simple praises that would do no respect to the music. So why is it so difficult to discuss great music? It is not, after all, that we are unversed on the subject matter. It is because we were so forcibly possessed by those sounds that words seem unfit to address the experience.
Thus, as Schopenhauer might say, we can use the non-representationality of music to escape the representational world or speak to the underlying reality of these objects (Schopenhauer’s Will). In this context, we would say language cannot adhere to music because it speaks to us on a different level. Good music is something that speaks effectively to the real world (the world beyond objects). This idea appears to be in conflict with itself: music both speaks to and provides relief from the underlying reality of the world or the Will. The paradox is relieved somewhat if we understand Schopenhauer’s Will not as some unknowable noumena, or things in themselves, but as experiencing the world beyond objects through ourselves and our all-too-human drives (according to Schopenhauer, primarily through the drive to live and reproduce).
Of course, great music is a language itself—a language of (pure) subjectivity—so, while great music may not be proliferate in the world to any individual’s mind, one may very well meet a person who is moved by his or her own conception of great music regularly. One notices the effect this music has in another’s speech and writing. In speech, praise can take many forms: stuttering, endless sentences, surprisingly succinct utterances (e.g. “Love it”), grand gesturing, or fluxes in the speed of the delivered verse. In writing, it might take form of some incredible analogy. Often the writer will keep his or her reverence in check and attempt to describe those aspects of the music that were so phenomenal: How the sound was very tight (i.e. fitting to itself), how all the beats seemed to come at the exact moment; tuned to what we might call our being or spirit, the soundness of the structure or execution of it, the sound was well-balanced across the range, et cetra. Might the difficulty of articulating something beyond these value judgments be a result of the poverty of human language? Or maybe our relatively weak command of this language? There are surely plenty of individuals who are particularly gifted and entertaining to discuss music with, so to say we have weak command might be a bit dramatizing. Even these fluent individuals, though, cannot recreate the intense and deeply-rooted feeling we gain when we encounter great music. It may be necessary to turn to the other arts to speak to the profundity of music. This turning itself is strange—is discourse itself not an art? Writing and speaking and communicating in general are art forms that can be practiced and mastered—yet they continually speak superficially to the effect of music. Are there some art forms that speak to us more thoroughly? Can a painting, words formed into a poem, a theatrical performance or a drawing approach speaking to the laudability of music? Or would these too prove to be insufficient in communicating our experience? It may be that music speaks to something deeper and beyond human phenomenal experience.
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Authors and philosophers have long spoken to the bounds of music and language -- namely the terms by which the limits of language are defined. Nietzsche describes some of his early thoughts on music in terms of the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus, each representing, respectively, a sort of structure or semblance; and an intoxication and limitlessness. Nietzsche says “music struggles to inform us about its nature in Apolline images; if we now reflect that music, raised to its highest power . . . it must seem possible that music also knows how to find symbolic expression for its true Dionysian wisdom” (The Birth of Tragedy). This means that while music can maintain itself in a nonrepresentational and free and transcendental (Dionysian) world, it struggles to speak to the structured, representational (Apolline) world. Nietzsche further exemplified his analogy with Greek practices in theatre-going: the time when the masses came to disband their idea of the individual and join the masses in worship of Dionysus and the universal. Music can become representational, as can any other language, but it is perhaps some underlying power of music to attach itself to something more profound—the Universal or core part of being—that makes it difficult to speak of in words within structure and convention. No matter how far we push music into an intellectualized process or a social pact, subjectivity will rule and we will continue to speak to this ‘universal’ idea within us all and retire to our comparably weak exclamations.
sound & vision
LUCY MICHELL
www.wakemag.org
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sound & vision
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Genuine Negro Jig By Peter Poght
Surfer Blood Astro Coast By Zach McCormick
Cloudkicker ]]][[[ by Deniz Rudin
What does it mean for young people to make old-time music? This question is unavoidable in a discussion of an album like this one, but I don’t have a clear answer. Is it dishonest for educated young people to sing songs about working all day and not being able to read? Is it objectionable to be nostalgic for an idealized period of time in which you never lived, or is that form of escapism harmless? Is this music aesthetically meaningful or is it just kitsch? All of these issues come to the foreground during “Hit ‘Em Up Style,” an old-fashioned cover of a one-hit trash song from 2001. The Drops have arranged the song for fiddle, banjo and beatbox, creating what could either be seen as a fusion of old and new styles or a lack of imagination in reenvisioning the song, and though Rhiannon Giddens
Indie Rock’s hype-to-backlash machine has such an impressively quick turnaround that it’s a wonder Palm Beach, Florida’s native sons Surfer Blood even had a chance to release their debut record. The band quickly gained critical acclaim following an impressive showing at this year’s CMJ festival with a raw, muscular and distinctly noir-ish take on ‘90s indie power pop. Comparisons to Weezer trail the band, but Astro Coast contains so much more than a retread of the Blue Album’s tropes. John Paul Pitts, the band’s singerguitarist-mastermind has crafted an enduring classic with this record, one of those ten-song shitkickers that’s made to roll on repeat in car stereos at high volume. The guitars land with a propulsive thump on the album’s opener “Floating Vibes” and then proceed to weave delicate little melodies
The sound is the most immediately striking thing about Cloudkicker’s new EP: they’ve found the perfect production style for this sort of music. The record’s sound is crisp, full, huge, and dynamic. But a great sound is nothing without good riffs, and Cloudkicker’s production is suited equally well to the band’s ethereally epic style and their stern mathematical riffing. It would be hard to find a bad riff on any of these three songs: the licks follow smoothly one after the other with every section pulling its own weight. Cloudkicker is a four-piece instro/prog/metal-ish band from Britain, and they’ve put out a slew of EPs in the last few years that are reminiscent of what Pelican could do if they sacked their drummer. Their songs move seamlessly back and forth
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sings with power and passion, the source material is shitty and stupid. It’s an awesome novelty, but novelty is all it is. Ethical issues aside, the Drops fare better when they stick to old-time covers. “Don’t Get Trouble In Your Mind” in particular is a fun track, the youth of the players lending it the energy it needs to succeed. This is maybe the best understanding of the record: young people playing music they love with the energy it deserves. But when they stray from their subgenre the results are subpar: “Reynadine” is a real wincer, Tom Waits’ “Trampled Rose” is better left alone, and the only original song on the record, “Kissin’ and Cussin’,” differs greatly from the rest of the album in mood and instrumentation, in addition to not being very good.
around Pitt’s reverb-soaked vocals. From the towering, fistpumping crunch of “Swim” to the sparse, delicate dub of “Harmonix,” Surfer Blood is not afraid to let the guitars do the talking. Every song on Astro Coast contains a memorable riff, the kind that will have you have you whistling at inopportune moments throughout your day. “Take it Easy” layers agile percussive guitars over skittering Afro-pop rhythms to create a dance floor anthem with an undercurrent of darkness that seems to pervade even Astro Coast’s most bombastic pop hits. Dirgelike “Slow Jabroni” serves as the apex of this depression, the soundtrack to a 3am realization that everything has gone slowly, horribly awry. Astro Coast stands as one of the more promising debuts in recent memory.
between sections of gigantic layered feel-good chords and tightly frenetic rhythmically complex headbangers. The only weakness evident here is structural: while every single riff in these 15 minutes is an excellent riff, there is not much order to them. A riff is played until it is done being played, at which point the next riff starts. The songs aren’t ordered into repeating sections, and there is no sense of build or climax. But Cloudkicker is a pretty new band, and they show clear talent as musicians and riffcrafters. Keep an eye out for their future activities. Oh, and one more thing: all of their music is free. Go to http:// cloudkicker.uk.googlepages.com and download yourself some.
sound & vision
StoThe o ge s & StrThe oke s
Music Reviews By Mark Thompson
THE STOOGES The Stooges The first song on The Stooges is called “1969,” and its abrasive, confrontational punk spirit and sound immediately makes it clear that The Stooges are not mourning the end of the 60s. One pictures singer Iggy Pop stumbling through hippie havens, scowling and swearing, subconsciously building the momentum that would explode onto his band’s first record. This was a new kind of rebellion. Drawing from The Troggs and The Rolling Stones, The Stooges presented a concise, brawny strain of rock that bands have been attempting to imitate ever since. Ron Asheton’s guitar switches from crisp, simple riffs to squealing, screeching, brilliantly discordant solos. Not to be outdone, Iggy Pop announces his arrival by the end of the contemptuous, swaggering first verse of “1969” and needs only the brief 34 minutes of The Stooges to show that he won’t be going anywhere, like him or not (he would probably prefer the latter). The Stooges is a lean piece of punk rock, just as vital now as it was then.
THE STROKES Is This It In an era where too many people are trying way too hard, Is This It, The Strokes’ debut LP, is effortless. Singer Julian Casablancas’ voice evokes weariness and confidence in equal measures, but it always rolls and croaks at exactly the right times. Guitars and bass toss off perfect hooks, often several in a single song, cause why not if you’ve got a thousand of em. Drummer Fabrizio Moretti puts down such flawless, succinct underpinnings for the songs that you forget that nobody can nail it that well. These are the kind of skills that musicians earn after tours upon tours and the bruises to prove it. Not these guys. And they’re handsome bastards on top of it. Perhaps it’s because I looked to Lou Bega and Sugar Ray to define rock and roll for me before this record came along, but this has always been the record against which all others are measured for me. How did a bunch of slacker NYC kids make the best record of the aughts? Hard to explain.
www.wakemag.org
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sound & vision
Why Filesharing Is Basically The Best Thing by Deniz Rudin There is this idea that filesharing is bad for bands, which comes from a simple logical fallacy that hinges on the misguided notion that if free downloads were not available, the downloader would instead purchase the album. In reality, in most cases of illegal music downloading, the listener would not buy the album if he couldn’t download it, he would simply not listen to it at all. As a person who spends quite a bit of money supporting struggling underground bands, I can say with absolute certainty that in my case, without illegal downloads not a cent of that money would’ve been spent, because without filesharing I would never have had any idea who any of those bands were. Illegal filesharing affords curious listeners an immense freedom to discover new bands: the whole risk/reward equation regarding trying new music shifts drastically when you don’t have to pay fifteen dollars for each experiment. This allows the listener in the age of filesharing to listen to innumerable albums which otherwise wouldn’t have been sure enough bets to gamble dollars on. Most music that is made is somewhere between mediocre and trash, and the good stuff is rarely found where you would expect it. Illegal downloads allow people interested in music to slog through lakes of shit without becoming discouraged and giving up before they stumble on hidden gems. And once a filesharer discovers something awesome, he can spread it to all of his friends via what else but online downloads. Filesharing also erases the problem of getting signed. Underground bands no longer need a record label to distribute their music and no longer need marketing campaigns to get fans far from home. Illegal downloading allows a band to develop a widespread enough audience to tour for without spending a single cent beyond recording costs. And the most prolific downloaders have been shown time and again to go to the most shows and spend the most money on CDs and merch. So who is filesharing bad for? The most often trotted out and most risible answer is that it’s bad for superfamous musicians. This is absurd, though true. I don’t think a single human being on this planet could work up a tear for a millionaire being denied one more million. People also argue that filesharing is causing the decline of the major record companies. This is also a silly thing to get sad about, though I hope it is true: there is nothing in the history of these companies but the repression of creativity and the denial of profits to successful artists; they are the enemies of music and musicians, and if illegal filesharing does enough damage to destroy them it will only be one more success of this method of musical distribution. But filesharing is bad for something, and that thing is independent labels. A label needs money to keep on running in a way that is much deeper than the way bands need it: if no records are sold, a band can still play live shows and sell merchandise; there are many bands whose albums are not the
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Meher Khan
primary source of their income, and in fact bands on major labels make very little money from record sales. However, if a label doesn’t sell enough albums, that label closes down. Many independent labels are run by people who care about the music and who see their job to be raising awareness of bands they think are good; independent labels are much more likely to pay their bands a substantial proportion of the profits from their albums. Though it may be sad to see venerable indie labels closing down and new labels struggling, it does not have real consequences for bands or for listeners. More and more bands prefer to go unsigned and give their albums limited or digital-only releases—with the internet, the major reason to try to get signed—visibility—has disappeared. You can get more people
to listen to your music by giving it away than you can by marketing it or by being associated with a trustworthy organization, and, ultimately, if a band makes music for reasons other than getting that music heard, they can get fucked. It is true that it’s difficult for a band to become financially successful in the age of the internet, but to say that like it’s meaningful implies that before filesharing it was easier, and that is simply untrue. Success is always improbable, if you care about your music you’ll make it whether anyone pays you or not, and many of the most popular musicians of all time never made a cent for anybody but their record company. Filesharing is one of the best things ever to happen to listeners and bands alike.
sound & vision
Totally Moments In Songs by Kevin Tully
“In the Air Tonight” – Phil Collins This is the obvious choice. It’s been popularized now as Mike Tyson’s “favorite part” of the song in “The Hangover,” but long before anybody had ever even heard of Bradley Cooper, the drum fill in this song around 3:40 had me, and everyone else in the world, waiting on the edge of their driver’s seat in anticipation and beating the shit out of their steering wheels when this totally rad moment finally arrived.
mar 05. hexagon. military special, sleeping in the aviary, icarus himself, alpha centari. 10pm 21+ mar 06. hexagon. red pens, disasteratti, sharp teeth, the tanks. 10pm 21+ mar 06. 331 club. gospel gossip, magic castles, dante and the lobster. 10pm free mar 06. first ave. lookbook, gay witch abortion, peter wolf crier, jeremy messersmith, romantica, city on the make. 5pm $5-10 18+ mar 07. fine line. toki wright, sims, omaur bliss, hazig ali, dj fundamentalist. 8pm mar 11. triple rock. gza. $18 18+ mar13. epic. afrika bambaataa. $10-15 18+ mar 13. triple rock. the aquabats, koo koo kanga roo, and the prize fighters
For an added bonus, look up “In the Air Tonight Live” (posted by Sportadic22) on YouTube and watch the ever-creepy Phil Collins milk the moment for all it’s worth in front of thousands of people.
mar 15. triple rock. rjd2, break science. 9pm $18 18+ mar 16. triple rock. the apple seed cast. 5 pm $15 mar 18. triple rock. leslie and the ly’s, christopher the conquered. 8 pm $12 18+
“Coffee” – Aesop Rock (feat. John Darnielle) The first time I read the track listing for this song I did a double-take. Why is lo-fi folk singer-songwriting god John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats featured in a rap song? Turns out he’s there to turn what would be a pretty standard Aesop Rock track into something way more awesome. In his typical high and nasal register, Darnielle wails in somewhere around 3:11, singing cryptically about Franzia and vampires and closing the song in a totally rad fashion.
“Olsen Olsen” – Sigur Ros One of the only truly epic songs I can really think of, this eightminute long song by the best Icelandic band around really kicks into gear around 4:30 when someone starts plunking out the song’s recurrent theme on a piano, followed by a Phil Collins-worthy drum fill, followed by an orchestra and what sounds like a gigantic choir joining in on that same recurrent theme for a totally rad, totally triumphant minute-and-twentyseconds before gracefully and gradually falling apart.
Thing of the Fortnight
“I’ve Seen All Good People” – Yes The world’s coolest/lamest prog band Yes has a lot of songs with moments that could be considered totally rad, but this 1971 track takes the cake at around 2:44 when the band does what can only be described as a synchronized “doo-doo-doo” over and over again to the melody of the song. Though it’s hard to do it justice in text, listen to the song and you’ll know what I mean. It’s a totally rad, feel-good moment that you listen to on repeat just because it makes you feel so sickeningly happy.
“Tightrope” – Yeasayer This totally rad moment is simple, yet effective. It happens once at 1:23 and again at 1:36 when lead singer Chris Keating somehow makes the word “nevermind” into one of the most earworm-y things in probably all of music history. I’d tell you this moment is totally rad, but I already did in line 1, so nevermind nevermind nevermind nevermind nevermi-i-i-i-ind… (Sorry.)
sound & vision
Books More People Should Read Parrot Dance to DNB
Dhalgren by Samuel Delany: everyone should write more gay science fiction and diversify the genre.
By Maggie Foucault
-Pamela Ronnei
WHERE ARE ALL THE CUTE ANIMAL VIDEOS?! Youtube seriously needs to step it up. Ever since the Japanese box-cat took over, the category of “animals and pets” on Youtube has gone downhill. For example, half the videos in this category do not involve any animals whatsoever, and are just a pug-faced girl singing pop songs. Thankfully, someone’s parrot is here to save the day. This bird knows what’s up; techno = awesome, Miley Cyrus = lame. The only thing that disappoints me about this video is that it has less than 3,000 views. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK67bfnpECs&featu re=popt0fus0c
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer: sharp, darkly funny, endlessly re-readable short stories. -Pammy Ronnei Chaosmos by Magda Carneci - Romanian poet whose imagery is explosive, hallucinatory and vaginal as all get out. -Michael Hessel-Mial, Contributor
www.wakemag.org
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minds eye
Human v. Ancestor : Neanderthal Cloning By Sophie Frank
Cloning has been one of those “hot topics” for years. One of the things you find round-table discussions about late at night when flipping between PBS and the science channel or on the slate for high school debate class. Should we clone sheep? People? Babies? Well here’s a new one: soon we may be able to clone our ancient rival/ancestor, the Neanderthal Scientists in Germany have been working for the past five years on accurately sequencing a Neanderthal genome, from which a possible next step would be the re-creation of a living, breathing Neanderthal. But what exactly is a Neanderthal? The term seems to have become little more than an insult to be thrown around on the playground by ten-year-olds with a penchant for multisyllabic words. In fact, the Neanderthal is an extinct species of the Homo genus that existed from up to 600,000 to 30,000 years ago, and broke apart from the human line somewhere around 450,000 years ago. From physical and genetic remains we have been able to put together some semblance of their appearance. Shorter and stockier than humans, they boasted larger brains—due to differently shaped heads and bones—and demonstrated early use of stone tools, organized burial rights, and recognizable language, indicating early cultural organization. Neanderthal remains have been found throughout Europe and parts of Asia, and are perhaps one of the earliest examples of Homo sapiens driving an arguably evolutionarily valid species to distinction. Or maybe not so evolutionarily valid. After all, they’re all dead. Encino Man’s entrance to the modern world is by no means imminent. The sequencing of the genes is itself a daunting task. Hours after the death of an organism cells begin to break down, to fragment and transform, making the DNA increasingly difficult to read correctly. Over the thousands
What exactly would the re-creation of the Neanderthal contribute to the scientific community besides a whole mess of ethical and legal issues? of years since the death of the last Neanderthals their genes have morphed to barely intelligible hieroglyphics, painstakingly pieced together by scientists to form a coherent sequence. But even the completion of the sequencing does not immediately translate to the physical recreation of the Neanderthal. As there exist no living cells belonging to a Neanderthal, artificial cells would have to be created or vast modifications would have to be made to living cells of another species (presumably Homo sapiens). Should this theoretical cloning take place there remains the issue of creating a specimen that is able to survive, as cloned organisms are especially prone to
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03 – 31 march 2010
Lucy Michell
sickness and death. There is to date no successful precedent in the cloning of extinct species. Considering the great effort required to clone a Neanderthal the question of its utility comes to mind. What exactly would the re-creation of the Neanderthal contribute to the scientific community besides a whole mess of ethical and legal issues? As a test-tube creation a Neanderthal individual would not have the cultural history and context that would make any anthropologist giddy, and contribute to our understanding of cultural evolution. Though useless for furthering our understanding of ancient Neanderthal society, cloning would allow for biological testing on an organism with significant similarities to and distinct differences from human DNA that could lead to significant medical discoveries. Here the ethics become slightly murky. Because Neanderthals are so genetically close to humans, to create them with the ultimate function of being our life-sized lab rats would
set a precedent that could eventually translate to a form of biological slavery. We would be bringing a basic, undeveloped species into a complex world that it would be physically and mentally ill-equipped to handle, for the sole purpose of experimentation. One solution could be to refrain from cloning a Neanderthal and instead clone only parts of it. Arguably testing could be performed on cloned Neanderthal parts (a cell, an arm, an eye) rather than a cloned individual. While this turns the biology lab into a bit of a chop-shop, with its own set of ethical grey areas, there seems to be something fundamentally different between reproduction of cells or body parts and creating an actual consciousness. While it would certainly be interesting to see a living, breathing Neanderthal, here such an undertaking seems to be little more than man’s love of spectacle, and endless hubristic need to prove himself god (let us all dust off our high school copies of Frankenstein to see how this one plays out).
minds eye
Is That a Windmill on Your Mountain or Are You Just Mining? By Andrew Larkin
The split between conservationists and environmentalists is upon us. Across the country (and beyond it) our beloved national scenery is being threatened by the greens, of all people. More precisely, greens are attacking mountaintops. With windmills. Greens, naturally, aren’t the only ones attacking mountaintops. The tentative emergence of wind energy in states such as North Carolina is in some ways a response to mountaintop removal, which essentially destroys hilltops in search of coal. This practice tends to cause pollution, erosion, and all kinds of things that don’t sound that bad unless you live by something that used to be a river.
To put this in comprehensible terms, one megawatt of wind energy can supply 200 to 300 households with energy for a year. By this yardstick, the proposals of environmentalists really don’t seem like an assault at all. Lining hill crests with windmills actually seems like common sense, if you want windmills to be where wind is. Ridges in rural Oregon are being leased out in 105-megawatt parcels. To put this in comprehensible terms, one megawatt of wind energy can supply 200 to 300 households with energy for a year. That is to say that windmills in Oregon won’t solve everything, but they certainly won’t hurt. North Carolina ridges average wind speeds of 25 miles per hour, where the overwhelming majority of the North American continent sees average speeds of well under 20 miles per hour. Even if the continent as a whole averaged 20 miles per hour the difference is still far from marginal – the energy in wind is proportional to the cube of wind speed. This means that an area with average wind speeds of 25 miles per hour offers, on average, about twice as much electricity as an area with wind speeds of 20 miles per hour. Windmills don’t quite take in all the extra available energy, but the difference is still very significant. In context of this it seems flat-out stupid to put windmills anywhere but the windiest conceivable areas. Even this qualification is not simple, however. Areas on the continent with a large amount of wind also tend to have large numbers of birds riding that wind. According to one study, in California’s Altamont Pass, 2,000 to 5,000 birds annually get hit by the windmills occupying the pass. Proposals to build windmills along the Appalachian Ridge have been met with skepticism by naturalists, concerned about similar phenomena on a larger scale there, due to birds’ notorious tendency to migrate. Of course, what with climate change and all, a lot of people think renewable energy is sort of important. More important, for instance, than some dumb birds that don’t even look where they fly. But the issue is complicated by emerging prototypes for offshore windmills. Since in the ocean there isn’t wildlife to disturb (this is why we can use it
Rachel Mosey
as a dump for plastic) and because of science, the possibility of offshore windmills is moving rapidly toward realization. There are several advantages to offshore windmills. The first is that, due to the relative ease of moving things on the sea versus on land, significantly bigger windmills can be used offshore, with rotor diameters of up to 110 meters (the length of the blades from top to bottom). The largest diameters seen on land these days are about 90 meters. Intuition tells us that bigger is better and science probably verifies. However, the second and probably more important thing is that average wind speeds of up to 30 miles per hour in parts of the North Atlantic are typical, which again means a roughly twofold increase in energy in the wind. And no dead birds. Of course, real people don’t care about things like this, and it certainly hasn’t colored discussion of the issue. People care about money, and a warm reception of windmills in Steens County, Oregon is probably flavored by the $1.25 billion dollar investment that comes with it. The county’s jobless rate was 18 percent in December. Similarly in North Carolina concerns about windmills on mountaintops reflect the touristic appeal
of the state’s Appalachian ridge lines. The State Senate is still mulling over a bill to ban construction of windmills along the ridges, concerned, in the words of state senator Martin Nesbitt, about “destroy[ing] our crown jewel.” While it is hard to believe that anyone goes to North Carolina for scenery, it’s even harder to believe people go there for any other reason, and so perhaps Nesbitt has a valid point. As with all real issues, of course, there’s no simple solution. Birds are pretty and fun, and the truth is that wind energy does not yet have the capacity to, independently, move us sufficiently toward sustainable energy. North Carolina has so little going for it that to take away its scenic views is a bit like kicking a cancer patient, but the truth is that someone has to be kicked. Failing to move toward sustainable energy will have disastrous consequences. The problem is deciding whether it’s worthwhile to invest in baby steps like ruining scenery and killing birds when the truth is that we have yet to find a plausible mechanism of getting sustainable energy. Without this most crucial element, all other discussion seems at least a little bit futile.
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humanities
Love Machine
A Plea for Spoken Word’s Return Home
by Michael Hessel-Mial
By Timotheus “Pharaoh” Gordon
You. legato and polyform, likened to another squall leathery crepe skin fragile at a glance unfoldings perfunctory thanks to logic
February 22, 2010 Dear Spoken Word, Where art thou?
I am what I am afraid of We miss ya, mayne! I fear my machine parts blowing off their hinges Moldings and cross-sections \S N[ VQRNY ¿a I will be passed over by possibility of beauty airplanes vs. helicopters spread-armed breasts or spiral wall milk blossom poised to erect as phallic mother multiple sap oozings An indestructible plastic necessitates male and female parts Form begs shattering to reach molded core, as underlying as brick to lime honey to blood-orange tart gelled to weakened belly, legs, groin to kissing the breach between wombs, body bent between bodies, candle wax and tactile shapes. So much promise, we can fold into angled limb constructions that sound registers of desire,
Come back, come back home to your roots
But whatís good though? Where the audience snaps to the avalanche of knowledge À\dV[T `\ TR[aYf YVXR ZVYX ¶[ U\[Rf yet sonic-booms their hearts I remember the days When you wasnít scared of revolution Ready to mobilize North Minneapple, or Low End or Beverly Hills...all ends of Earth I remember when you spoke of Last Poets, Ginsberg, Brooks, & Hughes; then you took it way back to days of Dunbar, Romantic poets, griots, & folktales Back in the day you used to stroll into the cafÈ singing your charming music to minds in need of pleasure, like the pied piper; your words used to get folks crunk for change I mean, I mean,
desire upon desire upon desire upon desire, but I refuse to let you fuck me
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03 – 31 march 2010
Iím cool with the def poetry still, Now that youíre internationally known and not just a street messenger being ignored. Schools, babies, grandparents, governments... Everyone chants your name now! I commend you on producing and nurturing brave new voices: like those speaking souls, young prophets who are ready to spread the news, and different voices that are forever merging.
I heard you became bastardized by ABC when you signed on to spit your ode to Vick for millions. Pate would hate your ìhamburg er rapî when he hears your Adidas ad. And poetry slams? This is not a rap battle. Canít be signifying on other poets...impossible! Stick to delivering the message. I just hope you wonít take commercial rapís route and spit Pokemon rap that only the rich wanna get jiggy with. Quit being trapped and sacked with the status quo and just go. Go back home to your roots We miss yaí! Weíll welcome you with open arms at the next open mic. Peace, Love, and Revolution,
Pharaoh Timotheus “Pharaoh” Gordon
go-go starwars joketime What kind of a car does a Jedi drive? -A Toy-Yoda! Which side of an Ewok has the most fur? - The outside! Two Gamorrean guards are walking down a narrow, deserted canyon when suddenly a Rancor comes out and starts chasing them. One of the Gamorreans stops to put on his best running shoes. “Don’t waste time,” shouts the other one, “you can’t outrun a Rancor with those!” “I don’t have to outrun a Rancor,” says the first one as he finishes lacing his shoes, “I just have to outrun you!”
How long does Luke Skywalker need to sleep? -One Jedi Knight! www.wakemag.org
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