Vol. 32 #24 04.10.17
Vol. 30 # #.#.#
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Students enjoy a sunny day on the Stairs to Nowhere. Cover photo by Janna Bodnar // AS Review Viking Union 411 516 High St. Bellingham, WA 98225 Phone: 360.650.6126 Fax: 360.650.6507 Email: as.review@wwu.edu as.wwu.edu/asreview @TheASReview facebook.com/theasreview © 2017. Published most Mondays during the school year by the Associated Students of Western Washington University. The AS Review is an alternative weekly that provides coverage of student interests such as the AS government, activities and student life. The Review seeks to enhance the student experience by shedding light on underrepresented issues, inclusive coverage, informing readers and promoting dialogue.
IN THIS ISSUE 4 Bellingham Music Film Festival
The Pickford is hosting this local festival to celebrate the merging of music and video.
Oyster Dome photo 5 gallery Check out some of these great shots of one of Bellingham’s most beloved hiking spots!
Disability
6 Awareness Week
Come celebrate and learn about people of all abilities with this roster of inclusive events.
7
“Valve turners” presentation
Five environmental activists are coming to Western to talk about their controversial actions.
7 Lizard House and
8 Actor Misha Collins
Bellingham’s newest house show venue is hosting the first live performance of this upcoming band.
8 KhSA takes a trip to
Lickity Spliff
speaks at Western
Trampoline Zone
We welcome reader submissions, including news articles, literary pieces, photography, artwork, letters to the editor or anything else physically printable. Please limit letters to 300 words, include your name, phone number and year in school. Send all submissions to as.review@wwu. edu. Published letters may have minor edits made to their length or grammar. The AS Review is distributed via electric bicycle, the purchase of which was made possible by the Sustainable Action Fund Grant Program.
Morgan Annable Alexandria Baker Ricky Rath Josh Hughes Julia Berkman Photographers Jaden Moon Janna Bodnar Adviser Jeff Bates
Editor-in-Chief Assistant Editor Lead Photographer Writers
ABOVE: Slam poet/educator/activist Dominique Christina spoke at Western on Monday, April 3. If you missed her wonderful performance, visit her website at www.dominiquechristina.com. Photo by Janna Bodnar // AS Review
04.10.2017 • 3
EVENTS
CALENDAR OF EVENTS “Animae Memoria”
Apr 3 - 21 // 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. // VU Gallery // Free
The VU Gallery is featuring the ‘altered photography’ of artist Carolyn Krieg. Krieg’s work emphasizes the process in order to comment on Greco-Roman ideals.
Poetry and Lyric Night
Hip Hop Theater Weekend II
Apr 13 & 14 // 7:30 p.m. // VU MPR // Free
Western celebrates Hip Hop by inviting actor and spoken-word artist Brian Quijada to perform on Thursday. Rapper, playwright and actor Idris Goodwin will be featured on Friday.
Apr 10 // 7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. // Underground Coffeehouse // Free
Disability Awareness Week Dance
of some of Western’s wordsmiths. If you would like to perform a piece,
Disability Awareness Week will close with this exciting inclusive dance. For a full schedule of events, see the article on page 6.
Apr 14 // 6 p.m. - 9 p.m. // VU Grab a hot drink and listen to the work 565 A/B/C // Free sign up at 6:30 p.m.!
Sounds of the Underground, Round 1
Apr 12 // 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. // Underground Coffeehouse // Free
Help select which local bands will play at Lawnstock this year! Sounds of the Underground is a chance for bands to compete for their slot at the annual end of the year outdoor concert!
“Bad Moms” screening Apr 13 // 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. // VU 552 // Free
Need a laugh? Then head over to the VU for this hilarious film about some under-appreciated moms who decide to finally let loose.
“Kiss Me, Kate”
Apr 14 & 15, 21-23 // 7:30 p.m. Apr 14 - 22, 2 p.m. Apr 23 // PAC Mainstage // $10 for students
This comedic musical follows the chaos of a production of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” The show features a wide variety of musical and dance styles, as well as stage combat.
Sounds of the Underground, Round 2
Apr 15 // 8 p.m. - 10 p.m. // Make.Shift, 306 Flora St // Free The second part of this competition will feature three more bands as they attempt to play their way into Lawnstock!
Top Ten: April 10 - 16 1
Drunk Thundercat
2
Coloring Book Chance the Rapper
3
The End of Comedy Drugdealer
4
Process Sampha
5
Peace Sign Rising Generifus
6
Sincerely Dude York
7
Apocalipstick Cherry Glazerr
8
Chain Wallet Chain Wallet
9
Nothing Feels Natural Priests
10
Near to the Wild Heart of Life Japandroids KUGS is the Associated Students’ student-run radio station. Listen online at kugs.org. If you’re interested in getting on the waves, pick up a volunteer application in the station’s office on the seventh floor of the VU.
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Tunes + Video = Bellingham Music Film Festival BY JULIA BERKMAN Bellingham’s second annual Music Film Festival is back! This festival explores music through the lens of the camera. Local and international filmmakers use their best cinematographic skills to evoke the feeling of a song, make a music video or whatever else their heart leads them to. The films showcased this year are from all over the world. Marina Schnider’s student short entitled “Urban Audio Spectrum” was shot in Berlin. The music video for “Apparition” by Taylor Payne was shot in Australia by Angie Fleming. There are works from filmmakers in Los Angeles, Sweden and Iraq, to name a few! Most selected screenings have little to no dialogue or script; rather, they are silent films and rely on the score to tell their story. The Bellingham Music Film Festival was started in 2016 by Kacey Morrow, an associate design professor at Western. Her films have been shown all over the country, from the Seattle International Film Festival to the Atlanta Film Festival. She started the Bellingham Music Film Festival because it combined two of her greatest loves: music and film. Also a large part in organizing the Music Film Festival is Mikayla Nicholson, a Pickford theater volunteer and Western student. Nicholson’s short film was recently chosen to play at Pickford for their short film collaboration with local movie store Film Is Truth: 24 Times a Second. Her past films have been showcased at the Pickford multiple times, as well as at film events on campus. All submitted films with be shown at three beloved Bellingham venues: the Make.Shift, Pickford and the Sylvia Center for the Arts. The winning films will be shown on Saturday night at the Pickford. Be sure to visit this event, or check out the winners online at bellinghammusicfilmfestival.com. You can follow the Facebook event at https://www.facebook.com/ events/1310343842386943/.
ABOVE: Pickford Film Center is always a great place to go for a wide variety of film experiences. Photos by Jaden Moon // AS Review
Schedule of events
THURSDAY - Pickford 6:30 p.m.
Urban Audio Spectrum
FRIDAY - Make. Shift 7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Marina Schnider, 3:43, Stu- Music Video dent Short, Berlin Night!
Synesthesia Light Show Off Script - Scarves Global Heat | For a Lifetime Riley Blakeway, 4:35, Music Cherry Glazerr - Told You I’d Be With The Video, Los Angeles Guys Klefto - “Like Daaam!” The Junction - Chilly Arcadian Gonzales and Peaches 50 Feet of Song Patrick Doyon, 4:42, Short Chatham County Line - Tightrope of Love Film, Montreal Tom Rosenthal - I Got Myself a Finish Feature Film: Demon Eye Contemporary Color Light Thieves - Goon Years Bill Ross IV and Turner Local Ghost - Less I Ross, 1:37:00, USA
Cherry Glazerr - Told You I’d Be With The Guys
Become Taylor Payne Apparition Fingers, The Clown Johnny Thursday “Bad Intention” - 100 Watt Mind My Eternity Sleep Furiously Fires - Chrispy Mos Generator - Catspaw Firefox AK - Heart of Mine Omie Homage Falling - “Mordecai’s Masquerade” Alive Lifht Mïus - Strobe and Noise Words The Lonely One Urban Audio Spectrum
SATURDAY - Pickford 1 p.m.
Regional Feature + Shorts/Music Videos 3:30 p.m.
Feature + Shorts/ Music Videos 6 p.m.
Best in Show + Shorts/Music Videos SATURDAY - Sylvia Center for the Arts 8:30 p.m.
After party
Briana Marela Cumulus I Love You Avalanche
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Adventure is out there! Check out Oyster Dome for great views of the bay Photos by Jaden Moon // AS Review
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Celebrate, honor and learn with a week of events for disability awareness BY JOSH HUGHES
T
he Disability Outreach Center (DOC) at Western is hosting a Disability Awareness Week, which starts on Monday, April 10, and goes until Friday, April 14. Every year the DOC puts on a similar week, but the events offered always change. Some events featured this year: a day with service dogs and a comedian tackling depression. Monday, April 10 The week kicks off on Monday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Viking Union (VU) Multipurpose Room (MPR), where students may learn about a slew of different breeds of service dogs and how they get their title and position. There will be search and rescue, guide, therapy and emotional support dogs. The event will also feature an obstacle course! Students will be blindfolded and guided through the course by guide dogs. In the words of the
Facebook event page, “snacks, drinks, and dogs included.” Tuesday, April 11 The following day, the DOC will be partnering with Woodring College’s Special Education Department to host “Let’s Talk About Disability,” a presentation at which teachers will discuss etiquette with an emphasis on people who are blind. The event will take place at 6 p.m. in VU 565A, and will also include food. Wednesday, April 12 Disability Awareness Week continues with another presentation, “Let’s Talk About Sex & Disability,” which will take place at 6 p.m. in VU 565A. Part of a partnership with Animal Rights Club and Prevention and Wellness Services, the evening includes a short video followed by a discussion and
panel all centered on sex and disability. The organizers intend to provide a platform to overcome these challenges in a safe, inclusive environment. The event will also be catered. Thursday, April 13 On Thursday, comedian Clayton Raithel will be coming to Western to perform. How, you might ask, does a comedy act relate to Disability Awareness Week? Raithel’s routine, entitled “SMILE,” is an autobiographical one-man show that focuses on confronting depression. He seeks to make topics like mental illness more approachable to his audience, giving a humanizing (and humorous when appropriate) face to these illnesses. The event takes place in Arntzen Hall 100 from 5 to 6 p.m. Friday, April 14 DOC is ending the week on Friday, with a dance in the VU MPR from 6 to 9 p.m. Students may dance to their heart’s content, eat catered food and learn about disability rights, free of cost. The partners include Animal Rights Club, Bellingham Therapy Clinic and the newly formed Disability Outreach Club. While these events mark a standalone week for disability awareness, the ultimate goal is to create awareness around various disabilities that people face on a day to day basis, and provide platforms for them to help in their own community here at Western. Anyone looking for more info about the events, Disability Awareness Week or the DOC should head down to their office in VU 513, located in the Viking Union.
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Sink your fangs into a new band at the Lizard House
BY JULIA BERKMAN
A
t the dirty, reptilian epicenter of the York District stands Lizard House, the newest show venue in Bellingham. Fresh on the scene, Lizard House is hosting its first show on April 22, and it’s sure to be a doozy. With local fixtures like the Dawn Bombs, Virgo Virgo and Tacoma’s Cheap Sweat, as well as the first live appearance of local upcoming band Lickity Spliff, Lizard promises a show that cannot be missed. Daisy Meisler, the lead singer of Lickity Spliff, had this to say: “We’re all super excited to be playing a show with our friends! I can’t wait to meet all my adoring fans.” This will be Lizard House’s second show in Bellingham, and the members of the household couldn’t be more excited to break into the scene. Lizard’s own
Thomas Zapata will be performing as the bassist of Lickity Spliff. When asked about the decision to have Lickity Spliff ’s first show on their home turf, Zapata said, “We were looking for a space to play our first show, and instead of trying to get into other venues we thought we would just do it ourselves. Plus, that way we could have a show with bands we wanted to see, and we could do everything the way we wanted!” “I’ve never done a double header before. It’s cool that I get to combine the two musical worlds of Bellingham and Tacoma,” said Colin Murphy, member of both Lickity Spliff and Cheap Sweat. “My bandmates in both bands are all insanely talented individuals with so much diversity of skills and influences, which also means both groups are very different.” Murphy had this to say on his bands’
genres: “Lickety Spliff is twee pop grandeur. The band revolves around the songs Daisy wrote and put on soundcloud a while back. I think they’re very reflective of the young adult experience Cheap Sweat on the other hand, is fueled by the rain and grit chrome of the South Puget Sound and Tacoma.” Also performing that evening will be the Dawn Bombs, who have been around for almost two years. The Dawn Bombs have a very jazz-oriented and softer sound that you can’t help but dance to. Their lyrics and melodies are infectious when repeated, so the whole crowd’s sure to sing along. The Dawn Bombs will be performing the night before, April 21, at The Mind Palace, where lead singer Ben runs the show. Virgo Virgo just recently released their first four-song EP, entitled “Should I
Try Pot?” Their music is like if the Front Bottoms or Car Seat Headrest decided to invest in some Prozac and then chug a 40oz. It’s the dad rock before the rain. As drummer Julian Tennyson puts it, “It’s like if dogs could be in a band.” Do those ideas conflict? Who knows! Go see for yourself. Although still a very fresh venue, this past January Lizard House collaborated with Dylan Rome of Karate Church and Nate of Mosh Eisley to bring us “Noise@\\\LizardHouse\\\.” This event showcased local noise bands and artists such as Capture Infinity! and Ego Arcadia upon the carpeted stage. Lizard House will be hosting its second event on April 22. You can find the event on Facebook for more information. Stay scaley.
“Valve turners” turn the climate conversation BY JOSH HUGHES
Last October, five brave climate activists across the country collectively organized to illegally close safety valves on all five pipelines carrying tar sands crude oil into the U.S. from Canada. Emily Johnston, Ken Ward, Annette Klapstein, Leonard Higgins and Michael Foster all worked in conjunction with one another on October 11, 2016 to turn the valves of all pipelines and safely shut down the import of crude oil for a period of time. All five of the ‘valve turners’ will be starting a tour in the Puget Sound area, visiting colleges and other institutions to give a panel and lecture, and the first stop on their trek is here at Western. On Tuesday, April 11, the Students for Renewable Energy (SRC) will be hosting the talk on campus, which is meant to provide an evening of discussion on climate change action and the current issues involving pipelines in this country. The five speakers, who are all still in the middle of legal involvement concerning their actions, will have a chance to talk to students about the significance of their movement, which has been dubbed “the biggest coordinated move on U.S. energy infrastructure ever undertaken by environmental protesters” by Reuters. The five activists, who all come from vastly differ-
ent backgrounds in conservation and climate change awareness, felt the need to come together to make a physical impact on the conversation around global warming--outside of the political conversation. “In order to preserve life as we know it and civilization, give us a fair chance--and our kids a fair chance, I’m taking action as a citizen. I am duty bound,” Michael Foster said in the brief documentary on the valve turners that can be found on their website at www.shutitdown.today. Their collective, ongoing mission is to raise awareness and lessen ignorance on active ways that the public can combat climate change and the greed of big oil companies, and their campaign #ShutItDown seeks to continue the work that they have started. When the five first shut off the valves, other activists working with them called those responsible for maintaining the pipelines to make sure that they would safely be shut off. Additionally, at the time of their trespassing, all five realized the imminent threat of going to jail for decades for their actions. Speaking just before going to shut off the valve, Emily Johnston said “(I feel) somber and worried, but also serene. You know, at this point we have to do something,” expressing her ultimate peace with her
efforts to combat the pipeline industry. The most immediate effect of the movement was that Johnston, Ward, Klapstein, Higgins and Foster alone shut down 15% of all crude oil imports into the country on the day they executed their plan. The lasting effects, however, speak more to a movement than the visceral impact of their rebelling against the industry. Inspired by the #NoDAPL movement, #ShutItDown hopes to spread across the country in the next months as the five activists tour colleges to talk about their experiences and the next logical steps in the process of dismantling the energy-intensive, wasteful system that the United States is built on. This takes us to Western, specifically in Communications Facility room 120, where the valve turners will hold their talk at 6 p.m. on April 11, kicking off their Northwest tour of lectures. Students can meet these environmental champions, hear them talk and ask any questions they may have regarding the movement. It still has a long way to go, but activists like the valve turners and movements like #ShutItDown are physically standing up for the wellbeing of the earth and all its inhabitants, and we have the chance to take action with them.
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Actor/marketing expert Misha Collins teaches Western “How to Conquer Social Media” at professional readiness workshop
Photos by Ricky Rath // AS Review
Khmer Student Association bounces the night away at Trampoline Zone! Photos by Ricky Rath // AS Review