Issue 16 - January 8 2004

the newspaper

8 January 2004 Vol. XXVI No. 16

U of T’s Independent Weekly

on the inside • Full Coverage of Stepping Up • Drinking with Oxblood Ruffian •

the newspaper explains:

GEORGE ORWELL PAGE 3

PHOTO BY MARK COATSWORTH

Go Tony!

FORMER NEWSPAPER STAFFER TO SEEK CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP

by Peter Josselyn NEWS BUREAU

Tony Clement will seek the leadership of the new Conservative Party of Canada, the Toronto Star reported.

Clement is a U of T alumnus and also a former staff writer for the newspaper. He graduated in Political Science in 1983 and Law in 1986. During his time at the paper, he was a political writer and commentator. He also was involved in the first anti-CFS and CFS-O campaign in the early eighties. Clement attended the newspaper’s 25th anniversary dinner last year.

He was elected a provincial MPP in 1995 and served in Cabinet as Minister of Health and Long Term Care.

Clement is seen as having a good shot at the leadership

now that current New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord has bowed out of the race.

Like Lord, Clement is bilingual and seen as capable of leading the party in all regions of the country, especially Ontario, currently a Liberal stronghold.

His website, www.tonyclement.ca, is still designed for the last provincial election where Clement lost his seat in Brampton-WestMississauga to a Liberal. He is expected to make an announcement about his political intentions in the coming weeks for the March Leadership Convention.

His appeal for many Conservatives is that he was both a founding member of the Canadian Alliance and also highranking in the Ontario wing of the PC Party.

U of T Rhodes Scholars

by Jeremy Rusinek NEWS BUREAU

U of T has two more Rhodes Scholars: Maria Banda and Navindra Persaud. For the second year, both Ontario recipients are from U of T. The Rhodes Scholarship is given to 92 recipients a year for a two to three year term of study at Oxford. The awards are divided regionally with 11 allocated to Canada. Two scholarships are given in Ontario each year. The criteria for the award are academic excellence, extracurricular involvement, and athleticism.

It was established by businessman and adventurer Cecil Rhodes “to seek excellence in qualities of mind and in qualities of person which, in combination, offer the promise of effective service to the world in the decades ahead.”

Navindra Persaud is currently in medical school and an academic don for chemistry and physics at Trinity College. Maria Banda is a fourth-year International Relations student.

It is probably one of the most highly prized and regarded academic awards largely because of the success of previous recipients which include former president Bill Clinton and former premier of Ontario Bob Rae. Many Rhodes scholars have gone on to lead or revolutionize their field.

Navindra Persaud spoke with the newspaper about his achievement. the newspaper: Why did you decide to apply for the scholarship?

Navindra Persaud: A friend suggested I apply for the scholarship. It was actually really close to the deadline—I didn’t think I had a chance. I was really surprised by the whole thing.

My parents only found out that I had applied after I had received it.

tn: What was their reaction?

NP: They were almost the happiest I had ever seen them. tn: What was the process like?

NP: In the interview they asked primarily about my longterm plans and how the scholarship would benefit my career. tn: What are you planning to take?

NP: I will be studying philosophy at Oxford. tn: How does that help you as a med student?

NP: I plan to go into neuro-

PAGE 5

The Brüknahn Project Kicked My Ass! Knitting Factory Band an Unexpected Wonder

by Dora Zhang

NYC HIPSTER BUREAU

Let me take a minute to extol the virtues of a wee little musical outfit from New York called The Brüknahm Project.

With the hard-to-pronounce name that is the hallmark of any decent band—at least in the current age of pomo, where the more obscure and bizarre your influences the better—this equally hard-to-categorize group is definitely worth a listen.

Do an internet search on The Brüknahm Project, and you’ll come up almost empty-handed.

The stalwart, usually-reliable Mr. Google fails to deliver on this occasion. It seems this band has taken the Serious Musican’s mantra of “no press” to a whole new level. The band was formed by two composer/producers— Saundi Wilson and Sebastian “Siba Giba” Bardin. As far as I know, there has only been one release, but what a beauty it is. The Project’s self-titled CD came out in 2001 on the Knitting Factory Records label, which is in itself both a recom-

mendation and a cause for mistrust. The label, associated with the New York and LA clubs of the same name, is known for the kind of experimental, avantgarde music that can either be really amazing, or pretentious crap.

Knowing this, it was with some trepidation that I went to see a show at the New York Knitting Factory a few years ago.

Turns out my doubts were correct—the band, which had the name of some disease, sucked as much as any ailment. They wanted to rock out, they really did. But in the end, it takes a special kind of stage show to save music that’s mediocre at best and awful at worst, and this band sadly didn’t have it. Just as I was sighing ruefully to myself about the waste of a perfectly good night in New York City, I was handed a CD sampler of upcoming releases, which I tucked into the darkest recesses of my bag and promptly forgot all about. Some time later, during a spring-cleaning of my many purses, I came across the sampler, and stuck it in the

stereo. It was decent overall, there were a couple promisingsounding songs, but one track on it blew me out of the water.

It was called “Showtime,” by a band named The Brüknahm Project. It sent me into raptures just knowing there were people out there making music that was this good. On the strength of this one song, a jazz-inspired number with dance-like beats and a one-line vocal, I ordered the CD. The expectations I had built up by the time the disc finally arrived made me hesitant to even listen to it. When I finally did, it wasn’t quite what I expected. It was better. The album is eclectic to the point that it almost feels like a sampler itself, covering the wide-ranging terrain of experimental jazz, fusion, urban, dub, and worldbeat music, just to name a few.

However, there are certain elements running throughout that make the album cohesive and more than just a sum of its diverse parts. There’s a continuContinued on Page 4

the newspaper’s guide to spending your time

Free Friday Film Friday, January 9 at Innis Town Hall. The good folks at

Santa Cruz II Saturday, January 10 at Stone’s Place (1255 Queen St. West). Is

Arcade Fire and The Bar Mitzvah Brothers Friday, January 9 at Sneaky Dee’s. Both of these bands are

The Five-Buck Lunch Wednesday, January 14 , 2003 in The Great Hall, Hart House.

th

CINSSU bring you a silent, black and white retelling of the classic tale by Canada’s best filmmaker (yeah, that’s right!) Guy Maddin.

Featuring the music of Malher and based on a Royal Winnipeg Ballet production, so all the pedigree is there to make this amazing viewing.

th

PHOTO BY CHARLOTTE CONLIN

MUSIC YOU SHOULD OWN BY NOW

Albums You Should Own By Now

filling the hours

Tony Clement during his time at the newspaper.

science, so I don’t know if my studies at Oxford will directly help me with the practice of medicine, but I’ll be studying philosophy of mind so that’s where the connection is. tn: To become a Rhodes scholar you have to be involved with so many things in a wide range of fields. How do you find the time?

NP: Well, sleep is sacrificed, but when you like something you find time to do it.

the newspaper’s guide to

already huge stars on some alternate earth. Here, they’re just indescribably wonderful and strange, and a guarantee of a good time. I have on reasonable authority that Jenny from the Brothers will be dispensing haircuts at her usual reasonable rates.

th

there a research institute devoted to the ritual of dating? While you were baring your hindquarters to prospective mates on New Years, somebody came up with this. Everybody gets a blank dance card and an enumerated name card. You use the mailbox to tell #23 how hot he/she is, and to signup for upcoming dances. It’s like computer dating, only we’re the computers. Also: the promise of “Slow Jams.”

Grade 8 with fun. th

Eating cheap on campus is always a good bet. Always edible and always providing vegetarian options, the Five Buck Lunch will keep you from starving for another day.

2

the newspaper

the editorial

U of T doublespeak If this is a glimpse of what’s to come, U of T will continue its rudderless path.

The University of Toronto has just finished what it calls “the most broadly consultative academic planning exercise it has ever undertaken.” The result is Stepping Up: A Framework for Academic Planning at the University of Toronto: 2004–2010.

The goal for this document is to provide the vision and to generate the momentum that will guide the University over the next six years, a time when increased enrolment and changing perceptions about post-secondary education will have profound impacts on how U of T does business.

Stepping Up (a document released from the Provost’s Office at Simcoe Hall, a place known for the bureaucratic heaviness of its prose) stands out as uninspiring and plastic.

The writing itself raises concerns. It might be better quality than the majority of essays handed in at U of T, and even better than a lot of articles in the newspaper. But if this is the best the University can muster, it’s time to worry. It shows such little craft the reader wonders whether the vagueness is intentional.

Stepping Up meets every definition of buncombe, usually defined as useless or inconsequential speech made by politicians to satisfy constituents. It is a very political document, and the whole process of endless (and possibly token) consultation was more to appease the community than to enlighten the authors.

The most useful documents are written in clear language and develop very clear expectations. Stepping Up accomplishes the impossible by being at once too long and too short. It drags on about the generalities without developing clear principles, yet it does not approach topics with enough detail to be useful.

If handed in for marking, a TA might caustically write “no thesis statement” in the margin.

The text is so riddled with plastic words and bureaucratese that it is utterly incomprehensible. Enabling. Framework. Stewardship.

Innovation. Challenge. Excitement. And almost any other unquantifiable buzzword currently used by management professionals.

Since the language does not lend itself to specifics, there is no list of promises for the University to make good. The prevailing rationale seems to have been “light on the content and long on the format.” After all, if the document is sufficiently boring, the University can rest assured that no one will read it.

One example seems emblematic: one listed goal is “We will continue to generate intellectual excitement.”

What does this mean? Even if we did know, it would be almost impossible to implement. Would researchers go before a committee that would approve grants based on some sublime “excitement quotient”? the newspaper will continue to write more about the content of Stepping Up. In the meantime, we offer one example of Academic Planning that would help the University gain more international prominence, and improve education for students. Make the Honours degree at U of T meaningful. At other universities, Honours means an undergraduate thesis, detailed learning in a field, or a more rigorous program of study.

Here, it means attending school for fours years, not unlike what is required everywhere else.

Stepping Up is not meant to be read, much less used.

The reader is left to provide all the vision and practical applications, a job typically performed by the administration.

With so many great minds at the University, what went wrong?

8 January 2004

1 Spadina Crescent

1 Spadina: “Hector, hold your horses.”

Research from hell

Drinking with Oxblood

by Prof. Ronald J. Deibert CITIZENLAB BUREAU

The last thing I wanted to do before holidays was to head out on another extended research trip. Yet here it was, December 10th, and I’m scrambling around like a fiend tying up loose ends before heading off to Pearson for another godawful cross-Atlantic flight.

The United Nations’ World Summit of the Information Society – known by its effeminate sounding acronym, “WuhSis” (WSIS) – was about to hold its first meeting in Geneva, and I was officially accredited as part of the Canadian civil society delegation. I had also been invited to screen an episode of my documentary series, Hacktivista.

But I was in no mood for more travel. I needed a holiday now.

The trip got off to an immediate bad start. I had to switch planes in Heathrow – always a bad connection. The BA connecting flight from London to Geneva was absolutely crammed with frantic people elbowing each other as they rammed their baggage into the ridiculously small overhead compartments.

Just as everyone was stuffed into their seats hoping for a mercifully quick flight, the pilot came on and announced that because of fog we would be delayed on the tarmac for at least two hours.

To top it all off, we wouldn’t be allowed to leave the plane. Ugh. I finally arrived in Geneva at 3:20 pm local time, three hours delayed. Although I felt like crap, I knew I had to stay awake to avoid jet lag, so I headed straight to the airport store to stock up on supplies: ciga-

rettes, a bottle of Cuervo Gold (what the hell, it’s the holidays and I deserve it), and a pair of extremely large “Dirty Harry” style black sunglasses to soften the pain of the day.

I walked straight from the airport to the Wuh-Sis site, called PALEXPO – a giant convention center full of football-field sized auditoriums and swarming with teams of government officials, reporters, and civil society advocates. Not surprisingly, entry into the summit itself was tightly guarded by scores of khaki-clad SWISS military police with that international “don’t-fuck-withme” look about them. As part of the formal delegation, my badge got me through the checkpoint sans problem.

The beautiful thing about Europe is that it’s not a matter of where you are permitted to smoke, but where you aren’t, and so as soon as I made it past the checkpoint into the main building I fired up a Marlboro and strolled around the various national pavilions outfitted with their hopelessly hypocritical slogans about “connecting people” and “wiring up the world.” Yeah right.

Most of these countries secretly censor the Internet, monitor email traffic, and toss “dissidents” in jail for posting critical news on the web. But why be picky? It’s the holidays.

I turned a corner and was assaulted by the Canadian pavilion, which looked like a Roots franchise on acid. The only thing missing was a Mountie riding a buck-toothed beaver.

The Canadian officials staffing the pavilion, who I know personally from my research, spotted me before I saw them, and I could tell by their uptight demeanor and hushed whispers that my presence was causing them some considerable anxiety. I don’t really blame them.

What with the cigarette dangling from my mouth, the huge black shades and the Cuervo

Gold hanging out of my trenchcoat pocket, I looked like Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa – a national scandal waiting to explode.

Nerds…who needs ‘em.

Just as I was about to ditch the summit and find my hotel, I ran into Oxblood Ruffin, one of the world’s most famous hackers and the self-appointed “Foreign Affairs Minister” of the infamous hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow. All of the sudden, Wuh-Sis became a lot more fun…

Sick of the sideshows, Oxblood and I parked ourselves at the bar, holding court to the various friends and colleagues who dropped by while accumulating a forest of empty Hei-

“Well, Oxblood,” I said raising a glass in toast, “Merry Wuh-Sis.” “Merry Wuh-Sis to you too, Deibert.” neckens on the table. It would have been the perfect start to a holiday party were it not for the inane speeches of government officials beamed out over the giant television screen above us.

“The government of Uzbekistan is fully committed to highspeed Internet connectivity by the year…”

“Blah Blah Blah,” shouted

Oxblood, “I’ll shut you down with a press of my spacebar.”

The festive mood was cut short when the crew-cutted dudes with wires hanging out of their ears circled us ominously in ever-tighter spirals. We decided a change of scenery was in order.

I fished around in my pocket and pulled out an invitation to a formal evening reception at the Canadian Mission in Geneva.

In our present state, it seemed like just the right brand of weirdness. Oxblood would be my date.

We took a taxi and arrived at the security gates, where some of my clever bullshitting got Oxblood a pass and into the soiree.

The place was packed with well-dressed dignitaries, endless trays of yummy appetizers, and a bottomless supply of the finest Canadian wines. Oxblood and I looked like roadies for the Grateful Dead.

Wanting to stir shit up, I started introducing Oxblood to Canadian officials as a “transvestite hacker,” and a “convicted felon,” but all we got in return was more fill-ups on the red wine. Go figure.

“Well, Oxblood,” I said raising a glass in toast, “Merry Wuh-Sis.” “Merry Wuh-Sis to you too, Deibert.”

Holidays had officially begun.

Send us your articles and letters 1 Spadina Crescent is space open to all students, faculty, and staff news@thenewspaper.ca

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We asked you...

What would you change at U of T?

1 Spadina Crescent: “Always horse-friendly.”

the newspaper

Liz, English

Jason, Cartoon.

Re-invent ROSI!

More fly bitches.

Adrian, Architecture

Josh, Economics

Make studio space for undergrad architecture students.

More places to eat around campus.

Alex , History

Leslie, Environmental Resource Management

Established 1978 formerly The Independent Weekly formerly the newspaper Editors Edward Gebbie, Matthew Gloyd, & Peter Josselyn Associate Editors Brenda Cromb, Katie A. Szymanski, & Dora Zhang Board of Directors Rachel Bokhout, Reuben Schwarz & Ivor Tossell Photo Editor Mark Coatsworth Contributors Sierra Bellows, Charlotte Conlin, Prof. Ronald Deibert, Tiffanie Ing, Joe Kerr, Jason “Kief the Chief” Kieffer, Morgon Mills, Jeremy Rusinek & Ryan Sloan. the newspaper is the University of Toronto’s community paper and is published weekly by Planet Publications Inc., a non-profit corporation. Contributions are welcome from all U of T community. Writers old and new can drop by our office every Thursday at 4:30 for story assignments. Letters to the editor should be under 250 words, and writers must include their name and their telephone number.

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Simplification of bureaucratic procedures regarding course enrolment and finances.

Have shuttle buses, rickshaw services, and underground tunnels to get between classes.

Nicole, Poli Sci

Jordan, American Studies

U of T is more bureaucratic than the Kremlin at the height of the Cold War.

Better orientation for transfer students.

8 January 2004

By the Numbers:

the newspaper

3

the newspaper’s analysis of University planning documents • Number of words in the version of Stepping Up published in The Bulletin: 15,036 • Length in words of the Declaration of Independence: 1,328.

• Words in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: 2,275

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• Number of words of Stepping Up plus companion paper and appendices: 64,845 (This does not include Companion Paper #6, which is not currently available.)

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• Number of times that “companion” is spelt “campanion”: 1.

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• Number of times this is in the main headline of the text: 1.

• Number of photos in the printed version of Stepping Up: 10.

•

Number of photo credits and captions: 0.

• Year when the front page photo was used on the Victoria College prospectus: 1998.

• Number of times the newspaper has asked Provost Shirley Neuman, chief architect of Stepping Up for an interview: 6.

• Number of times Provost Neuman has spoken with the newspaper: 0.

• Uses of the word “enabling” in Stepping Up, excluding companion papers: 45 •

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Uses of “student”: 144.

The Road to Orwell

Ian Slater’s Orwell: The Road to Airstrip One reviewed

by Matt Gloyd

MANAGING THOUGHT BUREAU

George Orwell’s vision of the individual’s responsibility in the face of oppressive collectivism is more relevant today then ever.

Ian Slater’s Orwell: The Road To Airstrip One, an intellectual history originally published in 1985, is a worthy addition to the catalogue of works on this Modernist master.

The book is laid out chronologically rather than topically, making it feel like more of a biography than it really is. This works to its advantage as one can see how Orwell’s ideas developed as he made his way through life.

Slater starts in Burma (present day Myanmar) where, as a graduate fresh out of Eton, Orwell was stationed as a British

Imperial Police officer. Intensely disillusioned with imperialism, he became a bit of a loner, quitting the service after only a few years. These experiences provided him with material for his first book Burmese Days, and quite a number of essays. The clash between the individual with a conscience and the conformity demanded by a group, a key theme throughout Orwell’s work, begins here. This vision would culminate in the paranoid, terrifying 1984.

The reader then moves through Orwell’s time in England and Spain. In Britain, Orwell examined the problems of unemployment by becoming purposely homeless and “tramping” around with the truly destitute. His ideas on the deadening effects of poverty and unemployment and remain prescient.

Orwell wouldn’t address such

problems from an Ivory Tower; He had to get “down in the trenches.” He saw money-worship taking the role of an extinct God, where success equaled goodness and evil meant financial failure.

In Spain, he joined the Republican forces as a member of an anarchist militia, fighting the Fascists. Orwell was shot in the neck during combat. Fortunately, the bullet somehow missed all the major blood vessels and other tubing.

However, Orwell and his militia group were stabbed in the back

by Stalinists, who attempted a purge. He fled to France and narrowly missed being thrown in prison or murdered. The irony of almost being killed by a leftist group would not be lost on him.

Slater ends the book in a section called the “Global Vision” which sketches the maturing

of Orwell’s thought through the bleak deprivations of 1940s Britain. This is the period when the author was at the height of his powers publishing Animal Farm and 1984. In this era he saw the new God of money-worship being replaced by the love of power. “Newspeak” (trying to limit the vocabulary of the English language and therefore limit the minds of its speakers) and “Doublethink” (the ability to think two contradictory thoughts at once – enabling easier persuasion of the masses e.g. To keep us free we will censor), find their genesis here.

Putting a twist on Victor Frankel, Orwell believed that the choice of one’s vocabulary might well be the most basic freedom we possess. Slater accurately states that part of Orwell’s staying power is due to the fact that his attack was not directed

so much toward a certain political system as it was to a limited state of mind.

Slater’s book artfully fulfills his promise to sketch the development of Orwell’s thought as a critic and thinker. The lone objection to this work is Slater’s inability to connect Orwell’s ideas to recent events. What he would think of a “Department of Homeland Security”, or calling the bombing of Afghanistan “Operation Enduring Freedom?” The constantly shifting series of rationales for the War in Iraq is a textbook example of Orwellanian thinking in action.

The Orange Alert will continue and visitors to the United States will be fingerprinted like criminals. Perhaps Slater could have added a chapter on how Orwellian the world is in which we live.

One of the criticisms of

Orwell’s writing is that he ignored the United States. However, near the end of his life this was changing. Slater reveals that Orwell was making plans to visit America’s Deep South before he died an early death from tuberculosis in 1950. Now that the South has so much political weight in American politics, his observations at the time would have been priceless.

Orwell deplored what he saw as the blind, passive faith of the English that “everything would turn out alright”; that freedom, democracy, and liberty would somehow persevere even with strong interests working against them. Wise words in times like these.

All told, Slater makes a much stronger case than Christopher Hitchens on why Orwell matters.

4

8 January 2004

the newspaper

Eating Out Late Now that your essays and exams are over, it’s time to once again get back to ignoring your studies until you absolutely can’t. A big part of this is skipping classes, and a big part of that is staying up late. Whether you’re up courting a loved one, drinking, or playing D&D or something lame like that, there are many opportunities around campus to fill your stomach in the wee hours.

the newspaper’s guide to after-hours dining

night while she was over from England, unable to get enough of the chicken wings. Any place that inspires that level of devotion is certainly worth a visit.

whatever. Open until three daily and four on weekends.

Chinatown Trying to pick just one restaurant from the thicket that line

Opinions are divided on the merit of these vendors. Some are terrified while others adore the overstuffed bun. If you’re at Yonge and Dundas, or Queen and McCaul at any time later than three, and hungry at that, you’ve probably got bigger things to worry about.

The two locations mentioned are doling out their selections 24 hours a day. You might feel queasy, but you won’t starve.

Spadina between College and Queen caused division from which the newspaper has yet to recover. Everybody’s got his or her favourite, and every General does candied chicken that’s “the fucking best, man.” So here are a few choices: Pho88 and Xeluna are the picks for Vietnamese. Both provide incredible portions for under five bucks, and the Beef Balls are suggested. The soup is huge and yummy. Stay away from tripe, friend. Another option is The New Ho King, home of delicious duck and suspicious cold tea. Many of the restaurants are open until at least 4.00, and are prime sites for “Drunk-Watching.”

Street Meat The Street

Insomnia

Fran’s 20 College St.

Mel’s 440 Bloor West, at Howard

The best way to ensure you’re open late is to never, ever close.

Mel’s obliges, and provides heavy-duty comfort food to soothe the stomach and soul. Their smoked meat is reputedly flown in from Montreal, making it the obvious attraction of this Jewish-style deli.

It isn’t especially cheap. We recommend (just once), the Big Baby.

It’s a very serious breakfast, including numerous meats and pancakes and eggs done any way you want. Your friends will look at you with a strange kind of respect once you finish this unruly beast, but whether it will settle your stomach is debatable.

Pizza Memo 551 Bloor West

Cheapskate students of the world rejoiced with the recent opening of Pizza Memo. They feature a slice/pop combo that clocks in at fewer than three dollars, as well as other choices. The line-ups after the bars close confirm the success of this simple business plan.

Pizza Memo is open until 5.00am on Friday and Saturday, 3.30am otherwise. Perfect for when you stumble out of a bar staring at your remaining coins with a rumble in your stomach and heart.

Sneaky Dee’s 431 College St.

The continued success of The Sneaky Disease mystifies everyone who refuses to visit. The place has cheap booze and a good selection, but the kitchen distinguishes it from your average near-dive.

Open until 3.00am during the week and four on weekends, the nachos could feed a family of four traveling across the everglades, and their yaks. What’s more, I have a friend who visited every

Fran’s, too, is open 24 hours a day, dishing out comfort food like meatloaf, spaghetti and all day breakfasts while their perpetually surly waitresses dish out disdainful abuse. The old location, (now closed), at St. Clair and Yonge kept Glenn Gould alive, but this lone survivor of a once mighty chain seems to need life support itself. The food is expensive, the portions are small, and the whole place has all the ambience of a bowling shoe. But where else is there, stranded on Yonge Street at 2:45? At least the jukebox is all right.

Cora’s 656 1/2 Spadina St.

Who in the world is going to Papa Ceo’s? Cora’s is great. More than a dozen selections, all at rock-bottom prices. A full quarter of a pie, called a “slice” is enough to satisfy any appetite. They even have a cheese-less option, for the lactose intolerant or vegan or

563 Bloor West Since this pioneering joint unplugged their last internet terminal a year ago, they’ve had to rely on great service, delicious martinis and a great menu that is available until 3.00am on Friday and Saturday, and 2.00am every other day of the week. They seem to be doing alright. They’ve got tapas for starters, good sandwiches and if you’re feeling spectacular, a fine steak. Unlike many of the places on this list, it also gets points for actually being quite nice inside.

Recommended.

The Brüknahn Project Continued from Page 1 ally innovative combination of percussion and instrumentals, not to mention styles of music.

On “Elitist Bullshit,” a sax blows rough free jazz over rhythmic drumming to produce four minutes of pure sonic heaven.

“Jihad” features Middle Eastern vocals over spare beats that build momentum until they threaten to verge on jungle. The track “Brüknahm” is an atmospheric, semi-ambient affair featuring gorgeous strings, and would not seem out of place on a trip-hop album or film score. There are

even a couple of hip-hop songs on the album featuring sociallyconscious lyrics delivered at a pace that is reminiscent of old school rap.

If you like an album with twelve versions of the same song, The Brüknahm Project is probably not for you. On the other hand, if you like ambitious music that’s not stifling, that takes risks, and then, wonder of wonders, actually succeeds, I suggest you pick up a copy of this album. Seriously guys, this stuff is premium. Check it out.

You’ll thank me for it later.

Want to write for the arts section?

It could make you cool. arts@thenewspaper.ca

www.thenewspaper.ca

8 January 2004

the newspaper

5

Albums You Should Own By Now

Metric – Old World Underground, Where Are You Now

by Ryan Sloan

IMPERIAL SOUND BUREAU

“Every ten year old enemy soldier / thinks falling bombs are shooting stars / but she doesn’t make wishes on them” sings Metric vocalist and keyboard player Emily Haines on the album’s powerful opening track.

Originally released in the summer of 2003, Old World Underground Where Are You Now? was a highly anticipated disc, since Metric’s first follow up to their 2001 debut EP was never released due to trouble with former record label Restless Records.

Now signed to Last Gang Records, Metric has followed up with an impressive full length album. Although there was little fanfare at the time of release, hype has slowly gathered around the band in recent months,

fueled by word of mouth, limited airplay, and their amazing live performances. It’s a shame that the word is only getting out now, because this exciting album delivers the goods: highly melodic hooks, guitars, a bouncy rhythm section, meaningful lyrics, and the tasteful implementation of synthesizers.

Metric sounds like a unique mix of post-punk, new wave, pop, and dance influences, all while maintaining a rock edge.

Memorable melodies abound on this disc, but the songs are certainly more than fluff.

Haines sings lyrics that deal with a number of themes including consumerism, war, and sex, while constantly changing her delivery. On “Succexy,” she ironically sings lines such as “Let’s drink to the military / the glass is empty,” and with a touch of boredom suggests that “all we

do is talk, sit, switch screens / as the homeland plans enemies.”

Not entirely a protest album, the occasional politically tinged lyrics are more about being sick and tired of the machine rather than raging against it.

Instrumentally, Metric is right on. The synth and guitar parts blend together to create some very moody textures.

Quick outbursts of chords are layered over thick bass lines and dance beats. The occasional slow parts of the disc add variety, contrast, and allow OWU: WAYN? to be the kind of album you can listen to many times over without losing interest.

Although the ten tracks come in at only a few minutes over half an hour, this relatively short set is free from filler. The CD captures much of the energy from the band’s live show. Highlights include the post pop gem

“Combat Baby,” the rocking new wave/funk mash-up “Dead Disco,” and the staccato groove of “Wet Blanket”.

No band is without their influences, but to lump Metric into a new wave or 80s revival category would not do justice to their highly original music.

The songs on OWU,WAYN? represent a fusion of many styles Newspaper that areThe not regularly mixed.

4.25 wide high This is definitely onexof6.5 the most unique yet exciting releases of 2003.

I dare say that Metric’s music is more accessible than Emily Haines and guitarist James Shaw’s other band, Broken Social Scene (also a great band in their own right). All things considered, Old World Underground,Where Are You Now? is a fresh sounding album that deserves to be listened to.

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6

the newspaper

Are Lesbians smarter?

by Sierra Bellows

ANECDOTAL STATISTICS BUREAU

While I languish in undergrad, my 22 year old lesbian friend is going to England for her Ph. D. The only female boss of my entire working career was an entrepreneurial lesbian, who eventually had me fired.

My only lesbian friend in eighth grade won a national math competition while I didn’t even receive an honorable mention. Are lesbians smarter than straight girls?

My own life is full of anecdotal evidence to support the hypothesis that lesbians might be better endowed with brains.

In my elementary school class for the gifted, a large percentage of the girls grew up to be gay.

Within my social circle, the lesbians not only have higher grade point averages, but outscore the straight girls on IQ tests by an average of 10 points.

In high school, straight girls seemed to be perfecting the art of acting dumb and applying makeup while queer girls were thinking about more interesting things than their weight and their nails. But is there empirical evidence to back up the “lesbians are brighter” hypothesis?

A great deal of research has been done investigating the comparative intelligence of different groups. Much of it has

Jason at University

been extremely controversial because it employed variables like gender and race. Yet when I asked my professor, who taught me about the racist finding of the book The Bell Curve and the results of the meta-analysis of the intelligence divide between the genders, she told me that the link between sexual orientation and intelligence has not been scientifically tested. And she would know, being a lesbian herself.

The one thing of interest that I learned when I turned to hard science was that most research into sexual orientation is concerned with causes of homosexuality. In men, it has been suggested that homosexuals have increased brain mass in one particular area. Gay equals smarter once again?

Undeterred by my lack of success in proving my hypothesis with science, I developed a new method to help me in my quest; I set to work interviewing a sampling of lesbians and straight women about their relative mental aptitude. Armed with a list of questions which included “What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever seen a straight girl do?” I went to meet with two randomly selected women, one gay and one straight, for a highly statistically accurate sampling of two of my friends.

My gay friend Alyssa said, “I

once thought women who are out as lesbians might be more self-aware and might have more insight into deconstructing aspects of society that others take as a given,” but she shied away from the larger generalization that lesbians are smarter.

My hetero friend Abby rejected my hypothesis straight out, but conceded that “lesbians are more smart about clits and heterosexual girls can really learn some lessons from our nonpenis-obsessed sisters.”

When I mentioned that women with extremely high IQs tend to contribute more to their husband’s successes than to their own achievement—a finding backed by solid science—and asked them about the implication of this for gay women, they had rather opposite responses.

Abby suggested that women who are not saddled with the responsibility of being wives and mothers might achieve greater “outer success like being a professor, a scientist or an inventor,” but that being a single women can easily apply to both lesbians and hetero women.

Alyssa pointed out that lesbians might face greater obstacles to their success due to oppression and lack of acceptance by our largely straight culture. One thing that they both agreed on was that my questions were too general and “dumb.”

Read more comics online at www.jasonkieffercomics.com

Jason Kieffer

8 January 2004

ILLUSTRATION BY DERRICK CHOW

When I asked Alyssa about the stupidest thing she’d seen a straight girl do, her answer was “attempt to write this article.”

Still lacking a definite answer, I felt I had to resort to a more experimental technique to test my idea. I tried two things to see if they would make me smarter: I kissed a girl and I performed in a drag king show.

Kissing a girl made me feel more worldly and sophisticated, but did not improve my ability to decipher anagrams. Dressing

up as a man with five o’clock shadow and sideburns while dancing to “Beat it” at a HussyHop only made me feel goofy, though I did learn the new skill of binding down breasts with a tensor bandage.

Finally, I’ve been forced to come to the conclusion that I’d been hoping to avoid all along.

If, as research shows, men and women do not differ in intellect, then a difference between women of different sexual orientations is extremely unlikely.

Sexual identity and intelligence are both highly contested ideas with little consensus on what they are or how they can be quantified.

Television actor Amanda Bearse wrote “You can’t type what a lesbian is. We’re anything and everything. The one thing in common is that we make love to other women.” And although I glean wisdom from television actors with trepidation, I think she is right.

the five buck lunch

Manny’s Submarine House Corner of Borden & Harbord

Every now and then, one has a craving for food with no redeeming qualities; the greasy and salty stuff. Looking around, there are many places to satiate this appetite, but few have the

nostalgic atmosphere that “classic” diners have.

Nestled on the corner of Borden and Harbord streets, Manny’s Diner is a classic restaurant that serves food sure to clog the arteries of all who eat there. The menu features cheap food that can be had at very low cost. Breakfast is only $2.99 and during the lunch hour you can get a “Burger Combo”, that includes fries and a soda for $3.50. You can also substitute other sandwiches (BLT, Chicken Burger etc.) into the

the crossword

A Bit of Lit

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Across 1. Lucy Maud (Anne’s creator).

9. Wrath, as in the Grapes of.

10. Operatic melody.

11. Due homonym.

12. Portent.

13. ____-tron, the bane of students everywhere.

14. Original or prototypical literary work.

16. Japanese mafia.

17. Cripple 21. Saint with fire? (think Sesame Street) 22. Half of a quarter, or one eighth of a byte.

24. “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo ____.”

25. Follower of “bronze” or “middle”.

26. Erotic and often career-ending publicity.

combo while still keeping the price under 5 bucks.

During lunch, the food is always fresh out of the deepfryer (the bacon on my BLT was deep-fried), as the diner is packed with hungry high school students from across the road. The service is quick and friendly, and should your order happen to take long to prepare, there is an array of arcade games at the back to kill time. It’s not quite the “Five and Dime”, but at $3.50 for lunch, who cares?

—Joe Kerr

by Morgon Mills

Last Month’s Solution

of Pi. 15. California city, and the font for these clues.

18. ____ Vera.

19. Famous film company (“Think Big”).

20. First part of American Pie’s “MILFs”.

22. Who’s afraid of the big ___ wolf?

23. Dominion and Loeb competitor.

Down 1. One of the solstices (dream time for Shakespeare).

2. Unprocessed metal.

3. Out with the old, in with the ___.

4. Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the ______.

5. Density times volume.

6. Author Blair, of 1984.

7. Latvian capital (home of the Magician, Mikhail Tal).

8. Spanish-born author of Life

coming up Readers Poll • Eating Disorders • The Darkness • www.thenewspaper.ca