INSIDE
MAKING GOOD ON MUSIC
COUPLAND ON THE FUTURE
HORSES ON BUNS
the newspaper University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly
Vol. XXXIII N0.
October 21, 2010
By virtue of necessity cArA SABATINI “I don’t think modern people can believe in virtue,” said Dr. Jordan Peterson at last week’s lecture, “On the Necessity of Virtue.” The event was part of Hart House’s annual Hancock Lecture and parallel programming, ongoing until the end of next month. Organizer and lead staff advisor Day Milman describes the Hancock Lecture as a platform to encourage dialogue. Exemplifying Hart House’s new label as a “living laboratory,” the event creates “an open environment for new and old ideas to be discussed,” says Milman. Controversy is welcomed and expected: “we are not afraid of having controversial subjects because we try to engender a civil way of addressing these topics.”
Dr. Jordan Peterson presents his argument for “The Necessity of Virtue” On the topic of virtue, Dr. Peterson’s key tenet was, “A virtuous life justifies being itself.” In slight evangelical intonation, Peterson claimed that life is inevitable suffering, for “pain transcends rational argument.” So did his speech. When I asked if he successfully addressed the “necessity” of being virtuous, Milman answered that Peterson was not the kind of lecturer who supplied a “linear argument,” but rather presented “a part in a series of ideas.” Clinician and revered U of T psychology professor, Peterson referenced such experiments as Stanley Milgram’s, but most of his arguments came from more
Google Street View’ing your e-mail wIll cAmPBEll Canada’s privacy commissioner says Google broke a national privacy law when its fleet of Street View cars captured personal e-mails, phone numbers and other information from wireless access points across the country. Jennifer Stoddart said Tuesday an investigation by her office has found the Californiabased search giant didn’t know its cars were picking up personal Internet communications from unsecured Wi-Fi networks as they rolled along Canada’s streets taking photographs.
“Nobody had an idea that it involved collecting unprotected information as well,” she told the House of Commons privacy committee. A report by her office found the “inappropriate” snooping was in violation of a Canadian law restricting how private companies collect and use personal information. It said a “careless error” by Google allowed the cars’ software to capture wireless Internet transmissions, which included e-mail account passwords, and even a list of people’s names and medical history. The Street View cars, recog-
divine sources. Admittedly shocked at the fact himself, his words echoed those of various religious texts, offering, “If you really don’t know what the hell you’re doing, follow a moral code.” Though his argument seemed to call for some kind of introspection in navigating a virtuous path, Peterson warns against self-consciousness. It pulls us away from engaging, or “being,” in the world, into self-absorption. This resonates with the U of T student in chronic contemplation of what she should do with her life – burdened with how to change the world for the better with such a quality education. Peterson responded to
a question from the audience with, “A lot of people will try to fix the planet, but they can’t fix their car.” So we should be rather than think about what to be. Yes, life is suffering, but what in our lives makes the suffering worth it? To this Milman said, “if you don’t know yourself, you don’t know your own suffering.” In an effort to help students in this endeavor, the Hancock program is hosting a workshop on autobiographical songwriting. These workshops are targeted towards students - an aim that the program didn’t quite fulfill in last week’s lecture, attracting a large audience of gen-
nized by the orb-like camera rig mounted on the roof of the vehicles, roam the country’s streets taking panoramic snapshots of neighbourhoods, which are then used in Google’s online mapping service. Google also outfitted the cars to capture information about wireless Internet networks. The data is supposed to help smartphone users navigate the mapping service. “In doing that, they also got personal information that was unencrypted and not passwordprotected,” Stoddart said. Her office dispatched a team of investigators to Google’s headquarters earlier this year after international reports of company vehicles recording wireless Internet communications.
They found that a Google programmer added a feature to the Street View fleet’s capturing software in 2006 which let the cars “sample” some of the information transmitted on the publicly-accessible wireless networks they passed. The addition was made by an engineer who failed to notify a Google lawyer about the program – a violation of company policy. The software is used by all of Google’s camera-equipped vehicles, which map streets on seven continents. Stoddart said that Google screened all of the Street View software before it was installed, but failed to catch the illegal code, which was outside the scope of the company’s review process.
eration x. “Sing Your Life” takes place Thursday at 6pm in Hart House’s South Dining Room. Students will have a chance to perform their work in next week’s Open Mic Night (so everyone can share in the suffering?). Peterson warns against introspection, but urges to his audience, “know yourself.” In what seemed a preemptive reply to this contradiction, Peterson stated a necessity to “be cautious about being the judge of ‘being;’ there may be a lot of things you don’t know.” What I do know is that I entered the theatre expecting to add more insufferable lecture hours to my day. But I was so engaged I completely forgot about what to do with my impractical pursuit in the humanities. Now who can I see about a lesson in auto-mechanics?
“This is not something that was done intentionally. This is something that was done without Google being aware of the fact that they were scooping up the personal information.” Stoddart, whose office is currently investigating Google for another possible privacy breach, added that Canadians should ensure their wireless networks are secure, and not open to passers-by. She recommended the company delete all the wireless information it collected in Canada. She also called on Google to do a better job informing its employees of privacy laws, and make sure its products are more thoroughly reviewed before release. Germany’s data protection
the news
2 The Life Raft
Picture this: civilization as we know it has crumbled. The few survivors are boarding a vessel that will carry them to the new world - where they will rebuild - and only one seat remains. All of academia must vie for it using their most deadly weapon: reasoned discourse. We have chosen Mark Kingwell as the first apocalyptic refugee to plead his case in defense of philosophy. Kingwall is an established author, academic, journalist and teacher. He
Mark Kingwell Philosophy bakes no bread My fellow travellers: I’m going to leave aside the obvious point that, if push came to shove, you could combust my body for energy or consume it
as food. The same can be said of almost anyone, and there are probably better fuel sources, certainly more delectable gustatory opportunities, among my
October 21, 2010
colleagues. So let me tell you a few of the things that philosophers do which they think they can do better than other people. This is the sort of thing we say when accused of infirm purpose or when accosted by some kid at career day who wants to go to law school. Here are the arguments we use: 1. The argument from critical thinking. Yes, philosophy is good for the brain. Argument is the derivation of conclusions from premises. Can’t tell what counts as a premise? Can’t say whether a derivation is valid or not? Come to us. Even the most apparently rational people are bad at argument. They just are. It’s not their fault. But refusing to do something about it is. Yes, this is why philosophy majors do so well on the LSAT.
has published 15 books (in the diverse fields of political philosophy, cultural theory, aesthetics and some more irreverent works), written for every media rag worth its salt (New York Times, Globe and Mail, This Magazine, The *ahem* Varsity), and garnered some impressive accolades (The Spitz Prize, an Honorary Doctorate from NSCAD). He is best known around campus for his years as the dynamic professor of PHL100 - Intro to Philosophy. -Diana Wilson
2. The argument from conceptual clarification. You think you know what ‘real’ means. I can assure you that you don’t. It may take a while. 3. The argument from disciplinary investigation. The English philosopher R. G. Collingwood liked to imagine a scenario in which he confronts a physicist or medico and asks, with deepening emphasis, why they carry on the way they do. At some point, he notes, they will get frustrated and angry and just shout the equivalent of “It’s just what we do.” They assume, in other words, some ‘absolute presuppositions’ which are the conditions of possibility, typically tacit, of physics or medicine. Philosophers think it’s their job to make those tacit assumptions explicit. We’re
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pretty good at it, and yes, it does tend to make people angry. As a former student of mine said, “At parties people are always shouting at me, ‘Stop telling me what I’m trying to say’.” 4. The argument from literary diversion. Dialogues, fragments, poems, koans, meditations, confessions, treatises, critiques, essays, discourses, investigations, prolegomenas, tractatuses, notebooks, reflections, prefaces, polemics, manifestos, Philosophy is not literature in the sense of being fictional, but it is literary in the sense of always having a form. We’ve got all that covered. 5. The argument from crowd control. Noble lies, useful fictions, advice about cruelty and deception for princes and kings. We’ve got all that covered too. This could get messy, but you are in safe hands. 6. The argument from the meaning of life. Well, yes, there’s that. Philosophers aren’t necessarily wiser or better than other people. Many of them are quite nasty, to be honest. But at least they’re honest. Of course, everything presented in arguments (1) through (6) is in the nature of distraction. Worse, such arguments surrender the field in advance to bad assumptions about utility—as if philosophy needs to be rescued from its uselessness. This cannot be done. Philosophy bakes no bread. But it’s also the case that man does not live by bread alone. The paradox of philosophy is that you can only see that it’s worth doing when you’re already doing it. And so you cannot convince who hasn’t started that it is worth starting. It follows that you can never do philosophy for the first time. And so, finally: 7. The argument from because. I have questions for you, not answers; I offer problems rather than solutions. From your point of view, there is no good reason for me to get this seat. And that’s exactly why you should give it to me.
the news
October 21, 2010
The Debate
3
TO EAT, OR NOT TO EAT HORSE MEAT
The pro
The con
They eat horses, don’t they?
Unfair Game: Be it resolved that the consumption of horse meat in circumstances outside of dire necessity is wrong.
AArON zAcK
DIANA wIlSON
The Opinion
Google Instant Headache Because the Internet wasn’t distracting enough already ANDrEw GYOrKOS You may have noticed something peculiar about the world’s most charming and iconic search engine recently. You may have noticed that particular tool, once so humble and patient, has turned into an overbearing tyrant, telling you what
you want before you’re even able to know such a thing for yourself. In short, you may have noticed Google Instant. Trumpeted by those Silicon Valley boffins as the most efficient thing since slave labour, Google Instant aims to revolutionise the way information is obtained online not only by
Hold on to your horses! It is likely that my opponent has argued that there is no difference between eating cows and eating horses. But I suggest that there are discernible advantages to eating cows, chickens, turkeys, and pigs. All of these farm animals (everyday dinner meats) are low input consumers that produce large quantities of meat. Cows and chickens are multiuse: they produce milk and eggs and are also edible. We don’t eat dairy cows typically but that doesn’t mean that humans never have, or that we shouldn’t. These delicious animals are tame, relatively gentle, and flightless, making them easy to farm. Why do we eat farm animals? Once humans concluded which animals can be domesticated, each animal was put to its best use. Horses are much more valuable to us as transportation, despite their hulking size. In this sense, the question of this debate could be: why do we not ride cows? Of course, these arguments relate to the productivity of horses and farm animals, not the ethics of consumption. If my opponent argues for universalizing meat consumption (why not humans then?), I am left with two options: if I must disagree that all meat should be eaten, then I could argue that 1) no meat should be eaten at all, or 2) only some meats are ethically edible. Assuming that you have already heard all the arguments for the vegetarian lifestyle (no meat), I will argue that there is an ethically relevant difference between horses and cows (some meats). Is there ethical purchase in the disparity in taste? Horses are apparently less flavourful then farm meats. But it may not be unethical to eat bad tasting food (case in point, Wendy’s hamburgers, Peeps, certain flavours of Doritos, corn dogs, Mountain Dew, gyros, sheep’s eyeball, sliders, anything under hot lamps at 7-11, flesh of the undead, overripe bananas, fish that is slightly too salty). But it may be wrong to consume animals that could be better put to use alive. If we consider maximizing happiness for the greatest number of people as the morally right position, then we could argue that horses are more beneficial as transportation than as dinner. But to argue that horses produce more energy by quickening transportation then cows do by being eaten, would need factual evidence that I don’t have. Besides, in modern society, we have cars to replace the use of horses. Horses are for leisure, not practical purpose. What can I conclude? Either that the pleasure of riding horses outweighs the pleasure of eating them and is thereby the most beneficial (a complex argument if even possible), or that we should not eat horses because eating any meat is wrong. So...go veg, I guess.
providing auto-complete suggestions, but also by performing the searches as you type. So, for example, Google will spit out pages about Canadian Tire, Costco, and Cougar, and make seven more failed attempts to predict my query, before it realizes that I’m actually looking for “Countdown to Ecstasy,” the classic Steely Dan album. I applaud the effort, Google, but I liked you better when you were a patient retriever and not an incessant yappy bastard. Google has always been designed for speedy simplicity, but now it’s being aimed at the sluggish simpleminded, as if it doesn’t even trust its users to
DAVE BELL
I’m sorry, but horse is just plain delicious. Actually, I take that back. I’m not sorry. Horse is a great alternative to the monotony of cow, so why shouldn’t I eat it? I could bore you with the science of it (that horse has 40% less calories, 50% more protein and 30% more iron than lean beef), that it has less sodium and even less cholesterol – but that seems superfluous to the argument at hand. No, this is a debate about the very nature of what we deem acceptable and what we deem taboo in the slaughter of animals for food. Opponents of the commercial slaughter and sale of horsemeat claim the animals are abused, given drugs not intended to enter the food supply, or are in general mistreated. Be it true or not, these claims only serve to strengthen the argument at hand. Only with a change in the public perception of horses – that they are a source of meat like any other commercially raised animal – can we hope to impose industry regulations that would, in turn, stamp out any alleged mistreatment of these animals. Food ethics aside, there is no practical argument for the banning of horsemeat. The taboo association is itself based on outdated standards, when horses were required for fieldwork and transport, and their role as a food source was auxiliary at best. We now live in a mechanized world where the vast majority of work is carried out by machines, and in which horses, like many other animals whose consumption is considered taboo, often serve no practical purpose beyond recreation. It is in these recreational roles that these taboos continue to survive. We do not eat horses for the same reasons we do not eat dogs – we, as North Americans, associate them with some outdated model of necessity, or place them under the protective title ‘pet.’ So again I ask, why not eat horses? Some would argue intelligence as a factor in the continuation of these taboos. But really, is a horse smarter than a cow? Than a pig? Many studies find this not to be the case. In fact, pigs are generally regarded to have intelligences equal to or greater than that of dogs, yet you don’t see anyone lining up to eat Lassie. Until taboos are overturned and revealed for what they are – outdated models of practicality, no more relevant to our modern lives than superstition is to science – can we consider ourselves progressive and open-minded people, from a culinary perspective at least.
know what they want from it. In the official unveiling video, there’s a particular quip, spoken by an elderly man who’s aghast at how he “didn’t have to press enter” while using Google Instant, which strikes a bit off. Apparently, if you eliminate that pesky little keystroke, the population of geriatric web-surfers skyrockets. And what does that do for general productivity, you ask? Well did you know that Google Instant reduces average search time by anywhere from two to five seconds? Why, with all that new found time, I can finally finish that masterpiece I’ve been writing.
Above all else, Google Instant is one of those grandiose innovations that exist mainly to gratify itself. Any claims to increased efficiently are nullified when such time will be inevitably squandered refreshing manic Twitter feeds or wandering through Facebook. Not to mention that the weaponization of online queries can hardly be seen as an improvement. Is assaulting users with spastic stabs of haphazardly guessed information really something to be proud of? Somehow, I doubt that this is what web searches have been desperately lacking for all these years.
the inside
October 21, 2010
DAN EPSTEIN
4
Sheila Heti on how a person should be DAN EPSTEIN Sheila Heti’s new novel, How Should a Person Be?, published this month by Anansi Press, is a chronicle of identity. She used five years of her life as source material, and emerged with a portrait of herself. Or, that is, a certain fragment of herself, along with certain fragments of her close friend Margaux, and smaller fragments of other friends and lovers. It’s the kind of book that envelopes you in the author’s mind, although it’s never quite clear what the author is confessing and what she’s fabricating. But does it matter whether or not something is confession or fabrication? I don’t know. And I’m not quite sure Sheila does either. There are a few things that are certain – How Should a Person Be? is very fun to read, Sheila’s head is a fun house to hang out in, and Sheila is quite happy being done with figuring out how to be. I sat down with her to talk about some of these things. You wrote this book based on interviews that you conducted with your friends. I got the impression somewhere that you went into interviews with friends knowing what you wanted to find out. Is that true? No, that’s not the truth. When I was taping Margaux, it was just a lot of taping. We’d go somewhere and I’d be taping and we’d go somewhere else and I’d be taping, and taping other people too. But there’s not
something specific I was trying to get out of it apart from trying to understand how people talk – I was interested in seeing what dialogue really sounded like. So taping and transcribing – I was more interested in that than anything else. And was that - as the narrative goes in the book geared towards possible dialogue for a play? I don’t know why I really started. I was working on a play at the time, but I’m not sure. I bought this tape recorder and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It was just one of those instincts – you don’t know why but it feels right. Something that constantly tripped me up as a reader and especially preparing for this interview is the line between the persona that you’ve created in the book and the author that you are. This is something that you’ve commented on, saying that this book is entirely fiction, but with a non-fiction truth beneath it – that it shouldn’t be read as a memoir. Could you elaborate on that difference? What’s the dynamic that you’re trying to create between truth and fiction? Well I wouldn’t say that it’s entirely fiction – a lot of the stuff that happened in the book happened to me but the reason that I keep saying that it’s not memoir is that I think the motivation of memoir is so different from what my motivation was. To me a memoir is someone
trying to write about their life with the hope of putting some kind of story together based on their life. When I was writing this book what I was trying to do was understand this question, “how should a person be?” - which was a real question for me at the time - and use my life, look at my life the way that I would look at a character’s life. So that’s my way of understanding the world, through fiction. I used my life as material for fiction in the hopes of being able to live beyond this question. So the actual book itself has fiction and it has non-fiction and it has thinking and dialogues, but it’s really a mix of everything because I wasn’t concerned about creating fidelity or infidelity to my life. There’s a passage in the book where Sheila is having a conversation with a man named Solomon and the two of you get to the topic of the Israeli constitution, or rather the lack of an Israeli constitution, and there’s a great quote, where Solomon says, “If you don’t write a book by which to rule yourself, you are opening the door to all kinds of things that only God knows.” Is that what this book is supposed to be for you? Is it what it ended up being for you? Yeah, a little bit. To me, it’s not really clear what are the laws by which you should rule yourself. We don’t have much fidelity to any religion in the kind of circles I run in. You just kind of make it up. I think that it’s worth
thinking about it and writing it down, and writing it down for me is narrative, because narrative is a really moral form. And so if I can write down a moral narrative that involves me - as I, in some way, understand myself - then maybe I can live in a more orderly way, according to my deepest convictions. And for me, I learn what my deepest convictions are by writing fiction. I learn what I think is moral by writing fiction. I can’t really just sit down and think “well what’s the most important thing I should have fidelity to in my life?” It has to take five years of work.
you’re writing that kind of thing every day, it just becomes part of the way you think. So it’s like an actor who plays a role in a movie – they’re really happy to have that movie done so they can sluff that off. For me it’s the same with writing.
When you were writing Ticknor, did you start to relate to that character? I became that character.
So was creating a character or persona for yourself a way of purging yourself of the character that was not you that was taking over? That’s interesting – I mean, it was partly me. It’s like when you write a book there’s a part of yourself that you’re emphasizing and you’re thinking about and the other parts become very small, so the “How Should a Person Be?” part of myself became very big. I was very looking forward to the book being done because I know from my experience writing Ticknor, that once the book was done I would be able to move on and change. Cause the thing is when you’re writing a book you can’t change. You’ve got to be the same person five years later who’s the person who started the book or else you can’t finish a book. So somehow if you’re not writing a book, you change at a regular pace – like maybe gradually over five years. But if you’re a book, all those changes kinda get stop-gapped and then once you finish the book then all the changes that would have happened over five years happen quickly.
Yeah, I read that you were sort of playing him in your day-to-day life. We can’t help it because if
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. To read the full interview, visit thenewspaper.ca.
How did you learn that? Was it when you were writing stories or writing Ticknor? It was after Ticknor – a few years after I wrote Ticknor, it was realizing that if I looked at Ticknor or thought about it, I could remind myself of certain ways not to be. At the time that I was writing Ticknor I didn’t understand that, but now I think that if you’re going to be paranoid about people, you’re gonna end up as this miserable, alone man in a room who can’t even go to a party. So then I realized that I can use my own fiction in this way.
the inside
October 21, 2010
5
Douglas Coupland presents the future martin waldman Setting his name alongside notable past contributors like Noam Chomsky, John Raulston Saul and Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland is currently in the midst of presenting the 2010 Massey Lecture. Since the release of his first novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture in 1991, Coupland has been considered one of Canada’s preeminent writers, with a particular gift for well-timed and astute cultural observation. In addition to his success as a writer, Coupland has also specialized in visual arts, especially typography, photography, and sculpture. His work includes key contributions in design and sculpture to the CityPlace park taking shape along the Gardiner Expressway between Spadina and Bathurst. Considering his diverse background, it perhaps shouldn’t have come as a surprise when it was revealed that Coupland would break with convention and, for the first time ever, present a piece of fiction at the Massey Lectures. Player One – What Is to Become of Us?: A Novel in Five Hours will be presented in five parts, in five different cities across Canada. Despite a hectic touring schedule that includes criss-crossing the country a few times, Douglas Coupland took the time to answer some questions about his newest composition, the future, and, of course, Canadian identity.
live hours. And as I’ve never really attended lectures before (art school boy) I thought I’d best find my own way. Fiction is actually very subversive that way. You can pull people through huge swaths of ideas and they won’t even know it’s a lecture in disguise. How does the Massey format fit into your own body of work? It was certainly a way of crystallizing two decades worth of thought. Certain themes that were embryonic back in the early 1990s now seem fully born in 2010: the way time no longer feels like time, the way money no longer acts like money, the way being an individual no longer feels like being individual, and the way feeling like you’re a part of a community now feels so different, too. You’re a university paper, so I can’t imagine you remember any of that era. The seeds of our current mo-
ment were well planted then, I just had to look harder. How do you expect this alternate genre will connect to the different audiences each night? We just did the third lecture last night in Charlottetown (I’m in the plane flying back to Vancouver right now; won’t *that* seem like an impossible luxury fifty years from now.) They’ve been received wonderfully, but I think that’s because I lucked out with three good audiences as well as superb sound technicians. It’s an intimate experience to hear Player One read aloud. It’s not like school at all (says he who only ever went to art school.) It’s a performance, too. Did you run into any difficulties with writing a “novel in five hours?” Only large bouts of self-reflection that are good for anybody.
It forced me to unplug and consciously and subconsciously fuse everything together. It’s very, very, very, very hard to disconnect once you’ve experienced a certain level of connectedness in your life.
your article in the Globe and Mail on October 8th), you seem to look towards the future with a sense of inevitability. It was as sort of parody of pessimism. The editors called it ‘Radical Pessimism’ which I thought was funny. (The only people who don’t think I’m a pessimist are the real pessimists.)
Did you aim to capture a particular slice of Canadian identity in Player One, or is it a more general look at humanity moving towards the future/the end of the world? I think it’s Canadian because it does have a hopeful ending (some would disagree, but **no spoilers**). Most countries on earth don’t have much futurity at the moment. We missed the bullet in Canada, so we need to use the calm that stems from this safety to figure out smart, unpanicky next steps for everybody.
Why are we powerless to slow down our “progress?” This conversation could go in many sorts of ways. But I do believe in technological determinism, which is to say, sooner or later someone would have invented TV, sooner or later someone would have invented chip architecture, and sooner or later someone would have invented the Internet. It was all a matter of when, not if. So like it or not, the next technologically predetermined invention is going to happen to us. We don’t know what it is, but it’s going to happen, and probably annoyingly soon, before we’ve even had a chance to digest Google. Probably some jerk in a garage in California, the way it always seems to happen. Ontario, get your bright young kids some garages.
In some of your most recent pieces (for example,
Kids that are now approaching their teenage years have only known a world with the Internet. Are you worried for them? No. I’m fascinated to see how lives of pure, saturated connectedness are going to make modern young people have new ideas and make new art. It’s really really exciting. I think that’s what people aren’t getting right now – the way rules are being rewritten for everything in our lives. It keeps me up at night with anticipation.
Hello Douglas. Hi Martín Waldman and U of T We’re very interested to hear more about your experience as a Massey Lecturer. Thanks for your interest. What were you doing when you found out about the offer to present a Massey Lecture? Life as usual. But I remember almost exactly two years ago the pressure was on to say yes or no the day of Margaret Atwood’s lecture at Vancouver’s Chan Centre. She did such an amazing job and I wanted to try and live up to the level of expectation she set. She did lectures on debt that came out the week of the Crash.
Thanks Doug. Thanks, U of T.
THOMAS DOZOL
Player One is the first piece of fiction to be presented at the Massey Lectures. What led you to decide to write a piece of fiction instead of the usual essay lecture format? Many. At first I thought I might do a pure dictionary, but I couldn’t figure out a way of making that work across five
On the future of Canadian identity: what new images will replace the stubbies, toques, maple syrup and Mounties that serve as representations of our culture currently? Stem cell research. Athletic excellence. Profound art. Waking up in the morning and being glad it’s a new day.
Douglas Coupland will be presenting Player One as the 2010 Massey Lecture in Toronto on October 29th at Convocation Hall. b
the arts
6
October 21, 2010
Musical Enlightenment for Students, Strings Attached
DAVE BELL
U of T DMA student supplies steppingstone for soon-to-be classical fans on campus
Suzie Balabuch Classical music is an intimidating, albeit beautiful, genre of music. In this day and age, practically every musical product on the market comes with some form of super approachable visual stimulation to keep the listener interested. So, how does an antiquated type of music with no sexy video content to speak of draw in the young listeners of today? The potential answer lies in a new effort put forth by U of T Doctorate of Musical Arts Student Alex McLeod of Ton Beau Quartet. Starting Decem-
ber 1st at the U of T Art Centre, this group of young music grad students will present a concert series on portraiture in music, with pieces by composers ranging from Beethoven to Stravinsky. “The art offers a sort of second stream of connection with the music, and it means that there’s a discussion going on, so people can feel empowered to have opinions about what they’re listening to,” says Alex McLeod. There have been many concerts hosted in the Art Centre in the past, but the perennial problem is attracting student listeners. Ton Beau Quartet hopes to combat this problem by using a
format that’s much more “audience friendly” and much less intimidating, or worse, boring. McLeod reflects, “A lot of people feel uncomfortable with the idea of classical music, or they feel that they should be arriving, ready to listen, so it’s kind of a way of getting past that.” Following the December concert, there will be three more Art Centre concerts in February, March and April to finish up the four-part series, each one focusing on audience interaction and visual as well as musical stimulation. As captivating as this concert series sounds, McLeod laments the fact that musicians often
take for granted their extensive musical knowledge, even when dealing with people who have no knowledge of music at all. Secondly, the problem of our “decentralized campus” arises. In a campus as mammoth-sized as St. George, it is difficult to find the prime location to host a future concert series specifically targeted to students who have never listened to classical music before. The idea of attracting a new generation of classical music lovers is the goal of Ton Beau Quartet’s next musical endeavour, a campus-wide musical outreach concert series, spanning the various periods of classical music.
Young musicians like McLeod are very aware of the possible demise of classical music without innovative ways of getting young listeners involved: “If you can’t make classical music interesting to university students, you can’t make it interesting to anybody, and it’s dead, it’s finished.” Who would want to live in a world with no Mozart to balance out the Lady Gaga? For more information about Ton Beau Quartet’s concerts or for ideas for where to host the next series, contact Alex McLeod at tonbeauquartet@ gmail.com
the arts
October 21, 2010
7
The film reviews
You’ll wish you’d ‘Red’ the comic book instead DAN chrISTENSEN From the moment the lights dim, we feel we must be in for a comic book movie. We’re informed that this is a DC Comics production, but unlike those film adaptations that wear their source material format on their sleeves (Sin City, another Bruce Willis-lead feature, or perhaps Watchmen come to mind), there’s no indication anywhere that Red has been based on a comic book. Oh, wait – does a conspicuous, overwhelming lack of realism count? Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) introduces us to his post-CIA
life of lonely monotony (what a shame – all those rugged good looks and no one to share them with), a life only perked up by phone conversations with Sarah Roses (Mary-Louise Parker), a romantically challenged call centre cutie with a harlequinairport novel addiction. Just his luck when his house is ambushed and he’s forced to kidnap his new would-be girlfriend (for her safety, of course), and track down all of his old (did I say old? I meant geriatric) CIA buddies (and biddy) to figure out who’s trying to kill him, including the likes of Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, and Brian Cox.
Wait, haven’t we seen this premise – the oldies coming back to kick some ass – recently? Like really recently in The Expendables? Oh well, I suppose we can forgive the somewhat cliché premise, only this isn’t the film’s biggest downfall. It suffers from sloppy storytelling, such as multiple instances of unimaginative exposition, as well as frigidity towards its characters. Early on, upon being reunited with Willis after years, Freeman’s character gives an awkward, unsolicited announcement that he’s 84 and has stage four liver cancer - hardly naturalized chit-chat. Then later, after he is (obvi-
ously) the first character who is killed, his “friends” act as if they barely knew him, showing no sign of regret, gratitude, or remorse, save for an unceremonious shared drink on the back porch. I guess these ex-CIA geezers have no time for sentimentalism. As is to be expected from the star-studded cast, the performances are the film’s most successful aspect. Malkovich delivers an impressively comic performance as the paranoid wacko. Cox, a true chameleon, pulls off his Russian ex-commie masterfully while sharing a delightful and tender romance with the ever elegant and graceful
(and bad ass) Mirren. Alternatively, Willis’ attempts to squint his way into our and LouiseParker’s hearts are foiled, as the pair’s passion remains unconvincing. In the end, Red simply delivers a passable, run-of-the-mill action comedy blockbuster. It’s only a “comic book movie” to the extent that it’s actually based on a comic book. Maybe this is obvious, but my hopes for the filmmakers to take advantage and provide us with a little more comic book style and flair were disappointed.
imagineNative hits the city! JAmAIAS DAcOSTA The imagineNative Film and Media Arts Festival kicks off this week, celebrating its 11th year as what is known as the most prominent Indigenous arts festival worldwide. The four-day festival includes several shorts programs, feature films, documentaries, performance arts pieces, media installations, workshops and panels as well as parties. A Who’s Who of the Indigenous Arts community, imagineNative features contributions from around the world. The themes do not always focus on culture or indigeneity, but showcase many artists who are often under or misrepresented in the film and arts world. I had an opportunity to review several films featured at the festival. Had I not been familiar with the usual stellar caliber of imagineNative films, I would have been slightly alarmed after viewing Ariel Smith’s short, “Dear Diary” (Moonshine Shorts Program 1, Thursday October 21st). “Dear Diary” screens like a first year film school project: pseudo surrealism on a low budget with a highly ambiguous visual narrative. Meh. Fortunately the other two shorts showed much more promise. Torontonian Shane Belcourt’s “Keeping Quiet” (Thundering Whispers Shorts Program II, Friday October 22nd) features the melancholic story of a lonely parking garage attendant seeking companionship through the classifieds. Samoan Misa Tupou’s “One Night” (also Moonshine Shorts Program) offers a harrowing glimpse into the isolating world of a masked homeless man on the desolate nighttime streets of Honolulu’s china town. The closing night feature film “A Windigo Tale” includes the screen debut of University of Toronto’s Aboriginal Studies instructor Lee Maracle, who is also a renowned writer within the community. “A Windigo Tale” utilizes the Anishinabe tradition of the Windigo to tell of the
devastating effects of residential schools. A meshing of suspense thriller and drama, “A Windigo Tale” leaves a haunting impression and makes for an excellent primer for those unfamiliar with the generational impact of residential schools. I managed to have a quick Q & A with imagineNative’s MediaMashup performance artist Tara Beagan, who’s piece “Foundlings” takes place Thursday October 21st at the Edward Day Gallery. “Foundlings” is described as the story of a Cree man who becomes the first client of the high-end familial match making service, The Gallery Agency.
Check out imagineNative.org for a full listing of programs and events.
Our MA & PhD Programs focus on the cultural history of the material world.
This performance piece is described as a “Media Mash Up”. What are some of the mediums that will be used during the presentation of Foundlings? Live performance, video, and the principle thing that qualifies it as performance art is the participation of the audience. [Audience members are] treated as though they are shopping for a familial candidate. The main character, Harmon Revienes is described as a “self-actualized Cree” What does that mean exactly? He’s a man who’s claimed his place in the world...firm in his identity, and has pride in his roots. The Gallery Agency, described as a “High End Familial Matchmaking company” is an intriguing idea. What was the inspiration for this piece? There is an ongoing imbalance as far as parental figures go in a lot of northern communities, in particular First Nations, a lot of women raising our children, a lot of absent fathers. There are no direct answers as to why this is. “Foundlings” offers a round about way of having that discussion without laying any blame on anyone’s head.
Open House Dates November 14, 11am December 5, 11am RSVP BGC Academic Programs 38 West 86th Street New York, NY 10024 T 212 501 3019 F 212 501 3065 E admissions@bgc.bard.edu W bgc.bard.edu/admissions
Application Deadlines For full-time and part-time students the deadline is January 3, 2011.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Fellowships and scholarships are available for qualified students.
BGC Galleries 18 West 86th Street New York, NY 10024 T 212 501 3074 W bgc.bard.edu/gallery
the backpage
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October 21, 2010 Down
Across
1. Final 2. Character 4. Bruce or Spike 5. Korean car company 6. Yellow fruit 7. Industrial run off 10. Chicken or beef 11. Master 15. ___-la-la 16. Clusters 17. Cache 19. Coarse, as a voice 20. Lecture scribbles 21. Just so you know 22. Be killed 26. Fish eggs 28. Eaves trough 29. Water resistant sheet 30. Green space 31. Duds 34. Hearing bits 36. Plant to be 38. Uncooked 39. Nothing
3. Flimsy shard 8. Essay 9. Blame 10. Copper or iron 12. Monument 13. Between yellow and red 14. Religious table 16. Yearning for water 18. Mythical medieval creature 21. Trend 23. Fiction 24. Moment 25. Rage 27. Looked for 30. Traffic cones 32. Sporting venue 33. Between good and best 35. Careless 37. Joke 40. Liberated 41. Go in 42. Puff up
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“
the campus comment
”
the newspaper asks itself: What’s your least favourite part of election season?
Martín Waldman, Poli Sci
Joe Howell, English Having to see Rob Ford’s hideous, porcine visage everywhere.
Cara Sabatini, Ethics, Society, & Law
Taylor Ramsay, 4.5th year something
Josee Matte, Geography & Visual Studies Bad YouTube spoofs.
Earthworm Jim, Soil Sciences Slimy dirt bags. And birds.
The fact that Smitherman’s campaign sign obstructs bike locking locations.
HELENE GODERIS
Strategic voting. Oliver Cromwell is dead.
What’s the question again?