Incite Magazine - April 2015

INCITE MAGAZINE VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6 ▪ APRIL 2015

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table of contents

05 / Then What?

Dalya Cohen

04 / The Möbius Journey Mayuri Deshmukh

07 / FoMO Shruti Ramesh

06 / 2MuchP Jaslyn English 09 / An Open Letter Devra Charney & Kaila Radan

08 / Lost in Translation Gali Katznelson

staff EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Sam Godfrey Avery Lam CREATIVE DIRECTOR Sarah Mae Conrad CONTENT EDITORS Devra Charney Stephen Clare Jaslyn English Kayla Esser Julie-Anne Mendoza Imaiya Ravichandran Louell Taye ART EDITORS Lauren Gorfinkel Jason Lau Angela Ma Sabnam Mahmuda

33 / Reconstructing a Life Worth Living Sunny Yun

23 / Clint Thomson Is Looking for Trouble Stephen Clare 22 / Okay Amanda Emannuel

26 / Motion Art Contest

24 / Do Androids Dream of Electric Chess?

Jesse Bettencourt 31 / Dance Like Everybody’s Watching David Yun

30 / In Defence of Laziness Harry Krahn

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32 / The Art of Letting Go Nimra Khan

34 / Rush Alexandra Marcaccio

35 / Moving Up From the Word Gap Angela Ma

37 / Ignition Anna Goshua 36 / Dependency Sam Bubnic

17 / Generation Why Not? Trisha Philpotts

11 / Marie Laveau Michele Zaman 10 / Ready, Set, Stay Elina Filice

12 / An Unglamorous Reality Abena Offeh-Gyimah

16 / My Superlatives Emile Shen

13 / As It Flows Nasreen Mody & Abdullah Raja

15 / Strength and Faith and Goodness Palika Kohli

19 / Maybe This Time Will Be Better Julia Bugiel

14 / High Places Kayla Esser

18 / Make It to Shore Kainat Amir

21 / Fresh Tracks Tiffany Got

20 / And If I Had the Chance, I’d Ask the World to Dance Rachelle Zalter

art & design ARTISTS Jesse Bettencourt, Carl Cheng, Sarah Mae Conrad, Kayla Da Silva, Mimi Deng, Shirley Deng, Mayuri Deshmukh, Kate Dingwall, Annie Duan, Kayla Esser, Leah Flanagan, Véronique Giguère, Sam Godfrey, Lauren Gorfinkel, Maxine Gravina, Julie Guevara, Sonnet Irwin, Barbara Karpinski, Hamaeel Khan, Nimra Khan, Avery Lam, Jason Lau, Jonsson Liu, Angela Ma, Maya Newman, Patricia Nguyen, Maleeha A. Qazi, Franco Simões, Nikkie To, Elaine Westenhoefer, Janine Wong, Michele Zaman, Fatima Zehra, Brian Zheng, Annie Zhu LAYOUT DESIGNERS Sarah Mae Conrad, Lauren Gorfinkel, Julie Guevara, Avery Lam, Jason Lau, Angela Ma, Elaine Westenhoefer FRONT COVER Annie Zhu, “The City” TABLE OF CONTENTS Brian Zheng, “Byzantium” BACK COVER Mimi Deng, “Imagination Grows” This issue’s covers and table of contents feature entries to our Motion Art Contest – check out more entries on pages 26–29.

39 / Goodbye Olivia Fasullo 38 / Sunday Irina Sverdlichenko

41 / How to Disappear Sarah O’Connor

45 / Fleeting Moments Megan Schlorff 40 / Otherworld P.V. Maylott 43 / Before the Clock Strikes Midnight Mary Kate MacDonald

42 / 18 Things I Will Tell My 18-Year-Old Daughter Nikita Kalsi 50 / Where Would You Go? Incite Editors

44 / Accessible for All Alejandra Fernandez

46 / A Blank Envelope Linda Nguyen 49 / Where We Have Boldly Gone Mackenzie Richardson

47 / Destination Unknown Caitlyn Buhay 48 / Red Wilderness Ronald Leung 51 / SUMMA: POLYVOCAL 2015 McMaster Studio Art Graduates

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THE MÖBIUS JOURNEY Mayuri Deshmukh ARTWORK BY MAYURI DESHMUKH

15 hours/week.

60 hours/month.

600 hours/year.

2500 hours. The timespan of one honours degree.

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ow you may not see it at first, but there is a very clear meaning in these numbers. The number at the very end is the amount of hours I have spent commuting from my hometown to university. Let’s flashback to four years ago, to a bright morning in the fall of 2011 – my very first day. Like any devoted student, I was running late.

Sprinting like an out of shape marathon runner, I made it onto to the bus with 30 seconds to spare. I was terrified. I had no idea what lay ahead, but I did know one thing: that this rush of adrenalin would etch the memory of this first journey in my mind forever. The bus began to pick up speed, taking me away from everything familiar, with city names soon flashing by.

The best memory I have is of a thousand honey yellow dandelions dancing in the wind of countless open fields with waves of grass rippling across the horizon.

In those priceless few moments, I knew I had escaped the rush of city life. Here was a twilight zone that was quiet and simple.

Nestled in between my personal and professional life – it would later prove to be the

only time and place where I could clear my mind and breathe.

All too soon, the towering columns of the hospital were within sight and a bold sign bearing the university’s name welcomed me in. When each journey ended, I realised that commuting had inadvertently

ery minute, staying one step ahead so that if things ever go wrong, returning home won’t be a hassle. There is still a certain kind of magic that I see when I look outside the bus window, but after four years, it gets tiring running on a military-esque schedule with a curfew. No matter what form magic may be in, ethereal skies or a crimson splashed sunset, I want to stop and see it, not run past it. Others might think differently, that they never have to get homesick and can still have a worthwhile college experience. Don’t get me wrong, there’s an entire Polaroid wall in my room of the best memories I’ve ever made of my time at Mac. But at the end of the day, life on campus creates an entirely different set of memories. You get a chance to experience life wholeheartedly, being part of an unusual yet incredible family that borders on 25 000 students. My last ride will be in April and, to be honest, it is going to be a bittersweet farewell. I’m going to lose my twilight zone, but the next step is graduate school on the other side of the country, and I’m sure I will find my quiet place there too. 

Hours soon turned into days, months and then years before I realised how much time I had spent sitting on a bus.

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shaped a block of time where I could forget everything and meditate for a while. Hours soon turned into days, months and then years before I realised how much time I had spent sitting on a bus. If I had to describe what my journey felt like, I would say that it was like being on a pretty Möbius strip; I am indeed travelling but in reality, eternally looping, escaping some unforgettable experiences before they even began.

I have to constantly keep track of ev-

INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

ARTWORK BY BRIAN ZHENG

THEN WHAT? Dalya Cohen

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ou’re running. You’re in the gym and you’re running on a track, around and around. Now you’re on a treadmill, and the endless loop under your feet propels you further and further to… where?

Where are you running? What are you running toward? There’s a moment, when you’re halfway through the longest half hour of your life, that you make a decision: do I keep running and push a little harder, dig a little bit deeper for that boost that I need, or do I stop now? In that moment, the moment you make the biggest decision you’ll ever have to make (for the next hour, hour and a half), there is a feeling that comes over you: the feeling of why. Why am I doing this, why have I chosen to run on this endless loop to nowhere, why does this machine even exist? What is the purpose of this machine that brings you nowhere, yet makes you feel like you’ve gone so far? And then you keep running. You tell yourself it’s only 15 more minutes, and you start counting down. You know you can do it, you know you have it in you.

And then, sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes you have to stop and walk it off, change it up, and let yourself recover.

You’re a little discouraged; today wasn’t the best workout you’ve ever had. But you came and tried and sometimes that’s more important than finishing.

So what’s the point? If it doesn’t really

matter that you ran 15 minutes or 30, and if in reality you aren’t anywhere different than where you started, then why did you do it? Why do any of us do it? Get on the going-nowhere track and just start going?

It's always easy to see the trees of the forest, but not so much the forest for the trees. You run 30 minutes because it is scheduled into your workout routine, but

to do. You have to work hard, build good working habits, get good grades, get into university. There was a goal, with a clearcut, explicit ‘thing’ to work toward. You get in, and you finish first year. Then second.

Then third.

Then what?

It is easy to find myself drowning in the feeling of why. Instead of looking forward, I tend to look back. Why did I make that decision? Why didn’t I start when I had the chance?

Again I will ask myself: what’s the point? Well, I know that I don’t know where I’m going. And I know that it was a hell of a lot easier when I did.

But I also know that sometimes those 15 minutes can matter, and I feel like I’ve accomplished something great by running that second half of the longest half hour of my day. And that feeling, the trust in my own strength, can change everything.

There is not much in life that is certain; we all know it. In fact, almost nothing is.

That detail is scary and overwhelming and makes life seem daunting at times. But I do know that no matter what, there is no way to succeed without trying. If you don’t set your world into motion, no one else will.

Though I can’t promise a destination, or even a goal, I can promise that life will happen. And sometimes the best move you can make is to get on that going-nowhere track and just start going. 

Instead of looking forward, I tend to look back. Why did I make that decision? Why didn’t I start when I had the chance?

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to what end? Is it easy to define a tangible point when you look at yourself and say ‘this is where I want to be’?

Yes, I suppose you can say there is an ultimate goal in mind when working out.

But if we try to look at the grand scheme of things without taking a step back, it becomes harder to see the final picture.

The choices that brought me to where I am today are straightforward, understandable. I thought I knew what the final picture was supposed to look like. So I went to school, from elementary school to high school, because that is the path you take.

There is comfort in knowing what you have

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2MuchP Jaslyn English

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t’s happened to the best of us, and, I hope much more frequently, to the worst as well. You’re sitting in class, on a plane, in a movie theatre, when all of a sudden you’ve got to go. Maybe it was the lecture on ice floes or the way your history prof described the flood of immigration but, whatever happened, those three cups of premium Tim Horton’s sludge are fighting to come out in a soon-to-be devastating way.

In high school, having to put up your ARTWORK BY MICHELLE LEE (FLICKR)

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hand and wait for begrudgingly-given permission to walk to the powder room seemed like a violation of your basic human freedom. Then you get to university and you no longer need anyone’s permission to slip into the hallway and find the nearest W.C. Though this seems like a blessing for your bladder, it’s also a pretty awkward situation.

Do you get up in the middle of class, climb over the various other humans in the way, and attempt to creep out of the room? Risk

the judgmental silence while the entire class stops to watch your progress towards the door? And do you really want to be labeled “that kid” who disrupted the class to take a leak?

Other questions: why do we feel this incredible discomfort when discussing a fundamental bodily function? It’s mostly to do with timing. When you’re sitting in a movie, for instance, where the plot really thickens and you’re waiting for that thing to pop out of that other thing, but also nervous that the mere shock of the popping-out-thing will cause you to lose control and dampen your pants. At parties, the constant debate regarding when to break the seal is a hot topic of (female) conversation and takes much strategic planning. Holding it can cause bladder infections but going for a tinkle means disrupting the social flow: which is the bigger risk?

Other number-one-related discomforts are evident in less understandable and more frustrating ways. This includes the following: gender specific restrooms in useless locations. In cafés, for instance, where the basement contains two lavatories, one for stick figures and the other for stick figures with skirts, both comprised of one room with one toilet and one sink. It seems redundant to enforce this gender separation in such an obviously unnecessary way. The public loo issue means allowing obtuse social norms to invade a private sphere.

This need to whizzle, as Bart Simpson soliloquizes, brings forth a unique breed of social questioning. Not only the issue of excusing yourself to do the deed, but also how to return. How long is too long? Who’s wondering whether or not you washed your hands? These questions are part of a weird stigma against powdering your nose in public. Making our private lives public allows for scrutiny and the confusion of social etiquette and personal boundaries.

A shared sense of embarrassment is common amongst those brave enough to use the hallowed stalls, as they use the facilities as quickly as possible.

My response, after having been subjected to this psychological stress and embarrassment, is to embrace the public pee.

Considering the universality and biological importance of the act, it is unnecessary to waste time overthinking a visit to the bathroom. With that in mind, go forth, ye of small bladders full of caffeinated liquids, and answer nature’s call with head held high.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

ARTWORK BY HOTBLACK (MORGUEFILE)

FoMO

Shruti Ramesh

H

ow many times have you checked your Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/ LinkedIn/email in the past 24 hours?

So far in 2015, five or six of my friends have lost or broken their cell phones. This effectively brought their mobile social media use to a halt. A few of them found the experience immensely freeing, while others found themselves constantly reaching for their absent cellphones, joking that their “FoMO was acting up again.” As someone who had not heard of the term before last year, I sought to better understand how this fear became such a pervasive experience.  What is it?

FoMO (Fear of Missing Out) is a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent. It applies in social, academic, and professional experiences and can be characterized by an often compulsive desire to stay continually connected to what others are doing.  What causes it?

There was a time when we experienced media cyclically. Newspapers were released daily, world events were on the news at the same time every night, and to find out about a friend’s weekend you would probably have to ask them in person.

I suppose you could argue that we still receive media cyclically – but that cycle has a frequency of about two seconds. There is VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality concerning the preoccupation with what others are doing. The reason why FoMO is only a recently conceived idea is that advances in communication technologies have resulted in the lives of others’ never really being out of sight. This can lead to constant comparisons and a perception of your own activity as inadequate. The things you’re doing suddenly pale in comparison to the things you could be doing.

This phenomenon has been given serious academic consideration by researchers from the University of California and the University of Rochester in the United States, as well as by Dr. Andrew Przybylski of Oxford University. The research is conducted primarily from a psychological perspective of self-determination theory, which assumes that humans have basic psychological needs that are innate and universal. These needs – for competence, autonomy, and relatedness – must be satisfied for people to develop and function in healthy or optimal ways. The research concludes that FoMO results from low levels of psychological needs satisfaction. What this means is that the FoMO condition was found to be most common in those who had unsatisfied psychological needs such as wanting to be loved and respected.  Do you have it?

The same research teams have been working to devise a way to estimate an in-

dividual’s level of FoMO. Operating under the assumption that the spectrum of FoMO experienced is normally distributed, you can find out approximately what percentile you lie in via a questionnaire at www.ratemyfomo.com.  Conclusions Although FoMO is characterized as a pervasive mental state, it can have physical manifestations. These include pervasive sweating, shortness of breath, dizziness, and headaches – similar to the symptoms typically associated with anxiety disorders.

These symptoms can ultimately affect one’s external behaviour. For example, it was found that people whose FoMO index was relatively high were more likely to text while in class, at work, and while driving.

This makes the FoMO condition not only an inhibitor of productivity, but also potentially dangerous.

Of course this is a generalization, but there seems to be an immaturity to our relationship with technology. Unhealthy digital habits, such as constantly checking on emails and social media updates, can lead to insufficient engagement in in-person social interactions. We are still learning how to engage mindfully with social media. While the Generation Ys may be better at understanding it, that we are becoming so accustomed to the transparency of other people’s social and professional lives may not be so desirable after all.  7

lost in translation Gali Katznelson

A

ccording to my mom, I have three different personalities. As it turns out, she may be right: I have come to realize that I do feel like a different person in each of the three languages I speak. Apparently, many multilinguals feel this way. This may be explained by the principle of linguistic relativity, often referred to as Whorfianism. It holds that the structure of a language affects the way its speakers conceptualize the world. Each language has a unique structure with its own categories and patterns. When expressing ourselves, we are confined to these frameworks.

But what if these structures impede our ability to truly express what we want to say?

The other day at swimming lessons, an adorable 4-year-old student was firing questions at a group of amused instructors such as, “How can you swim?” and the slightly more creative, “How were you born?” In Russian, this kid is such a “pachemoochka!” (a term of endearment to describe an inquisitive child). In English, the best I could do to describe this little cutie was “curious”.

Here are some more words in other languages that I think would add some flare to our language but do not have a direct English translation: Jayus (Indonesian) A joke told so poorly that one cannot help but laugh.

Tartle (Scottish) Hesitating when introducing someone because you’ve forgotten the person’s name.

Tingo (Pascuense) Gradually stealing all possessions from a neighbour by borrowing them without return.

Fernweh (German) Feeling homesick for a place where you’ve never been.

Rire dans sa barbe (French) To quietly laugh to yourself about something funny from the past.

Tsundoku (Japanese) The act of leaving a newly bought book unread in a pile of unread books.

Gökotta (Swedish) To wake up early in order to go outside and hear the birds sing.

Schilderward (German) A street overcrowded with roadway signs that causes you to get lost.

Age-otori (Japanese) To look worse after a haircut.

Hanyauku (Rukwangali) To tiptoe on warm sand.

Utepils (Norwegian) To enjoy a beer outside on a warm day.

ARTWORK BY SARAH MAE CONRAD

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Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan) A wordless but meaningful look shared between two people who both want to initiate something but are too reluctant to do so.

Ilunga (Tshiluba) A person able to forgive something the first time and tolerate it a second time but never a third.

Won (Korean) The reluctance to let go of an illusion.

Gattara (Italian) An old lady who devotes herself to stray cats.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN

PATROLLING OUR

USE OF SLANG: Dear ______, It has recently come to our attention that there has been some confusion over certain colloquialisms, and we thought it prudent to clear them up. Specifically, we are talking about keepin’ it three hundred. Or is it 3hunna? Our letter will argue that while some of you believe one to be more correct than the other, both terms are in fact equally acceptable. We will attempt to prove to you that either term is appropriate for any situation.

For those of you who don’t know, here’s a quick rundown of the facts. Keep it three hundred is used to imply keeping it three hundred percent trill, as opposed to the more conventional and less ambitious one hundred percent true and real. It is applicable to almost any event in which you are generally thrilled to be alive, including but not limited to the party your housemates threw last night or your new spray tan, which is stylin’.

You definitely don’t look like a carrot.

Now that you’re well versed in the definition, we can examine the two competing schools of thought behind this complex and controversial colloquialism. First, we will investigate 3hunna, a term coined by up and coming Chicago rapper Chief Keef in his 2012 hit single of the same name. He drops this timeless classic several times throughout this sick beat. He claims, for example, that while other rappers might “keep this s*** one hunna,” Chief Keef settles for no less than “keep[ing] this s*** three hunna.” He even takes it to the next level with the lyric, “Three hunna b**** six hunna.” Whoa! If you need a moment, we understand. We can hardly believe he went there either.

Hold on there, skipper, you’re not an expert yet. Imma let you finish, but Chief Keef is only half of the equation. Who could forget the voice of our generation, the one and only Yeezy himself? The second stylization of this infamous term, keep it three hundred, derives from the rap song “Black Skinhead” off of Kanye West’s aptly named 2013 album, Yeezus.

He spits, “I keep it 300, like the Romans.” The most likely explanation of this poetic comparison is that three hundred in Roman numerals is CCC, which also stands for cool, calm, and collected. Those who have less confidence in his capacity to form coherent allusions, however, maintain that he is referencing the movie 300, which is about Spartan warriors who are decidedly not also Romans. No matter which philosophy you adhere to, one thing is clear: Ye is living it large.

In conclusion, we have provided you with a comprehensive history of the meaning and origin behind the contentious phrase keep it three hundred. We hope that you will henceforth use your new understanding to enhance your everyday conversations as well as bring you greater depth and clarity. To conclude, stop hatin’ on our slang, and keep it 3hunna, playas. 

Love, Devra Charney and Kaila Radan VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

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ARTWORK BY FATIMA ZEHRA

READY, SET, STAY Elina Filice

They always said you’d be the traveler You were always talking about it, dreaming about it, Planning it saving it craving it When some people order life, they get it to go They said you’d gone crazy, and you replied “At least I’ll be gone!”

But instead of on the go You remained on the stay You blamed it on bills, obligations and health You kept saying “One day…”

Each year became more and more like the ones You said you’d never have.

You used to make fun of them, Mute commuters on trains, empty suits in the rain Now you’re embarrassed to be one of them, but you hide your shame A cog in the machine was never the life for you You’d shake the whole system, that’s what you’d do!

But somehow it never quite happened as planned Because as far as you looked and as far as you ran You never got far from all that you knew Ever-hungry for everything new air can do And nostalgic for people you haven’t yet met And hoping that wandering might fix your restlessness With a thirst only water from far oceans could quench And a desire to see real people wherever you went You live beneath the weight of sameness When all you used to crave was change.

There’s too much in the world, you once thought, to stay in one place And yet here you are, each year much the same How many times can you live the same day Before it’s no longer a life and simply a shame?

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No longer a picture but merely a frame?

You’d say to your friends, I would love to go but I really must stay.

And then one day you book a flight For the following night!

You pack a bag, Your neighborhood in the rearview Rolls out of sight But as the airport gets bigger So does the fear in your chest And voices tell you that at home is best You start to sweat and there’s pain in your head And you tell the cab driver to take you home to your bed You don’t unpack for weeks And despise the string securing you here But then you realize, Maybe it’s not attached, and you’re just holding on so tight That the string feels like a noose.

And then. One day. You see her.

In the travel section of a bookstore you sometimes go to dream She tells you her stories You listen, as if her words are letting you breathe You imagine yourself beside her in all those places The kind of girl who’d never let her passport expire Who’d climb every mountain and chase every sunset And light fireworks over a fire.

She might make you believe again And she might show you how far from yourself you’ve strayed A rose in endless winter, a chance when you thought there was none Sometimes all you need is someone To tell you you can To tell you to go  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

MARIE LAVEAU Michele Zaman

 New Orleans Monday, February 16th, 2015: It is an absolutely gorgeous day in Louisiana.

The sun is shining, people are laughing and singing, and everyone is so happy it’s contagious. I sense myself automatically starting to smile, feeling as light as a feather.

I am walking down Royal Street, looking up at balconies overflowing with liquor-filled individuals throwing beads at the people passing below. It is evident that Mardi Gras celebrations have started a bit early. Here is where I learn my first bit of New Orleans superstition. As I jump up to catch the falling beads, I miss and they land beside me on the street. Naturally, I bend over to pick them off the ground, when I hear someone yell, “STOOPP!” I look up, cheeks red from embarrassment. An old man walks over and says, “Dear, you mustn’t pick up beads from the ground. To wear them would be bad luck for the rest of your days.”

There is magic in the French Quarter, you don’t need convincing from the voodoo shops at every corner, because you can feel it in the air. With each step, I am heading closer to the heart of the French Quarter: the music gets louder, the drum beats get stronger, the saxophones sing harder, the crowd gets thicker, like there is ecstasy in the air. We finally

arrive at our destination, Preservation Hall.

With tremendous pride, the owner tells us it belonged to the famous Marie Laveau, the Voodoo queen of New Orleans.  Voodoo New Orleans Voodoo was created by the African people in retaliation to being shackled and dragged aboard ships that sailed for colonies in the United States.

With their homes destroyed and all their possessions taken, they had nothing left except their culture and religion.

Voodoo is believed to be a mix of Catholicism and Voudon, a widespread religion previously practiced on the West Coast of Africa. It can be characterized as “a whole assortment of cultural elements: personal creeds and practices, including an elaborate system of folk medical practices; a system of ethics transmitted across generations [including] proverbs, stories, songs, and folklore... Voudon is more than belief; it is a way of life.” In 1685 many states decreed that slaves were not allowed to practice their own religion, but it did not take long for the slaves to realize the parallels between Catholicism and Voudon. Even though their owners forced them to convert to Christianity, they

found a way to rebel by incorporating their own religious practices into Catholicism, thus creating Voodoo. Historical accounts also lead us to believe that it was heavily practiced in regions near Haiti during the Haitian Revolution. In 1791, civil unrest in Haiti caused many slaves to migrate to New Orleans, bringing a second wave of Voodoo with them.

Marie Laveau was a coloured woman of French, Indian and African descent who practised New Orleans Voodoo in the 19th century. Everyone in the French Quarter held her in high esteem, particularly because of her dedication to Catholicism.

She attended church everyday, and eventually she was granted permission to hold her own Voodoo rituals after mass on St. Ann Street. These rituals borrowed many aspects of Catholicism such as incense, holy water, snakes, and prayer. Laveau would theatrically predict the future, remove curses, and read minds. She became a crucial part of New Orleans culture, acting as a spiritual leader of the community.

Laveau had 15 children and passed away in 1881, but festivals are still held every year in honour of her work.

The public often perceives Voodoo as an evil religion, perhaps because the media has often mistakenly associated it with cults, witchcraft, and devil worship.

In reality, Voodoo is a community-centred religion, symbolic of freedom and hope, that was used by slaves who had every other aspect of their lives taken away. Voodoo allowed them to show their oppressors that their spirits were something that could not be broken. 

ARTWORK ARTWORKBY BYMICHELLE MICHELE ZAMAN

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

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ARTWORK BY SHIRLEY DENG

AN UNGLAMOROUS REALITY

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omewhere in Canada, a mother or sister has left her family in the Philippines to work as a nanny in someone else’s home. A father or brother has left Mexico, or Jamaica, or Peru to spend his days on a farm in Ontario or Alberta. In the cold basement of a restaurant in Toronto, there is a chef from Thailand or India. These mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters were lured to Canada with the promise of opportunity, only to face long hours of work without vacation or holiday, and often for far less money than agreed upon. The everyday stories of migrant workers in Canada are defined by exploitation, and in most cases, they are quietly swept under the rug.

In an increasingly globalized world, certain industries in Canada depend upon migrant workers for their labour and contributions towards income taxes, Employment Insurance (EI) and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). However, as migrant workers leave their homes behind to make a living in Canada, the systemic exploitation set in place by the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, and similar programs offer them little to no protection or rights.

This absence of rights creates conditions ripe for exploitation. Migrant workers face barriers when attempting to claim ben12

efits, are subject to unsafe working conditions, and are unable to demand health and safety training. A migrant worker is contracted to one specific employer before coming to Canada and must remain with that employer, regardless of their working relationship, until the contract ends. Thus, fear of deportation prevents workers from reporting injuries, and in some cases, discrimination.

A deadly car crash in Stratford, Ontario killed ten migrant workers from Peru and Jamaica. A worker who injured his knee on a farm was deported when he requested health benefits. A nanny was strictly forbidden to leave the employer’s house unaccompanied for two years. A worker’s passport and permit were seized upon arrival to Canada, and she was forced to share a bedroom with one of the children she cared for. These stories are not unique. They represent a systemic pattern of events which exploit and degrade migrant workers.

Temporary Workers programs and others like them leave migrant workers extremely vulnerable. Somewhere in the implementation of these programs, someone forgot that migrant workers are people with families and, like everyone else in today’s unstable labor market, they too are in search of a sustainable source of income.

Abena Offeh-Gyimah Migrant workers, in most cases, are engaged in work that does not appeal to the majority of Canadians, mainly due to unlivable wages and health and safety concerns.

In other words, they must do the work that no one else wants to. However, if Canada is going to make space for migrants to contribute to the economy, then we must ensure their well-being instead of treating them like disposable commodities.

Global forces are changing the way we live. We crisscross the planet for both work and play. Shopping malls are brimming with products from the far reaches of the globe. Technology, which is forging ahead at a breathtaking pace, is a personal portal to this new global community. But in cold damp basements, cramped spare bedrooms and sun baked fields, migrant workers often live in quiet despair in the shadows of this brave new world. Stripped of basic rights and disconnected from their families and communities, these workers must navigate a world that is ambivalent to their existence.

As Canadians and as members of a global community, we must change the policies that relegate our brothers and sisters to the shadows.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

AS IT FLOWS Nasreen Mody & Abdullah Raja

I

t’s calming to watch water.

As it flows from one ridge to another, from one stream to the next – it looks unfazed, detached from the concerns that surround the rest of nature. Its changing shape bends around boulders, goes through tunnels and falls down mountains. It’s gentle enough to lie in and yet powerful enough to topple entire cities. Its movements turn from tranquil to sudden. Powerful. Extremes that exist in one natural form. But extremes, peace and might are composed of the same parts – droplets – that accumulate little by little.

Yet, does anybody really care for the isolated drops, like the dew on the morning flower or the drip from a faucet? One has no time for these minute details of nature, but we all care for the lakes and rivers.

Oceans and waterfalls, we’ll travel to see.

Waves – we’ll wait for the crescendo, the height, its ultimate crash… but do we look out, waiting as anxiously for the ripples?

get their construction was orchestrated by little things; many little things.

Why do we look for waves and rivers when the drops are what make them happen? We appeal to the highlighted moments and actions instead of paying attention to the movement that it took to get us there. Moments at our best and at our worst move us towards something. We’ve

taught ourselves to forget or gloss over the little things. But those are the things that count. Literally.

Every drop counts in the same way every daily action and every step we take counts. When everyday actions seem mundane and repetitive, remember that the drops made the stream, the streams made the river, and rivers made the sea. 

ARTWORK BY HAMAEEL KHAN

Drop

and drop

make the sea.

For us these drops and drips hold no importance but for bodies of water – they’re vital. Nature created a remarkable construction – that things grow from small to large, and that all aspects during this journey are unequivocally important. Yet humanity solely seeks to emphasize the dominant. Unbeknownst to us, we’ve started to disregard the minute. Our agenda has become unidirectional and linear; achieving success is about the bigger and the better.

We are so caught up with the pinnacles in life that except for those moments, life has become uneventful. Mundane. Daily pursuits are mediocre compared to the heights of success. We forget to count drops and instead choose to focus on the bigger and better. Our linear thinking makes us miss an ocean of thought. In trying to watch for the crashing waves and tranquil oases, we forVOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

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ARTWORK BY KAYLA ESSER

HIGH PLACES Kayla Esser

O

ver Reading Week, instead of curling up in sweatpants and hibernating through winter, my father thought it would be a good idea to brave the –40°C weather and go ice climbing in Muskoka. Having spent the weekend skiing in Huntsville, it was easy to find some local guides who were more than willing to take our family of intrepid adventurers on a daylong exploration of the Muskoka Lakes waterfalls.

Before we headed out, wearing three layers of pants and at least as many pairs of socks, we were given the gear needed to tackle the falls. We secured ice pickaxes to each wrist, harnesses to our waists, and rigid-soled boots to our feet, complete with deadly-looking steel crampons that would help us find purchase in the ice. With that, we began our trek across the lake, feeling invincible and occasionally falling face-first in the snow (or perhaps that was just me) as we learned to navigate the unfamiliar terrain.

There’s no better way to embrace winter than to get up close and personal with a towering wall of ice, but when it’s 70 feet tall and right in front of your face, your confidence might waver. Our guides demonstrated the proper technique for climbing, and then I was tying myself in and staring up at an expanse of snowy icicles that didn’t look substantial enough to bear my weight.

On my first attempt, I learned that I’d exhaust myself quickly if I tried too hard. Before I was halfway up, fatigue set in and I hit a wall – literally. My frozen fingers lost grip

on the axes and I crashed sideways into the ice, thankful for the rope that kept me from tumbling down to the snow-covered ground.

I soothed my wounded pride with a thermos of steaming tea and waited for another turn as my brothers scampered up the ice wall like monkeys. After a few more attempts, we broke for lunch and hiked to the next site, where a steeper waterfall awaited.

Determined to make it to the top of this one,

come crashing down over your beleaguered family. At times, all you can do is yell, “Ice!” and try not to look down, because doing so means facing the reality that you’re secured to a cliff by a few inches of steel and a rope.

Knees bruised and battered from kicking at the wall in my attempts to make holds, I tied myself in once more. Using gentle but determined taps, I set my arms, crouched my legs, and pushed myself up. Carried by the cheers of my brothers below, I made my way up to the steady beat of my boots against the ice, until there was nowhere left to climb. I hauled myself over the snow-clad summit, leaned gratefully against the tree that my rope was tied to, and paused to catch my breath. Looking down at the expansive forest, the lake marked by our footprints, I couldn’t help but laugh – whether from exhaustion, or joy, or fear of heights, I wasn’t sure.

You may be wondering what the appeal of all this was. What draws people to such a masochistic sport, where your route is unpredictable and you can lose circulation in your arms simply by hanging on too long? Why attempt the Rockies and Niagara Falls, or in my case, the comparatively tiny waterfalls of Muskoka? It’s because ice climbing is a magnificent activity, not in spite of the inherent perils, but because of them. Reaching the top of a waterfall is exhilarating. There’s a rush, a sense of pride, and for a moment you forget that your body is aching and your breath is frozen in front of your face and all you can see is the world below, and the world is quiet. 

You can climb a route one day and return the next, only to find that your path has been entirely rewritten.

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I considered what made these waterfalls so much more daunting than the rock faces I was used to scaling back home. Here, I thought, the ice shifts beneath your boots.

Listen closely and you can hear it creaking, look up and you can see rivulets of water trickling down as icicles form before your eyes. You can climb a route one day and return the next, only to find that your path has been entirely rewritten. Unlike rock, which is steady and unyielding, ice is erratic and fragile. Sometimes you’ll swing your axe and hit a perfect groove to hang from, but most of the time you’ll end up dislodging snow, or worse, plates of ice that

INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

STRENGTH AND FAITH AND GOODNESS Palika Kohli ARTWORK BY JESSE BETTENCOURT

I

t started with the Beatles.

I have brought down my growing stack of vinyls to show my grandfather, whom I have always referred to as “Papaji”. He is flicking through them, looking askance at Tina Turner’s legs on one cover, his eyes glazed over by the time he reaches the last one, Abbey Road. He doesn’t recognize it, but my mom jumps in, pointing it out to him as a Beatles album.

“Oh, those bewacoofs? I saw them live in London a long time ago – before all that Beatlemania business. Mohan [a friend] dragged me there and when I come to Canada three years later suddenly I see the Beatles this, the Beatles that, everywhere I turn.”

I present to you Inderjit Bhagria, my 80-year-old grandfather: the original hipster.

I am curious, and despite warning looks from my dad (it’s rather difficult getting Papaji to stop once he’s started), I ask how on earth he ended up at a Beatles concert. He grins and leans back, settling in for a story that goes on for three hours; one that starts in India, journeys from Paris to England to parts unknown, and eventually lands him in Manitoba.

The scene opens on a pindh in Ludhiana, Punjab, India in the early 1960s. My grandfather is around thirty years of age and is presenting his father-in-law with an ultimatum: to let him journey to the UK – and possibly beyond – to secure himself and his family a better life outside of India. The ultimatum? If he is not given permission, well… he will go anyways.

Papaji is the baby of his family; he is the youngest of five brothers, he has only attended schooling until “tenth standard”, and he has been raised to believe there is nothing he cannot do. However, despite his upbringing and convictions, at this point in his life, he has a young wife who must care for their daughter (my mother) and a newborn son. And yet my great-grandfather sees his determination, so… he lets him go anyways.

As Papaji speaks to me, I picture the months that took him from India to England as though they are on fast-forward: blurs, with sudden stops that mark the checkpoints between each destination. These take the shape of obstacles that he navigates with foresight, determination, and, sometimes, sheer luck: sitting in an Indian airport, he reads in an English newspaper about hundreds of Indians getting sent back to India after landing in Glasgow, so he exchanges his ticket to one that takes him to Glasgow via Paris on a train. He slips into England’s borders with a six-month tourist visa. He obtains a job at a pharmaceutical engineering firm, a position afforded to him over other higher-qualified candidates thanks to his outra-

geously good memory: he can recite the products of a neutralization reaction, something he repeats, even now, to me: “An acid plus an alkali gives a salt and sometimes water.”

He remains in England for about three years, working his way up to unaccredited chemical engineer. He spends his nights at the firm and his days travelling with Punjabi friends he makes while in London, jumping across the border to countries that range from Egypt to Germany to Italy to the Netherlands.

He receives a tip-off on immigrating to Canada, and this becomes his new goal: he goes in pursuit of a visa that will get him into Canada and is eventually successful. He lands in Toronto and makes his way to Thompson, Manitoba, where some friends are staying. Within a day of getting to Thompson, he makes his way, jet-lagged yet eager, to Winnipeg, where he speaks at great length to the Immigration Officer, gets afforded special permission to become a landed immigrant with unlimited range to sponsor his family into Canada over a bi-monthly period.

He returns to India and picks up my grandmother, my mother and my uncle, packs them up, and brings them to Canada, pausing to shop in England and tour Paris. He settles in Toronto, obtains work as a machinist, and raises his family.

My grandfather, even now, does not understand the meaning of two words: stop and failure. He pauses in his story and I ask him about fear – he doesn’t deny it, but he talks about strength and faith and goodness as if these are limitless qualities, ones that have helped him, still help him, and, he believes, will help me, too. Nothing is impossible, he says. It only is if you believe it to be, if you lack determination.

Now it’s my turn to leave, and I’m worried about a fourmonth trip to India, one that has a defined purpose and deadline. I am leaving my family and friends and support behind, but I am tethered – I have booked a return ticket, and I am travelling with a Canadian passport. I am even going with friends, I am going to see family. In my grandfather’s eyes, all these things are a product of my faith and hard work, not merely fortune, convenience and coincidence. Papaji doesn’t see my privilege in choosing to return to a land he wished to leave, and instead views it as another of his successes: that despite my Canadian upbringing and education, I still have deep ties to my Indian heritage.

Papaji enjoys storytelling because through his words, he relives his adventures. I enjoy hearing his words because they provide me context and the strength to embrace change, accept challenges, and recognize that sometimes, the act of going is the less scary alternative. 

ARTWORK BY FRANCO SIMÕES

MY SUPERLATIVES Most likely to cry during the happy part of a movie.

Most likely to find any and all food delicious.

Most likely to pull an all-nighter. Most likely to laugh at inappropriate times. Most likely to whisper too loudly.

T

he cold persists, so we must too. The cold persists, so we must too. The cold persists, so we must too. The cold persi—this is what I repeat to myself over and over again on the nights that seem impossible to return to day. I’m pretty stuck in my mind. So thank you, dear reader, for taking ten minutes out of your hectic day to explore my existential unraveling with me.

I think that growing up is more like growing out. Identity usually cannot change overnight. It is an evolution – sometimes brought on by people, sometimes by what is necessary to keep your inferno of a soul aglow, despite how uneven and dangerous it may be. My body is changing and so is my mind. But some changes shatter everything; the last day of February was such a night of seismic shifts.

For a year, give or take, I had been unhappy more often than not. To recognize but be unable to accept that my blessings far outweighed my sorrows because of the funny things that went on in my brain, was frustrating and pretty draining. Many days, I was there, but if you looked closely enough, I was in REM sleep.

Then it was the 28th of February – the shortest, but coldest month – that everything in my life overwhelmed me. I faced a growing desire to be alone, to read, and to 16

eat because at any given moment, I could start crying, and that makes people uncomfortable. The fatalistic streak probably extends back to May 21st, 2006: the day I ventured across the fate my “friends” had assigned for me – Emile shall be friendless.

Or maybe it extends further back to my maternal grandmother, whom I never had the fortune of meeting. By the time my mom was my current age, my grandma had died from complications after chronic paralyzation due to clouded judgment from chronic depression. I wonder what she felt when taking the leap of faith that would erode my mother’s childhood.

It dawned upon me that I had spent so long trying to decode what was wrong with me that self-rejection made it impossible to ever really figure it out. The hypocrisy in wanting the best for oneself but subconsciously denying it is what I was battling every day. You cannot recover, improve, and grow without wanting it with every litre of oxygen you inhale and all of the toxins you get rid of.

I wish I could believe in definites like I could a few years ago. Ignorance, arrogance, childishness, and foolishness – all so finely attached.

We are university students, and we are restless because we’re teetering on the

Emile Shen

precipice between adolescence and adulthood. If everything depends on the person, place or situation, what remains for us to put our own faith in? I think my identity is greatly shaped by the people closest to me.

Sometimes what manifests from this is a happier self, someone who is carefree but thoughtful and can reciprocate compassion; other times, well, it isn’t so pretty, and I feel like a machine programmed to make bad decisions.

And while I have no clue what an identity can be comprised of, with all of its elusive and fluctuating meanings in our lives, I wonder if I’ve been programmed, à la epigenetics, to have an existential crisis every seven days, or if I’m just playing into the trope of the soul-searching 20-something.

Everything I have experienced has been already experienced by someone else because there are seven billion people in the world, and many billions more before our first breath of air.

But that’s just the grand scheme; I told you I was overthinking. That’s just the big picture, and again, I must remind myself that my feelings are valid, albeit not always rational. My damage and your damage. My fears and yours too. Maybe one day they’ll be the same, but by then you won’t be you, and I not myself. We may as well get pseudonyms.

The cold persists so we must too, but now it’s spring and I think everything will (probably) be all right.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

ARTWORK BY KATE DINGWALL

GENERATION WHY NOT? Trisha Philpotts

You can follow your dream, and if it doesn’t work, you can find another dream. You can try a new career, or ten.

C

lose your eyes, and picture yourself at nine years old. What did you want to be? Before money mattered, before the world sugar-coated cynicism and called it being realistic, before your parents told you that your dreams were absurd so you traded your dream in for theirs. Was it a ballerina? Firefighter? Fashion designer?

Missionary worker? Or maybe you wanted to own a café? Open your eyes. Look at where you are now; are you on track to follow that dream? At one point I wasn’t – maybe you’re not either.

Somewhere between that ambitious nine-year-old and our undergrad we are convinced that following our dreams may not be the best route. We are filled with enough pessimism towards the future to make Daria Morgendorffer look like the grand optimist. Words like unemployment rates, outsourcing, and recessions are thrown around to strike fear into our hearts and our pocketbooks, creating pessimists out of us all. God forbid we follow our dreams now – no, instead we hunker down and get a “real job” that pays well, is recession-proof, and your mom can brag about to her friends at her weekly bridge game.

Essentially, we are taught to play it safe, live in fear of failure, and, in the end, fail ourselves before we even try.

We are plagued with the anxiety of needing to get life right on the first go. Society tends to look at life in a linear pattern that says we graduate high school, go to college and get a sensible degree (whatever that is), get a career in our field, work our way up in the company, get married, buy a house, have children, and whatever else comes with being an adult. Now, I hate the term “YOLO” for a myriad of reasons (and

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

I’m sure the year 2011 can back me up on this one), but it is undeniably true that you only live once. Life isn’t linear, and it doesn’t have to follow the model that society, or your parents, or whoever has great influence in your life sets out before you. Instead, it can be sporadic, confusing, and filled with failures, successes, and lessons.

You can follow your dream, and if it doesn’t work out, you can find another dream. You can try a new career, or ten. You can get married right out of college, or never. There is no right path.

How crazy is it to think that you may spend the only life you get doing something you don’t love, or even like, because it’s safe? Because you fear the vulnerability that another life may offer? Although you can feel it in your bones that you were called to be a musician, you will never know what it’s like to get on that stage, you will never know what it’s like to play that first gig in front of ten people and your grandma, or your first soldout show, and you will never know how great you could have been, or how badly you could have sucked. Never knowing scares me more than anything – more than trying and falling flat on my face, more than having to start over a hundred times, more than disappointing my parents. Reserve the right to invent and reinvent yourself daily if needed, to follow your dreams, to ignore the voices of those who think they know what’s best for you, to give cynicism the middle finger, and to live life on your own terms in spite of your fears.  17

Make It to Shore

Kainat Amir

A female polar bear reportedly swam for nine days – nonstop – across the Beaufort Sea before reaching an ice floe, costing her 22 percent of her body weight and her cub.

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o forward. A little further.

I have been swimming endlessly. I do not know what exactly I am swimming towards, but it is far and it is survival. It is what I have been taught to do. Following in the steps of my mother, I have always had food, protection, and a home. Now that I am on my own, it is not so easy, but I must make it to shore.

The world is changing and so am I. Born and raised in calm waters, I have only experienced love, family, and safety. It is only once you go out on your own that you realize life is not all so simple. There is good and there is bad; one lies within the other. Sunlight brings brightness, but it also ushers in the dark, for as the ice melts, and the water stretches far and wide around you, the waves get rougher.

Survival becomes your responsibility alone. Your home is no longer yours; food will not be handed to you. Things you once took for granted, you now have to work for. Swim towards shelter; hunt to fill your stomach, day in and day out.

Adapt to your surroundings, for if you don’t, the stormy seas will drown you. Don’t let hunger overpower you; make it a driving force to keep you going.

Being true to yourself is difficult, but it is what matters. In the struggle for place, power, and permanence, many resort to cannibalistic, selfish behaviours. As resources dwindle and competition increases, others may engage in acts harmful to all but themselves. At these moments, remember your roots. Extend to others the love, family, and safety that once surrounded you. Make friends, defend and support each other, and share your happiness.

Do not lower your expectations: reach higher for them. It is never enough to be who others want you to be if it doesn’t add meaning to your life. Do the best you can, and have confidence in your abilities. Using the skills and values acquired from your kin, make your decisions responsibly and independently. Let it not be your aim to merely keep up, but to make it to shore.

Go forward. A little further. 

“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.”

– Anne Frank

ARTWORK BY AVERY LAM

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INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

ARTWORK BY JULIE GUEVARA

MAYBE THIS TIME WILL BE BETTER Julia Bugiel

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t night, I slip out of my skin and into the water. Softly, slowly. Then: all at once, with a shriek. There is no one to hold me accountable here. The heady silence of the bay is broken by my breathing, by the splash as I leave the surface and push under.

“Have you decided yet?”

Just give me time. I will soon. I'll know then.

There is a delicious no one, and I strike out, the water cool against my feverish insides. I speak a sensuous language of sight and touch. Roiling greens and blacks, immense blues. Pinpricks and caresses that make me shiver. The air is too much for my chest, and breathing merges pain and elation.

Have you decided yet?

“How do you like it?”

I miss it all; give it back, and more, please.

My arms and legs, little fragile things, somehow have the strength to carry me forward. I feel my wings unfurl, and the pain in my chest tells me to keep going, with each stroke proof that something greater than myself now guides me. I have a purpose, and it is to feel my body sing at every instant, to glory in this feeling.

What was it that you wanted, then?

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

“What was it that you wanted, then?”

I'm not sure it exists.

In the centre of the bay, ramshackle boards form an island of sorts, and I lift myself out of my sanctuary and into the night. The wood is rough against my feet, and the air smells sweet. I drink in the loam and wood smoke, the pine needles and dying leaves, the scent of water. I am moved to wordless ecstasy, somewhere between laughter and tears.

“So what have you decided?”

I stay out there, impossibly frozen, until finally I jump back into the water. No answer has come; when I return, I will bring nothing.

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And If I Had the Chance, I’d Ask the World to Dance Rachelle Zalter

ARTWORK BY LAUREN GORFINKEL

C

an you picture the Queen of England dancing? I don’t mean ballroom style, which she has surely mastered. I mean the kind of dancing you do when you’re feeling free, whether it’s home alone with a Songza playlist or a night on the town with some friends and tequila.

Sure, Queen Elizabeth probably doesn’t listen to Songza or spend her nights clubbing (leave that to her grandson, Harry), but she’s still human. I’m willing to bet that at least one of her guards has caught her in the middle of the cha-cha slide. Or, okay, maybe something a little less exuberant.

In the 1960s there was a massive age gap in American culture. The conservative older generation understood life as highly structured. They saw dancing as a man and a woman linking hands and moving to predetermined steps. Ballroom dancing etiquette was safe, and more importantly it was normal. But the younger generation,

Jive. However, the clash between generations persisted, with certain countries even banning radical dance moves they feared might lead the youth to anarchy. In the USSR, dances were regulated in order to maintain appropriate behaviour, typically consisting of slow and rehearsed styles such as the Waltz. Dancing was seen as a way to develop oneself, and becoming lost in the music failed to serve this goal.

Nevertheless, or perhaps as a result of the suppression, new types of dancing continued to gain popularity. In countries where it was possible, youth crowded nightclubs and learned the different moves until eventually they all blurred together. Everyone danced in whichever manner they pleased, and the compilation of these wild inventions became known as go-go dancing. It was freedom, it was movement, and it was completely letting go.

Go-go dancing later became a form of entertainment where girls were hired to dance for entertainment, sporting knee-high boots and brightly

It was freedom, it was movement, and it was completely letting go. the counterculture, thrived on freedom. After growing up under the conservative norms and Cold War repression of the 1950s, many were ready to escape strict societal confines. One way they achieved this was through dance.

When Hank Ballard introduced the Twist in 1959 and Chubby Checker covered it the following summer, the younger generation exploded with excitement. The interactive song had people gathering in nightclubs, unreservedly turning their hips from side to side and often sporting skirts that whipped in all directions. Polite society was appalled, claiming the Twist was too sexy. But soon enough, dancing’s contagion had everyone from upper-class parents to movie stars raving about the Twist.

The phenomenon of people anywhere making up dance moves and sharing them with their friends spread across the globe. People were creating famous moves, such as the Shimmy, the Mashed Potato, and the Hand

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patterned dresses on stage. Some dancers began to go topless, eventually blurring the line between strippers and go-go dancers. Ironically, go-go dancers today often rehearse their routines while the people watching can dance freely. The liberating and irrepressible philosophy of go-go dancing was especially challenged when cages were added to many of the new dancers’ routines. This stark contrast between openly moving around a dance floor and being locked up like an animal changed society’s perception of go-go dancing forever. The freedom attached to the style has been lost.

At its core, go-go dancing is essentially “dancing like nobody is watching.” It is about being fearless, letting your guard down, and making rash decisions without worrying about others’ judgments. Go-go dancing is about being able to laugh at yourself. And ultimately, it means accepting your quirks (which, for me, refers to my embarrassing lack of rhythm). Go-go dancing fueled a generation of individuals who weren’t afraid to challenge the norm in the hopes of a better future.

Thus, it should not surprise you that the root of the word ‘go-go’ can be traced back to the French expression la gogue, meaning joy and happiness.

Because let’s be honest, at least a little part of you wishes you were dancing right now.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

Fresh Tracks Tiffany Got ARTWORK BY MALEEHA A. QAZI

I

t was the first time I’d ever been prepared for a Monday morning during the school year, and I was excited. I felt ready to accomplish everything on my to-do list. Perhaps I should mention that it was a snow day, and by prepared I mean I was lying in bed wrapped up like a burrito and cuddling with my laptop. Oh, and that to-do list?

Watch Netflix and sleep at the same time (it’s almost as challenging as cooking Minute Rice in 58 seconds), drink copious amounts of white hot chocolate, and vegetate.

My day was unfolding perfectly until it was halted by my mother, who decided that there was no place for my human-duvet-potato form inside, and that I should go out instead and enjoy the “beautiful day.” The injustice of being told to go outside like a ten-year old and play in the snow was not lost on me.

Nonetheless, I decided to brave the outdoors for a few Snapchats so I could later brag about my adventurousness – after all, pics or it didn’t happen. I made my way to the golf course behind our house: my favourite spot, except on The Coldest Day of the Year. When I walked down the slope leading to the golf course, I almost forgot I was in the city. The world was pure white in all directions until it met the blue of the sky.

I plunged into the scene. I skipped, ca-

vorted, pounced, collapsed, sprinted, trampled, and preened in the snow. I moved in random ellipses, zigzags, and decahedrons all across the field. I let my inner ADHD tenyear-old loose on the defenceless snow, sparing not a single patch from my ruthless stomping. I made a mental note to add “Crunching through Fresh Snow” to the list of 1000 Awesome Things.

I returned to the golf course the next weekend with my brother in tow, excited to share my winter wonderland with him.

the tractors that clear paths on sidewalks, or the muddy, well-worn tracks of students that cut across university lawns.

I have often been told that when I say I fear the future, I am simply scared of the uncertainty it holds. I’m supposed to be intimidated by all the possibilities that stand before me, overwhelmed by the novelty of it all and lost without direction. This future sounds like a world that is blanketed in white, with no footsteps to follow. While all this may be true for some, I found it harder to walk around the second day. I was tempted to fall into the paths that were already cleared, instead of expending more effort by stomping through the snow to create one myself.

On the second day, creativity was unnecessary; why dream up a new route when there is already one that works? University can feel like that second golf course, tempting and confusing you with paths showing what everyone else is doing. That first day in the snow was the freest I’d felt since September.

At this point, I could pretend to be some know-it-all Dear Abby and offer some hollow advice littered with clichés. To be frank, we all know there’s no easy magic formula to reconcile this struggle. All can offer is a reminder of how easy it is to forget the joy of discovering something by yourself and for yourself. 

On the second day, creativity was unnecessary; why dream up a new route when there is already one that works?

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

However, it seemed like the rest of the neighborhood had since had a similar idea.

Crisscrossing paths covered the golf course, some random and others cleared to reveal the concrete trails underneath. Now that there were paths spanning the entire area, it felt silly to deviate from them. This left me sorely disappointed, and I realized that as a university student, I rarely get the chance to step in fresh snow. I’ve come to depend on

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 Okay Amanda Emmanuel I like coffee better in the morning I like the way my eyes squint when the boiling bitterness kisses my lips, tickles my throat and tastes better than cigarettes.

I like how I look with red lipstick on, the way it makes me stand taller and it stains my favourite coffee mug.

I like it better underneath the sheets and I like them better to myself with the door closed, my candles lit, my toes curled and my hair wet.

I love music for myself, the way I feel just so and the song isn’t yours it’s mine and loud so I can’t hear you knocking on the door.

Maybe I like the way I can’t drink coffee with you in the morning Or let you burn my lips with your cigarette breath because you won’t kiss me when I have lipstick on.

Maybe I like not sharing my earphones because they won’t reach you because you’ve moved too far away from me on the bed.

Maybe I like the sheets to myself and I can let the flame burn away on its own and I don’t have to share my earphones and I can sleep with my hair wet and I’ve quit smoking because you aren’t knocking on my door anymore.



ARTWORK BY JULIE GUEVARA

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INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

CLINT THOMSON

I S LO O K I N G F O R T R O U B L E Stephen Clare ARTWORK BY JULIE GUEVARA

C

lint Thomson kicked in the saloon door like a mule and marched up to the bar, spurs spinning. He didn’t remove his riding gloves ‘cause he was looking for a fight.

“Howdy stranger,” said the bartender. “What can I get for ya?”

“Whiskey,” replied Clint, his voice low and dry as dust. “Straight.”

He tossed a handful of coins on the table.

The bartender counted them out. “You’re short, friend.”

“So is my temper.”

The barkeep narrowed his eyes and searched Clint’s face, but decided it was too early in the evening for trouble. He grunted, swept the coins into his pocket, and poured the newcomer a shot.

Clint took the drink without comment and threw it back in one gulp. He slammed the glass back on the table and turned around to examine the saloon.

It was just past dinnertime and the place was mostly empty, but Clint knew it would fill up soon. Sure enough, just then the doors swung open and a group of men entered, laughing. They strolled up the bar, ordered beers, and took their drinks to a large table in the corner.

Clint noted their clean clothes, shiny spurs, and un-cracked leather gloves. Perfect.

Opposite them, a band was starting up. One man began beating time on an overturned barrel, while another went to work on a guitar. Things were getting noisy. People laughing, talking, drinking, playing cards. Time to make a move.

“Hey!” shouted Clint, stepping down from his stool. “You got a problem, friend?”

The other patrons of the bar looked at each other, wondering who this stranger was yelling at.

“I’m talking to you, curly wolf,” said Clint, pointing.

“Me?” said one of the men in the corner. Clint had singled out the biggest one, a tall man with a neatly trimmed beard and splendid blue vest.

“Yeah, you. You were lookin’ at me real funny-like.”

Blue Vest scoffed. “I never seen you in my life, you dumb gooney.”

“Whatchu just call me?” Clint stepped toward the man. “You’re liable for a lickin’ with that kind of talk.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Christ, you’re loaded to the gunwhales.”

“I know what I seen, and I’m sober as a nun. You gonna be a man about this?”

“Watch yourself, friend. You’re outnumbered.”

“Now hold on a minute,” said the bartender. “We don’t want no trouble in here.”

“Seems trouble’s in the habit of seekin’ me out,” Clint said.

Then he leaped across the table and slammed the man into the wall.

“Jesus Christ!” said the bartender. The band ducked behind the barrel for cover while the bar’s resident hookers screamed and ran upstairs. Clint had Blue Vest on the ground and managed to dish out a hell of a lickin’ before being thrown off by the man’s friends.

“What the hell, man!” screamed Blue Vest, touching the blood streaming from his nose.

“That’ll learn ya!” Clint climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. He turned to leave the bar.

“Where do you think you’re going?” said the bartender.

Clint spun around again to find the twin barrels of a shotgun tickling his nose. Casually, he brushed the muzzle away from his face and glared. “Easy now, barkeep,” said Clint. “I reckon I’ll be on my way.”

“You ain’t going nowhere! You just assaulted that man. Skookum McCoy’s run off to get the sheriff.”

Clint chuckled. “The sheriff, huh? You think the law’s gonna protect you?” He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it and took a long drag. “Law don’t give two shits about scum like that.” He gestured dismissively toward the group of men in the corner. “You need men like me. Men not bound by the badge.”

The bartender lowered his shotgun to the ground, his eyes wide and mouth dangling. “Jesus, he’s right,” he said, backing up.

“You’re either off your rocker or full as a tick.”

Clint shook his head. “I ain’t crazy, friend, and I’m the soberest man here. Now I’ll be off, and y’all best remember the time you were paid a visit by Clint Thomson, the Justice of the West.” He turned and pushed through the saloon doors, leaving the bar silent save for the moans of the bleeding man in the corner.

The story of the night some outlaw callin’ himself Clint Thomson beat the hell out of Tumbleweed Cameron at Slim Carson’s saloon would make the rounds in that sleepy little desert town for years. They never figured out whether Thomson was drunk, settling an old score, or just plain crazy. All they knew was that he came round once and never came back. And ol’ Tumbleweed was never quite the same. He stopped cheating at the poker table for one, never again missed a Sunday service, and was liable to flinch if you moved at him too quick. 

He didn’t remove his riding gloves ’cause he was looking for a fight.

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23

DO ANDROIDS OF ELEC Jesse Bettencourt

I

n 1956, MANIAC became the first computer algorithm to beat a human at chess.

The rules were simpler, Los Alamos variant, and the opponent was a novice. Nevertheless, this defeat represented, perhaps, the beginning of the end.

Chess was once considered an exclusively human endeavour.

An exercise in logic, but also in strategy, in psychology of reading opponents, and in manipulating their weaknesses. It also has deep roots in European culture as an important social practise of the noble classes.

As an art, chess evolved with society, developing themes and theories on winning tactics and strategy.

For example, the Romantic Era of chess in the 1880s was distinguished by clever piece sacrifices, combinations of confident attacks, and dynamic responses to opponents’ methods. Winning wasn’t enough: you also had to win with style.

As far back as the 10th century, theories of successful strategy were discussed and improved upon. However, today’s competitive chess is far more rigorous and precise than ever before. The best players – chess grandmasters – have often memorized infallible strategies for the most common board arrangements. At the competitive level, players have timed turns to analyze the board and determine, usually from memory, the best move to produce the most desirable board arrangement. In

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reducing chess to this practice of algorithm and pattern recognition, modern chess has produced the best players to ever live.

However, it was not long before even they were defeated, and this new generation of

The fate of chess and computers chess masters is not alive.

The first chess ‘engines’ to defeat strong chess players didn’t appear until the late 1980s, and these programs ran on supercomputers. The most famous human defeat was world chess champion Garry Kaspaov’s loss to IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997. However, even in the era of Deep Blue, human chess masters were able to consistently draw or even defeat computer engines. By the late 2000s, chess engines significantly surpassed even the best human players. While Deep Blue and previous computers were commercially designed super computers, capable of searching 200 million positions per second, in 2009 an improved chess engine, while only capable of searching fewer than 20 000 positions per second, attained grandmaster level and won its tournament. This chess engine, the Pocket Fritz 4, ran on a mobile phone.

The fate of chess has been decided, and computers are superior. Humans will never again beat the best computers at chess. This is not unique to chess; computation is dominant in many board games, such as Checkers, Connect Four, and Scrabble. However, computers have not yet bested humans at all board games.

Go, a board game originating from ancient China, is considerably more challenging for computers than chess. One illustration of the difference in complexity between Go and chess is the number of INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

DREAM CTRIC CHESS? ARTWORK BY JULIE GUEVARA

possible games. For chess, there are on the order of 10120 possible games. This number is so mind bogglingly huge that calling it astronomically large would be a gross understatement – the number of atoms in the

has been decided, are superior. whole observable universe is only around 1080. Yet, despite the vast complexity of chess, Go allows for the possibility of 10761 games. This magnitude of possibilities is due to Go’s 19×19 grid board. Despite its simple rules, the complex strategies are also more mathematically challenging to describe algorithmically, though measures of this complexity are more subtle and less apparent. This, understandably, poses a far greater challenge to computer players than chess.

Yet despite these seemingly insurmountable difficulties, computer Go engines are improving. What’s more, these improvements are happening much more rapidly than with chess. It took half a century after computers defeated a novice player before technology improved to allow consistent victory over chess experts. With Go, computers built in 1998 were unable to beat humans even with significant handicaps to the humans. Two decades later, in 2010, Go computers were able to beat strong players and even world champions.

However, these victories are inconsistent, and computer superiority in Go is still undecided. But, as it went with Chess, soon it will go with Go, and no human will ever reclaim the title of best Go player.

While this seems like all fun and games when we consider, well, board games, the implications are far-reaching. Consider again that chess was once considered VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

a creative exercise before we identified patterns in the gameplay and created algorithms to replicate these patterns. This treatment can be broadly applied to possibly every human creative endeavour. Everywhere that humans are able to creatively produce patterns which satisfy certain conditions, like board game victory, musical harmony, or visual aesthetics, computer algorithms can learn to produce similar patterns. Ironically, even the programming of these algorithms is no longer a human effort, as machine learning allows computer algorithms to produce computer algorithms to match patterns.

Today, machine learning has created art engines that can produce visually aesthetic paintings, drawings, or digital art given any criteria. There are music engines, composing an infinite amount of unique and appealing music across any genre, from orchestral to electronica. These genres are, after all, just parameters to the pattern algorithm. What’s more, most people cannot discern between human composed and computer generated music. Perhaps, as with chess, computer players will surpass even the best human composers. Painting, sculpting, sketching, and even poetry and prose are all susceptible to analysis and imitation by machine learning algorithms. Within the decade, your next Incite issue could feature exclusively computer generated content. And, as with chess, it might even be better that way.  25

MOTION Featuring eight selected entries from our Motion Art Contest.

Here’s what Motion means to these Incite artists:

Painted in Space by Nikkie To The stigma of mental illnesses and gender binaries are still deeply embedded in our culture today; in my work I aim to reference these dichotomies. In our private moments of self-reflection we come to terms with all facets of our identity, and that moment of contemplation that we have with ourselves is what I strive to capture. The figure and the human form are the focus of my paintings. They are often fragmented and placed in introspective reimagined abstract spaces, creating constructed identities and environments. My audience become onlookers of these figures and can reflect on the vulnerabilities of the figures, themselves and of us as humans. I want to connect people with people. The images I create are a vehicle to raise questions about what we understand as reality, what is in fact a figment of our own creation, and how we often misunderstand our own image of self. 

Slow Motion by Julianne Guevara Our perception of motion is not absolute, and our understanding of the passage of time and space is highly local, to the point where simultaneous observations from near-identical frames of reference produce wildly different models of reality. The birth and death of a star is just the blink of our eyes. A simple train ride is painful monotony at a hundred miles an hour.

A train ride can be both the most gradually-passing yet fastest-moving part of a daily routine, and that can be beautiful. A train ride shows the slow-moving nature of daily life due to repetitive, mundane tasks. 

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INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

Set in Motion by Maxine Gravina This image was taken at the 2015 Ontario University Track and Field Championships in February. Motion to myself is something I am always in conjunction with. Being on a track team, we’re always trying to do either of the following with motion: defy, collaborate or create. We defy motion to resist and race against time, and sometimes racers need to collaborate with motion and use it to their advantage in particular race situations. Most importantly runners create beautiful moments that through images bring something into existence. This moment was the last hand off for McMaster’s 4×800 men’s relay. Here, something was set in motion, and the boys finished winning bronze at the championships. This has not been done for the past 25 years at McMaster. The image not only displays the boys capturing the bronze medal that day, but setting a change in motion for the future of the team. 

Dancing Dervish by Maleeha A. Qazi Motion for me is dance – a dancing body or a dancing set of letters. I have combined these two aspects in this piece depicting a dancing Dervish, dancing to the tunes of music and to the Arabic letters of the word Dervish itself, with each letter inscribing each fold of the dress (‫ش‬, ‫ي‬, ‫و‬, ‫ر‬, ‫)د‬. The combined imagery confers not only movement to the dancer but also movement to the letters, harmoniously bringing the body and the word in one synchronized motion – that of a dancing Dervish!  VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

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Daydreaming at Night

by Maya Newman The central figure can be seen as a person/mermaid-like figure or simply a unique shape. The colours emphasize the contrast between the figure against itself and against the background. The theme of motion is at play since you have so much going on colour-wise and detail-wise. As well, the shapes are meant to give your eye something to zone out in, and this creates a sense of constant motion. 

Synchronized Attack

by Barbara Karpinski Capturing the fiery spirit of McMaster’s Men’s Volleyball team proved to be a lot easier than expected.

During the Final Four, they played with the burning intensity of true Marauder warriors, and spectators were captivated by the boys’ determination throughout the night. A belated congratulations to them for winning 1st place in OUA, and placing 3rd in CIS!! 

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INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

Fluxo by Franco Simões Motion is a central characteristic of cities; it doesn’t matter if they are big or small. With this image I’m trying to portray the frequent movement on a street in New York, exploring interesting dichotomies between the subjects: as a bus stopped in focus and all the blurred figures of people walking, or the the bus heading to the right while people walk to the left. 

Chaos in Motion by Janine Wong I was inspired by the idea of water and the movement within it.

This represents both the controlled chaos and the meditative quality that water has in its varying states of motion. 

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In Defence of Laziness Harry Krahn

U

niversity tends to be a serious environment. It is an action-oriented space, where people are constantly thinking of their direction, identity, and goals.

Clocks plaster every available surface, exacerbating apprehension over where and when we need go places. We lean collectively forward, thinking about the weekend on weekdays, the week ahead on weekends, the summer in winter, and September in May. Our thoughts seem ever focused away from the present and on the future.

Nowhere is this shift more tragic than in the arena of friendship. Social engagements are laden with a preoccupation over where people are going and what they are doing. Making plans always requires knowing where to go next or who is going to be there. Those who abstain from worrying are chided for being aloof, disinterested, even uninteresting. Combating this requires a shift in our operative words. Rather than going, we should think about being. We need a Renaissance of sorts: a rebirth of hanging out.

‘Hanging out’ is a term laden with negARTWORK BY LEAH FLANAGAN

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Rather than going, we should think about being. We need a Renaissance of sorts: a rebirth of hanging out. ative connotations through its association with killing or wasting time. However, in a place as steeped in stress as university, it seems that few things are as important as knowing how to unwind. I would direct attention to the 1989 opus Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Perhaps its leading characters were not ambitious by any sane judgement, despite their aspirations to rock ‘n’ roll fame, but it cannot be said that they were unhappy. It is difficult to find any famous duo – comedic or otherwise – that does not hang out.

Towards the end of high school, I found myself witnessing the birth of a tradition.

Every Friday, a group of my friends would

make nachos. We would begin with a tribunal meeting to plan out precisely what salsa to use today and debate the usage of jalapeños. Then we would march to a nearby grocer, taking captive the ingredients needed for a sacrifice to the dark god of melted cheese. Each of us would take as our responsibility one part of the meal. I was in charge of the meat, while others dealt with guacamole, cheese grating, and related activities. After a few hours, we held a lavish feast and swiftly fell into food comas.

I treasure few memories of high school more than those halcyon Fridays. Despite the intensity of academics and clubs, nothing was as genuinely pleasant as the creation of an absolutely inappropriate amount of food. The reason those memories stand out is because our operative word was to be. There was no nervousness over what might happen later, simply the fact that we were making delicious things.

An undergraduate student named Alec Goodwin recently received a $25 000 grant from the University of Chicago’s Uncommon Fund to hold the first National Symposium on Hanging Out. His tongue-in-cheek video pitch proposed plans for a day-long conference on “one of the world’s most important social sciences,” with a mention of keynote speakers such as Cheef Keef, renowned “for his work on marijuana and ATV-related activities.” His sardonic tone belies an important point: perhaps hanging out means more than we think. If we want to relax, we should be doing relaxing things. I see no reason why we all can’t just like, chill out, man.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

ARTWORK BY SONNET IRWIN

Dance Like Everybody’s Watching David Yun

I

have a very distinctive style of dance that can be best described as spastic, vaguely interpretive, and satirically sexual. It is definitely not mainstream, and I would never describe it as “good”. Sometimes people see me dance and say things like, “You must not care what people think of you,” or “You dance like nobody’s watching.” While I appreciate the support, these comments are rather far from the truth. I don’t dance like nobody’s watching; I dance like everybody’s watching and they want to be entertained.

Dancing, unlike my mild penicillin allergy, did not come to me naturally. For the majority of my life, I was afraid to dance at all, let alone in front of other people. I always volunteered to sell refreshments at elementary and high school dances to avoid having to awkwardly sway back and forth to loud music in dark, sparsely decorated gymnasiums. Then, one night, in an attempt to woo a girl, I nervously set foot on the dance floor and tried my best to look like I was having fun. I soon realized that dances are intentionally dark to conceal how very sweaty the participants are. Despite being more than a little terrified, I enjoyed myself, but more importantly, I enjoyed the attention I was getting.

My first large-scale dance performance came during a high school assembly on money management. For some unknown reason, the guest speaker decided that a dance contest was the best way to assess whether or not we had learned our lesson

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

about financial responsibility. As an incentive, he was offering $50 to the winner. The money was enticing, but I was much more concerned about the chance to show off my newfound skill in front of the whole school.

It started slowly as the speaker taught the four chosen contestants our money-themed dance moves. Then the music swelled, setting us free. I closed my eyes, and I danced.

I jumped, I twirled, I made a bird with my hands, I made it rain. Mediocrity doesn’t get noticed; if I wanted attention, I needed to be either very good or very bad. Obviously I chose the latter. When the competition ended, the winner was chosen by the audience’s applause. I had won $50, but more importantly, I had won myself some fans.

I have had a few public dance performances since coming to McMaster, mostly during Welcome Week, but my erratic body movements and lack of rhythm make it difficult to follow choreography. Instead, I like to teach my own dance classes, which are almost always interpretive in nature. Interpretive dance is the kind of thing that looks like it could be humiliating, yet I would never do it unless people were watching. I never really say or do anything of substance during these lessons, but people always jump at the opportunity to frolic in an open meadow.

There is something oddly exciting about doing weird dances in public that people soon pick up on. Being weird isn’t a bad thing – it makes you interesting.

Sadly, my dancing is not so well received at the club. My aggressive and

creepily seductive dance moves don’t exactly endear me to strangers. All I wanted to do was shake what my momma gave me atop the stage at Dirty Dogs, when a mean-looking, possibly misogynistic security guard quickly brought an end to that dream. Most clubs aren’t spacious enough for much interpretive dance, and my dancing technique was not designed for endurance. My typical clubbing experience involves me rolling up to the door around 11, dancing as hard as possible until 11:30, and then silently regretting how sober I am until my friends look ready to leave. Despite my aversion to the clubbing life, my services do sometimes come in handy. When weird dudes make unwanted advances on my female friends, they simply flash me the secret sign and I back my booty up towards the unsuspecting suitor. Interestingly, these strange men usually grow uncomfortable in my presence and take their business elsewhere.

Much like my dancing, this article is intended to entertain you, and I would not have written it if I didn’t want you to read it. Even though I don’t necessarily adhere to the philosophy of dancing like nobody’s watching, I think the phrase really means that we should dance if we enjoy it. Personally, I enjoy dancing because people are watching. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you enjoy doing (unless it’s not showering during exam season and stinking up the library) or why you enjoy it; if it makes you happy, go out and do more of it.  31

THE ART OF LETTING GO Nimra Khan

S

ilence is deafening.

Maybe that’s why I loved crowds so much. Eventually, the sounds became background noise, but in the middle of them I never felt alone. I was surrounded by a fast, muddling mass of souls, all people who I might never meet again. But as we all rushed off the subway in a sea of bodies, I was a part of something. The jostling, rushing, constantly-moving flurry kept me going.

If I sat down for too long, the television off, no music playing, not crazily trying to finish an essay, I’d be lazy. I’d be that horrible image of loneliness everyone would laugh at, probably telling me to try harder and to get my life together.

I’d suffocate. I didn’t spend quite enough time looking at myself to understand those monsters in my mind. Those monsters showed themselves in the form of missed dinners, late-night crying, envying the success of others, and curled-up, faded Polaroids on the bedroom floor. Then I would get up the next day and begin again. Life was better in snapshots, in Polaroids capturing dreams that faded within the bustle of an ordinary day. I didn’t have to focus on the bigger picture then.

The days don’t weigh me down so much anymore.

I stood looking up at the most beautiful night sky; the stars lit up everything, they were so big and bright. I was standing in a dried-out valley. One by one, my mom, dad, brother, best friend, grocery store clerk, landlord, and other people who I saw constantly in my life came to talk to me.

I couldn’t understand from where they were appearing. But they each took my hand, saying something with tears in their eyes. I couldn’t hear their voices most of the time. When I did, all the sounds were jumbled together, as though they were moving faster than me. Eventually, they left, and I was still standing there, alone, wondering what it was 32

they were trying to say.

When people leave you – when they leave you for good – you can still sometimes hear their laughter in empty hallways. Or you might pick up the phone to call them, before realizing that no one is on the other end.

Then

come the haunting thoughts of what you should’ve-could’ve done; should’ve talked to them more, could’ve seen them more.

The memory remains. And that memory remained of me. I was floating through people’s minds, a string connecting them all in different ways, not realizing that their memories kept me alive. But over time, the spark faded. Life seemed more real than death.

Death can be sudden, but life stretches out endlessly. So, as people moved on with their lives, the stars quieted, and I returned to that silence of nothing to occupy my time, no one to visit me.

But I don’t suffocate now. 

I stood looking up at the most beautiful night sky; the stars lit up everything, they were so big and bright.

ARTWORK BY NIMRA KHAN

INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

RECONSTRUCTING A LIFE WORTH LIVING

ARTWORK BY ELAINE WESTENHOEFER

Sunny Yun

A

few months ago, I began feeling a certain lacklustre way. My realization that something was wrong unfolded in stages. First, I noticed how things that used to make me feel – things that used to provoke real anger, laughter, and sadness stopped affecting me. Then, I noticed how I saw life as a dull routine, one in which I was becoming less interested in participating. The world was still spinning, and the McMaster community continued to mill around, but I felt at a complete standstill.

To regard myself as increasingly desensitized and apathetic was concerning. And yet, this understanding alone was not enough to re-engage me in life.

I suspect that in this state I was not alone. The monotony of adult life easily encourages a passive existence. As we age, we assume a sense of “been there, done that.” It is almost cool not to be too moved by anything. Those people are sorted into the cool, collected category; they are often the people we aspire to be. Case in point, when I told friends that I was having trouble feeling emotion, many responded in awe how they wished they could trade their stress for my unfeeling. While it is true that stress can be an extreme, my buffer to sentiment was also an extreme. I simply clocked the day in and out and was rendered dispassionate.

I started to feel rather isolated, until one friend shared with me David Foster Wallace’s speech, “This Is Water.” In his commencement address to the Kenyon College class of 2005, Wallace explores the topic of making life worth living. What hooked me was his accurate identification of the tick-tock, humdrum life that I was feeling.

Harshly, but honestly, Wallace pinpoints our natural self-absorption as the source of hollowness. He believes that we mould practices of our ego into habit, or our “natural default-setting.” These unconscious,

often negative, perceptions of experiences are responsible for the mundane petulance that many of us experience while, for example, waiting in line or stuck in traffic. Wallace urgently presses for each one of us to be aware of our perceptions of life. He insists that only by being aware of our cognitions can we reprogram our natural default-setting to choose positive judgments. He argues that this is the way to “keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous,

What hooked me was his accurate identification of the tick-tock, humdrum life that I was feeling.

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respectable adult life dead, unconscious.”

While his speech is not classically inspiring, it became my kick-starter to reconnecting with a life lived fully.

For myself, reconstructing a life worth living has begun as a cognitive shift. Although it sounds simple, abstract thoughts can actually be quite challenging to discipline. In cognitive therapy, there is a con-

herself until she believes that the whole interview went terribly. I have struggled long and hard with my own mental filter and see it as the root of my detachment from life.

My thoughts went like this: All I do as a student is go to class, work, and see the same friends. My life is centred on a small campus in which I rarely experience adventure.

Therefore, my entire student life is boring and not worth my attention. Yet I totally did not consider all the positive parts of my life at Mac: chances to meet new peers every day, interesting classes, and Tim Hortons’ Terri’s celebratory exclamations (!), just to name a few.

Applying Wallace’s advice to remain conscious, I have begun to interrupt my distortions. A lot of this involves steering my natural default-setting toward realistic, empathic expectations. For instance, choosing to view a failed assignment not as proof of my unworthiness, but as an opportunity for improvement; a rude customer not as humanity devoid of joy, but as a person having a bad day; or an interpersonal conflict not as a broken relationship, but as a demonstration of investment in another human’s life. Of course, some truly terrible things can and do happen – but they are often not the whole story and so they need not be defining. This shift in perspective is slowly bringing beauty back into my life.

The way I see it is that life is not good or bad but often coloured by the meaning that we unconsciously attach to experiences. Many of us can make our lives beautiful since what we know of reality is what we choose to see. That is not delusion; that is our rational ability to control judgment. Paying attention to the nuances of experiences is helping me shake off the grey dust so that I will once again be able to stand, run, and dance with my entire livelihood. I want my life to be worth living, so I am beginning to think of it in that way. 

Many of us can make our lives beautiful since what we know of reality is what we choose to see. cept called the “mental filter,” a type of mental distortion in which you magnify the negative parts of an experience until they darken the experience as a whole. For example, a woman goes to a job interview and answers all but one of the questions exceptionally well. If she has a mental filter, afterwards she will only focus on the one poorly answered question, beating up on

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ARTWORK BY JASON LAU

RUSH

Alexandra Marcaccio

I

am in the plane, and all I can do is panic. I look around; it feels like the walls are closing in. Shuddering, I close my eyes and try to take a deep breath. Maybe it’s the artificiality of what surrounds me – the dull glow of the overhead lights, the stale taste in the air – it’s too fake. I decide to look out the window, thinking that natural light will do me good, but, oh my word, is it ever worse. The lights bouncing off the clouds remind me of what is coming. Soon, the doors will open, and I will jump. I will jump out of this plane, and hopefully land alive. Another shudder passes over me. Was I always such a coward? Did I always tremble at the thought of something new? All I do now is crave the bravery that comes only in childhood…

I may stand tall and proud, but inside I’m scared. Last time I came here I was too little to ride, which was okay ‘cause I really didn’t want to. But now I’m here with all my friends, and they’re so excited, so I can’t chicken out. The gate in front of me opens, and the others push and shove as they try to get a good seat.

My one friend looks back at me: “Hey! Are you coming?” It’s now or never, so I walk up

slowly and get in beside her…

I stand at the open door, catching the faint squeals of excitement all around me.

I put my head down, allowing my hair to block the look of pure fright on my face.

And then people start shouting “It’s time to jump!”

my ear saying, “Open your eyes.” I figure it must be over so I oblige. But instead of the ground, I am greeted by the vast view of the Earth beneath me. Somehow, I’m not frightened this time. My eyes begin to focus in an icy clarity, and the image is so sharp I can almost see the people going about their ordinary days. And I think that, while they are down there, I get to be up here, exhilarated…

I already have my hands in front of my eyes before we start moving. All I can think is “I can’t do this. Why did I do this?” The roller coaster moves slowly up the first hill and pauses at the top. I squeeze my eyes shut even harder. And then it drops, and I grab the bar to steady myself. I can see, but it’s not so bad. Then the next drop happens and this time I’m shouting with the others. It’s actually kind of fun. By the time we get to the loop-the-loop, I’m beyond happy…

I’m on the ground, still on a high from the drop… Then I see my mom, waiting for me at the car… And I get in, feeling the adrenaline slowly leave my body… But all I can do is wonder when I will get to go again… 

My eyes begin to focus in an icy clarity, and the image is so sharp I can almost see the people going about their ordinary days.

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I’m in the air, and I’m falling and screaming and falling faster and I squeeze my eyes shut, blacking out the rest of the world. There is a slight tug as the parachute opens. I don’t notice because I’m too busy watching my life flash before my eyes, from my first roller coaster ride to the very second before I jumped. Then I hear a whisper in

INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

MOVING UP FROM THE WORD GAP Angela Ma

‘U

p’ was one of the first words my younger sister spoke, and was one of the most repeated during her infant years. As soon as she was able to smack her lips in the right way for that perfect ‘p’ ending, she used ‘up’ to mean, well, pretty much anything. ‘Up’ quickly became synonymous with ‘I feel uncomfortable,’ ‘I want more food,’ or ‘I’m bored with this doll, give me a new one.’ For her, it was a universal demand, so conveniently packaged into a two-letter, one-syllable word. By now, she has come to learn the true meaning of ‘up’ and can express herself instead with the 80 000 to 100 000 other words expected in an adult vocabulary.

How did this transition take place?

How do unintelligible giggles and burps become protowords (baby words that sound like and are used as real words), and how do these words become language?

The social influences on language acquisition are understandably strong. In a 2011 TED Talk, Deb Roy describes an experiment in which he and his wife recorded their home for three years following the birth of their son. They captured tens of thousands of hours on video, which were then transcribed to track the words their son learned to produce. Roy discovered that his son and his environment were connected in a tight feedback loop: his son learned from the words he heard, and his caregivers altered their language to gradually ease him into more complex language. Roy also was able to map out wordscapes, computer-generated depictions of word frequency as it relates to location. For example, Roy noted that the word ‘water’ could be heard most when in the kitchen. These wordscapes helped him understand the relationship between word definitions and where and when they are learned.

The environment has consistently been identified as a crucial source of learning for children. By age three, children in high-income households are exposed to more words than children in low-income households and are found to have broader vocabularies. This trend, known as the “word-gap,” is reflected in the academic performances of these children as they age.

New research is emerging with a focus on closing this gap.

The advent of new technologies allows for the replacement of dated tape-based, repeat-after-me systems of language learning. One such technology is a word record-

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

er, which will track conversations between children and parents and friends. An expert will interpret these conversations and devise strategies to improve the child’s communication. A pilot test conducted in low-income households in Rhode Island last year showed promising results.

This technology can also be used to help different population demographics, tackling problems other than income disparity. Researchers in Toronto recognize that speech problems can result from cultural incongruity as well. Working with this word gap requires more cultural sensitivity – the issues do not always result from deficits; rather, there may be differences in behaviour and attitude that contribute to the gap.

In Hamilton, a city with a large and growing immigrant population and an alarmingly large income disparity, school boards and community-based organizations are trying hard to improve literacy in children and adults. Reading, writing, and compre-

hension are all emphasized. Schools send books home with students and organize literacy days, even inviting parents to join in and read with their children, while organizations train literacy tutors in one-on-one help.

In Toronto, even the medical community is helping out. The Toronto Public Library and St. Michael’s Hospital have started an initiative where children are given books at regular checkups, and families are encouraged to read together.

It is so important that the word gap is diminished and that we focus on developing child literacy rates as early as possible for several reasons. While literacy can help them find jobs later on, the benefits are not solely economic, as literacy and education also impact mental wellness and proper nutrition. As Hamilton strives to become more Toronto-esque, improving literacy is a crucial step in mobilizing a healthy and workready population. In doing so, we can also ensure everybody has an equal chance at success. 

ARTWORK BY AVERY LAM

35

ď Ž Dependency Sam Bubnic A pair of delicate hands clasped around my neck and I wondered if this was what love was like.

I had found here before.

Where single beds turn into the double kind and extra toes pick at the dead dry cells that accumulate on my left calf in the early hours of morning.

Here in a cup of coffee the colour of his eyes. brown not blue. brown not blue.

I made a mess of you. you. you started wearing socks to bed and I clasped onto pillows instead of forearms that once assembled this bed, these bones that twice forgot why they needed to be paired with you.

Here in an oversized gray sweater clinging to creases your lips traced, your hands graced. I miss the extra hands around my morning coffee.

ď Ž

artwork by Jonsson Liu

36

INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

ARTWORK BY ANGELA MA

I T N I O G I

N

Anna Goshua

H

is hands are shaking.

He sits quietly in his chair, all alone in the dimly lit room. In the hallway outside, he can hear voices and rapid footsteps, but the door doesn’t open. He doubts that anyone knows that he’s there.

Perhaps he should be with them. His friends. They’re out at the bar, taking shots. If he strains, he can almost hear their cheering and shouting. Instinct pushes for him to move, to rise and kick the chair back away from him, to leave this hidden little place and get lost with them in the frenzied, swaying masses.

He doesn’t move. He knows that he’s been gone a while, but the party is too loud and the people too many for his absence to be noticed yet.

There’s still some time, though he wonders if it’s a bad sign that he’s so eager to be away from friends. It’s unnatural to find comfort in this solitude, he’s been told. He’s heard it so many times that he thinks he agrees now. But he doesn’t move.

He closes his eyes, and the noises from outside fade into a quiet hum. The pulse of his heartbeat is loud in his ears, beating steadily like the ticking hands of a clock. It’s soothing.

Yet the tremors in his hands persist. It’s a sort of tingle that radiates from his palms, until his fingers are intertwining and squeezing and tapping of their own accord. Tension snakes through his shoulders; the muscles in his abdomen clench. He’s restless. And he can never quite pinpoint the cause.

It’s not like he’s unhappy. Is he? He’s always been in good

standing; academically, financially, and socially. Graduation is near, and a prestigious internship at Goldman Sachs awaits him. He’ll be working with a long-time mentor of his, as well as with his sister and a friend. No, he’s quite happy. Ecstatic, even.

He frowns.

An engine revs outside, breaking the silence. His eyes open and he rises, curious. Walking over to the one window in the room, he unlocks the latch and forces it open. Peering outside, he makes out the sleek shape of a luxury sports car and, from it, a group of partygoers emerging. As they disappear inside the bar, he stands eerily still for a moment, then two, struggling with a sudden desire burning in his chest.

And then he’s bounding upward, drawing strength from the arms that he dutifully keeps toned to pull himself through the window and onto the pavement below. His footsteps are light as he approaches the car, reaching out a hand. It moves with a warm and steady reverence over the silver metal. He pauses and looks out over the area, noting his own car and that of one of his friends nearby. Carefree laughter bubbles in his throat.

A sense of obligation will draw him back before dawn.

But the shadows are thick and slivers of moonlight peek out from behind the clouds; the night is still long, and...

No, he’s quite happy.

Ecstatic, even.

He frowns.

...with one twist of the IGNITION, he is freedom bound. 

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

37

ARTWORK BY FRANCO SIMÕES

SUNDAY Irina Sverdlichenko

7

:00 pm on the dot. Jared, Connor and Janet announced their presence.

Their father welcomed them, spreading warm kisses and a deathly embrace on Janet, his youngest, first.

“Hey, Dad,” Janet greeted, reciprocating by clutching her father to herself.

“Hello, darling, I’ve missed you!” he responded His greeting of the boys was more like a rendition of a corporal saluting his troops.

The testosterone cocktail that is the male Newman gene pool prevented ostentatious signs of affection.

They entered the dining room and seated themselves. From his place as patriarch, Gerry surveyed his brood with satisfaction. “Your moms should be back soon.

She left this morning before I got up, but she don’t wanna miss Sunday supper!” he said matter-of-factly.

His kids seemed to purposefully avoid responding, looking down at the clean plates staring up at them, while their father waited in vain for assent. Only Annabelle nodded forcibly. “Well, that’s okay.

Why don’t we just catch up on things for now?”

“Marvelous idea, Annie. Jared, how’s the practice?”

“I gave it up Dad. Went back to school.” Jared replied in an almost whisper, as though his inside voice would be the proverbial straw on the camel’s back.

“You did? When did this happen? And how come you didn’t say anything?” Gerry asked, surprised at his son’s capriciousness, and offended at his neglect to divulge this tidbit.

“Dad, I did tell you; weeks ago, actually,” Jared replied.

“You did? Huh, guess my memory’s going,” he chuckled easily to himself, cooling down. Silence hung in the room like sawdust for a few moments after. Gerry waited for the conversation to restart. Annabelle took this opportunity to announce that she wasn’t feeling well, and would everyone excuse her from dinner.

“Not at all, darling. Go rest,” Gerry assured her. Another silence followed her exit, interrupted by Gerry who whispered confidentially to his children, “You know, I

worry about her sometimes. She’s got her nursing license but spends all her days here. What’s she doing with her life, hanging around a couple of seniors?” he finished gravely.

“Well, you know,” Connor fumbled around his words, “she’s never really had her life together,” he paused here, shrinking away from the tacit reproach of his siblings.

“Hmmm, I wonder what’s holding her up,” he thought aloud. “I think I’ll go out and wait for her on the porch.”

He abandoned his seat, grabbed his coat off the hook in the hallway and went out the front door. Standing precariously on the dilapidated porch he looked around

Gerry contemplated for several moments what he had just heard. Then, stepping slowly and menacingly towards Mike, asked, “What the hell are saying? Lydia’s not dead. She went for an errand run this morning, but she’ll be back any minute!”

Mike regarded him with a strange sympathetic bewilderment, unsure of how he had veered the conversation so wrongly.

“Right,” he finished, his brow still scrunched up in confusion. Clearing his throat awkwardly he finally said, “um, sorry, I... don’t know what I was saying. Sorry.”

He backed out of the property and continued his patrol. Gerry stuffed his fists angrily in his coat pockets and turned towards the house.

He stayed motionless in the hallway for what seemed like an immeasurable amount of time, during which he vaguely heard his kids’ muffled voices far off. Taking off his coat his gaze fell upon a hook to the right of his own, where his wife’s red coat had always hung, empty. Analysing the photos on the wall, blooming kids, candid shots capturing unadulterated joy, he felt his old contentment dissipating.

Suddenly, things went black, as he felt his legs fail him.

Analysing the photos on the wall, blooming kids, candid shots capturing unadulterated joy, he felt his old contentment dissipating.

38

him, taking in long drags of the crisp autumn air. His life had centered on these square feet, evolving but stagnant, and yet— His train of thought was interrupted by a community watch volunteer, whose footsteps crinkling on the dry ground leaves woke him from his reverie.

“Hey, Gerry. Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said, using this starter as pretense to submit to his favorite vice. He took a Marlboro Light from inside his jacket pocket, hunching over slightly in protection of the precious flame his lighter conjured, against all odds of fall wind.

“Hey, Mike,” Gerry answered flatly, “how’re you?”

“You know, the usual. Hey, listen,” he began clumsily, “I wanted to say sorry that we couldn’t make it to Lydia’s... you know, her funeral. We were in Florida at the time, visiting Iona’s parents. Anyway, these are my far belated condolences.” The silence that followed after the conveyance of sympathies was dangerously protracted.

 He awoke in his bedroom, a lamp the only source of light in the obscurity. His kids were sitting around him, worried but cautious to maintain distance. They’re staring at me like I’ve got a fucking tumor on my face, he thought.

“Is she gone?” he finally asked, his voice faltering with the misery he futilely held back.

“Yes,” Janet whispered.

“How long?”

“Two months.”

He turned his head away from view of everyone and studied his reflection in the window once more that day. Maybe he was insane, he thought, but God had bestowed upon him a gift. While he was no longer impervious to change, he was so to pain.

There would never be grief, nor loneliness he thought. He was sure of this, like he was sure of the return of another Sunday.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

ARTWORK BY BARBARA KARPINSKI

GOODBYE Olivia Fasullo

T

he viewing is over.

My family has left to sit, eat and recharge. I am alone in the room with my father and the conclusion of his life.

When I was a child, my father seemed like a harder man. Hair slicked back, cigarette in his mouth, he would come home from work stiff, sitting uncomfortably at our kitchen table. He tried, for the most part. He wasn’t a cruel man, but I think it was hard for him to connect to us in the way I wanted. He had lived in fear of his own father, once revealing to us that he had kept a knife with him at all times growing up. But I was a child, and when he went to play cards with his friends after dinner and hogged the television on Sundays, that was how I understood him. I loved my father, but I didn’t like him.

His face is now sunken, and he doesn’t fully resemble the pictures placed around him. I fought my mother for a closed casket, but the Italian tradition of gawking at death overruled me. His face is calm, everyone keeps saying, as if he is just sleeping, but we are all painfully aware that he is not.

As he got older, I got to know him better.

He was still just a man, but he became a man that I admired and cherished. Every Christmas, upon his demand, we would sit together and watch White Christmas. He

had served in the military in his youth, and he loved the opening number. I didn’t mind, because I loved it too. I loved the music, the colour, and how it transformed my father.

He always became as captivated as a child while watching.

My father had a lot of stories, from growing up in Italy during the war. Some of them were as dark as you might assume,

doctor thought he could get better. I brought him back home, kissed him goodbye, and cried the whole drive to my house.

He has been gone for less than a few days and I’m already so lost without him.

He would know what to do, what to say to make everything okay, and that’s what’s missing. Everything is not okay. He’s not here to make it okay. I have to continue onwards without him. I’m a grown woman and I can’t even fathom it.

He cried a lot near the end, from the intense pain. Illness can strip anyone of their dignity, and we were all forced to sit and watch it happen. There are so many horrible things in the world that I can’t even imagine, and yet nothing seems as awful as this.

How can life be so beautiful and so awful at the same time? I was blissfully ignorant of how truly ugly life could be, but now I can never forget my father’s tears.

I fix his tie. I brush his hair to the side.

Even in this last moment, alone with him, I have no more tears to shed. I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to let go, but I have to. The world seems colder without him. I want my Dad to comfort me but he can’t.

I kiss his forehead and am forced to say goodbye. 

I have to continue onwards without him. I’m a grown woman and I can’t even fathom it.

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

featuring the bombings and backwardness that history books are plastered with. But, more often, his stories were about life and not taking anything for granted.

I have yet to cry. My dry eyes insult the visitors. So many of his friends that had disappeared, as this man lay dying and as I watched the life drain from him, have suddenly reappeared with tears and tissues.

When he first got sick, the doctor told me privately that he had a few months to live. When my father asked, I told him the

39

OTHERWORLD P.V. Maylott

T

hrough the doorway I step into the murky nocturne of a silent, stagnant forest. I would welcome the annoying peal of forest insects at this point just to know that something is alive. Thick clouds of ochre spores creep, without a breath of wind, through densely-crowded, gnarled trees. The spores cloud my vision and mind.

“Tilly?” I yell. My voice echoes in the forest, warping and deepening her name until it no longer sounds human. How long have I been here? How long has the world continued without me?

Tilly’s wheelchair tracks are fainter now as brown and green fungi give way to firm lichen beds. Remember, you’re not dreaming, focus.

Even if it was, no nightmare could be as bad as the one I’ve been living without Tilly for half of my life.

I lose the tracks. Behind me the mucus-coloured glow of the doorway is nearly consumed by the gloom. A few more steps, and I’ll be lost.

“Tilly!” I scream.

“Tihley… Tooleh... Tuuleh…” mumbles the forest.

If only Tilly wasn’t so smart – if only she didn’t invent that door.

Forcing myself to give up my escape route, I leave the doorway behind. I’m rewarded by a faint glow in the distance. Nestled in the fungus is the first of a sporadic trail of military chemlights and lots of boot prints. What am I thinking? If six soldiers can’t bring her back, how can I? She insisted on being included in the first human trials. She’s been gone ever since, believed lost. Then today, out of nowhere, her ‘deactivated’ door powers up and out falls the note. “COME HELP US” it said in blotchy brown and green letters. Ten years had passed for me, but only five days would have passed on this side of the doorway. Would she even recognize me?

I follow the chemlight trail for hours. I reach one light and spot another in the distance. How long have I been gone now? Six weeks? Six months? I wonder how long it took for someone to come looking for me.

At the end of the trail something humun-

gous looms amongst the trees. A rush of hope hurries me forward. Covered in fungus and strangling vines is, impossibly, the house Tilly and I grew up in. Warm flickering light beckons from behind spore-coated windows.

Creeping to the window a familiar smell awakens my stomach. Palming the cuff of my shirt, I smear enough of the spore away to see an interior lit by a single candle on the kitchen counter.

A shadowed figure hunches over the stove. An empty wheelchair glints by the dinner table.

Something isn’t right, but the enticing aroma calms my fears and reminds me of when Grammy was still alive. My mind whispers danger, but I push it aside and let the oddly familiar scent of Grammy’s stew draw me in.

The bent form at the stove notices me, ladles a bowl of lumpy broth, and shuffles over.

“Grammy?” I ask as I take my old place at the table next to Tilly’s chair.

Grammy moves past the candle. She smiles warmly and places the bowl before me.

She has holes for eyes. The little voice inside my head screams.

I’ll run, I persuade myself, after this bowl. I savour a mouthful, and nurturing warmth flows through me. Watercolour nostalgia blooms in my mind. I recall images of Tilly fishing by the pier, picking flowers with Grammy back when we were together and happy.

It’s hard to eat with how numb my limbs are getting. Even my spoon feels heavy. I manage to lift a slender severed finger out of the stew. As my clouded mind tries to contemplate why this should frighten me, the room spins, the stew scatters, and the floor rushes up and smashes into my back.

As the house melts around me, I stare with unblinking eyes at the ceiling of the cave.

Above me sway six large cocoons and one smaller one.

Grammy’s face stretches and tears as she creeps closer. Mandibles and long, chitinous feelers claw free from Grammy’s discarded flesh.

As it crawls over my paralyzed body, it croaks, “Thank you for coming.” 

ARTWORK BY ANNIE DUAN

40

INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

HOW TO DISAPPEAR Sarah O’Connor

I

t was when the Timmie’s cashier didn’t say good morning to me that I realized I had become invisible.

I don’t know when it happened or how it happened; all I know is that it did happen, and now I’m an invisible girl wandering around the basement of TSH. Thinking back to it, the whole process must have started at least a month ago. But that doesn’t make sense; a month isn’t that long. It seems longer than that. Maybe it was longer than a month…

I had strayed away from my usual haunts, which primarily consisted of the Student Centre and going into the buildings my classes required me to. When my classes finished, I scurried out and hid on the sixth floor of Mills, an empty table at ABB, anywhere secluded and scarce. For those first few weeks after…after, I didn’t want to see anyone. I feared their soft voices, their

guarded eyes, and their fear of what to say to me. I wanted to shoot the elephant in the room, screw endangered species.

So I didn’t see a lot of my friends, or anyone I really knew, except when I had classes with them, and let’s be honest, you

I was working? Check out my syllabi to see when my assignments were due?

Well, I’m just starting to realize how stupid that was, and now I’m invisible. I didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did. I mean, I could text my friends saying I want to hang out, but I’ve forgotten how to speak. I don’t know what’s gone on in their lives; I’ve been too preoccupied with my seclusion. It would be weird to send a text out of the blue.

They wouldn’t be interested.

So now I’m invisible, even in the Student Centre. I’ve come back just to see if… just to see. I watch the students scatter and scurry around like ants as they hurry to their next classes. They don’t notice me. I watch as their eyes oh so casually slide away from mine, how they look through me. I have become a background character, a ghost to those who knew me.

And I don’t know how to reappear. 

I didn’t want to see anyone. don’t have classes with all your friends. University doesn’t work like that. Sure, they’d send the odd text here and there saying that we just had to get together soon for coffee, that we just had to get caught up, but I avoided it. They were texts after all, easy to avoid. I didn’t ignore them, don’t think that.

I replied, but I always said I was too busy to hang out, or I got an extra shift at work, or some other crap. How would they know?

Were they going to go to my work to see if

ARTWORK BY SAM GODFREY

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

41

18 Things I Will Tell My 18-Year-Old 11.

Daughter

Goodbye is forever. Don’t ever say goodbye unless you truly mean it or you know that you need to.

1.

Chocolate, carbs and chai lattes are not the enemy. Indulge. Just remember, your body deserves a treat but at the end of the day being happy and healthy is life’s true indulgence.

2.

There will be that girl who knows all your secrets, more than your diary; she will get you like no other and she will never let you down. She will move away one day, but she will still be your maid of honour. This girl is your Best Friend, the best of them all. Friendship is either life-long or long gone. Cherish the one that doesn’t go, she need you as much as you’ve needed her.

3.

4.

5.

If you’re afraid to say something, it’s probably something worth saying. Go ahead, speak up.

You will fail but you are not a failure. Failing doesn’t make you a failure, giving up does.

If he makes your mascara run, he’s probably not worth it. Wash off the makeup, exfoliate, and go to bed.

42

12.

13.

14.

People will always remember the way that you have made them feel, don’t you ever forget that.

Nikita Kalsi

6.

Numbers don’t define a person, especially when we can change them. The size of your waist, your GPA, and your height. Hit the gym, study for ten minutes (which will absolutely feel like eternity. Guaranteed), and go ahead girl, throw on some stilettos. I don’t care how tall or short you are, trust me, choose the stilettos.

7.

The time does not matter, but your dental hygiene does. Brush and floss for an effective smile. Flossing doe sucks. The dentist will suck even more.

8.

No, you really don’t have to like yoga and smoothies. A little loud music and caffeine can soothe the soul and do wonders for the mind.

9.

Feel how you feel. Scream into your pillow when you let yourself down, slam the door when they just don’t get it, sob into a bowl of ice cream and watch P.S. I Love You because why can’t he understand how much you love him. However you feel, put your heart into it.

10.

Whatever you choose to do, give it all that you’ve got.

You want to be a lawyer?

Do it, study your ass off, and fight for that spot. Once in a while, ditch the bar if you really want to pass the bar.

Go out, dress up, make toasts, and clink champagne glasses. This life is one worth celebrating.

You really do miss a lot of ups, looking down at your phone. The opportunity that’s walking by you absolutely cannot wait, Instagram can.

15.

16.

You are a perfect imperfection, and so is everyone else.

Words are beautiful. Read books, write in a diary, and speak like a poet. Fall in love with sentences, and be dazzled by words. Use your words, all the beautiful, charming, comforting, and perfectly fitting words. These words are some of your greatest tools.

17.

18.

Squeezing that zit is never the right decision, just trust me.

Everyone has their own words of wisdom, like these. Listen to others and feel empowered so that one day your daughter will want to listen to your little life mantra.

INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

BEFORE THE CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT Mary Kate MacDonald

I

t may not be socially acceptable for a twenty-something university student to say that one of their greatest joys in life is going to bed early, but that is exactly how I feel. Now by early I don’t mean waking with the sun and sleeping shortly after dinner, but I definitely prefer rising by 7:00 and sleeping before midnight. The hours in between are of upmost importance and strictly reserved for dreaming.

I’ve been told that this routine can be detrimental to one’s social life, but let me assure you that plenty of socializing can occur before midnight. Coffee dates, workout ventures, group dinners, study afternoons, movie nights, and casual hangouts are all possible before the clock strikes 12!

As university students, many will claim that they are most productive in the wee hours of the morning, or that their to-do list is too full to turn off their lights before 2:00 am. To this, I say no. I can assure you that on this schedule, my socializing and studying would be fuelled by coffee, filled with yawns and daydreams, and done without any grace or skill. Instead, I choose to sleep, as have many others. A notable supporter of early bedtimes was Benjamin Franklin, who famously wrote, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

Don’t believe me yet? Let’s investigate Franklin’s claims.  Healthy Going to bed early means less mindless snacking, and since late night snacks are typically high in carbohydrates and fats, going to bed earlier has been linked to weight loss. Furthermore, those who oversleep are more likely to skip breakfast, which in my opinion is the best meal of the day! This can make for lower energy levels throughout the day, increasing your likelihood of caffeinating and overeating later. Sleeping early can lead to less acid reflux, stronger immunity to colds, and healthier skin.  Wealthy While in my dreams I may top the Forbes’ World’s Billionaire List, that’s unlikely to become a reality. However, wealthy moguls such as Donald Trump, Anna Wintour, and Starbucks President Michelle Gaas are all open supporters of being up and at it before 6:00 am, although I think it’s safe to assume that Gaas has the help of a caffeinated empire to keep her going.

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

As university students, many will claim that they are most productive in the wee hours of the morning, or that their to-do list is too full to turn off their lights before 2:00 am. To this, I say no.

Waking early after eight hours of shut-eye results in higher energy levels compared to a person who gets the same hours of sleep, but wakes up later. While naps are often credited with providing enough energy throughout the day to survive on five hours of sleep a night, these snack-sized sleeps do not permit REM sleep and thus are not as rejuvenating as a full night’s sleep.  Wise Early in the morning, your mind is clearest and everything is quiet. These moments ARTWORK BY MIMI DENG are great for catching up on emails and reading the news, but also for centering yourself before tackling the day.

Some people achieve this inner peace by reciting daily affirmations of gratitude, while others seek comfort in their ritual of drinking coffee in pyjamas. Getting sufficient sleep has been linked to lower stress levels, which increases your ability to focus in class and perform well on midterms.

stress of exams, finding jobs, and catching up on studying, university students are often up until the wee hours of the morning. This lack of sleep then compounds their stress and creates a cycle of worries and yawns.

In reality, the best thing to do when your nerves get the best of you is to sleep it off!

So follow the words of Benjamin Franklin and Cinderella’s fairy godmother, and get to bed before the clock strikes midnight!

Your body, your grades, and your mind will thank you. 

Despite all the benefits of an early-to-bed and early-to-rise routine, many university students find this a difficult lifestyle to adopt.

Researchers have found that the primary reason for university night owls isn’t Netflix, but rather worrying. With all the 43

ACCESSIBLE FOR ALL Alejandra Fernandez

ARTWORK BY VÉRONIQUE GIGUÈRE

W

Life is long, and if we do not make it appealing for ourselves, it will be very hard to move onto our futures.

e live in a country where individuals have equal rights and protection. We live in Canada, a country known as the peacekeeper among nations.

Canada has a multicultural world within itself. We live in an established society where our families have their own rules, religion, and expectations.

In our McMaster community, as students, we are trying to focus on school and also work to pay for our own basic needs. We know what we want and we feel free to express it. However, when do we know when we need help? Often, we are too afraid to allow others to come into our lives to help out when need be – when things happening in our lives overwhelm us.

During those times, not even parties with 44

friends, talking to a counselor, or drugs are enough to solve the problem. Those are the times when we need help and someone to guide us. There is so much we can do as individuals; hope and trust are things we cannot lose. Even if our own families turn their backs on us, we should not get discouraged. We have a whole Canadian world outside of McMaster, and there is so much help accessible. There are resources that can help us find the way and help others around us by giving support. Even

in the hardest moments, it will make it easier to go through. If we let other people know what is happening inside of ourselves and seek help, we will find that our school and even our country has a lot of resources that can help with the problem. We are not alone.

It is time to take a risk to move forward. It is time to think about our futures.

We are just starting our careers. We need to learn to trust in others, such as friends, professors, or even another staff member from our university. Life is long, and if we do not make it appealing for ourselves, it will be very hard to move onto our futures.

Remember, we are not alone; there is a world outside of our university – a world accessible for all of us.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

FLEETING MOMENTS Megan Schlorff

ARTWORK BY CARL CHENG

O

ur lives are full of enjoyable moments that seem to flow from one to the next as we move through our days. With scheduled commitments, grand plans, and a societal mindset that seems to promote making the most of our days by filling them, there are few pauses when we take the time to stop.



As you wait for the water to boil for your morning cup of tea, you have a few moments with the silence of the early morning and the rising sun for company.

You look out the window, pondering what this day might bring.

You make your way to the cafeteria for lunch; none of your usual companions are joining you today. There is a patchwork of people to watch and interactions to witness while you eat your salad and dully gaze at the news article on your phone. After five minutes of this, you feel yourself settle into your actions when you catch a friendly face and welcome them to your table to sit.



You have too many tabs open in your browser and multiple applications running on your computer, which prompts the all too familiar and deeply unwanted spinning

extra three minutes and forty-five seconds.

A dance party around the kitchen sounds about right. The stress of the day seems to slip away as you move and shake to the top forty beats coming from your phone.



Two minutes of brushing before you call it a day. As you care for your pearly whites, the day plays back in your mind.

You reprimand yourself for all your mistakes and congratulate yourself on the few minor successes.





You find a spot on the bus as it drives the familiar route to school.

The ride is a few minutes in length and provides one last breath – perhaps one of denial – before the day begins. People surround you on all sides and your headphones keep the beat of the morning alive in your ears.

There are few pauses when we take the time to stop.



You open the door to find the room empty; a quick glance at your watch indicates that it’s because you are, in fact, early. You pull out your paper, pen, and laptop while you wait for everyone to arrive.

Sitting in silence, making some doodles, and strumming your fingers. It’s a moment you are not used to experiencing.



VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

beach ball to appear on the screen. There is no other option but to wait it out. You stare out the window and then back to your screen with no avail. While you wait for your laptop to restart you take a sip of your coffee, check your email on your phone, make a mental grocery list, and contemplate… life.



The microwave is cooking supper tonight, which means that you have an

In that fleeting moment between putting down your book and turning off your bedside lamp, you pause.

For a few seconds, you think about life and where your piece fits into the big, confusing puzzle. There is a lot for you to be thankful for and even more areas that need improvement.

But those are for tomorrow and its new set of moments.



What we do during these pauses – brief moments away from the busyness of life – is up to us. We can use them as a chance to think, or deny, or breath, or zone out – maybe all four simultaneously. Regardless, they are there every day. Some days they are hidden, almost unrecognizable, and other times, they persist all day long. One thing is for sure: although fleeting, they always exist when we stop.  45

A Blank Envelope

Linda Nguyen

“Honey…”

I continued to dice the carrots.

“Look, I know that these last few weeks have been busy for you,” my mom began.

“I know, Mom. I have something that I wanted to talk to you about actually. I was thinking about applying to a program…”

“You mean the local college one?”

“No… I was thinking of something else. There’s this program that I think might be a better fit for me, Mom. The class sizes are small and it has a great reputation.

The campus also has a really friendly atmosphere. It would be a great learning opporARTWORK BY LEAH FLANNIGAN tunity for me.”

“Honey… we can’t—” “I know that the program is really competitive, but it looks like something that I would be interested in. Could we at least take a look at the brochures and go to their Open House together? I have the application forms and everything.”

“We’ve planned this for years already.

You’re going to go to the local college proARTWORK BY LEAH FLANAGAN gram nearby and commute from home.”

“Things change. I mean, this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity for me.“ t all came down to this. I stared at the white envelope before me.

“We can’t afford—” It held a single sheet of paper. I could just imagine what the com“There are scholarships and bursaries that I could apply to!” ments would say about me.

“Your father is still recovering from surgery. I have to put in a lot Now there I was sitting at my desk. The envelope lay unopened of hours at work. We need you to stay home and support our family. in front of me. I twirled my hair around and around into a tight little Maybe there is a different program that you could look into instead?” curl. I released the strand from my finger and let it slowly unravel. I “Why can’t we just take a look at this one?” twisted it again in the opposite direction and held the strand in place.

“I’m sorry, but this is not up for discussion.”

I let out a huge sigh. Good news. Bad news. I honestly didn’t I felt the heavy weight in my chest, collapsing my lungs as if I know what I wanted to hear. could not breathe.

I fiddled with the flap of the enI let out a deep breath. velope, thinking back to September.

“Okay, fine.” I threw the kitchen cloth into the sink. 

I

I fiddled with the flap of the envelope, thinking back to September.

“Hi Mom. I’m home now,” I called out from the doorway.

“Hi honey. Could you help me prepare dinner?”

“Sure thing. Just give me a few minutes.”

I ran up to my room and threw my bag onto my bed. I opened up the application package, and spread the pamphlets and sheets across my bed. I couldn’t wait to tell my mother. I picked up a sheet and stared at the captured images. I knew that it was a long shot, but it would be a dream come true if they accepted me. I gave the sheets one final look before heading downstairs.

I could smell the enticing aroma of the steaming broth. I rolled up my sleeves and prepared to wash the vegetables. For a couple of minutes, my mother and I worked in silence. There were so many thoughts running through my mind. I was still buzzing with excitement just thinking about where I could be next September.

46



I bit the bottom of my lip, peeling back the dry layers of skin. The envelope was still sealed on my desk.

I heard a soft knock on my door.

“Hi Mom. I’ll be down for dinner in a second,” I said from my chair, without even bothering to turn around.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just stressed from school. The usual.”

“You shouldn’t work too hard—” “I know. It’s not a big deal, just a couple more weeks left of school and it will all be over.”

“Have you heard any news?”

I slowly swiveled my chair around. I gave my mother a small smile and shook my head.  INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

DESTINATION UNKNOWN Caitlyn Buhay

S

uppose you are trying to decide upon a destination. Somewhere far from your current misfortunes that offers you something wondrously different. An enchanting locale where skies are a luxurious silky blue and the people that surround you are amiable to the point of deception.

Yet in a world painted in dismal greys, paradise remains hidden, blotted out among the inky cities and smoke filled harbours. You have tried to locate it numerous times, laying out every map and atlas in the dustiest of libraries, until eventually you know more about the earth’s latitude than you ever wished to.

But this place still beckons you. It beckons you because you want to remove yourself so badly from the life you know and embrace a life of adventure. You crave lady luck and daring escapes, pining for them like you are preparing to propose to the love of your life. But even the bravest among us fear such commitments. So we shy away just before we can present ourselves to be whisked away by the fates’ wild ways.

But think, for at least a moment, how much better life would be if we stopped inhaling the dusty aroma of centuries-old tomes in the libraries of the world, cut off our timid love affair with wishes of things unknown, and simply left. Left the ordinary, the arbitrary, and the mundane. Decided to go.

What would you find?

Perhaps your path would lead to danger and an incredible fear of unknown places. Places where left is right, and you lose yourself at every corner you turn. Perchance you would take one step forward, and quickly retreat, mumbling an apologetic “No thank you, not for me...” as you hurry off in the other direction.

If luck is truly on your side, however, she may lead you with a gentle hand to the place you dreamed of. To an impossible paradise with unrealized reveries that you can barely imagine for the sheer whimsicality of their existence.

What, then, is the answer to the riddle VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

of your destination? Perhaps where you go does not matter. When we plan to set off somewhere, we are often late. Lateness comes from not truly understanding where we are going, as the destination is not really what our travels are for. It is the journey

that takes us to those wondrous places, for there is no greater place to look for paradise than the expanse of our minds. With a little luck on our side, the destination we have been searching for may be found within, we just need the conviction to go. 

Yet in a world painted in dismal greys, paradise remains hidden ARTWORK BY PATRICIA NGUYEN

47

ARTWORK BY BRIAN ZHENG

redwilderness – Ronald Leung

E

arth never looked brighter.

Garett hadn’t slept in two days. He ran his fingers through his hair – or what remained of it anyway. Some habits are hard to let go of. His military-grade buzz cut felt prickly.

The compound shuttered. Must be the Martian sandstorms.

Maneuvering through the flickering lights, Garett made his way around the bunk. The station’s call schedule fluttered down from its perch. Taking a cursory glance, a jolt of alarm shot through him.

“Shit.” He had missed his slot to call. Trisha would be worried.

He imagined her waiting by the phone, cradling Christian in one arm. As the minutes ticked by, he could picture her becoming more flustered. A brown curl might slip loose. Finally, she would get up, embarrassed, having waited the entire hour for a call that wouldn’t come. Garett wasn’t sure if she’d be there next time.

He tried to explain his guilt away. The station needed repairs.

None of the reports had anticipated the intensity of the latest dust storm. For heaven’s sake, he was there when Robert lost grip of the safety rail and disappeared into the raging swirl of red. Surely, he could be excused for losing track of time.

“Garett?” It was Alana, his bunkmate. The Space Program believed in co-ed dorms.

“We need to get started on the sprouts.” She turned and left, her orange hair glimmering in the light. That was Alana: all business and efficiency. He pulled on his boots and followed her out.

Garett caught the door of the greenhouse before it closed behind Alana. The puff of humidity and dirt hit him smack in the face, as usual. Despite the heat and physical labour, this was the part of his day he enjoyed the most. The ferns and potted plants bobbed in his wake, a form of their own greeting. He appreciated their energy. It was rare to find so much life on Mars.

Alana was already hard at work at the bench, clipping an unruly plant with the clinical objectivity of a neurosurgeon. Garett took his spot, careful to avoid the industrial snipping of her garden sheers.

“How was your call earlier today?”

Garett asked. Maybe he could swap for one of her timeslots coming up and

let Trisha know he was doing okay.

“I didn’t take it.” Alana said, never looking up. “I don’t usually take them.”

“I don’t mean to pry, but would you mind if we swap—” “It’s fine. Go ahead.” She cut him off, cauterizing the conversation before it could flow further. That was how conversations usually played out with her. Short and to the point. They worked intensely for a couple of moments.

“Take all the time you need. I don’t have anyone to call.”

Garett was floored. In the six months since arrival, he still knew nothing about Alana. Until now. She looked embarrassed.

“Sorry. That was too much.”

Garett moved to respond, but she started again before he could send reassurances her way.

“It’s just, with Robert earlier today, I forgot how close we are to death.” She addressed it, directly. Just as she was staring at him in the eye. Garett felt strangely confrontational, but in a cathartic way; other crew members had shied away from Robert’s passing. Perhaps that was how they grieved.

“Was this what you expected, Alana?”

“It is. And I don’t regret it.” She turned away from him. “I guess, in my own way, I wanted someone to remember me.”

“People do remember you, Alana. The interviews before we left.

The press conferences.”

She started rearranging a row of pots. Strands of orange hair stuck out from her usually-tidy bun. “That’s what made it so easy to leave. Because I had no one. But with what happened to Robert, it’s so unexpected—” A blaring alarm cut her off. The red siren flickered between the glass panes. A storm was coming, this time bigger than the last. Alana headed towards the door. She paused for a moment, her hand on the exit panel. She left.

Garett grabbed the emergency suit from the wall and followed her out. Going to Mars permanently meant he’d miss out on a lot of things. But it was in this moment that he remembered why he signed his name on the dotted line many months ago. The risk was palpable, breathing down his neck, curled around his throat with its slender, sharp fingers. But Garett had long ago accepted this risk. It had never held him back; it had always beat in concert with his heart. 

ARTWORK BY KAYLA DA SILVA

Where we have boldly gone.

– Mackenzie Richardson An excerpt from the speech given by Maj. Gen. August Reins to the United Congress to mark the departure of the UHS Endeavor, bound for the Andromeda Galaxy. The ship carried 120 crew members, placed in stasis for the duration of their 2538-year journey.

A

lthough it may seem inconceivable, the human race has not always been spread across the various worlds and systems of the Milky Way. Our interstellar network of planetary bases was not always so vast. As we prepare for our newest colony to be established in the Andromeda Galaxy, let us look back on the accomplishments of those who came before us; those who pioneered early space travel and paved our way to the stars.

Our early beginnings on Terra were humble, our technology crude. Space vessels were little more than metallic death contraptions, blasted to the heavens via basic chemical propulsion. Progress was quick at first, as milestone after milestone was achieved.

Humans escaped the atmosphere, visited Luna, and constructed a network of satellites around the planet. Efforts soon stalled, however. Historians write that our people lost their vision, lost the desire to explore the great expanse of space. A lull took place, as technology progressed and developed in unrelated fields. Eventually, interest in space exploration was renewed by the landmark discoveries of Curiosity (now on display at the History of Space Exploration Museum in the Gliese-581 system). REX was launched soon after, and it was at this time that humanity realized Terra's resources could not sustain us for much longer.

After establishing a permanent colony and mining operation on Luna, humankind set foot on Mars. Probed for decades, this was the first extra-terrestrial planet to be explored by humankind.

A primitive colony was established, soon becoming headquarters VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

for the effort to terraform Mars. The planet, although not abundant in any important resources, would become the agricultural hub of the Solar System after Terra’s land space became completely occupied.

Meanwhile, exploration of the Solar System continued. The Jovian moons Enceladus, Io, and Europa were extensively analyzed for any signs of life. Although they all contained trace organic compounds, no life was observed. Eventually, the moons became permanent outposts, the ports of entry aiding travels as humanity took its first few toddling steps into the great expanse of space. Fish populations were introduced into Europa’s massive underground oceans, and the automatic fishing operations installed there continue to feed us to this day.

Eventually, faster than light (FTL) travel was developed, and the galaxy was ours to behold. Far flung exoplanets became frontier colonies of civilization. Over time, entire systems were settled and set up to continue human life. First Lyra (formerly Kepler-442b), then Libra (Gliese 581g), then Grus (Gliese 832c); footholds for life sprang forth and became ripe with culture.

Rogue planets and asteroids became the sites of immense mining operations. Giant Casimir generating stations provided the negative energy necessary for intra-galactic FTL travel. The galactic core was studied and scrutinized in ways never before dreamed by humankind. Entire colonies were constructed on the world ships, set to fly endlessly, ensuring the immortality of the human race.

Now, the time has come for our greatest achievement yet.

Soon a human will leave the galaxy, going further than anyone before. Once our ancestors stared at the heavens with eyes of wonder and confusion. Now, we see the expanse of space for what it truly is: a blank map, waiting to be explored and settled.  49

If you could go anywhere in the world, at any time, with anyone, where would you go? louell taye

While it'd be really tempting to use this opportunity to get a look into the future, I think there's always going to be too much risk with that. Go a little too far, and you might find yourself in midst of a nuclear wasteland, a zombie apocalypse, or a totalitarian dystopia. Or, maybe it just ends up being a lot more mundane than you'd hoped. People in the 1980s thought– and, of course, I'm making a sweeping historical generalization informed largely by Blade Runner – that we'd have flying cars, androids, and all kinds of crazy shit by now. While iPhones and the Cloud are pretty nifty, I think we still end up coming up a bit short of their expectations. Instead, I'd want to get a look at the past. I'm talking way, waaaay back, like not-settling-for-Mesozoic back – it's got to be Paleozoic at least. Seeing the world in its primordial and chaotic form would be a pretty awe-inspiring experience I'd imagine. And, I guess for a person to come with me, probably either my mom or Eddie Murphy.

I'm talking Delirious-era Eddie Murphy, none of that postThe Nutty Professor guy; I feel like he'd lighten the load of seeing the dawn of all life just a touch.

imaiya ravichandran Having been on exchange for the past 3 months, I’ve had the opportunity to visit the most incredible places.

The distances traveled have inspired many a breathless moment. And yet, despite all my nomadic fortune, at this very second, I feel an inexplicable urge to go home. I’d only need a fleeting second to take in the honking, the snow, the never ending chorus of “eh” and “sorry”. Mull over it, cherish it, and tuck it away for a rainy day. And then, before you know it, off I go.

kayla esser

391 CE, Alexandria, Egypt, with Avery Lam. You may think this is a strange combination, especially now that it’s exam season and where I’d truly love to be is 12 hours back in time, in my bedroom, so I can go back to sleep, but hear me out. From the 3rd century BCE, literature nerds and kings alike would flock to the Library of Alexandria, a cultural centre that housed the world’s largest collection of international texts. That is, until some people (your usual angry mob of Roman civilians) decided it might be fun to burn it down. Now close your eyes and imagine Avery Lam at the scene, armed with his laptop and a penchant for giving no fucks, transcribing every single scroll with the perfect balance of historical accuracy and sass. The world would be infinitely wiser, the Romans could still have their record-breaking bonfire, and Avery would finally achieve the Nobel Prize he deserves.

50

jaslyn english

If I could travel back to any point in time, I would go back to grade 5. Sure, going back to my elementary school days isn’t very fancy or imaginative and, trust me, grade five is not exactly the pinnacle of my existence. I could have chosen New York in the 50s or Paris in the 20s. Maybe Britain during WWII, which sounds like a death sentence, but wouldn’t it be fun to have a scotch with Winston Churchill?

However, I have an axe to grind with grade five. Charles Garrett, an unfortunate and horrid individual, punched me in the face in the playground because I refused to let him play in the snow fort that my friends and I had tirelessly built. I was not being unfair, you see, for Charles had a reckless track record of smashing the forts of my classmates. So, in retort, he punched me in the face. Then, Mr Warden (a sadistic name for a principle if you ask me) decided that the whole affair was my fault, and that I deserved detention for a month.

So, ya, I’d like to go back to fifth grade. And punch Charles back.

devra charney

I would go to South Park, Colorado with Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I am aware that the grassland flat might bear little resemblance to the town depicted in the TV show of the same name, but it’s the principle that matters. Ideally, we would also visit other key Colorado destinations, such as the Lakewood historic landmark Casa Bonita.

stephen clare

If you get asked this question and don’t say you want to grab a beer and go to the centre of the end of the world with Anna Kendrick then I don’t want to be your friend anymore. I want to see and feel and taste whatever the final moments of our universe are like as all matter rushes inwards and collides in a brilliant cosmic car crash, and I want to do so with a cold beverage and beautiful girl. I bet it would be awesome. I bet it would be cacophonous light and sound as every atom in the universe rapidly condensed to a single infinitesimal point outside all conceivable time and space. I’d take a sip and wink at Anna as the unfathomable forces of an infinite cosmos collapsing in on itself warped our bodies and exploded our hearts. I think it sounds very romantic.

INCITE MAGAZINE, APRIL 2015

VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6

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