The Cascade Vol. 23 No. 18

Vol. 23 Issue 18

July 1, 2015 to July 14, 2015

Mentally preparing ourselves for the possibility of pizza since 1993

and the

the

The

Good Bad Forgotten Exploring BC’s abandoned places

p. 10-11

KINDER MORGAN SURPRISE Energy company approaches local communities and universities — including UFV

p. 3

JAM IN JUBILEE What’s better than a summer musical festival? A summer music festival with a liquor license

p. 13

SUMMERTIME SADNESS Dealing with not-so-seasonal depression, one step at a time

p. 19 ufvcascade.ca

2

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015

UFV Senate recommendation met UFV Board of Governors in private session

News

5

Opinion

9

Culture

13

Arts in Review

17

“We’re not so different, you and I”

Sports & Health

18

Went biking, shit literally happened

The UFV Board of Governors met for their annual planning session and discussed the potential annual review of the Academic Success Centre in-camera.

Why don’t millennials vote?

Politics don’t seem to matter to millennials. Megan Lambert recommends some remedies.

Aboriginal Day drums up a crowd UFV hosted its own version of National Aboriginal Day celebrations, complete with Sto:ló weaving, games of slahal, dance performances, and drum-making.

In Sense8, the Wachowskis and sci-fi writer J. Michael Straczynski take interconnected narrative to new (visual) places.

Maxwell Scott tried biking from Chilliwack to Abbotsford — and the results were pretty Fraser Valley.

Recording ban errs on the side of secrecy What was it about the Writing Centre that made students care? Well, for a few dozen students to care enough to stand on the Green for a few hours with a megaphone. On one hand, this was, relatively for UFV, a big deal — students don’t self-organize beyond the occasional group event, and this was a direct response to the people who run UFV. On the other, if you look for the petition that started the short-lived protest, you’ll find that the page is now a 404 error. On Facebook, no updates since February. How many signatures were there? Weren’t there a lot of heart-felt comments? It’s gone.

Also ending (for now) is the slow, but steady progress of the matter through UFV governance — yet here, at the end, in a conference room in June miles from campus, is another barely detectable blip that raises a few questions.

The Board of Governors has final approval on most major decisions made at UFV, and decided to make all discussion of the Writing Centre and Academic Success Centre private (in camera). When two writers from The Cascade showed up for the public session of the board’s meeting (a series of reports, an activity update, a good smile at the UFV convocation proposal video that made it on the local news), they were told any audio recording of the meeting, which is used as a back-up and source for any reporting, was not allowed.

This too was decided in camera. (So far, our notebooks are safe.) The board’s reasons for both are unconvincing, and similar in the way they try to insulate their words and decisions from the people who are most affected by these meetings.

When it comes to recording, The Cascade’s writers were told there are concerns about what would be done with the recordings, and how they would be used. The biggest problem, board chair Barry Delaney said, was the idea that these recordings could be archived or uploaded online.

The Cascade has no interest in putting 150-minute board meetings on Soundcloud — recordings, as any student that records lectures knows, are simply there as a more accurate document than subjective, incomplete notes ever are — but even if we did, all this would be doing is making a public meeting more readily accessible by the public. Is the board worried other universities (ie, the competition) will start listening in? That outsiders will get caught up on meeting jokes?

That students will use them as sleep aids and absorb subliminal messages of international student recruitment and community partnerships?

To go from this uncertainty to a direct ban goes against the basic standards of journal-

www.ufvcascade.ca Volume 23 · Issue 18 Room S2111 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Editor-in-Chief kodie@ufvcascade.ca Kodie Cherrille Managing Editor valerie@ufvcascade.ca Valerie Franklin Business Manager jennifer@ufvcascade.ca Jennifer Trithardt-Tufts Production and Design Editor anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi Copy Editor katie@ufvcascade.ca Katie Stobbart News Editor megan@ufvcascade.ca Megan Lambert Opinion Editor alex@ufvcascade.ca Alex Rake Culture Editor nadine@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt Arts in Review Editor michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular

Image: Soundcloud edited by Anthony Biondi

ism in Canada — but also parts of the province’s mandate to boards. In “Governance and Disclosure Guidelines for Governing Boards of British Columbia Public Sector Organizations,” which foregrounds the role of “corporate governance,” board members are told to be prepared for the added visibility that role brings. “The scrutiny of public sector organizations may also extend to board members,” it says. “Therefore, individuals joining public sector organization boards should be aware that their actions are potentially subject to the same level of interest and inquiry as other members of the public sector, such as public servants and politicians.”

This move, even if it may be temporary (policy creation is scheduled to begin in August), suggests a discomfort with speaking on the record. One is always less selfconscious and more comfortable speaking in a small group of people one knows, but this is not the way a Board of Governors for a sprawling, public university is intended to be run, even if policies allow the board to create rules as it wishes.

“The board should speak with one voice,” the same document says. “Once debate in the boardroom is over and a decision is made, that decision stands as a united position of the board.” The board no doubt agrees wholeheartedly with this statement. This statement also, critically, says this happens only after debate, a step that is not to be repressed unless it falls under the particular definition of an in camera meeting.

Generally, in camera, as defined by academic institutions, is to be used in sensitive situations: a budget yet to be finalized, a hiring or firing decision, plans involving the university and a third party, or security or public safety matters. The UFV Board of Governors applies this a little more broadly: the con-

troversy of the Writing Centre did not stop Senate from discussing it multiple times, yet here we are.

The board has an additional obligation in its connection to the Ministry of Advanced Education, and so there is perhaps the sense of a greater need for maintaining an efficient, wrinkle-free exterior. Still, the use of in camera, even if called necessary when raising tuition or deciding the future of student services, rather than defusing a contentious situation, has the effect of sweeping it under the rug — at UFV, in the summer, and even in full semester swing, most people, especially students, do not have time to give to pay close attention to yet another level of government, and it is this, rather than the given acceptance of the university community, that allows this to pass.

The Cascade, of course, can contact board members for comment after the fact. We can and will do more to improve how we reach students in the next year. But the board also guides its own operations — the presence of student media is not forcing it to make the choices it is making.

Here’s a quote from Chair Delaney. And here’s the context: he was speaking about meeting people in the community, the questions they ask when they find out the person they’re speaking to is on a board. Do they get paid? No, it’s a volunteer position (and looks good on LinkedIn).

“We do it because we have a real passion and love for higher education,” he said.

Higher education as a privilege? An idea to strive towards? Or a standard of academic inquiry that says, show the work, and be open to criticism.

—The Cascade Editorial Board

Sports Editor vanessa@ufvcascade.ca Vanessa Broadbent Interim Webmaster michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular Production Assistant eugene@ufvcascade.ca Eugene Kulaga Contributors Ekanki Chawla, Mitch Huttema, Ekaterina Marenkov, Maxwell Scott, and Jeffrey Trainor.

Illustrations and Comics Kenichi Kajiyama Cover photo: Vanessa Broadbent Edits: Anthony Biondi

Printed By International Web exPress The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It provides a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a circulation of 1500 and is distributed at UFV campuses and throughout Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission. The Cascade is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national cooperative of over 50 university and college newspapers from Victoria to St. John’s. The Cascade follows the CUP ethical policy concerning material of a prejudicial or oppressive nature.

Submissions are preferred in electronic format through e-mail. Please send submissions in “.txt” or “.doc” format only.

Articles and letters to the editor must be typed.

The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic, or libellous content. The writer’s name and student number must be submitted with each submission. Letters to the editor must be under 250 words if intended for print. Only one letter to the editor per writer in any given edition.

Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, Cascade staff and collective, or associated members.

www.ufvcascade.ca

News

Briefs

3

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015

Kinder Morgan approaches UFV with potential offer ALEX RAKE

THE CASCADE

Speaker opposes raising of pride flag ABBOTSFORD — Speaking out against the rainbow flag raised at Abbotsford City Hall June 25, resident Richard Peachey presented at the June 29 City Council meeting with about 20 supporters. He argued that because the flag is controversial — stating that it promotes sexual immorality — Council should have discussed it more thoroughly before raising a flag that may not represent the views of the whole community.

Mayor Henry Braun disagreed: “I see this as loving our neighbour,” he said, explaining that the flag represents diversity and acceptance. He said because Council has raised flags like the Canuck Place charity flag in the past, it would be a “lack of integrity” to disallow the pride flag. At time of print, the City does not have a flag policy with guidelines regarding which flags are and aren’t appropriate to raise.

Homelessness activists challenge Abbotsford bylaws ABBOTSFORD — A group of lawyers from the Pivot Legal Society are representing homelessness activists in court this week to oppose the City of Abbotsford’s bylaws prohibiting homeless people from sleeping in public parks, According to the prosecutor, the bylaws are unconstitutional and discriminatory. The group is suing the City for inaction after officials dumped manure on a homeless camp in 2013.

— The Abbotsford News

Transit plebiscite results to be released on Thursday, July 2 LANGLEY — The results from the Metro Vancouver transit referendum will be released at 10 a.m. on Thursday, July 2, according to a press release sent out yesterday. The proposed 5 per cent PST increase would apply to cities in the Metro-Vancouver area including Langley, Maple Ridge, and Surrey, and would fund a $7.5 billion transit improvement plan. TransLink says it could add more service and more public transit vehicles to those areas.

— CBC

UFV profs plan to replace scarecrows with drones

CHILLIWACK (UFV) — Agriculture professor Tom Baumann and Faculty of Applied and Technical Studies professor Myles Andrew are programming unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor berry crops in the Lower Mainland quietly and in specific patterns. The drones are meant to be an alternative to netting and cannons to scare away birds.

The Cascade will continue to cover this story in the coming weeks.

— The Vancouver Sun

UFV is one of many universities approached by Kinder Morgan with potential financial support in the last year.

Kinder Morgan has approached several municipal governments and post-secondary institutions with benefit deals, in the form of scholarships or other funding and public projects, should the company’s controversial Trans Mountain pipeline be approved.

“It’s just another way to provide legacies for those communities in which you operate,” Kinder Morgan spokesperson Lizette Parsons Bell said regarding a recent deal with KPU in an interview with the Surrey Leader.

According to a staff report from the May 19 Chilliwack council meeting, Kinder Morgan mentioned that while negotiating the $800,000 benefit deal with Chilliwack, they have also approached UFV. “Details of the amount of funding to be offered to UFV has not yet been made public, but it is expected to be a substantial amount,” the staff report says.

UFV director of communications Dave Pinton says Kinder Morgan approached the university, but there is nothing currently in the works.

“We are not pursuing any partnerships, and we have not accepted any contributions or donations from Trans Mountain.” he said in an email.

Image: UFV Flickr

Although UFV has been approached by Kinder Morgan, director of communications Dave Pinton says UFV has no current plans to accept donations.

The details of that initial conversation between UFV and Kinder Morgan have not been made public.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) has recently become one of the BC universities to accept donations from Kinder Morgan, finalising a deal last week for $300,000 over 20 years if the pipeline is approved. While KPU provost and academic vice presi-

dent Salvador Fererra says accepting the deal does not imply the university’s support of the pipeline, some students disagree.

The Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) released a statement saying the donation is a form of support: “KPU’s acceptance of this money amounts to a tacit endorsement of the pipeline project.

Projects like this serve to acceler-

ate climate change and cannot be allowed to move forward.”

Kinder Morgan has also approached Simon Fraser University and Thompson Rivers University. At the beginning of April, TRU accepted a deal for $500,000 over the next 20 years.

The Cascade will continue to cover this story in the coming weeks.

Fair Grounds coffee tasting held to stir up student feedback MEGAN LAMBERT THE CASCADE

On Tuesday, June 23, the Student Union Society (SUS) held a free tasting for coffee and refreshments in the atrium of the Student Union Building (SUB).

About 75 people visited the station throughout the course of the day.

Students were able to vote on which coffee should be served in the new SUS coffee shop, set to open in Fall 2015.

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Let us know!

news@ufvcascade.ca

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Image: Megan Lambert

4

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Welding students left holding their breath UFV conducts air quality test after new ventilation system leaves residue MEGAN LAMBERT THE CASCADE

Three weeks ago, 11 UFV welding students filed through Student Union Society (SUS) doors to make a semi-formal complaint to president Thomas Davies about the new ventilation system at the Trades and Technology Centre (TTC) in Chilliwack.

“I’ve got significant concerns from students in various welding programs regarding facility issues for the ventilation air flow system,” he said at the last SUS board meeting.

“At this point, I’ve been touch with facilities and the dean of Applied and Technical studies.” Davies then went on to say that he had only just received the complaint the previous day.

The problem started at the beginning of the winter semester when the university decided to upgrade the welding booths. Before the construction, each booth had an open roof with a snorkel to pick up debris, and there was a larger fan in the welding shop.

When the air quality was tested before, associate welding professor Pat McGurk says the results turned out well — save for higher

traces of one metal.

“We have old samples ... which showed higher levels of chrome — above the exposure limit, I believe. All other levels were lower than the eight-hour exposure limit. That meant we could weld in the booths without respirators,” he says.

“But because they’ve changed the conditions and put a hood on, we have to [take] a new test.”

During the semester, the university installed hoods on the booths with small fans at the top.

These fans are controlled by a sensor that adjusts the speed of the fan according to how much work the welder is doing, then turns off as soon as the welder leaves. The fan at the top of the hood is meant to pick up any fumes that the snorkel would not.

The university remodelled 10 booths out of 40 in the shop at once. There are over 40 students in both morning and afternoon welding classes, so in the meantime the welding faculty set up temporary booths elsewhere in the shop.

McGurk says the hoods were supposed to be more efficient, saving energy with the varying

speeds. However, the welding students started noticing a buildup of residue after the system was installed.

“What the students have been noticing is there is a lot more particulate showing up in the booth,” he says. McGurk added that the powder in the booths was not there before, and guesses that the particulate is confined to the booth instead of escaping into the room at large.

However, McGurk says nothing is set in stone until the air samples come back.

“We don’t know if there’s a problem yet,” he says.

According to McGurk, UFV has brought in a private company to take air samples that was to have the results by Monday, June 8.

Those test results are a week late at time of print.

For now, welding students are required to wear respirators to protect them from potentially harmful chemicals while they finish their projects. The Cascade will continue to cover this story in the following weeks.

This article was published online on June 17, 2015.

Image: Megan Lambert

Welding students now need to wear respirators to protect themselves from potentially harmful chemicals.

Science on Purpose

Something fishy in our water

UFV alumna shares her findings on the impact local developments have on freshwater streams EKANKI CHAWLA CONTRIBUTOR

With the upcoming commercial development on the corner of Hwy 1 and McCallum Rd. and the various residential properties springing up around town, Abbotsford seems to be expanding each day. However, Abbotsford is also home to parks, agricultural land, green space, and water, which can see impact from pollution and littering.

UFV alumna Ashleigh Yakemchuk’s last research project at UFV asked if a concrete jungle and the rivers running through it could happily co-exist. Having just graduated with a major in physical geography at UFV, Yakemchuk researched the impact of the Auguston development on the water geochemistry of the Clayburn watershed.

Her research was part of a bigger project called the Global Rivers Observatory.

Based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, this global project aims to analyze the dissolved oxygen content, dissolved nutrients, major ions, and water temperature of major river systems. Yakemchuk says she got involved with this research project when her geography professor Steven

Marsh sent out emails looking for volunteers to take water samples.

Yakemchuk is the first to investigate the water samples of the Clayburn creek since Auguston was developed in the early 2000s. She analyzed two sites — one above the development and one below.

Yakemchuk took a trip with the samples to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), a partner of the Global Rivers Observatory.

“I went to WHOI to analyze the nutrients and major ions,” she says. “We don’t have the technology to do it here.”

She found the site above Auguston had higher concentrations of the major anions chlorine, sulphate, and fluoride. Below Auguston, there were higher concentrations of potassium, magnesium, and sodium.

After looking at the data, Yakemchuk says she had to try and come up with explanations for why there were higher concentrations of these elements in the first place.

Draining into the stream below Auguston, the Ledgeview Golf Course applies potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus fertilizer two to five times a year. Yakemchuk explains that this probably influenced her larger concentration of potassium.

“Whatever’s not [absorbed] by the grass

is carried into the storm drains with rain.

The storm drains then flow directly into the Fraser River,” she says.

Sulphate was higher in the above site, but Yakemchuk had no clear explanation for that.

“The above site did have a lot of houses up there, but it was more hobby farms,” she says. “They might be spreading manure.”

This could explain why nitrates existed in higher concentrations in the above site, as they are found in manure and agricultural fertilizers.

Yakemchuk also looked at temperature and dissolved oxygen. She explains just how important these factors are to Clayburn, a salmon-bearing watershed.

“Salmon are very particular about what kind of water temperatures they can handle,” she says. “So, [if] temperatures get too hot, they can’t spawn or be there.” Monitoring dissolved oxygen levels is also important — if they get too low, salmon can have trouble breathing. Yakemchuk says salmon are very important to the Fraser Valley, as they are a vital part of a river’s ecosystem.

“If we start losing the salmon, we start losing other types of valuable aquatic life in the watershed,” she says.

In addition to higher nutrients in the water, Yakemchuk also came across littering.

Although she wasn’t testing for smaller plastics in the water, she says many people dump cushions, pots, plants, cups, and other little plastics.

Next year, Yakemchuk is working with the Catalyst Agri-Innovations Society and researching sustainable agriculture. Her next project involves using duckweed to produce clean wastewater.

“There’s no shortage of duckweed,” Yakemchuk says. “Duckweed likes high nutrients, dirty water, and high temperatures.”

She says that wastewater from the duckweed can be used on farms in lieu of using freshwater, which would reduce the amount of freshwater we use.

In the future, Yakemchuk says she’s interested in projects that involve looking at developmental impacts on water.

“We’re slowly developing everywhere.

It’d be nice to get a handle on how it actually impacts our watershed.”

With files from Megan Lambert.

5

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

As Academic Success Centre readies for fall, board decides on review in private session MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

At its final meeting of the academic year, the Board of Governors considered the product of over two months of debate and reconsideration surrounding the formation of an Academic Success Centre (ASC) in place of the then-operating Writing Centre: a motion from Senate asking for clarification, preventative measures, and careful evaluation, and a review prepared by the academic planning and priorities committee (APPC).

However, this discussion unfolded entirely in private, as part of a three-hour in-camera session before the board’s regular public meeting.

Board chair Barry Delaney explains in an email that this decision was made to protect the members of the Board of Governors.

“Due to the controversial nature of the [Writing Centre] transition, we chose to have the discussion in-camera so that the views of the individual board members would remain confidential, knowing that the collective decision of the board would be made public,” he says.

The results of this meeting were not made available by press time, and, if normal process is followed, will not be disclosed until the agenda notes for the next board meeting are compiled in September.

University secretary Al Wiseman says information may be shared before then.

“Whenever there is time sensitivity involved or an important reason to make the information public sooner (e.g. to help carry forward University business in

Image: Michael Scoular

The Board of Governors includes president Mark Evered (back row, centre) and chair Barry Delaney (back row, right). a timely manner), the Secretary consults with the Chair and President to determine how to proceed,” he says in an email. That consultation is scheduled to happen later this week.

For many, while the importance of writing support at UFV provoked comment from students, faculty, and administration alike over the past months, equally significant was what this situation represented for open discourse and collegial decisionmaking at UFV. A small student protest in February on the Abbotsford campus asked why the student service change was made completely at the administrative level, while the APPC considered the same question — if the Writing Centre was an “educational

service” or a “resource centre,” any change was required to be preceded by an evaluation passed through Senate, a body made up of faculty, administrators, students, and staff.

The reason for the board’s taking the matter private was presaged in the first APPC meeting specifically focused on the change when VP Academic Eric Davis referred to an “obligation of confidentiality.” Because these questions were happening after the change already began, the contracts and employment details of individuals were, he said, involved in the conversation.

While subsequent committee and Senate meetings opened up the subject to public comment, all consultation and input cedes

to the board’s decision and direction. In other recent matters, including the discontinuance of the fashion design diploma and the name change of the teacher education program (to teacher education department), Senate’s recommendation, created during a public session, has been discussed and finalized in private by the board.

Meanwhile, preparations to make the Academic Success Centre ready for the fall semester continue. The APPC’s review raised several concerns about the ASC’s rationale and operating model, while also mentioning the absence of documents such as a proposal for the creation of the ASC and closure of the Writing Centre that would have made the review more complete. But director of teaching and learning Maureen Wideman, who is heading the ASC start-up, says that the need for two separate proposals comes down to a difference in definition.

“That’s their opinion,” she says. “What they received is all we had. There was no proposal to close the Writing Centre because the Writing Centre did not close ... It’s open, it’s just transitioning to an ASC.” Right now, seven tutors have been hired and begun to work for the ASC. VP students Jody Gordon’s budget outline detailed 40 tutors as part of the service.

But Wideman is confident in the progress made so far. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble meeting the demand,” she says.

“We already have people dropping off applications for the fall and we haven’t even posted [the job openings] yet.”

Gordon adds that the budget the APPC scrutinized, which was

called inadequate for “the plan’s goals and scope of activities and programs supported,” is already outdated. An additional full-time staff position has been added, and an undisclosed amount of funding has been promised to the ASC, adding to the service’s annual budget previously cited at $300,000.

“We look at this as, yes, if there’s a need to support [the Academic Success Centre] and make it more flexible, we can find that,” she says.

Gordon sees the ASC as a way to curb students leaving UFV. “If we’re going to lose a student, we’ll lose them after first year,” Gordon says. “So we have a responsibility to look at that data and be responsible with how we’re going to respond.”

Tutor training has already extended to the psychology resource room on the Abbotsford campus, and Gordon mentions that at other institutions, ASC tutoring sometimes takes place in residence, not just in the centre. An online booking system allows students to choose from among the two full-time staff (whose tutoring availability “may not be as readily available” as student tutors) and the roster of undergraduate tutors, and Gordon and Wideman add that, from what they’re hearing, the changes the ASC will bring have support.

In the absence of any information about the board regarding a thorough evaluation of the service, student surveys are being encouraged. “So far, everything’s been very good,” Wideman says.

And Gordon says this includes instructors. “For every faculty that’s said that, ‘We’re not sure if we support this,’ we’ve got many more who say they do.”

Academic Advising to have new course-planning program for fall MEGAN LAMBERT THE CASCADE

If you’ve ever paused to consider, halfway through your degree, what it would be like to take criminology instead of creative writing — UFV has a new system for you.

As general, arts, and science advice services move into the third floor of the SUB, UFV has purchased a new component called Ellucian DegreeWorks to accompany Ellucian Banner, the program that tracks your academic transcript. The cost of both DegreeWorks and Banner, including hardware and software costs as well as training for staff, totals $235,000.

The program allows the student to “try out” different degrees to see what program paths need and how the classes they’ve already taken fit in. DegreeWorks interprets the requirements in the academic calendar, such as the mandatory lab science in the bachelor of arts, and matches up the required courses with what the student has previously taken to see what’s left.

Deputy registrar Darren Francis says this is currently done manually, but that the new program will allow advisors to talk more with the student about what they are looking for.

“In my mind, a human advisor is to create a human connection,” he says. He adds

that an advisor should focus on the student’s goals and aspirations, and the new program can do the grunt-work of figuring out how to get them there.

According to Francis, the programspecific advisors who are staying in their respective departments, like criminology, will also have access to DegreeWorks.

A year from now, students will also be able to access the second phase of the program, a student planner, online. Students will be able to log in and access “what if” scenarios to experiment with different program paths.

“A computer system can help give you more scenarios than just writing out the

core requirements,” he says.

The program also has an analytic component, which will collect data on which courses are more in demand. Francis says this may help academic planning in the future.

“If we know what students are looking to take in the what-if scenarios, we can track that back and say, ‘Oh, maybe we should offer more Business 400 courses,’” he says.

The first phase of the program will be installed in time for the fall semester.

This article was published online on June 17, 2015.

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015

SUS board discusses plans for the fall: Welcome Week, food bank, and the ERC

for the week; the events committee is planning an orientation day, as well as an appreciation day after Welcome Week for volunteers.

MEGAN LAMBERT THE CASCADE

While UFV campuses have fallen quiet during the exam period of the early summer session, the Student Union Society (SUS) is keeping busy with preparations for the fall.

The SUS board of directors called their June 25 meeting to order at 6:58 p.m. after a five-minute in-camera session and some technical difficulties connecting to professional studies rep Derek Ward-Hall via Skype, who is currently based at the UFV Chandigarh campus in India.

While most of the discussion revolved around planning, a motion was passed to remove the SUS funding for students’ extra educational development, such as conferences or workshops. In the 2015-16 budget, $8,000 was allocated for students who were approved for it. However, VP Internal Ricky Coppola explained that because UFV has its own dducational enhancement fund, it renders the SUS line item redundant.

He proposed to the board to move the funding over to the food bank or the student emergency fund.

VP External Sukhi Brar agreed, arguing that UFV has a thorough process to assess the benefit of additional training and the student’s need for funding, where students fill out forms and they are approved. She said SUS does not have that process.

The motion passed.

From there, the executives shared their reports from this month and plans for the following year, including stocking the food bank, stabilizing the equalities committee, and planning for Welcome Week in September.

Filling the food bank Over the past couple of weeks, Brar has been stocking shelves in the new space for the SUS food bank, located on the second floor of the Student Union Building (SUB). At the meeting, Brar said she has met with the Abbotsford food bank, and the SUS food bank is now a satellite location, mean-

www.ufvcascade.ca

Image: Megan Lambert

The SUS Board of Directors met last week to discuss event planning for the upcoming academic year. ing it will receive stock from the community food bank.

She explained that SUS is deciding on a system on which the food bank operates. In the past, the Abbotsford food bank has operated on the points system — each food item is worth a certain amount of points, and each visitor is given points to spend.

However, Brar notes this causes problems with stock.

“They really struggled to meet all the people that come to them.

It was really hard to keep shelves stocked,” she says.

The Abbotsford food bank currently works on a hamper system, where visitors are given a basic bundle of different food items.

Brar says SUS is looking at a combination of the two systems — having a base and leaving room for students to spend their points on additional items.

“Because of the food bank delivering a lot of our food, we have this stuff that doesn’t fit into what goes into a hamper — so we have extra items,” she says. “So people have some flexibility in what they’re getting.”

The equalities committee and Equalities Resource Centre According to Brar, the equalities committee has recently finalized their mandate and goals.

College of Arts rep Ekaterina Marenkov said that some students are voicing concerns about the Equalities Resource Centre (ERC), since the planning has stopped for the time being.

Marenkov asked if the equalities committee meetings were made available to the public, and Brar said the meetings are closed but the minutes are available upon request.

Brar went on to say that the equalities committee is beginning to work on the idea of the ERC. “There’s a lot of confusion around the equalities committee and the Equalities Resource Centre,” she says. “There seems to be this notion that a proposal was put forward and SUS took a proposal and passed it, but that isn’t the case. We approved a space and then tasked this committee to work together to create what that space will be.”

Marenkov asked if students outside of the committee can still

submit a proposal, and Brar responded by saying the committee has only just figured out their purpose, and that there will be an opportunity in the future for external input from the broader UFV community.

She added that she hasn’t heard from concerned students and that she would be open to meeting with those who have questions.

“I invite anyone to come to me and talk about it,” she says.

“There’s so much pressure on [the equalities committee] to have the space be a certain thing, and I know that stems from people being really excited for what it could be.”

Strategizing Welcome Week Formerly known as Weeks of Welcome, Welcome Week is a condensed form of the annual fall semester kick-off for UFV students.

Brar said the events committee is currently brainstorming and determining the cost of activities.

Suggestions from the committee include a concert, the traditional BBQ, a comedy night, and a foam party.

Brar said a large focus will be placed on recruiting volunteers

Representative reports Faculty of health sciences rep Ria Geluk said that because most classes aren’t in session, she had little to report.

Board of Governors rep Greg Stickland said the annual planning session at Harrison Hot Springs on June 19 was his and Brar’s last meeting with the Board of Governors. He added that the Board heard presentations from the committee at large and talked about goals for the next year.

Ward-Hall had no report — but he did note that UFV Chandigarh has no student union, clubs, or associations.

Faculty of Science rep Joshua Wilke said he is in contact with the Faculty of Science, attending meetings and familiarizing himself with the department’s inner workings.

Faculty of Arts rep Ekaterina Marenkov had nothing to report.

Aboriginal rep Jennifer Janik explained that Aboriginal Access is having weekly meetings to coordinate a potential speaker series.

Executive goal plans The executives also presented their goal plans to the board — a practice introduced to the Board of Directors last year. The goal plans were created to give the executives a timeline to refer to in their term, and to help the board to offer advice and keep the elected executives accountable. The executives offered brief comments about the year ahead.

The Cascade will provide further detail about those plans in the coming weeks, as the plans have not been finalised and approved by the board.

The meeting adjourned at 9:30 p.m. The next SUS Board of Directors meeting is July 30 at 6:30 p.m. in room A2428 at the CEP campus in Chilliwack.

You’ll fit right in.

All UFV students are invited to write for The Cascade! Drop by our new office in room S2111 (at the top of the stairs in the SUB) to say hi, or email valerie@ufvcascade.ca.

7

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

SNAPSHOTS

Image: Anthony Biondi

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

Image: Kenichi Kajiyama

Image: Anthony Biondi

Image: Anthony Biondi

Church traffic on Sundays

The SUB closes too early

Confessions of a “terrorist”

Registration needs a makeover

On Sunday, I was driving to work around 10 a.m. — only to slam on my brakes 500 metres from my house. There’s a church at the intersection where I live, and there were so many left-turners that I waited a good five minutes to even approach the light.

This wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t over 100 churches in Abbotsford. Every couple of streets, I had to bite my lip as parking lots filled up and the line-up of cars on the streets grew longer and longer.

On one hand, I felt as frustrated as I would with any kind of traffic: why can’t people be 10 minutes early? However, I also smiled to myself because it was just so Abbotsford. It made me feel very fond of my city, for some reason. People were very polite and let me pass when it was appropriate, which in a lot of ways makes church traffic a little more bearable than regular traffic. In the end, I got through it. Church traffic isn’t so bad.

I’m sure that every student can remember the times of our youth where we would come home late at night and try to sneak in, ever so quietly, without waking our parents.

Usually, it wasn’t that hard. But every once in a while I would forget my house keys and have to ring the doorbell or call until they awoke and unlocked the door for me.

As I got older, late-night escapades became only a memory of youth and I was happy to be done with the days of being locked out at night — until the new Student Union Building opened. If you haven’t noticed, the SUB also locks its doors in the evening, but SUS isn’t giving us as late of a curfew as even the strictest of parents would. The SUB locks its doors at 5:00 every evening.

This means that the only way to get into the building after closing time is by calling campus security to come and unlock the door. And as the officers trudge across the campus lawn to open the SUB’s doors for waiting students, I can see the same look in their eyes as in my father’s every time he had to come and unlock the door for me at 2 a.m. It’s a hassle for everybody.

Thanks to the latest from the Senate of Canada, I will soon be considered guilty of hate crime according to the Harper Government.

Because I take part in the BDS Campaign (boycotts, divestments, and sanctions) against Israel in order to place stress on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, according to the Harper government and Bill C-51 I am guilty of hate crime. This means I am vulnerable to having my digital privacy violated and even to being thrown in jail.

Of 72 senators, 44 voted in favour of Bill C-51. The bill has yet to be approved by the Governor General of Canada before it can be passed into law, though the Governor General is merely a puppet position that remains as another example of our archaic and corrupt system of government.

Bill C-51 is so ambiguous and vague that it defeats its original purpose of fighting terrorism and picks up and joins the ranks of terrorists everywhere by removing Canadian citizens’ rights to believe whatever they bloody want to. Welcome to 1983, because 1984 is just around the corner.

Registration for the fall has started up, and it’s time again to navigate UFV’s labyrinthine website.

Online registration should be convenient, but it can often take the good part of a day to sniff out all the information you need on different classes before making your decisions. Info like course descriptions, credit values, program requirements, and even class times are found on completely seperate pages. For newer students, not knowing which tabs to open on your browser beforehand can lead to a lot of hassle.

So why not have this kind of course information on the registration page itself? And why can’t myUFV keep a record of which of your program requirements you have met and which you have yet to meet? Keeping this information all in one spot instead of randomly across the website would not only make registration less confusing for students, but would reflect positively on UFV’s ability to keep up with technology and design their website for efficient use.

Megan Lambert

Vanessa Broadbent

Mitch Huttema

Alex Rake

Happy Whatever Day: what’s worth celebrating?

MEGAN LAMBERT THE CASCADE

One Christmas at my house, there were so many presents littering the floor that we had to tiptoe to get to a chair. After the third gift, we were merely unwrapping for the sake of getting through the massive sea of gifts.

Celebrations have been a part of every human society in history for good reason: they bring us together. However, some holidays are celebrated for no real reason other than tradition and a reason to give and receive gifts.

I have a few friends who are so reluctant to celebrate holidays that they’ll give Christmas gifts two weeks early or after December 25. They insist holidays shouldn’t exist anyway, because every day should be special.

But to a certain extent, I

disagree. Religious, statutory, and personal holidays like birthdays and anniversaries all have different meanings and levels of importance.

Religious holidays Religious holidays are sweet — if you belong to that religion.

As an agnostic with a mostly agnostic family, it makes little to no sense for us to buy each other a bunch of crap for the sake of celebrating someone we don’t believe was the son of God. The only reason we go out shopping, host massive dinners, and make awkward small talk with relatives we never normally hang out with is that it’s cultural.

Coming from an Anglo-Saxon Protestant background, my family is simply used to putting in the effort on December 25 because our ancestors did it. Because it’s so ingrained in our culture, we

don’t think too deeply about the meaning of Christmas and how we’re possibly perverting it with our gluttonous gift-gobbling. We just do it for the family we don’t usually make time for, the gifts we wouldn’t buy ourselves, and the leftover turkey sandwiches.

Statutory holidays Getting the day off to do whatever you want because it’s mandated by the government is great.

Getting paid more to work that day because it’s mandated by the government is even better. Stat holidays allow us to take a holiday for ourselves, which means that we don’t have the burden of buying gifts or attending parties we would rather not go to. We choose how we celebrate. This makes the day more special, because it could make you the happiest.

Even if you work on a stat, at

least you get a little bit of extra money to toss into your piggy bank. Either way, stats are a great way to celebrate your tolerance of remedial duties and rude customers.

Personal holidays When it comes down to it, these are the holidays we should celebrate the most.

It’s great to get gifts on your birthday, because those gifts say, “Hey, I’m glad you were born.”

Anniversaries are just as special; an anniversary lets a special person know that you’re thankful you met them, even if they leave dirty dishes in the sink sometimes.

Unlike holidays such as Christmas or Halloween, where big box stores bombard you with cheap merchandise and advertisements leave you with skyhigh expectations, a birthday or

anniversary is unique to you and your family. Birthday and anniversary gifts aren’t just generic gadgets coming from the clearance section of a department store, but most of the time are purchased with consideration for the person’s needs or interests. These are days that can’t exactly be taken over by corporations, but ones we actually have to put time and effort into celebrating.

We also have special days like Earth Day, where we’re encouraged to power off after 8 p.m., National Best Friend Day, where we post pictures of ourselves being goofy with our BFFs, and the list goes on. The answer to whether or not we should celebrate special days like Cat Day is simple: if you want to celebrate something, do so.

8

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

9

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Satire

Beloved Cascade reporter let go after CSIS arrest REPP LACEMONT THE CASCADE

Repp Porter, long-time news reporter for The Cascade, was let go Tuesday evening after CSIS officers arrested him in his Abbotsford home.

Porter’s elderly neighbour Eve Draup witnessed the arrest, reporting that the officers claimed they were arresting him for “incitement of terrorism, maybe.”

“They were knocking at that nice boy’s door very loudly,” said Draup. “It was four in the afternoon! I was trying to sleep.”

CSIS began investigating Porter after local personality Scott Protter published an article in The Cascade last May, arguing that the reporter lacks journalistic integri-

ty. This possible lack of integrity was a red flag for CSIS, because it meant that Porter could justifiably not be a reporter at all, but a terrorist.

After a month of investigation, it became clear that Porter was “90 per cent terroristcapable,” according to CSIS spokesman Hugh Tilly-Tarianism. “It was discovered that he follows the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) on Twitter, and they’re very anti-government, very antiCanada.”

Critics of the arrest cite the fact that Bill C-51, which gives CSIS the power to “disrupt,” not arrest, those who exhibit anti-Canadian thought, and that this points to just how bad the lack of oversight is and will be.

Tilly-Tarianism disagrees. “Porter is a bad man, maybe,” he says. “We’re just trying to protect our great nation from any and all threats, except climate change.

“Besides, Canada wanted to see Bill C-51 in action, and we delivered. Nobody’s really protested it. Get over it.”

Cascade Editor-in-Chief Kodie Cherrille made a statement on the decision to let Porter go at a press conference held by and for himself, alone in his office.

“Repp was like a brother to me,” he said to himself. “But CSIS is like a bigger brother, so to speak. When your big brother tells you to ruin your little brother’s life, you just do it.

“It’s also really inconvenient to have an employee holed up somewhere in Ottawa

under allegations of terrorism. Like, how’s he supposed to ignore my emails if he can’t even see them?”

Scott Protter also commented on the decision, shouting outside Cherrille’s closed office during the press conference that “the opportunity to hire an unbiased reporter — like me, perhaps? — has arrived! Be reasonable!”

There are rumours circulating that Repp Porter escaped CSIS custody and is now living in disguise as The Cascade’s new news reporter, Repp Lacemont. However, these rumours are unsubstantiated and shut up.

A beginner’s guide to how to get millennials to vote MEGAN LAMBERT THE CASCADE

The first step to getting ballots in boxes is simple: stop thinking millennials don’t want to vote.

The truth is that we can and do want to be involved in politics — but the amount of research and effort it takes to make an informed decision takes time that could be used for other, more important things.

I understand the outrage that comes from calling politics “boring” or “unimportant,” but they are those things to youth, and I’ll explain why.

In the information age, millennials everywhere have the ability to research political parties and construct an informed opinion.

If we wanted, we could subscribe to political reporters on Twitter, read about elections on Facebook, and even peek at the front page of the Globe and Mail or National Post when we’re waiting in line for our coffee orders. It’s getting easier and easier to understand politics — but the problem is that it’s still a lot of work.

Even with so much available to us, there is still history, bias, and language used by politicians and political reporters that can take years of studying political science

Image: Nipatsara Bureepia/ Shutterstock

“The trick is to make politics interesting.” to even understand. For those whose interests lie elsewhere, it can be intimidating to join in the discussion having very little to contribute.

Besides, why would we?

We have it pretty good.

Compared to other countries, Canada has a pretty stable political system, low crime rates, and many people living above the poverty line. Corporate giants

dominate the market, constantly innovating ways to make life simpler for us (here, I am thinking of pre-wrapped dishwasher tablets and K-cups).

Life is fairly easy for the average Canadian. We could go years living happily enough without noticing the effects of irresponsible budgeting or laws that encroach on our privacy online.

Politicians know this, and apart

from them warning us “not to vote for those guys” they leave us alone.

Those who are pursuing journalism, informed about politics, or writing futuristic dystopian novels are more aware than most of the dangers of a society that ignores its government. Simply put, the government gets away with stuff just like a child stealing snacks out of the cupboard — if nobody is watching, they won’t get in trouble.

The answer seems simple: have more eyes watching. Bring more clicks to your articles, more voices to your protest, and more ears to your broadcasts. I can hear a chorus of whining from the tiny roundtable of journalists inside my head, slamming down stacks of analytic data and screaming, “We’re trying! Just look at our Twitter! What more can we do?”

However, it’s not about writing more — I feel like getting millennials interested in voting comes down to writing smarter.

When I read a 750-word article of a political nature, I usually need a separate tab to look up words and phrases I don’t understand.

The tiny journalists facepalm when I don’t immediately know what they mean by “caucus” or “party discipline.” But those journalists shouldn’t, and neither

should I when I’m explaining what the Student Union Society (SUS) does. Instead, let’s go back to basics and make politics accessible for everyone.

For instance, we could highlight those words in articles and link them to definitions so readers can learn as they go.

We could continue to support non-partisan organizations like Elections Canada, teaming up to make infographics and interactive maps online. We could make short YouTube videos, graphs based on historical data, and interesting stories that explain why what’s happening in the House of Commons is important to us in daily life. With all the information given to us, we could make politics interesting.

We could make people feel intelligent and involved when they read our coverage, instead of alienated and disinterested. If we used tools that get millennials interested in sports or music festivals, we could get millennials interested in voting. We could show them why they want to vote, and inspire a whole new generation of citizens. Using new tools could mean building a new Canada.

This article was published online on June 17, 2015.

Culture Editor

THE CASCADE IS HIRING!

Duties include editing the Culture section, working with contributors, and writing one Culture article per week.

Must have excellent knowledge of the English language. To apply, send your resumé, cover letter, and a writing sample to valerie@ufvcascade.ca by July 20, 2015.

Production Manager / Production Assistant

The Production Manager and Production Assistants are responsible for the design and layout of The Cascade. Must be skilled in using InDesign and Photoshop, and be available on Mondays and Tuesdays. To apply, send your resumé, cover letter, and three samples of your recent design work to valerie@ufvcascade.ca

by July 20, 2015.

Must be a current UFV student taking classes in the fall and winter semesters to be eligible for employment.

10

INSIDE THE DECAYIN EXPLORING BC’S ABANDONED PLACES

BY VANESSA BROADBENT

We had driven by the abandoned cabin every time we went to Cultus Lake, but it took a few summers to build up the courage to go in. It had to be at night, of course — nothing could be scarier than wandering through a potentially haunted house in the dark. There were three of us, huddled together and sharing one flashlight, slowly making our way through the house.

The floorboards sagged beneath us with each step we took. The windows of the cabin had been smashed out long ago, leaving no barrier between it and the outside world. A few decades of snowy winters and the endless rain the Fraser Valley is known for had left the cabin rotting away.

Although it wasn’t bright enough to see the whole room, I could tell there was quite a bit of furniture left behind, giving the place an even eerier feel. Every noise and shadow made us jump and cling tighter to each other. Even so, after making it through the entire house, including the basement, we left feeling braver than ever.

That experience was enough for my friends — they could brag that they had been in the haunted cabin by the lake, but they didn’t want to do it again. I felt differently. There was something about stepping into what had once been someone’s home but was now derelict that was strangely enticing. It felt like I was being allowed to look into someone’s life — but only what they wanted me to see, what they had left behind.

Fast-forward five years and innumerable abandoned buildings, and my desire to explore such places has not died down. Maybe it’s the thrill of being somewhere

that just might be haunted, or feeling like I’m stepping into a piece of local history. Either way, urban exploration is addictive.

Essentially, urban exploration is just that: the exploration of urban or man-made areas. Every place has its own kind of building to explore, depending on the area’s history and geography. Every urban explorer’s dream is to visit Detroit, a city with entire blocks of abandoned buildings — including schools, theatres, hospitals, and so on — but British Columbia has a lot to offer as well.

While BC might not have many large abandoned buildings, the province’s history makes up for it. After the gold rush ended, for example, and people left to find work elsewhere, houses and even whole towns were left completely abandoned. Some of them, like Barkerville in the Interior, have been restored and are now tourist attractions — but not all. BC’s ghost towns are not the same as how they are usually portrayed in movies, where the saloon doors are intact and the piano in the corner is just out of tune enough that anything played sounds hauntingly beautiful. But that doesn’t mean they are any less exciting.

It was a four-hour drive to the first ghost town I explored. During its peak in the gold rush, the town had a population of 800 people, but a smallpox epidemic in the mid-1800s left the town abandoned. By the time I visited, over 150 years later, all that was left were a few

abandoned cabins (one of which used to be the town’s general store), an old ranch, and a church. This was more than enough for me, and I spent nearly the entire day walking around the town or sitting in the old church, staring at the painting of the last supper that hung crooked over the decaying pulpit.

It was the oldest place I had yet explored, and it had so much more history; it was not just another abandoned house where the family decided to move and left behind a few belongings they didn’t want anymore. This town had, at one point, played a part in our province’s history. The people who lived and worked there contributed to the world we live in today.

Although the town had been sitting abandoned and lifeless for years and its residents were long gone, it didn’t feel that way while walking through it. It wasn’t hard to imagine where the now completely overgrown roads would have been. Even the cabins seemed to still have a bit of life left in them. While many of them were nearly empty from years of pickers and antique collectors taking their belongings, one cabin was different. In the middle of the room was a large wood stove that at the time would have been used to heat the whole cabin.

A smaller stove, this one with boilers on top for cooking, sat across the room. An old, rusted tea kettle sat on the stove, ready to be used. Other than a little tidying up and a bit of renovation, all the cabin lacked was a family.

This particular ghost town also brought new challenges I had not yet faced while exploring. At this time, I hadn’t explored anywhere that had been this far “out in the middle of nowhere.” Not only was I an hour down an old logging road without any service, but this was unfamiliar territory to me. While I had vacationed in the desert growing up, exploring a ghost town in it was completely different. Over the years, the town had be-

come overgr to any peop life. Having t was definitel thrilled abou Venturing abandoned b but decay ju sure. The two ent skillsets a The most though it ma ing for years, may be tresp bour’s door would mind mean no har Familiarizi laws is helpf them. If there to climb, or trespassing, p criminally ch facing crimin Even if yo you’re not br be a dangero Always pre abandoned h you feel you the next cou of broken gl rotting floors Also, thoro site is not clo

11

NG AND THE DERELICT

rown and although it was no longer a home ple, the same couldn’t be said about wildto worry about disturbing any rattlesnakes ly not something that I was used to, or very ut. up north offers buildings full of history; buildings in the city are not nearly as old, ust as quickly due to vandalism and expoo types of urban exploration require differand levels of preparedness. important thing to remember is that alay look like no one has set foot in the builds, someone still owns the property, and you passing. So it can help to knock on a neighto ask if they know whether the owner if you looked around. Most urban explorers rm and only want to explore. ing yourself with the province’s trespassing ful; what can be hard is actually following e is a No Trespassing sign, a fence you have a door or window to force open, you are possibly breaking and entering, and can be harged. As tempting as a building may be, nal charges is never worth it. ou’ve taken precautions and made sure reaking the law, urban exploration can still ous hobby. epare for the worst — even expect it. One house may seem so freshly abandoned that u might be able to take your shoes off, but uld have floors covered in nails and shards lass. Be prepared for unsafe conditions like s or collapsing roofs. oughly research the area, especially if the ose to civilization. While this may not be a problem in highly urban areas, encountering bears and other wildlife is not uncommon, especially the further you get from the city.

Researching the area for potential dangers is a priority, but you can also research other sites in the area. Nothing is worse than getting home from a three-day road trip to a ghost town, only to realize there were others nearby you didn’t know about.

Despite the dangers, urban exploration is a rapidly growing hobby across North America. It may not be for the faint of heart, but anyone interested in local history or even just up for a scare should think twice before driving past an abandoned building … at their own risk, of course.

PHOTOS BY VANESSA BROADBENT

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STUDY BREAK CULTURE

CROSSWORD The Little Things

ACROSS

by VALERIE FRANKLIN

1. Young tree. (7) 4. A plant embryo. (4) 5. Name for a fox cub. (3) 9. Squirrels go nuts for these. (6) 10. Frogspawn, once its a little bit older and more wriggly. (7) 11. Name for young fish — or a cooking technique you might use on a large one. (3) 12. Mary had a little one. (4)

DOWN 2.

3.

6.

7.

8.

BY ANTHONY BIONDI

SPACED

The Weekly Horoscope

Its parents might hiss or flap if you come too close. (7) A flower before it blooms, or what you might call your pal. (3) A miniature pig or dog might fit in one. (6) Tiny handheld shovel. (6) Microorganisms that live in yogurt. (8)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Last issue’s crossword ACROSS 4. CASCADE 6. SLUICE 7. MARSH 10. LAGOON 11. SPRING 12. CHUTE 13. POOL 14. TARN 15. GROTTO DOWN 1.

2.

3.

5.

6.

8.

9.

OASIS WELL STREAM BAY STRAIGHT (Error: should be “strait”) FOUNTAIN RESERVOIR

Star Signs from Sybil la Clair

Aquarius: Jan 20 to Feb 18: If the troll at the fork of your road offers you a riddle, keep walking.

Gemini: May 21 to June 21: Remember the three Rs: Reese peanut butter cups, rabble-rousing, and racquetball.

Pisces: Feb 19 to March 20: Cook your ramen noodles for at least three minutes, and add some chopped green onion.

Cancer: June 22 to July 22: If you use the second-floor women’s washroom in the Student Union Building, beware of the Basilisk.

Aries: March 21 to April 19: If the little patient pinwheel spins on your cursor for more than 20 minutes, there is a problem with your computer.

Leo: July 23 to Aug 22: This week, you will be so happy that you’ll be fit to audition for a yogurt commercial.

Taurus: April 20 to May 20: Coffee will not offer you the source of all that is good, but it will wake you up.

Virgo: Aug 23 to Sept 22: Lotion is the potion that will scent your sweat in motion.

Libra: Sept 23 to Oct 22: If a Gemini tells you about the time they went to the lake, throw a ball of rubber bands their way and scram.

Scorpio: Oct 23 to Nov 21: If you had a nickel for every time somebody thought you were fine, you’d have at least a dime.

Sagittarius: Nov 22 to Dec 21: Band-Aids don’t fix bullet holes, but if you add lots of gauze you should be fine.

Capricorn: Dec 22 to Jan 19: You will encounter a small and quirky Libra. Run.

CULTURE

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Upcoming

Events July 5 to 6

Berrybeat Festival Abbotsford’s annual familyfriendly Berrybeat Festival is back with three stages of live music, street performances, and food for every occasion. Start with a cheap pancake breakfast at Legal Grounds Coffeehouse, find a stage for some live music while you eat, tour the child-friendly rides and games, check out the birds of prey brought by a local falconry centre, find a henna artist for a temporary body mod, and then lunch at your choice of over a dozen food trucks or restaurants. Check out the Berrybeat Fest website for details on performances and the weekend schedule.

July 4 to Sept 12 Concert in the Park series Need to escape a hot apartment?

Head over to the lovely treed Kariton Gallery, where the weekly Concert in the Park series has begun. Two local bands will perform from 4 to 7:30 p.m., perfect for a dinner date with friends or lovers.

For a list of performances, check out the Abbotsford Arts Council website. July 4 will open Cascadia Wind Ensemble, followed by the jazzy Groovedaddy.

July 9 to July 30 Jam in Jubilee Grab your lawn chairs or picnic blanket and head to Jubilee Park for an artisan market, a beer garden, and local artists serenading you every Thursday evening beginning at 6 p.m. For more information, check out jaminjubilee. com or see The Cascade’s preview!

July 13 UFV’s Literary Cafe at Harrison Festival of the Arts Harrison’s annual Festival of the Arts approaches with a litany of art exhibits, live performances on the beach, workshops, and artisan markets. This year UFV`s presence includes presenting Corin Raymond`s Bookworm, a oneman play that celebrates books and those who love them. Find more information and tickets at harrisonfestival.com, including student packages for deals on multiple events.

13

Jam in Jubilee offers local solution to the music-fest scene NADINE MOEDT

THE CASCADE

It’s music festival season.

While students pack their fedoras, bo-ho chic maxis, sequined headbands, and other prescribed festival fashions, a local treasure awaits those of us who stick around.

Jam in Jubilee, Abbotsford’s annual outdoor concert series, is the ultimate way to experience a music festival: music without the pretention, drugs, sleepless nights, and drunken neighbours.

This year the series, which takes place in Jubilee Park, runs every Thursday evening from July 9 to July 31.

This year’s line-up provides an interesting

mix of bigger-name Vancouver bands like the Courtneys and Jordan Klassen alongside some well-loved local acts, like Little Wild and Midnight Lions. Bringing in local talent is a festival mission, according to Kristin van Vloten, a member of the Jam in Jubilee organizing committee.

“We’re proud of the fact that Abby musicians have a tradition of touring the world and making important contributions to the indie music scene, and we like giving new bands their first taste of festival stardom,” van Vloten says. “Who knows? Next year they could be playing South By Southwest.”

This year’s event has an added bonus for of-age

attendees: site licensing.

Want to have some beer with dinner on your picnic blanket in front of the stage? This year we will be able to have beer outside the designated beer tent.

“This is a big deal because site licensing is unprecedented in Abbotsford. It means the festival is going to have even more of a fun-summertimes feel,” van Vloten explained. And the beer vendor? Local talent goes beyond the music, with Abbotsford’s Raven Brewing Company providing the drinks. Considering the liquor licensing fiasco at the Tradex sex show, securing site licensing is an impressive feat.

Jam in Jubilee has been

running for 11 years, and always proves to be a popular summertime event — so it came as a surprise for many that this year’s fest will only run for four weeks, as opposed to the six-week tradition. Having a shorter duration means that the organizers are trying to up the quality of the festival, including attracting some bigger name acts.

Van Vloten explained that it comes down to funding.

“As you can imagine, it’s really hard to raise the funds to put on something like Jam in Jubilee, which is offered totally free to the community because we love making Abbotsford a more fun and less lonely place,” says van Vloten. “It’s also

really hard to get enough volunteer hours to power a six-week festival. So the four-week timeframe is something we’re trying out to see if we can make the festival more sustainable.”

The festival will also include an “After Dark Series” taking place at Townhall Public House later in the evening.

Come out, enjoy some local talent and an artisan market outdoors, and discover Abbotsford’s cultural scene! If you’re interested in volunteering or want more details, check out the festival website at jaminjubilee.com.

Stories, songs, and a few rounds of slahal at Aboriginal Awareness Day KODIE CHERRILLE

THE CASCADE

In front of about 50 people, Sebastien Tanner Abbott and Chelsei Grey place 20 yellow hoops. Abbott looks like he’s 15, Grey’s maybe eight or nine, and they’re both wearing traditional aboriginal garb. A ceremonial song — all ecstatic drums and a hair-raising, trembling voice — begins to play through the speakers.

Abbott and Grey begin to dance around the hoops — they’re the size of hula hoops, maybe smaller — then they pick a couple up.

They dance through them: first the head, then one side of the body, and then the other. Picking up three more hoops, Abbott contorts his body through them, holding the hoops in place with his wrists, elbows, knees, even bringing one hoop to his mouth.

While dancing to the music, he slowly flaps his arms: he’s a golden-yellow bird luxuriously circling the world. The audience applauds and whoops. At one point, Abbott dances with 11 hoops; Grey, not to be underestimated, dances around an ornate globe of nine hoops.

Hoop dancing was one of the many demonstrations put on for UFV’s third annual Aboriginal Awareness Day, which was celebrated in the Great Hall of the Student Union Building (SUB) on Wednesday, June 17. The event came just a few days before Can-

ada’s National Aboriginal Day on June 21.

The Aboriginal Awareness Day was spurred from what 2013-14 Student Union Society (SUS) aboriginal rep Ashley Camille saw as a lack of indigenous events and discussions at UFV. Since its inception, the day has been among the larger SUS-led events at UFV, perhaps second only to Weeks of Welcome.

This year, the event also saw the SUB’s Great Hall used at full capacity for the first time, with a long table of demonstrations and workshops spanning the centre of the room.

Demonstrations included Stó:lō wool-weaving, drum-making, Halq’eméylem language lessons, and an exhibition of old indigenous tools used in the times of the fur trade.

Jim Middleton, the man behind the table of tools, picks up a small metal rod; it’s thin, about four inches long, and at one end has a circle of teeth, like a lower jaw filled with nothing but canines.

“This is for cleaning out birds,” says Middleton. “You would stick this into a bird’s mouth, turn it around a bit, and,” he makes a yanking motion with the rod, “you pull out all the guts.”

Another cleaning tool was a bit more familiar: a small washboard.

“This one’s not as coarse as other boards,” Middleton explains, pointing to its ribs. “This one’s for lingerie, actually.”

“It’s the delicate cycle!” exclaimed one onlooker.

After attendees had time to visit tables on their own, attention was redirected to the front of the hall, where a game of slahal had begun. Slahal is an ancient game, originally played by tribes on the west coast of North America.

The goal of slahal is to get all the short sticks, which are divided equally between the two teams. One team has a set of four longer sticks, which they hide behind their backs. The other team tries to guess where these sticks are. If they’re right, they get the stick; if they’re wrong, they have to give a shorter stick away. When the guessing team receives all the longer sticks, it’s their turn to hide them and try to win the short

Image: UFV/ flickr

sticks.

The game continued until the event was over, at 2 p.m. By then, the hall was nearly empty.

UFV’s Aboriginal Awareness Day offered a window into the vibrant culture of Stó:lō and Métis Peoples. Coming a few days before National Aboriginal Day, its tone was similarly festive, but with a much more local focus.

Ultimately, both days are statements.

“We’re still here,” said elder-inresidence Eddie Gardner at last year’s Day of Awareness.

As the young hoop dancers mesmerized the crowd, that sentiment was not spoken, but felt.

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CULTURE

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

“Perfect for closet artists”

Local show displays and sells anonymous works of art — and all for a good cause VALERIE FRANKLIN

THE CASCADE

Would you buy a painting if you had no idea who the artist was?

Late on the sunny afternoon of Saturday, June 13, the Kariton Gallery at Mill Lake was filled with supporters of the local arts community who gathered to celebrate the opening of the second annual Anonymous Art Show Fundraiser. Rows upon rows of small, square paintings were displayed on the walls of the gallery, and behind each one was a secret: a card with the name of the painter and the title of the piece.

Held once a year by the Ab-

botsford Arts Council (AAC), the Anonymous Art Show features dozens of works by local artists, each painted on 12” square canvases. Each piece is sold for $100, with half the proceeds going to the artist and the other half to support the AAC’s many community initiatives, including art markets, music festivals, children’s workshops, and the Arty Awards. When a painting is purchased and removed from the wall, the artist’s name is revealed.

Anyone can submit their work to the fundraiser, and as a result the artists range from professionals to those who are newly emerging in the local art community.

“I always say it’s perfect for closet artists,” said Aymee Leake, gallery co-ordinator. “Maybe they’ve been painting for years, but they’re shy. It’s a good beginner step for them to get their work out there.

“I have a piece up this year, and I’ve never exhibited before,” she added. “It’s nerve-wracking!”

The pieces were arranged by themes: one wall for female figures, another for flowers, another for landscapes, and so on. Many of the pieces featured distinctly British Columbian scenes of farmland, mountains, coastal sunsets, and local wildlife, but there were also plenty of less orthodox de-

signs: skulls, diamonds, wine bottles, an Illuminati eye, a Rubik’s cube …

So far 97 people have submitted paintings to this year’s Anonymous Art Show, according to DJ Gay, a volunteer with the Abbotsford Arts Council. An avid fan of the show, Gay purchased several paintings last year and several more this year.

“Sometimes if you know the style of an artist you like, you can recognize it, but other times it’s a complete mystery,” said Gay. Although she tends to select works by artists she already knows and loves, this year one of the paintings she bought was by an artist

she had never seen before.

“I didn’t know the artist at all,” she said. “I just picked it for the picture. When you look at the right painting, you fall in love with it.”

Leake also likes to buy at least one painting a year at the show.

“It’s always an instant connection,” she said. “You just look at it and you know.”

The Anonymous Art Show will continue to accept paintings on 12” by 12” by 1.5” canvases until June 26. The exhibit and sale will continue until July 7.

This article was published online on June 17, 2015.

Images: Valerie Franklin

Once the painting is purchased, the artist’s name is revealed.

Miss Somewhere goes somewhere: to the Theatre BC Mainstage ALEX RAKE

THE CASCADE

Miss Somewhere, a play written and co-directed by UFV alumna Cait Archer, is headed to the Theatre BC Mainstage in Kamloops after sweeping several awards at the Fraser Valley Zone Festival, including Outstanding Production and Achievement in Playwriting. But what is this winning play presented by the Chilliwack Players Guild all about?

The play follows the struggles of three 20-something best friends, Steph, Allison, and Nicky.

“It’s a play about friendship, most importantly,” says Archer.

“It’s also about the fight you have with your demons, and how you can win even if you don’t win.”

Geneva Perkins, a fifth-year theatre student at UFV who won Outstanding Actress for her role as Allison, would agree; she says

her character comes out of the play “not a complete and whole person, but stronger in her sense of who she is and what she wants.”

Perkins explains that at the beginning of the play, Allison has “just started taking antidepressants, which sort of mute all of her feelings. And so it’s her figuring out that she doesn’t actually want to mute her feelings. She wants to feel all of this range of emotion.”

Miss Somewhere debuted in an earlier form at UFV’s 2013 Director’s Festival. It was a one-act play featuring the same cast, minus a few roles.

“I’ve added a couple of extra characters,” says Archer, “because the boys were sort of just the supporting cast in this play, which is one of the reasons I wrote it — that year I was looking for a play that had good roles for women, because in 2013 we had a really good group of ladies in the the-

atre department.”

Archer insisted on finding a play that not only had good female parts, but “that isn’t about tanning, and that isn’t about boys — and that isn’t from the ‘80s because the ‘80s are a weird time for short plays.” Ultimately, she found she had to write one herself.

Since the 2013 production, the play has expanded both in terms of character and length. With this new version, Archer agrees that the play is more focused. Matt Janzen, who took the award for Outstanding Actor in his role as Allison’s ex-boyfriend Tony, celebrates the script’s development and the chance to do it again.

“We’re always growing and developing as actors and I think it’s important that your characters (and understanding of them) grow and develop as well,” he says. “Especially in cases such as this where you’re working with a

new script over an extended period.”

Perkins also welcomes revision: “I think [coming back to a play] makes it stronger. The longer you sort of sit and let it marinate, the longer you have to actually figure out what you’re trying to say with it and the story that you’re actually trying to tell.”

There are further changes between the Zone Fest production of Miss Somewhere and the one to be seen at Theatre BC Mainstage.

“We’ve had a casting change — named Amanda,” Archer enthuses. “I think it’s amazing. It’s keeping everybody on their toes.”

Amanda Thiessen is filling in the role of Steph for Danielle Warmenhoven, who could not make the performance in Kamloops.

“I feel like I have a really wonderful support system,” Thiessen says, referring to her cast mates.

“With the amount of support that I am being given ... even if I

do suck a big one, they’re going to make it so that it is not so terrible.”

She adds that directors Archer and Gabe Kirkley are “a wonderfully supportive team. They’re very honest.”

Archer explains that she and Kirkley, who were both awarded Outstanding Direction at Zone Fest, “have been working together creatively on productions since 2007, when [they] were in high school.” Eight years later, this second round of Miss Somewhere is their first time working together as a directing team.

Before the Theatre BC Mainstage performance in Kamloops on July 10, there will be a threeshow run at the Langley Playhouse between July 3 and 4. Tickets are $15.

This article was published online on June 17, 2015.

15

ARTS IN REVIEW

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Book

A different kind of noir

CHARTS

Shuffle

Blonde 1 Yukon On Blonde

DAVE CUSICK

2 Mika No Place In Heaven

Feeling left behind? These songs about abandonment will get you through it.

Canadian anthology delves into fantasy, nature, and the macabre

PROGRAM DIRECTOR / LOVE CAPTAIN

Mortal 3 Unknown Orchestra

4

Multi-Love Leon Bridges Coming Home

Eve 5 Titans Chasing The Devil Furman 6 Ezra Perpetual Motion People Jupes 7 Les Some Kind of Family

8

Nick Diamonds City of Quartz

& The Hunter 9 Folly Awake Everything 10 Everything Get To Heaven Cisco 11 San Gracetown

12

Limblifter Pacific Milk

Philip Sayce 13 Philip Influence Django 14 Django Born Under Saturn Real McKenzies 15 The Rats In The Burlap Weller 16 Paul Saturns Pattern The Living 17 Leave Pacifist Day 18 Howie Lanterns Mansions 19 Mini The Great Pretenders

20 Bristol Bristol

Spoon “The Ghost of You Lingers” If you know only one album by Spoon, it’s their 2007 release Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. (If you don’t know that one, get on the Google, friend.) It’s full of catchy, singable melodies, whistleable horn sections, and fast tempos — except for the album’s second track, a plaintive vocaland-piano ode to a lover who has gone.

Tommy James and the Shondells “I Think We’re Alone Now” You probably only know the Tiffany version of this, don’t you?

(You know, the really ‘80s-sounding one, with the girl singing?) But the original predates it by 20 years, and is far more worthy of being alone with.

Arcade Fire “Empty Room” “When I’m by myself I can be myself / And my life is coming, but I don’t know when …”

The Magnetic Fields “Seduced and Abandoned” Prolific songwriter Stephin Merritt fronts the Magnetic Fields, who released a pair of albums, Distortion and Realism, the former drenched in Jesus and Mary Chain-esque noise, the latter all-acoustic. “Seduced and Abandoned,” from Realism, tells a story, from a woman’s point of view, of a man who has left her and their baby all alone.

Depeche Mode “Enjoy the Silence” If you really think about it, there’s some serious irony in making a song about how you want there to be no sound. But if it’s 1990, and you’re trying to win the affections of that special gothic someone, your mixtape could do far worse.

Image: Anthony Biondi

ANTHONY BIONDI THE CASCADE

As a regular reader of crime and noir fiction, the last thing I expected when I picked up The Exile Book of New Canadian Noir was the strange, surreal, fantastic, and horrific tales I discovered within. I expected the classic hardboiled protagonist, either gumshoe or crook, and a femme fatale mixed up in some disturbing turn of events. What this collection of short stories contains is close to my ideal, and as the forward states: “Noir… has never been a genre so much as a tone, an overlay, a mood.” The collection shoots out from there, with each story delving into numerous other genres and doing surprisingly well in the mix.

The volume contains 22 short stories, each one unique. Although there are always a few stories within an anthology that are unremarkable or worthy of being skipped, I found that New Canadian Noir had very few misses. Every story had a punch to it, and stuck with me

long after reading. There was a story, for instance, about a man who commits cannibalism as an underground sport. The tale went into detail about how he warms up for each match and how he keeps his stomach large enough to consume most of a single man. Horrific and wild, this left a strong impression on me — mostly because it disturbed me, but also because it reawakened my own thoughts on the limits of the graphic nature of the genre. Also included was a tale of a polar bear drug ring amusingly titled “Nunavut Thunderfuck,” a story about a zombie detective trying to save the living, a story of a woman in blue with a blackened soul who fights soul-sucking, doppelgänger lamprey, a tale of a genetically altered beast-man who defends a housing complex from demolition, and so many others.

Despite the large number of fantastical tales, there were still a good number that hewed closer to reality. The idea of an old Chinese lady who spends her time collecting bottles for survival beating in the head of a man af-

ter wrapping it in a garbage bag is disturbing in its own right. On top of the violence, that story and many others also calls into question horrors of a societal nature. There was the tale of a shop owner who watched his store dwindle due to tax regulations on sandwich boards before ending up on the streets. There was a story where a boy working the garbage disposal in an apartment building finds sinful objects as they are discarded anonymously, pondering the nature of the people they originated from.

The editors of this book, Claude Lalumière and David Nickle, clearly had a strong vision when conceiving this book.

Each entry has strong writing, and tarries little. It was the kind of volume where each story is fulfilling in its own way without leaving a sour after-taste.

For those who enjoy good genre fiction, and crave some short adventure or mystery, I’d highly recommend this volume. Not only is it all Canadian, it’s smart and hard boiled.

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ARTS IN REVIEW

S undBites

Bully

www.ufvcascade.ca

Mini album reviews

The Courtneys

Feels Like

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015

Róisín Murphy

The Courtneys

Hairless Toys

Fight Like Apes Fight Like Apes

Teeming with energy, Feels Like, the debut record by Nashville-based four-piece Bully, is an energetic assault on the ears. Filled with dynamic melodies, pounding drums, blistering guitar lines and punchy bass, Feels Like leans strongly on traditional grunge, punk, and new wave elements; throughout the record, it’s easy to hear influences of Nirvana, early Weezer, and Joy Division.

Now, there are a million bands that hearken back to the sounds of these titans of grunge and new wave, but Bully is different; what strongly separates Feels Like from other releases in this genre is the vocal work and charisma of lead singer, guitarist, and producer Alicia Bognanno. Her delivery can be as crass and direct as her lyrics, such as on “I Remember,” where she barks, “I remember getting too fucked up / I remember throwing up in your car,” or light, like on the beginning of tracks such as “Sharktooth” and “Trying.”

Bognanno’s raw charisma bleeds out of your audio speakers in a way that makes it sound like you are actually in the room experiencing the performance. Best of all is that in a world where our amount of free time seems to be dwindling, this album clocks in at just over a half an hour, which isn’t that much of a commitment. Believe me, you’re going to want to sit down and listen to this record over and over again.

The Courtneys are Jen Twynn Payne, Sydney Koke, and Courtney Loove — a punchy trio from Vancouver. Their self-titled album could be the soundtrack to a ‘90s teen movie, where goodlooking Californian high-schoolers pile into a Jeep and speed to the coast. The only problem is that the movie would only be this one scene running over and over as each song sounds exactly like the last. This is the album: a continuously driving beat, but it never arrives at the beach.

As I was listening, I didn’t notice when one song changed to the next, as the drums, vocals, and guitar were the same tone, tempo, and timbre as the last. The music is upbeat and fun, and great to have in the background while you’re cleaning the house or sweating in a hot hatchback on your way to a seashore of sorts. But if you’re looking for something to help you get through a long day or for something to cheer you up, this might not be the album. Despite the trendy song titles (like “Insufficient Funds” or “90210”), the lyrics don’t have a lot of emotional or poetic significance — mostly because the vocals are so heavily distorted that you can’t hear them. I’m looking forward to checking out the band at Jam in Jubilee this summer, but I wouldn’t put their album on repeat.

Róisín Murphy’s first albm in eight years, Hairless Toys, seems to have been conceived and executed with the goal of eccentric genius. Five weeks of closeted composing (“for hour upon hour with Eddie [Stevens, producer] adding more synths, some percussion, a bit of guitar, and editing on the fly”) last winter, according to Murphy’s bio, resulted in 30 songs, which were narrowed to the eight tracks of Hairless Toys.

But instead of eccentric genius, most of the album feels random and unfocused. In many cases the instrumentals seem thrown together, and the lyrics are unspectacular. For such a peculiarly titled album, I expected something more concrete, but the words are nearly all abstract (vague) and trapped in a rhyme scheme that doesn’t match the strived-for eclectic feel.

The third track, “Exploitation,” is nearly 10 minutes long, and while it might be sort of at home as background music to a Devil Wears Prada-esque afterparty, the verses disappear in the overly repetitive chorus: “who’s exploiting who” in variations, over and over.

The exception is “House of Glass,” which is intended to be autobiographical, and it shows. The drum beats and use of synth have more focus as a backdrop, and there’s also a more successful weaving in of eclectic instrumentals, trills, and vocal layering, giving the track a balance of cohesion and uniqueness the rest of the album doesn’t quite reach.

Fight Like Apes are a guitar-less rock band from Dublin with Mary-Kate Geraghty leads on vocals and synth — and sure, everyone’s using synths, everyone, but crucially, Fight Like Apes is not a band interested in nostalgia, or sounding like an era other than their own, which they write as a world made up of pub conversations, paragraphlong text messages, and screaming subconscious.

Where Taylor Swift pens a note about what it means to find a shirt, Fight Like Apes burn the shirt, the house, the neighbour’s lawn, and then stop to consider what it means to still be doing this at 29.

If their last album (The Body of Christ and the Legs of Tina Turner) was life in hell, their self-titled third album is purgatory; it’s their most polished LP, but no less full of fatalistic love and freakouts. At times, with their careful building of production elements and subtext-heavy lyrics (with occasionally cheerful backing crowds), Fight Like Apes sounds a bit like the New Pornographers, but less old and pleased with themselves and life in general.

And just because Geraghty (and Jamie Fox, who is mostly background here, adding vocals on just one song, still sounding like he’s singing after falling down the stairs or under a table) is capable of projecting a wild image, doesn’t mean there aren’t songs to contrast, or moments where the rush subsides long enough to grasp at clarity: “She said more than she meant to,” Geraghty opens the album, which is less a moment of guilt than a mission statement.

Jeffrey Trainor

Megan Lambert

Katie Stobbart

Michael Scoular

Album

Rae Morris’ Unguarded delves deep into human vulnerability EKATERINA MARENKOV CONTRIBUTOR

Wait, is that Ellie Goulding? No? Is it Florence Welsh then?

The first time I heard Rae Morris’ debut album, Unguarded, I swore her sound was as if, in some alternative universe, Ellie and Flo had a lovechild. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. The title of the album, Unguarded, refers to human vulnerability, and Rae Morris creatively exposes and explores this subject in the album’s 12 wispy tracks.

Rae’s sound is not terribly exciting or original to the music industry, but it’s exactly what all the chic hipsters are listening to right now. Most of the tunes have a mellow feel to them, apart from

her song “Love Again,” which is more mainstream and reminds me of every Coldplay song released after 2010. The variety of sounds don’t range all over the grid, as Morris mostly stuck to ballads, but some tracks worth praising for their originality are “Morne Fortuné,” for its uniquely classical yet electronic sound; “Skin,” for the breathtaking music video and melancholic lyrics; “From Above,” for best representing the title of the album, its lyrics pouring revelation; and the title track, for featuring wind chimes and incredible depth in sound.

However, my favourite song on the album is “Cold” because of the wistful lyrics, video presentation, and vocals. “Cold” is a conversation between Rae and Benjamin “Fryars” Garrett, the featuring

artist. They speak of a relationship that has lost its former passion, with the opening line, sung

by Fryars, deciding, “Your eyes aren’t pretty anymore.” Sadly, this is the reality for many couples who grow to hate the things they once loved about their partner.

Within the video there are two colours: Rae and her female dancers wear maroon outfits while everything else is grey and depressing.

Everything is stoic — including the dancing, which is rigid and in unison. “Cold” captures detachment in relationships perfectly.

Rae still has lots of potential, but overall, Unguarded is strong for a debut album. I’m eager to see how over time Rae’s sound will evolve as she creates her own niche within the music industry.

17

ARTS IN REVIEW

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Television

Across the universe

Sense8: the Wachowskis push boundaries with eight characters and eight criss-crossing plot lines MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

After Jupiter Ascending, a movie that made sense to everyone who has a Tumblr account and no one else, the story was supposed to be: This is it! No more large-scale works from the Wachowskis!

They’ve reached financial ruin, that’s the end for them!

Four months later, they’ve finished Sense8, a 12-part television series, seven parts of which are directed by the brother-sister duo. It lacks the CG-heavy palette found in Jupiter Ascending and Speed Racer, but continues their narrative experimentation and loopy sense of sincere humanism in a way that will be familiar to anyone who has seen Cloud Atlas.

In that work, the Wachowskis and co-director Tom Tykwer (who returns to direct two episodes and compose the score along with Johnny Klimek) bent and swept through millennia, locating and resuscitating “current” mistakes and enlightenments as merely pinpricks in a continuum. These are, on an epic scale, the questions artists in human drama bump up against, but rarely choose to dive into: is change actually possible, and if so, what does it look like?

Where Cloud Atlas was, for the most part, a melancholy survey of history, where progress is found in the passing on of memories and the flattening out of racial differences, Sense8 is rooted in a present where global connection and constant awareness do not necessarily lead to greater understanding, but could.

The Wachowskis, writing with J. Michael Straczynski (known for

TV sci-fi, particularly Babylon 5 and, uh, Ninja Assassin) have not radically altered their approach to dialogue and scene-setting since The Matrix: back-and-forth planning and questions and deadpan humour broken up by monologues, rumbling with thematic overtones. But what Sense8, like Cloud Atlas before it, represents is a visually structured approach to the question of information overload and human connection in 2015. Tykwer and Klimek’s piano-action and synth-drama soundtrack add a lot to the show, but you could watch Sense8 silently and still understand what’s going on.

This approach would be basically impossible outside of the new model of television that Netflix has created. With Sense8, the Wachowskis and their collaborators, cast, and crew were able to make the entire season without interruption, without seeing instant feedback to the first few episodes of the show as broadcast caught up to production, with the knowledge that most viewers will watch the show multiple episodes at a time, and that the possibility of a viewer tuning in mid-season to check out the show and ending up bewildered by a complicated plot is basically gone. As a result, for many of its episodes, particularly the first four, Sense8 rarely moves like other television shows: plot arcs extend far beyond single episodes; mysteries are quickly resolved, then developed, rather than teased; dramatic and action climaxes do not always come at the end of episodes, and when they do, they pick up instantly at the beginning of the next.

And then there is the plot: eight parallel stories that converge and expand and combine at any given moment. Each might conform, at times, to generic expectations, but as in all the Wachowskis’ work, normalcy is a fabric made to be ripped apart. So a DJ in London (Riley, played by Tuppence Middleton), shocked after witnessing a murder, finds herself in the mind of a police officer in Chicago (Will, Brian J. Smith). Will becomes aware of the entire “cluster” of consciousnesses that he is linked to through a talk by Jonas (Naveen Andrews, familiar to scifi audiences as Sayid from Lost), and tries to help a woman in San Francisco being held in a hospital against her will (Nomi, Jamie Clayton). When they need more help, in comes a private bus driver from Nairobi (Capheus, Aml Ameen); when a confrontation arises, a Seoul kickboxer (Sun, Doona Bae) lends a hand. Sun is also tied up in a family business embezzlement case, much like the competition-fuelled family crime in Berlin a thief is trying to evade (Wolfgang, Max Riemelt), and the secrets that could undo the acting career of a Mexico City action idol (Lito, Miguel Angel Silvestre).

And through their consciousnesssharing, Wolfgang falls in love with a woman who is engaged to be married in Mumbai (Kala, Tina Desai).

Sense8 is not a show about superpowers, though when some of the characters team up, it’s the same mixture of selfless charity and juxtaposition humour that drives The Avengers. Sense8 is the Wachowskis and Straczynski attempting to explore the ranges

and limits of empathy: how these eight characters work is that they feel what the other is feeling, they connect, they are able to literally transport themselves into the place and situation of another.

There is no “power,” just imaginative re-setting, which is shown through simple camera tricks, pans, mirrors, verbal bridges, sound cues. But unlike parallel stories in other time-spanning narratives, in Sense8 this takes work, sometimes drops off, is never exactly as the characters wish it could happen — except, that is, for the few moments where the show launches into a cross-cutting explosion of montage, in one culminating moment like the emotional catharsis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, minus the anger; another appears like a fractal image of The Matrix Reloaded’s fuck party; and in one like the mid-movie split of The Double Life of Veronique on ecstasy, the camera travelling over a concert hall, plunging through birth and the afterlife from one second to the next.

Wallace Shawn wrote recently of filmmakers who are not content with a single model of successful narrative, who feel the need to add on, change, undo and re-construct rather than repeat.

“Their films show a restless, hungry desire to test themselves by constantly doing things that are completely different from what they’ve done previously,” he says. “It’s all risk all the time.”

This risk means people might wish the Wachowskis only made more movies like The Matrix, as if they were factory parts. But the challenge they’re continu-

ally making to themselves — to escape realism and shot-reverse shot (Speed Racer), and now to multiply and stream between narrative threads — suggests artists who believe that film and television have yet to exhaust the possibilities of modernism.

Sense8 adopts some of the popular attributes of television: the actors, despite being shuttled between nine main locations, keep their scenes loose and grounded, wrapping around the script’s sometimes convoluted science or abrupt sincerity — none of the eight main characters is noticeably weaker than another, and none of them feels like a b-plot that has to be sat through to get to what really matters.

By the end of the season, almost none of the plot arcs announced at the start have reached their conclusion (no marriages, massive showdowns, or complete escapes), but that’s because the Wachowskis’ aims are more toward the gradual exploration of connection, rather than the usual television way of surprise developments. (In this the Wachowskis are aided by Straczynski’s TV experience — apparently four other seasons, should renewal happen, are already outlined.) The last two episodes venture into some of the sci-fi arbitrary what-the-hell-ness that the rest of the series avoids, but what’s really going on is an exploration of inner space, the thought processes that happen, in some ways, beyond our control, and how art, acting, and the empathy they direct audiences toward might expand them.

From left to right: Capheus (Aml Ameen), Wolfgang (Max Riemelt), Will (Brian J. Smith), Sun (Doona Bae), Riley (Tuppence Middleton), Nomi (Jamie Clayton), Lito (Miguel Angel Silvestre), Kala (Tina Desai).

18

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Mike Gilray steps in as new women’s volleyball coach VANESSA BROADBENT THE CASCADE

Mike Gilray was hired in May as the new coach of the women’s volleyball team after over a decade of coaching volleyball in BC, including leading provincial teams to the podium at the Canada Summer Games, the Western Canada Summer Games, and the BC Summer Games. He has also coached at both the secondary and post-secondary level in both BC and Alberta.

How did you start coaching?

As a teacher, one of the areas I was excited about in my profession was being able to coach the students. I started coaching volleyball during my practicum in Edmonton. My first coaching job in BC was assistant coach at Walnut Grove Secondary School. My first head-coaching job was at White Rock Christian [School].

So did you play a lot of volleyball growing up?

It wasn’t one of my favourite sports. I played a lot of hockey and baseball, growing up in Ontario. It was going into my teaching profession that hockey and baseball weren’t offered at a lot of

high schools, so I knew I would most likely be coaching a different sport. In Alberta, where I went to school, was strong in volleyball, and it got me excited about that game. I’ve spent 15 years honing my skills and being mentored by Ryan Hofer at Trinity Western University.

What’s it like stepping into this position at UFV? I’m super excited; it’s my first time coaching at this level. I’ve been assistant-coaching at the university level previous to this.

It’s been pretty difficult starting very late in the season and trying to get some recruits to commit to the program. My head doesn’t really turn off, so I’m always thinking about the recruits that I may be bringing in. It’s very much a full-time job on top of my fulltime teaching, so it’s been busy.

Do you find a change in the coaching from a high school level to university level?

I’ve coached a lot of the university level already so I have eight years’ experience working with university athletes. Before that, for the last 12 years I’ve coached a lot of U18 [under 18], so the kids that

Image: Dan Kinvig

are graduating and moving on to university. I worked with the Fraser Valley Volleyball Club and a program called the Blitz. I believe 95 per cent of my athletes went on to play post-secondary.

In high school, I try to work with the youngest groups, just to give them foundational skills and then make the job easier for my other coaches. Then I try to mentor those coaches at my school so that I can start to build a vol-

leyball program and get kids loving the sport of volleyball. That’s happened in the past few years here, where I’ve had a few of my old athletes come back and start coaching. We’re slowly starting to see more kids play club volleyball outside of high school.

Is there anything that you’re hoping to achieve this season or in the future with the team?

I would love to get the team back

to the national championships.

Depending on some recruits, it’s taking a lot longer than I may want it to take. I spoke with the top coach in PACWEST last year, Chris Dahl, who had some wise words from a mentor when he first started: “It’s going to take four or five years to get your program where you want it to be at.”

I think as young coaches we get caught up in wanting it to happen right away and thinking we can get it done in two years or even in the first year coming in. Realistically, it takes four or five years to start implementing the things you want to see in your program and starting to get all the athletes you want to have come in. Hearing from him and other coaches I have worked with before, I think I’m in a similar boat that Chris was, and I feel like I want that to happen right away this year and give the girls that are already at UFV a great experience.

With biographical notes from UFV Athletics.

This article was published online on June 17, 2015.

Walks, Hikes, and Bikes

From Bangkok to the Fraser Valley: a lesson in cycling MAXWELL SCOTT CONTRIBUTOR

Lawrence was from Belgium. He smoked these miniature cigarettes that he purchased while cycling through Iran, and he had an amazing story to tell. But it is his story, and I can only tell you what I learned from listening to him.

We met in Bangkok when I traded him my spare mosquito net for his machete and wok pan.

Lawrence had been travelling by bicycle for three years. He had been around Europe, through the Middle East into Mongolia, down through China, and pedalled through Vietnam. This trip of his stemmed from needing a break after his master’s degree in physics, but he never imagined such an adventure. After drinking good beer and hearing about his time in the Middle East and China, my view of cycling changed forever.

It is often hard to take the time out of our busy lives to just enjoy the here and now. We tend to let our routines shape our perspectives of the world and how we live our lives. Most people drive their cars or ride the bus to school or work, but I awoke one day and this routine felt wrong.

The sun shone — it was a blue-

Image: Kyle Pearce/ flickr

Biking between campuses each day isn’t for everyone, but it is an adventure! bird of a day. I woke up groggy, grumpy, and hungry. I wanted to escape the routine of eating a quick breakfast and rushing out the door to the CEP shuttle bus stop. The shuttle bus is a great and cheap way to get to school, but every time I ride it, I feel like a goat being herded onto a cattle car. Instead, I made spaghetti Bolognese and eggs, washed it down with some Tropicana, threw on my cycling shorts, slung my school bag on my back, and

began pedalling from CEP to the Abbotsford campus.

I left at 8:33 a.m. Having glanced over the route, I knew it would take roughly an hour and 45 minutes. Besides that, I didn’t know what to expect. After about 18 minutes of pedalling I arrived at the Keith Wilson Bridge, where I decided to try to overtake a woman walking her Mastiff.

This ended up being useless, as the dog turned around and began growling and barking at me

in a fit of rage. Nevertheless, I reached the end of No. 3 Rd. and began the long ride down the South Parallel Rd. at about 9:00.

When you ride down the parallel road toward Abbotsford you are able to glimpse the people inside passing vehicles on Hwy 1: blank-faced drivers, passengers absorbed in their smart-phones, and back-seat sleepers. As I pedalled onward — clocking in at 55 minutes as Whatcom Rd. passed by — the sweat soaked my shirt and my legs started to ache. Yet I felt as if nothing this day had in store for me could weaken my spirit.

After a smooth ride into Abby, I was feeling confident. My time was stellar: I only had about 15 km to go, and it looked like I would to be early for class.

However, as I turned right off of Sumas and onto Vye Rd., I was faced with a few problems.

The first was a truck filled with manure, which gave off a horrible odour; the second was the train that trapped me behind this rancid-smelling truck, and the third was the steep hill that would send pebble-sized specks of manure into my face.

The train passed, and I trudged onward. With focus, determination, and a face full of shit, I had

missed the road to get to the campus by 7 km. I found myself at the airport asking directions from a man selling strawberries and a homeless fellow who was also on a bike; he offered to show me the way, so we rode together until we reached King Rd. He turned left and I right, and eventually I arrived at the campus.

Despite the detour, I felt ready for the day, and was only 15 minutes late. I changed quickly and went to class. As soon as I arrived, I broke into the assignment of the day, but by the break, I was absolutely exhausted and needed sleep. I wandered around until I found a sofa and I put my feet up and slept for the remainder of class.

Biking between campuses each day is not for everyone, and I don’t think I would do it every day either. But it is important to take a break sometimes, and to explore something different — we are blessed here in BC, where we can explore something new and exciting each day. So break away for a day and see what you find, because the moment we stop changing is the moment we stop living.

This article was published online on June 17, 2015.

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SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca

Safe Space

Upcoming

Winter blues can come in summer, too

Events

July 4 Needle Peak Hike Mt. Waddington’s Outdoors is hosting a trip up Needle Peak, off the Coquihalla highway. The trip costs $89.99 per person, and includes transportation and lunch. For more information or to register, visit mtwaddingtons.com.

July 4 Morning yoga classes Abbotsford’s Spiritual Path to Awakening is hosting weekly yoga classes on Saturday mornings. The classes will be led by instructor Corrina Chase, and are open to people of all ages and levels of experience.

For more details visit abbyspa.com.

July 11 Mt. Cheam hike Join Mt. Waddington’s Outdoors for a hike up Mt. Cheam. The trip costs $89.99 per person, and includes transportation and lunch. For more information and to register, visit mtwaddingtons.com.

Every Monday Free pole fitness class The Goddess Movement on Sumas Way offers free pole fitness classes every Monday at 6 p.m. If you’ve been thinking of trying out this fun, unconventional form of exercise but don’t want to commit to a membership yet, book your spot online at www.thegoddessmovement.com. All sizes, fitness levels, and body types welcome!

Image: Shutterstock

ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTOR

I used to blame my mood on the weather. I feel lousy when it’s dark and grey. In winter, school and work stress pile up, friends are busy, and the activities I enjoy most aren’t an option.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized depression is so much more than cloudy days — clouds blow over.

There’s a history of mental health issues in both sides of my family, namely bi-polar disorder and depression, and it’s not surprising I would inherit them. Every so often, I catch myself falling into the pattern of what I used to think was only seasonal depression.

It creeps up on me in small ways. Sleeping and eating more, crying, cancelling on friends at the last minute, and watching lots of stand-up comedy to try to cheer up are all symptoms that tell me I’m not feeling quite up to speed.

I try to pull myself out by imagining enjoyable things I can do, but none of it appeals to me. I feel hopeless. I feel somehow worse for being “lazy.” I don’t feel like it’s a chemical imbalance; I feel like it’s the universe telling me I’m not worth being here.

I’ve been to counsellors. I’ve been to a psychologist and a psychiatrist. I tried anti-depressants.

None of these treatments worked

for me. After years of trying traditional methods, I came up with my own coping mechanisms instead.

I do not struggle with depression as severely as others. Mine comes and goes, and has never gone as far as attempting suicide. There are people who are completely immobilized by depression, and I encourage you to seek professional help if so — seeing a professional didn’t make everything go away in my case, but it didn’t hurt, either.

That said, there are three ways I fight depression, no matter the season.

Be sad

Recently I’ve started giving myself permission to feel sad.

I’m the type that puts on a smile and tries to expel as much positive energy into the world as I can. I tend to cover up my sadness with over-enthusiasm and happiness in an attempt to “get over it” or “take the high road.” Although being positive is more socially acceptable — a mask that lets me pretend I’m a well-adjusted and confident person — I don’t recommend it as a long-term solution. People can tell when I’m faking it. They sense it, and I think it makes them assume I’m some kind of crazy sociopath.

I’d rather they think I’m depressed than a sociopath. When I’m having a bad day or when I’m feeling stressed out, I acknowledge it. I let myself give an honest

answer to the question, “How are you?”

You would be surprised how well people can cope with the truth.

Be lazy

The next thing I do is fairly easy: I do the bare minimum. I go to my appointments that week and I do what is necessary to get my job done. I let myself spend my spare time alone watching comedy videos. At social gatherings, I run to the bathroom when I need a breather away from people. I don’t offer to do extra work and I don’t say yes to more parties or outings than I want to.

Doing the bare minimum gives me a tiny sense of accomplishment.

Instead of covering up depression and distracting myself with new projects, I’ve tried just doing what I need to get by. For me, this works wonders. When I have a cold or the stomach flu, I don’t start training for a triathlon. Why should I treat other forms of sickness any differently? I’ve found that honouring what you’re feeling and taking the time to care for yourself helps you get through depression faster.

Be kind

This is the most challenging piece of advice and I still haven’t mastered it. Depression makes some people moody and angry, like an angry lion howling over a thorn in its paw. I find myself giving my

parents one-word answers, and becoming easily upset with small problems. One time, I cried because I had to restart my computer.

It helps to be nice. Start small; send kind texts to friends wondering how they’re doing. You might notice a difference when you shift the focus away from yourself and at least observe what others are doing.

I work my way up to doing nice things for people. Sometimes I’m feeling okay enough to clean the garage for my dad, or help a colleague finish a project.

It’s not about feeling good about yourself for doing a nice thing.

It’s about moving your brain into autopilot and easing yourself into social interactions again. It’s so difficult to get up and do things when you’re depressed. It’s difficult to imagine yourself happy. But for some reason, I can still imagine other people being happy. Knowing that my colleague needs my help or that my dad will be pleased makes me feel better about sometimes not feeling anything.

In my case, using these small tricks helps me get over what I’m feeling — like taking a Tylenol when I have a headache. They are short-term solutions, and if you’re feeling chronic pain, please consult your doctor. But if you’re like me and you occasionally suffer from the winter (or summer) blues, try them. You just might find yourself feeling a bit better.

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SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2015 www.ufvcascade.ca