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Welcome to [dee-kuhn-struhkt] – a magazine that makes memorable the human spectacle. And, indeed there is much about us and our world that is spectacular. This magazine shines a light on a breath-taking array of aspects about us as people that can only be captured by the idea of spectacle.

teaching situation inevitably creates conditions of abundance. Teaching and learning, in the context of abundance, become a personal, pleasurable and powerful experience. Once within a paradigm of abundance, success is not only possible, but undeniable.

Each fall semester, senior students in the Department of Information Design – housed in the Faculty of Communication Studies at Mount Royal University – enroll in a capstone course known as Document Production. The requirement is that students work together to imagine, create and publish a professional magazine. You’re holding this year’s edition. And trust me when I say that it is memorable.

I first taught this class of student three years ago when they were just beginning their studies in the Information Design program. I have been fortunate to work with many of them in several other courses prior to meeting them again this semester. They are a unified cohort of students: creative, committed and capable. And when they say they’re in, they’re in!

Teaching a non-traditional university course such as the one that created this magazine is a privilege beyond measure. Here’s why. In the academy, the term alternation is used to describe the rare situation where classroom learning and professional practice are combined.

The principle of alternation emphasizes the notion of learning by doing – but in conjunction with and informed by theory. Students engage in foundational concepts while also engaging in real-world, realtime professional work. The curricula and the profession meld together. Academic work becomes purposeful.

So, when the idea emerged to create a magazine focused on the human spectacle, the creative juices started flowing. One good idea was followed by another. Brilliant ideas were conceived for stories.

A bold and daring art direction was proposed. A style guide was put in place. Students got to work – individually and in teams. Synergy erupted. The bar was set high. The Magazine Lab became a hub of professional activity. And the final result is gold – pure Information Design gold.

As you read each article and engage in the accompanying design of each spread, consider that every stitch of it is original work – created by soon-to-be graduates of MRU’s Information Design program. The future looks bright indeed.

Not surprisingly, the experience has been as rich for me as it has been for the students. The unique

Dr. Richard Erlendson

Assistant Professor, Information Design

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SCARRED FOR LIFE

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INSPIRATION IS A MYTH

52 TIME

56 SET FOR MOTION

MIRRORED THOUGHTS

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BLOOD, SWEAT, & PISS

THE CURATED LIFE

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FIGHT, FLIGHT OR FREEZE

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68 HARDLY CONTAIN...

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DEFINING MOMENTS

FAR FROM A ROOKIE

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GO FAST, DON’T CRASH

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INKED UP

GAME CHANGER

HIDDEN POTENTIAL

80 I BEND...

TOYS ARE US

87 TO CREATE A MONSTER

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INDIVIDUAL

OUT OF BODY...

97 AN INSIGHT OF THE OUTSIDE

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SHAKE. STIR. PRINT. ENJOY.

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CHILD PRODIGY...

132 TEAMS

10 9 CREATIVITY

113 ON THE EDGE

116 MIXTAPE

134 12 0 FEAR RESIDES...

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MY FUTURE...

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OUR SKIN IS A L EGEND FOR OUR LI VES — W R I NK LED, MARKED A ND AGED TO P E RF ECTION. Story and design by Ashleigh Smith It was a warm summer evening at the lake – with hours of daylight left to kill. My friends and I stole a couple drinks from our parents’ cooler and walked down to the mini-golf hut.

It wasn’t long before the put-put turned into a goof-off competition of who could outdo the last. As I folded over in laughter, my sister snickered, “Hey guys, watch this.” And then it happened – a full golf swing with a putting iron straight to my head.

The blood came spurting out right above my temple. Although it looked pretty unsightly, it only caused me four stitches, and it became my first official ‘badge of honour’ – and one of my funniest stories to date.

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PHOTOS BY ASHLEIGH SMITH

Not all scars have funny stories, but every scar has a tale. Scars become the trophies of our battles. They make us unique and they help tell the story of our personal strength, courage and human resilience.

Our fascination with scars and using our bodies as a canvas for affirming our cultural, spiritual or honorary character through permanent markings has ancient origins. Early rituals involved rubbing ash into cuts.

“As the cuts healed, the ash irritated the skin – darkening the scar and developing some of the earliest know, tattoos,” says Keith Kenny, a practicing scarification artist.

“SCARIFICATION IS ANOTHER WAY TO INDIVIDUALIZE YOURSELF.”

Historically, many tribes made meaningful intricate cuts on the skin, often during rite-of-passage rituals, which resulted in beautiful scars. “It’s not simply an artistic form or done frivolously – there is a lot of meaning behind the markings,” Kenny says.

Amazingly, many of these cultural practices still exist around the world today. In westernized societies, scarification has evolved into a practice preformed in tattoo and piercing parlours. The sterilization practices and medical-grade tools used in parlours provide conditions much safer than traditional environments that use bamboo, bone or wood tools.

There is no industry standardization, yet when it comes to the qualifications needed to become a scarification artist, Kenny and the other artists at his Tribal Expression piercing and body modification studio have acquired much certification – alongside years of experience.

“Tattooing has become so main stream, and scarification is another way to individualize yourself,” says Dianna Mae, a scarification artist at Tribal Expression. “Scarification has a different aesthetic than a tattoo and a different feeling of pain.”

During scarification, Kenny uses a scalpel to make cuts 1/16th of an inch deep in the skin creating the outline for the piece. “It’s approximately the same depth as a tattoo needle,” Kenny says.

If the piece requires filling in, which is like the shading done on tattoos, the artist decides between branding or cutting out the skin. “Each situation is different,” Kenny says. “I use whichever technique is going to get the best results.”

“People are always drawn to being different and finding different ways to express themselves through appearance,” Mae says.

“Everyone has their own reason for getting scarification done. It’s for all walks of life.”

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Mark Ruppe was only 22 when he survived a fatal car crash during a vacation in Australia. He suffered traumatic injuries to his body resulting in a coma, two dislocated elbows, a broken right arm, fractured left ankle, a fractured right femur, fractured C5 neck vertebrate and four broken ribs.

Five days later, Ruppe had his 23rd birthday. “It wasn’t my best birthday,” he admits, “but I was lucky I got one.”

Ruppe was able to walk out of the hospital following three months in recovery. “The doctors put a plate and six screws in my arm, a rod in my femur and a cast on my ankle,” Ruppe says.

“IT WASN’T MY BEST BIRTHDAY, BUT I WAS LUCKY I GOT ONE.” Six years later, during a checkup, doctors discovered a post trauma aneurism in Ruppe’s chest. Essentially, the force of impact during the accident caused Ruppe’s heart to whiplashed inside his chest resulting in severe damage to the aorta.

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In order to operate on his heart, the doctors had to enter Ruppe’s chest cavity through his ribs. The remarkably healed scar on Ruppe’s left side runs from his sternum to his spine. “I used to tell the kids I had been bitten by a shark,” Ruppe says.

In addition, long-term aggravation to Ruppe’s left hip caused by compensating for his injured right femur prompted a hip replacement at the age of 56. “I was lucky,” Ruppe says. “I was in a lot of pain before the hip replacement, I’m rarely sore after a game now.” Ruppe goaltends weekly on the Stampeder alumni hockey team – rarely missing a game and making the most of his pain-free mobility.

Although the traumatic accident has left physical scars on Ruppe, he lives each day with positivity and wears his scars with pride. “I must have a guardian angel up there,” Ruppe says as he holds his chest and points upwards. “I got a second chance.”

“THEY HAVE BECOME A PART OF ME.”

A weak spot on the lungs caused by a fast growth spurt, combined with the impact of a skateboarding fall, caused Patrick Southgate’s left lung to collapse. After four failed chest tubes, Southgate’s doctors decided to operate on his lung to repair the damage.

Southgate spent all but two weeks of his summer break in the hospital that year. “It was the worst summer ever,” he says.

Now, Southgate finds the humour in his ordeal by telling grand stories to those who ask about the four scars. “They have become a part of me,” Southgate says. “I don’t even notice them anymore.”

Sixteen years later – even after broken bones, concussions and stitches – Southgate says, “It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced.” Friends and family visited Southgate everyday he was in the hospital. “It makes you realize that you should never take for granted the people who care about you,” he says.

Jon Hunter’s transition from tattoos to brandings was a natural progression. “I always liked tattoos and when I realized that branding was an option, I wanted one too,” Hunter says. “It never really seemed like a decision. It just made sense.”

It’s been two years since Hunter had his thighs branded, and he has since added more tattoos to his body. “The brandings fit with part of my aesthetic identity, but it was the process and experience that was most important to show commitment to the meaning of the brandings that symbolize important things in my life,” Hunter says.

“I don’t really feel any judgment about my decision to get the branding. People react the way I would expect,” he says. “Most people are initially shocked, and then people under a certain age want to see the brandings and people over a certain age want to know why I got them, and if I am okay,” he says.

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Eight years ago, Steve Duke received a live donor liver transplant. The liver’s regenerating power enabled a piece of Duke’s sister’s liver to be removed from her body and miraculously transplanted into his.

In 2002, Duke was diagnosed with liver disease. For five years, Duke was able to manage the symptoms of his disease. “My experience wasn’t as bad as many others,” Duke says. He is remarkably humble.

“I felt healthier with the bag. I could do more activities,” Duke says – who was able to get back to downhill skiing while wearing the apparatus.

Over time, the disease continued to worsen and the only option for Duke was a liver transplant. Duke had to pass a long series of assessments before being approved for the donor list. “You kind of have to sell yourself,” Duke says.

First, the doctors checked Duke for cancer since only cancer free patients are eligible. He was approved. Next, a mathematical score based on the severity of the disease determined his position on the list.

“I was high, but not high enough. Most people wait about three years,” Duke says.

It was during this waiting process that Duke learned of the live donor process. If you have a willing, viable person who will donate a piece of his/her liver, you do not have to wait on the list for a deceased donor.

The surgery for the liver donor is very extensive – however, Duke’s wife and family were all committed to being tested for a match.

Duke was on the golf course when he got the call from the doctor that his sister was a match. “We picked a date for the surgery right then. It was like booking a dentist appointment,” he says.

The doctors took 40 per cent of the healthy liver and transplanted it into Duke. “I was in surgery for about eight hours – four for my sister,” Duke says. “She was out of the hospital in two weeks. My recovery took about three weeks.”

Since then, “it’s just life as usual – other than the anti-rejection drugs I’ll have to take for the rest of my life.

I take healthier care of my body since the surgery,” Duke says – pointing out that he ran a half marathon one year after the transplant.

“It was before, when I was sick and waiting to get on the donor list, that I felt mad – not so much fear or sadness. I was mad about what I would miss. As a parent you think, “holy shit, I might not get to see my kids develop.”

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For Duke, managing liver disease included several surgical procedures, a stint in his bile duct and numerous stays in ICU. To help avoid liver infections, Duke lived with bile draining bags attached at his torso and carried on his leg.

“...I FELT MAD ­— NOT SO MUCH FEAR OR SADNESS. I WAS MAD ABOUT WHAT I WOULD MISS.”

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P R O STHE TIC S P R OV I D E O P P O RT U N I T Y Story and design Jamie Anderson

PHOTO COURTESY OF JAYE MILLEY

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“I’m in Toronto getting ready to race tomorrow for the Canadian National Cycling team, and tomorrow is national championships.” Jaye Milley, 24, is calm and collected as we begin our online conversation. He offers to turn on his webcam, and I’m further amazed by his achievements.

Milley was born with all of his limbs underdeveloped. While his condition is congenital, reality doesn’t stop him from pursuing his passion of sports.

“ONCE I DID THAT, I KNEW IT WAS SOMETHING I LOVE. I KNEW THIS WAS SOMETHING I’D DO UNTIL THE DAY I DIED.”

“Prosthetics are integral to my life. They allow me to run, jump and do the sports that I do.” Milley began cycling at 14 when a national Paralympic coach helped him train to his potential.

“The better they are made, the longer we stay in the work force. I’ve seen firefighters and paramedics still working.”

“Once I did that, I knew it was something I love. I knew this was something I’d do until the day I died.”

Luckily for Everett and other amputees, new advancements in prosthetic technologies may be soon become widely available – and for a reasonable cost.

“I’m a quadruple amputee,” he says.

PERSPECTIVES OF TECHNOLOGY Wendy Everett got her first prosthetic leg in 2006, and hasn’t looked back since. “It didn’t take me long to get back on my feet,” she says.

Everett owns three different prosthetic legs to cater to her active lifestyle in Canmore, Alberta – where she partakes in outdoor activities like hiking and kayaking. The type of prosthetic she wore during our interview has movement in the ankle, and a personalized shock absorber for comfort. She also brings out her running blade and a waterproof leg that she says is “good for hotel showers and the beach,” but provides no movement in the ankle.

In retrospect, she says, “it would be nice to have one for everything.”

Though Everett is able to take part in the active lifestyle she’s always had through the use of prosthetics, she has hopes they will be more comfortable, lighter and more multifunctioning in the future. She also hopes new technology will be more accessible for all amputees.

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In a recent article published by the New York Times, engineers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a robotic arm that has 26 joints, can curl up to 45 pounds and is controlled by a person’s mind – just like a regular arm. Though it will take time to develop the arm into something that can be commercialized, the prosthetic is designed in a way that allows it to accommodate people who have various needs.

How will a state-of-the-art robotic arm like the one engineered at Johns Hopkins University be commercialized and affordable for the general public? 3D printing may be the answer.

The e-NABLE network is a global community of volunteers who use 3D printing technology to design and distribute prosthetic hands and arms to children – and all for free. The e-NABLE network has printed over 1,500 prosthetic devices for children in 50 countries – demonstrating the possibility for better and more accessible technology to come.

BUILDING SUPPORT Wendy Frazier has been a leg amputee for 27 years, and has experienced some dramatic changes in prosthetics.

“I can remember my very first prosthetic – very archaic. Back then, there wasn’t the proper technology for suction so I was harnessed at the waist. Pretty restraining and restrictive.”

However, Frazier’s new micro processing prosthetic allows her to be more agile on stairs, ramps and hills – and she’s even training how to run again. “It’s difficult, but its getting there,” Frazier says.

The best part of her new prosthetic is that she’s able to excel further with her rekindled love of sports.

“When I was back in junior high school, one of my favourite classes was outdoor ed., where you do things like bowling and cross country skiing.”

Frazier became reacquainted with her love of sports after she joined the Alberta Amputee Sports and Recreation Association – where she wanted to learn how to golf. Since then, Frazier has gone onto playing in the Canadian Wheelchair Curling Championships and competitively sailing at a national level.

The association supports and empowers amputees through sports and recreation, and does so skilfully and thoughtfully – through moral support, services events and training.

“It has been there every single step of the way,” Milley says when referring to his experiences with the organization. “For me to be on their board and to be giving back to them has been an honour.”

What advice would he give to new or struggling amputees who may benefit from joining?

“There’s no such word as can’t. Throw the word out. It’s useless. When you truly believe you can do anything you set your mind to, it becomes a reality.

It’s a difficult thing when you lose an arm, or a leg or a limb. The only thing that’s changed is that your limb is gone. You can do anything. Anything is possible.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF WENDY EVERETT

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P IO N E E R S O F MOD E R N A RT U S E B O D ILY FLUI D S AS A ME D I U M TO SHO C K US IN TO LOO KI N G. Story and design by Brittany Lahure

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W HE N W E E N COU N T E R DA N GE R , OU R IN STIN CTS O F F E R U S T H R E E CH OI CES .

Story and design by Tasnim Fellah Your heart beats rapidly, your pupils dilate and adrenaline rushes through your bloodstream.

You might turn to fighting. Or you might decide to flee from the situation. Or you might even respond by doing nothing at all, standing there frozen in your tracks.

How you respond to a threatening situation relies on basic instinct. Thus, without time to think, your body chooses one of three options: fight, flight or freeze.

Adrenaline is the fundamental agent when the act of fight or flight is initiated. The fight or flight response is part of an action-reaction system.

It enables you to react upon encountering an unusual or threatening circumstance.

Two years ago, former U of C student Mitchell Harke fatally stabbed two men during a fight at

a house party. The Calgary Herald reported that Harke claimed to have no intention of harming anyone, and that his behaviour was a reaction of self-defense. This situation is a textbook case of the human body’s stress response.

When danger presented itself, Harke chose option number one: to fight.

Psychologist Karen Massey counsels individuals and couples in stress reduction, trauma relationships and building confidence.

Massey defines the fight or flight response as physiological.

She says that when a threat is perceived, it triggers the amygdala – the area of the brain that enables people to respond with rapid energy.

It’s a survival tactic that people utilize to defend themselves.

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Massey highlights how people forget about the freeze response option.

She states that in a freeze response, your muscles are tense and you are completely petrified – even to speak at times. The response is common especially when danger is intense and unexpected. “The body is so overwhelmed by the threat that the brain needs time to interpret the next move.”

Massey says that freezing can be a positive or adaptive response to a threat. For example, when a hiker stumbles onto a grizzly bear, it is often recommended to stay still as movement might translate as an attack to the predator – resulting in what the bear would consider as a counterattack.

“WE DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE, AND PROTECTING LIFE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT.” Police officers face dangerous conditions constantly – situations where their survival instinct kicks in and a reaction is needed as quickly as possible.

Calgary Police Service constable Stuart Whittmire knows about the fight or flight response only too well.

Whittmire describes a situation that took place a few years ago when he responded to a 911 call.

The 911 call regarded a shooting that occurred at a bar.

With little information, and because of the urgency of the situation, Whittmire had to act fast. He drove to the crime scene with lights and sirens on, and he began feeling the effects of adrenaline.

As he walked into the bar, Whittmire observed the chaos that surrounded him. Various people were screaming and others were running around the bar in a panic. He added that other police officers shortly arrived after he did.

Whittmire then noticed a victim lying down in the middle of the dance floor. Officers quickly performed CPR in an attempt to save the person’s life. The victim died on that very dance floor.

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“We go over this type of stressful situation in training,” he says. “We are taught how to counteract stressful situations through focusing on slowing our breathing down. That helps us think clearer.”

As Whittmire was being interviewed, he flashed back to that moment at the bar. “The defender had fled the crime scene. Police officers were working to make sure no one else was harmed.”

“We do what needs to be done, and protecting life is the most important.” He then remembered how his adrenaline slowed down as he grabbed his thoughts and began to follow protocol by interviewing witnesses.

“There are certain situations your body encounters, and if there is an overload of scenery or information.

Sometimes you can freeze – especially if you don’t have prior experience with those certain incidents. It helps that I do.”

He claims that being prepared for such situations is not just an officer’s duty – it’s a human’s moral obligation to do so.

Massey says it’s a fight or flight response amongst people. She describes how adrenaline starts pumping through the veins as the body prepares to take action.

“You will then start to notice an increase in your heart rate. You begin to perspire, tremble, your mouth dries up and your face becomes flushed.”

Massey specifies that the fight or flight response can pose a threat to the body which allows serious health conditions to arise.

“Adrenaline can hinder the bloodstream and can eventually cause heart conditions such as high blood pressure.”

She says it can happen over time as well as in a surprise situation. “Let’s say you’re in a toxic work environment where there can be animosity between you and your colleagues.”

Poor health, she says, is apparent when stress is involved. Ninety-five per cent of health problems – if not more – have been found to be linked to stress.

Massey says the key to a healthy response is to digest the situation and try to prepare for it in the future.

Sta ges of the F l ight or F ight Response

“YOU BEGIN TO PERSPIRE, TREMBLE, YOUR MOUTH DRIES UP AND YOUR FACE BECOMES FLUSHED.” “For example, when in a disagreement with somebody and the situation escalates, take a break and think of a solution to the problem.”

A threat is presented

Brain processes the signals

However, she says that if you’re part of a larger problem, try to get out of it as soon as possible.

AC TH

Her advice concerning high levels of stress: “prevent it in the first place.”

Pituitary gland secrets andrenocortropic hormone Our ability to think clearly changes when under a threat. Massey offers a couple of strategies to enable healthier fight or flight responses.

First, lower the anxiety by taking slower breathes.

Second, reflect, process and give your mind time to understand what’s happening. Third, keep moving, because exercise is a positive enabler for releasing cortisol out of your system.

Naturally, under stress your survival mechanism prepares you with little or no time to react. Thus, you quickly search for a solution determined by feelings evoked during the threat rather than reason. Hence, strategy is key in such circumstances.

Cortisol and Adrenaline are released

The physical effects include the following:

Heart Rate Increase

Slow Digestion

Bladder Relaxation

Flushed Face

D ry Mouth

Shaking

Sweating

Hearing Loss

Dilated Pupils

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TAT TOOS L AUNCH A NEW A RT M OVEM E NT. Story and design by Ayra Peredo You know that’s going to be on you forever, right?

What does it even mean? What are those gonna look like when you’re 80? Did it hurt?

These are annoying questions everyone with a tattoo has heard at least once. Twenty-one per cent of Canadians boast a tattoo, so they are certainly becoming a shared experience. The history of tattoos has evolved from ancient Egypt and Maori Tribes to American sailors and Russian prisoners. And now they have found their way into mainstream culture.

The art of tattooing was once considered a sacred and symbolic tradition. One look at the culture surrounding tattoos these days, and it’s obvious that something has definitely changed.

Hubert Serrano, a tattoo artist at Flipside Tattoos, says, “I think people get tattooed out of curiosity.

It could start because they know someone who does tattoos, like out of their house, or at a shop.

Now that it’s more mainstream, it’s surprising to meet someone with no tattoos.”

Tattoos don’t necessarily have to be significant or meaningful, and at this point in history they are becoming a new form of art. Or, as Serrano says, “It’s become almost like a rite of passage for teenagers when they turn 18 – or at least when they finally convince their parents to sign for them. Then, I think you just eventually develop an appreciation for the art.”

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CHOOSING A TATTOO Within the span of one month, U of C student Alesia Sullivan got seven tattoos on her back. Her tattoos range from traditional Russian tattoos, a Spanish devil and an image taken from a comic.

“My tattoos don’t necessarily need to have a meaning, or prescribe to some sort of institution I believe in or anything like that. Ultimately, I want a tattoo to look good, and make me feel like I am expressing something about myself I wouldn’t say out loud.”

The Russian prison tattoo on her back is a wolf with an inscription in Russian wrapped around the head.

Translated to English, it reads “a man is a wolf to man” – which means that I am upset with my fate; my life is a failure.”

Sullivan says her preference is for tattoos that are dark. “A lot of prison tattoos are self-loathing, but they also represent acceptance of where someone has landed themselves in society. Russian prison tattoos represent acceptance of the knowledge that they have done wrong and are accepting their fates.

“For instance, a murderer would wear the mark of a murderer on his skin for the rest of his life. It’s not necessarily by choice, but it’s a part of the prison culture that forces them to accept the repercussions of their actions.”

MRU student Kyna Ceschini puts a lot of weight into her decision before going under the needle. Her arm is adorned with extremely intricate dot work style flower and mandala tattoos.

Ceschini says, “I have to think about a design for at least a year before I decide to get it. The permanency of it all still kind of intimidates me, so I need to have a pretty large commitment to the artwork before I get anything done.”

While tattoos are clearly popular among millennials – a survey done by the Harris Poll indicates that 32 per cent of 25-29 year olds have at least one tattoo.

Misael Peredo, 49, decided to get inked for the first time five years ago. “I designed my tattoos myself to show my individuality or uniqueness. I want to be different from others.”

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The tattoos that decorate his forearms include a Japanesestyle dragon and a tribal pattern. His wife’s and daughter’s names are incorporated within the design. One difference between Peredo and millennials use of tattoos is his desire for his tattoos to be symbolic. “They have to mean something, it can’t be senseless,” he says.

STYLES The rise of tattoo culture as an art movement can be attributed to people paying closer attention to different tattoo styles. It’s no longer about getting just a butterfly – what kind of butterfly would you want? Traditional, realistic, abstract, black and grey, pointillism or fine line? The possibilities are endless.

Tattoo artist Serrano, who first started specializing in neotraditional, finds that his style is continually expanding. “It was really an acquired taste since I came into the industry not really knowing anything about tattoos – except that they’re cool and I wanted to get them.”

“When I started out, I really liked those bright neo-traditional style tattoos which are a little more detailed and illustrative, so that’s the style I tried to emulate. Over time, I started getting more and more into bolder lines, heavy black, American traditional – and even the European traditional.”

SOCIAL MEDIA Social media has helped to influence the popularity of tattoos.

Many tattoo shops now post their work online, and provide contact information.

“ULTIMATELY I WANT A TATTOO TO LOOK GOOD, AND MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I AM EXPRESSING SOMETHING ABOUT MYSELF I WOULDN'T SAY OUT LOUD.” Ceschini notes that even when she was across the world in Italy, she knew about Italian tattoo artists. “I use Tumblr as a source to find artists whose work I appreciate from all over the world. We can quickly discover if a style is complementary to ours by looking into artist’s publicly posted tattoos and artwork,” Ceschini says.

Serrano adds that “social media has been huge for the tattoo industry – especially Instagram and Tumblr. They’ve made it so easy to put your work out there and reach a wider demographic. If someone is trying to find a certain style or information on a specific artist, everything they need to know is at their fingertips by just searching a hashtag.”

Serrano says that social media is not only helpful in reaching clients, but also improving his own work; “as an artist – having access to all these artists from all over the world, their sketches, paintings, tattoos and even their processes. If I’m ever stuck on a subject, I know exactly whose work I need to look at and whose work I can reference for inspiration to keep me moving forward on a project,” Serrano says.

STIGMAS

are still stigmas about certain tattoos, like face tattoos, and the tramp stamp.” Ceschini relates: “When working in oil and gas, I had to cover up my tattoos. I found that the older individuals I worked with already found it difficult to take me seriously because I was younger. If they saw my tattoos, they would have assumed that I was a delinquent or something.”

But Serrano sees attitudes changing too. “As far as tattoos being associated with being trashy or a lowlife, I think that stigma is dying. Part of that is because most people get tattoos done professionally now, and it’s not cheap. So you have to be able to hold down a decent job to afford it.”

Sullivan sees the same shift in society: “I don’t mind the idea of people seeing your tattoos, as it is a form of self- expression and does describe a part of you. But at the same time, we no longer get tattoos in order to convey messages to other people. It has become an inherently personal experience, and I think it’s nice to be chill about them.”

When it comes to tattoos, the question of stigmas has to be asked. Serrano says he believes “there

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R ITES O F PAS SAGE SHAP E W HO W E A R E Story and design by Tory LaLiberte

RITES OF PASSAGE There are moments in all of our lives that truly define us – moments that stand apart from the rest, and provide meaning or purpose.

Important moments like marriage, having children and death are all documented and celebrated as part of a transformative life cycle. Each stage of the life cycle is perceived differently.

Rites of passage are the markers in each of our lives that identify where we are in that life cycle.

Teri Appleby, a rabbi with the Temple B’nai Tikvah in Calgary, says the Bar or Bat Mitzvah is a ceremony for thirteen year old boys and girls – sometimes twelve for girls – as they enter into adulthood.

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These ceremonies are only one of the many life-cycle events held in the Jewish community, however the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are by far the most widely known of these rituals. During a Bar Mitzvah, Appleby says, “boys stand in front of the congregation, wearing a tallit – prayer shawl – and chanting from the Torah scroll. Completing this means that they now have the rights of an adult.”

However, the Bar Mitzvah is only one example of a rite of passage. Others can take on a much more physical aspect to them. On Pentecost Island in the South Pacific, the Naghol tribe holds a landdiving ceremony where young boys, and men, dive off platforms on a tower

– reaching up to 100 feet tall – with only vines around their feet to catch them.

Vanuatu Tourist Information Centre tells how jumping off this tower is intended to prove young boys’ manhood and bravery to the rest of the village. Completion of this dangerous sport will merit them with badges of respect.

NAG H O L LAND - D I VI N G C E RE M O NY I N T H E S O U T H P AC I F I C

Simply diving off of the tower is not all that is involved, according to the Information Centre. The boys and men must also bless the land by touching their heads to the ground, leaving very little margin for error when measuring the vines. Having so much as four inches of excess vine could prove to be a fatal mistake.

One of the torah scrolls at jewish temple b’nai tikvah in Calgary, AB. PHOTO BY TORY LALIBERTE

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Believe it or not, the risky act of freestyle bungee jumping is not the only jaw-dropping rite of passage out there. Around the world, people are participating in all kinds of painful and dangerous rituals that could result in injuries, disfigurement or even death.

Another – what many might call extreme – rite of passage is carried out by the Sambia in Papua New Guinea.

Anthropologist Gilbert Herdt says, “Sambia boys have six stages of initiation.

These stages will be carried out over 15 years from the age of seven to 10 and into their mid-20s. The boys are trained in aggression over this span of time through various dangerous initiation rites that will transform them into men.”

Herdt writes about how the boys are trained as warriors through initiation rites including hunting, “thrashing rites and severe nose-bleedings, stinging nettle ceremonies and constant frightening surprises.”

Celebrating a birthday with friends and cupcakes.

PHOTO BY TORY LALIBERTE

NAT I V E AM E RI C AN V I SI O N Q U E S T I N NO RT H AM E RI C A

B I RT H AND P ARE NT H O O D

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SO WHY DO IT? With so many risks and the likelihood of pain or death, it is hard to imagine why such ceremonies as the Naghols’ land diving and Sambia initiation rites are still practiced.

M AAS AI LI O N H U NT I N K E NY A AND T ANZ ANI A

In Canada, most of us would never even consider participating in these ceremonies, however there are certain rites of passage North Americans enact on a regular basis.

A girl’s sweet sixteen is symbolic of her becoming a woman. Getting your driver’s license can represent becoming independent. Going to university and getting a job can be signs of gaining responsibility and respect from the people around you. And – as previously stated – a Jewish Bar or Bat Mitzvah symbolizes a Jewish boy or girl’s entry into adulthood. Any big moment that holds significance and feels transformative is a rite of passage.

Anthropologist Christine Giancarlo says, “Rites of passage are universal. While the form is different, the point remains consistent. Through rites of passage a cultural consensus about what stage of life a person is at can be made.”

“Rites of passage play a huge role in how we compartmentalize and label people. This determines a person’s status and how they are supposed to be treated by others.”

Think again of the Jewish Bar and Bat Mitzvah.

Appleby says, “By completing a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, boys and girls become adults and as such gain the same rights of an adult. They are then responsible

“RITES OF PASSAGE PLAY A HUGE ROLE IN HOW WE COMPARTMENTALIZE AND LABEL PEOPLE.” for the consequences of their own actions and are expected to know the difference between right and wrong.”

Additionally, the Rabbi says, “boys and girls are expected to participate in community and social service as part of their new responsibilities. Part of becoming an adult means they are responsible for helping make the lives of others better.”

“In addition to gaining access to membership within a certain peer group,” Giancarlo says, “advantages also come with obligations and responsibilities.”

SCA R PAP IFICATI O UA N EW N IN GUIN EA

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IN A Q & A IN TE RV I E W, A 2 1-Y E A R OLD SK E LE TO N AT H L E T E D I S CU S S ES WHAT IT IS LIK E TO BE A MO N GST T H E WOR L D’S B EST. 36

Elizabeth at the 2014 World Cup in Calgary, AB. PHOTO BY DAVE HOLLAND

Story and design by Taylor Dueck

BIOGRAPHY NAME: ELISABETH HENDRIKA VATHJE AGE: 21 DOB: MARCH 17, 1994 BORN: CALGARY, AB RAISED: WINNIPEG, MB (1994-2000), CALGARY (2000-PRESENT) HEIGHT: 5’ 8” WEIGHT: 172 LBS

PHOTO BY CHARLIE BOOKER

PHOTO COURTESY OF DENIS TRAPP FOTOGRAFIE

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Elizabeth at the 2015 Winterberg World Championship.

PHOTO BY JULIAN STEPPAN

She has only been alive for five Winter Olympic games, yet Elisabeth Vathje is one of the world’s top skeleton athletes.

Although she is one of the best, Vathje remains relatively hidden from the world spotlight – her face often concealed under her helmet. But she doesn’t mind the anonymity.

For those who don’t know, what would you say is the difference between skeleton, luge and bobsled?

The main difference is our sleds. Where bobsledders are going down in a bathtub, lugers are going down feet-first and skeletons are going down headfirst on a glorified cookie sheet.

Additionally, bobsleds and luge go faster than skeleton.

What inspired you to pursue skeleton?

I was always interested in the Olympics, I had tried fencing and snowboarding and then my dad was travelling home from Vancouver, on the same plane as the Canadian luge team and they suggested I try skeleton. So, at 14 I tried skeleton, and it was love at first slide.

What is the best finish you’ve ever had?

I’ve won a World Cup race in Calgary. So that’s my best result.

However, the World Championships that happened this year, I finished third and that’s equivalent to the Olympics when there’s not an Olympics.

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Aside from races results, what would you say is your biggest accomplishment?

I got a concussion in January of this year, I had a week off to recover and in the following race in St. Mortiz, Switzerland, I came back and won silver.

What is your training regiment like?

In the summer, we do a lot of sprinting and a lot of lifting because we want to be as explosive as possible. We do a lot of Olympic weight lifting, a lot of squats, a lot of lower body work as well as a fair amount of upper body work because we’re running with our arms outstretched, pushing a 50 pound sled.

When winter rolls around and you to get on the ice, how does your training change?

It only changes a little. The loads aren’t as heavy because sliding takes a lot out of you. When we’re on ice usually we go to the track and do two or three runs a day.

In terms of going down the track, what kind of training do you do for that?

A lot of that is mental. So we always visualize the track and doing mind runs.

We look ridiculous because it looks like I’m standing up, having a nap and just moving my body. That’s what we do to prepare to go on ice because you can’t really train for it any other way except for being on it.

I’ve heard people say athletes’ bodies aren’t their own anymore. How much input do you have on your training?

I was highly encouraged by the federation to go into this other training group. So that, as much as its my own choice, it’s very much not my own choice. It’s not my body anymore, I’m a commodity, it’s a difficult way to say that but my employer is Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton so I need to perform for them.

on the sled. I missed a whole race, which is very difficult, but I got to be a commentator, which was cool but I was really bad at it. I went from first in the world and fell to eighth or ninth just because I missed the week. That’s what happens when you don’t let God have control.

Were you able to regain your standings?

I finished overall fourth in the world. In the rest of the races I had to keep clawing my way back into being competitive.

How do you set goals for yourself?

I set my goals so that I go into races with no expectations. For example, my goal for this season is top three, but when I go into a race I know that I am as well prepared as I can be so I don’t focus on the end result. As soon as you think, “I can win this race” than you’re gone, you have no chance to compete. You get into the wrong mind space and then its not beneficial to any body.

What is your outlook for the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang?

That is my long-term goal. Ideally, I would love to compete at that Olympics and win a medal for Canada. That is quite a few years away though, so leading up to that I just need to stay healthy and compete at my best. The Olympics are amazing because of what they stand for and bringing communities all over the world to compete. So it’s a very exciting goal and now it’s actually a possibility.

What does your diet consist of?

Cheeseburgers. I’m actually in a cool position because I’m trying to put weight.

I think skeleton athletes are our own beasts because we’re allowed to eat as much as we want, whenever we want.

What is your mentality going into a race?

When I go into the race I really want to just enjoy the sport, enjoy the opportunity that I have to compete. You take it So this would be your first possible chance to compete at the one run at a time and it’s truly being Olympics? thankful for the opportunity I have. I Yes. I am one of the youngest athletes in skeleton, competing know a lot of people say that in a corny in the world cup. The last Olympics I was way too young not at way, but honestly, I get to do extreme a place to compete. This will be my first shot at the Olympics tobogganing for a living. and in skeleton, because I am so young, there’s the potential of

at least 11 years still in the sport, which should be another three What are some of the risks that go Olympic games. So I’ve got some time. along with skeleton racing?

The main risk is concussions. A lot of the You said you have 11 years left, so is there a cut-off age of time our concussions don’t come from when you can’t compete anymore? impact, they come from vibrations. Its not There is no cut-off age per say, but sprinters peak when they’re like we’ll ever pass out but it compounds 27. So at the next Olympics I’ll be 23, the following Olympics slowly over time. It’s been an interesting I’ll be 27, and then 31. So if I want to keep doing skeleton, I can learning experience for all of us to figure keep doing skeleton as long as I’m enjoying it and if this is out when we need to stop to make sure where I feel like I need to be, I’ll keep competing. our brains are healthy. Sometimes you get bruises or ice burn if you fall off your sled.

This interview has been edited for reasons of grammar and length.

How did your concussion affect your training?

I went from being number one in the world to having a concussion. I took a week off and we went through the concussion symptoms I had to be clear before I was even allowed to get back

“SO, AT 14 I TRIED SKELETON, AND IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST SLIDE.”

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Story and design by Megan Miles

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TYL E R AY E R S HAS D E D I CAT E D H I S L I F E TO THE ART OF CO N TORT I ON .

Tyler Ayres may seem like just an average Joe standing in front of you at the local coffee shop, but look closer and you will discover he is anything but ordinary.

Ayres is an internationally acclaimed contortionist and flexibility expert from Australia who has worked as a performer and scouting agent for Cirque Du Soleil.

Clad in Lulu Lemon from head to toe, Ayres addresses the barista with a bright smile and a cheerful “g’ day” – common slang for any self-respecting Aussie. “I’ll have a non-fat, soy latte, please” – an order that instantly reflects his commitment to fitness.

As he doctors up his latte and settles at a table, the veil of ordinary lifts and reveals an athlete with inexplicable energy and sense of wonder.

“THE CIRCUS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PART OF MY LIFE. MY GRANDMOTHER, FATHER, MOTHER AND SISTER WERE ALL CIRCUS PERFORMERS AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER.”

Ayres has been working professionally in the entertainment business since the age of nine, and aggressively training since he was six.

He and his family toured the world performing for countless audiences. The family all specialized in aerial dance and acrobatics – each branching out to find their personal circus specialties. “Touring was intense,” Ayres says, and laughs.

“Especially when your parents are your coaches. They are both Russian and demanded our obedience.”

In Russia, contortion holds a distinct cultural significance that reaches as far back as the 13th century. Genghis Khan, the leader of neighbouring Mongolia, is said to have enjoyed watching the outrageous and unnerving acts of contortion.

Originally, contortion was used to increase dancers’ flexibility before it transitioned into an art form in its own right. Mongolians and Russians alike recognize and respect the historic significance of contortion. It stood as a symbol of grace, commitment and social standing. The art form has been passed down from generation to generation.

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PHOTO: TYLER AYRES

PHOTO BY TYLER AYRES

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Ayres has made Calgary his home away from home. This internationally acclaimed entertainer shows no sign of slowing down. His professional ambitions, much like his body, know no limits. His commitment to preserving his family’s circus lineage continues. “This is my passion, my way of life.”

“I’d be up at 4 a.m. to eat a light breakfast and wash it down with one quarter cup of apple cider vinegar. It helps lubricate the joints and suppresses appetite,” he says. “Then, I’d do an hour of passive stretching, an hour of ballet and an hour and a half of balance work. My sister and I would break for lunch and our studies. If we didn’t have a performance in the evening, we’d repeat our morning exercises.”

At the age of 18, Ayres was recruited by the world-renowned Cirque Du Soleil. He spent the next six years of his life travelling around the globe mastering his craft.

After Cirque Du Soleil, he had a brief stint working at the International School of Ballet, and then he worked a few years on the cruise ship circuit as an entertainer.

Today, Ayres calls Calgary home.

Ayres recognized that he could fill a missing niche in Calgary, and created a contortion company specializing in training, performance and coaching dedicated to high-level, contortion athletes recovering from injury.

Ayres recognized that he could fill a missing niche in Calgary, He says, “There was no high level performing opportunities when I moved here in 2013, so I made my own little community.”

“I even find time to scout for Cirque Du Soleil,” he says, “I have six contortion students who will be great additions to their company when they’re of age.”

Ayres says his goal for all aspiring contortionists is to increase natural flexibility safely, and without injury. “Too often people seriously hurt their lumbar spine trying to recreate pictures they see on Instagram or Facebook.

“THERE IS A MISCONCEPTION SURROUNDING THE ART – PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT CONTORTION IS THE DISTORTION OR MISALIGNMENT OF THE BODY. THIS JUST IS NOT TRUE. RATHER, IT’S ABOUT PERFECT ALIGNMENT – SQUARING FEET, HIPS AND SHOULDERS. THAT’S THE TRUE ART.” Katharine Veitch, a local sports trainer, says the key to a proper backbend, chest stand or human knot is recognizing that flexibility resides in the hips and shoulders — never the back.

“Passive stretching is used to increase flexibility. Contortionists place weights upon limbs to move them into new positions. This static form of stretching must be done daily to increase or maintain muscle memory,” she says.

Of his own body, Ayres says, “I was never naturally flexible.

I had to really work for it.”

“Think of a piece of plastic wrap. If you pull it too quick, it will snap. But, if you take your time and pull slowly, eventually the plastic wrap will stretch – just like muscles.”

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Derek Beaulieu is Calgary’s official poet laureate, and a part-time professor at Mount Royal University. [dee-kuhn-struhkt]’s Christopher Berg created a Q & A interview to explore the creative process with Beaulieu, and in a creative turn, Beaulieu asked similar questions of our twenty-something university student. The unique, dual Q & A interview follows.

LITE RARY ARTS I N T E RV I E W W ITH D E R E K B EAU L I E U Story and design by Christopher Berg

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Christopher Berg

How is the current creative scene doing in Calgary?

Derek Beaul ieu

The creative writing scene is among the very best in the world.

It is a hotbed of innovation, community and camaraderie. As I travel internationally, I find that my audiences are very aware of the quality of innovative writing that is coming out of our city. I only wish that Calgarians would know it as well!

What was the last literary event you went to in Calgary?

CB

This summer I was lucky enough to attend a freestyle poetry performance, accompanied with music, in Montreal. But unfortunately I can’t say I’ve been to a literary event here in Calgary. This may be representative of some of the fan-base here in Calgary. Including myself, I know that many love the literary arts but maybe not enough to seek out and support an event.

What has been your favourite collaboration in the past? Are you looking forward to collaborating with anyone in particular in the future?

DB

I have done a number of collaborations – creative collaborations with ChristianBok, Jordan Scott and Gary Barwin; performative collaborations with Neta Gordon; editorial collaborations with angela rawlings, lori emerson, Jason Christie, rob mclennan – and these are just a few examples. I think that collaboration drives the quality of artistic production and is the means by which we become better artists. There are a number of people that I’d like to collaborate with, but I’m thrilled to be a part of a community so formed on communication and shared opportunity.

What space do you make in your education and writing for collaboration?

CB

Some of my best literary ideas have spawned from brainstorming and critiques with classmates. I try to facilitate collaboration with others as early in the creative process as possible. It is sometimes too late when you realize that you missed out on a huge opportunity that needed to be implemented from the start. Exploring as many options as possible at the beginning of a project with friends has always yielded the best results.

DB

My inspiration comes from my peers and from the scraps and pieces of language I find on our streets and on the internet – the strange ways that language is being formed and reformed in differing venues.

In what ways do you feel that inspiration is, in fact, a myth?

CB

I feel that inspiration is myth because, until recently, I unconsciously believed we live and hope to one-day wake up with the million-dollar idea. Which is, I agree, not the case. Great ideas come from hard work. Maybe this isn’t inspiration, but, in an attempt to become inspired, borrowing and remediating other’s ideas has worked for me to discover new ones. But this is also hard work.

What do you think of the Avant-garde? Is there awareness in the creative sphere for what is groundbreaking? Or can we only understand what is truly unique in retrospect?

Where do you draw inspiration? Is it a different place from where you first pulled from?

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“SUCCESS IS A CONVERSATION I DIDN’T SEE COMING.”

As a student do you want to be reassured or challenged?

DB

I think that the avant-garde is alive and well and must be continuously challenging us to redefine what we understand as poetic, artistic, readable. We cannot police the avant-garde, it needs to be able to explore the possibilities, regroup, reform and expand based on risk, challenge and uncomfortability. I believe that artists who are truly looking to expand their chosen art form must be aware of what is happening in the avantgarde, for they are constantly redefining the boundaries of our potential practice.

How far is too far?

CB

For artists, I believe they should be especially uncensored to express themselves whether politically charged or not. But is there a line? Intentionally or not, most art will find an audience to offend. A different question: can art be too offensive?

Often the assignments in your introduction class give quite a long leash to your students in terms of final deliverables. What do you wish your students to discover during one of these more open projects?

DB

I want my students to find, explore and redefine their own cultural boundaries – the spaces where they feel “safe.” It is not my job as an instructor to reify the knowledge that students already have and the spaces that they understand – it is my job to present them with information that they don’t know how to parse, that is potentially uncomfortable or offensive and help guide them through a new understanding of what can be done.

CB

This question challenges me in a way and I feel resistant to it. I want to answer that I’d rather be challenged in most cases, but that might be my idealized self speaking. Being reassured is almost the most satisfying notion, comparable to the feeling you receive when someone gives you a “like” on Facebook. And I understand being reassured may be potentially destroying the creative mind.

To become the best possible version of myself, I hope I take advantage of these challenges as they come.

What is considered success when teaching a classroom full of students that have often never thought of writing fiction or poetry before your introduction course?

DB

Success is a conversation I didn’t see coming; a series of finished assignments that clearly challenge the students to perform in ways that they didn’t think possible; to see a discussion of what writing means to them as contemporary producers.

Do grades really matter to you?

CB

They mean more to me than I would like them to. It is easy to become a prisoner to the grading system. And not only am I a prisoner, I care about my GPA to the 100th decimal point. In this life, grades can dictate your future education!

Whether they matter to me or not.

How important are mistakes?

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DB

Absolutely vital. You must fail and fail and fail. As Samel Beckett famously wrote: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

As a student, how important is failing to you?

DB

I am only concerned that poets and creative writers seem to be more interested in ruling what is and is not allowed, what is and is not poetic – instead of striving for brilliance, striving to risk.

We are arbiters of public taste; we do not report to public taste, we must find a way of challenging the status quo.

When was the last time you looked to a book of poetry to offend or challenge you, and not to mollify you?

CB

I had to fail to understand the importance of a process. Before, my first solution was always my best solution because it was my only solution. Probably the biggest piece of advice I could give to a fellow problem solver. However, to discover this, I had to fail over and over and over again.

Failing is intrinsically human. It would be nice to see it celebrated more than frowned upon!

Are you ever worried about the evolution of creative writing? Should the creative community be more concerned with ruling what is brilliant and what is not brilliant?

CB

I can’t say I have found myself looking to be offended or challenged by a piece of literature. Rarely am I offended by art, but My Paris by Gail Scott would have to be the single piece of literature that has challenged me the most. My Paris goes against every foundational notion of information design, and therefore I can appreciate it. But the book still challenges me to this day.

Though it is not your only published form of poetry, why explore VisPo (visual poetry)? What intrigues you about the form of a letter?

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CB DB

Letter forms surround us – they are the textures of our contemporary environments – we spend more time in a textual ecology than we do in a natural ecology – and I am fascinated by the ways that this text, these letters and slogans combine and recombine, shift and wash over us in a way which constructs meaning.

What do you read standing up?

CB I could argue I read more standing up than I do sitting down. It is impossible not to digest the endless amount of information we are bombarded by as we transport ourselves from one location to the next. Standing up I read road signs, flyers, logos, posters, t-shirts, menus, cash registers, advertisements, tattoos, maps, clocks, bathroom signs, graffiti and the open and closed hours of stores to name a few.

What does poetry look and feel like today? Does the simple employment of poetry on the Internet, perhaps through Facebook or Twitter, constitute as 21st century poetry?

DB I would like to think that poets today should be striving to create a form of poetry that our predecessors wouldn’t even recognize – find a way of crafting text that truly reflects the diction, discourse and environment of contemporary readers. If it doesn’t look like a poem, read like a poem, parse like a poem then that is the poetry I’d like to explore.

If I hadn’t assigned a book of poetry, would you have read one?

Personally, I find myself designing poetry books more than reading them. I own poetry books, but rarely do a treat them like a book. Rather, I find myself using poetry books as more of a resource for reflection and insight.

Is accessibility a concern for you and your poetry? Is there a different audience, or an audience at all, when approaching a new structured poem compared to a new abstract piece of fiction? Who do you find yourself writing for?

DB

Accessibility is a straw-man for poetry.

Poets worry about writing accessible poetry not realizing that no one reads poetry. Instead create a form of poetry that actually uses our present forms of legibility: write for people online, write for people glimpsing on their cell phone while driving on the Deerfoot, write for robots and spambots and hard drives and toaster ovens.

What can you imagine as non-human readers?

CB

Remarketing is the process of analyzing an individual’s patterns on the Internet so they can refine what is being advertised to you the future pages you visit. This is a formula written for a computer, but this computer still needs to read your activities in code. Even after humans are gone, computers will still be analyzing and reading code for forever.

What would be your dream course to teach?

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“IF IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A POEM, READ LIKE A POEM, PARSE LIKE A POEM ... THEN THAT IS THE POETRY I’D LIKE TO EXPLORE.” DB

I would love the opportunity to invest in student exploration over the long term instead of single semester courses. I think that art is a conversation and one that requires long-term dedication to exploration, curiosity and study. Let’s treat the creative writing seminar like the Frankensteinian combination of laboratory, maker-space and, library and workshop – where you are just as likely to find typewriters and computers as you are arc-welders and looms...

What do you want from a course that you are not receiving?

CB

I would love the opportunity to learn without a grading system. This may not work for everyone, because grades can be quite the motivator to invest time in a topic. But we never receive a grade on anything outside of school. You either have sold the proposal, or you didn’t. In the case of literature, receiving grades for how well you have explored a part of yourself has always astounded me.

And knowing what you need to do to get an “A” in a fiction class, for example, can have conflicting results when the task is to express a part of yourself you weren’t familiar with before. I would love the opportunity to see what I could really learn in a classroom setting when grades aren’t a factor.

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T H E MYST E R I ES BE H I N D H OW W E ME AS U R E I T Story and design by Micaela Lewis You are five years old and driving to your grandparents’ home for Thanksgiving, and time cannot seem to go any slower. Flash forward 15 years and that same drive seems to be over before you know it. You cannot believe the same drive that never seemed to end when you were younger has gone by so fast.

Why is it that as you age, time seems to be speeding along faster than ever, and every year seems to go by quicker than the one before it? Have you ever noticed how slow time seems to go by when you are terrified, but speeds up when you are having fun or in a time crunch?

How do our brains measure time anyway? Do we have an internal clock that keeps track of hours and minutes? Or are we dependent on our surroundings to help keep track of time?

Emergency nurse Carma Lewis says that time seems unusually slow when trying to administer CPR to a dying patient.

“It feels like the two minutes you are doing compressions will never end. Your whole body wants to stop, but you know that it is the only thing you can do. So you keep pumping until finally, after what seems like eternity, you are traded off and you can have a short break until it is your turn again.”

Many people have experienced this sense of time slowing down in a life-threatening moment. Although time feels like it has slowed down, it clearly hasn’t. It’s still going the same speed as before. However, because we focus more attention on what is happening at that moment in time, it causes our perception to be skewed and time appears longer.

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“IT FEELS LIKE THE TWO MINUTES WILL NEVER END.” Writer and broadcaster Claudia Hammond writes that what actually happens in our minds affects our perception of time, and that affects how fast or slow we feel time is going.

Hammond says that the different aspects of our bodies affect our sensation of time.

ADHD, extreme fear, rejection, boredom and depression can all provoke the sensation of time slowing down. When our body temperature rise, or when we are in complete isolation with no daylight, time seems to speed up without us even realizing. These situations may leave people with a sense of lost time and with no way to get it back.

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Hammond says that “our brains use pulses that are already been used for other purposes such as our senses, to measure time in our brains. The length of time is determined by the dopamine system and four crucial areas of our brain: the cerebellum, the frontal lobe, the basal ganglia and the anterior cortex.”

She explains that “the frontal lobe controls our memory in terms of seconds. It helps you to read a sentence and then answer the question it is asking. The basal ganglia helps control your movement, and it helps you estimate how much time has passed – which is extremely important and helps you to move smoothly.

“Our anterior insular cortex detects how our body feels and how our gut feelings relate to emotional states – this helps with how we perceive time because when we are scared or nervous it causes our bodies to perceive time as moving very slowly,” she says.

“When we are excited or sleeping, this makes time go by very quickly. This is the area of our brain that counts rhythm which keeps us in time.”

Underground explorer Michel Siffre researches how our bodies keep time without out the help of daylight or clocks. He lived in complete isolation in an ice cave for two months to conduct his research.

He slept when he was tired, and he ate when he was hungry. Siffre let his body completely dictate what time it was. Days began to feel endless. At first he tried to track time by listening to music – played on records. Eventually it didn’t work.

“THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF A RECORD BECAME INTEGRATED IN THE FLOOD OF TIME. IT NO LONGER HAS ANY MEANING FOR ME.”

Hammond writes that “our bodies run on a clock that is 24 hours and 31 minutes long, and the 31 minutes are adjusted each day by daylight which keeps us on track.” Since Siffre had no sunlight in the cave, his perception of time became completely warped. Eventually, he was 25 days behind schedule.

Siffre concludes that our experience of time is created by our own minds, but dictated by rhythms of sunlight and darkness.

“The beginning and the end of a record became integrated in the flood of time. It no longer has any meaning for me. I am detached from it. I live outside time,” Siffre says in a journal he kept during his experiment.

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Story and design by Margo Petroff Recently, I was asked to name my favourite movie. I quickly replied Big Fish – which is my go-to answer when asked this lame question. Then, after thinking about it, I blurted out, “Oh and actually, Gone Girl is up there on my list too.”

Ten minutes later, in a group chat with my classmates, someone started a conversation saying, “I watched Gone Girl tonight for the first time. I think I’m going to stay single for the rest of my life now.” This coincidence felt weird. It made me smile and shake my head a little. But I quickly forgot about it – until an hour later when a friend sent me a Snapchat of her watching the opening credits to the same movie.

What I had just experienced is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon – better known today as the frequency illusion.

“THESE SMALL EXPERIENCES GIVE US THE SENSE THAT SUDDENLY EVERYONE IS THINKING WHAT YOU’RE THINKING.” A common example used to explain this phenomenon is when you purchase a car and suddenly you see at least five of your specific vehicle on your way to work. Or, when you think of an old friend, and suddenly she calls you. It seems one of two things happen in a Baader-Meinhof situation: moments like this can either give you an eerie feeling or they can create a heartwarming feeling – or maybe something comedic. Either way, these moments are difficult to ignore.

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“THEY CAN REMIND US OF OUR HUMAN QUALITY, AND IT’S THAT HUMAN QUALITY THAT KEEPS US CONNECTED.”

Helen Kirwan-Taylor, says these small experiences give us the “sense that suddenly everyone is thinking what you’re thinking. Once we focus our minds on an idea, object or issue, it’s uncanny how soon the world seems to mirror our views,” she says.

Seems true, right? We are often taught in life that we attract the same type of people that share our worldview. So this notion begs the question: Are experiences like this really just “weird coincidences?”

Or is there something bigger going on?

Two lenses offer themselves as ways to understand the phenomenon: a scientific lens and a spiritual one.

Scientifically, the term frequency illusion was coined by linguist Arnold Zwicky. He says that when we notice these “coincidences” it is simply a fault in the way our minds work.

Zwicky also says that frequency illusion can be explained by two psychological practices: selective attention (noticing things that are salient to us, disregarding the rest) and confirmation bias (looking for things that support our hypotheses, disregarding potential counterevidence.)

Yet, people want to know less about how coincidences happen, and more why they make us feel the way that they do. Perhaps a spiritual exploration offers a better explanation.

As someone who helps others navigate through difficult or trying times in their lives, spiritual coach Lynn Doyle often sees re-occurring events or themes in others’ stories – as well as in her own experiences.

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She recalls that as a teenager she would often experience coincidences. When she would go to call a friend, as she moved to pick up the phone it would start to ring and it would be that same friend calling her. But as she got older, she realized that some of these things were happening during major events or losses in her life – and they were becoming harder to ignore.

Some of Doyle’s strongest coincidences, or what she likes to call connections, were often surrounding family or with those to whom she felt a strong emotional connection. And she says there were those times when she felt ill or cold and learned later that a family member had passed away at that moment.

Doyle remembers feeling a shift in her own health and well-being when those people close to her were going through a hard time. “It was during these times that people started to tell me that I was perceptive.”

But Doyle says she believes it is more than being perceptive. It was these big experiences that lead her to believe that the even the smallest connections we experience are worth paying attention to.

“I sincerely believe there is a very strong connection to people who we have

interacted with before. It’s like a ‘ping.’ ‘Ping,’ you think of someone and within six hours they are phoning, texting or standing right in front of you. It’s a conscious synchronicity.”

Doyle also says these experiences can be a call to action. “You have a thought in your mind and you’re thinking of something you would like to do, and the next three conversations you hear people having involve that thing that you were thinking of – and you just go, ‘Oh really?’” For Doyle, this situation means there is something here for you.

“You put the thought out there – asking if you should blah, blah, blah, and it is almost like an echo back to you,” Doyle says.

“I really feel that there is a universal conscious connection. And sometimes messages are specifically for us – delivered through these coincidences.”

The eerie feeling we get during these moments “reminds us of our human quality,” Doyle says. “And, it’s that human quality that keeps us connected, that is our connection, that we cannot pretend doesn’t exist.”

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Story and design by Isabelle Jackson

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PHOTOS BY @MONSOMM

PHOTOS BY @THEMAVRIC

We’ve all done it. We have a moment to spare, so we whip out our smartphone and head straight to the Instagram icon.

Then we spend the next few minutes silently swiping through any new photo that has been posted since the last time we checked in.

As we fly past each tiny piece of another person’s life, are we filled with admiration? Delight? Judgment? Or perhaps envy? We might even go as far as thinking to ourselves, “Why is their life so much better than mine?”

The most popular lifestyle Instragramers might have over 100,000 followers, and some are even earning income from it. And when all of an Instagrammer’s photos are viewed together, it certainly seems like they have a pretty spectacular life – endless travel, wonderful food, too

many friends and a budget for clothes that seems, quite simply, outrageous.

“PEOPLE ARE STRANGE WHEN YOU’RE A STRANGER.” Linda Sui (@themavric) might not have 100,000 followers, but she is a very successful Canadian lifestyle Instagrammer living in London, England.

“I refer to my Instagram as my ‘curated collection of beautiful things,’” Sui says.

“It’s not a true reality, but it feels more like a persona that only wants to show you the pretty things.”

Monica Sommerville (@monsomm) is another Canadian Instagrammer who spent a year in Germany showcasing her life and her adventures.

“I really just post what I like and what’s going on in my life at the time,” Sommerville says. It creates a connection, she says, to all her followers – comprised primarily of complete strangers.

“I see a lot of good in Instagram,” Sommerville says. “People find other likeminded people around the world, and inspire each other to reach fitness and healthy lifestyle goals. Perfect strangers leave heartfelt comments on each other’s posts.”

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PHOTOS BY @ALBJOURNAL

The impact of Instagram on strangers is, unfortunately, not all good. While the majority of studies have been done on Facebook and other larger social networking sites, there are now some emerging data on Instagram and the passive consumption of idealized images on self-esteem.

can very powerfully provoke immediate social comparison, and that can trigger feelings of inferiority.”

amplifies its quality or beauty without the time-consuming use of editing software like Photoshop.

“IT’S NOT A TRUE REALITY.”

Jessica Winter writes for Slate Magazine, and says there are elements of social networking sites that contribute to some users feeling depressed or inadequate.

An element strongly connected to those feelings, she says, is the stuff that Instagram is made of – photos.

Krasnova says those feelings trigger a cycle of one-upmanship that can lead to a warped sense of authenticity. “Selfpromotion triggers more self-promotion and the world on social media gets further and further from reality.”

The problem is, we crop, edit and filterize our photos to such an extent that it may not be a realistic portrayal. More so, we generally only post only one, maybe two, photos at a time – meaning they are going to be the best photo taken out of the bunch. No double-chinned selfies or just-got-out-of-bed outfits make it onto the Instagram feed.

“You get more explicit and implicit cues of people being happy, rich, and successful from a photo than from a status update,” Hanna Krasnova of Berlin’s Humboldt University, told Winter. “A photo

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What may have started as a photosharing platform amongst friends has, in some cases, evolved into a competition for “likes” – driven by envy or even disdain. And part of Instagram’s appeal is the ability to edit the image so that it

Catalina Toma teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and says, “You spend so much time creating flattering, idealized images of yourself, sorting through hundreds of images for that one perfect picture, but you don’t necessarily grasp that everybody else is spending a lot of time doing the same thing.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF @YELLOWILLOW

Carlle Chatten of the Instagram handle A Leather Bound Journal (@albjournal), a popular Vancouver-based lifestyle account, makes a point of saying she started her posting for personal reasons.

“I did it for myself to determine my own personal aesthetic, and I was so excited to see the positive interaction of followers that came naturally.

“I just want my feed to be fun, interesting and inspiring,” Chatten says. “If people love it, they will follow me and I’m totally okay with that. Growing organically and authentically beats a large following based on a false reality. People are strange when you’re a stranger.”

“Instagram can be a problem,” Chatten says straight up. “One adverse effect is my friends telling me to get off my phone at our dinners. That’s totally fair.”

She’s not wrong. Matters of self-esteem aren’t the only problem with Instagram.

“Technology celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat,” Jonathan SafranFoer says in a piece on the subject in The New York Times.

“Each step forward has made it easier, just a little, to avoid the emotional work of being present – to convey information rather than humanity.”

Anne McIsaac has a following of nearly 90,000 people on her Instagram account Yellowillow (@yellowillow), and says, “I guess I’d lie if I said I didn’t miss anything.

It mildly annoys my family that I’m so often on my phone.”

And Sui says that “there are many moments that people don’t see on my account because sometimes it just does not need to be documented. I would say only 25 per cent of what happens in my day-to-day life gets put on Instagram. I guess that’s another part that correlates with it being curated.”

Seeing it the same way, Sommerville says, “Instagram reminds me to have fun, enjoy my life, and not forget about the person I am online. I like @monsomm. I look up to her, and I don’t want to let her down.”

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VIDEO G AM ES HAV E MOV E D F R OM E NTE RTAIN M E N T TO P RACT I CA L APPL ICATIO N S. Story and design by Marissa Wasilewski

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PHOTO AND COPYRIGHT HUNTER HOFFMAN www.vrpain.com used with permission.

“Danny, it’s time for your treatment,” nurse Kelly said gently.

“No. Not another session in the torture chamber. I’m just not up to them tearing off my skin today,” Danny replied.

“Well today we’re trying a new technique in the torture chamber. It’s been getting great reviews from patients in other burn units so we were wondering if you’d like to try it. It’s a virtual reality game called Snow World and it helps make debridement a whole lot easier to bear.”

“Yeah, really! A game is going to take away the pain of debridement! What kind of a game is it?” he asked.

“It’s a game where you have to fly through ice canyons, cold rivers and waterfalls and shoot snowballs at snowmen, igloos and robots.

Apparently, it’s got so much action in it that you won’t have much time to think about what we’re doing to your body. C’mon, give it a shot. And if you need more pain medication, just let us know,” his nurse said.

Katrin Becker, a professor at Mount Royal University who specializes in gaming research and education of Serious Games, said that Serious Games are “digital games built for purposes other than pure entertainment” – the main difference between serious games and regular video games. Games like SnowWorld provide benefits that are tangible and measurable.

Becker said that the importance of Serious Games stems from the fact that they are a new medium: “One more tool in our arsenal for getting our message across – things that are viewed as inherently dangerous or ridiculously expensive can use (serious) games as a viable alternative.”

For example, pilots will spend hundreds of hours in a flight simulator before they actually fly. These simulations provide pilots with a safe and costeffective way of learning how to fly an aircraft.

Serious games have a broad range of uses – from the education sector to the military sector. And over the past ten years, the field of healthcare has been using serious games as a distraction tool for people undergoing painful medical procedures. One such procedure that burn victims undergo is debridement.

When it comes to video games, “there is this notion that games equal fun, equal frivolous, equal not worthy,” Becker said. However, as people become exposed to the different genres existing in the video game world, they will begin to accept that in the future, pain management may only be a game away.

You might wonder why anyone hasn’t thought of doing this before. Just hook up a console and let patients play a game to help get their mind of debilitating pain.

However, SnowWorld is not just a game. It’s a “Serious Game” – and that makes it a game changer.

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The top three brain scans show the amount of pain, a person suffered, without the use of Virtual Reality, while the bottom three brain scans show the amount of pain, a person suffered, when virtual reality was used.

PHOTO BY TODD RICHARDS AND ARIC BILLS, COPYRIGHT HUNTER HOFFMAN www.vrpain.com used with permission.

THE MAKING OF A BURN VICTIM

DEBRIDEMENT EXPLAINED

It was a Sunday morning and 17-year-old Danny went into work at his parttime job at a garage on MacLeod Trail. He noticed there was a large grease stain on the floor in one of the bays so he grabbed some gasoline to try to lift the stain, then hosed it down with hot water.

All burn victims, like the fictional character Danny – whose story is based on true events – undergo a treatment that involves new skin being grafted onto their bodies. In order for the skin graft to be successful, a treatment called debridement is enacted – where the infected, damaged or dead skin is removed.

Since it was a cold day, the doors of all the garage bays were closed and as the gasoline vaporized, the fumes rose upward to the ceiling mounted furnace. There was an instantaneous explosion.

The ambulance drivers picked Danny’s badly burnt body up off the sidewalk where he had been thrown by the explosion. He had third degree burns to over 30 per cent of his body and second degree burns on 20 per cent of his body. Upon his arrival in the emergency unit, he began intensive post-burn medical procedures, and because he was a healthy young guy, he managed to survive.

Once Danny arrived in the burn unit, the long road to recovery began.

The first few weeks following his accident passed by in a blur due to the heavy sedation he received and thankfully he didn’t remember much of the initial medical treatment. By the third week he was more aware of his surroundings, and began to settle into the grinding pain of wound care.

Hunter Hoffman, a research scientist specializing in the use of virtual reality to reduce fear and pain, said that “the amount of pain and suffering experienced by patients during wound care remains a worldwide problem for burn victims as well as a number of other patient populations.”

All burns – whether first-, second- or third degree, are painful, but burn victims say the worst level of pain comes during debridement.

As painful as this procedure is, debridement helps prevent infection and promotes growth of new tissue. It is also used to prepare a burn area to receive a skin graft. Patients undergoing debridement receive as much pain medication as is safe for them but for most, it’s not enough.

VIRTUAL REALITY To help this group of patients, the serious game SnowWorld was developed by the University of Washington HITLab in collaboration with Harborview Burn Center. The game features a chilly environment in which the player becomes engaged.

The technology of virtual reality helps to minimize body motion during gameplay making it easier for debridement to be carried out by nurses.

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SnowWorld 2003.

PHOTO BY STEPHEN DAGADAKIS, COPYRIGHT OF HUNTER HOFFMAN

This is possible because players control their movements and activities in the game – such as throwing snowballs – by manipulating a joystick.

“Rather than having pain as the focus of their attention, for many patients in virtual reality, the wound care becomes more of an annoyance, distracting them from their primary goal of exploring the virtual world,” Hoffman said.

As “the first immersive virtual world designed for reducing pain, SnowWorld was specifically designed to help burn patients. Patients often report re-living their original burn experience during wound care; SnowWorld was designed to help put out the fire,” Hoffman said.

“In all of our virtual-reality, pain-control studies, patients – especially children and teenaged burn patients – have shown enthusiasm about participating. The effectiveness of virtual reality pain distraction has now been documented in a small but growing number of clinical studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals.”

“SNOWWORLD WAS DESIGNED TO HELP PUT OUT THE FIRE.”

The application of this technique is being explored in other parts of the world. An Australian study of 11-17 year olds, in a burn unit which used VR during wound care, found that there was a significant reduction in pain scores and they needed much lower doses of pain medication.

Since pain perception has a strong psychological component, Hoffman said that what the patient is focusing on at the time can impact the degree of pain that they feel. With virtual reality, the player is transported into another reality which pulls a lot of attention away from the pain.

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C ITIES WO R L DW I D E A R E Q U I CKLY G R OW IN G O U T WA R D S Story and design by Alissa Patacic

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Barcelona. PHOTO BY ALISSA PATACIC

After spending two months walking around Europe this past summer, I realized that getting around Calgary is not that easy – whether you own a vehicle or not.

What is it about Calgary that makes it so difficult to get anywhere?

One thing that makes Calgary unique as a city is how spread out it is – almost 90 per cent of the population lives in suburban areas of the city. Like me, thousands of Calgarians wake up in the suburbs and fight traffic and fight to get to where they need to go.

A citizen’s guide on urban sprawl from the David Suzuki Foundation says that Canadian cities have evolved from compact to sprawling. The guide also describes the cost of sprawl on areas such as energy, housing, the environment, public health and climate change.

Eliot Tretter, professor in the department of geography at the U of C, says that urban sprawl has been a problem for a very long time. “It is a major issue here – especially with the water.”

Tretter moved to Calgary two years ago from Austin, Texas – another city with an urban sprawl problem. “I believe Austin is the mid-sized city with the most urban sprawl in the United States. And I think Calgary might top that,” he says.

“MOST OF THE URBANIZATION IS HAPPENING GLOBALLY.” The European Environment Agency published a report that discusses the growing concern of managing urban sprawl the European Union is facing. The report says that a 75 per cent of Europeans live in urban areas – a figure estimated to go up another five per cent by the year 2020.

“This is happening most particularly in China, India and other places like Brazil. Most of it is a South American urbanization or an East Asian urbanization.”

But urban sprawl is not a simple issue for us to manage. “It’s a very complicated process,” Tretter says.

“IT IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS BUILD HERE AND DON’T BUILD THERE” “Look at China for instance, and Chinese urban development in the southern area of the country. The plans that surround it are almost contradictory.”

Tretter says that China recognizes the infill of urbanization is due to a number of different types of pressures – land developers, local governments and the need for land rights – which facilitate the suburbanization and the endless urban form.

“The Chinese have come in and said this is not acceptable and tried to re-centralize and built mega cities throughout China. I don’t know if it’s having large impact on suburbanization.”

Although the problem is seen worldwide, Tretter says there are a number of

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Calgary, Canada. PHOTO BY ALISSA PATACIC

pressures that facilitate the outward expansion of a city, “It is not as simple as build here and don’t build there.”

landless peoples who take up squatting settlements. And, in China, it’s the product of over valued real estate in really pressured markets.

“You have this model of sprawl inherited from London in the 19th century where you get street car development and these peripheral suburbs of wealthier, well-to-do people. These are the initial phases of the model of suburbanization that are characteristic of North American cities,” he says.

“You get this infill sprawl or satellite city development because of land values,” he says.

This model is one reason why cities take on different structural forms when expanding and growing.

“Other places like France – and particularly Paris – show how suburbanization is a process of the movement of the outer suburbs to mainly working class and more moderately resourced communities. Paris is different as opposed to London where there is the suburbanization process of the urban underclass so it looks very different.”

“YOU GET THIS INFILL SPRAWL OR SATELLITE CITY DEVELOPMENT” Different areas of the world have various other pressures that characterize the form of growing cities. Tretter says that sprawl in Latin America is the product of

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But is there is no way to stop urban sprawl from occurring – only reducing the impact of it? “The reduction of sprawl would have to do much more with political factors and how we think of the city – as a vision. You could say key features are access to resources, land prices, green developers, local politicians and growth revenues.”

“THERE IS ALWAYS A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRANSPORTATION AND WHAT WE SEE IN THE URBAN FORM.” Tretter says that some people might point to Scandinavia as a model for a way in which sprawl is currently being managed well. “What they’ve done in Scandinavia is sort of reorganizing a lot of their cities and making them more or less car dependent which is kind of what you’re seeing here too.” But he says he is not sure what impact that this is having on suburbanization.

He says that transportation is a key contributor to urban sprawl.

“There is always a relationship with modes of mobility or transportation and what we see in the urban form.

“It is hard to say long term what impact the range policies will be and if you can reformat the city to sort of think of itself in a different kind of way.”

San Ignacio, Belize. PHOTO BY ALISSA PATACIC

When it comes to Calgary, Tretter is aware of some localized and big city plans in place to manage the sprawl. City planners are using what is called transit-oriented development to allow for greater population density along major transportation corridors.

“IT IS HARD TO SAY LONG TERM WHAT IMPACT THE RANGE OF POLICIES WILL BE.” “You’re seeing that a lot around the LRT stop in Bridgeland where you have four- or five-story high rises encapsulating the station,” he says. The city is also driving a lot of the redevelopment of some communities, and making subsequent improvements such as bicycle lanes.

While planning addresses the issue of car dependency, it will not change the growth of the city. Tretter says that making areas more walkable would make us drive less and reduce single occupancy driving, but it will not reduce the size of the city. “Increasingly, cities look really polycentric because the modes of transportation that we have facilitate a specific form of urbanization that allows for satellite cities to grow and for big suburbanization.”

Zagreb, Croatia. PHOTO BY ALISSA PATACIC

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FAR FROM A

E RIC HAN SE N G R EW U P IN CA LG ARY. N OW, H E ’ S A GRAN D M ASTE R C H ES S P L AY E R .

Story and design by Logan Krupa

PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIC HANSEN

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To earn the lifelong title of grandmaster, chess players must repeatedly prove themselves as being among the best players in the world. At the young age of 23, Calgary’s Eric Hansen has done just that – becoming one of only eight active Canadian grandmasters.

Hansen is currently the fourth-best chess player in all of Canada.

Despite reaching such heights, Hansen always aspires to play better. “The super high skill level in the game is what I like most about chess. No matter how good you are, there’s always room to improve,” he says.

Hansen started playing chess at the age of eight while growing up in Calgary. He did so without any particular influence from family or friends. Chess was “just a fun strategy game that was challenging.”

Hansen’s favourite country to enter tournaments in is Russia because he finds it to be “such a unique country with a long chess history which makes the chess-playing experience rather surreal.”

He also enjoys playing in Iceland, which he finds to have friendly people. Surprisingly, Hansen says that he enjoys cold weather.

Pattern recognition plays a key role in how grandmasters approach chess. Hansen says “the best players have a massive internal database of games in their brain.” A German study reported that grandmasters were found to have increased activity in their frontal and parietal cortices suggests that they are retrieving chunks of information from a “large database” of long-term memories.

On the other hand, the study says that the medial temporal lobe – important for the initial formation of memories – is much more active in the brains of amateurs during matches as compared to grandmasters who focus less intensely on the board immediately in front of them compared to amateurs, and more on how they have seen players play similar games in the past.

Superb pattern recognition skills allow grandmasters to analyze games with astonishing swiftness.

Hansen is a prime example. One of his favourite forms of chess is “bullet chess” where players have

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“CHESS IS BASED ON INTERNAL UNDERSTANDING AND INTUITION.” PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIC HANSEN

just one minute to make all their moves. Watching bullet chess is mind-meltingly fast-paced – even a bit disorienting. Chess players like Hansen can keep track of all those rapid moves with an overall strategy in mind.

Out of over 629,000 “bullet chess” players at chess. com, (the world’s largest online chess site), Hansen is ranked No. 7. “One minute chess is pretty crazy, but it’s also addicting because of the adrenaline,” Hansen says. He estimates that he’s played over 100,000 bullet chess games so far in his life.

Hansen’s skill at bullet chess aligns with what studies reveal about the minds of grandmasters.

One study concluded that chess skill for world-class players “does not deteriorate much when time to think is substantially reduced.”

Grandmasters do make more mistakes under the pressure of a quicker time limit compared to a game with a much longer time limit – as would the rest of us. However, the severity of such mistakes does not increase for grandmasters – even when they have extremely short periods of time to make moves.

This reality, perhaps, is due to their excellent pattern recognition skills.

Practice is crucial in order to remain among the world’s elite chess players. Hansen says he practices “up to 70 hours a week,” and analyzes his games for mistakes. “I try to improve my openings, and I keep up

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to date with current games and theory,” Hansen says.

Studies show that grandmasters spend about 5,000 hours on serious study alone during their first decade of serious chess play – nearly five times the average amount reported by intermediate level players.

Hansen says the specific requirements for becoming a grandmaster are rigorous. A player must attain an Elo rating – a scale for comparing the skill of players in competitive games such as chess – of at least 2,500. Also, players need at least two favourable results – referred to as norms – from at least 27 games in tournaments involving other grandmasters. Only then will the lifelong title of grandmaster be granted by the World Chess Federation.

What about the intimidation factor?

Hansen says that “it’s definitely a factor at the lower levels of chess, but at the top levels, most guys are psychologically solid – and they have mutual respect for each other.”

Hansen says that computer chess software for analyzing games and computer databases allows players to

PHOTO BY HARRY GIELEN

enhance their own mental database of chess knowledge. He adds that technology and chess have both become “naturally more ‘perfect’ over the years,” and that “with the benefit of hindsight, players now are much more aware after studying games from the past.

“Chess databases now have millions of games easily accessible to everyone.”

Hansen never plays against computers, but he does rely on computers to assist his chess preparation. “They are very beneficial for preparing surprises for opponents and getting a second opinion.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIC HANSEN

“THE BEST PLAYERS HAVE A MASSIVE INTERNAL DATABASE OF GAMES IN THEIR BRAIN.” “It takes a while for the brain to piece everything together and translate that into actual results,” Hansen says.

For a young grandmaster such as Eric Hansen, there is no telling how far his chess career can take him. He acknowledges that “the frustrating part of chess is that improvement is not linear.

Chess is based on internal understanding and intuition.

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EXC E PT IO N AL G I FT E DNESS IS O FTE N U NRECOG N IZE D IN PEOPLE W ITH AUTISM Story and design by Vanessa Benavides

“Do you have a favourite movie?” I ask Mikael Gossen, 21, who has autism.

“Big Hero 6,” he says, keeping his head down.

“I don’t think I’ve seen that,” I respond.

Suddenly, Mikael starts up as if suddenly transforming into a robot. Rebooting his engines, he says, “Hello. I am Baymax, your personal health care companion. I heard a sound of distress.

What seems to be the trouble?”

He jumps up with excitement, still maintaining the character: “On a scale of one to 10, how would you rate your pain? Does it hurt when I touch it?”

Mikael’s parents, Linda and Rob Gossen, are sitting on the couch behind him – smiling and admiring their passionate son.

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“Mikael does have a memory that would make it into the ‘pretty amazing’ skills category,” Linda says.” He can probably quote any Disney movie he’s seen.”

Mikael’s brother Liam, 19, is also autistic and also has an incredible memory. “Liam can do quite a bit too. Disney, Pixar, whatever his interest is. They tend to watch movies once or twice and memorize them from tone, inflections and the sound effects behind the movie.”

Not surprisingly, Mikael is studying drama at the U of C, and works at a theatre near his home.

AUTISM: A SPECTRUM DISORDER Autism is a complex spectrum disorder that affects the brain.

This disorder can have consequences on everyday functions.

Those people who fall higher on the spectrum are able to care of themselves more easily and maintain more regular lives.

People on the lower end of the spectrum are dependent on a caregiver.

Linda says Asperger’s is no longer an official disorder. “We used to say higher functioning, better communication was Aspergers, and yet you could have a conversation with Liam, but he has autism.”

“Mikael is much more script oriented and echolalia in nature. He does have conversation skills but it’s more in the groove of what he can remember that will relate. Liam will pause and take time to try and figure out what his answer may or may not be,” Linda Gossen says. “Liam is a little more independent. He will take the bus by himself.” Mikael cannot. “He wouldn’t remember the schedule, or wouldn’t know how to look up a schedule.”

The best-selling book titled The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius, unravels the world of autism. In her memoir,

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Kristine Barnett recounts her battle against her son’s autism.

While the outcome of her hard work with her autistic son is inspiring, the journey involved is far more mesmerizing.

HIDDEN POTENTIAL One thing is certain for some autistic individuals such as Liam, Mikael, and Kristine’s son Jake: they are able to do exceedingly well in specific areas.

“Many of those who are considered low-functioning – if you give them other intelligence tests, you will find hidden potential. They can solve really complex problems if you give them material that they can optimally process,” says Harvard University’s Isabelle Soulieres.

In her memoir, Barnett realizes that her son Jake is unlike other babies. Before he could walk, Jake was able to recite the ABCs forward and backward, and by age one he was able to say short words like “cat” and “dog.”

Eventually, Barnett learns that her autistic son is also a savant – an individual with extraordinary skills and an extremely high IQ. Although Liam and Mikael’s memory can be outstanding, “it still wouldn’t make it a savant skill. It’s still crazy and amazing, though,” Linda Gossen says.

“They say that 10 per cent of individuals with autism have savant skills, but that number is actually much less,” Linda says.

Scientific American writer Rose Eveleth says, “The hidden potential of autistic people seems to fall in common areas – tasks that involve pattern recognition, logical reasoning and picking out irregularities in data or arguments.”

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But Liam also branches out into the community. Linda says he has advocated for and distributed petitions to save elephants.

He’s been to the Royal Tyrell Museum more than 30 times, and has always been passionate about dinosaurs. When asked about his dream career, his eyes light up: “I could work as a museum guide.”

When Soulieres worked closely with an autistic woman in her research lab, Soulieres found that the woman was able to catch things that Soulieres and her colleagues had completely missed. “At first, we argued with her,” Soulieres says and laughs.

“But almost each time, she’s right, and we’re wrong.”

THE ROAD AHEAD Although Jake Barnett is now an astrophysicist, there was a time when Kristine Barnett and her husband Michael believed he would never come out of his “autistic shell.” By age two and a half, “Jake had stopped speaking entirely. He no longer made eye contact with anyone, nor did he respond when he was spoken to.”

Jake Barnett’s journey reveals the importance of engaging people with autism – appreciating their giftedness. In her book, Kristine Barnett asks, “Have you ever been trapped at a party with some who’s talking about something you don’t particularly care about – sports, maybe, or politics or classic cars? I believe that’s what much of life is like for an autistic person.”

Clearly, children with autism and their family members require assistance in negotiating daily activities.

Linda Gossen says, “The government of Alberta is great in the sense that they do have funding called specialized services for individuals with disabilities from 0-18 – depending on the diagnosis.”

More services are offered to individuals that have more than one challenge – whether it’s social or physical.

There are also things like a community aid to help the child participate and function in the community – all of which are funded through Family Supports for Children with Disabilities.

Linda Gossen says she finds it interesting that there is plenty of support for autistic individuals between the ages of 0 to 18, “but when you hit the 18 year age, that’s where the gaps tend to get bigger for funding supports.”

“MANY OF THOSE WHO ARE CONSIDERED LOWFUNCTIONING – IF YOU GIVE THEM OTHER INTELLIGENCE TESTS, YOU WILL FIND HIDDEN POTENTIAL.” Although Rob and Linda Gossen wanted to see her boys participate in the college community, “it was a big struggle and a fight. You have to be 21. You have to be out of school for so many years and have prerequisites. They didn’t have any of these requirements.” The University of Calgary has eight spots – every five years.

So, the Gossens recently advocated for their sons to be an exception of the rule so that they could take university classes.

But she had to set up an aid. “This gives them the opportunity to feel like typical individuals who have access to post-secondary education, and to be a part of the community. But, the shift to help them move onto the next thing is not there,” she said.

Furthermore, it is difficult for both Liam and Mikael to meet people. “Where is the university or college group that says ‘let’s actually be a big brother or big sister friend to somebody who has no friends’? They want friends, lots of them. They really want friends, but they have no idea how,” Linda says.

There are a couple of disabled associations on campus, but Linda says that part of the problem is that Liam does not want to hang out with a bunch of individuals with disabilities because, “he doesn’t think that’s where he fits.”

One thing is certain for both Kristine and Linda as mothers of children with autism – they’re constantly learning how they can engage their sons.

They both love their boys and know they have a journey ahead.

“We’ve all heard the urban legend about the mother who found the strength to lift a car to save her child. That was exactly the kind of drive I felt. I was going to do everything within my power to make sure Jake didn’t slip further away,” Kristine says.

“You think of the thousands of autistic kids alone, let alone other disabilities, who assume they are going on to college and university, but unfortunately, they cannot,” Linda Gossen said.

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Story and design by Jaclyn Brown

HOW WE SEE OU R SE LV ES BEGINS WITH OUR TOYS .

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A little girl is standing looking into a mirror. She is 12 inches tall, has a 5.3 inch chest, and 3.4 inch waist. She sees a doll reflecting back at her.

Blogger storiesnotselfies says that toys are a poor representation of body image to youth: “Toys represent society and our views of the body. Examples can be seen in Barbie, Disney princesses, male action figures and comic book characters.”

“WE SEE THIS OBJECTIFICATION OF THE IDEAL BODY THROUGH UNREALISTIC, AND UNHEALTHY EXPECTATIONS.”

Experts now report that the impact of a negative body image grows steadily in a child into adulthood.

Over the past 40 years, the representation of the male and female figures in toys has been increasingly problematic. Psychologist Keri Sullivan says the culture of toys is “dropping a seed” into the minds of children.

THE MESSAGE Should we be questioning these top-selling toys and the message they are sending to our children?

“Young men and women are particularly vulnerable due to the fact that they are trying to discover who they are and it is often a time of many transitions,” says storiesnotselfies. “In particular adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable due to the fact that their bodies are changing rapidly.”

Sullivan says that “the issue is more prominent in girls, and we see this objectification of the ideal body through unrealistic, and unhealthy expectations.”

One study titled “Evolving ideals of male body image as through action toys” shows that men’s toy figures are becoming more muscular and women’s more petite.

Sullivan says that from the moment you put the doll or toy into that child’s hand, you are teaching him or her that you are okay with the message it sends.

For example, “we teach men this is what the women should look like.”

Sullivan – who is a mother of two boys – says, “It’s been easier on me, as I have not been emerged in girls toys.” But she is concerned about the message her sons pick up from their toys.

“By exposing children to fighting toys and super heroes, we are exposing children to the idea of unrealistic body image,” she says.

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“OUR MENTAL CONSTRUCT – HOW WE VIEW OUR BODY – IS INFLUENCED BY OUR FEELINGS, OUR THOUGHTS, OUR CULTURE AND HOW WE ARE RAISED.”

Sullivan mentions that her fear for her children is that they are going internalize the negative message, and as a society we are stereotyping what she referred to as “a boy” or “true man” and their roles.

A study by Pope and Associates says that the ideal male body has been growing more muscular over the years. In order to compare how our ideas have changed during the course of history, the researchers examined toys such as G.I. Joe, Star Wars characters, and action figures and how their muscle tonality and body has changed over the last 25 years. The results show a clear visual difference in the abdominal muscles, arm muscles and even neck size from 1964 to 1994.

Sullivan says she believes children internalize the messages from toys, media and pictures, and without realizing it we are bombarding our children with messages about what boys or girls should look like.

She says, as a mother, her biggest concern is how she is reflecting this message to her children. “Adults internalize the message too but how they treat their body reflects and teaches their children to do the same.”

“We all have a body image. More of us have a negative body image rather than a positive one,” Sullivan says. As a psychologist, she sees a strong correlation between negative body image and sadness, depression, anxiety, and in some cases, eating disorders.

“Our mental construct and how we view our body is influenced by our feelings, our thoughts, our culture and how we are raised,” Sullivan says.

In 2013, Mattel, maker of Barbie, reported 6.5 billion dollars in net sales in toys around the world. More than a third of these sales come from North America. Yet, even though now controversial because of Barbie’s unrealistic figure and proportions, Barbie sales remain strong.

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GENDER ROLES Sullivan says “toys are limiting our children by telling them what they are supposed to like and play with.“ She adds that toys are powerful agents for creating gender stereotypes that boys are supposed to like cars, trucks and guns, and girls are supposed to play with dolls and makeup.

Sullivan says that it is instinct for children to play into these gender roles. She provides the example that when boys pick up sticks, they automatically turned them into guns.

Sullivan creates a distinction between healthy and unhealthy identity development by saying that “as children age, they learn to identify with members of their gender, and this creates belonging, which is all part of a normal development.

But when a child does not feel supported in who they are, they have an unhealthy identity development.” This situation can be a causal factor of many symptoms – including poor body image.

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Bump. There’s a sound in the dark.

It’s unexpected, this sound that, to you, should not be. Your heart pounds (thumpthumpthump!) and your imagination soars (what’s out there?), and for a breathtaking moment, you feel 10 years old again and scared of the dark.

What if there’s something lurking? What if there’s something coming to get you?

Then suddenly it’s daytime again, and you forget all about that sound that went bump in the night. Your heart beats normally, and there’s no reason for your imagination to take uncontrollable flight.

But lying dormant in the back of your mind – in recesses dark and caverns deep – is the source of irrational fears – the sense of a monster coming for you.

Why then do we continue to preserve old stories and spawn new tales on such terrors?

What does it take to imagine monsters and engrain them into the human psyche?

What is a monster, anyway?

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Story and design by Josie Kaip

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“TO KNOW MONSTERS IS TO KNOW HOW TO BE PREY.”

DEFINITION OF A MONSTER “Monsters are warning signs,” said Paul Trout, a retired English professor at Montana State University and author of Deadly Powers: Animal Predators and the Mythic Imagination. He says the word monster comes from Latin words meaning to show and to warn.

There are probably as many different monsters as there have been people to frighten each other with such tales.

However, the majority of monsters share a certain, maleficent trait: they stalk humans out of menace – to kill or else to consume. To know monsters is to know how to be prey.

Local horror enthusiast Barbara Medland said, “Monsters are anything that represents our fears. They can be a faceless creature or something intangible

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that we cannot fully imagine. They can be culturally specific or personal to our own fears and beliefs.”

One only has to look at medieval Europe’s fear of magic to see an example of how monsters – in this case, witches – were thought to pose a threat.

Peter Morton, a retired English professor at MRU, taught classes on the European witch trials: “The concept of witches, formed in the early 1400s, is that of evil agents of Satan.

“Their most common feature was the ability to perform harmful magic: causing illness and death among people and animals, destroying crops, and raising storms.”

“By many people they were believed to travel, sometimes flying on brooms or on animals, to gatherings called the Sabbath – at which they were thought to engage in orgies of devil-worship, eat the flesh of infants, have sex with devils and animals, and other grotesque things,” Morton said.

“Nothing like these activities ever happened at all. So the question is: why was it so widely accepted – by educated authorities as well as ordinary people?”

There’s that question again – and it’s one that stands for all monsters. Why do we so readily create a darker reality, filled with horrifying creatures?

PHOTOS BY RICHARD ERLENDSON

IN THE WORLD ALREADY: A MONSTER BEGINS WITH INSPIRATION In his book Deadly Powers, Trout says monsters came from our origins – in the form of real-life predators. He says early humans first created mythical monsters during the Pleistocene era (2,000,000 to 10,000 years ago) – specifically because of all the living, breathing, giant predators that hunted them.

– and evolves into awe and fascination.

“Kids love black holes the way they love T-Rex. And I think it’s because each of these entities can eat you. And anything that eats you, you give your highest respect,” said Neil deGrasse Tyson, a celebrated astrophysicist, in The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries.

Death was coming for early humanity from every direction, and to survive, we needed to be able to cope.

And it isn’t just kids who are still enticed by creatures that come crawling out of the dark. Kids, after all, can’t go to the R-rated horror monster movies that come out like clockwork every year – especially around Halloween. Adults love monster stories just as much as kids do.

“Though scholars rarely mention it, myths often are about fear,” Trout said. “If myths are the language of the soul, then the soul speaking to us is anxious and fearful – haunted by the dreadful prospect of being killed and eaten by voracious predators.

“The basic function of the monster was to give fear a face – to graphically capture the dread that is bred into us by millions of years as a prey species that was stalked and sometimes eaten.”

This fear of being eaten lasts for millennia

Monsters also account for the unexplainable – events we humans simply couldn’t process.

“This is the brain, to be brutally simplistic, that saw in all kinds of environmental things: gouges in mountains, volcanoes and oddly positioned bodies of water – signs of the workings of creatures of immense power.

“It does not take much for the anthropomorphic and animistic powers of the brain to create a “monster” to explain odd phenomenon. And it does not take much for the creative imagination – exploiting these and other hard-wired cognitive biases – to create a delightfully fearsome, and sometimes even appealing, fictional monster, one that activates our fear-system and survival euphoria system – usually most effectively in the darkness of a movie theatre.”

“We still possess the brain that made up monsters to begin with. Yes, it’s been added to, of course, over the millennia, but the old mammalian brain is still very much active in us,” Trout said.

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DEFEAT OF BOOGEY: THE STORY OF MONSTERS

CONTINUING THE NARRATIVE

“Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already.

Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey,” G. K. Chesterton wrote in Tremendous Trifles in 1909.

Of course, threats to humanity still exist.

They’ve just evolved.

Trout also expresses this sentiment.

“There is no end to stories about dragon slayers because there is no end to dragons and to the anxiety they symbolize.”

Monster stories inevitably involve humans. More so, these stories are ones where humans struggle to survive – occasionally to little or no success.

So why tell them?

“In a way, storytelling functions as a sort of cage in which we place the agents that most frighten us,” Trout said.

It is also in storytelling that monsters have become scapegoats for society – those accused of monstrous actions face justice at the hands of a fearful society who invented such dark imaginings in the first place.

“The practices of witches that I have described are things that many different groups of people have been accused of over the course of history,” Morton said.

“The ancient Romans accused Christians of activities exactly like those of witches at the Sabbath, and Christian heretics were accused of them by the medieval church. Infanticide, bestiality and cannibalism are all things that societies invent to demonize certain groups of people.”

But what about nowadays?

“We create monsters to help us understand our fears. For things that go on in our surroundings that we cannot understand or fully explain, we create monsters to help us work through those fears and anxieties,” Medland said.

Monsters come and go as they are needed to remind people of a perilous world.

In another example, Max Brooks, author of World War Z, said he believes the recent surge for zombies will soon ebb once more.

“We’ve been living in a time of upheaval and anxiety not seen since the 1960s and ‘70s,” Brooks said. “People are scared.

Zombie stories are perfect because they are real enough to scare us, but not real enough to keep us from sleeping at night. I think when the world calms down, people might want to move on from thinking about the end of the world.”

The story still concerns being eaten – but being eaten is just a placeholder for the overwhelming sense of doomsday we currently feel. This is our way to understand where we stand. The story ends and begins again, as it always has.

We need to see that we are being consumed, and still rise to win. So monsters – even now – benefit our very survival. They give us hope.

What is needed to create a monster? At the core of it all is fear – plain and simple.

We still need to cope with the world we live in. A narrative of survival and a jolt of recognition: this is how monster is born for humanity – ready to be defeated by us even as it makes us tremble and shake.

Heart pounding.

Bump. Thumpthumpthump.

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Story and design by Ashley Hamilton

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NEAR-DE ATH E X P E R IE N CES A R E MOR E CO MMO N T HAN E XP ECTE D , AN D OF T E N I N ST I GAT E MA J O R LI F E CHAN G ES. Pam Reynolds was suffering from a life-threatening brain aneurysm. Reynolds was referred to a doctor who pioneered a daring surgical procedure – hypothermic cardiac arrest.

During this surgical procedure, doctors have to lower the patient’s body temperature, flatten the brain waves and stop the heart from beating.

When Reynolds underwent the procedure, she encountered a near-death-experience.

Reynolds’ experience was unique in that she was able to identify the exact tools that the doctors used to perform the surgery.” They began cutting into my skull and I felt myself ‘pop’ out of my body, and I was hovering over the operating table.”

Reynolds said the tool they used looked much like an electrical toothbrush. She was able to go into depth about the appearance and sounds of the tool.

Soon enough, Reynolds felt like she was being pulled further out of her body and onto a road. Once Reynolds reached the top, she said there was a very bright light.

Reynolds also described that, in this light, people were surrounding her, and she knew all of them. Reynolds said, “Everyone I saw, looking back on it, fit perfectly into my understanding of what that person looked like at their best during their lives.”

The people surrounding Reynolds told her it wasn’t her time and she had to go back.

One of the people then led her back through the tunnel and told her to “jump back into your body – like how you jump into a swimming pool.”

“When I did that I felt the tunnel pushing me, and my body pulling me back in. It hurt.”

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When Reynolds woke up, the song “Hotel California” was playing in the background. Uncannily, the lyrics read, “You can check out anytime, but you can never leave.”

For the 60 minutes that Banzon was declared clinically dead, she found the answer to one of the greatest questions ever asked on earth: Is there an afterlife?

PAM BARRETT- FORMER ALBERTA NDP LEADER

Soon enough, a narrow, bright light came streaming down. She followed the light, and she was asked to sit down beside a man.

Banzon described the man as “tall, with deep brown eyes – wearing a snowy robe with a green-blue shroud.” The man told Banzon that it was not her time yet, and she had to turn back.

Pam Barrett was Alberta’s feisty NDP leader – successfully holding to account Alberta’s massive PC party. She too unexpectedly had a near-death experience.

On February 1, 2000, Barrett sat in a plastic-covered dentist’s chair – eagerly waiting her new veneers. Little did she know, this visit would not only change her smile, but her life as well.

After her dentist injected a local anesthetic, an allergic reaction caused her to have an out-of-body experience.

Not breathing, Barrett appeared dead.

At that moment, she came back to life.

Even though Banzon’s heart stopped beating for 60 minutes, she suffered absolutely no side effects. Banzon’s faith was largely changed by this experience.

A PROFESSOR WEIGHS IN Janet Arnold teaches about death and dying at Mount Royal University, and she is friends with someone who has experienced a near - death experience.

She was soon rushed to the hospital.

Barrett described the out-of-body experience as having left her body, and viewing it from above. She said, “As I returned, I felt God punching me in the chest and telling me to get on a new path.” The very next day, she resigned as both the NDP leader and an MLA. At the time, Barrett said, “My decision to do this is extremely spiritual.” At a news conference, Barrett was asked what the near-death-experience was like. She responded, “It was just fine. I’ve lost my fear of death.”

LAURA BANZON- CLINICALLY DEAD FOR ONE HOUR In 1952, Laura Banzon was only 26-years-old when she had a near-death-experience. She was suffering from acute pneumonia. Two days later, she was declared clinically dead. For 60 minutes, her heart had stopped – she wasn’t breathing, and she lay cold in the hospital bed.

Arnold said her friend was in a terrible car crash and subsequent fire when she was a teenager. She was in a coma for weeks – and declared dead. While in this state, her friend encountered her own near-death experience.

Arnold said that she believes near death experiences often have a major significance on an individual’s life. For example, her friend made many changes in her life – including a change of career.

Arnold said, “I am not sure if anyone will ever come up with a definitive answer about near-death experiences. From my reading, based on my friend’s experience, I think what really matters is the meaning people choose to create out of such an experience.

“If they believe they were given a second chance, and make positive changes in terms of how they live their life, maybe that is all that matters.”

Then a miracle happened. Having essentially been dead for an hour, she was alive again — with many stories to tell. Banzon said that while she was dead, she found herself out of her body – looking down at her family crying over her.

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A HO M EL ES S MA N ’ S P E R S P ECT I V E O N SURV I V I N G O N T H E ST R E E T Story and design by Joelle Daklala

Gerard sits at a downtown A&W – elbows resting on the table, hands on his chin and eyes hidden under the shade of his cap. It’s his daily routine as a homeless 60-year-old man.

But Gerard’s life has been anything but dull.

“I started at 14 in the army. I lied about my age because I couldn’t stand school. I lasted 25 years,” he said. He’s been a veteran for 21 years. He’s gone through three marriages, and he found himself homeless when his last wife ended things abruptly. He says his wives took him for all he’s worth.

Sadly, Gerard tends to feel a sense of neglect from his children. “None of them talk to me. I paid for their schooling in the UK, and I haven’t heard from them since,” he says.

Gerard’s survival strategy began long before living on the street. He describes survival as both physical and emotional. He says serving in the army taught him to be a survivor, and that the experience desensitized him.

He says he has no fear of death – that he was taught to not feel an ounce of fear. If he feels threatened he will fight – physically and mentally, he says.

Later on in his career, he ranked as a sergeant and was placed to fight in Lebanon, Cyprus and Turkey.

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On the street, he says survival became second nature after he decided against accepting his veteran’s pension.

in Calgary. “I think a lot of homeless people have routines. Because they know where the services are, it’s not so much a plan but a routine.”

“I gave my pension to the United Way. I don’t want it for killing because that would make me a mercenary.

I took my wages when I was in the army because I needed to shave and brush my teeth. If I wanted to keep my pension, I would be getting four grand a month right now. But I gave it away, and now I’m on the street.”

Do helpless people have aspirations? “I’m 60. I’m a happy camper, and I have no problems. I like to have my beer every day, accompanied with a hamburger or hotdog, and I sit in the sun at the park,” he says.

Gerard says he fell through the cracks and became homeless because he believes being greedy is not a way of life. He said he believes that homeless people understand the value of things more so than wealthy people because resources are scarce.

But Mayers says that people never lose the desire to progress. “I don’t think anyone ever gives up. Everyone has a story; I don’t think anyone stops trying. Coming off the street isn’t always the end all and be all.”

“People with power lose sight of morality and decency – which blinds them from good acts.

People like power. I never took advantage of my rank in the military. Every man was equal in my eyes,” he says.

Gerald’s comments show his interest in being a good person. It begs the question: Is it a human instinct to carry out good deeds?

Gerard discusses his belief that people are born innocent. And as they grow, education and society mould their idea of what is good and evil. He says people then decipher what route they want to pursue and who they want to be known as.

He says that evil never registered with him. “I never had evil in me. I never hated or disliked anyone – even my enemies.”

So, he says that while he has killed a lot of people in his military past, he feels no remorse because, from his perspective, killing as a duty differs from killing out of hatred.

Gerard says that his main survival strategy on the street is simply living “day by day.”

MRU professor Marjorie Mayers studied homeless youth in Calgary to complete her doctoral research, and says she believes that homeless people usually do live day by day – though some people could have a long-term plan. “It can’t be easy.”

She says the best way to get off the street is by having affordable housing – which is not a possibility

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Age plays a part in the outlook of homeless people. At 60, Gerard has no desire to progress from the street.

Age is also a factor in terms of the patterns behind how people end up homeless.

Mayers says, “Age makes a big difference. Length of time on the street and the reason they are on the street are different between adults and youth. Adults usually have financial reasons, mental health reasons, and addiction.”

“PEOPLE USUALLY THINK IT’S A PERSONAL FAILURE FOR PEOPLE TO BE ON THE STREETS, BUT MOST OF THE TIME IT IS A SOCIAL FAILURE.” “Youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender are significantly more likely to be on the street because they get thrown out of their homes.”

Mayers says she believes everyone has a story – that homeless people are often regular people who were less privileged or took the wrong path. “Normally, if you are having difficulty, you have a net of people around you: family, community, or resources. Becoming homeless is all a matter of exhausting those resources.”

She says there are so many misconceptions or misunderstandings about homelessness. “People usually think it’s a personal failure for people to be on the streets, but most of the time it is a social failure. One thing that people don’t know about the homeless is that everyone has a story. And everyone needs to be respected. Nobody started there.”

Gerard, sitting there with his chin in his hands at A&W, is a case in point.

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M ALTOD E X TR IN , SO D I U M A LGI N AT E , X A N T H U M GU M , B IO - IN K AN D F LOU R — A L L O F T H ES E I NGRE D IE N TS HAV E BE E N U S E D TO MA KE FOOD. Story and design by Elliot Mah

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“Did you know you they’re literally trying to 3D print meat?” says Kyle Satnik, a veteran chef at Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts. “I wonder what that will taste like?”

in molecular gastronomy – a food movement that was made popular

by Chef Ferran Adria of El Bulli in Spain. It combines the use of edible chemicals to create flavours and textures using natural processes that would otherwise be impossible to make.

Satnik stands in a well-lit basement kitchen mixing his hands through “00” flour and egg yolks. He’s making pasta dough – which, according to his training, is the way pasta dough should be made.

Before joining Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts as a sous chef, Satnik spent time perfecting pastamaking techniques at Calgary’s landmark Teatro Restaurant.

That’s not to say it’s gross. Many would argue the experience provided by molecular gastronomy is exactly what they were looking for – something

“My boss would literally take my tray of pasta, which took hours to make, and throw it into the garbage.

It was never good enough – until one day, it was,” Satnik says. “He never gave us a recipe. He just told us to make it feel the same as his.”

different than the ordinary. It allows you to encapsulate juices into little pearls that pop in your mouth like a pomegranate seed, or turn salad dressings into a powder – that when mixed with your saliva, melt and reconstitute into something familiar. Others may argue that even if the food doesn’t taste very good, at least you’ll be happy paying to be able to eat edible artwork.

In the last few years, under the helm of chef John MacNeil, Teatro was transformed into one of Calgary’s destination restaurants for those interested

“I WONDER IF YOU EVEN HAVE TO COOK A 3D PRINTED PIECE OF MEAT?”

It is common to see dishes using molecular gastronomy techniques to have unique, strategic and skillful platings. Each plate is its own work of art and

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has its own story. That experience doesn’t come cheap. Restaurant goers can expect to pay $18 for a bite and upwards of $30 for anything that can be considered satiating.

But is paying money for the visual experience worth it? Chef Jacques La Merde, the moniker of a now famous instagrammer, obviously doesn’t think so. If you’ve ever seen the account, you’ll see beautiful pictures of junk food – plated to appear to be targeting the haute cuisine or moleculargastronomy enthusiasts. Looking at those photos makes you believe that the food is worth so much more than it is. It almost appears like it’s good for you.

“Molecular gastronomy could be used as another term for processed foods,” Satnik says. “It doesn’t mean they’re bad. It doesn’t even mean they’re always bad for you. A lot of things are bad for you, but we still eat and enjoy them. They just don’t have any soul.”

“Have you ever gone to Starbucks and watched a barista ‘pull’ a shot of espresso?” he asks. “It’s consistent because they just pushed a button and a machine made it the same way it always makes it, but it certainly isn’t going to wow anyone.

“Just think about that for a second,” he says. “We can have technically superior coffee made by a machine, but what we really want is to see another human make something.”

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“WE CAN HAVE TECHNICALLY SUPERIOR COFFEE MADE BY A MACHINE, BUT WHAT WE REALLY WANT IS TO SEE ANOTHER HUMAN MAKE SOMETHING.” Wanting something hand-made isn’t new. People go to great lengths and are willing to pay a much higher price to know that something has had a human touch. A machine will make something with higher accuracy and consistency than any human will. Machines run a program that makes things exactly the same – every single time. What people want is the connection that can only be experienced through human inconsistency.

Satnik, who has moved on to kneading his pasta dough, pauses and says, “This dough is for Taglietelle. You can’t use the same dough for something like Bucatini.”

“Each type of pasta has a different texture and feel – which is why you can’t always just measure out the ingredients and know that something will work.”

Satnik says it took him months to get to the point where his efforts weren’t being tossed out.

“My pasta dough is almost perfect every time now.

It tastes the way it should and has just the right texture.” What makes it perfect? “Ultimately, it’s going to be personal preference.”

Of course, the question chefs get asked regularly involves their favourite meal. Satnik’s response: “Whatever will make me feel good.”

“I like Indian cuisine as much as I like Italian” – a perfect response given his staunch criticism of processed foods. Remember that both Indian and Italian cuisine are originally of oral tradition. The recipes for regional dishes of Tuscany were likely taught to you by your mother or grandmother – probably the reason the foods have always been so comforting.

“I wonder if you have to cook a 3D printed piece of meat? Grandma’s 3D printed, raw meat – Bolognese,” asks Satnik playfully – his sense of humour showing through when speculating on the next wild, but entirely possible, food trend.

“I wonder what that will inspire me to do? Maybe cook it first.”

Satnik says he still enjoys dining out and going to new restaurants. “The experience of eating out and not cooking something provides a benchmark for your own food and also inspires new dishes.

“Sometimes I will go eat something somewhere, and then I will have an aha moment.” Satnik likes to combine traditional techniques with non-traditional ingredients. However, he doesn’t want you to call it fusion cuisine.

“It’s more like a personal spin on something that would be considered traditional to one region. Take ramen, for instance, everyone here is pretty familiar with Tonkotsu, but that’s a regional style of ramen. If you were to travel to a different part of Japan, it may be derivative, but it could also be very different. You wouldn’t call that fusion, would you?”

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T HE B RIGHT LIG HTS O F T H E STAGE S OME T I MES C REATE SHAD OWS M AR KE D BY DA R K AND TR O UB L IN G D E TA I LS .

Story and design by Glen Jeong

Laura* began her life as a child prodigy.

At the age of four, she encountered music, and she was naturally drawn to it. While she was unable to understand her natural connection with music, her curiosity set in motion a life as a child prodigy. (*A pseudonym has been used in this story at the request of the individual involved.) “I would be bobbing up and down listening to music, and eventually I asked my parents to put me in piano lessons,� she said.

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An article in American Psychologist says that child prodigies display near-adult level skills and interests. At the age of three or four, they may play a musical instrument as skillfully as a highly trained adult. Prodigies typically grow up in enriched family environments with a high level of intellectual or artistic stimulation.

However, Laura lived in a lower-class family, and her parents could not afford to buy her a piano until she was five. Laura was never afraid to go to any piano and play. One day her parents were approached by a stranger who suggested that Laura was quite gifted. He wondered if she should audition to be taught in a program taught by a well-known Russian couple.

Without any hesitation, Laura auditioned and was accepted into the program. After a few months, the instructor told her parents that Laura was great but not exceptional.

“I overheard them mentioning to my parents that I would need to work really hard to improve.”

Eventually, Laura grasped the value of an emotional connection to music, and her career as a child prodigy was launched at the age of seven.

“In my younger years, I just read the music on the sheet. I never really thought about it because I practiced the same eight bars over and over for two hours. At the time it was mainly me imitating what our teachers told us to play.”

“I consciously made a connection with music after being able to travel the world and to experience all these different cultures. It helped me draw a connection.”

An article in American Psychologist says that gifted children are often created by overambitious parents.

Laura said there were times when her parents expected her to practice playing the piano over eight hours a day. She was eight at the time. She recalls times of support and times of tough love from her parents. At one point Laura was given an ultimatum from her father.

“Either play the piano or stop completely,” her father said.

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Laura chose to continue to practice – which eventually led to her break through to perform on the international stage. Performing in front of thousands of people, Laura was fearless and unfazed by the spotlight. And people were in awe of her skill in performing. She was a child, and she was a master musician.

“When you’re so young, you don’t feel that pressure. I didn’t really feel it at all. It just felt normal to me. For me, the way I looked at it was that if I finished my performance, I could go back to the hotel and watch television.”

Though the fame and fortune seemed like a blessing, it also was a curse. Laura said she felt like she was always being controlled and constantly felt caged. It was only a matter of time until Laura started to rebel inwardly.

“As a child performer, everything was determined. How long my hair was, the colour of my dress or not being able to paint my nails. I felt like I had no control. I would restrict my diet – especially the day of my performances.

“I would have a higher awareness, and I noticed that I performed better if I didn’t eat prior to a performance. At the age of 16, I started to abuse this, which eventually led to an eating disorder,” she said.

“I WAS IN A MIND SET OF NOT CARING ABOUT ANYTHING. I DID WHATEVER I WANTED.”

Laura continued to pursue her musical career. While she may have learned how to handle performing at a young age, she wasn’t able to handle the complex relationships with people.

“When you perform, you meet a lot of people. Some people aren’t as you think they are. Behind closed doors, they are very different.

I was raped when I was 18. I didn’t know how to process what had just happened. In my head I told myself, okay this just happened, now what? As a result I got an abortion when I learned I was pregnant.”

With time, Laura said she started to become angrier towards men and had to deal with inner turmoil. After receiving news at age 19 that she had been adopted as an infant, her life changed for the worse.

“I was in a mind set of not caring about anything. I did whatever I wanted,” she said.

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Laura decided to say goodbye to performing on the public stage – but not to music as a central role in her life.

“As an artist, you never really say goodbye to music.

You’ll always be teaching.”

After a time of enormous struggle and turmoil, Laura found the strength to move forward and not let her past affect who she was. Laura’s goal was to help the next generation, so she continued to teach piano.

“I teach music to help the next generation learn to be patient with themselves – to learn diligence and discipline. I want to teach my students that if music is something they want they should just go for it.”

And if her students hit the wall as she did, she’s ready to offer some wisdom learned from hard experience: “What’s important is how you deal with it. Life will always be like that,” she says.

Laura has set her sights on the world stage again.

She said she hopes to bring a new heightened emotional connection from her life to her music – to simply create a beautiful experience for anyone who sees her perform.

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A DA N C E P E R S P ECT I V E Spread and story by Cassey Pagalilauan Lance Iovan walks into the brightly lit dance studio, greets his friends with a knuckle-to-knuckle fist and throws his backpack down on the floor.

Every Wednesday evening after a long day at work, he meets up with his crew of fellow breakdancers for dance practice. Iovan slips on his Nike Huaraches and ties his laces meticulously while bobbing his head to the bass of the hip-hop music – which fills the room.

Breakdancing, also known as “b-boying” or “b-girling,” largely involves strength, agility and creativity. All three elements work together to produce and execute dance moves.

But it’s creativity that is crucial in dance because that’s what leads to a dancer creating original moves and separating themselves from other dancers. “You have to be unique and have your own style,” Iovan says.

In breakdancing, quick thinking and developing a personal style are required as move after move must be thought out in a sequence. Moves are prioritized according to complexity or how far the breakdancer is in the battle. Breakdancers usually consider saving their best and more difficult moves for last.

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SPIRITUAL CREATIVITY Iovan believes that mood is strongly linked to his approach in practice. “If I had a stressful day at work or if I am upset, I will approach my practice in an aggressive manner – which would mean

playing music and freestyling because I am taking my emotions out on the floor. I need a camera to record anything that I am doing because any moves that I create at this point are completely on a whim. I simply move freely and you never know what you can create during times like this,” he says.

Likewise, positive attitudes tend to conjure up creative expression in a different approach.

“If I go into practice with a good mindset, then I will take more of a methodical approach to the way I create moves because I am more calm and focused. I tend to think about what I need to

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improve upon and go from there. I will break down concepts and ideas that help get me going and if at any point I start to struggle with creating a move, I resort back to fundamentals or basic moves of breakdancing and tweak those moves, slowly making my way towards something new.”

During good days, Iovan is more calm and collected – resulting in smooth movements. He says these moves tend to be performed at a slower pace – allowing him to process his movements more in a more effective manner.

He says beats and emotions dictate how he reacts. If the beat is faster, he thinks about sharp moves he could use.

If the beat is slower, he demonstrates slower movements due to an emotional connection to the song. He adds that the emotion he feels during a song instigates different moves and reactions.

MENTAL CREATIVITY Iovan consistently sets himself up for new challenges to think outside the realm of his ordinary thought. To him, his moves are all about originality.

“Originality in any art is important because it is what separates you from all the rest and makes you unique.

With breakdancing it is very important because it is a dance that respects individuality. You should be original enough to a point where someone can place you behind a screen, look at your silhouette as you dance, and be able to identify who you are based on the your flow and signature moves,” he says.

“The thing about breakdancing versus other dancing is that it gives you the opportunity to incorporate your own style, character, and personality.”

He says that being original is a central consideration and asks himself, “What can I do with this move that no one else does?”

“THE THING ABOUT BREAKDANCING VERSUS OTHER DANCING IS THAT IT GIVES YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO INCORPORATE YOUR OWN STYLE, CHARACTER, AND PERSONALITY.” To get creative, he takes basic breakdancing concepts and translates them into something different.

“Creativity is about experimenting and challenging one’s self past what we feel our own limitations are,” Iovan says.

When a concept does not work out, he says takes the original move and alters it to something more advanced. If the new concept does not yield the desired result, he experiments.

“I refuse to use moves that are not enough of my own personal style. I usually start over if it still does not feel creative or original enough. I will work at something until I feel that it is perfect and it represents my style. Dancing is an art. Never give up expressing yourself and your style. Sometimes a creative spark can come at any moment. Never stop experimenting.”

In the end, as with all creative processes, he defines his own success by the uniqueness of what he creates.

As Iovan moves, it becomes clear as to why dance is an art form. Music is the paint, his body is the paintbrush and the floor is the canvas.

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P EO P L E F I N D BL I S S I N T H E MOST I N T E N S E S I T UAT I ON S .

Story and design by Katie Duke Photos by Meghan Reading At some point in life, many people challenge themselves with one big risk. But, it’s how we respond that helps define our life story.

Lawson Mann, a 24-year-old climber from Ontario, has seen risk in many of its shapes and forms. From ice climbing extremely difficult terrain to packing up and moving across the county, Mann has created his own definition of risk-taking. Once a mischievous teenager, he is now a more cautious adult. Mann says he takes risks, but ensures they are smart risks.

In 2014, Mann and his girlfriend Renee Houle decided to trade their life in Ontario for adventure in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains.

They began their drive across the country towards a new life of rock and ice climbing — and never looked back.

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THE FEAR OF RISK Mann says he felt that coming out to Alberta was a huge risk in itself. It was a commitment to his girlfriend. It was a commitment to a new job. And it was a commitment to a new life. He was afraid of this new start, but to him the risk was worth it if he was happy and if he was following his dreams.

“We moved out here to make ourselves happy. It was all worth the risk. It was a big risk but we felt the payoff was just as big,” Mann says.

Since his move to the Rocky Mountain region, Mann has spent almost every weekend rock climbing, ice climbing or mountaineering. Although he’s doing something he loves, he says that his passion often scares him, and he’s always pushing himself out of his comfort zone.

“The sun just started baking the ice above me, and rocks began firing down. It was like being under machine gun fire. I had to quickly make an anchor and get out of there. I got up there thinking it wasn’t going to be a great climb, and I saw it was terrible and I had to retreat fast. I guess the risk was even too much for me.”

While that particular climb ended badly, Mann still gets himself outside and challenges himself. To him, it’s all about mitigating large risks to continue to do what makes him happy.

BASE CAMP ADVENTURES Another risk-taker is Meghan Reading – a 21-year-old student currently living in Scotland. She’s had her fair share of adventure.

“YOU ARE CAPABLE OF SO MUCH MORE THAN YOUR BRAIN IS WILLING TO ADMIT.”

While Reading was growing up, her parents took two sabbaticals so the family could travel the world. They tried everything from backpacking in Patagonia to cave diving in South America.

He discusses the riskiest situation he’s ever been in – climbing Mount Fay located on the continental divide of the Canadian Rockies. On that day, Mann knew he had numerous objective hazards to face – hazards he could not control – and that the chosen route was especially difficult. It was a hot summer day and he had climbed 30 metres up a column when the situation drastically changed. Mann says the situation went from risky to extremely dangerous.

“One morning when we woke up two Nepalese men arrived carrying a young American woman down the mountain. She couldn’t walk due to altitude sickness. For me, this was a moment where I thought to myself, should I really be doing this?

Is the risk really worth the reward?” Reading recalled being sick 10 times the day before while hiking. But to her it was worth it.

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Reading says the riskiest situation she has ever been in involved climbing to the basecamp of Mount Everest in the summer of 2014.

The day she summited Kala Pathar she was at an altitude of 5,645 metres. She had less than 50 per cent of the oxygen available at sea level, and she was mentally and physically drained. However, she successfully reached the summit.

“I distinctly remember singing Hakuna Matata under the weathered prayer flags, and watching the sunrise hit the summit of Everest,” Reading say the 14-day trek was worth it.

RISK AND REWARD To Reading, risk is inherently subjective. She doesn’t consider herself to be a risk-taking person, but she understands why people would think differently. Like Mann, Reading says she always weighs the risk and rewards before putting herself in new situations.

Reading spoke about whether or not she becomes afraid in the face of risk. “Oh definitely, but fear can be constructive. I trust my gut and back out as soon as something doesn’t feel right. Will you really remember the moments you played it safe?”

To Reading, risk is all about living her best life and pushing aside the fear. She says her happiness has come from the times where she’s taken huge risks and pushed herself way outside her comfort zone.

Reading says she believes that the risks she’s taken have helped her grow to become the woman she is today. She hopes that she will continue to challenge herself because it brings her happiness and fulfillment.

“WILL YOU REALLY REMEMBER THE MOMENTS YOU PLAYED IT SAFE?” Author Nigel Nicholson looked at how risk taking is individualistic.

“Risk taking in situations of gain and risk aversion in the domain of loss is due to individual differences in perceptions of what constitutes threat and opportunity,” he says.

If Mann could give to his younger self one piece of advice on how to live his life, it would be something many people might wish they heard themselves. “Get outside your comfort zone.

Do things that push you to your limits. You are capable of so much more than your brain is willing to admit. It is not easy, and it is scary. But, no one ever found enlightenment sitting on the couch,” Mann says.

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“I CAN T E L L T H AT W E A R E G O N N A BE F R I E N D S .”

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Story and design by Elyse Wittman

Since I was a little kid I’ve been a bit of an outcast. I always dressed a little weirder than the other kids, I liked music that none of my childhood friends were allowed to listen to, and because of that I tended to keep to myself. It’s not that I don’t like people, or that I don’t know how to talk to others, I found that since I was always the ‘weird’ one, it was easier to keep to myself.

Except for one person – a friend who has stayed constant in my life since that first day of kindergarten.

IN THE BEGINNING Ah yes, located in the heart of Forest Lawn was Holy Trinity Elementary. I remember it well. It was September 1991, and I was determined to climb to the top of the monkey bars with all the other kids. I was not an overly athletic person, so it took a few tries, but eventually I made it to the top.

I was so proud of myself. I looked at one of my new classmates and grinned triumphantly. Her mess of curly black hair was pulled into a side ponytail with a neon pink scrunchie, and she looked at me for a few minutes – one of those odd looks you don’t know what to do with.

When the bell rang for school to start, the other kids climbed down off the monkey bars, including ‘Scrunchie Girl’ – as I had dubbed her in my head, and that’s when I started panic…then to cry. I managed to get to the top of my Everest, but I didn’t know how to get down. Scrunchie Girl hesitated for a minute then came back to the monkey bars to help me down and introduced herself as Sarah.

Since then, Sarah and I have been inseparable.

We spent every day of elementary school together playing Power Rangers and Sailor Moon, running around chasing the boys we thought were cute, and standing around the goal post when we had to play soccer in gym class.

While she always bugged me for my unique thrift store finds as a child, Sarah never made me feel like an outcast like the other kids did. She understood what it was to be different and because of that we became best friends.

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SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

As we moved into junior high, things got a little harder for us. For the first time in seven years, we weren’t in the same school, and we didn’t get to see each other as often. And for the first time, I didn’t have my back up against the harsh realities of junior high. I had a couple of acquaintances at the start of the seventh grade, but the relentless teasing and bullying were really difficult to deal with without my best friend.

I remember calling Sarah in the evenings so upset and angry that people could be so awful, and I still remember her telling me “look, it doesn’t matter what any of those idiots have to say, one day they’re going to be pumping your gas”, which coincidently happened just the other day, so I dealt with it the only way I knew how. I picked up a guitar and started teaching myself how to play.

Things got better as junior high school progressed.

By the end of Grade 8, Sarah and I started a band with two other girls, and spent all our free time writing songs and learning how to perfect our instruments.

“LOOK, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT ANY OF THOSE IDIOTS HAVE TO SAY, ONE DAY THEY’RE GOING TO BE PUMPING YOUR GAS.” In retrospect, the songs we thought were amazing were truthfully pretty bad. But we supported each other, and most importantly, once again Sarah and I got to hang out a lot more.

When we finally got to where we thought we were good enough to perform, we got special permission to go to each other’s schools for two different talent shows. To this day Sarah and I both think the judges were tone deaf because we managed to win both. It was an amazing feeling and it was the first accomplishment for both of us.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF ELYSE WITTMAN

YYC PUNK

In the two months before starting high school, in the summer of 2001, we started listening to heavier and heavier music. Does that month sound familiar?

Two weeks into high school we stared at TV screens in the halls of Bishop Carroll watching the world trade centre blown up. We were both so devastated and so angry that anyone could want to hurt that many people, and we turned to music again. The more we read about what was happening, the more fuel we had for the fire – and that fire was punk music.

We took everything we learned and attempted to perfect while in junior high, and threw it all out the window when we decided this was the time to start a punk band. With heroes like AFI, The Misfits, Sex Pistols, and Dayglo Abortions, we couldn’t go wrong.

The next few months were spent making bondage pants, homemade band t-shirts, and going to hard-core punk shows at venues downtown that have long since shut down.

We played in a band, made friends with other people in the music scene, and were determined to stick together no matter what. So what happens when you promise to stick together? It becomes incredibly difficult because life is kind of a jerk that way. When I was just 16, I was diagnosed with diabetes, my first boyfriend broke up with me, and Sarah’s mom fell into a really serious drug habit that forced Sarah to eventually drop out of school to look after her.

One thing was constant though. I was always there for her when she needed to talk, or to vent, or to cry, or to just say nothing – and she was there for me when I needed the same. There were so many occasions when she would say to me “Seriously, it’s a good thing you were around when things were really bad.”

When people say high school was the best time of their life, I’m almost certain that’s where those people peaked. Not for us.

High school was probably the hardest three years that either of us have faced so far in 29 years of life. Two of our friends committed suicide when we were 16, and every day after things seemed to get worse.

“SERIOUSLY, IT’S A GOOD THING YOU WERE AROUND WHEN THINGS WERE REALLY BAD.” But we kept up our spirits with doing what we love – hanging out with each other and participating in live music around the city.

TIME OF YOUR LIFE In all honesty, Sarah and I have been through a lot in our lives, but we’ve been together through it all. We talk every day, and she’s truly like the sister I never had. It’s no surprise that her son thinks I’m actually his aunt. I even think of him as my nephew.

We still laugh about the time I fell over in the street with a box of timbits and managed to save the donuts but injure myself. And then there was the time we decided to go on a sister date, and early on in the evening we slipped on some ice – both of us down for the count.

Sarah and I have this weird bond that you usually only get when your family members are chosen for you and not by the universe, fate, or monkey bars.

And I think that’s why Scrunchie Girl and I have been, are, and will always be “besties” – best friends forever.

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MONSTE R S W HO TE R R I F Y, GH OST S T H AT H AU NT A ND VILL AIN S W HO STA L K - H OR R O R F I L MS B R I N G ME TO A PL AC E THAT MA KE ME Q U EST I ON MY OW N MORTALITY AN D WO R K T H R O U GH MY I N S ECU R I T I ES A ND F E AR S SUR R O UN D I N G D E AT H .

Story and design by Barbara Medland

It was 1993 when I had my first good scare from a horror film.

On a recommendation from a friend, I nervously rented John Carpenter’s Halloween.

As I pressed play on the VCR, my palms were sweaty and my heart raced. I sat in front of my old-tube TV in the basement of my childhood house and pulled a blanket up to my eyes.

A tall mute man in a white mask was stalking babysitters with a giant knife.

I was terrified.

This single viewing marked the beginning of my obsession with horror films.

I became addicted to the adrenaline rush I got when I watched a film that had a creaky door or a boogieman who jumps out.

As a kid I was forever begging and bribing the video clerk to let me rent an R-rated horror film.

Twenty-two years later, I’ve amassed over 2,500 horror films and I’ve spent countless hours reading and writing about horror. I’m hooked and I can’t seem to get enough.

When I met Andrew eight years ago, he knew I was addicted to horror films.

On our first date, he brought the perfect gift for the quirky girl who loves nothing more than a good scare – a special edition of Ichi the Killer.

No, he didn’t bring flowers or chocolate to the door, but in his hand he proudly presented a very rare edition of a horror film he was sure I would enjoy. I was elated and knew it was love.

On our eighth anniversary, Andrew and I celebrated by going to see an advance screening of The Green Inferno - which I had been patiently waiting for to be released for three years.

Nothing says love quite like watching cannibals terrorize foreigners in a jungle.

The film is graphic – so much so that people left the theatre because they felt sick. I must admit there were times I had to look away.

So why do I put myself through the pain of watching these films? The short answer is that it is an outlet for me to confront and cope with my feelings surrounding death.

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A good horror film stays with me long after the lights are turned on and the curtains are drawn. They tap into my primal fears and force me to face my fear of death.

Being aware of our mortality makes us human. I know I am constantly questioning my own life, existence and death. I’m afraid of dying – who isn’t?

But when I watch a horror film, it allows me to explore dark places that I am not comfortable going, yet cannot look away.

One of my favourite horror films is the French exploitation film À l’intérieur.

I’ve seen the film countless times and it still scares me to my core.

I originally avoided watching the film for months because I heard it was extremely graphic and terrifying – people were physically ill after watching it and petitioned it to be banned.

On a stormy June evening I first watched À l’intérieur. – a bucket of popcorn in my lap and my dogs by my side for protection.

I was armed and ready to watch the film I had avoided for so long.

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“A GOOD HORROR FILM STAYS WITH ME LONG AFTER THE LIGHTS ARE TURNED ON AND THE CURTAINS ARE DRAWN.” Half an hour into the film, with so much death and depravity, I kept asking myself, “why am I watching this? What is wrong with me?”

I taunted myself to turn the film off, but I couldn’t.

A good horror film paralyzes you and shocks you to want to watch more.

When the film was over – I felt victorious.

I had conquered the film and won – or so I thought. Thunder clapped all night.

The cat in the basement kept inexplicitly pouncing and continuing to startle me.

My biggest mistake was watching the film alone because the film is about a home invasion.

A villain incessantly stalks and tortures the homeowner until she cracks.

I held the covers over my head to keep me safe from the possible instruders lurking outside my house – an irrational fear, but a fear none the less.

I couldn’t sleep the entire night and held my dogs close to me.

To most people that experience sounds awful, so why do it again and again? Horror films make me feel alive. I identify with the characters in a way that I don’t seem to be able to do with any other film genre.

I picture myself in the film and question my motives. I ask myself, “what would I do if I was I there?”

Horror films allow me to experience my humanity and play with my fears surrounding death. Home invasions could actually happen to anyone.

Andrew and I spend a lot of time in the wilderness at my family’s cabin. It is rustic and secluded from the rest of the world with no Internet or phone access.

No, not a faceless or unstoppable killer that no matter what you do you cannot escape, but a grizzly bear.

I was fidgety in my seat.

To most people it is somewhere to unwind without any technological interference. To me it looks like something out of Sam Rami’s Evil Dead.

Sometimes I hear noises in the woods or a creek in the floor and think to myself, “I watch far too many horror films.”

On a whim this past summer, we went to see the horror film Backcountry, a film about a couple who get lost on a camping trip and are stalked by a grizzly bear.

Because we spend time a lot of time in the wilderness, this film was a reality that I could experience. My stomach was weak and the hair on the back of my neck was standing on edge.

Backcountry took me to a place that I hoped I never would go, but at the same time I was interested to see.

“A GOOD HORROR FILM PARALYZES AND SHOCKS YOU TO WATCH MORE.”

I squeezed Andrew’s hand during the entire film. I was scared about what I knew was inevitable. It’s a horror film after all – you don’t go into horror film expecting a happily ever after. I clenched his hand even tighter when impeding doom was imminent – something I often do when I am frozen with fear.

The fear I feel when I watch a horror film is comparable to the uncertainties I have surrounding death.

I constantly look for the perfect horror film that scares and terrifies me as I continue to understand my own mortality.

I love the feeling I get when I watch a film that makes my palms sweat and haunts my thoughts.

For me, horror films allow me to experience death in a safe way. I know that death is apart of life, but we never seem to accept it. We live in constant denial – I know I do.

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G O IN G TO A P SYCH I C MA D E ME R E A L I ZE MY F U T U R E I S I N MY H AN DS. Story and design by Kathryn Slack

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It is natural to search for clarity in our lives. Some people will even go to clairvoyant lengths in order to find it. You got it. I am talking about visiting a psychic.

And I have just become one of those people.

I decided to visit a psychic because I am quickly reaching a turning point in my life – my graduation from university is in sight. If I can see my future, I might be able to better understand what to do in the present?

Where am I heading? How will I get there? Who will be there with me?

The truth is that I really don’t know what made me decide to get a psychic reading. I dance the line between thinking that I like the element of surprise in life and thinking that it would be interesting to know where I am heading.

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So as I waited for my evening appointment, nervousness, anxiety and excitement came crashing over me in waves. My mind had succumbed to several “what if” situations. What if I am going to be alone for the rest of my life? What if I am not on the right career path? What if she won’t be able to see any future for me at all?

All of these thoughts sent me into a frenzy for hours – to the point where I found myself looking inside the dryer for the laundry soap.

After arriving at the psychic’s home, I sat down at a table for my reading.

The light from the candle-lit room danced in front of me. I felt uneasy and reserved. My goal was to keep a cautious yet open mind. I had been told by friends and family to watch out for general insights that I could apply to my life.

Therefore, my plan was to give as little information about myself as possible during the reading. My psychic’s plan was to become a part of me for the reading.

“You have a lot going on, and you don’t know if there is something that you just can’t handle. You are handling a lot so it’s really, well, you are just overwhelmed sometimes.”

She then picked up a pencil and drew a rectangle with two lines on either side of it.

“I am getting that there is a block of stuff, and then there are two other things that you are doing. It is as though I can deal with this block, but I am not sure about this,” she said as she pointed to the smaller line towards the side of the rectangle.

As a university student, the majority of my life is taken up by classes and assignment. Prior to visiting the psychic, I had been debating for weeks whether or not I have time for a part-time job.

I went to a psychic for clarity – which I received – but not in the way I expected.

I was still reluctant, but I was on board.

Immediately after the reading was over, I felt like I had an adrenaline rush. I did not want it to be over. I wanted to hear more about the details of my life.

As my psychic continued, she turned to my family and my relationships. Most of her comments things seemed fairly accurate.

“I feel as though there has been a lot going on emotionally for you in the past eight – that could be months, or years, or even August as it’s eighth month.

“My sinuses are really bothering me,” she said as she pulled my necklace between her hands.

It is not my intention to prove or disprove psychic abilities by my visit.

However, I find it remarkable that eight months ago I suffered from a serious sinus infection.

I felt this way until I began to over-analyse the information I had just been given. I started to jump to irrational conclusions – filling in the blanks of what I had just heard.

Within minutes, I had already begun feeling what I hoped I would not – disappointment. What I heard was not the vision I’ve had for my future. But I think that no matter what I had been told, I might have been wishing to hear something else.

“I WENT TO A PSYCHIC FOR CLARITY – WHICH I RECEIVED – BUT NOT IN THE WAY I EXPECTED.”

You see, the clarity I gained from this experience was not from the premonition itself. It was actually from the conversation I had with the psychic once the reading was over.

And in that moment, I was hooked.

Then there was the moment when the psychic asked if my sister was looking towards the south – to Mexico perhaps – with a man. And there was a comment about golfing.

At the time, I knew my sister was planning a trip to Mexico with her boyfriend. What I did not know was that she had been surfing the web looking for golf retreats – a surprise gift for him.

It is strange to me, thinking back, that I could have been talking with someone who could quite possibly have known more about my life than I do myself.

During this conversation, I asked her the question that she must get often: How do you do what you do?

She talked about being able to see and understand the auras that surround each of us and reveal so much about our lives.

And she also said that we are all able to be intuitive – but some of us more than others. Let’s face it, we all know the feeling of following what our gut tells us to do.

So, will I start my own business like she said? I will have to wait and see. Will I have a “romantic connection” with a man who I meet on the British Isles? I really hope so! Perhaps I should book some airline tickets soon.

Or perhaps I know more about my life than I realize.

The point is that you might think that you can find out your future, but you really can’t ever know for sure. What is for sure is that you should trust yourself – your intuition – to take you into the future.

Although I may have gone to the psychic to hear about my future, it felt like cheating in a sense – to be hearing so easily the answers to the questions of my life.

Am I glad I visited a psychic? I think so. Call it fate. Call it destiny.

Call it whatever you like. I call it clarity.

These are matters I have been planning for, setting goals about, and dreaming over – for years.

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The senior students in the Department of Information Design at MRU would like to give a shout out to the senior students and their instructors in the Department of Graphic Communications and Print Technology at SAIT who printed and bound our 2015 class magazine. We appreciate the expertise and TLC you invested in [dee-kuhn-struhkt].

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

For the information of readers, the cover of this magazine was printed on a Heidelberg SM52 offset press and inside pages were printed on a Xerox iGen4 digital press – both housed in the Graphic Communications and Print Technology program at SAIT.

[De e - k u h n - s truhkt] m agazine was co nceptualized a nd crea ted in its entirety a s a cla ss project by senior s t u d e nt s e n ro lled in t he Departm ent of Info rm a tion Design a t Mount Roya l University. The views conta ined in this m a ga z i n e a re t ho se of t he i ndi vidual wri ter and d o not reflect the views of the Depa rtment of I nforma tion Design, t h e Fa c u l t y of Co m m uni cat io n St udi es, o r Mo unt Roya l University, No pa rts of this publica tion ma y be used or re p ro d u ce d i n any m anner w i t ho ut the w ri t ten permission from the publisher. Every rea sona ble a ttempt ha s been m a d e to c re dit ow ners of co pyri ght. Co pyri ght 2015.

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