Incite Magazine - March 2014

INCITE MAGAZINE VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6 ▪ MARCH 2014

ORDER

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TAME Finn Palmer

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE Magdalene Au

BREAKING DOWN BIRTH ORDER Megan Schlorff WRITING CONTEST WINNER: RECALLING THE BIRTH OF A SUN Raluca Topliceanu WRITING CONTEST WINNER: CROOKED FRAMES Rachelle Zalter ART Emmalou Hale PLEASE EXCUSE MY DEAR AUNT SALLY Jesse Bettencourt WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ORDER? Alex Graunt

THE COSMOGONY Victoria Haykin

MA’AT’S PLEA Madeline Lawler

THE CULT OF BUSY Emile Shen

CAN’T RESIST A BAD BOY L. Maegen Cheng DYSTOPIAN NOVEL REVIEWS Magdalene Au, Jaslyn English, Kayla Esser, Victoria Haykin, Madeline Lawler, Mackenzie Richardson

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ART: DISCOVERY OF MYSELF Claire Dawson CHAOS AND YOU: THE PERFECT MATCH Christopher Chiu THE LAST ORDER OF A WILTING FLOWER Raluca Topliceanu TAXONOMIC TRIBULATIONS Julie-Anne Mendoza WHAT YOUR COFFEE SAYS ABOUT YOU Shruti Ramesh THE SCIENCE OF THE ARTS Rui Liu

JUST FRIENDS Sam Godfrey

ART Jennifer Shamo

YOU’RE CRAZY Meg Peters

THE ENTROPY IN MY HEAD Sunanna Bhasin

SORT OUT YOUR PRIORITIES Salmi Noor ART: SAVAGE (RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD) Natalie Richard

SUMMA 2014

INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

CONTRIBUTORS

EXECUTIVE EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Sam Godfrey Avery Lam CONTENT EDITORS Sarah Kanko Palika Kohli Julie-Anne Mendoza Kacper Niburski Jessica Teicher MANAGING ART EDITOR Ianitza Vassileva ART EDITORS Khatija Anjum Jason Lau Whyishnave Suthagar LAYOUT EDITOR Sarah Mae Conrad PROMOTIONS Emily Power

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VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

WRITERS Magdalene Au, Jesse Bettencourt, Sunanna Bhasin, L. Maegan Cheng, Christopher Chiu, Jaslyn English, Kayla Esser, Sam Godfrey, Alex Graunt, Victoria Haykin, Madeline Lawler, Rui Liu, Julie-Anne Mendoza, Salmi Noor, Finn Palmer, Meg Peters, Shruti Ramesh, Mackenzie Richardson, Megan Schlorff, Raluca Topliceanu, Rachelle Zalter ARTWORK Khatija Anjum, Claire Dawson, Katie Dingwall, Zachary Ellis, Gali Katznelson,

Emmalou Hale, Sylvia Kaczmarec, Jason Lau, Nick Luymes, Natalie Richard, Rahul Sadavarte, Jennifer Shamo, Whyishnave Suthagar, Raluca Topliceanu, Ianitza Vassileva LAYOUT Sarah Mae Conrad, Sam Godfrey, Lauren Gorfinkel, Tony (Shicheng) Jin, Avery Lam, Emily Power, Emile Shen, Nikkie To, Elaine Westenhoefer COVERS/TABLE OF CONTENTS Sarah Mae Conrad

This is an introduction. More specifically, this is an introduction in an editorial. A sort of introduction’s introduction, if you will. As you no doubt learned long ago, an introduction is an important part of any piece of writing. One of many parts, the introduction is invariably the first, leading the structure for what is to come. Structure is an integral component of our entire world. To ignore it in writing would be imprudent, and would risk your reader becoming confused. Structure keeps everything in check and organized. Without it, you, reading this magazine, would be unable to flip comfortably through its pages. Pagination is, after all, a form of structure.

Yes, structure. Clear and controlled. Clean and formulaic. Structure is essential.

I don’t like structure.

I tolerate structure, I respect structure, I follow and apply structure to many aspects of my life, but I don’t like it. The only thing that kept me pushing through the previous paragraphs was the knowledge that it was leading to this. Does that mean I was lying to you in the above section? Maybe, maybe not. Who gives a damn. Who’s to say that this is not the true introduction to the editorial. What makes an introduction is not its chronology, but its role. Perhaps you feel this section, rougher sentences an unkempt language is a better introduction of this magazine.

Perhaps you feel this section is a better introduction of me, one half of its Editors-in-Chief. Perhaps you feel this isn’t an introduction at all. Perhaps you feel this introductive editorial is in fact a self-indulgent series of sentences apparently vomited forth into my greasy keyboard from my boorish, narcissistic mind. Perhaps you feel that I’ve begun enough sentences in a row with the word ‘perhaps’.

Perhaps.

It is also possible that you’ve thought none of the above is anything resembling introduction, as an introduction should serve some farther-reaching purpose. You would like to see, from this introduction, a series of article topics that you will find in this magazine, such as the following list: An article about our society’s ‘Cult of Busy’.

An article about an eating disorder.

An article about what you order to drink.

An article about couplehood (another artifact of my boorish, narcissistic mind).

Is that more like what a proper introduction entails? Are you happy now, you luster of lists?

If still no, then maybe we ought to reconsider the first sentence of this editorial.

Is this an introduction?

I doubt that matters now, since you’ve read the whole thing.

– Sam Godfrey, Co-Editor-in-Chief  3

TAME Finn Palmer

I

breathe deeply as the cold air seeps into my lungs. The heat of my exhale warms my twitching nose as the sounds around me echo back and forth. Perched on the rocks at the top of the ridge, I look down towards the houses, praying some lonely soul might join me in the woods. The moon is bright, and I smile to my brothers.

The night is as calm as my heart, beating slowly in the twilight. I begin to thirst: mouth dry, intoxicating aromas. Where to go? Anywhere. I run. Off through the trees I sprint with nails digging into the ground.

I reach a clearing with a gentle stream. I drink. Refreshed, I remember the words of my Father: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

My body, sore from the transition, with muscles tightened and ribs spread. Another night beginning to end, I say. Shall I satisfy the beast?

I get a sniff of someone nearby. I start to track. From above I decide – they never look up. Sitting quietly I see her, an angel weeping as she strides along the path. With

I do not distinguish between animal and human, or instinct and will. They manifest in the same way to me. Yet I live in a reality filled with dichotomies where order might be described in absolute terms. I cannot exist in that realm. Perhaps none of us truly can.

I begin to think of how I maintain order in my own life, and fixate on a question: How can I tame the animal inside while revealing the man in my mind? A life’s pursuit I suppose. Still, I cannot help but wonder if consciousness can remedy my uncertainty. 

may seem simple, the answer was distant from my grasp. The innocence of humanity is no excuse of mine, for humanity is far from innocent.

I continued acting through the day and soon felt the presence of the coloured sunset gleaming off my back. Tired, I checked my watch, changed my clothes, grabbed some water, and headed out to the ridge again.  ARTWORK BY IANITZA VASSILEVA

I begin with the beast. He is ruthless, but does not mean harm or foul. He does not boast in his strength, nor does he wallow in his weakness. He does not ask to reveal himself. It is his right to be, for what would any of us be if it weren’t for the animal within?

We would not have evolved. We would not have lived.

However, balance needs to be found.

Shall I satisfy the beast? no more than 15 feet between us, and time slipping through my grasp, my eyes widen.

Instinct ready, saliva dripping, I take a step.

The only sound I manage to focus on is that of her voice saying, “You are stronger than this. You don’t deserve this. You are stronger than this.” I see my moment. I let it pass. Too innocent, I decide. Too young, too fragile, too lost. My genes screaming in torment, her blood stinging my nostrils, I pause, and watch her fly off. I recede and hope for nothing but the morning sun.  I wake like any other day: tired, hungry, ready. I walk next to those who call themselves human and find my seat in the hall for morning class. First slide says, “Assignment 4: Maintaining Order.” I chuckle to myself and begin to think, what is order? A hierarchy? A state of mind? Perhaps it lies in the grey, with no want or need for strict definition. I accept the latter and realize that my reality might perhaps be an asset to this question.

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He cannot be the sole ruler, but nor can his capabilities be ignored. There is necessity in his danger, in his anguish, in his power. How must I tame him?

Now to the man. He builds walls of stone and steel, and creates art that overjoys. He is troubled by the weight of his surroundings, and faces manipulation in an ever-expanding society. He will find himself infatuated, confused, and yearning for contact. He is weak in his ability, but strong in his determination. He is surrounded by his kind; he is the norm. He must strive to maintain psychological well being, and should have faith in something bigger than himself. To this end, he struggles.

How must I keep him from collapsing?  With profiles set, I begin to parse away at the details of my endeavoured maintenance. I think back to the night before, where the hairs on my nape stood tall and stretched to the night sky. Animal I was, yes, but did I attack? No. Why not? Although it INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

It’s funny where you find yourself sometimes. Often, with nowhere else to look, you finally see that which had always eluded you.  I look up to the sky and begin to count the stars: 7…12…26. I lose focus and forget who and what I am in that moment. 

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Regaining consciousness, I scream and run. Never is the animal alone without the man, and never is the man free from the animal. And yet, I only live in one. I can never be that which nature did not intend me to be. Both sides of that equation are part of who I am: no more and no less than each other, and forever compatible in my heart.

I realize. It is clear now. The animal can only be harnessed by the man, and the man can only be kept by the animal. Without either, it would be chaos. The girl would be

dead, and my mind would be in shackles.  We never get to choose how we enter this world; we are imprisoned by our origins. We are limited by nature’s guidelines, yet we are as unique as each stranger we walk by. All we are capable of is an attempt to trust that which we feel within us, and with practise, time, and prayer, we may find the balance we are searching for. 

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CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE Magdalene Au

I

s order subjective? Is it something that we impose on the world around us? How much meaning is derived from order? How do our experiences and biases lead us to see causal relationships? In this experiment, the order is yours and perhaps the meaning is as

well. You’re welcome to read the scenes in whichever order you’d like. Perhaps you will see how the scenes fit together right away.

Maybe you will decide that there are multiple chronologies. In any case, the story is yours.

SCENE A Whenever he asked a question, she would look over his shoulder and out the café window. The first time she did this, he followed her gaze to the stores across the street. It was a tranquil and rainy afternoon. A few pedestrians passed by on their way to the corner store next door. Otherwise, there was nothing to watch outside.

She let the pattering of rain and the clink of teaspoons envelope them for a moment before she replied.

“There was one time when I heard him coming home late at night. I hadn’t realized then. I was a complete fool.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“Nice of you to say, but anyone else would have noticed earlier. Anyway, he tried to be quiet when he came in the house, but I was up late, tossing and turning.”

“Well at least you’ll be better at it next time. You know, recognize the symptoms.” He laughed nervously.

“Next time?”

“Never mind, I was just kidding.” He looked down at his mug. “More coffee?”

She watched as a cyclist pedaled across the wet pavement. 

SCENE C “Can I help you, miss?”

“Just browsing.”

“Alright, let me know if you need anything.”

She hesitated as the store clerk returned to the shirts he was folding. “Actually, I’m looking for a dress. A black dress.”

“First date or night out? Not a funeral, I hope.” The clerk chuckled to himself.

“I just want something nice but simple.”

“Okay, well, the dresses are over here. This one just came in yesterday. Half the ladies on our staff got one for themselves.”

She grabbed a dress in her size and headed for the fitting rooms in the back.

“Hey, I’m sorry about the funeral comment. It’s just that I— It was a bad joke. Kind of just slipped out.” He paused for a moment. “My name is Kevin, by the way. They’ll ask at the cash register.”

“Sure.” 

SCENE D SCENE B Around him, people dressed in black milled about with drinks in hand. They stood in circles, chatting and catching up, their voices melding into an indistinct buzz that blocked out all thought. Familiar faces passed in his periphery, but he didn’t stop to talk. He found a couch in the corner and sat down.

“I had a feeling I might find you here.”

He looked up at the voice. “Oh, hey. Long time no see.”

Her eyes seemed tired, as if they had been struggling to stay open. She rubbed her forehead lightly as she spoke.

“Look, I know we didn’t exactly end off on good terms last time. I’m sorry, it was my fault.”

“Let’s not talk about that now. It’s been hard for both of us. What have you been up to since?”

“I moved recently. I got a job in the east-end and moved to a new apartment.”

“Wow, that’s great.”

“Listen, I have to tell you something.”

“Oh God, did someone die?” Everyone within hearing range turned around and looked at him.

Her cheeks turned red in embarrassment. “I’m serious.

Not here, though. Let’s meet up later, okay?”

She turned and walked away, cheeks still flushed. 

As always, the door was unlocked. He opened the door slowly and peered into the darkened living room. He spotted her on the couch, the television spilling blue light over her slight frame. Whenever she was busy, he would slip in as quietly as possible and wait at the breakfast table until the house fell asleep. But on nights like this, he would tread heavily through the door.

“Oh, I must have fallen asleep after the news. You should have called ahead.”

“I don’t think I can stay for long tonight.”

He sat down next to her and took her hands in his. Her fingers felt frail.

She caressed his cheek and then pulled his head towards her chest.

“Stay the night. Please.” 

ARTWORK BY IANITZA VASSILEVA

ARTWORK BY NICK LUYMES

BREAKING DOWN BIRTH ORDER Megan Schlorff

W

e all experience unique and varying degrees of organization and uncertainty in our everyday lives.

School schedules, meal times, and bank statements are examples of the former, while messy bedrooms, job applications, and the weather being cases of the latter.

The unique circumstances of each individual mean that disorder and order impact everyone a little bit differently. However, one form of order is experienced universally: birth order. Whether you’re the oldest of eight, the infamous middle, or your parents’ only offspring, you are influenced one way or another by the order in which you were born.

We have all heard rumours of traits associated with individuals based on their birth order. Personality theories and scientific studies are largely responsible for creating these proposals about family birth order. We have often heard about the oldest child who stops at nothing in order to achieve perfection and reach their dreams; the middle child who is cooperative but also competitive; and the youngest child who is the centre of attention and resident risk-taker. And, of course, it would be amiss not to mention the “only child” whose periods of growing up alone have fostered independence and creativity. Although these stereotypes are widely accepted and used to label children depending on the order in which they were welcomed into the family, the evidence to support these age-old generalizations is far from conclusive.

When we think of birth order, the concept of nurture versus nature often arises.

Although each child is born with a distinct VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

set of genes, it’s not necessarily this biological blueprint that will dictate their personality. This is where nurture is believed to play a bigger role. It’s not that older children are necessarily hardwired to be over-achievers and leaders; it’s more likely a result of the experiences they had growing up. They were the first sibling to partake in many activities from organized sports to beginning school and likely looked after their younger siblings while growing up. Younger children are the last additions to the family, which results in them receiving additional attention and never having the experience of competing for the attention of a younger sibling. Nurturing experiences throughout childhood provide one area of insight when examining personality differences within birth order.

Recently, researchers have recognized the importance of not solely studying birth order but also the overall size of the family.

Children coming from a family of two have a much higher chance of being the firstborn as compared to a child who is from a family of six; the fewer children in your family, the higher your probability of being the oldest.

Smaller families tend to be associated with wealthier and better-educated parents.

Some researchers have drawn a correlation: people in jobs associated with older children, astronauts being one referenced example, are more likely to come from smaller families than to specifically be firstborns. Evidently, family size is an important factor when studying birth order, but it was all but ignored from several decades of birth order research, making studies from several decades ago difficult to interpret.

Another aspect of the birth order puzzle found that, converse to the popular “opposites attract” idea, people of the same birth order are more likely to espouse each other. We can trace this logic backwards and consider that if spouses correlate on birth order as well as personality, personality correlates with birth order. The fact that these results were found independent of family size gives more weight to a potential correlation between birth order and personality. However, the study gives no indication of how exactly personalities between oldest, middle, youngest, and only children differ. This leads us back to the necessity of considering individuality and the multitude of factors, in addition to birth order, that can affect personality.

Birth order is one of the few types of arrangements that remain constant throughout our lifetime. The exact effect it has on us, and its relationship to our personality, remains elusive. Although several generalizations exist and research continues to explore this topic, there is no single concrete theory, due to the fact that the life of each person is unique. There are multiple factors beyond birth order that impact a child’s development ranging from diet to environment. The best current proposition is for parents to value each child for their individual qualities, rather than treating them as a product of their birth order. Researchers may be unable to identify a sound model of the relationship between birth order and personality, but the age-old belief that we are each unique individuals defined by multiple factors, birth order being just one of them, persists.  7

JANUARY WRITING CONTEST First sentence must contain the word ‘frame’ 10 min: incorporate the word ‘complex’ 20 min: ‘present’ 30 min: ‘console’ 40 min: ‘desert’ 50 min: (revision) 60 min: (done) PHOTOGRAPHY BY JASON BOLONSKI (FLICKR) 8

INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

WRITING CONTEST WINNER

RECALLING THE BIRTH OF A SUN Raluca Topliceanu

T

he bare tree branches were wrapped delicately around the outline of her face, framing her scarlet lips and the soft gaze she directed at him. He could not help but notice her skin tone, a hue he had never seen on the women of his homeland, but nonetheless beautiful. He could not help but notice the alien quality of her very existence – the tilt of her eyes, the arrangement of her silk clothing bound by a belt of strange proportions, the way her hair flowed and rippled down past her ankles and trailed behind her on the snow. He might have seen a similar style of dress when he was younger and staring at some oriental statues brought back by his uncle. Mostly they bore the appearance of women clad in long robes with extravagant sleeves, their silken hair let loose down their backs and their red lips striking against porcelain-pale faces.

“Where am I?” he asked the spectre, who took her time to reply.

She tilted her face to the side, and he notice d the perfect symmetry in her features. At first her words were inaudible, as if her tongue was of a different nature than he was accustomed to hearing. She acknowledged his silence with a bow, then addressed him in English.

“Dreaming.”

She turned from him slightly, allowing the hair to slide partly away from her neck. He saw the red snake nestled at her nape, wound about the delicate, pale skin. It was a complex creature, twisted into grotesque angles, uneven bumps where its scales should have been.

“Who are you?”

She lifted a hand to run the tip of her fingers along the snake’s head, her eyes finding his. “You know. You answer that question.”

“I’ve never met you.”

“Oh?” “This is a dream, right? I’ve made you up.”

“Perhaps.”

He observed her face more closely, and then shook his head after not finding any clues on her features. “I don’t know you.”

“That’s too sad.”

“Why?” The snake tightens along her neck. “Because I know who you are. I know what you have done.”

“What do you mean?”

“You made another sun, which shone so bright it could tear the colour from our eyes, just like our own sun. You planted this sun just above our country, let it grow there, and it was so close it burned the skin on our bodies. But this new sun only lasted a few seconds. It was swallowed by the clouds, and then the rain came down – black rain.”

His hands began to shake, and he could feel the pain lingering on his skin once he pinched himself. “This is a dream?”

“Yes.” “Who are you?”

“Someone who has seen your sun. Felt its heat on her skin.

Watched the black rain fall and take with it all she held close.”

He felt drops of liquid fall onto his skin, his exposed head, and hastened to rub them away from his body with the sleeves of his shirt. The snow got black from the ebony-tinted rain.

“Please, make this stop! Wake me up!” he begged, kneeling at her bare feet and presenting his hands to her in a gesture one would liken to a sign of prayer.

“I can’t stop what you have started. It’s done.”

“I did this to you, didn’t I? I’m sorry! Please forgive me. Please wake me up from this!”

The rain painted uneven charcoal lines down her white face. “I do not need you to console me. It’s too late to wake up. Too late…”

In one quick movement, the snake flashed its fangs before dig-

She turned from him slightly, allowing the hair to slide partly away from her neck.

He saw the red snake nestled at her nape, wound about the delicate, pale skin.

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

ging them into her fragile throat, shredding through skin and bone.

He watched her fall at his feet, her eyes expressionless, the snake slowly unwinding itself from around her neck and coiling itself around his left arm. With its bite, he felt the initial pain, then the dulling of his senses, until finally the world deserted him.  He woke up with a headache, the beer bottles stacked precariously on the short table beside his bed.

“Just a stupid dream,” he muttered as he dressed.

The train ride to work was uneventful – a large man wearing a grey suit held an older newspaper opened on his lap, a grandmother trying to comfort a wailing child, a young woman— He should have noticed from her hair that she was different. Or her tilted eyes. Or the hue of her skin.

Or the red burn coiling its way along her throat.

“Huh, didn’t expect to see any Japs this soon after the war, eh?” Grey-Suit man says without looking up from his print. “The bomb didn’t seem to leave many pretty survivors.”

“No…” His index finger jerked instinctively, as if it were poised to squeeze around a trigger.

Eyes stared, mouths moved to whisper about her, but the woman looked only at him. Her presence unnerved him, the feel of her unyielding eyes fixating on his face, studying. She mouthed the words: “Do you know who I am now?”

She watched for a response before she continued.

“Did you wake up yet?”  9

photography by

Jason Lau

WRITING

“Jeremy.” You look me in the eyes and I feel like I’m in trouble for something I didn’t do. “I can’t do this anymore.” You raise your arms and I want to grab them and hold them and never let them go. But you raise them to your neck and you tear off the necklace I once bought you.

I have this thing about presents.

I expect them to mean something to the person I give them to. I expect, hypothetically speaking, for my ex-girlfriend to keep the $250 necklace I bought her for our three-year anniversary. I expect it not to matter that we’ve just broken up. I expect it to mean just the same.

My mom once bought me a toy rocket ship. It wasn’t even for my birthday or Christmas, or anything. It was “Just because”, she told me, “just because I love you.” I had outgrown it a long time ago but it was still on my nightstand. That’s the way I feel about presents. Maybe that’s just me.

I get up to leave.

“Wait,” Your voice rises.

“Yeah?”

“You’re just leaving?”

I don’t know what else you want me to do. Breakup sex? The thought crosses my mind, but I know that’s the last thing you mean. “Yeah,” I shrug, “I better go.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Your voice grows sympathetic. This isn’t the time to console me.

I have this thing about consolation. I expect it to be genuine.

“I’ll be fine,” I tell you, walking to the door.

“Jeremy,” you go on. “I want you to know that I really am sorry. This doesn’t have to be a break up. Just a break. Just until you’re yourself again, okay?”

The thing is, I feel like myself. If I’m not myself then I’m not sure I will ever be myself again. I just tell you okay. I walk out the door. I’m not sure where I want to go. Whenever I needed to talk to anybody it had always been with you or my mom. Neither is an option now.

I try not to feel alone. Isolated.

I have this thing about feeling deserted. It’s pretty simple. I avoid it.

I consider going home to my dad, but he’s useless with words and ever since my mom left, we’ve probably spoken three sentences to each other: 1) We’ll make this work.

2) I won’t be home too late.

3) There’s still some pizza in the fridge.

I have this thing about crooked frames. They remind me that life is disorderly and complex. That you can be playing a card game with your girlfriend and your mom, and then your mom can complain about a stomachache, and then you can be driving her to the hospital, and then she can be dead. Just like that. I have this thing about crooked frames and purple flowers and girlfriends that have them on their walls. They bug me. But then again, I guess a lot of things bug me nowadays. 

T CONTES

WINNER

Zalter Rachelle

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

ES D FRAM CROOKE

I

have this thing about crooked frames. I know I’m supposed to be focusing on the question you’re asking me, but the picture behind you – the one with the vase of purple flowers – it’s hanging on an angle. It’s not noticeable, I guess. I mean this is your bedroom and all, so if it were noticeable you’d probably fix the thing.

“Jeremy, are you even listening?”

I try not to think about the stupid purple flowers. I try to think about what I was supposed to be listening to. “You’re breaking up with me,” I note.

“It’s not like that,” you look at me like I’m a dying child. The thing is I’m not dying. My mother died. But me? I’m still the same guy you started dating three and a half years ago. “I just can’t do this anymore. I think we need some time apart.”

“You can’t do what?” I try not to sound pathetic. I feel kind of pathetic though.

“You spend every day in your room, Jeremy. I try calling you ten times a day and you only pick up on the tenth time! It’s like you want me to break up with you!”

I thought about ending things with you at the funeral. I know you’re supposed to wear black to funerals but every time you wear black it clashes with you hair and personality.

Every time, I think: maybe I can’t trust you. I think: maybe I should break up with you. The funeral wasn’t an exception.

The thing is, though, I couldn’t break up with you. Not ever.

My mom loved you too damn much.

I remember the first time my mom and you met. She laughed. I asked her what she was laughing about and she just said: “Jeremy she’s way too good for you. If you have any brains, you keep that one close.”

I’d like to think that I have brains. I also happened to have fallen in love with you at some point between the day you met my mom and now.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t picking up the phone because it was you on the other line. I wasn’t picking up the phone because there were a lot of things on my mind at the moment and you can’t just pick up the phone when you’re midway through a thought.

I have this thing about complexities. Complications. You see, after my mom died I realized that life just can’t be as simple as we’d like to think it is. Or maybe, I’d like to think it is. I used to imagine my life going one way: I’d finish school, I’d become a doctor, I’d marry you, I’d look at my mom on my wedding day and see her cry the kind of tears I’ve always been too afraid to cry. The problem with this is that sometimes life punches you straight in the face and when you open your eyes you realize that the blurriness may never go away. My mom died of complications from surgery. She wasn’t supposed to die. She was supposed to get her appendix removed and come home like every other patient with appendicitis. That’s the problem with expectations. Life is too goddamn complex.

“You’re doing it again now.” I have no idea what you’re talking about.

“Doing what?”

“It’s like you’re never here anymore.

You’re here, but not really. Ever since your mom… I just feel like I lost you.”

“You didn’t lose me,” I tell you. I know what losing someone is like. This isn’t it. “I’m right here.”

“You’re not, though. Don’t you get that?”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

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Exploration of the world around me is my personal passion. The pursuit of knowledge inspires me to reach out and share my discoveries. Understanding the world through a variety of lenses and challenging others to consider these insights is my goal. I strive to challenge the common perceptions of reality through expressions of a universal truth.

I centre my expressions of a universal truth through my concepts of geometry, photography and the experience of light. I personally believe that ‘truth’ is subjective and requires its own context to exist. There must be a setting to provide a context to the set. The set represents the individual, the personality structure and the mood of the subject. The setting refers to the physical, social and cultural views of reality. Through the accompanying theme of personal adornment the muse symbolizes the set, while sculptural realms reflect the setting.

I hold mathematics as central to our understanding; they help to rationalize our reality. While not all life can be broken down into systematics there are certain disciplines that may provide us with ‘truths’. I view geometry and the experience of pure light as the most accurate representations of truth as they force a confrontation with the self. Personal experience is of the utmost importance to personal truth; therefore an expression of universal truth must come from within. 

Emmalou Hale

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INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

PLEASE EXCUSE MY DEAR AUNT SALLY Jesse Bettencourt

Order of Operations and How You Never Learned Math

A

t some point in elementary school many of us stopped taking regular spelling tests. Certainly not because we became linguistic prodigies, exhausting the list of spell-able words. Instead, following from the expectation that everybody had access to a word processor, the skill of knowing under which circumstances ‘i comes before e’ was made unnecessary by autocorrect. We shifted our priorities away from memorizing the nuances of word construction to a focus on comprehension, learning how to close-read, and how to use language. Spell-check encouraged us to experiment with vocabulary, allowing us to reach for the ‘right’ word, not just the ones we could spell reliably.

But to many this transition raised an alarming question: What would become of a school system that does not expect students to spell? The answer, it seems, is that English education has more resources to encourage appreciation of literature and creative exploration rather than the memorization and application of mnemonics.

Once, learning to spell was absolutely necessary, and even the most uninterested students could be convinced of its importance. We read and write daily, so these mnemonics will likely find good use. It’s no coincidence that we use them for common tricky words, but a dictionary for the obscure ones. Who would be convinced to learn spelling tricks for words they have no intention of using regularly?

Mathematics, like good spelling, was once a regular practice. Breaking change or tipping a server in cash were daily exercises, but many of us now pay exclusively with debit. Unless you’re in a related field, daily examples of foundational mathematics skills are hard to find. Even worse, most of us have no regular use for any higher mathematics skills, like algebraically solving for an unknown. Regardless, we rigorously practiced solving for ‘x’ for much of high school mathematics. We learn mnemonics like FOIL (First, Outside, Inside, Last) to quickly multiply binomials, though there is no ‘real-world’ application for skill like this. This is the foundation for the math-class mantra: “Why am I learning this?”

There are many good reasons to learn mathematics. Logic and reasoning, probVOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

We learn how to perform calculations to an excess at the expense of understanding why those calculations are needed. lem solving, and abstract thinking skills are all developed through a good math education. To access these benefits, however, students must be able to construct and manipulate mathematical objects. Just like spelling is foundational to reading, which must be well-established before any appreciation of literature, students must first learn the mechanics of actually ‘doing the math’.

Historically this meant practicing techniques to hone our mechanical math skills to a useable level. This is the rationale behind the ‘no calculators’ policy in elementary school; you must first learn how and why we perform calculations conceptually before outsourcing the work to a computer.

Although the approach is intuitive, the implementation is misguided. We learn how to perform calculations to an excess at the expense of understanding why those calculations are needed.

We support the effort to learn these skills through tricks and mnemonics. Like ‘i before e’, we teach quick algorithms to make the calculations accessible and easily taught. For instance, ‘Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally’ or ‘BEDMAS’ is a simple mnemonic for learning the order of operations. A student performing a calculation can simply work through the order given by the trick: calculate terms inside parenthesis, then exponents, then multiplication…

Behind this mnemonic is a logical structure that is important for mathematical thinking. But this logical structure is not accessed by learning the mnemonic or repeatedly practicing the application of the algorithm.

It is by considering the actual behaviour of parenthesis or exponents that the structure can be logically determined. This reasoning process is how math education can access

the real benefits of learning mathematics: Consideration, not computation.

For most students math has become a collection of memorized tricks. Being good at math is a direct result of knowing the technique and when to apply it. But just as someone with perfect spelling isn’t necessarily a capable writer, the knowledge of the technique does not imply understanding of the mathematics. Also, these techniques aren’t general. A student who knows FOIL for multiplying binomials may not be able to multiply trinomials. It is the understanding of the distributive property, why FOIL works, that makes multiplying trinomials, or polynomials of any size, a logical extension. Once the distributive property is understood, the act of actually calculating the result becomes a computational issue.

The English language was made more accessible through computational technology, allowing students to explore the language rather than memorizing words.

Computers have the same capacity in math education, where students can explore the logical structure of the subject by leaving calculation exercises to computers. But right now, we are in the adolescence of computer technology which, like every coming-ofage, is characterised by ambiguity. We don’t have a modern idea of ‘the necessary math skills’. What should we expect computers to do for us, and what should students still practice by hand? We could make these tricks and mnemonics obsolete, allowing students to experience mathematics as an experiment in logic rather than a chore of busy-work. We can leave the computation for computers. Who would be convinced to learn math tricks for calculations they have no intention of using?  13

what do you want to order?

Alex Graunt

I

Oven-Roasted Chicken

Free-range chicken, marinated with honey, garlic and olive oil.

$16

Wild-Mushroom Linguine

Lemon, garlic and thyme seasoning.

Vegetarian Chili

Served over quinoa with marble cheese.

$17

Grilled Cheese

With bacon and apples.

$14

Salad

No cheese, dressing on the side.

$12

am sitting across from her in a restaurant. She’s quiet. Quiet enough that I know not to ask. It’s not a night where we swap stories of what the day had in store for each of us. It’s a night where we sit quietly and make small talk about the colour of the walls. We distract ourselves from the ugly truth spread out before us. She has an eating disorder. It doesn’t matter why or how. It just is. It’s a fact neither of us like. It’s one we don’t talk about in public.

It’s the skeleton in our closet, a painful secret discussed in harsh whispers and somber tones and averted looks. The waitress approaches our table and asks for our order.

“Salad, no cheese, dressing on the side.”

“Salad, no cheese, dressing on the side” is an order I hear often in restaurants. It’s not one I want to hear often, but over the past year these seven words have wormed their way into my life. This is what she orders when she’s not having a good day. This is her safe order. This is her clearing the minimum threshold for what is acceptable to eat as a meal. The calories contained in a

“salad, no cheese, dressing on the side” are minimal. It’s just a plate of leaves of spinach or kale or lettuce, spiced up with some cucumber slices, tomatoes, maybe onions. She orders it and I know I don’t have to ask what she’s had to eat that day. I already know what she’s

$14

scares and angers me like nothing else can. It’s an embodiment of what has caused every argument I’ve had with her, every fight, every disagreement, over the past year. When she first told me, first said it out loud, I was scared and angry. Scared because I thought I knew what happened to people with eating disorders: that they withered to skeletons, or were found killed by a stomach that burst from bingeing and purging, or hid themselves from public eyes of shame. Angry because she hadn’t told me sooner.

I stumbled at first, trying to help her. I said the wrong things, used the wrong words, and made the wrong jokes. I told her that what she was doing was her fault.

I did nothing at all to help because I did not know how I could.

I thought about it all the time, agonized over it. I worried and stressed and panicked over the idea that she was starving herself because she did not think she was acceptable, bearable. I thought about downward spirals, about cycles of not eating, then eating, then binging, then purging, then not eating, and on and on and on.

I thought about telling her parents, tell-

Her order is a oneperson show, a single act presented on the stage of life to show everyone else that nothing is wrong, nothing is out of the ordinary, everything is fine.

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had, and it’s far less than what I’ve had, if anything at all. Her order is a one-person show, a single act presented on the stage of life to show everyone else that nothing is wrong, nothing is out of the ordinary, everything is fine.

This simple selection of greens

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“Salad, no cheese, dressing on the side.” ing my parents, telling someone, but she begged me to keep her secret. I became so frustrated by my inability to do anything, I began to despair that there was nothing to be done.

I’m still sitting here in the restaurant with her. Her order for a “salad, no cheese, dressing on the side” complements mine for a decadent grilled cheese with bacon and apples. She pulls out her phone, quickly checking to see how much the salad will cost her calorie-wise. She stores the information in her food diary, a collection of ups and downs, good days and bad days. Today she won’t break the required 1200 calorie minimum the diary app sets as a calorie goal. The food diary has been a mixed blessing. On one hand, it forces her to take responsibility for what she’s eaten. It’s hard evidence, indisputable.

On the other, it has made her calorie counting easier. Every food is checked before she eats it to ensure its calorie

count is not too great. Every time she pulls out her phone I want to scream, to grab it from her hands and smash it, to free her from its tight grasp. I know the phone is not to blame, nothing is, but I so desperately want to be able to do something that my imagination finds endless acts of defiance.

She puts her phone away again, and our awkward and gauche small talk persists. With a calm face, my best attempt to shroud my dread for the coming meal, I tell her about a movie trailer I’d watched earlier that day. The wait for the food to come is one I hate. On the best of days it’s a sensitive period where a wrong word, an awkward joke, a comment from a passerby can make her abandon any attempts at eating. On days like today, tensions are extra high, and I am on red alert, trying to make sure I say nothing to provoke her. I try to get her to do most of the talking because it minimizes the amount of time I have to

screw things up.

At last the food arrives. I prepare for the normal procedure surrounding eating. I can’t look at her while she eats, and conversation is kept to a minimum.

As the waitress leaves, this melancholy routine is broken by her remark: “That looks good.” “… Thanks.” I reply awkwardly, wary of this unfamiliar turn in conversation.

“Can I have a bite?” These words echo in my head and my heart cannot help but rise with elation. It’s a small step, a miniscule one others may not even notice but to me it is everything. It is a sign that there is hope that all our struggles may not be for nothing. I gladly oblige her request for a bite, and the meal continue with a markedly lighter tone. As we finish eating, the waitress returns and asks if we would like dessert. With a shy smile, she turns to me and says, “I think I’d like that.” 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATIE DINGWALL

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY IANITZA VASSILEVA

 The Cosmogony Victoria Haykin I. Granite gobstoppers disgorged from focused ferrous forges send forth silken cloven cyclopean Centaurs, single-eyed monstrosities coming now across the sand-flats they are closer and He the star-faced one from the chariot drawn by some others of them speaks and they understand not a word driven forward by unforeseeable Urge primordial god of entropic proportion, son of Pleasure and Unrestraint, exhortations fly heavenward from sky-doors, mediating above and below, outlined vaguely by dusty star clouds now called by us constellations then monikered by no man and He having disembarked lets loose the reins, the world awash with early colours of the afterbirth.

II. Always He shows up at the impertinent hour, tidal-wave haired and clothed but only in necessities, standing stalwart against the others, acerbic taste of lifeblood becomes sweet with inhalation of ambrosial nectars and concludes with lighter base notes of apple blossom, fragrant blood orange, Despair and Discord, long-haired children of Earth, take to the dust tracks by His hand, wails of Day’s first lament sting – falling water-clouds on earth-treading feet, and He takes again to His chariot, all radiance without guile.

III. He would have answered “This is the prelude” but no one left to ask is near, hiding holes of insignificant breadth envelop crusty side-canyons, now topmost summits of highest ridges poke forth from unsullied places, stretching upwards with lifeless arm, driven by desire for new terrains, atmosphereless, first of all the falling flakes, in crystal spheres encapsulated, crown newfound peaks, now snow-plated with silver rock beneath where harsh the jagged edges chafe, driving forward, stretching out embroidered edges of Kosmos, further then above lofty ceiling-clouds appear, apparitions cast in sooty outline now upon the rocky ground lie in unrepentant mirth.

IV. All re-chant the encomiastic palindrome: ἀμήσας ἄρδην ὀροφηφόρον ἥδρασα σῆμα* lofty as the tree-forts grow, the echoing of repeating sound heavily hemmed in, foliage drooping, fruitless leaning downwards, touching nothing now below the bark— Night comes in low-lying, swooping, with overbearing presence, He returns hauling headlong twinkling canvas, renewing elemental forms spattered amorphous, skyward then betakes Himself to Zephyrus.

V. Hope behind Him left protean, first born.

*An ancient Greek palindrome meaning “Having reaped, I established a lofty-roofed monument.” It is likely a reference to a line from the final book of the Greek epic, The Iliad.



PHOTOGRAPHY BY LE BATTEUR DE LUNE (FLICKR)

MA ’AT’S PLEA Madeline Lawler

Hieroglyphs speak the Egyptians’ stories …

Each symbol is a consonant, which together read out a chapter in our fascinating tale.

I

am believed by the Egyptians to be the cause of all things, from the beautiful sunsets to the very Earth we tread upon. Pharaohs must uphold my force and the justice system bows at my feet. My name is Ma’at and I am the goddess whose purpose is to keep everything in harmony no matter the effort it required.

My father Ra gave birth to me when he rose from the waters of Nun, the god of Chaos. Without me, Nun would overtake the universe, fostering the catastrophe of rogues and ruling the world without consideration of morality or ethics. The underworld has halls dedicated to my name where the deceased are dubbed worthy or unworthy for the afterlife. The dead enter a ceremony where my husband Toth, the god of Wisdom, weighs their hearts. If their weight is equivalent to mine they move on. If not, they have performed unlawful acts of cheating and lying, and their hearts are eaten whole by Ammut, the Devouress of the Dead.

You may wonder, “Why do you come to me to speak about your past and your part of ancient culture?” I have come to you with the request to remember my legacy, which during this year of third century is withering away and has the end in sight. A task it may be, yet it is essential for a civilization so powerful and magnificent as mine was to be remembered by the civilizations to come.

Our livelihood can be found on the plaster walls of the Egyptians’ houses, presenting detailed displays of people and nature.

Strings enveloped in red paint press against the walls to create a grid system on which to outline our lives. The figures must be shown in a certain way: a v-shaped chest, then a flattened and turned face with eyes looking straight on, arms together and to the side, hands identical and feet facing sideways. These painted figures in all of

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

their harmony follow my law and will pass onto the afterlife with other upholding citizens. Completeness is the one and only qualifier for our art pieces and will not be sacrificed for beauty; this legacy must live on in order to keep me alive.

Hieroglyphs speak the Egyptians’ stories and are oriented to bring balance into each artwork. Each symbol is a consonant, which together read out a chapter in our fascinating tale. The symbols face right, just as the figures do. If there is a small set of hieroglyphs in the scenes, they are an elaborate code hiding descriptions and behaviours. If longer, they unlock requests offered to the dead, hymns to deities, or speeches from the deities to the kings. Without this language, no one would understand the Egyptians and no one witness the knowledge of the divine.

Egyptian art and society breathes the requirement of hierarchy.

My followers, Kings and Pharaohs, are of equivalent stature and overtake those of Queens, children, and subjects in the art. This is such an important concept that it is praised in politics and religion too. My people would not grasp the idea of life without it and it reinforces my namesake in their world.

With the chaos that is going to overtake the Egyptian society, it is of obligation that you bring our story forward to your and other civilizations. My law of truth and justice is the only way that the world can get by. Rulers and subjects would be lost without it. I will be dead and lost forever with no one to grasp some small part of me.

So document these words on your walls or on some new medium that has come to be, as I do not know how your societies will live. I only know that it should live with ethics, method and harmony, singing the praises of Ma’at.  17

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GALI KATZNELSON

THE CULT OF BUSY Emile Shen

“H

ow are you?”

“Busy.”

How many times in the past week have you heard or given that response?

Now, I’m no mind reader, but I guarantee that it has happened more than once.

That’s because not only is “busy” a socially acceptable response, but it is also undoubtedly true and relatable. As university students, our lives are perpetual balancing acts. Between keeping up with academics, extracurricular activities, a social life, work, physical fitness, sleep, relationships, and the list goes on, it is no wonder we feel so pressed for time.

But ‘busy’ is merely an adjective describing our activities while omitting description of any such activities. However, this simple, one-word answer has become much more than a word. It has become a lifestyle – a social phenomenon even. We’ve all been inducted into the Cult of Busy.

The venerating attitude we seem to hold towards ‘busyness’ was most notably captured by Tim Kreider in June 2012 in his New York Times’ Opinion piece, “The ‘Busy’ Trap”. He points out that the most time-pressed people, those working double shifts in ICUs at hospitals, or three jobs to pay off their mortgage, are not the ones complaining about their busyness. Rather, the people complaining about their jam-packed schedules are those who willingly over-book themselves so that,

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through their “complaint” of the chaos, they are simultaneously boasting to their captive audience. What a humblebrag!

What has made busyness so fundamentally popular in the 21st century, so much so that it can be used as a description to encapsulate all we do? Technically, it should just be a byproduct of our extensive list of responsibilities, but it is now what we aim for to eliminate any chance of the FOMO. It has been scientifically proven that crossing completed tasks off a to-do list

of the brain’s addictive dopamine chemical.

Eclipsing this basic neuroscience is the positive social connotation currently held by being busy. Being busy implies that a person is a driven and hardworking member of society who tries to utilize as many waking hours of the day as possible to accomplish their goals. Who does the previous sentence describe? It seems to be the very definition of a successful person.

However, it is important to remember that busyness does not necessarily equate to success. A busy life may cause an individual to sacrifice meaningful and genuine connections with their loved ones, and possibly their own mental health, at the expense of doing what they believe is necessary to get ‘further’ in life. If this is the outcome, busyness is then only a shadowy counterfeit of success.

A truly successful person is one who, amidst the time constraints experienced by us all, acts according to balance and values. Balance involves identifying priorities and staying true to them. Values are a framework by which we evaluate the quality and usefulness of our activities. The overlap between these two characteristics is the necessity of reflection. Sure, we all want to become the best version of ourselves possible, but we must establish a sense of purpose in this pursuit. Action without introspection leads us astray and leaves us

Academics, extracurricular activities, a social life, work, physical fitness, sleep, relationships, and the list goes on. is pleasurable. Dopamine, the neurotransmitter that is heavily involved in the reward and pleasure center of the brain, is released when you do so. Besides being a “pleasure chemical” released when people are in love or after a great workout, an accumulation of dopamine is what is responsible for drug addictions. Perhaps the compulsion to do – and therefore complete – a lot of things is simply a mechanism to increase the release

INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

directionless. As counter-intuitive as it may be, what occasionally needs to be done to continue growth and become successful is the exact opposite of busyness. It is the time to step outside the hustle and bustle of daily life and really consider what is important to us.

But as much as I can talk theoretically about what has to be done, I do recognize how much more difficult it is in practice.

On a typical day, you can find me speed walking around the Mac campus, coffee in hand, and bags under my eyes bigger than the one on my back.

My courses are challenging but manageable with proper time management and I am only dedicated to a couple extracurricular activities. There are some weeks when I have had nine assessments, but that’s not all the time. But regardless of how busy I actually am, I constantly feel like I am running out of time. If this is the case for a first year university student, I wonder how Beyoncé does it. After all, we both only have 24 hours in a day.

On my seemingly endless list of things to do, sleep is nearly always abandoned.

“Sleep is for the weak!” I exclaim. Caffeine becomes the only thing that keeps me motivated (i.e. awake). I once consumed six cof-

fees in a 36 hour period to pull and all-nighter, as if it was the fuel needed to keep my engine going. But I am not a machine. I am a human being who physically needs sleep to stay alive.

It then seems paradoxical that through my physically damaging quest of busyness,

arises from the storm of tasks to complete, leaving no room for any other thoughts, and definitely no room for feelings aside from those rooted in motivation, stress, or anxiety. Busyness has a way of making you feel impervious through emotional numbness.

I have been finding it very challenging to not be busy due to the sheer level of chaos within my own mind. This was especially the case during the winter break right after my first three hectic months at university when I was in the peace of my home and able to properly reflect on everything that had happened.

Reflection proved to be neither peaceful nor easy. All of the thoughts I had pushed aside when I was busy flooded back to my consciousness, and more confusion and regret arose than anything else.

I grasped that reflection, an active inquest during the busyness, was more demanding than any of my university coursework. When we are constantly on the go, it is so easy to lose sight of the real purpose behind anything. However, the most demanding tasks are usually what are most necessary for us to grow.

The teenager that played hooky seemed to have it figured out: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” 

“Sleep is for the weak!” I exclaim. Caffeine becomes the only thing that keeps me motivated (i.e. awake). But I am not a machine. I am a human being who physically needs sleep to stay alive.

I feel like my life is in order. My agenda gives me purpose and is something I can rely on to know what’s next. University is such a transitional phase of our lives, so even though I have no clue what I want to major in, at least I know I have a club meeting at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, a Psychology module to complete before tutorial, and an Inquiry report due next Friday. I have also observed that, when I am the busiest, order

When we are constantly on the go, it is so easy to lose sight of the real purpose behind anything.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAHUL SADAVARTE

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY WHYISHNAVE SUTHAGAR

CAN’T RESIST A BAD BOY L. Maegan Cheng

L

oki. Hannibal. Moriarty. Maleficent.

There are countless villains who captivate imaginations and screens worldwide. Considering that we’re expected to root for the heroes, the popularity of antagonists seems counterintuitive. Do we really want the bad guys to win? While the answer to that question varies, the contrast they provide as the ‘bad’ against the ‘good’ of the protagonists is unquestionably important. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “every good story needs a villain.”

So what makes a ‘good’ villain?

There’s no absolute answer, but it might have something to do with the fascinating way their actions call into question our acceptance of social norms. Some play the system, using it to their advantage, while others disregard or disrupt it.

Corrupt politicians, shady lawyers, and con artists are some examples of wrongdoers who are immersed in society and exploit it to their advantage. By using or circumventing existing rules, they reveal an understanding of the world in which they live and the flaws inherent in that structure. Conforming to order of society and following the rules may be seen as wonderful traits, but that sort of predictability can make it that much easier to be taken advantage of. On the other hand, antagonists who disrupt the status quo show the importance of a well-regulated society. Just imagine being under the constant threat of terrorization by the Joker! The chaos-inducing actions of criminals validate the need for laws (or superheroes).

Regardless of which side of the law they technically fall on, villains tend to prioritize

personal benefit with little thought for the greater good.

Motivation is, perhaps, what separates protagonists from antagonists. Viewers can empathize with, if not forgive, criminals who have committed the most heinous of acts if they can understand and relate to the reasoning behind them. An interesting theme in current culture is the popularity of reformed or sympathetic villains. The main character in the television series White Collar is a con artist who helps the FBI (and himself at the same time). The protagonist

perspective challenges us to question our definition of right and wrong. Are the rules right? Antagonists have views that are misaligned with what’s commonly accepted.

By automatically condemning this deviance, we forget that the law, customs, and norms are social constructions.

Character traits are another grey matter to factor into a villain’s appeal. Intelligence needed to create ambitious plots and to avoid detection or capture. Charming con artists demonstrate admirable levels of self-confidence. All villains persevere in the face of (literal) heroic opposition, taking audacious risks to achieve their dreams. These are virtues possessed by antiheroes that we can all appreciate.

Audiences also love an underdog. We pay rapt attention to stories about beating overwhelming odds, perhaps because they give us hope for personal triumph. Villains and heroes provide each other with opposition. The reprobates appeal to our individualistic culture, portraying characters driven by personal gain. The champions are idealistic figures in comparison, accepting the burden of responsibility, upholding what’s ‘right’. We thirst for a good fight, cheering on the bad guy without guilt, since we know the good guy will win.

In the end, villains really don’t differ much from heroes. They can be just as brilliant and daring, or sometimes even more so. Perhaps our attraction to them is not counterintuitive at all, but a natural admiration born from their unique position as the opposition to a familiar social order. 

All villains persevere in the face of (literal) heroic opposition, taking audacious risks to achieve their dreams.

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of Despicable Me is a former supervillain struggling between his nefarious past and single fatherhood. Wreck-It Ralph portrays a sympathetic bad guy who never wanted to be despised in the first place. And as a final example, if you’ve ever felt like an outsider, you can identify with Dr. Horrible (of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog), who just can’t seem to win against the egotistic yet socially beloved hero Captain Hammer.

Knowledge of a character’s backstory can make us hesitate to condemn their actions.

Tom Hiddleston, who plays Loki in Marvel’s Avengers and Thor, has said, “Every villain is a hero in his own mind.” This

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dystopian novel reviews It was a pleasure to burn.

— Fahrenheit 451 It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.

— The Giver The early summer sky was the colour of cat vomit.

— Uglies “I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one. Or at least as close as we’re going to get.”

— Ender’s Game In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus C. in a whisper.

— Invitation to a Beheading A squat grey building of only thirty-four storeys.

— Brave New World

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dystopian novel ray bradbury’s fahrenheit 451

Imagine a world with no books, no histories, no bibles, nothing chronicling the past. The media has won, and all that exists is senseless noise, sports, and bad reality television shows. This is the sort of world Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 warns us of. In it, government censorship has led to total banning of all books, resulting in people living idle lives, disconnected and disillusioned from the events occurring around them. The plot follows Guy Montag, a ‘fireman’ who is charged with burning the possessions of anyone who reads books. The title of the book is drawn from the auto-ignition point of paper, 451°F. The government in the book is equal parts 1984 and Brave New World, forcing rigid and sweeping bans on people’s ability to read while substituting it with easily digested, highly biased video media.

The amazing thing about Fahrenheit 451 is that Bradbury took only 9 days to write it – not surprising considering it was all done on a rented typewriter in a public library. The book is an enjoyable, fairly quick read. A great choice for any lover of dystopia, science fiction, and a discussion of what the purpose of our species is if we cannot learn from our past and change our future.

– Mackenzie Richardson

vladimir nabokov’s invitation to a beheading In a 1967 interview, Vladimir Nabokov admitted that Invitation to a Beheading held for him “the greatest esteem” of all his novels. Although best known for Lolita, a novel centred on the unrequited love of a middle-aged man for a twelve-year-old girl, Nabokov’s more experimental works nonetheless have a great deal to offer. Invitation to a Beheading can, perhaps, by generic definition, be considered “dystopian” (or even “mock dystopian”), but intrinsically, it is far more than that. It is a novel that pushes boundaries, both stylistically and thematically.

Our scene opens in a courtroom. Our protagonist Cincinnatus C. has been sentenced to death for committing undefined acts of “gnostical turpitude”. He returns to his cell, almost happy to be far from the crowd. He is a lonely man, unable to interact with society, and for this reason he has now been entirely removed from it. In this sense, the novel explores not only what it means to lead a dystopian existence, but what is means to live apart from any society regardless of political ideology.

As the novel progresses, we learn nothing more of Cincinnatus’s impending ‘beheading’. He engages in surreal acts of frivolity with his jailor, Rodion, dancing the waltz outside his cell. In an ongoing series of bizarre events, he meets fellow prisoner M’sieur Pierre who claims to have been incarcerated for attempting to free Cincinnatus. When his wife Marthe, whose marital indiscretions indirectly led to his arrest, finally visits, she brings along her parents who move their furniture into his cell. At last, we learn that the execution date has been set.

Lying now on the executioner’s block (the executioner, incidentally, turns out to be Pierre), Cincinnatus simply wills the world out of existence. As he enters into a new reality, he hears the voices of beings “akin to him”.

Earlier in the narrative, Cincinnatus attempts to regain control by means of writing. Writing allows him to reassert himself; to create an ideal existence. Ultimately, it is this act that frees him: his ability to manipulate reality. Despite the absurdities, this novel is a comment on the creative consciousness, at once full of the ridiculous and the sublime.

– Victoria Haykin

orson scott card’s ender’s game I’m sure you had those moments when you were little, as I did on several occasions, when you were choked up with frustration at how dumb the adults were and how you clearly were superior. Well, the dream has been realized. In Ender’s Game, an Orson Scott Card science fiction novel, children are seen as the keys to freedom and honoured for their abilities. On the Earth we kind of love and are somewhat proud to call our own, the human race has become temporarily united cowering in fear of alien invasion. Facing this menace, humanity collectively turns to children; specifically, they artificially breed them to produce the saviour of the human race.

This book came to me in grade nine when I was drowning under a pressing need to read all the classics.

Fighting my way through Wuthering Heights and D.H. Lawrence, I found this read refreshing and intriguing. Card describes this realistic world in an extremely detailed way that I thoroughly appreciated. Though the children seem both too mature and annoyingly young at times, I took it as a commentary on the increasing pressure on the infamous Youth of Today to flush the Barbies down the toilet and just grow up already. The order seems at first a reversal of 2014 norms, but as the children realize how little power they have, and that adults are really pulling the strings, it is evident that this power structure is depressingly similar to our own. As a self-described racist and proudly homophobic author, it may be surprising that Orson Scott Card writes and exemplifies something we’d already guessed to be true: there’s more to children than we think and adults are more than a little bit crazy.

– Jaslyn English 22 22

INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014 INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

reviews

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KUKKUROVACA (FLICKR)

lois lowry’s the giver A tattered copy of Lois Lowry’s The Giver sits on my bookshelf. Stamped on the inside cover is the name of my elementary school. As I skim through the dog-eared pages, I try to recall how I felt the first time I read it. Curled up in an armchair after school, my living room slowly gave way to Jonas’s world of strange rules and rituals. The Giver introduces a society where all 12-year olds have their lives planned out by the community elders, where sexual urges are suppressed with a pill, and where the elderly and the criminals are mysteriously “released.” How did I feel when it slowly dawned on me that Jonas’s community lived ignorant of the past, without pain, emotion, or choice? Enthralled, I think. I was both excited and horrified by the way the society maintained order and sameness. The concept of such a controlling and faceless government was exciting in its novelty, but in a world where something was clearly wrong, the absence of any villain was rather disturbing.

Rereading The Giver now, it is easy to pick out its shortcomings. It’s straightforward. It lacks the political depth and relevance of 1984 and the chilling technological and societal predictions of Brave New World. It borrows many elements from its dystopian precursors and relies on fantastical devices to emphasize the society’s flaws. But despite its shortcomings, I have to give it credit: The Giver was my gateway drug to dystopian literature. One read and I was hooked. Bring on the Orwell, the Huxley, the Bradbury!

Over the years, the worn paperback has retained its spot on my bookshelf. Did I steal it? Maybe.

Did it stay with me? Definitely.

– Magdalene Au

aldous huxley’s brave new world Brave New World by Aldous Huxley allows readers to question the way civilized people currently live, and the foundation on which our society is built. Through Huxley’s witty and easy reading style, he presents a science-fiction, factory-like setting where children are made identical, and grow up conditioned to follow a certain caste. Emotions and relationships are looked down upon and everyone in the World State (London) is considered to belong to everyone else.

Huxley introduces protagonists who are disconcerted with the morals of the World State, bring forward contradictory views to the society and cause a disruption to the accepted way of life. He plays with language, using references from Shakespeare throughout the book, including the title, which relates to The Tempest and the irony of entrenched values in the World State. The representation of this utopian or dystopian society, depending on the reader’s interpretation, is described in third person and provides many different characters’ views. In some ways, the presented perspective could be considered to be that of the entire society itself. Overall, Brave New World puts forth an eye-opening perspective on societal norms with the use of intriguing language.

– Madeline Lawler

scott westerfield’s uglies Uglies is Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 novel about a post-apocalyptic society where, at sixteen, everyone undergoes a series of extreme surgeries in order to look traditionally and unthreateningly beautiful. Sounds enticing, right? Like any awkward teen, Tally Youngblood can’t wait for her turn. Once pretty, she’ll be able to cross over to New Pretty Town, where a life of extravagant parties and breathtaking adventure awaits.

However, Tally’s friend Shay isn’t sold on giving up her identity in exchange for a pretty face and a placid demeanour. It turns out that when the government replaces your face, it takes no issue with rearranging your brain. Pretties, for all their doe-eyed and shiny-haired wonder, lack the capacity for independent thought and decision-making.

When Shay escapes to live with other Uglies, Tally must choose between turning her in, or forever giving up her right to be Pretty. The novel explores Tally’s decision, revealing the danger of overvaluing beauty by illustrating a world where there is literally no other way to live.

Westerfeld’s narrative is so haunting because the universe he depicts is eerily constructed upon the ruins of our own. In Tally’s world, superficial jealousies and anger have been eradicated at the expense of individuality and freedom of thought. As terrifying as that seems, the reason I love Uglies so much is its faith in the human psyche. Tally is no perfect heroine; what makes her so strong is battling her tumultuous and chaotic society. At her core, Tally is just as ordinary as any of us, yet she has the ability to challenge her world. While I may not share her struggle with a scarily oppressive government, I can relate to her courage and perseverance. At the core of dystopian fiction, no matter how bleak our future looks, we will always know for certain that we have those same powers.

– Kayla Esser VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6 VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

23 23

Claire Dawson

Discovery of Myself I often find myself thinking, “What do I feel about my art work and why have I made it?” The question of why is something I struggle with the most. I always conclude with the answer, “Because I wanted to make it.” It was accepting this answer that validated not only the end-product but also the creative process. My three years at McMaster have enabled me to freely express myself and to embrace this journey. I work from intuition and let the medium evolve into the main focus; interaction and changeability really inspire me to produce work that I can feel a personal connection towards. The process of finding me and expressing my emotions through the work I produce always translates into something unique. Progressive expression and allowing me to run with the unknown is something I find extremely liberating. I can only conclude that this answer, “becoming personal and developing a relationship with my art,” allows me to learn about myself and my work’s true intent. Being open to change and embracing the errors we make uplifts the soul, allowing growth and acceptance.  24

INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

CHAOS AND YOU Christopher Chiu

The Perfect Match This is why I love disorder. *beep* *beep* *beep*

T

hat’s the sound of your alarm clock jolting you into consciousness, once again making you question if university is really the place for you. Groggy, you hit the snooze button, yearning for just five more minutes, desperate to return to those sweet dreams. You know, the ones in which your life is perfect. You’re with the person of your dreams, living in your dream house with the perfect Ikea kitchen, while mulling over all of your grad school acceptances.

Harvard? Check. Columbia? Yes. Juilliard?

You better believe it. You didn’t get denied by a single one. You— *beep* *beep* *beep* Shit.

You knew this reverie wasn’t going to last forever. As your eyes adjust to the sunlight pouring through your window, you see papers strewn all over the floor – a few pathetic drafts for an Incite article, some song lyrics because you were too cheap and lazy to go to actual karaoke, and some half-hearted attempts at solving integrals.

Was that assignment due last week or today? Overflowing from your garbage can and onto the floor are boxes of pad thai and Chinese takeout— Oh God, is that a rat?! You look on your bedside table. Grad school letters. Harvard? Nope. Columbia?

No. You don’t even want to open the letter from Juilliard.

Welcome to life. Growing up, we have all idolized the idea of success and the traits that come with it. Successful people seem to have their life all sorted out. Organized, orderly, perfect. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t look up to these figures, because I am a strong believer that this could one day be you, but what I am saying is that you shouldn’t let this image consume you. We need to accept that things may be a little chaotic at times, and acknowledge that this is fine.

Once you boil everything down, there remains only two types of chaos in the VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

world: internal and external, and both are necessary in our lives. In the context of this article, I’ll say that internal chaos sums up to the voices in your head that create feelings of anxiety and unease in your mind, and the decisions and consequences that stem from things that rest under our control.

Imagine playing Monopoly and landing on Chance. Flipping the card over, it reads, “Sorry, Kanye West crashed his Maserati into your house and is making you pay damages. Move back 10 spaces. You were pushed into a wading pool of hydrofluoric acid and now you don’t have legs anymore.

Do not pass go, just pitifully marvel at your poor luck.” That’s external chaos. These are random obstacles that life deals each and every oneW of us, and how we react to them says a lot about who we are.

Sometimes, we have our entire days planned out – heck, sometimes we even

makes us wise, strong, and resilient. I know this is a cliché, but life was never about the destination: it’s in the journey. We’ll all finish university if that’s what we want for ourselves, but no matter where we end up, the paths each one of us takes to get there is what defines us. Chaos helps create order.

When we have been strengthened by our trials, we are less likely to be shaken the next time a spontaneous event challenges us.

Scientists say that entropy is the way our universe tends towards disorder. If something as infinite and as big as the universe can have disorder into the system, I’m sure it’s alright to allow a little chaos in your life. We’ve become a society where it is a crime to not have it all together, and that is truly disappointing because at the end of the day, we are all human. These perceived pressures to be perfect put stress into our lives because we are acting out of discord with the natural flow. Obstacles are meant to be overcome. Hills are meant to be climbed, not ploughed through.

I am in no way saying this is the only

When your visions of a flawless universe are crushed before your eyes, do you crumble into a state of self-loathing, or do you take it in stride? have our entire lives planned out. These plans organize our lives into neat little boxes and plant the ideas of order into our minds. But what happens, as it so often does, when life throws you a curveball?

When your visions of a flawless universe are crushed before your eyes, do you crumble into a state of self-loathing, or do you take it in stride? My younger self would have wasted countless hours trying to analyze why my life was falling apart, but now I know there isn’t any fun in getting what you want the first time around. Things are always sweeter when we earn them, knowing that we have overcome the storm, rather than being rewarded outright.

This is why I love disorder. Changes in our plans teach us great life lessons – they

way to look at things. To each their own.

But hopefully I was able to provide you with some words of encouragement or offer a fresh perspective on your personal outlook on life. Sometimes we are so caught up in our own problems that we forget other people are going through the exact same thing.

Let’s revel in it together. *beep* *beep* *beep* What are you waiting for? Go out there and embrace disorder!

Disclaimer: I don’t actually have rats in my room, or even stacks of old Chinese takeout for that matter. However, if you do, you really need to get that shit together.

Quick.  25

thelastorder ofawiltingflower Raluca Topliceanu

A

s the screen was lifted, she entered the room in a flurry of rose-tinted silk and the scent of twenty crushed peonies.

Beautifully crafted decorations gleam in her ebony hair as she kneeled and bowed before the Emperor. In her earlier years, he would take her to the imperial garden – a green oasis isolated from the main courtyard of the palace.

“My most beautiful flower,” he would whisper while they were away from the ears of attendants and ladies-in-waiting. It had been a while since such phrases were spoken towards her.

As soon as she was of marrying age, word of her beauty spread from mouth to delicate mouth until it finally caressed the Emperor’s ear. He sought her out, made her a gift of three hundred chrysanthemums, and took her as his wife.

She completed every task assigned with the grace required of her status and gender, each movement criticized to perfection.

“How may your consort serve you, my Emperor?”

He responded by leading her down the familiar paneled hallways to the inner garden. The screen was pulled down after them, so as to offer them a privacy she had learned only too well was false. The eunuchs and hand-maidens were omnipresent, waiting like hungry dogs for new gossip to devour together while behind the closed doors of the servant quarters. She often heard the shuffling of their clothing outside of her chamber during visits from her physician, and she insisted that the number of handmaidens assigned to her be limited. The thought of her servants dissecting her flaws, or perhaps bringing a summary to the Emperor, was unacceptable.

“What do you think of the garden today?” he asked while holding his hands behind his back. She often saw this side of him when he was in the presence of his subjects, but the squaring of his shoulders and the tightness of his jaw did not usually linger when they were alone together.

“The garden is very well maintained,” she replied. “Like always.”

He nodded. “Yes, after all the old plants have been removed, leaving only the young and beautiful – the garden is full of life. It is a sight worthy of my eyes.”

“There is beauty in age as well.”

“Old flowers lose blush in their petals, and their countenance grows shriveled and unpleasant. Such flowers are not welcome in the garden of the Emperor.” A pause. “My first concubine is expecting a child.”

Her face did not register the shock that the Emperor was expecting. Perhaps she had grown immune to such happenings. Many nights he did not call for her, but instead for several of his higher

ranked concubines. Silently, they were carried by two eunuchs down the narrow hallways – wrapped only in a rolled scarlet carpet – to the Emperor’s bedroom. Once inside, the eunuchs would gently lay them down at the entrance and depart. They would then emerge from their cocoons and hope that the Emperor might call upon them the next night. She would dismiss all of her handmaids so they could not witness the tears scrolling down her face and mixing with the ink of her letters. Those letters would never reach their destination; the characters were too mangled and weak to allow any other soul to glance at them. After all, she was the Empress; sorrow

“Beauty is not the only concern I have. Even beautiful flowers are useless unless they can bring forth new flowers.”

26

and anger had no place on her face or in her actions.

“My Emperor has surely not forgotten the loyalty of his consort, which has shared herself with no other man but him and who has obeyed his every wish?” She lowered her hands so silk sleeves covered her trembling fingers.

“Let me give you a lesson about flowers, my Empress. There are many beautiful flowers in my kingdom, but a woman is only in bloom for a short part of her life. When I picked you, you were at your INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

“The Emperor has made it clear that wilting flowers are not welcome within his garden, yet these flowers are not allowed to leave, and must endure the Emperor abandoning them for early spring buds.

Theirs – mine – is a lonely life.”

ARTWORK BY RALUCA TOPLICEANU

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

peak, but now the years are being etched into your skin. You are beginning to wilt.”

“Does the Emperor not think I am beautiful still, even as I am now?”

“Beauty is not the only concern I have. Even beautiful flowers are useless unless they can bring forth new flowers.”

“I have been trying remedies, but my Emperor has not called upon me.”

“All the times I have called on you yielded no heir. I have asked your personal physician about the possibility that you will ever produce an heir, and he called you barren. If the child of my concubine is male, he will be the next in line for the throne. I ask that you be an advisor to the child.”

“An advisor? You are stripping your wife of her role as Empress and instead wish for her to raise the child of another woman?”

His facial features hardened. “As the Emperor, it is my wish that you obey. Disobedience from my Empress will spawn disobedience among my subjects.

She allowed the anger to drain from her face, then bowed low before him. “Your Empress lives only to serve.”  The palace guard bowing before her no doubt felt out of place in her private chamber.

“You are probably wondering why you are here,” she said.

“I am here to follow my Empress’ wishes.”

She sighs, and the suddenness of it almost causes his eyes to raise enough to glance at her silk shoes.

He quickly checks himself, returning his gaze to the floor inches from his nose.

“My time as Empress is coming to an end.”

“I do not understand. Is Her Majesty ill?”

“Ill? No. I am becoming unsightly to the Emperor. He has a new favourite flower to decorate his garden with.”

She pauses. “What does it even mean to be an Empress?

It means to have servants, to never worry about hunger or thirst. It means to wear silk and gold…,” her voice trails, and she reaches to pull the decorative pins from her hair, allowing it to cascade freely down her back. “It means being ripped from your family, never to see even a glimpse of life from behind the walls of the Forbidden City. It means to sit obediently as you must share your husband’s affections with hundreds of his concubines, all the while knowing that you will never experience the love between a man and woman that even the lowest peasants have access to.” She punctuated each point with the sound of a gold ornament leaving her fingers and hitting the ground.

“Your Majesty—” “I did not choose this life, and now I am tired of living it. The Emperor has made it clear that wilting flowers are not welcome within his garden, yet these flowers are not allowed to leave, and must endure the Emperor abandoning them for early spring buds. Theirs – mine – is a lonely life.

“You are a soldier who has seen the outside world, the world in which my parents might still exist. Gather your men and ensure that a plan is set in place to depart this city. I shall carry in the folds of my dress a small dagger in case we are captured before we get beyond those gates, since that too will offer an escape from this place…

“This is my last order as your Empress.”  27

TAXONOMIC TRIBU T

ES I C

Defines a species based on reproductive isolation – meaning that it is able to reproduce Classifies species based on their with individuals within the morphology, meaning their anatomy species, but no others. This and physical appearance. Useful one seems attractive because because it can be applied to it does not allow for the sharing of fossil species, and is relatively genetic information between species, simple to understand. Not and therefore tidies up the evolutionary so useful because of what trees. But is difficult because it cannot be apbiologists refer to as crypplied to fossil species or asexually reproducing tic species – species which species, and because it does not make room for appear identical, but differ in the possibility of hybridization, which is possible in other non-visible ways, such the animal kingdom (Metazoa), and quite common as their temperature toleramong plants (Plantae). ance or mating call.

MORPHOSPECIES

L A C

I G O

L

O BI

The phylogenetic species concept should in theory do the best job of approximating actual relationships between groups.

By focusing on evolutionary history rather than only what we can see in the present, it takes a more complete picture of the tree of life. That being said, it also tends to overturn a lot of pre-existing classifications, and can be a lot more difficult to apply.

The Whippo problem (and I swear it’s referred to as such in the literature) illustrates this quite neatly. The artiodactyls are an order within Metaozoa (that’s the animal kingdom, in case you forgot) that are classically defined by the anatomy of their feet.

It includes cows, deer, hippos, pigs, peccaries, and camels, all of which bear their weight across their third and fourth toes, hence the name artiodactyla, which trans28

E P S

PHYLOGENETIC SPECIES

room, where everyone has their own opinion, doesn’t want to listen to anyone else’s, and is happy to bicker about it until the sun sets.

The most significant problem is arguably that no one is really sure how to define the word species. Darwin himself discuss-

axonomy is an interesting science because no one is really sure how best to do it. Its goal is to classify organisms, and in theory this seems like a relatively straightforward task. But in practice the problems that arise can make the field seem more like a kindergarten class-

lates from Greek to ‘even-toed’. They also have a very distinct astralagus bone in their ankle. The traditional classification places whales just outside of this group, as its closest relative but not within the order itself. In other words, the artiodactyls form a monophyletic group, but whales are not included in it. With the advent of genetic analyses, however, this widely accept classification was turned on its head, because hippos were shown to be more closely related to whales than to any of their fellow artiodactyls. The accepted hypothesis these days is that whales should be included within the artiodactyls, with a close relationship to hippos, despite the fact that they lack both toes and ankles altogether, let alone an astralagus and a distinctive weight-bearing structure.

es this problem in his Origin of Species, and ultimately concludes that the line between an independent species and varieties within one is fuzzy at best. Modern textbooks often provide multiple definitions of the concept, none of which are truly satisfactory. The most common are:

The youngest – and my favorite among these – the phylogenetic species concept defines a species as the smallest possible monophyletic group on a phylogenetic tree. A phylogenetic tree is a roadmap of evolutionary history. It shows relationships between species based on how we think they evolved, rather than how they look today. A monophyletic group is one that includes all the descendants of a single ancestor, and nothing beyond that. For example, a monophyletic group on a family tree could be your father and all of his children. It could not be your father, and all of his children except your annoying little brother, nor could it be your father, all of his children, and your neighbour across the street. By defining a species as the smallest monophyletic group on a tree, phylogenists are essentially saying that if you track the evolutionary history of life on earth, a species is a group on that tree that cannot be subdivided any further, and does not overlap with any other groups.

A classification scheme based on the morphospecies concept alone would reject this classification altogether, because hippos resemble the other artiodactyls far more than they resemble whales. But the original genetic analyses have since been corroborated with fossil evidence that suggests that the ancestors of whales once had legs (and ankles and toes), but transitioned to aquatic habitats where they become more of a burden than anything else and were ultimately phased out by natural selection. In this case, the phylogenetic species concept did what the morphospecies concept could not, which is take into account a somewhat convoluted evolutionary history to find the true relationships between species, rather than a more superficial one.

This doesn’t mean that the morphosINCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

ULATIONS Julie-Anne Mendoza

pecies concept isn’t being used at all in modern taxonomy. Phylogenetic analyses are time and resource heavy, and often the data to do them well just isn’t available. It’s hard to track a history when the fossil record is incredibly incomplete, and when you don’t have the money to run hundreds of genetic tests. The more modern approach, though, doesn’t simply classify based on how things look today. It takes into account all available data, including the fossil record and existing trees in order to determine the most likely evolutionary history.

The acceptance of a phylogenetic approach to classification has led to the re-

Phylogenetic analyses are time and resource heavy, and often the data to do them well just isn’t available working of a lot of classical trees. For example, the Snowy Owl (a.k.a Hedwig) used to be considered as its own genus, but has recently been grouped under the Bubo genus, along with the Great Horned Owl and the Eagle Owl, among others. African elephants used to all be grouped into the same species, but recent DNA analysis has offered significant evidence that they can successfully be considered split into two, namely Loxodonta africana and Loxondonta cyclotis.

In short, the science behind all the unpronounceable names in your biology textbook is a lot more complicated than you might think it is. Old ideas need to be reworked to fit new data, and inferences have to be made in situations where enough data simply isn’t available. This ultimately leads to a lot of contradictory papers, and a lot of debate. Tracking the evolutionary history of groups has cleared up many of these controversies, but as more and more light is shed on the fuzzy lines between species, it becomes hard not to question why hundreds of scientists are devoting their lives to putting labels on everything in the world around us.  VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

ARTWORK BY SYLVIA KACZMAREC 29

What Your Coffee Says About You Shruti Ramesh

U

nofficial statistics report that ever since the Starbucks opened in the Student Centre this term, campus-wide caffeine consumption has increased dramatically. Although experimenting and trying new things can be great, most people tend to gravitate towards their usual orders at the various coffee-serving establishments both on and off-campus. I’ve long since wondered if there was any sort of connection between people’s coffee shop orders and personality types. Apparently, this is a possibility! Clinical psychologist Dr.

Ramani Durvasala conducted an observational study of over 1000 coffee drinkers to see if there was any correlation between certain personality traits and coffee preferences, and there were some definite patterns observed.

Note: This list is by no means a definitive categorization of people, so if you disagree with the personality traits associated with your drink, just maintain your preferred caffeine medium.

LATTE

BLACK COFFEE You are minimalist and favor simplicity

(or coffee with milk/sugar) You are indecisive, and because of this indecision you tend to favor ‘safe’ options over taking risks. However, you are also reflective and do not do things rashly. Likely a people pleaser who is generous with their time and goes out of their way to help people. The downside of this is that you may be more prone to over-extend yourself and commit to more than you can handle.

ESPRESSO

Chances are you are a bit of a purist and tend to keep things old-school. You tend to be work efficiently, but are comfortably set in your ways, making you resistant to change. This can be advantageous because you remain true to yourself and are not easily moved by peer pressure.

over chaos. This outlook means that you are usually patient with yourself and are a strong and independent worker. You cherish your quietness, but it can sometimes come across as abrupt or unfriendly.

EXPRESSO

DECAF/ EXTRA FOAM/ EXTRA HOT/ LACTOSE-FREE/ SOY BEVERAGES (anything extremely ‘specialty’) You like to be, and generally are, in control of your life, which is reflected in your health-conscious decisions. You are likely a perfectionist and can worry obsessively and get bogged down by minute details.

As a friend you are sensitive and attuned to other people’s feelings, making you particularly empathetic.

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Similar to Espresso drinkers, with the exception that if you have any coffee aficionados for friends you are probably annoying them.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATIE DINGWALL

FROZEN COFFEE DRINKS You are a happy, energetic, and extroverted person. You enjoy trying new things and being spontaneous. These tend to be childlike qualities, and in lieu of this you favor quick fixes when it comes to problem solving, and your impulsive nature can sometimes translate into recklessness.

Also, chances are, you don’t really like coffee.

INSTANT COFFEE You’re as laid back as coffee-drinkers get.

You tend to focus on the big picture and not get too phased when details aren’t complicit with what you want. You’re also a procrastinator who has their lazy moments, but it’s generally in a good-natured way.

Or you overslept and don’t have time to get real coffee before class (and if you have instant coffee on hand chances are this isn’t an infrequent occurrence).

INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

THE SCIENCE OF THE ARTS JASON LAU

I

t all started with the desire to be a well-rounded individual. I wasn’t satisfied with getting straight A’s; I wanted to be interesting, enigmatic, and deep. I thought my ordered, predictable universe was entrenched in routines, good habits, and parental approval. Up to a certain point in my life, I had always self-identified as a logical and disciplined person who had a natural affinity for mathematics and science. It was, for the most part, effortless. But somewhere along the line, I started to reject order. I consciously decided to cultivate bad habits. I embraced late nights, disorganization, and a certain type of carelessness.

How can I describe it? As much as I want to be highly effective, prolific, and productive, I wanted to be equally adaptive, open, and spontaneous. And it was this seemingly irreconcilable balance between order and chaos, these two apparently opposite ends of the spectrum that caused me such anguish.

Stereotypically, I associated scientific disciplines with order and the humanities with disorder. Exceptions aside, I presumed that those who studied literature and the arts tended to be more chaotic, disorganized, and emotionally volatile, while those who studied the natural sciences tended to be more methodical, organized, and logical.

I wanted to be good at both the sciences and the humanities, but I frequently found various aspects of my personality in conflict. The need to remain levelheaded and practical struggled against another equally strong compulsion to dream and imagine. I wanted to be in control, but I also wanted the freedom and the possibilities that chaos entailed. I became increasingly cynical and began to feel like I could only commit to one mode of existing.

Already, the flaws in my argument are

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

Rui Liu apparent. Order and disorder do not pertain exclusively to the sciences and the humanities respectively. A recent article published on Brain Pickings, Maria Popova’s renowned site, related famous writers’ sleep habits with their literary productivity. Noting that there are many other factors besides sleep that affect creative output, she found that early risers tended to win more literary awards than late risers, but generally produce a smaller volume of work. It amazed me that authors like Kurt Vonnegut and Edith Wharton awoke at the crack of dawn.

Popova also gives an insightful portrait of a writer’s daily routine, and I was surprised to find that, for many, the overall style of work-

KATIE DINGWALL

a remix and that creativity needs eclecticism. Originality arises when an individual is capable of making novel connections between ideas and insights from a wide range of disciplines. Before Charles Darwin came up with his theory of evolution, he was educated in both biology and geology. Already marinating in his brain were Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theory of inheritance and Charles Lyell’s theory of uniformitarianism. Lamarck had proposed the theory that organisms could pass down acquired characteristics to their offspring. Lyell popularized the idea that although the Earth’s processes are uniform through time, many changes are too gradual to perceive. Armed with

The need to remain levelheaded and practical struggled against another equally strong compulsion to dream and imagine. ing was usually not the chaotic state of fervor that I had always imagined, but rather, an purposed and measured process. While working on a novel, the best-selling Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami, keeps to a strict schedule of awaking at 4am, working for four to five hours, and running 10km each day. For him, his routine is “a form of mesmerism” that allows him “to reach a deeper state of mind.” Creative individuals often create in an ordered framework.

In the sciences, brilliant breakthroughs require not only the thoroughness of procedure-guided investigations, but also ingenuity and creativity. This is where Popova’s concept of “combinatorial creativity” comes in. She argues that everything is

these preconceived ideas, along with further research, Darwin had all the necessary pieces to formulate and support his theory of evolution. In a sense, scientists need to embrace a certain level of disorder in their knowledge accumulation and be receptive to the disorder that exists around them.

Perhaps I’ve been interpreting order and disorder in the wrong way. Instead of looking at these concepts as the endpoints of a spectrum, they should be regarded as necessary co-dependents. The most effective way of existing is a balance between order and chaos. Any type of explorer or creator, whether an artist, a scientist, or both, should venture eagerly into the strange unknown.  31

JUST FRIENDS Sam Godfrey

“T

his is my boyfriend, and this is my girlfriend.”

My friend gestured to the tall boy standing to her right, and then to me, standing to her left. Repeating a scenario we’d played out before, the tall boy and I waved politely, offering no explanation for our introduction.

The sentence was straightforward enough, yet was met by confusion almost without fail. People tried to reconcile their notions of sexuality, romance, relationships and nomenclature all at once. They seemed unable to slot us into their hierarchy of relationships without a clear indication of which of us – or maybe neither or both – were having sex with each other.

This simple interaction speaks to many widely held preconceptions of relationships, several of which I find to be not only annoying, but in many cases harmful. Primarily, I think it speaks most clearly to a societal focus on ‘couplehood’ as the most important and desirable form of relationship. By ‘couplehood’ I mean the state of being in a romantic, sexual relationship with one other person.

But why should this be assumed to be the highest form of relationship? Is there something about romantic or sexual attraction that makes it inherently superior to platonic bonds? Of course not.

But when those assumptions are in place, like any generalized assumption, they have negative impacts. They can be mere annoyances, like people asking your partner something on your behalf, as if being in a sexual/romantic arrangement with someone makes the two of you a single organism, negating the need to interact with both of you individually. But they can also be more detrimental than that, having the very real ability to erase the possibility of other forms of relationships.

Consider the scenario I described above, where my friend introduced both a boyfriend and a girlfriend. By introducing me as her girlfriend, after she had already introduced a boyfriend, people became confused. Either I was not her girlfriend, or he was not her boyfriend.

They needed a clarification for no reason other than to classify and sort the three of us in their minds.

And what of polyamorous relationships? What if we were in a lovely three-person triangle of romance and sexual attraction? For the majority of people, this type of a relationship is not even on their radar, let alone within their ability to accept it as legitimate and healthy.

And to consider yet another – perhaps atypical – type of relationship: what of those formed by people who simply do not, or cannot, experience romantic and/or sexual attraction? They are people too, and their love and intimacy is not any weaker because of these stipulations. To think or say otherwise would be close-minded, hurtful, and condescending.

My friend chose to use people’s preconceptions of relationship hierarchies to her advantage, choosing her words to indicate not the type of relationships she was in, but rather their importance to her.

She wanted to make it clear that, regardless of who she was having sex with or not, the both of us are incredibly loved by her, and she is incredibly loved by us.

Let me make it clear that I am not harping on sexual/romantic couples. They’re wonderful! Even considering the theory of infinite universes, there exists no version of myself where I don’t love people in love. It’s beautiful, it’s special, and it makes them happy. I would be a terrible person to say that their happiness is built on a sham. More than that, I’d be completely wrong. For some people, a sexual/romantic relationship is the most important relationship, and their partner is the most important person to them.

What I am saying is that for many other people, this is not the be-all end-all of human interaction. I am saying that we should all consider that being in love isn’t necessarily confined to sexual/romantic relationships. I am saying that for many people, couplehood is one relationship among many, each as special and unique as the rest, each having importance dictated by things other than feelings of romance and sexual attraction.

Some of you may still be asking, “So are you her girlfriend? Or are you just friends?”

Well, no. To both. She’s not my girlfriend and I’m not hers. But to preface the word ‘friend’ with ‘just’ is equally inaccurate. We are friends, we love each other, we’re in love with each other.

I’m not asking you to feel guilty about your own relationships, or saying that you’re wrong if romance and sex make you feel closest to a person. What I am hoping is that you’ll consider changing the way you think about relationships: those of others and your own. Consider that for myself, and many others, there is quite simply no such thing as “just friends”. 

Is there something about romantic sexual attraction that makes it inherently superior to platonic bonds?

PHOTOGRAPHY BY WHYISHNAVE SUTHAGAR (MODEL: EMILY FONG)

Jennifer Shamo VOLUME 16, ISSUE 6

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“You’re “Y

ou’re crazy!”

Maybe I am. Let’s unpack that word: ‘crazy’. Where does it come from? Why do we automatically associate it with both negative and romanticized thoughts, feelings, and actions? Why can I both be scared and excited to reclaim this adjective to describe myself? Crazy, mad, insane, mentally unstable, unwell, disabled, ill, disordered, out of your head: what do these terms actually describe?

As long as there have been rational human beings, there have been irrational human beings. After the Enlightenment, this became a matter of ‘sane’ vs. ‘insane’, a binary that was taken as real and factual.

Irrationality, or what those in power saw as irrational behavior, was equated with madness and treated to eradicate this irrationality. Around the same time, mad characters were used to discuss taboo subjects in literature, creating a mysterious aura around the subject of psychological abnormality. The same people who were denouncing irrational behavior as something to eradicate or fix used madness to their advantage as a tool in storytelling.

tainment of this madness, and any other form of ‘crazy’ behavior, was often a violent endeavor taken on by the state or people in power to maintain their authority.

In the early twentieth century, lunatic asylums were used to control and contain those with abnormal psychological backgrounds. Psychiatrists and asylum staff adhered to the rules of a new “moral therapy”, firmly believing that a controlled environment and specific technical treatment could cure madness. More case-specific diagnoses were created, medication was prescribed, and a daily routine was formed in these highly controlled environments. Overcrowding was an issue from the onset of the asylums and they were never effective in “curing” the madness that persisted. Not only were the institutions overcrowded, but cases of wrongful confinement, surgical experimentations, and systematic violence were also commonplace.

In order to understand those who were ‘crazy’ enough to be put in these institutions, it became important to document new disorders in a (debatably) scientific way. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental

Disorders (DSM) was first published as the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) list and explanation of psychological illness in 1952, listing 106 disorders in 130 pages. In May 2013, DSM-5, the fifth version of the manual, was published, containing 947 pages. Since the first version of the manual, new diagnoses have been created and certain questionable mental illnesses have been removed, altered, or replaced. For instance, homosexuality was removed as a mental disorder in 1973, but replaced by “sexual orientation disturbance”. In 1987, “sexual orientation disturbance” was removed and subsumed by “sexual disorder not otherwise specified”, which can include “persistent and marked distress about one’s sexual orientation”. The manual has been widely criticized, even by those who took part in its formulation.

With this long list of ‘disorders’ in mind, let’s consider a philosopher who has a certain interest in both homosexuality and madness: Michel Foucault. Foucault talks about the history of madness in his work Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the

While madness is socially constructed and has a long history, it is also based on changes in brain structure and chemistry.

The word ‘madness’ and the words synonymous with it have historically been used to describe people who think or act differently from the norm, specifically people who are more vulnerable to societal intervention. Women and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds are more often called ‘crazy’, carrying with them all the baggage that comes with the term.

Calling someone crazy was used as a way of delegitimizing feelings, opinions, and thoughts that were considered harmful, whether to that someone, their loved ones, or those they interacted with. For example, have you ever been accused of being hysterical? ‘Hysteria’ was originally a disorder connected exclusively to ‘over-emotional’ women. The con34

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crazy!”

Meg Peters

Age of Reason. Through a comparison of this work to his other work outlining the history of sexuality, we can further understand how madness can be simultaneously socially constructed and physically experienced. In The History of Sexuality, Foucault talks about the subjection of personhood, a constant (re)creation of the subject through structural and systematic interactions with society.

He argues that the homosexual as an identity was created around 1870 through the naming of ‘homosexual’. Before that, acts of sexual interaction between individuals of the same sex happened, but were not seen as demonstrations of a subject’s identity. The naming process both pathologized samesex desire and allowed for a new identity to arise. This new identity permitted the legal and psychiatric systems to have a category to punish or treat, but it also allowed people who felt same-sex desire to make a place in society; they were no longer invisible.

The history of madness shows us how mental illness is socially constructed as a binary of sane behavior versus insane behavior. Just as queer theory looks to question the

binary of homosexual versus heterosexual, arguing instead for a spectrum of sexual orientations, Madness Studies questions the possibility of only two opposite mental states.

The DSM is therefore a blessing and a curse for those who have experienced psychological distress in some form. While madness is socially constructed and has a long history, it is also based on changes in brain structure and chemistry.

Having a manual like DSM is harmful because it can describe aspects of humanity that do not cause distress and can pathologize mind states that could simply be part of what it means to be human. But for those who do feel distress from their psychological experiences and their seemingly inexplicable feelings, the manual allows them to put a name, and therefore an identity, to these experiences and seek treatment if they want it.

Madness Studies looks to reinterpret non-normal psychologies through a framework that questions the medical model. It reconstructs the

‘problem’ of ‘mental illness’ by looking at it as less of a problem to be solved or cured (potentially less of an illness), and more of an ever-changing identification. Working alongside disability studies, Madness Studies focuses on structural barriers to individual success. In other words, the individual is not at fault, not the ‘other’ or ‘ill’ one in the equation; society is responsible for rejecting the feelings of the individual as unimport-

Madness Studies reconstructs ‘mental illness’ not as a problem to be solved or cured, and more of an everchanging identification.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JASON LAU

ant or illegitimate. Of course, ‘treatment’ as a whole should not be rejected. Instead of asking, “How can this person get better?”, Madness Studies asks, “How can our society be more supportive of different kinds of behaviour and thought?” Part of this support could come from medicine or therapy. But the aim of Madness Studies as a whole is not the eradication of madness or the hope that everyone is sane. It is, instead, the support and encouragement of those who identify as psychologically abnormal and the choices they make about treatment.

Madness Studies also allows for people who identify as ‘mad’ to choose to explain themselves or not. In the medical model, ‘crazy’ people must “get help”, seek a diagnosis, and fix themselves. Through a Madness Studies lens, demanding that mad people explain and justify their feelings constantly is part of a larger structure of sane privilege. While the medicalization of madness requires that the subject be constantly talking about their ‘illness’, Madness Studies, like queer theory, looks to legitimize inexplicable feelings by saying they don’t necessarily need to be explained.

So am I crazy? As someone who has previously identified as Depressed, Anxious, and Mad, I have felt the pressure of trying to explain myself.

Maybe I am kind of crazy. I’m crazy enough to write this article. 

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THE ENTROPY IN MY HEAD Sunanna Bhasin

A

pounding enters my head as the blaring siren next to me goes off. I groan, wondering why I chose this highly unpleasant alarm tone. I groggily grab my phone to hit snooze as the dark red numbers burn into my eyes. 10 AM?! I throw the covers off my bed in haste and run to the bathroom. I will be late for my 10:30 tutorial. Great. At this point it probably isn’t worth going. Picturing a roomful of stares as I enter the class, and the disapproving shake of the TA’s head as I sit down in a pool of sweat brought on by running from one end of campus to the other, I shake my head and decide I wouldn’t bother going. People miss their classes all the time. It shouldn’t bother me. But it does. Standing in the dark room, my

PHOTOGRAPHY BY WHYISHNAVE SUTHAGAR (MODEL: KAT KALENTERIDIS) 36

eyes began to droop. As exhausted as I feel, there is a hammering in my head that won’t let me rest. All I want is to feel the muchmissed comforts of home – where there is structure and a sense of organization all around. Here, I have to stay strong each day and remind myself that giving up is not an option. Yet as I glance at the clock once more and catch sight of the paper tornado’s remnants on my hardly-visible desk, I collapse on my bed with no motivation to ever get up. Everything is a mess.

Still, mess or not, I have certain responsibilities. I have meetings to attend, classes to be at, and assignments to hand in. I splash two handfuls of chilling water on my face. Looking in the mirror, I stare at my frazzled face and my hair, which is shooting out of my head in every possible direction. Running my fingers through the tangled disarray, ridiculous but fitting words creep into my mind: The universe tends to increase in entropy. I chuckle softly to myself and think, The universe seemed to be doing just fine, believe it or not. It’s me who can use a little help. A lot, really.

I once read that people were more likely to steal an item from a disorderly display than from one that was neatly set up. I suppose I can understand that. After all, would anyone really notice a missing DVD or two from a mountainous crate of one hundred? It’s a good thing I don’t allow guests in my room. Or worse, if they were able to enter my cluttered mind, they would find undocumented ideas in every nook and cranny without a folder, label, or date, free for the taking. My mind is a library without shelves, a computer without folders, a book without page numbers. And sometimes I revel in it – not having a strict schedule and order to the day sometimes allows for increased creativity. What is more creative than living in the universe of your head, pitting one idea against another, arguing with your conscience, and spewing out genial thoughts without feeling the need to write them down in a restrictively-lined notebook? It is fun for a moment. It is enjoyable until these ideas become jumbled, lost, and, finally, forgotten. It is at this point that the chaos in my mind becomes too much to handle and all I want to do is scream when the throbbing returns.

I don’t know what I am waiting for. Apparently, getting one’s life together begins with familiarizing oneself with that conflicting sense of order and calamity. Make your bed. You’ll feel better when you return to it after a long day. Why? If I am just going to mess it up while I’m lying in it, then where is the sense in keeping it tidy at all? Fine, then, stare at the clutter and feel it creep quickly back into your much-too-crowded head. I can already feel myself spiraling into a dreamless sleep. The entropy in my head keeps building and building, just waiting for my brain to combust. The images on my wall slowly faded into one giant blur. There is only room for one final thought before I surrender to the darkness: Make my bed? Perhaps another day…  INCITE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2014

SORT OUT YOUR PRIORITIES Salmi Noor

PHOTOGRAPHY BY WHYISHNAVE SUTHAGAR

O

ften when we think of the word ‘prioritizing’, we picture a hefty to-do list overflowing with check marks.

As satisfying as this sounds, there’s more to prioritizing than meets the eye. Prioritizing effectively has several positive impacts.

I am definitely no expert at prioritizing (seriously, I sometimes take some pride in being a chronic procrastinator… sometimes).

However, I do know about the various benefits it can have. Prioritizing not only allows us to successfully complete tasks in order of importance, but also allows us to enjoy various social and health benefits in our lives.

Effectively prioritizing one’s daily tasks can have some very beneficial social impacts. With no doubt, an obvious benefit of prioritizing is our ability to make more time for our social lives. We are able to manage our time by organizing our tasks according to their respective priorities, and that enables us to enjoy our own leisure time, go out with friends, or pursue hobbies. On the other hand, if we do not prioritize and try to tackle all our work at once, we often find ourselves cramming at the last minute, leaving us with no time to spare, and in turn causing us to often sacrifice our social life. Moreover, prioritizing reflects positively on the way our professors, colleagues, and team

members view us. Honing this valuable skill shows others that we know how to get our tasks done and on time, making us an asset to any team or organization. Individuals who can prioritize effectively are often more successful and can positively impact those around them. This skill set presents people as responsible and organized individuals, contributes to their respectability and al-

and even premature death. By prioritizing, we make sure that all the tasks at hand are completed on time, thereby eliminating stress, and reducing our chances of having these serious health complications. Plus, prioritizing gives us the time to look after our body. We often complain that we do not have enough time to go to the gym or do sports because we are too busy. However, it is now common knowledge that exercising is an integral part of a long and healthy life, and doctors and dieticians strongly suggest making this one of our top priorities.

So where do we go from here? Being a student and maintaining a perfectly prioritized and healthy lifestyle can be difficult. But this article is meant to outline that, in spite of our busy schedules, we can enjoy many social and health benefits with effective prioritizing skills.

Prioritizing not only enhances our social life but also enables us to make time for ourselves. It allows us be free of stress and make healthy lifestyle choices by taking care of our physiological health. At the end of the day, what it really does is it contributes to our happiness. After all, a socially adept and healthy person is more than likely to be a very happy person. 

Individuals who can prioritize effectively are often more successful and can positively impact those around them.

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lows them to acquire a positive reputation, which may later come in handy for professional development.

In addition, prioritizing has many indirect health benefits. The aforementioned cramming can also have dire consequences on our health. It increases stress levels, which in turn contributes to a multitude of diseases. Stress has been linked to many health concerns such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, depression, headaches,

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Natalie Richard Savage (Right Side of the Road), digital collage, 2013 This piece has gone through several collage processes to reach the finished product. The imagery refers to a reoccurring dream that has been explored through painting, drawing and writing to culminate in pieces of each exploration collaged to create one unified work. This ‘final’ collage brings all versions of the dream together. The dream touches on the fear of losing control, of spirituality, of our relationship with death and regret, and finally of ritual cleansing.  38

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