End Is Near
07
Best of 2010
08
Nice Purse Interview & More! january 2011
ADVERTISE HERE
ADVERTISE HERE
ADVERTISE HERE CHEAP RATES, THOUSANDS OF READERS CONTACT OFFICE@WAKEMAG.ORG
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Editorial
Production
Editor-in-Chief Maggie Foucault
Production Manager Ryan Webert
Managing Editor Sophie Frank
Graphic Designers Steph Mertes, Ryan Webert
Cities Editor Alex Lauer
Photography Editor Matt Miranda
Voices Editor Eric Murphy
Art Director Keit Osadchuk
Sup brah? Welcome back to another wonderful, freezing cold spring semester! As the campus population slowly returns from the hibernation of winter break and New
Sound & Vision Editor Zach McCormick
This Issue Cover Artist Maggie Foucault
Bastard Steph Mertes
Year’s Resolutions are quickly forgotten, The Wake returns with our Best Of 2010/ Looking Forward to 2011 issue! While I’m sure everyone has seen enough “Top Ten
Business Advisory Board James DeLong, Kevin Dunn, Courtney Lewis, Eric Price, Morgan Mae Schultz, Gary Schwitzer, Kay Steiger, Mark Wisser
Illustrators Angie Frisk
Contributing Writers Sarah Boden, Maggie Foucault, Kevin Karner, Alex Lauer, Chase Mathey, Zach McCormick, Eric Murphy, Jon Schober, Caleigh Souhan, Hallie Wallace
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.
of “ list, because let’s be serious, tons of awesome/awful things happened last year besides that Arcade Fire album. MTV.com, for example. The original cool kid of basic cable has stepped up their game, now offering a plethora of shows online. But these offerings are not limited to shows on the air. I recently finished a season of “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” all with limited commercial interruptions. Another highlight: ads that appear target the 20-something crowd that are concerned about their aging baby boomer parents’ health… unless they are going for the 20-something morbidly obese crowd with these Lipitor commercials?
Photographers Maggie Foucault, Matt Miranda
©2009 The Wake Student Magazine. All rights reserved.
Albums of 2010” articles, we have decided that ANYTHING is fair game for this “best
10:6 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).
What were your favorite parts of 2010, and what are you looking forward to in 2011? Get onto www.wakemag.org and leave us some comments! We’ll have tons of extra online content this semester, starting off with a free download from local duo Nice Purse, more articles, and blogs galore in addition to our first print edition of the semester. The Wake is always looking for more writers, photographers, and designers. To get involved you can come to the meeting for our next issue on Tuesday February 1 (8:30pm at our office in Dinkytown) or send me an email at mfoucault@wakemag.org.
Maggie Foucault Editor-in-Chief
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 mfoucault@wakemag.org.
voices
The Ignored Georgia Prison Strike by Hallie Wallace
On Thursday, December 9, tens of thousands of disenfranchised workers in the United States went on strike to protest deplorable conditions and non-existent wages. It was the largest strike of its kind in US history. Despite the immensity of this action, there is a very good chance you have not heard of it at all. It was all but ignored by the mainstream media. How did such an important historic event get pushed aside in our national consciousness? It is because this massive striking workforce was made up of prisoners from Georgia correctional facilities. Some reports say that four prisons are involved, while some put the number at ten. Because of the lack of reporting on this issue, and the veil of secrecy that the Georgia Department of Corrections has tried to impose, it is difficult to find exact facts on the strike. All information known has come from illegal cell phone calls with inmates, as well as conversations with prisoner rights lawyers.
The first day of the strike, the prisoners’ lawyers sent out a press release on behalf of the prisoners detailing their demands. These included educational opportunities beyond a GED, decent, affordable health care, an end to cruel and unusual punishments, which are commonplace reactions to minor inmate infractions, decent living conditions, which entails an end to overcrowding (three prisoners in a cell meant for one), and an end to extreme temperatures (little heat in winter, oppressive heat in summer), nutritional meals, vocational and self-improvement opportunities, access to families (an end to excessive telephone charges and innumerable barriers to visits), and just parole decisions. One of the largest demands on the part of the prisoners is a living wage for work. Currently the GDC (Georgia Department of Corrections) demands that all inmates work for free. We often overlook the importance of the cheap, if not free, labor force that the incarcerated population provides. In Min-
04
january 2011
angie frisk
The self-imposed lockdown strike, which ended after one week, is remarkable for several reasons. The first is the unprecedented simultaneity of the action. Using cell phones purchased illegally from correctional officers, inmates from different prisons were able to communicate with each other. This is the first time this kind of technology has been used in prison uprisings. The second reason is the unity shown by prisoners. Bloods, Crips, Muslims, Mexicans, and the Aryan Brotherhood all came together in solidarity and understanding. Prison wardens and guards often play up racial, religious, and other differences among prisoners in order to keep them divided, and thus powerless against the forces in charge. The strike has united all prisoners against a common oppressor. The third reason is the peaceful nature of this protest. Prison uprisings have a reputation in our popular culture as being violent, chaotic riots, complete with shanks and stampedes. However, these Georgia inmates practiced complete non-violence. They put themselves in voluntary lockdown, refusing to come out of their cells to work.
nesota, inmate workers participating in DOC Institution/ Community Work Crew (ICWC) are paid $1.50 an hour, which they can use to pay family support, restitution, and contribute to victim funds. Minnesota prisoners work making custodial products, cabinetry, library and school furniture, outdoor recreational products, office and residential furniture, reupholstering furniture and work in laundry and printing services. MINNCOR, the company that markets these products to the public, also provides contract manufacturing in metal production (including the classic prison job of stamping license plates), wood production, sewing, bottling, and printing/bindery production. As with the ICWC program, inmates are required to pay family support and victim restitution, in addition to state and federal taxes, as well as a contribution to the prison to cover the costs of incarceration. While Minnesota’s prison work conditions seem unsatisfactory, inmates in Georgia prisons are not paid at all. It is essentially free labor, or slave labor according to the prisoners and their lawyers. Striking inmates cite the 13th amendment as reason for the illegality of the practices of the GDC. Section one states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The amendment says that punishment for a crime is an acceptable reason for forced labor, however, the inmates and their lawyers are claiming that this would only apply if free labor was explicitly a part of
sentenced punishment, such as being sent to the workhouse. If forced and free labor is not mentioned during sentencing as part of an inmate’s punishment, it would be considered involuntary servitude in violation of the 13th amendment, as well as a violation of the 8th amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishments. It is easy to dismiss these demands as invalid. After all, there is a reason these people are in prison, right? Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Consider these facts: in 2008, more than one in one hundred Americans were in prison. With 2.3 million members of our population behind bars, we far outnumber China in incarcerated numbers, despite China’s signficantly higher population and reputation for stringent jailing practices. Half of the prison population is incarcerated for non-violent crime. This is in part because of no-tolerance policies enacted in the 1980s and 90s surrounding drugs, especially crack cocaine (although not it’s powder counterpart, which is much more popular among wealthier white people). Criminality notwithstanding, should we really be treating any human beings worse than we would treat animals? It is time to decide if we will lock up criminals in sub-standard conditions—regardless of the level of violence in their crimes—or if we should think of prisons as rehabilitative correctional facilities, as a place for people to pay for their crimes while changing their lives so as to make real contributions to society upon release.
voices
Strength in Numbers by Eric Murphy
Computers make crunching numbers almost disturbingly easy, and the Internet makes it just as easy to share those crunched numbers. The piles and piles of data that one can transform into meaningful information and trends via statistical analysis are staggering. There are website-visit breakdowns and analytics to target advertisements, there are public opinion polls broken down into smaller and smaller categories and demographics, there is statistical analysis of almost every sport, there are bar graphs and pie charts about the relative merits of x and y and z, there are brightly colored infographics with a plethora of percentages stamped in large fonts, there are interactive maps of the U.S. with various zoom and mouse-over features, etc., etc., etc. It’s a lot. This information, though it can sometimes be an overload, is usually at least somewhat useful. Do I really need to know what percentage of white females between the ages of 34 and 39 who own their own home and have two or more children currently living at home feel about California legalizing marijuana? Probably not. But that kind of throwing-everythingat-the-wall approach, with borderline-insane levels of detail thanks to computers and the Internet, does allow the user to
comb through the haystack of information for a useful needle that he or she would otherwise have no way of finding. This is the strength of interactive databases, which are starting to become a little more prominent. Take, for example, Google’s recent release of what it calls its Books Ngram Viewer. Ngram is a searchable database of every word and phrase in every book that Google has scanned into its database and reliably digitized. The viewer graphs the usage of input words or phrases over an adjustable period of years, decades, and even centuries. While it isn’t necessarily meaningful to know the number of times the word “sand” appeared in 1925, the power is in being able to filter out the useless data and find meaningful trends. For example, the usage of “happiness” declined continuously and dramatically over the 19th and 20th centuries to about one-tenth of its peak frequency, and the word “sadness” has doubled in frequency since the 1980s. Enter in almost any vulgar word and you’ll see an exponential increase starting around 1960 and continuing to present day. Enter in author or artist names to gauge their popularity through recent history. The point is that this massive heap of data, since we have computers that can deal with it and a tool in the Internet to share it, now makes sense—we have more access to more knowledge. This is not necessarily always helpful. Greater access to hard data and information can also breed overconfidence and shortcuts. Especially in recent times (probably a consequence of being able to access more of it), we fetishize quan-
titative data. We tend to think having data that supports a point “proves it”—and, in some cases, it does. But thinking that numbers are irrefutable and undeniable has its drawbacks. In the run-up to the recent financial crisis, for example, many Wall Street firms put their faith in a statistic called “Value at Risk” which measures risk over a 95 percent confidence interval—in other words, there is only a five percent chance that a given asset would lose more than the statistic said it could on a given day. However, those on Wall Street who did not understand the statistic took VaR’s lower limit to be the worst-case scenario, considering other possibilities so unlikely that they were all but impossible. As we know now, that was a mistake, and overconfidence in numerical analysis (and taking the shortcut of not performing some human analysis as well) caused a huge blind spot of risk that wound up taking down several major companies. Since obtaining this kind of data is remarkably easy, we consider a thorough and full analysis to be accumulating and aggregating a huge stack of data, throwing that into a spreadsheet, reaching for a pattern, and stamping whatever we find into large and colorful fonts and graphic-design the results until they are as easily digestible as we can make them. Both the Internet and television have a tendency to do this, since those using each aren’t always looking to engage themselves intellectually: a delineated and color-coded graphic draws the eye and provides easy interpretation in a way that a block of text cannot. But there is no replacement for good old qualitative human analysis. Nate Silver, whose political analysis blog “538” was recently licensed by the New York Times, is probably the best of the stat-lovers at balancing the two: he makes the point that while numerical analysis can provide evidence and support for a belief, it should just as often make us skeptical, and we should always be aware of its limitations. This was clear in his model-based election forecast: Silver frequently repeated the point that while the blog had picked a specific number of seats that it predicted each party would win, the model was sufficiently uncertain that a significantly different result was not all that unlikely. This is the right way to use statistics and analytics. One can take data points and trends for exactly what they are but not extend them beyond what they can explain, and can use language to explain the shortcomings of the math. Even universities, some of the few remaining defenders of the humanities and qualitative analysis, are increasingly moving toward the quantitative rationalization of corporatism. They are using numbers (and frequently only numbers) in determining which programs to cut and keep—what are students’ test scores? What are their prospective starting salaries? How popular is a given program? Many incoming governors are planning even more cuts to higher education (including Democrats—Jerry Brown in California has already announced cuts around 16 percent), which will put even more pressure on universities’ fundamentally non-numerical departments to perform numerically. But numbers can only give us so much information, and to use them as the sole criterion for evaluation is a mistake. Fantasy sports are not a substitute for watching a game live, opinion poll analysis is not a substitute for governing, and infographics are not a substitute for reading about and studying an issue. Even when we use quantitative analysis in a legitimate quest to broaden our knowledge, we should take a step back and recall its limits and weaknesses.
www.wakemag.org
05
voices
Energy Orgy (while supplies last) by Kevin Karner While we can all rest assured that the hopelessly corrupt US Congress may still be the place where DREAMs go to die, there still seems to remain some semblance of responsibility—13 Senate Republicans rejected their party’s radical position and voted in favor of US ratification of the New START treaty with the Russian Federation. New START will limit each country to 1,550 strategic warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200, as soon as the two houses in the Federal Assembly of Russia—whose support was contingent upon US approval—vote the treaty into immediate effect sometime in late January or early February. The treaty goes a step further than the Moscow Treaty of 2002, which lowered the total number of U.S. warheads from about 11,000 to today’s level of about 5,000. That treaty built off 1991’s START I, which lowered the number of warheads between Russia and the U.S. from about 50,000 to 20,000—about 10k each. For the sake of partisan venting, it should be noted that when compared to Bush Jr. and Sr.’s treaties, the efforts spent by Senate Republicans and the goons at the Heritage Foundation to derail this modest treaty is empirical proof that “the opposition” will oppose anything with so much as Obama’s fingerprints—even if that means rejecting military consensus or their own precedent. But now that the deal is sealed, it begs the question, what will happen to these discounted weapons of mass destruction? Back to where they came from, of course. Not anytime soon, mind you—sure, they’ll take out the batteries—but these newly discarded weapons will probably wait in storage for many years to come, until we’ve finished cleaning up after the cold war arms race.
“nearly half of all the electricity currently generated by US nuclear power comes from uranium that was once part of a Soviet warhead.” There haven’t been any new nuclear weapons built since 1989. Since then, American production facilities have been tasked with various research and design projects, or in the case of the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, disassembly. Since the early 90s, the Pantex plant has been tasked with piece-bypiece disarmament in their many concrete bunkers; removing explosives and their highly enriched uranium metal components from strategic and tactical nuclear missiles. The radioactive warhead components are reduced to metal shavings which are then melted and filtered into highly enriched uranium (HEU) after contaminants are chemically removed; the HEU is converted to a gaseous state and cut with low enriched uranium to make a blended low-enriched uranium that is burned as fuel for civil nuclear reactors—mostly those belonging to massive federal utility corporation Tennessee Valley Authority. Now, some bombs use plutonium instead of HEU so until a US nuclear reactor can process its mixed oxide
06
january 2011
fuel, those will continue to be packaged into lead containers and buried on site. After the reactor is spent it gets shuffled in with the other 70,000 tons of radioactive waste that the US government isn’t sure what to do with; perhaps it will even end up at Minnesota’s own Prairie Island or Monticello nuclear generating plants— two of the 120 or so temporary domestic storage facilities. In Russia, they’ve been converting their stockpile to fuel under the Megatons to Megawatts program for years. In fact, nearly half of all the electricity currently generated by US nuclear power comes from uranium that was once part of a Soviet warhead. Back in 1991, with Soviet implosion eminent, the rival countries struck a deal—partially because Russia was broke, partially because the US has never had consistent access to uranium—in which a branch of the Department of Energy (currently the privatized USEC) called U.S. Enrichment Corporation that would, “at very modest cost to the U.S. taxpayer,” essentially buy Soviet warheads in the form of a bulk uranium purchase. Normally, an American utility company would buy natural uranium from a mining company in “yellowcake” form, and then hand it off to an enrichment company like USEC, paying them to create what will ultimately feed their reactors; under Megatons to Megawatts, USEC acts as only a middleman. In the 1993 agreement USEC paid Tekhsnabeksport (TENEX), the executive agent for Russia, $12 billion for a 20 year supply of HEU blended down in Russia and shipped to Kentucky. Local nuclear reactors then pay USEC for the fuel as if it were their own “yellowcake” uranium which had been enriched. The most recent calculations from US Council on Foreign Relations indicate that the deal has provided US reactors with wildly subsidized fuel—Russia is receiving approximately $72 per kilogram while the estimated 2011 uranium prices place it at an actual value of nearly $175; this is precisely why Russia has no plans to renew this contract when it expires in 2013. Regardless, Megatons to Megawatts is widely considered a success story in non-proliferation, claiming the disarmament of 20,000 nuclear weapons while laying the critical legal groundwork for efforts to come. Just this January 11, it was
confirmed by Moscow and Washington that “Agreement 123” has now come into effect, allowing US companies to sell nuclear materials like reactors and spent fuel rods back to Russia.
“Current uranium demands are double the current supply, in part because all the good uranium deposits have been used up. While traditional reserves dwindle, demand is set to explode; China’s new imports alone will gobble up a third of the current market and uranium prices will dramatically rise accordingly.” Much of the controversy surrounding nuclear power as a viable alternative energy is that uranium, like oil, is finite. Current uranium demands are double the current supply, in part because all the good uranium deposits have been used up. While traditional reserves dwindle, demand is set to explode; China’s new imports alone will gobble up a third of the current market and uranium prices will dramatically rise accordingly. Whether now, or when this price jump occurs, Russia will undoubtedly continue some sort of bombs to fuel exchange—either at much higher prices directly with US utility companies or foreign reactors that can process downblended plutonium, or with the Russia’s own recently opened nuclear fuel bank in Siberia. From the bank, a country with a clean proliferation slate can purchase low-enriched uranium for civilian reactor use. When faced with non-nuclear weapon states with civil nuclear reactors dependent on global uranium reserves for basic electricity, sitting on a nuclear stockpile leftover from the 20th century may hold resoundingly profitable implications, establishing a whole new dimension of the “military industrial complex.”
voices
The End Is Near, Better Start Partying By Alex Lauer
Do you realize what year it is? It is 2011, which means we have less than two years until the world ends. You would think that the signs of the end of time wouldn’t start until around September 2012 or so, but here we are in January 2011 and some very obvious signs are making headlines. Everyone has heard about the 5,000 dead birds in Alabama, the 2 million dead fish in Maryland, and how Sarah Palin is making a run for president in 2012. But all of these events seem distant from Minnesota. Though worrisome, it is difficult to relate to such happenings when we live in a secluded northern state. Fortunately, or actually, unfortunately for you, there have also been many recent local events pointing to doomsday. Two such indications have been talked about quite a lot, but are at first glance the least obvious signs of the end-time. I’m talking about Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann running for president (though hopefully not on the same ticket). There have always been crazy people running for president (and governor: Fancy Ray I’m looking at you), but the fact that the public takes these particular candidates seriously can point to nothing short of the deterioration of society.
Tim Pawlenty has openly made up “facts,” one of many instances being in an Op-Ed article for the Wall Street Journal back in early December, which was proved rife with fabrications by PolitiFact. Unfortunately people don’t seem to care about that sort of thing. During his recent appearance on “The View,” audience members thought he seemed like a really nice guy, some even stating, “He’s got my vote,” according to a report by the Star Tribune. Then there is Michelle Bachmann, the subject of countless “Top 10 Craziest Quotes” lists, of which my favorite is this 2009 classic: “I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.” There is so much wrong with that quote that I don’t even need to comment on it. So we have a liar and an insane person vying for the head of one of the most powerful countries in the world. And you doubted the 2012 theory. Then there was the December 12 Metrodome collapse. Though it had been 24 years since any major damage to the roof has been reported and no similar collapse has occurred in its existence, people seem relatively calm about the whole predicament. The people in charge come up with how much it will cost to repair, plans start forming, and everyone forgets all about it. People are forgetting that in every end-of-theworld scenario landmark sports stadiums are always the first to go. Think about this—the Metrodome’s roof is 10 acres in area, according to the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission website, and snow took it down. Only weather nearing apocalypse-status could produce that kind of snowfall, and you can bet a year from now that Metrodome will be out of commission once again. Popular 2012 predictions tend to include drastic changes in weather patterns that cause the oceans to encroach onto continents, or Texas-sized meteors crashing into Earth. The signs as of this moment, however, point towards a mutant takeover, the first appearance of which is scheduled for summer 2011, thanks to a November sewage spill into Lake Minnetonka. According to Fox 9 News, in early November an estimated 150,000 gallons of raw sewage leaked into one of Minnesota’s most popular lakes. With the clean-up crew unable to extract it and the lake freezing over in December, that toxic sludge is now undoubtedly transforming the once docile lake creatures into disgusting, flesh-eating monsters. Come the beginning of swimsuit season, Lake Minnetonka is going to look like 2010’s 3D horror Pirahna. Not going anywhere near the lake this year? You’re still in danger, and from something much more frightening than disfigured bass, as the Minnesota ban on new nuclear power plants is on its way to being repealed. With new nuclear power comes nuclear waste, and with nuclear waste comes human exposure and mutation. With all things considered, those mutations will lead to beings more akin to Sloth from The Goonies rather than the X-Men, obviously with a taste for human flesh. There is always good news and bad news. This time, the bad news is that 23 months from now we’ll all be dead. The good news is that you now know and have 23 months left to complete your bucket list and party as much as you possibly can. Go!
IN ANSWER TO ALL OF YOUR QUESTIONS by sarah boden 1.) Yes, I am excited to graduate college. 2.) English Literature and Anthropology. 3.) No, I don’t have any plans after I graduate. 4.) No, I don’t want to go to grad school. 5.) Or law school. 6.) No, I don’t have a job lined up; but if you have one in mind I’ll take it. 7.) No, I haven’t really started looking for a job either. 8.) I guess I did kind of waste the last 4 ½ years, if you call becoming educated a waste. 9.) If I were to do it over again, no I wouldn’t have picked different majors. 10.) I have no idea what my professional prospects are like, but judging from the current economic climate, not good. 11.) No, I can’t keep my two current jobs once I graduate because they’re student jobs. 12.) The idea of getting married seems about as far-fetched to me as walking on the Moon; possible, but not likely. 13.) Kids?
Are you kidding?
14.) No, I’m not worried about my future. 15.) Why? Because I haven’t really thought about it.
Matt Miranda
www.wakemag.org
07
feature
by zach mcc
ormick
Worst Munch ie-B
ummer of 2010 : The Great Ch
Not iced a se ve re drop in the burr ito -qua lit w itnessing pa y index at your rt of the fa llout loca l Ch ipot le of the compa ny serv ice conduc over the la st m ’s recent purg ted an I- 9 audi onth? No, you’ e of nearly 80 t, w hi mas bonuses re not cr az y, yo te -c w ol orkers statew la r cr ackdow n on Ch went out in ea u’re merely ide af ter the Im rly December, ipot le’s restau been employed m ig ration and th ra e nt ha s in tc w ith Ch ipot le het job mostly Min nesota . Co Custom s for over five ye affec ted the co m ing right be cause of the N ar s. W hile it’s fore the Ch rist mpa ny ’s Latino at ion’s mount ce rt st in ai aff g nl border in secu , includ ing so y un fort un ate We Ch ipot le fa rity, the real tr me who had that the loca l natics have hi agedy here is w gh standa rds or ki ng be tolerated. So class had to ta the useless ho for our massi when college -b ke a hit be nkies the com ve ca lorie bom oy brea ks his how to use a fo pa ny hired to bs; cold spots, th ird tort illa replace them rk. botched orde in a row on yo . rs and dr ipping ur next burr ito burr itos w ill no run, save your t rage for La M ig ra and lear n
by maggie fouc
ault
20 Worst FDA Call of
ipotle Purge
WO
by alex lauer
Worst Tweet of 2010
“Do ants have dicks?”
That gem wa s supplied by the well-educated ph ilosopher Kourt ney Ka just because it’s fun ny rda shian. Yes, I laughe doesn’t exempt it from d when I read the questio bei ng the worst tweet of the you don’t have a Tw itte n too, but yea r (main ly because it r account, 2010 wa s the wa s a ser ious question). first yea r it wa s imposs at lea st one rid iculous Even if ible to live in a well-popu tweet , whether it wa s fro lated area wit hout hea rin m Sar ah Pal in or Ka nye enough embar rassing tho g about West. Wh ile those I jus ughts into cyberspace to t mentioned have sent ma ke the top spot, this as follow s: 1) Par t of my more tha n Ka rda shian win s for a mu mind that should be use ltit ude of rea son s, wh ich d for rem ember ing the name of tha is now being used to rem are t girl at that one par ty or ember a tweet from a Ka rda shian sister, 2) It ma how to per for m CPR don’t know why the y’re de me remember the Ka famous, 3) I am tangibly rda shian sister s, even less intelligent from bei why she wa s thinking abo if I stil l ng exposed to that que ut the possibilit y of ant stio n, 4) It made me think abo s hav ing dicks, wh ich wa sted less hope for humanity ut at lea st a couple minutes after seeing she has alm of my life, 5) I now have ost 2 million followers.
08
january 2011
BE
AN
10, Bro
elve per cent Four Loko. The tw ra l phenomenon : ltu cu n using ter rible ica ca er for Am n ly beca me know rise and fal l of an e ick th qu th d ko bo an w er sa mm 10 20 er the su st stories of Four Lo me to popular ity ov taste of regrets). Mo e Th r? invo ffe fla ca e s ABV energy beer ca ad les lemon of ot her, ing way (Cra nber ry Four Loko in favor o nights in an amaz who pa ssed on the ds en it’s popular ity, it als fri e of s th ak by pe ed e th se relat Loko reached spita lur ho Fo re er nights are of cour we aft ty on rsi so ive r, hington Un ication. Howe ve nts at Cent ra l Was ated, for ms of intox visitors were co -eds. Nine stude ing liz n students and six ita ee sp nt ho ve Se for . ink dr gy er a?), after en c beca me know n od oli e alcoh that wa s a go ide er run-ins with th ma ny people th ink is th ted did ina ffe ized in Oc tober aft ow ca (h y of rse cing all ma kers iversity in Ne w Je 0 dol$1 healt h concer n,” for lic for hospita lized at a Un ub le, “p sa a et be rk to ailable in black ma cla red Four Loko av de is A ko FD e Lo aster : th ur dis Fo ich , wh . Luckily tit ute recipe for remove the ca ffeine eady found a subs alr ve ha os br alcoholic dr inks to us and ca mp ing to Wikipedia) lar s a ca n (accord aser. ch gy er en r ou a 5-h Ka rkov shots with
TH
O
20
HE
EST
feature
by maggie foucault
Best Thing to Happen to Pizza in 2010: Online Ordering
of online ordering technology. Each step in Ordering Pizza Online. In 2010, Dominoes pioneered the new wave back to the consumer. “Mike put your reported and nted the pizza product ion process was diligent ly docume but I won’t look a gift horse in the need, I than tion informa more little a be order in the oven at 12:35am” might just as much unnecessary information along mouth. Soon after, local favorite Pizza Luce followed suit, offering needs phone delivery anymore? Or really, who with much better quality pizza. With Luce on the bandwagon, who even needs to leave the house?
ND
BY ZACH MCCORMIC
ORST
OF
010
K
Best New Pl Coffee Bar ace to get your Hipster Cred Up: A ng ry Cat fish
Bike and
Looking to ga rner a few scene points around the Tw in Cit ies? Steer forget about Uptow n clear of Northeast, tha wh ile you’re at it, the t’s so 2009, and you can yuppies are buying up matoes at The Wedg those ne w condos fas e. For the truly hip an ter tha n their org an ic d cutting edge, the ne merly bucol ic Sta nd ish tow “it ” neighborhood by La ke Hiaw atha, at in Minneapolis will be lea st if the effort lessly to say about it. You can the forcool sta ff at the Angry ga ze longingly at the Catfish have anyth ing boutique track bikes Intell igentsia Espresso gil din g the shop’s wa lls wh lov ingly ha nd-dr aw n ilst sipping a shot of by a fetch ingly musta zy Jav a gadgets one cou ch ioed young Ba rista. ld desire, from Chem The café ha s all the sn ex to French Press, an beater road bike along azd even Vaccum-Pot. too, as the Angry Catfis Feel free to bring your h keeps a ful l-time me wa it, enjoy a delic iou old chan ic on sta ff to ser s pa str y from the ne vice repair s. Wh ile yo ighborhood’s other, u decided ly less hip ins tit ution : A Ba ker ’s Wi fe.
ouse” Time’s “The Slaughterh l ea M ic Ep : 10 a fad 20 of n t food opt ion s look like Best Culinar y Creatio adent and rid iculous fas
BY ALEX LAUER
even the most dec anima ls. Made wit h mach. The show ma kes hterhouse” out of dead sto aug of nt “Sl fai ing the ock for -m t no use pastry and candied baEpic Meal Time is d a gingerbread-ho and doors, roofed wit h Ch ristmas, the y create ws is do Th . win ves for ati drink), ern ham alt y e,” diet’s hea lth ls and bacon grease to ce wit h “meat glu steak bricks held in pla inf used wit h Jack Da nie g of no lls wa egg d the or, e (an flo tur iz k cap por Wh d tly a groun e would per fec tia lly wit h Cheez ms of fat. Epic Meal Tim -Coke ribs, and filled par gra nd the 81 k-a s 5,5 Jac iou by and ser es w ced ho ori y fen , cal ctl con ering 86,997 tough to tel l exa clocks in at a mind-shatt ether are Ca nad ian . It’s nt tog me w ele sho aty the t me a pu o o the “Slaughterhouse” als wh people urd ity, but there is culture, except that the element of sat ire and abs a medium- sized excesses of American . Certa inly there is an als me ly the y are spl it among se ful the nk ut tha abo gh ou are (th ple m peo the e the atteneat Tim do al Epic Me ate a spectacle to draw obnoxious meals ture—that we must cre the people who cook the cul r all, r ou n. The fte of tio h —a nta wt ity me gro cer eri out sin of videos is an ary-pushing and exp w much of the ser ies of of it is leg itimate bound ch us. mu icio del how ly and odd s, group). One wonders ho cle and h specta disgusting, ch of it is a satire of suc als look equally creative, tion of others—how mu Epic Meal Time’s epic me as t jus ts, par al equ in ee answer is probably all thr
www.wakemag.org
09
sound & vision
What I’m Most Excited For in 2011
Best Book of 2011
Ask & Tell
“The Pale King” by David Foster Wallace
Senate Repeals Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
by Alex Lauer
Eric Murphy
by Maggie Foucault
Everyone has that one band they wish they could have seen live, but which has now disbanded because of old age, new projects, or death. While the Beatles, Nirvana, and The Doors are some of the more popular choices, that band for me has always been Atari Teenage Riot. A German electro-punk band known for their political extremism, they captured my attention when I was an impressionable, angst-ridden kid. To sum them up, in 1999 they put their act on wheels and performed through the streets of Berlin during an anti-NATO rally which ended in rioting and extremely violent police retaliation (don’t worry, the whole thing is on Youtube). Unfortunately, by the time I was old enough to go to one of their concerts, the group had deteriorated and one member had overdosed—a fate not uncommon of many great musicians. Then came 2010 and the announcement that ATR would be reuniting for real, not just a reunion tour, but the second phase of their musical revolution. This past year they toured throughout the world, making their new presence known, but to my disappointment the closest they came to Minnesota was some hole-in-the-wall club in Chicago. Fortunately, however, ATR has signed with Dim Mak records, founded by electro house artist Steve Aoki, and is releasing a brand new album in 2011. I’m expecting an even more intense, expansive, and out-of-control world tour following the release.
After David Foster Wallace’s suicide in 2008, he left behind over 1,000 scattered and disjointed pages of an unfinished novel called “The Pale King” that he had been working on with varying degrees of success since 2000. The book is structured as a mock memoir narrated by a fictional David Foster Wallace and the plot, as far as there can be in an unfinished work, follows IRS agents struggling to cope with the boredom of their jobs. Of course, now that “The Pale King” is out of the real Wallace’s hands, marketing is inevitable: its release day is April 15, or tax day.
Pride parades may be a regular occurrence in most larger American cities, but 2011 will be the first year without the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy in place, a policy which essentially forced homosexuality back into the closet for the U.S. military. While the policy has been in effect since 1993, homosexuality has been ample reason for discharge from the military since our country’s inception. The decision to repeal the policy came after years of debate, culminating in a 65-31 Senate vote that passed the bill on to President Obama. He finally signed the papers on December 22, 2010. This revocation was a staple of Obama’s presidential campaign, and while the process of reviewing the ban and proposed policies still has to happen--keeping Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in place for now-this decision promises an era of openness ahead for military personnel. In addition to eradicating official homosexual discrimination, it may eventually become possible for soldiers discharged under the policy (a number now upwards of 10,000) to reenlist. Yay equal rights!
Atari Teenage Riot
10
january 2011
While the book will inevitably seem discontinuous and unsatisfying plot-wise, the pleasure of reading Wallace is not about juicy plot twists or conventionally satisfying, cathartic conclusions. Instead, it is about the character of his work: the fundamental honesty and consciousness (but not necessarily self-consciousness) that runs through his work, from giant novels about addiction to nonfiction travel pieces about overly decadent cruises in the Caribbean. His occasional use of technical language and complex sentences complete with asides relegated to footnotes may intimidate some readers, but they shouldn’t: he treats the reader as his equal and his companion if that reader is willing to be active, not passive. While I wish there were still more work to come from the best writer of his generation, Wallace’s unfinished work will have to satisfy his readers, or, more appropriately, leave them unsatisfied.
sound & vision
PJ Harvey Let England Shake by Caleigh Souhan Polly Jean Harvey has never been the type of musician to play it safe. By constantly recreating her sound with each album and transforming herself visually for her theatrical live shows, PJ has concreted herself into the hearts of her audience. Her new single “Written on the Forehead,” from her forthcoming album Let England Shake, shows she still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve. Now entering into her second decade of putting out albums, PJ is attempting to tap into the social conscious of the world by focusing her lyrics on warfare and shifts in political power. Instead of performing these lyrics in her raw, guttural timbre to showcase the weight of the current social situation, she starts off the single by painting the picture of a war-struck city and the plights of the citizens involved. Sampling the classic reggae song “Blood and Fire” from Niney the Observer, she creates an interesting middle ground between bright and dreamy delivery and the stark imagery of people scrambling to exit a burning city. Known for her thoughtful and melancholic songwriting, her new album promises to explore the timeless tragedies of war and what that means for the individuals involved. This album is going to cover new territory for PJ, straying away from her past topics of love and abusive relationships. Let England Shake drops February 14 on Vagrant Records.
The Decemberists The King is Dead by Chase Mathey The voice of Colin Meloy is not a voice that one forgets overnight. The front man of the gypsy-infused, indie-folk band, The Decemberists, almost always sounds as if he is on the verge of tears while confessing his lyrics of hardship and love. The rest of this five member band accent Colin’s voice with instruments and sounds which are just as unique. The Decemberists have been a highly regarded contributor to the indie music scene since their first EP release, 5 Songs, in 2001. Since then, they have released four more EPs and five full-length albums, including The Crane Wife and The Hazards of Love, which both broke the Billboard Top 40; The Hazards of Love reaching all the way to the number 14 spot. Now in their tenth year, The Decemberists are releasing their sixth full-length album, The King is Dead, which released January 18. This highly anticipated album was recorded last spring in Pendarvis Farm, Portland, OR, where the PICKATHON Indie Roots music festival is held. Peter Buck, the guitarist of R.E.M. and one of Colin Meloy’s largest influences, will be featured on three of the tracks on the upcoming album, including the album’s single, “Down by the Water.” With sorrowful lyrics, Peter Buck on 12-string guitar and Appalachian singer Gillan Welch on back-up vocals, “Down by the Water” has a great sound and feel that carries on to the rest of the album.
Trish Keenan by Jon Schober The band Broadcast is not a new one, but a group that was around from the early 90s until they unexpectedly found themselves broken up as of a week ago. They’ve flown under the radar their entire career, but have managed to acquire a collective devotion from much of the critical world. This band, which has only put out six proper albums, is an English act that has managed to mix any type of music into one distinct sound, be it psychedelia, shoegaze, dream pop, or straight up electronica. Broadcast has now been catapulted to the forefront of music media since lead singer Trish Keenan unexpectedly passed away January 14 from complications with pneumonia resulting from H1N1 upon returning from their Australian tour. A fan on Twitter put it in the most poignant way possible: "when rockstars die from drug overdoses and general body abuse, they receive remembrances and accolades for years after their passing. But for Trish Keenan to have suffered for months with a rare influenza that wasn’t her choice in receiving, it is even sadder that she might be forgotten in just a short amount of time." Fortunately this may not prove to be the case, as her death has surpassed the indie music blogs and made international headlines, illustrating just how important her voice and personality were to the world. With a croon that could melt any passerby and cryptic lyrics that in the same breath tore down international institutions and built up hope, she has inspired people to essentially live and be free. You only need to listen to “Accidentals” to understand what was so initially alluring about Keenan and her band. It was the first song I ever heard by them, and I have not been the same since.
www.wakemag.org
11
sound & vision
Nice Purse Interview By zach mccormick
[
The Wake: Could You describe the origins of the band? What’s the story of Nice Purse?
France Camp: Nice Purse was started as an acoustic little bathroom project that I had going on, and then I showed Ian some of our songs and he was like “That’s Cool!” and we kept getting more members and more members. Then we met our female singer Elise. She met one of our friends while he was peeing outside and he must have had an aura over him or something because they fell in love and he eventually introduced her to us. They say the moment was awkward, but that’s like Elise’s life. We asked her to be in the band a little while later.
W: What’s your songwriting process like?
F: It usually starts with me writing the easiest 3 chord song ever, and then I show it to Ian who’s a much more skilled musician, and he turns it into more of a song.
Nice Purse might be one of the younger bands in the Twin Cities music scene, but they’ve already managed to garner a healthy buzz. Singer/guitarist France Camp has a knack for penning catchy folk-pop with a whimsical twist (sample song title: “Ice Cream Handjob”) and the band brings a nice mix of humor and sincerity to the stage. After a stellar CD release show for their debut album Black Medal which featured some big local names like Red Pens and Gospel Gossip, Nice Purse members France Camp and Ian Nygaard talked to The Wake about their forthcoming EP, their dreams of playing at a pool, and true love through urination.
Ian Nygaard: We ditch a lot of songs; I usually throw a lot of stuff out. I make France feel really bad, I gotta stop doing that… F: He’s really cruel, I haven’t told him this, but sometimes I’ve actually cried. Recently too actually, even for songs on the new record.
W: You guys recently teamed up with So-TM records to release your debut album Black Medal. What was it like recording with a label?
F: So-TM is a pretty low-key label, they don’t have many artists at the moment. It’s mostly the owner Chris and Jeff’s band Ultra Chorus, Total Babe, and us. But it was still really different going from recording on a really crappy 8-track in my bathroom with my mom in half the songs, to going into a studio and having to play with a click track. I didn’t know what to do at all. I: We walked into the studio and meet Jeff for the first time and I had to go straight into the booth without even having time to say hi to anyone.
]
F: Yeah he had to cover a bunch of my parts that I couldn’t do because I didn’t know how to play with a click, which I am proud to say I am now able to do. I: Jeff is actually our drummer now though, so we kinda worked our way in. He records a lot of music for commercials in that studio, it’s his day job. F: Yeah, you’d be surprised how many jingles that you know have been recorded there. I: I got them to let me record one called (in a falsetto) “Girl You are so FUNKY”, it was really catchy, I gotta license it before someone takes it. (laughter)
W: What would you guys call the genre of music you play?
F: We were actually just talking about this on the way over here, I’d say Black Medal is a pretty solid definition of our sound: sort of a folky rock’n’roll type of thing, but I think our next record is going to be different. It’s got a little darker thing going.
Maggie Foucault
12
january 2011
sound & vision
W: You guys seem to have a lot of fun performing, what was the goofiest Nice Purse stage moment to date?
F: Ian used to drop his pants and jump into the drum set a lot. Our new drummer doesn’t really let us do it because he’s really afraid of it, but that used to be our big end thing, when we’d all jump into the drum set. I: I like to spit on France a lot. F: He spits on me a lot, and no one in the crowd can really see it, but I’ll look over at him and just get a mouthful of his spit. I got him back recently but he hated it because he’s a germaphobe, so he was like “You’ve been sick for two weeks! How dare you?”
W: Where did the idea of wearing facepaint onstage come from?
F: Early Nice Purse gigs were almost like a war to make it a good show. When it was just two acoustic guitars and off-key singing every show became a battle to keep people paying attention to us. Putting on the facepaint was sort of like our version of the Nez Perce tribe putting on warpaint before battle. I: Actually, we’re just secretly fans of Insane Clown Posse Fans (laughter)
W: You guys have made a name for yourself playing shows in unconventional places such as Buffalo Exchange. Would you like to see more shows outside of the bar/club circuit?
F: We’re working get our own PA and some other equipment for the band because we’d really like to be able to perform anywhere. I wanna do a show at a hotel pool, with all the kids splashing around and that beautiful echo when no one’s expecting it. Just play one set and record it, or more likely play two songs before they kick us out. I: To be honest, I just don’t like stages. F: The first time we played the 7th Street Entry was kind of a disaster because we tried to play in front of the stage and use only one mic to capture all of our voices and after the first song the crowd told us they couldn’t hear us sing. I: The venue was pretty full and we were pretty close to the crowd, but when we started playing everybody just backed way up. I guess that’s just how Minneapolis is though. No one likes to dance, really.
W: Your website offers “limited edition super-personalized manila envelopes” to anyone who’d care to have them mailed. How’d that start, and how many takers have you had so far?
I: It’s just a ploy to get you on the mailing list. F: It was Ian’s idea, but I really like the idea of a people who discovered us on Myspace or whatever still having something personal that connects them with the band, even if they live far away.
I: It’s taking a while to put together the envelopes, but we still try to give our local fans something that they can take home from a show to make that personal connection. We probably give away more of our CDs than we sell.
W: Like your label-mates Total Babe, you guys managed to get a couple of songs on TV, featured in the CW show “Life Unexpected”. What are you gonna say to the haters crying “Sellout!”?
I: I’d tell them to try it! It’s pretty fun! F: Yeah, So-TM Records has a lot of connections because of their commercial work, so we got these offers through them. Somebody calls them up looking for music to use and they call us and ask if we want our song in a TV show and then we say “show us the money.”
F: We’re working a West Coast tour with Total Babe at the moment, and while it’s still unofficial I’m going to share my name for the tour because I think it’s the coolest thing ever: “Total Tits, Nice Boobs, Chest Coast Tour.” We love Minneapolis but we’d like to see how the West Coast digs us too.
W: In a perfect world, where would you like to see Nice Purse in a year?
I: I hope we’ll have a tour under our belt and I’m really excited about this new record. F: Yeah, it’s going to be a lot different. Ian’s bought like, seven guitar pedals since Black Medal and they’re all on the new record. It won’t be so dead-on folk-pop, it’ll be a bit more instrumental.
I: If you start out as sellouts there’s nothing wrong with that, right?
I: We’re really just hoping to keep playing and recording. We’re shooting for the stars, but the stars are so far away!
W: Speaking of TV and Total Babe, it sounds like y’all are working on another show for fox called M@d About. Mind telling us a bit about that?
Nice Purse has an upcoming show at Cause Soundbar in Uptown on January 29th with Dragons Power Up and you can find their album Black Medal on iTunes and in the local section at your favorite record store.
F: We kinda got lured into it a bit, they told us the show was going to be a mix of Tim and Eric and Wondershowzen and we were all for that but if you’ve actually seen the show… W: I haven’t. I: Don’t. The humor’s pretty stale and all the actors that I met that were in the show were complete assholes to me. F: We actually composed music for the show and did a bit of reading on the subject, apparently kids really like songs composed in the key of C and G. I: And really high voices, so we’ve got that covered as well. F: Kids eat that stuff alive. It was a fun experience though, and to be honest if they asked us back for a second season I’d probably do it again. Money talks and the effort involved in making the songs is almost nothing. I mean, these are songs we’d never put on a Nice Purse album or anything.
W: You’re a relatively young band, are you worried about a backlash from a local scene that seems to emphasize “paying your dues”?
Since they’re cool like that, Nice Purse is letting Wake readers download a free mp3 of their awesome song “Ice Cream Handjobs” from wakemag.org. This strummy acoustic ditty crackles and pops with a lo-fi warmth that you’ll find all over Black Medal and the vocals from France & Co. are bittersweet and catchier than the seasonal influenza. While you’re on the website, check out archives of the Wake’s articles plus exclusive multimedia content and blogs curated by your lovely and talented Wake staffers. Wakemag.org people, gettit!
I: Our fellow bands and fans have always been pretty nice, but we’ve had a few promoters that were assholes. F: There’s definitely been conversations like “I see that not everyone in your band is over 21, we don’t think you can bring enough people to a bar”. Which is sort of true, a large percentage of our fans aren’t 21 yet. When we get 18 plus shows we text everyone in our phones saying “Hey! You can come see us finally!”.
W: Speaking of shows, I’ve been hearing rumors about a Nice Purse tour in the works.
www.wakemag.org
13
sound & vision
14
january 2011
01.22
Lazerbeak w/ Marijuana Death Squads and Double Bird
Turf Club | $7 | 21+ | 9:00pm
01.23
Ben Folds w/ Street Corner Symphony
First Ave | $35 | 18+ | 6:30pm
01.26
Radio K and City Pages Picked 2 Click presents
First Ave’s Best New Bands of 2010 feat Pink Mink and more
First Ave | $7 | 18+ | 7:00pm
01.29
Ruby Isle “Appetite For Destruction” CD Release
w/ Me and My Arrow, New Century Masters and Total Babe
Triple Rock | $7 | 18+ | 9:00pm
01.30
Jayhawks
First Ave | $30 | 18+ | 6:00pm
02.03
Peter Wolf Crier w/Retribution Gospel Choir
Cedar Cultural Center | $12 | All-Ages | 7:00pm
Zoo Animal w/Red Pens & Gospel Gossip
The Loring Theater | $13 | 8:00pm
Juliana Barwick
The Southern Theater | $20 | 7:30pm
02.04
Dillinger Four w/ Paint it Black
Triple Rock | $12 | 18+ | 9:00pm
02.06
The Decemberists
State Theater | $32.50 | All Ages | 6:30pm
02.09
Radio K presents The Radio Dept w/ Young Prisims
7tb Street Entry | $7 | 18+ | 8:00pm
02.12
Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles w/ Big Trouble
Cedar Cultural Center | $12 advance | $15 door | All-Ages | 7:00pm
02.14
Justin Townes Earle w/ Jessica Lea Mayfield
First Ave | $15 | 18+ | 7:30pm
02.17
Deerhoof w/ Ben Butler & Mousepad and Nervous Cough
Triple Rock | $13 advance | $15 door | 18+ | 8:00pm
02.22
Wild Nothing and Abe Vigoda
Turf Club | $8 | 21+ | 9:00pm
02.25
Tapes ‘n’ Tapes w/ Oberhofer and Alpha Consumer
First Ave | $15 | 18+ | 8:00pm
www.wakemag.org
15
Next meeting will be held in The Wake’s office (located at 1313 5th St SE #331):
Tuesday, February 1st at 8:30 PM