Capilano Courier // Volume 48 // Issue 14 by Capilano Courier

VOL UME

INSIDE MORDOR

NORTH VANCOUVER, JANUARY 12TH 2015

#JESUISCHARLIE

ISSUE

N O . 14

DRAG QUEENS

CAPILANO Courier

@capilanocourier

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

@capilanocourier capilanocourier.com

News

A+C

CaleNdar

Features

OpiNiONs

COlumNs

CabOOse

Picking Up The Plastic

Bustin' Moves

Sun is Coming Out

The Beauty Of Nature

Crusty Cosby

Matt Jolliffe: The Punk Rocker

Lets Get Wet

ON the Cover OlliemOONsta

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

Olliemoonsta (Naza del Rosal & Juan Rico) is a creative team from Spain with a background in Fine Arts and Graphic Design. In 2009 they formed Studio Po, an illustration, graphic and web design studio. Their works have been seen in numerous exhibitions worldwide. They currently live and work in Vancouver. To see more of their work visit Olliemoonsta.com.

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS:

Kevin Kapenda, James Martin, Steve Tornes, Simon Thistlewood, Christine Beyleveldt, Matt Jolliffe, Aidan Mouellic

Olliemoonsta, Samantha Smith, Jackson Butchart, J.R. Pinto, Megan Collinson, Crystal Lee, Kelsey Holden, Lucy Webber, Ksenia Kozhevnikova, Evan Eisenstadt THANK YOU

To everyone who's assisted, stayed late, missed us when we stayed late, brought beer, sent love and supportive texts, and of yours all you who have picked up the Courier. Hi Mom!

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

To advertise in the Courierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pages, please contact our Advertising Director, Andy Rice, at 778-855-9942 or advertising.capcourier@gmail.com. We are proud to offer discounts to non-profit organizations and North Shore customers. A full media kit with sizes, rates and deadlines is available on our website, CapilanoCourier.com.

The Staff

Leah Scheitel Editor-in-Chief

Therese Guieb News Editor

The Capilano Courier is an autonomous, democratically run student newspaper. Literary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste, and legality. The Capilano Courier will not publish material deemed by the collective to exhibit sexism, racism or homophobia. The views expressed by the contributing writers are not necessarily those of the Capilano Courier Publishing Society.

of this leaving on a jet plane university newspaper

Andy Rice Managing Editor

Alva Tee Arts + Culture Editor

Andrew Palmquist Production Manager

Faye Alexander Features Editor

Gabriel Scorgie Opinions Editor

Cheryl Swan Art Director

Carlo Javier Lifestyle Editor

Ricky Bao Business Manager

Brandon Kostinuk Web Editor

Letter From The Editor Leah Scheitel, Editor-in-Chief

A simple kind of life "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." - Albert Einstein Due to a slight Wednesday morning hangover, and because the entire series of Friends is now on Netflix, I was in a rush to make my morning philosophy class. And in the midst of it, I left my cell phone by my kitchen sink. I went without a cell phone for an entire day for the first time since 2007. At first, I kept grabbing for my phone at every idle opportunity – on my walk from the parking lot, in between lectures, in line for coffee – and every time my heart sank a little with the disappointment that I wouldn’t be able to check my Instagram feed for the day - oh, all the photos I would miss of other people snowboarding! But after double-checking every crevasse of my purse and all my pockets three dozen times, the tension eased. It became nice not having a compact yet constantly buzzing machine in my pocket. I actually came to enjoy it. I didn’t have to respond to any texts, retweet any messages, face rejection from any Tinder matches or like any Facebook updates. It was really quite pleasant. And to my surprise (and slight dismay), I only missed one text the entire day. My phoneless day was definitely unintentional, but it didn’t complicate my life like I initially feared it would. If anything, it simplified it. Without the distraction of my tiny screen, I was able to focus on other things. I listened to a CBC radio program instead of my iTunes, had an actual conversation with a classmate, and I think I heard a bird chirping. I even read 50 pages of an actual book about secret CIA operatives – I’m convinced I’d make a great spy. During the first class for my Branding and Innovation course, the instructor, Andrea Eby, showed us an Ikea ad that has garnered critical acclaim. In it, it mocks the design and features of Apple products by applying the same so called features to a book. Ikea — a company who my dad always jokes is “Swedish for shit” — emphasized that simplified things, like picking up a book, are often overlooked and neglected because of our demand for Internet gratification and instant information. Between the inspiration of an Ikea ad and my phoneless day, I have been thinking about the simpler things in life, things that no matter how complicated life gets, they will also be enjoyable. Old fashioned face-to-face conversations, or reading a giant book and marking it mine with coffee stains and earmarks, or a double whiskey in a new bar – all things that I enjoy and all things that I don’t need technology for.

This idea and rant isn’t anything new. There have been many tirades about how technology was meant to make our lives easier and instead complicated it with its incessant consumption. Somewhat ironically, most of these messages are YouTube videos that trend on Facebook, and get more likes than any of my posts about my cats. Everyone shares a rant about the dangers of social media on all social media platforms – somewhat of a paradox. Nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, is a clinical term coined back in 2010. A 2013 study done by telecommunications giant Rogers argued that over 20 million Canadians suffer from nomophobia, affecting 65 per cent of our population. The study suggested that this trend was only going to rise. It’s amazing to think that civilization lasted for centuries without the technology that most of us can’t go 10 minutes without reaching for. It’s a new kind of safety blanket, one to constantly promote our ideal self and remind us that we have friends. Newspapers, offices and governments all operated without any kind of instant communication. When Lincoln was elected president in 1860, it took roughly three weeks for the news to reach California, and they thought that was quick! Now, after the devastating massacre at the office of a French satirical magazine, the world knew the preliminary details by lunchtime. Technology has its merits. The ability to share news and important world events is beneficial. The devastation of the Paris shootings and 12 fatalities would only be heightened if we had to wait for the news to cross the Atlantic Ocean to arrive. However, the Internet has also facilitated people to share unverified news sources, creating more fear mongering in the media. Many media sources have been accused of sensationalizing stories, creating more drama to appeal to the public. Our constant news feeds and refresh buttons have made us accustomed to endless opinions on any world event. It has given us a penchant for the dramatic. I’m not saying we should go back to the same technology of the 1860s, relying on telegraphs and carrier pigeons to communicate. But maybe we should leave the phone at home more often, and on purpose. Maybe we can make things slightly simpler, by looking at a catalogue instead of a website, and meeting a friend for coffee to tell her you like her haircut instead of liking her new profile photo. Spend the day with your head up and out of the iCloud, and maybe notice the real clouds. As my good friend, Andrew Palmquist reminds me, the clouds are a great place to play.

tweets OF the week the VOiCe bOx

with

Andy Rice

The Voicebox is back, ready to humbly respond to your questions, concerns, and comments about anything. To inquire, just send a text to 778.855.9942 to anonymously "express" and "voice" your "opinion" and "thoughts" on any "subject" or "issue." And, as long as it's not offensive, we will publish it here, right in the Voicebox. It's a win - win, or whine - whine whatever way you look at it.

At the beginning of September your Editor-in-Chief told me that I could impress date prospects by telling them I was a journalist. I've just got to say that I love being a writer but it sure as hell doesn't impress dates. How can I get both to work in my favour?

I saw that, and then I checked to make sure CapU administration didn’t go on another cutting spree and get rid of some English classes or something. To be honest though, the ”Capliano Courier” sounds way more badass than the regular version — kind of mob-ish, if you ask me. I just laughed out loud trying to picture us as a bunch of mobsters though, especially with names like Gabe, Alva, and Cheryl. Carlo’s the best chance we’ve got, and that’s saying something.

Does Leah love any other animals other than cats? For Valentine's Day do the staff do anything special? Last year, Valentine's Day fell on a Friday so we literally sat in our office laying out pages and circling spelling mistakes in that week’s copy Courier. (If you read Issue 13 you’ll know how big of a job that is.) I’m not sure what this year has in store. Rumour has it someone will be giving Valentines to all our female staff members, like they did last year. All the girls were flattered until Carlo admitted he bought them all. Let’s hope that one of them gets a date this year. Or at least Carlo.

Yeah. Men. (I’m just guessing this is probably what she would say. Let me check.) From Leah: “Yeah. Men.” Yup. Nailed it.

Is Gabe the Babe single? My girlfriends and I have a bet about it. Yes, Gabe is single. He works on Fridays. That's why. Why does no one ever ask if I'm single?

Non. @NeinQuarterly First as tragedy. Then as cynical political instrumentalization of tragedy. #jesuischarlie Twitter France @TwitterFrance 3,4 millions de Tweets de solidarité #JeSuisCharlie publiés dans le monde Josh Denny @JoshDenny I absolutely love the amount of journalists standing up for #CharlieHebdo that also bashed Daniel Tosh for his rape joke incident. Stephen Harper @pmharper I reaffirmed Canada’s support & unwavering position in the fight against terrorism to Pres. @FHollande. #CharlieHebdo Tineke Senf @TinekeSenf Two days ago #SaudiArabia denounced the #CharlieHebdo attack. Today it flogged @raif_badawi for expressing opinions. Kay Burley @KayBurley #CharlieHebdo killers shot dead by police Daniel Portman @Daniel_Portman Extremism is the issue, be it religious, political or otherwise. People using something unrelated to justify doing bad things. #CharlieHebdo Conrad Hackett @conradhackett #JeSuisCharlie, one of most popular hashtags ever, was tweeted 3.4 million times in 24 hours mhagelia @mhagelia Some of my best memories of my teaching profession, I have with my Muslim students. #JeSuisCharlie Tom London @TomLondon6 We must strongly resist all attempts to demonise the wider Muslim community because of the murderous actions of a few #JeSuisCharlie

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

From Leah: “Well, I suggest updating your Tinder, starting every conversation with ‘The last article I wrote…’ and only going after people who read. The latter may be hard to find, but that’s why you’ve got to hang out at libraries and loiter around the newspaper pile at JJ Bean. You’ll look creepy but once you get past that, it’s a goldmine.”

YOU GUYS CAN’T EVEN SPELL CAPILANO!!

#JESUISCHARLIE

NEWS

THERESE GUIEB NEWS EDITOR

NEWS@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

building a sanctuary WHY HOMELESS SHELTERS ARE A NECESSITY Therese Guieb × News Editor

× Crystal Lee

“It feels like we have a mop in our hands and we're mopping up the floor, it’s raining outside and there's no roof on our building. It’s something that you’re never going to completely fix until you fix the roof, and the roof in this case is getting some housing for folks,” says Shayne Williams, executive director of the Lookout Emergency Aid Society, regarding solving homelessness in Canada. When the frigid weather comes around in the Lower Mainland, many homeless and at-risk individuals seek relief from the cold temperatures. Shelters all over the Metro Vancouver area have opened their doors to help these individuals find a safe haven. The Emergency Shelter program has been mobilized to provide extra spaces to be available for use. “The Emergency Shelter program in our province is funded by BC Housing and the goal is to have a temporary stay, an emergency stay for folks en route to permanent housing,” explains Williams. The Lookout Emergency Aid Society is one of the shelters in Metro Vancouver that is part of providing this program. Their shelters are located in the North Shore, Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey and New Westminster. In order to locate the shelters, BC Housing has created a map on their website that shows which are the nearest shelters available. However, since many individuals needing a place to stay do not have access to Internet to check out shelters that are available in their locations, this information is effectively spread through “word of mouth.” According to Williams, this strategy works because the individuals have a small community in which they look out for one another. Aside from the Emergency Shelter program, the Lookout Emergency Aid Society also provides year round shelters that are open at any time of day. “We got one of those in the North Shore, we got two of those in Vancouver, we got one in New West and one in Surrey,” lists Williams, “So those year-round shelters have

at least two staff members on at the shelters while people are sleeping overnight or during the day. They provide three square meals and there's housing and individual case plans to help individuals with some of the barriers that keep them un-housed.” The shelters also offer other services to the individuals who stay there. “We connect people to different services, our staff are trained in non-violent crisis intervention, first aid and food safe and all of the great things that they need to be to help really vulnerable folks,” notes Williams. In addition to the Emergency Shelter program, Metro Vancouver has an Extreme Weather Response program that opens up when the weather puts peoples’ lives at stake. “The Greater Vancouver Shelter Strategy… is a collection of different sheltering agencies. So like Metro Vancouver housing agencies, [they] hire a coordinator that basically follows the weather in all the different municipalities in Metro Vancouver and then calls extreme

weather providers on days they want us to open up,” says Williams about the process of opening up the Extreme Weather shelters. In addition, emergency shelters also open up for other catastrophes, like a fire at a poverty stricken building, in the shelter site that is the closest to the building. The lack of spaces available is not so much of an issue to the North Shore because the staff at other shelters is able to communicate with each other to open up a space in case their location is full. “In the North Shore there’s not as many service providers obviously as there is in Vancouver or in Surrey and other communities but typically we're trying to work together so if Look Out North Shore is full they’ll be calling other shelters that we operate first and then if we can’t find a bed for somebody we'll be calling other organizations. We’re doing what we can to help people get out from the cold,” explains Williams. According to Williams, the biggest challenge in Metro Vancouver is not the lack of

shelter beds but affordable housing for people. “If 95 percent of people staying at our shelters would move into affordable housing today, we can end homelessness without a doubt in my mind.” Moreover, the biggest challenge in the North Shore is that individuals stay the longest in this location because of the lack of affordable housing. Homelessness in Canada is a recurring issue but affordable housing can be one of the ways to solve it. A homeless shelter only costs about $400 a night to operate; however Williams argues that “the real effective way is once social housing is built it only costs a couple of hundred dollars a month for it to operate. Two hundred dollars a month makes sense for people who will live [in this system], will have a more healthy lifestyle,” he continues, “They are not dependent on [the shelters’] health services, the police don’t have to respond to pick them up, jails don’t have to be as full, waiting rooms and hospitals don’t have to be as saturated.”

a new portfolio

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

AMRIK VIRK DEMOTED FROM ADVANCED EDUCATION ROLE

Kevin Kapenda × Writer “For someone who is dishonest and has been proven to be dishonest, their place is not in the Cabinet,” says David Eby, Vancouver-Point Grey MLA about past Minister of Education Amrik Virk. After winning the Metro Vancouver riding of Surrey-Tynehead in the 2013 election, Amrik Virk was sworn in as BC’s Minister of Advanced Education, a key member of Christy Clark’s new look government. Virk was one of the eight new faces in the Liberal caucus to receive their first ever cabinet appointment. However, after a brief year and a half on the job, Premier Clark removed Virk from his position in late December. Instead of the outright resignation from government that was demanded by the NDP, Virk replaced Vancouver MLA Andrew Wilkinson as Minister of Technology and Citizens’ Services. Wilkinson was then appointed Minister of

Advanced Education. Reasons for the cabinet shuffle were not made public, but many suggest Virk was removed from his previous position because of his involvement in a scandal at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), which is located in his hometown of Surrey. According to CBC, Virk served on the KPU Board of Trustees before being elected to the legislature in 2013. The allegations raised against Virk involve the role he played in the suggesting and approving of bonuses that were paid to KPU’s former President, in 2011, Anne Lavack. He also approved bonuses for KPU’s current president, Alan Davis in 2012. Based on the Ministry of Finance’s report by Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Finance, Rob Mingay, published in June 2014, the inquiry initially discovered that Virk and his fellow board members failed to meet the government’s disclosure guidelines on two occasions: during the hiring of Lavack in 2011, and the hiring of her successor, Davis, the following year. Both Davis and Lavack were given $50,000 pre-em-

ployment contracts, which are considered to be “inconsistent with the spirit and intent of Public Sector Employment Council guidelines” noted Mingay in his report. When the allegations surfaced last June, Mingay concluded that Virk was only aware of Davis’s bonus, and not Lavack’s. However, emails obtained by CBC and released from Virk’s old RCMP account through freedom of information in November of last year suggested that he was just as involved in greenlighting Lavack’s bonus as he was in awarding the same pre-employment contract to Davis a year later. Since Mingay’s report release last June, the NDP has been calling for Virk to resign from cabinet, an action he has refused to take. After more evidence of wrongdoing came to light in November, calls from the opposition for Virk to step down from government only grew louder. David Eby explains that Virk’s conduct during his time at KPU and his attempts to mislead the legislature on the matter is why he should have stepped down from Cabinet.

"It also reflects poorly on the Premier, that she feels that somebody who has repeatedly and demonstrably lied about something so serious is in her cabinet.” According to Eby, Virk mislead the legislature, which essentially means he mislead the public’s representatives and the public themselves, which traditionally leads to one’s resignation. “When you stand up in the legislature, you are expected by [MLAs] and the public to tell the truth. When you mislead the knowingly legislature like [Virk] did, you are often forced to resign,” argues Eby. When Virk was asked to resign last November, he said that he would not resign because he was fully cooperative during Mingay’s investigation and was elected to “serve at the pleasure of the premier.” However, on Dec. 18, the Premier decided that Virk’s time as the head of Advanced Education was up and demoted him to Minister of Technology.

A surprising turn of events

news

CSU OPEN HOUSE DRAWS A CROWD

Carlo Javier × Lifestyle Editor To kick off the spring semester, the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) made sure to organize an event where new and returning students can learn about the many opportunities that are available to them in Capilano University. On Jan. 7, the CSU Open House was held to an impressive turnout of students at the CSU Library Lounge. Representatives and members of various clubs, collectives and committees that the CSU oversees gathered a strong flow of students eager to learn about the opportunities and the interest-based camaraderie they can build on campus. “It was really good. I was very impressed with the turnout, the room was always full, and every table always had people at it, looking for more information, looking to get involved,” says Brittany Barnes, president of the CSU. “We really wanted to provide students with an event where they could come out and learn more about the CSU, not just the CSU as a board and the collectives and committees that

are a part of it, but also the clubs that students outside of the elected board start themselves and we thought it’d be a great opportunity to provide new and returning students with that kind of opportunity to get more involved with their campus, we also haven’t done anything like this in a while,” she adds. One of the driving forces behind the event was the numerous inquiries that the CSU received last semester in regards to involvement. “Last semester we had a lot of students saying, ‘Hey, we really want to get involved with the CSU but we don’t know how.’ So we thought that this event would be a great platform for that,” reveals Barnes. The branches that the CSU overlooks can be divided into several categories. There are collectives such as the Queer Collective, the Women’s Collective or the Environmental Justice. There are committees that are dedicated to operational processes such as the Finance Committee, External Relations and Student Life. Finally, there are clubs that student driven groups that are based on specific interests or hobbies. Students who are interested in form-

ing a club are now able to access a form available at the CSU’s website. “We have a clubs package that they fill out, it's available on our website now, and then they can start a club on campus for whatever their interest may be,” says Barnes. It was of utmost importance to the CSU to host the Open House in the earlier part of the semester. Many events that are held in CapU can often struggle with the lack of turnout which sometimes can be attributed to scheduling or the sheer workload that students can amass. “I think events in the past that have struggled for turnout are events that happened at times that are really busy for students, so it might be exam period, or it might be a point in the semester where students are really overloaded with work, but it was quite interesting because this event actually didn’t have a ton of promotion,” explains Barnes. The CSU Open House also took into account the number of practicums and internship work that are scheduled during the spring semester. “We thought that this would also be a way for those students who are looking for opportuni-

ties to collect hours for credit,” notes Barnes. Overall, the considerable student presence and participation at the CSU Open House stands as a positive contradiction to the muchmaligned campus community in CapU. The turnout also proved to be pleasantly surprising due to the rather little promotion involved. The CSU did not plaster posters nor did they have a booth to advertise for the event during its planning process. “It was quite interesting to see that there was that much turnout for something that was promoted mainly through social media,” says Barnes. Even the sought-after liquor license proved to be not much of a factor as the CSU only sold 24 drinks during the entire gathering. It might simply be luck with the student participation, or it might be a sign of a changing culture. For Barnes, the great number of students present during the CSU Open House was definitely a pleasant sight to see. “To me, the students were there to genuinely learn about the opportunities on campus and not because there was alcohol on campus, which was a rare thing on Capilano.”

bank of recyclables VANCOUVER START-UP PROJECT FOCUSES ON SOCIAL PLASTIC Leah Scheitel × Editor-in-Chief

PHOTOS SUBMITTED BY THE PLASTIC BANK

go out, collect recyclable resources and negotiate with someone on the spot to sell them that resource. Whether it’s metal, glass or select plastics, [they] will negotiate on the spot, then somebody will go and negotiate to some guy in the truck, and then that guy in the truck will negotiate to some guy in the warehouse, and you have this whole chain of uncertainty, where the prices change everyday,” he says. What the Plastic Bank will do is offer people an above market price, cutting out the negotiating, and therefore making it more beneficial to both the people and the shorelines. “We make plastic waste a currency, where we have a consistent, above market rate for the plastic. Anyone knows they can go and collect the plastic and receive a consistent amount that is higher than any negotiated-on-the-spot kind of rate and start creating a whole livelihood around recycling,” notes Frankson.

Social Plastic was a term coined by the Plastic Bank, and works as a trademark to prove that products have been made with socially conscious and recycled plastic. “We have a global trademark on Social Plastic, so again you can very much think of it like a Fair Trade Certified [label],” Frankson explains, “Anything that collects through the Plastic Bank with the certain criteria of helping people’s lives is what we sell as Social Plastic. It’s recycled plastic with a social impact.” Lush Cosmetics has partnered with the Plastic Bank on their pilot project and some of their packaging now contains Social Plastic. “Lush Cosmetics was the first to use our pilot project, Shoreline Plastic, in their sea spray bottles which was kind of taking a worstcase plastic, proving that it fully works, and putting it into their standard manufacturing process. So they were the first to go ahead

and purchase that plastic that has been in the ocean,” says Frankson. Worst-case scenario plastic is exactly as it sounds – the worst kind of plastic that can be found in the ocean being recycled and reused. As Frankson describes it, it’s “plastic that has been in the ocean, been out in the sun degenerating.” While the Plastic Bank’s main focus is not on the local shores of British Columbia, Frankson says that there is a good reason for it. “There just wouldn’t be enough plastic almost anywhere in BC to make it worth the transportation sites. We just work in developing countries where it’s collected, sorted, bailed into giant shipping containers to be brought to the manufacturing places — but in a good way, as you just wouldn’t be able to find enough plastic to ship in BC.”

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

A new business called the Plastic Bank has been making headlines by taking on plastic that washes up on ocean shores. The Vancouverbased company is only two years old, but has already made an impact on various shorelines. The aim of the company is to be a social enterprise that focuses on the triple bottom line – profits, planet and people. It was the brainchild of David Katz, who along with the help of Shaun Frankson, turned his idea into fruition. “David Katz is the CEO of the Plastic Bank, and he’s a bit of a world traveller. He’s been to many of the places in the world where you get more plastic waste on the beaches than you do sand,” explains Frankson, who now works as the vice-president and strategist for the Plastic Bank. “Both David and I have grown up mostly around Victoria, and have been surrounded by water our whole life so when looking to start an entrepreneurial adventure, the goal was to really create a company that could have the potential to impact at least a billion people and really look at the root cause of where ocean plastic comes from.” The goal is to help impoverished people of third world countries by turning plastic into somewhat of a makeshift currency. The more plastic a collector brings in from the ocean’s shores, the more they stand to earn for their efforts. “What we kind of discovered is that in most developing countries, it’s very common for people to dump plastic waste into the rivers and waterways as a disposal mechanism. That’s where a huge portion of the ocean plastic comes from. So when we are looking at the root cause of ocean plastic, we are looking at it as a business opportunity, the opportunities revealed that if we can just revalue plastic, it becomes too valuable to be waste and really too valuable to end up in the ocean,” explains Frankson. While there are recycling programs in most countries, they aren’t as standardized as Canadian recycling programs, as Frankson learned on a trip to Peru. “The common thing of how typical recycling works is that someone will

arts + Culture

ALVA TEE ARTS + CULTURE EDITOR

ARTS@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

dancing on pointe STEPPING UP WITH THE HARBOUR DANCE CENTRE Alva Tee × Arts + Culture Editor “There is room for everyone in the dance world,” says Pam Rosa, owner and founder of the Harbour Dance Centre in Vancouver, “It has been around since the beginning of humanity I’m sure, in some form, and will always be a part of our lives. It is what we do to celebrate.” Thirty years ago, Rosa started the studio with companion Danielle Clifford. Clifford

× Samantha Smith

was a professional ballet dancer with the Nice Opera Ballet in France and Rosa was a professional singer and dancer in the commercial jazz and Broadway style. “There were no studios back then for pros to train,” says Rosa, “I would go to New York or LA or London to train after doing a show. Danielle Clifford had a small ballet studio in her home - I trained there as well every day. An opportunity came up to take over a studio downtown and we decided we would open our own and make the classes available for everyone. It has been quite a journey, but very satisfying.” At the Harbour Dance Centre, staff and instructors do their best to make everyone feel welcome, no matter one’s age, sex or skill level. “We have classes for the absolute beginner and for the very advanced professional,” says codirector Moe Brody, “More and more people are aware of dance now that there are so many TV shows with dance as the main focus. Someone might see a Broadway type show and be inspired to try a jazz class for the first time. “We are an adult studio ages 16 and up only,” he continues, “If you are in your 60s and have always wanted to take tap dancing, then we have the class for you. You don’t have to worry about a 12 year old in class who is literally dancing circles around you. It is a very comfortable environment for all ages and levels.” Not only do the students range in age and levels, but so do the dance instructors. “We have students in their late 70s still going strong,” says Rosa, “Some of our teachers are in their 70s and

Another great aspect to taking a class is the social aspect. “You’ll find that once you come a few times you’ll recognize some faces from the previous class,” says Brody. “We have so many long-time regulars who have become great friends, all from coming to class. It’s great to be in an environment with people who share the same interests.” Leading the busy life that many do, the Centre makes it easy for anyone to still include dance in their lives by offering drop-in classes. “The drop-in classes are convenient for people that have a changing schedule at school or at work and can't commit to coming at the same time each week,” says Rosa, “You can start and stop whenever you want. Some students go one day a week and others do more than one a day. It’s up to you to design your own schedule.” With over 100 classes to choose from at Harbour Dance Centre alone, the possibilities are nearly endless. Dance is an experience in life that Rosa has appreciated greatly, and that gift is something she wishes to share with everyone. “I have danced my whole life and can’t imagine not to have dance in my life. I have friends that have also danced with me for many years, and we meet at class and it is what we have in common and enjoy. I like working towards getting better at something and feeling good at the end of class,” she says. As Brody puts it, “Dance is for everyone, it’s never too late to start.”

still out-dance the younger ones because they have never stopped. It’s an inspiration.” For Brody, his favourite clients are the “older” ones who danced in dance studios when they were younger. “They want to jump back into it,” he says, “So after taking more than 10 years off, they can come pick up where they left off and have dance back in their lives. They have families, careers and busy lives but still have the passion to dance. To come back to class is that love for dance that never left them. “There are [also] the pre-professionals who come to the advanced levels to train to get their dance career started,” Brody continues, “Whether it’s dancing for a touring artist, on Broadway or a company, they need to make sure their skills are up to par.” When it comes to dance, there are more than enough reasons to give it a try, or to return after a long absence. “I don’t do any other form of exercise and am in better shape than most people I know my age. You can work very hard at dance,” says Rosa, “It works your brain and memory, just trying to remember the movements. It’s a proven fact that learning dance at any age improves your memory.” “You are exercising without realizing it,” adds Brody, “Every time I go to the gym, I dread the exertion of it. I know I’m going to hate running on the treadmill, who wants to run so fast going nowhere? It’s important to stay healthy with adding physical fitness to your life. Dance class is so much fun that you don’t realize how much work your body is doing.”

an unexpected journey CAPILANO FILM STUDENT GETS BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE HOBBIT James Martin

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

One does not simply walk into Mordor, but walking behind the scenes and into a private advance screening of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies alongside director Sir Peter Jackson might be even harder. When a global contest to win exactly this experience was launched last year, Capilano University student Bianca Poroliseanu didn’t hold back in her quest to be a part of it. Of the many thousands of Hobbit enthusiasts who competed, she was one of the lucky few to win a spot in The Hobbit Fan Fellowship for this oneof-a-kind New Zealand adventure. Poroliseanu, who is currently in her third year of CapU’s film program, could not be a better fit for the contest. Her love of J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy world of Middle-Earth began at a young age. “I was about eight years old when the first Lord of the Rings movie came out,” Poroliseanu says, “My cousin’s room was always decorated with all things Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, and she was really my first introduction into that world. She was so into it and I was constantly around her and I kind of wanted to be her, so I would watch The Lord of the Rings all the time and I really, really liked it just for myself.” As time went on, Poroliseanu’s love of the epic fantasy films also led to a love for the art of filmmaking itself. “My cousins and I would go out into our backyard and we would re-create The Fellowship of the Ring on our home video camera. That was my first introduction to filmmaking, when I was really young.”

× Kattie Coolidge

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

× Writer

The competition itself consisted of many challenges, but the most crucial component was a video in which contestants had to explain why they were the world’s biggest fan of The Hobbit. Poroliseanu took a unique approach to make sure that hers would stand out from the crowd. “I came up with the idea to make it a little bit ironic, so that I would be talking about how much I didn’t like The Hobbit while everything behind me was completely contradictory to that. Every time [the video] cut, a new thing would pop up behind me that was Hobbit-related. I would put a poster up, or I would put my notebook up or my action figures. Apparently they liked that.” Indeed, they liked it so much that a few weeks later, she received the good news while in the middle of class. “I freaked out,” Poroliseanu ad-

mits, “I was absolutely over the moon, I couldn’t stop shaking, I couldn't stop talking about it and for the rest of that day I couldn’t pay attention to anything else.” Of all the incredible highlights included in the trip to New Zealand, Poroliseanu says the biggest moment for her was when she got to meet director Sir Peter Jackson. “That was an unbelievable experience, because Peter Jackson was the whole reason I got into filmmaking. It was an absolute honour to meet the man that inspired that passion in me.” While the group was touring Park Road Post-Production where the advance screening of the new film was held, she recalls that “it was really overwhelming because I remembered seeing [Jackson] walk through those halls in the bonus features of The Lord of the Rings and The

Hobbit, and to actually be there where he was explaining everything that was going on in the post-production process was absolutely overwhelming.” Another memory that stands out strongly for Poroliseanu was an earlier surprise at the Green Dragon Inn, a location featured in the films. “We were having drinks, and they took two of us from the group to open up these curtains that were pulled. We didn’t know what was behind them. I didn’t expect much, I thought it was going to be an empty room with some food on the table or something. We opened the curtain, and there were four of the actors sitting at a table waiting for us. My brain kind of exploded, it couldn't really process what I was seeing. It was Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Stephen Hunter and John Callen. They played four of the dwarves in the movie, and they are all New Zealand natives so that was really cool to be able to meet them, especially to be able to talk to them about New Zealand and filmmaking,” she says. Although, now back in Canada, Poroliseanu has plans to return to New Zealand in February for a study abroad semester and hopefully again in the future as she pursues her filmmaking goals with renewed vigour. “My plan is to make The Silmarillion [a prequel to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings] one day. I know the rights are going to be impossible to get, but I’m not going to give up on that dream. Being able to go on this trip and to meet the person who inspired my passion for my craft, it reignited that passion in me, and I’m more driven now than I’ve ever been, and I know what I want. It really changed me as a person, and it inspired me even more to fight for what I want in life.”

arts + Culture

show stopping queens

BREEZE RECOMMENDS A COUPLE DRAG SHOWS

WHAT THE DRAG SCENE IS REALLY ABOUT

SATURDAYS: @ the Junction

Steve Tornes

FRIDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH): @ Café Deux Soleils.

× Writer

× Evan Eisenstadt

"Drag as an art form is really a lot of different art forms," says Alex Garofolo, part time Halifax-based drag queen, "You have the fashion involved with picking out the outfits, you have makeup work which is an art form in itself. Some performers have to do costume changes throughout the night... there is also the choreography, the lip-synching, the selecting of music, and then there are the stage theatrics." Art forms become popular because of their ability to express human emotion. The drag queens give an artistic performance where they create a persona through drag. There are not only drag queens, but also drag kings and faux queens. Where a drag queen is a man who per-

forms in a highly feminized manner, a drag king is a female who performs in a highly masculinized manner. A faux queen is a woman who dresses in the style of a drag queen. The show itself highlights a dichotomy in human nature by demonstrating that one’s original appearance can be different from their inner self. "I do not impersonate females,” popular drag queen RuPaul famously said, “How many women do you know who wear seven-inch heels, four-foot wigs, and skin tight dresses? I don't dress like a woman, I dress like a drag queen!" The drag queen persona is a flamboyant figure with a certain set of characteristics, such as over stylized makeup, flashy outfits and

PERFORMERS TO WATCH FOR: - Jane Smoker - Jem - Shanda Leer - Beardoncé

a larger than life personality. Drag, by its nature, is a performance piece. There are various different shows in the drag world, and it isn’t always about the glam. "I got to be in fake blood detail one night," says Garofolo, "I had to make like six litres of fake blood and put them in Ziploc bags that would be put in the dress, so that when she cut out her aching heart, it sprayed blood all over the place. That had to be spot on. I made some good blood that night." Though slowly being accepted by the larger community, it is still not yet fully understood. "As soon as drag leaves the gay community, it becomes almost an enigma," says manager and talent agent Peter Breeze, "I think a lot of people are interested in it, it is very mysterious, people don't really understand it... It raises a lot of questions that might not happen if drag wasn't present." Drag performances are peeking through the LGBTQ community into the Vancouver mainstream and evolving at the same time. "The idea of a drag show has changed," says Breeze, "When I first moved to Vancouver, the only time you saw a drag queen was on Sunday night at a bar, but eventually, they started performing at parties at midnight so when the party was really happening, everybody would stop and watch the performance. Especially at circuit parties, you saw a huge increase in drag presence." It is no

longer simply about "getting a show at the club down the street, it's about touring, it's about getting on TV, it's about being in magazines, it's about being in runway shows” to be a young and ambitious drag performer. Breeze says that it is about reaching out to more people who enjoy these kinds of performances. Just as Vancouver has been changed because of this performance art, the new artists have been changed by this very step of acceptance as well. "They are coming from a place that is a lot more open," says Breeze, "They have so much more to draw on. There is a lot of variations now which is really cool." Both Vancouver and the drag community are now better able to draw experiences from one another, which promotes a greater diversity of culture and ideals which will lead to further artistic innovations. "A drag queen can get you thinking, if you need to get thinking," says Garofolo, "People who aren't necessarily aware of these kinds of differences, or who haven't thought about it, can see a drag queen and maybe start to accept that not everybody is going to see a man as wearing pants and a woman in a dress." "Drag is meant for entertainment. It is not cross dressing, it is not being transgender," says Breeze, "Drag is about putting on a show, creating a spectacle, and celebrating gender, whatever you interpret that as."

and witness a solar eclipse, that would be my number one bucket list item.” Though the sun may be the biggest star in the sky, the billions of stars that light up the night sky make quite an impression as well. Serving as one of the oldest tools for finding direction, the stars have been the guidance to many journeys and people have created art by simply connecting the dots. “It’s so exciting, being able to understand how the constellations move and the big dipper pointing to the North Star Polaris, the North Star pointing you north,” says Kief, “If you connect the two stars in the cup of the Big Dipper and you connect the line up, the next bright star that you’re going to reach is the North Star and the North Star will always point you north.” While the Big Dipper is most commonly visible in the night sky, it is not the only constellation that points north. “Cassiopeia is an ‘E’ and Cassiopeia also points to the North Star,” says Kief, “Depending on what time of night you look, it’s either an ‘M’, a ‘3’, an ‘E’ or a ‘W’. The middle point always points towards the North Star because it’s rotating around it.” Some stars have simply created pictures in the sky, just by their placement alone. “If you were to imagine that the Big Dipper is a sauce pot and you put a hole in the sauce pot, you’ll drip water onto the head of the lion, Leo the Lion,” he says, “Pegasus has Perseus riding on

it, which is kind of cool.” Kief suggests using Google Sky Maps to locate these twinkling images in the sky. “I use it, I love it,” he explains, “It gives you enough of a ball park to say what’s in this general direction. It may not be directly on it, but it’s close enough where you can be like ‘Oh! I see how this lines up.’” The “twinkling” part is important — some of the brightest lights in the night sky are not actually stars, but planets. “If you’re looking up at an object and it’s not twinkling and it’s very bright, most likely you’re looking at either Venus, Jupiter, Mars or Saturn,” explains Kief, “Stars twinkle, planets don’t.” Be it from the darkness or the light, the depth of the sky is arguably nature’s greatest canvas. “It’s beautiful and natural,” says Kief, “It’s a daily thing.”

above and beyond THE STARS, THE SUN AND THE MOON Alva Tee × Arts + Culture Editor

Stars are one of many natural phenomena to be seen in our skies, and this week’s Special Feature dives deeper into what can be found overhead. Our interview with Derek Kief continues on page 12 with more about meteor showers and the Northern Lights.

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

Some of the most beautiful art is created by nature, and even in its simplest form it can be incredibly fascinating. The warm glow of the sun, the radiant beams of the moon and the glistening specks of the stars create a vibrant presence in our sky. But when the art of nature bends and twists into different forms, it can be absolutely mesmerizing. Light refracted off of water particles in the air, separating it into individual wavelengths, creates one of the prettiest and most common natural occurrences we know to exist – rainbows. However, the existence of moonbows is knowledge that is a little more rare. “The only time you can see a moonbow usually is when it’s a full moon, because you need that full light,” says Derek Kief, astronomer at the HR MacMillan Space Centre, “You’re splitting up the light of the moon into the separate bands and then it just decreases the intensity of it, so you can’t really see if it’s not a very bright source.” Similar to the moonbow, the moon halo highlights the moon as well. “There is a halo that you can see around the moon sometimes, it’s called a false moon bow,” says Kief, “If it’s really cold outside and the moon is full, then the ice crystals are actually refracting the light

and you get a couple of the coloured rings sometimes.” Where the moonbow stretches across the sky, the moon halo, also known as “the moon ring” or “the winter halo” is only around the moon. A ring of colour around the sun may also appear as well, and this is just called a halo. “When you have ice crystals, that’s when you get that kind of ring around the sun,” he says, “It has to do with the fact that ice crystals are hexagonal, how it bends causes the bows.” Different colours can surround the moon, but the moon itself can change colour as well. “During the lunar eclipse, the moon looks red,” Kief says, “When the earth goes in front, the shadow of the earth falls on the moon, and the light refracts around the earth. The light that goes around the earth and that comes out the other side is red light. That red light is reflected off of the moon, and the entire sky becomes this orangey red colour.” Because the moon is so much smaller than the earth, partial lunar eclipses happen frequently. A solar eclipse is the opposite, taking place when the shadow of the moon falls on the earth. Kief says that if there were something he’d like to do once in his lifetime, it would be to track a total solar eclipse. “There’s total solar eclipses once a year, somewhere in this world,” he says, “We know where they’re going to be and weather permitting, they will happen. Go to a place that has a solar eclipse

art shorts

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THE OPERATORS EP1 written by Therese Guieb feel, with the perfect amount of synth. “Ancient” veers significantly in another direction, with a stranger collection of electronic synth sound effects mixed into the melody, which only take away from the song. “Cruel”, however, is a star track of the EP, as the song starts up with nothing but an epic drum beat and a bass riff that accompanies Boecker’s vocals. Later on, a simple rhythm guitar solo comes in and gives yet another flavour to the song. The band reportedly took months to write and rehearse the songs for EP1. Overall, they successfully infused indie rock and synth-pop and chose the right songs to be an overview for their first album. For someone who doesn’t listen to the analog electronica genre, they will definitely be hooked on The Operators.

The Operators will be in Vancouver for two shows at the Fox Cabaret on Jan 30 and 31, presented by Blueprint Live.

DAN MANGAN & BLACKSMITH CLUB MEDS written by Faye Alexander Opening with “Offred,” with the pianos slowly climbing in and out of existence and distorted synthetic sounds playing gracefully throughout the track, Dan Mangan’s voice arrives just as you begin to wonder if you’ve popped in the wrong album. Mangan, now with a new band Blacksmith behind him, has delved into a deeper sense of sound showcasing a darker side of the acclaimed singer/songwriter. Recorded in the East Vancouver recording studio, National Park and Warehouse Studios, the album is laced with moody downers and reflective lyrics. Club Meds is a new page for Mangan, who has departed from his signature folk-indie feel and evolved, branching out into more experimental territory. Dave Grohl makes an appearance on “Vessel,” a powerful sonnet echoing the haunting phrase, “It takes a village to raise a fool.” Mangan cites much of the inspiration for his latest record on issues swamping headlines such as Occupy Wall Street and the Trayvon Martin

shooting, a key ingredient to the grave maturity prevalent throughout the record. However, Club Meds is also Mangan’s first full record made up strongly of creative collaborations with Blacksmith at his heels, guitarist Gord Grdina being the latest addition to the lineup. Arrangements of songs like title track “Club Meds” offer the subtleties of jazz inflection. The only thing missing for Mangan fans is the lighthearted sing-along vibes of his breakthrough song “Robots” — nothing remotely similar has a place on Club Meds — instead, the album evokes some serious visions of Radiohead (if you need to draw a comparison). Mangan’s strongest suit is still his ability as a songwriter, and his unique brand of poetry continues to be the shining light from beginning to end of this well-crafted album. Club Meds is set for release on Jan. 13. Mangan and Blacksmith are scheduled to appear at Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre, on March 13 and 14, joined by Hayden and Astral Swans.

JOSHUA RADIN

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

ONWARDS & SIDEWAYS

written by Carlo Javier In his sixth full-length album, folk singer and songwriter, Joshua Radin, continues on the same method he’s used over his prolific discography for much of the past decade – labours of love. Onwards and Sideways is very much a passionate love letter divided into 13 chapters. The album’s opener, “We’ll Keep Running Forever,” sets the overarching mood and atmosphere for the rest of the album. It capitalizes on a mellow environment and Radin’s seemingly effortless delivery of emotion. His whispery voice that’s accentuated by the acoustic background fits perfectly well with his romantic style. Maybe that’s why Radin has been such a mainstay in soundtracks of movies, TV shows and commercials. The Sheryl Crow-assisted

“Beautiful Day” offers a potential major radio hit, to the point that bubbly folk songs by Jason Mraz might have a possible competitor. In “Belong,” Radin ventures into Americana territory, and in “Blow Away,” he delivers a heartfelt message of dedication and zeal. Onwards and Sideways is another entry to Radin’s extensive collection of love songs. His mellow and easy to listen to sound turns the romantic crooner into a borderline infectious artist. Although the overtly lovely content may not be for everyone, Onwards and Sideways will surely be a treat to couples and everyone ready to celebrate the arrival of Valentine’s Day next month. It’s all boosted by Radin’s upcoming performance at The Rio on Feb. 28.

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Analog electronica is taken to a whole new level on The Operators EP1. The Operators is a trio that was formed by Canadian rocker Dan Boecker, along with Sam Brown and Dovjka. Both Boecker and Brown come from indie folk bands which has likely contributed to the sound of the songs on EP1. EP1 was created to be a five-song preview of the band’s first album. A 15-track full-length release set to come out late this year. The first track of EP1, “True”, is full of synth-like beats that wouldn’t be out of place in a commercial for a trendy fashion label. It has the perfect balance of light synth textures with a couple of catchy bass notes that will make not only the lyrics of the song, but also the melody, stick with you for days. The vibe that EP1 maintains, up to the fourth track, “Ancient,” is a more of a feel-good indie rock

Calendar

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HERE'S WHAT TO DO FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS ... Jan 12

Jan 14

Jan 16

Jan 18

Jan 2O

Jan 24

Vancity Theatre 10 am $15

MOVIE MONDAY Mo 12

My bed All day long $ - Netflix

Mo 12

GASTOWN CABARET Guilt & Co. 8 pm $10

8Os NIGHT Tu 13

Biltmore Cabaret 9 pm $ - dranks and spandex

Tu 13

I have never gone to a movie at 10 am. Never once have I woken up and thought, “Man, I have a craving for buttered popcorn, uncomfortable seats, and an unknown plot line.” However, if you have, then see this Shakespeare classic at 10 am, on a Monday morning, before you even have class. I mean, try everything once, right?

Mondays have easily become my favourite day of the week, all in thanks to Movie Mondays. Instead of dreading the start of the week, I look forward to watching a movie in my bed, cuddling my furballs of cats and neglecting all my work and studies. This week, in honour of that neglect, we are going to watching Ferris Buller’s Day Off, as he was the master procrastinator.

Gastown seems like the ideal place for a cabaret in Vancouver. I bet they had some good ones in the early 20th century, the glory days of cabaret. Guilt & Co., underneath the Chill Winston, is hosting a cabaret featuring a mix of comedy, dances, sketches and stunts. Admission is by donation, but $10 is suggested and all proceeds go to the artists. Life truly is a cabaret, my friends.

Did you know that in my high school grad class, I was voted “Most likely to star in an 80s tribute band” by my peers? Of all people at Grand Forks Secondary School in 2003, I was most likely to over spray my hair, wear purple leggings and belt out “Total Eclipse of the Heart” like it still mattered or something. Glad to have disappointed my classmates by neglecting my urge. Also, go to this – if you like the 80s.

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA

BRYAN ADAMS

STEEL PANTHER

BULLET CATCH

FX Channel 8 pm $ - cable

We 14

Rogers Arena 8 pm $19.69 to $95

We 14

Commodore Ballroom 9 pm $29.50

Revue Stage (Granville Island) 7:30 pm $25

Th 15

OMG! Have I ever fully explained how much this show means to me? It’s the show I most reference, the show I watch with religious diligence, and the show that I wish I could do a walk on cameo too. The reason is no matter what shitty thing you did that day, like kick a pigeon or eat expired milk, these guys did something worse so you can always sleep easy knowing that there are worse people in the world. It’s a good feeling.

This is something that has always bugged me about Bryan Adams – was he actually alive in the summer of ’69 to write a hit song about it? He probably was only five, and I doubt he was that bright-eyed of a child to notice all of those details from the people around him to write a song about it. The Internet told me he was 10, meaning he was probably playing with Lego and still thought that girls were cootie machines.

The LA glam band Steel Panther are taking over the Commodore for one night that will be sure to leave the taste of hair spray deep in the back of your mouth. These guys aren’t authentic glam metal rockers – they are mockers, just portraying the personas of the stereotypical metal heads from the 80s. I’m not sure if this makes them better or worse than the real things.

It’s the start of the annual PuSh Festival, featuring pretty cool things if you like plays and that. This play sounds pretty cool because it is exactly like the title suggests: someone catches a bullet. They do this stunt on stage in front of a live audience. Apparently, bullet catching has been a thing since 1613, proving that humans are into weird shit. I just like watching other people do weird shit. This show always features levitation and other cool things.

DON MCGLASHAN

TIG NOTARO

CHRIS HARDWICK

ERIK GRIFFIN

Presentation House Theatre 8 pm $25 to $28

Fr 16

Rio Theatre 8 pm $25

Fr 16

Chan Centre for Performing Arts 8 pm $40

Sa 17

Electric Owl 8:30 pm $25

Sa 17

Don McGlashan is playing North Vancouver’s Presentation House Theatre as part of the Cap Global roots series. Google tells me that this guy is from New Zealand, and is a singer, composer and multi-instrument player. I bet he decided to learn one instrument to impress a girl in his teenage years, and then thought “Screw it” and kept on learning more. Take your mom to this. I bet moms will like this.

As a comedy lover, I’m pretty upset that two comedians that I would love to see are coming to town this week – the ONE weekend all semester where I’m not here. Notaro is known for getting cancer, a very un-funny disease, and making fun of it in her routine. Louis CK said it was one of the best routines he has ever seen, and Louie knows his shit. So go see it for me. Better yet, bring a camcorder and bootleg a copy for me. Illegal activities can be educational too.

Seriously, do yourself a favour and go to this. I don’t care if you have the ultimate and most intriguing plans for a Saturday night. Cancel them and go see Chris Hardwick because he is a very funny lil guy. I watch @Midnight, his Comedy Central game show religiously, and his podcasts have been my only hope during dark and horrible tree planting days. He is my personal Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he would appreciate that joke. And let’s face it, your Saturday plan was cat cuddling. I know you so well.

Another comedian that I would love to see this week – what’s with this?? And I know I should support diversity of the arts in the Calendar, and showcase other events, like sports or concerts. But comedy is awesome, and there are some good comedians in town, so I’m doing this and y’all just going to have to deal. Erik Griffin is star of Workaholics and is on tour with Fahim Anwar and Dino Archie. It’s time for some comedy culture!!

KITTY NIGHTS BURLESQUE

EAST VAN COMEDY

STUDY ABROAD INFO MEETING

MOVIE MONDAY

Biltmore Cabaret 9 pm $10 - $18

Su 18

Havana Theatre 7:30 pm $5 - $10

Su 18

Library 127 5:30 pm $ - simple curiosity

Mo 19

My bed All fucking day $ - hangover cures

Mo 19

Kitty Nights burlesque takes over the Biltmore every Sunday evening. However, this is an extra special Sunday evening, as it is the seventh anniversary of Kitty Nights, and they plan to celebrate it with all the right tassels. The performances will be enhanced by a Van Halen cover band (80s comeback week). Take Carlo, but cover his virgin eyes when it gets too risqué.

Vancouver has a pretty good homegrown comedy scene. And one of the staples of that scene is Instant Theatre, who put on weekly improv shows at Havana Theatre on Commercial Drive. I’ve been to a few of these shows and there is usually something to laugh at, although once I accidentally laughed at the door guy when he sat down next to me and it sounded like he farted, but it was just the seat movement.

Did you know that the University really doesn’t want you to study here? Like really doesn’t. It would rather package you up into a cute little Canadian package, douse you in maple syrup, and send you to a foreign country to study. If you want to find out more about opportunities to study abroad, hit up this info session, where they will tell you everything you would need to know. If you have to study, why not do it in Barcelona?

This is my least favourite week of the entire year, as I will just have returned from the annual conference that kills my soul. After five days of binge drinking and making out in hotel hallways, I will drag my old ass home, and curl up and cry for a week. So I’m going to watch a movie that makes me happy. You know what movie makes me happy? Spielberg’s Lincoln. I cry at the part where they vote to amend the constitution every time.

MAIN & HASTINGS BOOK CLUB

BITE OF THE ROCK

DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979

NERD NITE

Carnegie Community Centre 10:30 am to 12 pm $ - learning stuff

Tu 20

White Rock Beach Jan. 20 – Feb. 13 $15 to $45

Tu 20

Vogue Theatre 8:30 pm $39.50

We 21

Café Deux Soleils 8 pm $5

We 21

Tired of movies and feel like another episode of reality TV will melt your brain? It’s time to pick up a book, one for joyous reading pleasure, not to learn about the Canadian political system or what Hume thought of God. This book club is community-based, where people share what books have inspired there. Walk out with a whole new list of cool things to read. C’mon people, reading is sexy.

This is for all my homies that live in White Rock, or have family in White Rock, or just think that the Tinder life is better in White Rock. This is White Rock’s own Dine Out Festival, featuring three course meals and a variety of restaurants around White Rock (all five of them!) This is the perfect opportunity to take your aunt for dinner, as she’s been begging you to visit since last year’s Bite of the Rock Festival.

From Faye: “Oh gosh. When I was 18, these guys were the coolest thing you could be listening to, which is the only reason I’m willing to spend $40 on a ticket to see them now.” However, Faye is going to the one at the Commodore on the Thursday night, because you can drink, and it’s not all ages. If it was the all ages show, she would accidentally hit on a 17-year-old. We can’t have that.

Nerds are getting their revenge and have become sexy. Books are cool and knowing something about molecular biology is way more likely to get you laid now than it was three decades ago. This event celebrates nerds with three experts speaking on different subjects, like water, musical instruments, and science education? I think that’s what they’re talking about anyways. I’m new to their lingo.

CSU RAIL JAM

DARK TRANQUILITY

ANDY STOTT & KOWTON

THE WOOD BROTHERS

Grassy Area at the Library All day $ - emotions

Th 22

Venue 7 pm $25

Th 22

Fox Cabaret 10 pm $20

Fr 23

The Imperial 7 pm $20

Fr 23

Snowboarders are hot. At least that’s what I’ve been trying to tell my mother since I was 13, and what I still tell her when she asks why I don’t yet have a boyfriend to bring home. I respond with “Snowboarders are too hot to bring home.” And thanks to the CSU, there will be a parade of snowboarders on campus, doing their thing, and making it look good. It will be the social event of the winter on campus, so you better make it look good too.

Dark tranquility spurs images of a sleepy morning, where rain is smacking down on the windows, encouraging everyone to grab a cat, pull the covers out, and never leave the tranquil world. However, this is a Swedish metal band, so I’m sure it’s the exact opposite. It will likely cause so much chaos that you’ll think that you will never sleep again. Delightful.

My roomie, Juicy, doesn’t listen to bands. She only listens to DJs – ones that grace festival stages and are so new and obscure that I have never heard of them. It must be the cool, new trend to like DJs instead of bands, but I haven’t picked up on it yet. If it is your thing, this might be your event, as it features two of “England’s hottest up-and-coming DJs”. To me, those words are meaningless.

This duo is aptly named, as it consists of two brothers – Chris and Oliver – and their last name is Wood. Really, they could not have thought of anything more proper. The Boulder, Colorado bred group is on tour, promoting their new album The Muse. Blues and soul music at the Imperial is bound to be a good night. The aptly named brothers also found the most fitting venue in Vancouver.

1999/THE HOLE IN THE COFFIN

HOODED FANG

MAD CADDIES & AGGROLITES

DT VANCOUVER BRUNCH CRAWL

Performance Works, Granville Island 8 pm $2

Sa 24

As part of the PuSh Festival, this play, as far as I can tell, contrasts a realistic future with one imagined and inspired by a TV series, Space 1999. And then it goes on to tell a comedic tale about New Orleans and a revenge gone awry. This could be two plays in one double-header night, or just one very creative and intricate play. I’m going to guess it’s the former, but for more info, check out Pushfestival.ca.

Biltmore Cabaret 8 pm $10

Sa 24

Hailing from Toronto, Hooded Fang is a “weirdo” Canadian rock band, with three albums to their name. Apparently they have regular rotation on CBC Radio, but let’s face it, what notable Canadian rock band doesn’t have constant rotation on CBC Radio – sorry, No Island. These guys are playing an early show at the Biltmore, so if you’re one of those that likes to have about three laughs and two beers before going to bed at a reasonable hour, this is your ideal Saturday night.

The Imperial 8 pm $25

Su 25

Ska is a thing, right? Like it’s a style of music that people like to listen to? And that is popular enough to have festivals in its honour? Apparently so, as the Victoria BC Ska Society (there is even a society!!!) presents a double bill of two renowned ska bands, Mad Caddies and The Aggrolites. There is also another ska/punk band joining them. I’d like to tell you with confidence and enthusiasm that this will be a show not to miss, but I really can’t do that, mostly because I don’t understand what ska music is. Whoops.

Kingston Taphouse, 755 Richards 10 am $40

Su 25

This sounds like a crawl that I can get down for. As part of Dine Out Vancouver, this event takes breakfast lovers to seven different downtown restaurants, featuring a variety of breakfast dishes. Seriously, you can try all the Eggs Benedict, hash browns, pulled pork, bacon, coffee, pancakes, and basically anything else that is normally eaten before noon. I bet, if you ask nicely, you can even get booze with it. So down. Into it. Get in my belly. I want it all.

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

Jan

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WHAT DO WE WANT?! WHEN DO WE WANT IT?! DECONSTRUCTING THE METHODOLOGY BEHIND BC'S PROTESTS LEAH SCHEITEL

OLLIEMOONSTA

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People have been challenging rules and authority since the dawn of organized governments and power. To speak out against the government has become fundamental to a healthy democracy. While protests have always been a part of our society, they are becoming more commonplace, with riots in Ferguson, Missouri, peaceful sit-ins in Hong Kong and rallies against defamed comedian, Bill Cosby all making headlines in the past six months alone. Along with these international movements, British Columbians are becoming more active, taking a stand against issues that are important on both a local and global scale. There has been an uprising in protests in Vancouver, including a month-long camp out at Oppenheimer Park and protesters standing against oil giants, Kinder Morgan on Burnaby Mountain. As some predict, with the increasing concern of environmental danger, these protests are only going to become more frequent and potentially more violent.

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VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

PREPARED PROTESTERS

‘Protest’ is a large word and encompasses many different actions, according to Zoe Blunt, who is somewhat of a professional protester. She has been active in different issues dating back to the 1980s and lent her voice to a wide range of movements. “There are 100 different kinds of protests – is it a candle light vigil, is it a blockade, are people setting fire to the barricades in the streets, are they marching, are they sitting in – so there are hundreds of different kinds.” On opposing ends of the spectrum is a simple signature on a petition versus civil disobedience or direct action, where people knowingly obstruct the work of the party they are opposing. “To participate in civil disobedience is to break a law in a non-violent way, usually with the goal of drawing attention to something you consider unjust,” explains Scott Knowles, the environmental justice coordinator for the Capilano Students’ Union, “The fact that the action is non-violent makes it a peaceful form of activism, which can include occupying private property, interrupting private events, sitting in the front section of a bus, or as we have recently seen on Burnaby Mountain, crossing a court ordered injunction line — a line that turned out to be faulty and led to a drop of most charges against those who crossed it.” Blunt, who followed the action on Burnaby Mountain closely, describes it as “symbolic civil disobedience, where people were expressing

there resistance by just offering themselves up to be arrested. They weren’t actually stopping the drills from working. I think in some cases, they did slow down or delay the workers from going in, but it was a very slight show of resistance. It still counts for something,” Blunt continues, “It makes headlines, it makes people pay attention. So there is this progression, you know, people are willing to risk their freedom or give up their freedom for a short time to express how strongly they want to stop this.” Currently, Blunt works with an activism group called Forest Action Network. They are a grassroots foundation with a focus on funding and organizing a variety of movements. “People are giving up time at work, or giving up time with their families to go out on the front lines and to organize these big rallies and so on, so the funding is absolutely necessary because they can’t do all that and be out of pocket for all the costs as well,” she explains, “Forest Action Network has raised about $71,000 in the last few years for various indigenous grassroots movements for change.” Forest Action Network doesn’t receive any kind of government funding or grants – most of the people at the core of the group are unpaid people who have a passion for these issues. “We don’t have an office, we don’t have a paid staff, so we’re not a big corporate green group, like Greenpeace, which aren’t always on side with civil disobedience and direct action. They usually are not. So a lot of times we are fighting the inertia of the big greens at the same time that we are fighting the inertia or the active push back of the Harper government. So it really is these small, scrappy groups that, a lot of times, are just forming for the moment.”

POLITICAL PROTEST POSTURE When it comes to the political and sociological landscape of an area, protests can have quite a significant impact. Many protests stem from anger towards a seemingly apathetic governing party, but it may be to the peril of the government to not pay attention to protesters and the issues that they raise. “The first thing I would say is that protests like Kinder Morgan and like Oppenheimer may well be protests that seek to capture the attention of government, but I think sometimes they do so indirectly,” explains Tim Schouls, a political science professor at Capilano University, “If groups like those that organized at Oppenheimer, or groups that organized in respect to Kinder Morgan, if

they can draw the attention of the media to their issue and to what they determine to be not only their issue but our issue, I think what they seek to do is try to educate the citizenry about glaring or untreated areas of policy within the larger political environment.” Schouls believes that protests are platforms used to influence the general opinion on an issue, and the more attention it can get, the greater chance that it will affect the political conditions. “I think what happens is that governments recognize that citizens may share the concerns of those who are at the forefront of the protest movement and recognize that they may need to address those issues in different ways in order to appease or to appear to be responsive to the larger electorate,” says Schouls.”

Laurel Whitney, who is a sociology professor at CapU, argues that governments need to pay attention to protests because it reflects the public's voice, and in a way, is their expression of their democratic votes. “Different kinds of protests, or demonstrations or events seem to be really, really important nowadays politically in democracies like Canada or the US, and I think that’s partly because the traditional democratic structure doesn't work very well anymore,” Whitney explains, “We know that elections have poor turn outs and we know that specific groups, like young people, tend to especially not participate in electoral politics. If we see that a large number of young people are participating in a protest, such as Burnaby Mountain, that’s significant because their views were not captured in the election of

“DIFFERENT KINDS OF PROTESTS, OR DEMONSTRATIONS OR EVENTS SEEM TO BE REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT NOWADAYS POLITICALLY IN DEMOCRACIES LIKE CANADA OR THE US, AND I THINK THAT’S PARTLY BECAUSE THE TRADITIONAL DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURE DOESN’T WORK VERY WELL ANYMORE.” Burnaby Mountain – the municipal and provincial governments responded in very opposite ways. “Over the course of the municipal election campaign, Gregor Robertson was at pains to say over and over again that they were attempting to do everything that they could to secure adequate housing for those who are homeless and that this was a file that was ongoing and not complete, but nevertheless some work has been done, some significant work has been done, and ongoing work will occur to address this problem,” he says, “Sometimes governments will remain quiet, as the liberal government did with respect to Kinder Morgan. Christy Clark said on numerous occasions, first that she wasn’t going to get involved and secondarily that the courts have ruled and there was an injunction in place, and therefore the protesters have to step back. The law prevails in this case.” However, because of the growing concern about environmental issues in BC, if the government continues to press for economic growth through pipelines and resource extraction, the protests will likely only continue to grow in frequency and direct action. “Direct action, civil disobedience, letter writing and marches all play their part in transforming our political system in a way that enables it to address the climate crisis we are faced with,” explains Knowles, “But we also need to spend time building solutions to this crisis, and by solutions I don’t mean techno-fixes that will allow us to continue living the way we currently are. By solutions I mean finding ways to truly reconcile with the indigenous peoples of this land we call Canada.”

the government. We’re now aware that democracy doesn’t work in the way it was designed, that we are getting lower and lower voter turnouts at every level — municipal, provincial, federal — so now we tend to give more credibility to protests because we feel that many of the people that are participating may be people who have soured on electoral democracy, so their participation in protests is their vote. “If I was Mr. Harper right now, I would be concerned about the Burnaby Mountain protest because even though his government is a majority government and they clearly won the election, they may have a problem with this region,” Whitney continues “There may be a lot of people in BC who potentially will be opponents of that government and that party because of local issues.”

While the governments may seem to be inactive or sluggish to respond to protests or address the issues raised, it is usually because they are unable to address the immediate concerns of the protesting parties. “I think what happens sometimes is that governments are, in many ways, blunt instruments with a limited capacity to respond quickly to the issues that concern protesters,” says Schouls, “In the case of Kinder Morgan, my sense is that the provincial government felt that there was a process underway, namely the environmental review process that had been authorized through the National Energy Board, and they felt that that process needs to run its course.” Schouls explains that in the last two major protests in Vancouver – Oppenheimer Park and

Throughout the variety of movements and issues in BC, they can all be traced back to one major problem – the neglect of the environment for economic growth. This closely relates to many of the issues raised by First Nations groups across the nation. Often, protests stem from an occupation of land or territory that they deem to be exploited for benefits that they don’t get to enjoy. While this is an issue across Canada, it is a particularly hot topic in BC for one very major reason – the BC provincial government hasn’t signed many treaties with the First Nations peoples to determine who has certain rights in particular areas. “There were a few treaties signed on Vancouver Island, near Victoria, but for the most part, no treaties were signed so this is unceded land,” says

For more information on the environmental or other movements, and how to get more involved at CapU, contact Scott Knowles at the CSU environment@csu.bc.ca.

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THE UNDERLYING ISSUES

Whitney, “It’s going to involve the courts, but it’s not so cut and dry. And we are also positioned on the Pacific Rim, so geopolitically, we are important. Anything that is going to China is probably going to go through BC. I think we can expect that it’s going to occupy a large part of our news and what we are concerned about.” “In the case of many other First Nations, there are overlapping claims by other First Nations and of course, there is a lot of non-Aboriginal or colonial settlement and so those cases are much more difficult to sort out – clear title to land. But I think that First Nations will continue to use the argument that if they see economic development initiative as ones that do not, first of all, engage them, and secondly provide direct benefits to them, they will continue to use the legal leverage they have by means of unsettled land claims to tie up the process,” explains Schouls, “It’s a very, very strong card that they have to play and until they have a settled treaty that determines very clearly who has access to what resources, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal interests, Aboriginal peoples can claim right to areas that they regard at their traditional territories.” With this is the fact that many people feel that the environmental and Aboriginal concerns fall on deaf ears with their government representatives. “So much is being laid to waste by Harper and his government, so I think people have realized that petitioning and rallying at the legislature and writing letters to their MLAs and MPs is not enough. The situation is getting really very urgent,” attests Blunt, “This is not the old kind of democracy where they test the will of the people and they would sort of take the pulse of the population to find out what was acceptable, what was popular, what was needed. I think people realize that if they want to make change, we have to make change, because this planet is being killed by these policies.” Knowles agrees with Blunt, saying that more action has to, and will occur to protect the environment. “Signing petitions and letter writing are easy first steps, but we need to go further than this. Marching in the streets, dropping banners, taking part in civil disobedience and direct action are even more important parts in building a strong movement that will be able to help address the climate crisis we are faced with,” explains Knowles, “We are currently faced with a crisis that threatens our very existence and a system that inherently perpetuates this crisis. We need systemic change, it needs to be demanded by and built by the people.”

Zoe Blunt can also be reached via the Forest Action website at Fankenya.org.

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THE VAULT IN OUR SKIES UNLOCKING THE BEAUTY OF NATURAL PHENOMENA ALVA TEE

KSENIA KOZHEVNIKOVA

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“There’s lots of information hidden up in the sky,” says Derek Kief, a full time astronomer at the HR MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, “You have to know where to look and you have to know how to look.” Cotton candy skies, seas of shining stars, the swirls of colour and bright flashes in the sky can leave a spectator gazing in awe. Some sights are so naturally breathtaking, they’re difficult to fully describe. Natural phenomena create an experience only to be truly appreciated in person. It is nature in its rawest form of beauty.

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METEOR SHOWERS

One of the biggest and most common natural phenomena in BC is the meteor shower. “I’ve seen meteor showers all the time, almost every month there is a meteor shower,” says Kief, “Probably every third month or so, there’s a major meteor shower upwards of something like 90 meteors an hour to 500 meteors an hour. It’s really, really crazy. “A meteor shower, or ‘shooting stars’, is basically when we go through the tail of a comet,” explains Kief, “A comet is a big hunk of rock with ice on it. That rock and the ice heats up as it gets close to the sun, and it starts to sublimate. The solid ice water turns into gas, water vapor basically, and that process is fairly explosive and the surface kind of slops off. It creates the comet tail, so when you think of a comet, traditionally you think of that nice little tail that comes after it, and that’s what we have.” That tail is dust and ice that’s been left behind, trailing the comet. “When the earth goes through a comet’s tail, we’re going through tiny pieces of dust and basically rock and ice,” he continues, “Because the earth is moving so fast, and because the comet’s tail is moving so fast, particles about the size of grains of sand burn up in our atmosphere. And that burning up you see is a streak, so it’s the deceleration of these particles that create these bright flashes.” Kief says that generally, any big open space that is away from the lights will allow the meteor showers to be visible. “The further you get away from the city, the more you can see,” he says. Asides from city light pollution, Kief says that the light from a full moon is basically the same thing when it comes to meteor showers. “If the moon is a new moon in the peak of a meteor shower, then we’re going to see a lot more. But if it’s a full moon in the peak of a meteor shower, generally, it’s a lot harder to see.” He suggests the McDonald Dark Sky Park in Abbotsford as the best viewing spot close by.

NORTHERN LIGHTS Throughout 2014, there was more than one opportunity of seeing Aurora Borealis, more commonly known as the Northern Lights. Due to cloudy nights and light pollution, most were unable to witness the dancing lights. “The best place in the world is Yellowknife,” says Yuichi Takasaka, professional photographer of the Northern Lights at Blue Moon Promotions, “It’s definitely worth it and definitely the place to go. You got to stay four nights to see good ones, and this time

is the first three weeks of September or from mid-December to mid-April.” Takasaka was born in Japan but has been chasing the Northern Lights in Canada since 1993. Starting in the tourism business, companies were missing quality photos of the Northern Lights. “Nobody had it back then, you know, it was old time film era and I was into photography so I had to do a lot of trial and error to get the Northern Lights,” he says. Travelling all over the world to sell his photos, he pursued photography and tour consulting with Canadian businesses. National Geographic and NASA are consistent users of Takasaka’s photos. Having been to locations all over the world such as Norway, Australia, Alaska and Scotland, Takasaka has deemed that Yellowknife is the best place to view the Northern Lights for a multitude of reasons. During the prime time, he says the weather is always clear and very dark so one is guaranteed to see the lights three out of the four nights being there because Yellowknife is the focus of the “aurora oval.” “It’s like a donut shaped oval,” Takasaka says, “It’s always there, usually. Yellowknife is directly under that oval. Then it all corresponds to solar winds, speed, density and the magnetic field. Usually, local midnight is the most dark times. But sometimes, even 3 pm in the afternoon, when everything goes well, you can see it then too. “Northern Lights are more intense in the eastern part,” he continues. The Northern Lights start from the east side, and will go well past that when it’s really strong, sending the oval to go well past Yellowknife down south, because more energy means that the oval becomes bigger. Yakasaka says: “Sometimes

when you go out, you can see the Northern Lights in the south side, which is a very, very intense time. Then when that oval becomes smaller, when energy is getting weaker, it comes back to Yellowknife and then at that time, something called the aurora breakup usually happens. The breakup looks like it’s just going all over the place, you’re surrounded by Northern Lights.” “The sun is kind of the origin of this whole Northern Lights,” says Kief, “The sun has a bunch of particles. Protons, electrons and some other particles that make up this kind of cosmic wave that comes from the sun to the earth and they get bent around the earth magnetic field. The earth has a magnetosphere, a little protector shell, which basically redirects the radiation coming to the earth.” The magnetosphere starts from the North and South Pole, and that is where it connects. “The radiation is pushed up towards the North Pole or down towards the South Pole, depending on where it’s coming from,” continues Kief, “And it acclimates, and the radiation when it’s in the higher density can make it further down onto the earth and those higher magnetic particles interact with the gases in our atmosphere.” Gases include nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. “That interaction causes a glow, and the gases start to glow and those radioactive particles charge them. They excite them, and you get those beautiful reds and greens and blue streaks across the night sky,” he says. “Definitely red is the most rarest [sic] colour,” says Yakasaka. He says that it is so rare that most of the time, the red can only be captured with photos with an infrared sensor because it is not visible light. “I’ve seen over a

thousand nights, I’ve only seen, with my eyes, only four times. That’s how rare it is.” The most common colour is a white-ish green, followed by pinks and purples. “It’s all the molecules of our air,” Yakasaka says, “Way high above, mostly there are nitrogen and oxygen. Oxygen makes the green and very, very rarely red and then the nitrogen produces usually pink or purple.” Capturing this beautiful illumination of the sky requires the right equipment, and Yakasaka helps to ensure that those on the photography tours will have a perfect picture memory to keep.

EMOTIONAL BOREALIS Though Yakasaka has not cried from seeing the Northern Lights, those on tour with him have shed tears of joy in experiencing this great natural phenomenon. “I’ve seen them so many times, but I may cry because I may be so happy that people see,” he admits. While the occurrence of meteor showers and the Northern Lights may not be daily, there are other natural phenomena that should not be forgotten about simply because they are visible daily. Sunrises, sunsets, constellations in the night sky and the different phases of the moon are all just as remarkable. “With things in space, a lot of times you have to be patient,” says Kief, “ A lot of the times, you’ve got to be lucky. You’ve got to be lucky to see what you’re going to see. The earth is five billion years old, that’s a time scale we can’t even fathom.”

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GABRIEL SCORGIE OPINIONS EDITOR

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Je suis Charlie THE WORLD REACTS TO PARIS SHOOTING Gabriel Scorgie × Opinions Editor On the morning of Jan. 7, three men knew that if their plan went off successfully, at least five people would be dead by lunchtime. They dressed in all black, armed themselves with Kalashnikov assault rifles, got in their black Citroen SUV and drove down the streets of Paris. Meanwhile, for Stéphane Charbonnier, editor of the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, it was just another Wednesday. At 10:00am (GMT), the official Twitter account of Charlie Hebdo tweeted a drawing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with the caption, "Best wishes. To you too, Al-Baghdadi." and then the staff gathered for their weekly editorial meeting. Half an hour later, these two worlds collided. It was during Charlie Hebdo’s weekly story meeting when two of the armed men arrived at the magazine’s headquarters on Avenue Champlain, forced a woman who was with her young daughter to unlock the office doors and walked into the office building, opening fire on the staff. The gunman called out the names of their targets. Cartoonists Jean Cabu, Georges Wolinski and Berdnard Verlhac,

along with Charbonnier were named before they were shot in the head. Another seven people in the room were killed because gunmen still had bullets left in the clip. Minutes later they made their way out of the office and back onto the street yelling, “Hey! We avenged the prophet Muhammad! We killed Charlie Hebdo.” The two men engaged the police in a shootout as they headed towards their getaway car. A video captured by a bystander shows one of the assailants wounding a police officer and the other gunman running up to the officer and mercilessly shooting him in the head without even breaking stride. The masked men got in their car and drove away. The motivation behind the attack was because of the magazine’s willingness to mock the prophet Muhammad. It’s almost hard to believe that the most deadly terrorist attack in France since 1961 happened over a few drawings. It wasn’t an attack on a bus, or a bomb in train station with the goal of killing as many civilians as possible. It was a targeted attack on a group of journalists and artists and it was meant to send the message to people that “You don’t get free speech.” Fortunately, the rest of the world did the right thing and sent a message right back. “TERRORIST ALERT: At 16 o’clock, a

press conference is scheduled in the TITANIC editorial offices, with [commercial TV station] RTL, [public broadcaster] Hessischer Rundfunk, [German daily newspaper] Frankfurter Rundschau, and all other private and public media present. This is an opportunity for terrorists to not only execute satire editors, but also the entire lying German press. There will be sandwiches afterwards!” wrote German satire Magazine Titanic in response to the shooting. Other satirists posted their cartoons in response, many of which depicted the prophet Muhammad. Soon after the attack, journalists started tweeting with the hashtag #jesuischarlie, in solidarity with the victims and their families. This trend caught on and by the end of the night, #jesuischarlie had already been tweeted over a million times. Even the website of Charlie Hebdo, which had been down for a few hours after the attack, came back online and instead of their usual content, all that they displayed were the words ‘Je Suis Charlie’ and a PDF file that had the sentence translated into different languages. US comedians such as Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien, also commented on the attacks. “I know very few people go into comedy as an act of courage, mainly because it shouldn’t have to be that. But those guys at

Hebdo had it, and they were killed for their cartoons,” said Stewart during his opening monologue for The Daily Show. All over the world vigils were held as another way for citizens to pay their respects and show the terrorists that they aren’t afraid — including in Vancouver. Outside the Vancouver Art Gallery at 6 pm on the day of the attack, hundreds of people quietly gathered on the front steps carrying signs, candles and pens. The crowd was respectful, talking in hushed tones, sending the message that they will not be intimidated by violence. That was the message that everybody sent. Whether it was a cartoonist picking up a sketch pad, a journalist calling out the gunmen as cowards, or the hundreds of thousands of people who showed up to the vigils around the world, they made it loud and clear that they aren’t scared by violence. A pen and paper did more damage to the extremists than guns and bullets did to a nation. These extremists attacked with the intent of silencing the people who were depicting Muhammad, and as a result of their actions, Charlie Hebdo’s provocative caricatures have been republished and seen by more people than they’ve ever been, or would’ve been.

till hell freezes over BILL COSBY INSISTS ON PERFORMING THREE CANADIAN SHOWS Leah Scheitel

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No comedian of such high profile has ever had such a turbulent fall from grace as Bill Cosby. At least not one in recent memory, and one still so close to the hearts of the millions who watched him weekly on The Cosby Show. And yet, there is no comedian more vehemently determined to perform as if nothing is wrong than dear old Bill. But there is something wrong with doing a comedy routine of dad jokes if everyone in the audience is repulsed. They won’t see Bill Cosby, America’s sweetheart. They’ll see Bill Cosby, the creepy old man who has a litany of sexual assault claims against him, yet refuses to recognize the issues. Despite the demands for the venues to cancel his shows, Cosby performed in three Canadian cities from Jan. 7 till 9. The mayors of all three cities – Kitchener, London and Hamilton – had expressed concern about Cosby’s appearance, with Kitchener’s mayor, Berry Vrbanovic, openly stating he will be attending a rival event organized by the Sexual Assault Support Centre of the Waterloo Region. Other protests against Cosby are being organized in the other cities as well, underlining the public’s outrage toward him. In Kitchener, Cosby received a standing ovation inside the auditorium, with a packed street outside of the theatre, filled with protesters calling for his demise. With this much public outrage against Cosby, it’s a wonder that the organizers allowed the events to happen at all. The event organizers have shed some light on the situation saying that they could not cancel Cosby’s show as it would breached their contract, which predate the onslaught of accusations against Cosby. Centre in the Square, the venue hosting Cosby in Kitchener, explained their reasons for not cancelling the show in a Dec. 29 blog post.

× Lucy Webber

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

× Editor-in-Chief

"While we may personally share concerns raised by the community, if The Centre forces a cancellation of this rental show it isn’t simply a situation of giving back the rent," read the post, "For these reasons we will continue to discuss options with the promoter, sharing the community concerns with them." Essentially, if any of the venues cancelled without Cosby’s consent, they would breach their contract and incur huge financial penalties, including the refund of all tickets, show expenses and still pay Cosby his (presumably large) fee for performing. Outweigh this with the consequences of going on with his performance: some may still attend the show wanting to see what Cosby has to offer amidst his public turmoil. Cosby won’t

have grounds to sue for breach of contract, and their venues will get some national publicity. The sad part about it is that a large number of people still don’t hold the same influence as an accused sexual offender. If Cosby wants to perform, he’s going to perform, and everyone else is just going to have to deal with it. Murmurs of Cosby’s odious behaviour have been circling since November 2002, when Andrea Constand met with Cosby at his house and he gave her “herbal pills” to ease her tension before groping her. Since then, 21 women have publicly claimed that Cosby has assaulted them, dating back to the early 1970s. Yet, even through the shit storm of accusations — including some with high profile personalities, such as the Today show host Kathy Lee Gifford

and supermodels Janice Dickinson and Beverly Johnson – Cosby has retained public supporters. His wife of 50 years, Camille, released a statement in support of Cosby, and so has his daughter. With the exception of one on-stage comment, he refuses to publicly talk about the claims, opting to remain silent when directly asked about the accusations. It seems he’s clawing into whatever he can to prolong his long fall from grace. While Cosby is refusing to acknowledge the accusations or even admit that there are claims against him, it’s interesting to wonder if maybe he learned something from watching Jian Ghomeshi’s downfall just weeks before his. After Ghomeshi’s abrupt firing from CBC’s Q in October, he immediately aired his dirty laundry to thousands of fans using Facebook. He was first to react, illustrating his side of the story even before the accusers had names. But since that initial strike, which may have garnered support for Ghomeshi early on, Ghomeshi has been able to find little help in the public eye, losing contracts, book deals, credibility and friends. In the end, his public statement worked against him and he hasn’t said anything to the public since. Cosby is doing the exact opposite. His case is larger, with more people watching, more accusers coming out against him, and more damaging to his reputation as America’s greatest sitcom father. And he hasn’t said a peep. Silence, to Cosby, seems like the best policy. While Cosby may want to solider on, refusing to admit anything for fear of giving validity to the claims against him, public opinion of him will continue to plummet. And while the venues has no choice and could not cancel due to contractual obligations, the public has a choice. They can rally against him, refuse to listen to him and continue to give support to the numerous women who have come out against him. The more silent Cosby is, the louder the voice of his accusers becomes.

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if i was a rich man CANADA'S WEALTHY AREN'T SPENDING ENOUGH Simon Thistlewood × Writer One of the more exciting trends in Canada is that wealthy people are spending large amounts of money on overpriced commodities with little or no practical function. Having run out of things to buy, Canada's rich are now being forced to discover new methods to spend their mountains of cash. Fortunately, there are a near limitless number of avenues that Canada’s richest have available to them for when they feel the urge to spend a few hundred grand for shits and giggles. The current trend is to buy skin cream. Not just any skin cream however; people are hurrying in ever increasing numbers to buy skin creams made from diamonds. 111 Skin is an anti-aging cream made from black diamond particles formed in space and it sells for more than a thousand dollars per 50 ml tub. Perhaps this is what happens when rich people find themselves starring on shows that start with

The Real Housewives and think that spending more money equals looking better. Either that or these people really want skin that’s out of this world. Another trend is coming straight out of Canada. Black Ivory Coffee founded in Toronto, comes from a company in Northern Thailand, and is made of Arabica coffee beans that have been eaten by elephants and gathered from their big poops. According to the creator of Black Ivory, Blake Dinkin, the process of having an elephant shit out the coffee they serve customers is what gives Black Ivory its “distinctive taste,” which is safe to say, a pretty uncontroversial statement. How the first elephant poop coffee came to exist is surely as questionable as how the first farmer discovered cows could be milked. With an exotic palate and smooth earthy tones, Black Ivory coffee can sell for as much as $50 a cup, making it one of the most expensive brews in the world. Canada’s rich must continue to spend in new and extravagant ways to keep up with their global peers. American billionaires that’ve ran

out of ways to spend cash have already parked over a hundred trillion dollars in off shore savings accounts. Dubai is building islands shaped like frond leafs and indoor ski hills made with artificial snow just for something to do. A Malaysian businessman, who hopefully doesn’t get seasick, just bought a $4.5 billion yacht encrusted with platinum and gold. Canadians deserve a class of rich people on par with the global uber-wealthy that they can be proud of, and it’s going to take more than a bunch of people in Ottawa and Calgary buying the occasional $50 cup of coffee to get us in the conversation. Maybe Jim Pattison should spend a few million dollars on a diamond and gold hockey stick to get the ball rolling. Fortunately, the future for senseless spending is looking good. With most of the losses of the 2008 global financial crisis that wiped out one third of the world’s global wealth getting passed down to the world’s poorest, our nation’s richest continue to be able to spend till their heart’s content. Also, the luxury goods market was one of the few sectors that sur-

vived the 2008 recession relatively unscathed and was one of the first markets to rebound and continue growing again. Everybody in 2008 wanted handbags, backpacks and fancy cars, even if they had no job to drive to and nothing to fill those expensive bags. Luckily, of the elites who wreacked such havoc on the economy, none of the financial architects have received jail time and they’re free to continue spending on such new and exciting products. Our society’s growing inequality and expanding wealth gap will only increase the incomes of our affluent need to spend. As our society wealth gap increases, Canada’s wealthiest people will receive more money and will have to make some tough choices such as, how much diamond-infused space cream they can buy in a day. As their share of wealth increases, they will be forced to discover new ways and more exotic ways to store or spend it. Fifty dollars for a cup of coffee may not be enough.

airing dirty laundry VANCOUVER FINALLY ENDS AIRCARE PROGRAM × Opinions Editor

to pay $23 for the test. A newer car was $46 every two years. And according to the Fraser Institute study, the program cost the government $19 million a year to reduce $500,000 worth of emissions. The money that’s being saved by removing AirCare can be invested into other, more effective environmental programs. At one point, all of these issues with the program could be overlooked. In 1992, the government had a problem that needed addressing quickly and AirCare seemed like a good solution. But now technology has come improved and made blunt force programs like this one obsolete. Remote Emission Sensing (RES) is a way to pick up where AirCare left off and improve upon its shortcomings. RES is cheap, it’s flexible, it has incentives and is based on results. Kenneth Green, senior director of the Centre for Natural Resources at the Fraser Institute, described RES in the Province like this: “As you drive on the roads, scanners positioned along the roadside scan a beam of light in back of your tailpipe, right through the exhaust plume, to detect what the pollutant concentrations are in your car’s exhaust. If your car is clean, that’s the end of it for you: no fuss, no bother. If your car is a high-emitter, on the other hand, the scanner triggers a camera, that snaps a digitized picture of your

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license plate, and in a few weeks, you get a notice telling you to get your car fixed.” Studies have shown that the system works too. It was tested in Alberta and the system successfully detected the seven per cent of vehicles that were causing 54 per cent of the emissions. RES costs 74 cents a car, 33 times less than it would cost to go to AirCare. There are lessons to be learned from the 22year lifespan of the program. Over those years, emissions in Vancouver were reduced by 30 per cent and the city’s quality of air is still better than Los Angeles’. If a program comes along that tests cars and isn’t so expensive, doesn’t make drivers go out of their way and is effective at pin-pointing the small percentage of vehicles that cause the highest amount of emissions — essentially everything AirCare isn’t — it will be worth the cost. Until then, hopefully the money saved from ending this program will go towards a more effective way of looking after the environment and keeping cars on the road eco-friendly.

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When the clock struck midnight and 2014 suddenly became 2015, thousands of Vancouverites could be seen taking to the streets of Granville and Robson. Contrary to popular belief, what those people were celebrating wasn’t the first few moments of the New Year — and not coincidentally, the start of their gluten-free diet either. No, people were in the streets celebrating the end of Vancouver’s AirCare program. AirCare was introduced back in 1992 after experts predicted that if Vancouver didn’t reduce its emission output by 2010, then their air quality would be worse than LA’s. This rightfully scared the shit out of the local government and they came up with a plan in which cars would have to pass an emissions test before their insurance could be renewed. Although there was a time where an argument could be made in support of the AirCare program, with the emission-reducing technology found in new cars, coupled with the lack of older cars found on the road, those arguments are now as obsolete as the program. The problem with AirCare wasn’t the idea. In major cities such as Vancouver, as much as 90 per cent of air pollution is caused by vehicle

emissions. The problem was its execution. Having a scheduled emissions test once a year is as useful as having scheduled drug tests in sports. If people know when it will take place it becomes too easy to work around. People’s cars may pass the test on that day, but there’s no incentive to stay clean for the rest of the year. And that’s if people didn’t cheat to pass the test in the first place. One quick search for “Tricks to beating AirCare” on Google returned many helpful tips for those who didn’t want to bother fixing their cars before the test. Another issue that AirCare ignored was that the majority of cars aren’t the problem. Fraser Institute reported that, “only a small percentage (estimates range from 10 per cent to 20 per cent) of the vehicles on the road are responsible for the majority (up to 80 per cent) of vehicular pollutant emissions.” Heavy-duty commercial trucks that run on diesel are one of the biggest polluters, yet operators of those vehicles don’t have to take them in for an AirCare test. AirCare was going for a blunt force approach when it should’ve been more strategic. Finally, the issue that most people had with the program was simply the cost. Both the cost to the individual and the amount the government spent on funding the program was too high. For a car made before 1992, owners had

× Kelsey Holden

Gabriel Scorgie

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LEAH SCHEITEL COLUMNS EDITOR

superfluous feast A HOPELESS KITCHEN

Faye Alexander × Columnist Faye Alexander is the person all other editors turn to when they need something written. She has written about everything from Vancouver’s burlesque scene to scathing shotgun reviews of Alex Trebek and she does it with a steadfast ease that should be marvelled. So it’s only natural we gave her a column to write about the thing that scares her most — the kitchen. If there is one thing that the human race shares even in the most trying times, it’s our need for food and water to survive. Regardless of age, gender or race, the relationship between both people and food has forever been universal — thus, cooking and preparing meals is inevitable. For some, learning to cook and create signature dishes is a skill passed down through generations, like mothers teaching sons how to properly craft a pie or fathers teaching daughters the ins and outs of the perfect BBQ burger. It begins with

small steps in the kitchen, slowly building a repertoire of basic skills and simple meals. However, an interest in learning these things is also a key ingredient to being successful in the art of food. In my family, my mother was always a tremendous cook. With the flick of the wrist she would snatch up a copy of Bon Appétit if the cover had caught her fancy, and hours later she would present the dish to our family looking just as picture perfect as the magazine would have led you to believe it would be. From the preparation to the final presentation, she would tirelessly work away in the kitchen with a grin plastered across her face — she was the embodiment of The Joy of Cooking. I, on the other hand, took no interest at all in the craftwork that went into the meal, and rather would avoid any contact with the process and only appear once the dish was done and ready to be devoured. My contribution has always been my appetite, good manners and a beautiful ability to clear plates from the table in a timely fashion. My love for food is fierce but my repulsion for tedious work runs deeper. By 18 I had flown the coop, in search of independence. My personal collection of meals I could make myself included Kraft Dinner, Hamburger Helper (if I was feeling particularly

EDITOR@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

fancy), frozen lasagnas, frozen pizzas and a full box of Oreos — just to name them all. If the saying is true, that you are what you eat, I was quick and cheap. I had squandered all those years when I should have been paying attention to the matriarch of my family, the woman who had time and time again asked if I would like to learn or give her a hand. Yet, there was some salvation. Despite being useless to follow a recipe or create an extravagant meal for friends and family, I was the go-to companion for chopping, rinsing and boiling water — whatever tasks that seasoned cooks need not bother with. Hint: if people you are feasting and cooking with only trust you to chop and rinse, you probably aren’t too great either. Over the past decade, my struggles to become a decent at home chef have been disheartening and ripe with failure. More than once, my mother has turned to me as I now desperately try to follow her hands as she buries them in pastry dough: “I’m surprised you don’t know how to cook, you love food.” And I do. But for some folk cooking is pleasurable, the kind of folk who have the Food Network playing incessantly in the background or the kind of people who invest in decent utensils and coloured casserole dishes. In my experience, food has been daunting, the grocery store is a vortex to hell and I have had the same three pots and two pans for the last ten years with no urge for an upgrade. At some point midway through my 20s, I wondered if there was any hope for me

or if I would just keep having to acquire boyfriends that were already enthused about cooking (a really great avenue to travel). Some people live to eat while others eat to live — so it is a terrible conflict of interest to be inept at the cooking portion but excel at the gorging. Perhaps, it’s just been a clever way to maintain a healthy weight, for if I were fully capable of making the meals I salivate for there would be no stopping myself from making and consuming an array of rich and fabulous foods, resulting in an ever-expanding waistline. Food and feasting is something that brings people together in times of celebration and in times of sorrow, and the meals we make for those we love can become tradition if done well — no one will come back for a second round if the food was ghastly. My mother has always cooked and it has brought our family together every Sunday evening — a tradition I love. It’s sad to think that one day with my own family, if I don’t get my shit together now, I will have nothing to lovingly prepare but a box ready beef stroganoff. Through this column, I will be selecting increasingly challenging recipes from my mother’s extensive collection of cookbooks and preparing meals for the people I love best — in hopes of learning through trial and error, understanding the bonds we make through food, and hopefully uncovering what to do with a dragonfruit. And who better to begin with than my harshest critic, my mom.

Mountainous islands dotted the waters and soaring rock faces lined the ragged coast. Dark timbers shot like reeds from the earth, the fresh scent of pine overpowering the stench of the Discovery’s rotting hull. Streaks of orange light shot through the dun cloud bank and danced on the water’s crystalline surface. “Burrard!” Vancouver called to his admiral, beckoning the silver haired man aft to the bow. “How would you like to have the first waterway of the northwest named for you?” Captain Vancouver was giddy with excitement; he wanted everything from the golden rays glinting off the icy summits lining the north to the murky black water that seemed to flow inland through rifts and crags in the rock to be documented

for charting. When Lieutenant Joseph Baker pointed out a snow capped peak soaring above the southern horizon, it was instantly dubbed Mount Baker in his honour. But as the inlet narrowed and bled into a valley, his grin fell slack. Moored against a jagged cliff face jutting from the waters of a deep cove was a triple mast Spanish galleon flying the red and gold insignia over its prow. “Good God,” he exclaimed. Dionisio Galiano disembarked the HMS Sutil, and ashore, Captain Vancouver stiffly greeted the Spanish captain. Over a few days, the commanders of the respective expeditions camped on shore exchanging pleasantries. When the captain at last returned to his cabin on deck, he announced his utter mortification to be finding Spanish ships littering the harbour this far north, but triumphantly he produced a chart of the strait, delighted to be accompanied by another sturdy set of ships, they would continue to map the wide expanse of the strait together. Leaving the Discovery in the harbour, the crew split themselves among Galiano’s men and launched smaller crafts into the water. The Inlet twisted east through the mountains, branching off far to the north before running ashore on a floating field of ice. The ocean and the Discovery's port were separated by a massive stretch of land, the Discovery sailed north and the Sutil south of the landing point in search of a bypass. News relayed by way of a handful of men travelling alone in small crafts informed Vancouver that his final ship, the HMS Daedalas had safely crossed the Pacific and was waiting for the expedition to return to Nootka. Departing the mainland, Vancouver set course for Nootka Sound, a shallow northernmost outlet that drained the rivers crosshatching the massive island into the Pacific. As agreed upon, Galiano had provided the British captain with a chart of the island and the most direct route to Nootka, where most of the lands and buildings establishing the beginning of a colony in the past seasons would formally be handed over to England. After all, the Spanish claimed they had far more valuable plunder to be won in the far south.

the time traveller VANCOUVER SAILS THE OCEAN BLUE Christine Beyleveldt × Columnist

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

For a country, Canada is young and our population sparse, but the land is rich in natural beauty and untold history. It’s as if the soaring mountains and dense lush forests that rise from the earth conceal the mysteries surrounding our country’s humble beginnings. It wasn’t until the 15th century that Europeans first began to show an interest in what our land had to offer, and it took several hundred years for the vast and unforgiving regions to be mapped entirely. Much of what we know about Canada’s rise as a nation is set in the east; the history that was recorded documents the overland journeys of Samuel Champlain and Jacques Cartier, and the determination of keen politician, John MacDonald. But little is known about the history of the west coast. Using this column I’d like to introduce you to various figures responsible for creating the Vancouver we know today. There is no better place to start than standing on board the voyage of the man our city is named for. The HMS Discovery, Daedalas and the Chatham were unlike any ships seen before moored in the harbour off the Cape Point at the southernmost tip of Africa. Sloops of war, Union Jacks flying from the main masts and patrolled by a crew bedecked in fine British naval uniforms. These ships rounded the stone heads and dropped anchors in the shallow turquoise waters to roll their empty barrels down the gangplank. The comely young captain,

× Megan Collinson

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

Christine Beyleveldt has been a regular Courier contributor since the start of Volume 48. She mostly writes about plays, but apparently she's a huge "geek for history." She wants to pass on some of her knowledge with the history of the Vancouver area, and the stories that made it the city it is today.

George Vancouver, had been a midshipman aboard the same HMS Discovery when James Cook had come by this route 20 years earlier. It was whispered throughout the growing Dutch settlement that they were daring to cross the Pacific by way of the south to the Americas, in search of the fabled Northwest Passage. A Spanish fleet had crossed via these routes only months before. With only two ships of Captain Vancouver’s small fleet departing the Indian Ocean and finally the eastern Pacific, the crossing was fraught with peril. The waters raged and churned, the ocean depths were as black as pitch and the waves mounted, the wind’s chill clung to the sailors’ bones. At last a distant shore appeared.

columns

A ghost in a dying scene MY HUMBLE BEGINNINGS Matt Jolliﬀe × Columnist

Matt Jolliffe is educated in psychology and punk rock, which are two very interesting and diverse fields of study. He is a long-time Courier friend, and rumour has it, he knows something about the Ghost Chair in the CSU Maple bathroom. His column will illustrate why punk music shaped who he became.

Staff editorial

SUSHI The restaurants that we order food from aren’t exactly North Shore’s best but it’s doable for our empty stomachs and not-so-loaded wallets. Obviously our first choice is always sushi, as who isn’t satisfied with a sushi platter? It has varieties of different kinds of sushi rolls.

was also cold outside and I was underdressed. Matt quickly introduced me to some of his friends from school, most of whom would all become dear friends and later bandmates. Once the doors opened, I paid my five bucks, and proceeded up the stairs into what I would eventually come to consider my home away from home. Little did I know at the time, but the large, barren hall, with one wall covered in mirrors, a disco ball adorned from the ceiling, would become so important to me. That night, I watched the Treatment Room, Fred’s Fear and Billy and the Lost Boys. I didn’t know any of the bands, I didn’t know any of their songs, but I didn’t care. I stood there in awe. That night kick-started the most important moments of my adolescence. It was at Seylynn Hall that I met all of my friends. It was at Sey-

FROM ABS TO FLABS

But no, our staff is pickier than that — we order individual lunch combo meals. I don’t know why we can’t just do the usual sushi party platters but I guess they have a problem with their chopsticks touching each other. We always place the order in before 2 pm because we want to get the most out of the lunch special offered by our restaurant of choice. The combo meals pretty much can count for a lunch and a dinner. You end up with roll or two of sushi, rice and some kind of meat on top with teriyaki sauce, side salad and fruits in the Styrofoam container. Oh, and don’t forget the miso soup that no one really eats because they’re too bloated to finish it. The sushi rolls are pretty satisfactory but for a span of an hour or two of eating and digesting the feast we’re all convinced it’s one of the best meals we’ve had for the entire week.

INDIAN Sometimes, we don’t want to stay with the obvious choices for food so for some reason, one day we just decided to order from Indian Fusion, a restaurant that serves Indian cuisine. None of us had really eaten quality Indian food before so getting take out from there was the most adventurous meal we’ve ordered. Now

lynn Hall where I started to discover who I was. If you study psychology at all, I was developing what social psychologists would refer to as a collective identity (if you’re interested, Google “social identity theory” by Tafjel and Turner). I was fairly positive I had finally met people like me — a group of fucked up, socially awkward teenagers who were angry and had a bone to pick with everyone around them. Punk saved my life. It may sound silly to make such a bold claim, but being involved in a subculture, I believe, is one of the most profound experiences a person can have. It’s being part of something bigger than you, with like-minded individuals. And, over the coming weeks, I will share some of my stories from growing up in a punk scene, and why it was just so fucking cool.

by Therese Guieb

we’re pros and do it all the time. Technically, this restaurant doesn’t really give us much in the way of options since we only pick from veggie or meat lunch special. The lunch special is composed of the typical Indian foods that only white people would recognize which are butter chicken, curry and rice. But to round things out, we also get a bag full of samosas. Each meal also comes with big pieces of naan bread that we either eat right away or save for later. For the price that we get the meals for it’s definitely worth it. One thing’s for sure though, the entire office smells like it was transported to Surrey after we’re done eating.

PIZZA Who can go wrong with pizza? One slice is a complete meal on its own. We get about three to four large boxes of pizza for eight people but really the only one who eats most of it is our Production Manager, Andrew, who claims himself as the pizza monster. I remember the first time we made the switch from large lunch special combo meals to pizza from Panago. I guess that’s what happens when proofreading all day slowly deteriorates our brains from making decisions even just for picking what food to eat.

When we’ve finished eating these meals you’d think that we would be full for the rest of the day but after three hours we usually get up and start looking for snacks and more food. But even after all of these restaurants we get take-out from, there is one more place that I’m still hoping we’ll get food from — Church’s Chicken. Nothing would make me happier than dipping a spicy piece of chicken breast in hot gravy.

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

Working with the Courier, and specifically with Andy Rice (Sriracha hot sauce King), has broadened my cravings for food and eating. When I started working here in 2013, we used to get free lunch provided every proof day on Fridays at the office courtesy of our Editor-inChief, Leah. However, due to our jeans getting a little tighter and our abs turning into flabs, Leah decided to ban the excessive amount of free lunch. The lunches that were provided were always take-out food, from pizza to Indian cuisine. I gained 10 lbs over the course of five months of getting free lunches but successfully stayed looking fabulous even with all the weight gain. Although we stopped getting free lunches and now try to eat healthier (well, at least I do) the staff of this newspaper never fails to still get food delivered at any time of day. The top three cuisines that we still constantly pig out on are sushi, Indian food and pizza.

× J.R. Pinto

As a kid, I never lived in a household that listened to a great deal of memorable rock bands. Often times I’d hear things from friends like “Fuck, dude! My dad got me into Frank Zappa!” or “We used to blast Zeppelin and Floyd all the time!” I never had that. I’m sure that I heard the Beatles, and my mom blasted a Billy Joel record at least twice, but for the most part, I heard a lot of the Three Tenors, and CBC Radio. My earliest playlists consisted of Raffi records, and slowly became engrossed with largely popular music — the crap you heard on MuchMusic. In my late pre-teen years, my friends and I discovered the likes of Eminem, Korn and Limp Bizkit, but I always felt like there was something missing whenever I heard “Freak on a Leash” or “Nookie”. I wanted something faster, something I’d never heard before, and that’s when I discovered punk music. I had heard the occasional Blink-182 and Green Day song either through the radio or via music video, but I had never bought an album. In 1998, this all changed. Likely prompted by the catchy (now vomit-inducing) nature of “Pretty Fly for a White Guy”, I went out and purchased my very own copy of The Offspring's Americana. Since I didn’t own a portable CD player, I dubbed a copy to tape and listened to the record on repeat on my Sony Walkman. Not only was the music fast, but they actually said

the word “fuck”. My mind was blown. At the end of grade seven, I had left the city where I had spent most of my elementary school years, where I had finally been able to secure a stable group of friends (I moved around a lot as a kid). I didn’t know anyone, but listened to something that seemed to get me: namely “punk” bands that I knew about at the time. Blink, Green Day, and The Offspring became coping mechanisms for dealing with my transition. I was in a new city, and I was in the middle of those incredibly awkward years of adolescence. Pimples, cracking voice, puberty — fuck. I didn’t have many friends at my high school. The only thing I was able to take solace in was playing musical instruments and listening to music. I didn’t really understand what punk was, I had no idea what “punk ideals” were, I had zero clue about the history of punk rock. At 14, I made friends with two brothers who would eventually become some of my best friends. Through our mutual love of Blink-182, Matt, the elder brother, and I began to discover other bands. This was much more difficult to do in 2001-02 than it is now. Google and Internet speeds were not nearly as efficient. We actually had to do some digging, and CD liner notes were one place where we started. Soon I was listening to bands like Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, and NOFX, and I really liked it. These bands, I thought, were talking about things in the world that actually mattered! One evening, my friends asked me to go to a punk show. I had no idea that local punk shows were actually a thing. I immediately asked him if we had to go to Ticketmaster to buy tickets. I was 15, was I supposed to know this stuff? He quickly responded with something along the lines of: “No dude, you pay at the door. 605 Mountain Highway.” I asked my mom for a ride, and at 7 pm I was waiting outside, completely overwhelmed and confused. I didn’t know anyone and I felt incredibly awkward. It

CAp you Ball is life

CARLO JAVIER LIFESTYLE EDITOR

CARLO.CAPCOURIER@GMAIL.COM

CHECKING IN WITH THE BLUES BASKETBALL Men’s Basketball

Women’s Basketball

× Vancouver Sport Pictures fell to the hands of the eventual second place finishers, the Royals. Versatility and a diverse skill set stand as among the Blues’ greatest on-court strengths. The team is primarily composed of second year players and players who put together a varied collection of playing style, giving the team an edge in flexibility with lineups. “We have several powerful post players, some great three point shooters, and superb rebounders,” says Steel, “We make sure to practice every position and skill so no one has only one particularly good skill. Shooters can drive and posts can carry the ball up the court. We are all hard workers who spend usually around four hours a day in the gym.” With a very competitive conference, the Capilano Blues women’s basketball team can benefit from a strong showing from its campus community. The team’s next home games are on Feb. 5 and Feb. 7 against the Kwantlen Eagles and the Columbia Bible College Bearcats, respectively.

Despite a trying season, the Capilano Blues men’s basketball team has exhibited promise and competitiveness during the first of their season. Currently tied at sixth place out of the eight PacWest squads with one win and six losses, the men’s team has had to overcome injuries, inexperience and the group’s relative youth. “The first major challenge our team has had to deal with is that the majority of us are in our first year of university,” begins small forward Michael Hale, “Since our team is so young, we just keep trying to gain as much experience as we can by practicing, and playing exhibition games and scrimmages against teams in higher leagues.” The Blues has spent time scrimmaging with teams from UBC, SFU and Western Oregon University among others. The team’s record however, does not tell the full story about the squad’s season. This is a young team that’s working to find its identity as a group and as with groups filled with youth, closing out games can become challenging. A six point loss in overtime to the Quest Kermodes and a 10 point loss to the Langara Falcons represent two winnable competitive games

that the Blues just couldn’t capitalize on. With the second half of the season on its way, the team stands to benefit from its injured players’ recoveries and returns, we just need to keep working hard and practicing and we'll be able to start closing crucial games strong to get the win. We're optimistic going into the last part of our season, looking to earn some wins and make a push for playoffs,” says Hale. As a team, the Blues operate on the offense by putting emphasis on its transition game. The boys look to play at a fast pace and aim to push the ball at every opportunity, keeping the defense on its heels can open up the floor on easier scoring chances at the point. Defensively, this combines strong point protection with consistent contests to perimeter shots, We also practice to be a very physical team offensively and defensively to make up for any lack of height we have compared to some of the other teams,” Hale adds. The Capilano Blues men’s basketball team play the same schedule as the women’s squad. Their next home games will also be against the Eagles on Feb. 5 and on Feb. 7 against the Bearcats.

curing firms,” says Williams, “It was very difficult to secure firms and companies. A lot of the companies in attendance are either personal acquaintances of CUBES members or networking contacts of CUBES members.”

Students interested in learning about personal branding and meeting several industry professionals are invited to attend CUBES’ CRS Workshop. Space is limited and tickets are available at the CUBES Eventbrite page.

× Vancouver Sport Pictures

At four wins and three losses, Capilano University’s women’s basketball squad sits right in the middle of the competitive Pacific Western Athletics Association (PacWest). Their season has been marred with loss of players due to both injuries and personal reasons. The team has even struggled to put together enough players in practice, “With our numbers dropping, many players have had to step up into positions that they aren't used to. This factor also leaves us short on numbers of players to practice against, so practicing gamelike situations is a rarity,” says shooting guard, Delaney Steel. As the second half of the season commences, the women’s Blues basketball team aims to build on their strong finish in the last few games of 2014. The team defeated the Langara Falcons and the Douglas Royals in back to back weeks, a feat made even more significant due to the history between the Royals and the Blues – in last year’s provincial’s tourney, the Blues

BY CARLO JAVIER

I'm a business man

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

HOW TO GET HIRED

On Jan. 22, the Capilano Undergraduate Business Enterprise of Students (CUBES) will be hosting their inaugural Capilano Rising Stars Workshop (CRS) at the Library conference rooms LIB 321 and 322. The event is designed to build an annual program where students can develop and improve the tools they need to be successful in their respective careers. “[The CRS Workshop] is an opportunity for communications and business students to learn from and network with industry professionals,” says Lohralee Williams, director of internal relations for CUBES. Every iteration of the CRS Workshop will feature a specific theme. For the launch, the workshop will focus on the idea of personal branding, specifically by practice of communication skills and networking abilities. The inaugural event will also help students create their very own elevator pitches. “With a few members of the CUBES team leaving after the spring semester and talks of succession planning in the air, we figured it was the perfect time to offer a hybrid networking event and a personal branding workshop to help soon-tobe graduates prep for the real world,” Williams explains regarding this year’s theme. “We want

students to understand that their personal brand is what gets them hired at a job — your personal brand can make you or break you depending on what you do,” she adds. Among the companies invited to speak include prominent marketing agency, Mosaic, Sales Talent Agency, Novus Entertainment and Bench – the accounting firm, not the clothing brand - while BlueShore Financial stands as the event’s primary speaker. “Students attending the Rising Stars Workshop benefit in two ways; all of the industry professionals will be briefly talking about their industries as well as what they look for in potential new employees,” says Williams, “Secondly, all attendees will have multiple opportunities to network and work with the industry professionals in attendance. Most of the events, seminars and speaker panels that the business associations organize require the participation of companies that are, more times than not, already established in their respective fields. Assuring the presence of these companies can sometimes place immense pressure on the organizers, who are students themselves. “The biggest challenge CUBES faced in organizing this event was se-

caboose

CARLO JAVIER LIFESTYLE EDITOR

CABOOSE@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

Rainc uver stay dry, stay fresh, stay cool WRITTEN BY FAYE ALEXANDER

Vancouver has a wet reputation. Whether you’re born and raised or new to the city, there are some things you should know about how to take the rainy season head on, in style and with the grace of Benedict Cumberbatch.

STEP UP YOUR WIDE BRIM HAT GAME Park and while exploring, he discovered a man walking through the trails in nothing but a wide brim hat and a white t-shirt. Shocked at the sight, he approached the gentleman to ask if he could offer him his coat or a moment beneath his umbrella, but the man in the hat shook with laughter and told him he was quite fine in his hat and shirt. “You see these beautiful trees?” says the man in the hat, “You see this rich green moss? You see all the beauty that surrounds you? It is the rain that makes it all possible. You need to embrace it! All you need is a big cowboy hat and as long as the rain stays out of your eyes, you’ll never feel wet.” And since then, my cab driver told me, he has taken on the philosophy that to appreciate Vancouver fully, there is no need to worry about umbrellas and coats – a wide brim hat will suffice. For all the features that make Vancouver beautiful are only made possible due to the heavy precipitation. He had bought his hat nearly 15 years prior and never looked back. He assured me a large hat would make me feel more as one with the city itself. I pulled my raincoat tightly around my chest and silently guffawed at this driving advertisement for rain appreciation, but this was 10 years ago, and I’ve never forgotten his story. Plus, wide brim hats can make you look like a west coast cowboy, chicks dig it.

PROTECT YA FEET succumbed to their dry call and pulled them on. I walked out of my apartment into the puddle filled streets. Instantly, as I stomped through the puddles and fearlessly glided down the street, my life was changed forever. Not to mention the actual word ‘galoshes’. It’s probably one of the best words that one can casually use in a sentence without seeming like you’re trying too hard. ‘Rain boots’ seems so literal, while ‘galoshes’ adds a sense of whimsy to rain gear. When sporting galoshes it seems only natural to kick up some puddles and channel your long-lost inner child. There is a lot to be said for how much better you’ll feel about life in general when you’re not sopping wet with feet that begin to reek of mildew and garbage. The rain never seems quite as hard to deal with when dressed appropriately, so start with a pair of galoshes and experience the city’s worst weather knowing you’re wearing the equivalent of industrial strength condoms on your legs. So dry! So protected!

FRESHEN UP YOUr UMBRELLA ETIQUETTe Umbrellas – everybody needs one, and even days that start off looking pleasant and perfectly clear will transform into downpours in no time. Vancouver is just moody like that – one minute the city is totally peachy keen, and the next it’s having a complete hissy fit. You can watch the weather report, but even seasoned meteorologists are just taking their best guesses. The best thing to do in Raincouver is assume it will rain every single day. Having an umbrella on hand at all times is the sign of a true Vancouverite, and a bright one. There are people who sport umbrellas across their backs like samurai swords, while others tuck a collapsible travel sized version in their bag. You never know when the rain will roll in, but you can be prepared. There is nothing tackier than running through a storm holding an issue of the Capilano Courier over your head. It’s for reading, guys — it’s a really good paper. Umbrellas are affordable and also easily forgotten, so if you’re stuck in the rain and without an umbrella, simply go to the nearest library, movie theatre, or customer service desk and say you lost your

black umbrella - the chances are extremely in your favour that they will have one. Simply look relieved and say, “That’s the one! Oh, I’m so glad I found it!” snatch that sucker up and roll out quick. Don’t be overcome with guilt because the chances are equally high that you will lose that umbrella at some point and someone else in need will find it. It’s umbrella karma. The most important thing about umbrella use is the height and trajectory of your umbrella at any given time. Umbrellas should not be used as weapons to take out the eyes of the tall and umbrellaless. Always hold your umbrella above your eye line so you can properly traverse the sidewalks without taking down unsuspecting pedestrians. When walking in twos, always have the taller of the two carry the umbrella so no one involved has to hunch as they stroll looking like a drowned, harassed rat. Always consider offering some shelter to someone without an umbrella when waiting for public transit, but only if you are sexually attracted to them. It forces them to stand close to you and the chances for awkward ice-breaking small talk is unavoidable. Get those digits.

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

The ultimate investment for Greater Vancouver residents – aside from a home, obviously — is surely a pair of galoshes. The Hunter logo reigns supreme as the top wet-weather footwear, on public transit, university stairways and through shopping districts. In any other city, expensive rain boots may seem like a luxury but here in Raincouver, knee high galoshes in high-grade rubber are an investment in your future, your happiness and just general comfort through the winter months. There is nothing worse than soggy socks and drenched sneakers that leave your feet clammy, cold and damp – not to mention unbearable to look at once released from their soaking shoe bondage. When I was gifted my first pair of rain boots many Christmases ago, I looked at them with disdain. They were obnoxiously bright with comic strip graphics from heel to knee and I left them in their box for quite some time before giving in to their rubbery pleasures. One wretched day, I finally

× Cheryl Swan

I’ve always thought that wide brim hats were too much. I think the ‘sorting hat’ in the first Harry Potter movie gave me a bad perception of any hat that had a larger circumference than Indiana Jones’. But then I met this fashionista of a cab driver and everything changed. Allow me to take you back to the day that completely revolutionized my hat game. As rain pelted down, transforming the city streets into a complex urban river system, instead of traversing the waterways, I called a cab. Lickety-split, a white cab pulled up to the curb and behind the wheel was an eccentric man wearing a wide brim hat and a tight white v-neck shirt – no, it wasn’t Pharrell. We shared small talk about the weather as we peeled through the puddles lit in the reds and blues of street lights. I couldn’t take my eyes off that large black hat that rested upon his crown, and catching my intense fascination with his headgear, my driver turned to me to explain his fashion choice. Years ago, he explained, he arrived in Vancouver completely new to the city and never having experienced the tremendous rainy season or anything quite like it. He invested in umbrellas, a large floor-length raincoat and did his best to get accustomed to the relentless downpour of his first winter. On a particularly grim Saturday afternoon, he decided to stroll through Stanley

shotgun reviews COURSES THEY SHOULD OFFER AT CAPILANO

FRENCH KISSING

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES

SPY SCHOOL

ORGANIZED CRIME MANAGEMENT

Forget about textbooks and calculators, and enroll in a course dedicated to making you a French kissing connoisseur. If you want to make the most out of your tuition fees, put those borrowed dollars on skills that actually pay the bills. If Capilano University really wants to prepare its student body for the “real” world, it’s about time we slide into first base. Some people may naturally have become gifted kissers – good for you! - but if no one has ever stopped you mid-French kiss to remark, in an airy faraway voice, on what a good kisser you are, how dare you not consider it! Real good kissers hear it all the time, trust me. In the hands-on class, that will likely include a lot of light jazz and potpourri, you’ll learn the appropriate depth to extend your tongue into someone else’s mouth (finally!) how to lightly bite a lower lip, and how to avoid teeth collision. You’ll be unlocking brand new doors to your future with this course, and if you get a top grade it’s likely that your new skilled university kisses will make your kissing buddy think of having sex with you almost immediately. Now that’s skills for life.

Learning is something that people have trouble with. Learning is not the quest for a high GPA, it’s the quest for knowledge. I hope to see that on an Etsy poster one day. Part of the reason that so many people have trouble learning in university is that they are here because it’s the thing to do if you want to make mom and dad happy. When one has no particular interest in their subject matter, it only makes sense they study for the sake of studying. So perhaps a course that is entirely random yet doles out credits is logical. The class will walk into the library blindfolded and have to randomly pull out a book - or really anything on a shelf and then do some sort of project on it. Students will be encouraged to then read and try to understand the material. If you have no idea what you want to study in post-secondary, this class would be perfect. You might discover something you are actually passionate about. Marks will be given out like in any other class, but unlike other courses, making things up as you go and winging it is encouraged. Life is a giant improvised dance, why not offer a course that mimics it?

Half of my 20s have been spent at this campus, learning shit. And let me tell you, in those five years, I have become a sharper, smarter and more educated version of myself. This campus is where I learned how to spell “minute” properly. Before my expensive education, I always confused it with “minuet.” But after five years, and about 1,582 Aramark coffees later, I’m disappointed in my education because I made the wrong decision. I’m now convinced that I should be a spy, and work for the CIA – the Canadian spy agency isn’t nearly interesting enough. Do we even have one? I want to be the next Carrie Fucking Mathison, and I want Capilano University to show me how. And really, it’s the most ideal spot for a spy school. Who would expect anything that ninja-like to come out of peaceful ol’ North Vancouver. Probably only Seth Rogen would, and he would be too stoned to tell anyone. CapU would be so much cooler if it offered classes that taught you how to hide a knife in your knickers and say rancid, threatening phrases in 17 different languages. I’m going to sneak my way into Bulcroft’s office to discuss this right now.

- Faye Alexander // #YABISH

- Aidan Mouellic // Can't Make A Decision

- Leah Schpytel // Almost Done, Bitches

Business administration teaches people how to run and manage private companies, while public administration students learn how to run nonprofits and government agencies. But for the few whose organizations aren’t so legal, fear not, for there is a course you can take to manage your trap effectively. Organized Crime Management is exactly the class you’ll need to ensure your gang is running smoothly at all times. In the course, you’ll learn about the early days of organized crime, such as the origins of the Irish Mob, Italian Mafia, and Cuban Cartels. Once you’ve decided what type of gang you’ll run, you’ll be taught the basics of managing a group of men, and selecting a lawyer, or consigliore. Once your gang hierarchy is mapped, you’ll learn of the different things you can do to make money, which include selling drugs, smuggling alcohol, pimping sex workers, racketeering and profiting off fixed sporting events. So if you’ve been selling crack since the fifth grade, and want to become the next Tony Montana or Frank Lucas, Organized Crime Management just may be the course for you. Remember, the money you’ll eventually make from gangs is not from the gang itself, but from the gangsta rap records you’ll be recording years after – keep it one hunnid ya’ll.

- Kevin Kapenda // Young $hmurda

FIND THE NAMES OF LIL' SCHEI'S FAVOURITE MEN. HINT HINT: THEY ARE ALL FROM SNL FEMINISM // THE NEW F WORD

FLEEK // STOP TRYING TO MAKE “FLEEK” HAPPEN, IT’S NOT GONNA HAPPEN BIEBER’S CALVIN KLEIN CAMPAIGN // BOTCHED BULGE A STRIKE DURING EXAM WEEK // PROTESTING FREE TRIP TO OTTAWA // EXTREME COLD WARNING

THE ONE GUY I KNOW NAMED TODD // SURPRISINGLY NOT A KNOB CREEPING THE BAE’S EX LOVERS // INSTANT REGRET AND SORROW THE ROYAL FAMILY // AKA THE KARDASHIANS WAITERS & WAITRESSES // LOVE PLAYING JUST THE TIP NEED NEW GLASSES // CAN’T FIND MY LOVE LIFE BECK BENNNETT, BILL HADER, BILL MURRAY, BRUNO MARS, COLIN JOST, DAVID SPADE, JAY PHARAOH, JIMMY

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

FIRST-TIME FAYE & COCKY CARLO

FLEEK // THE NEW ‘ON POINT’

FALLON, JOHN BELUSHI, JON LOVITZ, KENDRICK LAMAR, KYLE MOONEY, ROB RIDDLE, SETH MEYERS, TARAN

the hOt Chart

ANNA KENDRICK // RESTING BITCH FACE

KILLAM, TIM MEADOWS, TINA FEY, TRACY MORGAN, WILL FERRELL, WILL FORTE

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 14

CLASS BREAKS // BEST PART OF CLASS