The Cascade Vol. 21 No. 26

Vol. 21 Issue 26

www.ufvcascade.ca

October 16 to October 22, 2013

Ground control to Major Tom since 1993

New season, new major, new home?

Theatre head Bruce Kirkley heads theatre major proposal as Chilliwack North campus stays for sale

p. 3

Early morning wrestling practice: slightly terrifying p. 11

A guide to sex with the ex p. 17

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NEWS News

Writer’s Weekend at Kawkawa

Ever wonder what would happen if you could get away from it all and spend a whole weekend writing? 12 people found out over Thanksgiving weekend thanks to UFV continuing studies.. Katherine Gibson reports on the focal points of multiple workshops and the response from attendees.

Opinion

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Sharknado politics

Arts & Life

Pinball king

Sports & Health

What’s the difference between Sharknado and politics? Turns out, not much. Christopher DeMarcus discusses the similarities between a brainless b-movie and the gong show that is our local politics.

Cascade Arcade writer Jeremy Hannaford spends some time with John Kremmer—the number one pinball champion in Canada and the world—and talks tournaments, quarters, and high scores. Check out the interview.

Doctors recommend eight glasses of water a day, but who wants to take bathroom breaks every hour? Contributor Vivienne Beard delves into the science of hydration and what “eight glasses a day” actually means.

pg. 5

pg. 6

The situation is fluid

pg. 19

pg. 12

EDITORIAL

And the grand prize goes to...

DESSA BAYROCK

THE CASCADE

Here’s a fun fact: the Nobel Prize is named after the inventor of dynamite.

I’ve always had it in my head that the Nobel Prize is the highest honour a human can earn, an idea I absorbed sometime between the ages of four and eight and nursed into my teens and twenties without really thinking about it.

There’s been an admirable amount of buzz around this year’s Nobel Prizes, especially considering all the other shiny objects in cyberspace clamouring for our attention.

However, for the first year ever, I found myself questioning if the Nobels are really worth, well, anything.

I should be pleased on a couple of levels with the choice of Alice Munro for Nobel Prize in Literature: she’s a woman, she’s Canadian, and she’s a short story author. The Nobel committee chose to honour three traits that are delicately but usually ignored in an author, which also happen to be three traits I identify with. Alice Munro suddenly finds herself as the postergirl for all sorts of niche areas of literature. Good for her! Good for all of us!

But while I greeted the announcement with the interest of an English major, the announcement also left me with barest aftertaste of regret that

Image: Canada Science and Technology Museum / Flickr

Is a Nobel Prize worth something, or just an advertisement?

I probably couldn’t provide the title of an Alice Munro story if someone put a gun to my head.

It’s nice that the Nobel committee is honouring three categories usually away from the limelight with this award, but the cynic in me wonders if that’s all they’re doing.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a woman recipient,” one committee member speculates idly, spinning in his chair.

“Even longer since we’ve had a Canadian,” another chimes in.

“Have we ever had a short story writer?” a third demands.

“Done!” says the unofficial leader of the committee, leaping to his feet triumphantly and slamming both fists on the table. “Alice Munro! All three bases! No one can possibly criticize our choice this year!”

Of course, I’m not sure it’s possibly to award a Nobel Prize in any category without having at least a little criticism.

For instance, let’s talk about Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. Nominations closed before he’d been in office for two weeks. Are you telling me that he would have been nominated—let alone that

he would have won—regardless of 2008’s election results?

Or might it have something to do with the fact that he’s A) so damn charismatic and B) the first black man to be elected President of the United States of America?

Other speculated nominees for Literature included Haruki Murakami and Joyce Carol Oates: setting these alongside Munro creates an eclectic collection to say the least. Can you really compare the short stories of Munro to the behemoths of Murakami, or, for that matter, to the housewife-popular works of Oates? It’s apples and oranges to the extreme.

To say that the marketability of Munro’s three oddball traits didn’t play at least a little bit of a role in the choice, I think, would be a lie.

Awarding it to a recognizable author with multiple marketable characteristics, after all, is hardly harming anyone’s image.

All in all, I’m weighing the scales in my head and trying to decide what the Nobel Prize is really worth. On one hand, it’s a way to bring attention to a person or organization that deserves recognition. On the other hand, I fear that the process might fall prey to the increasing pressures of the 21st century to be absolutely fair to everyone and everything.

UPCOMING EVENTS October 17

October 17

October 18

October 19

Art on Tap

Rocky Horror Pub Night

Humans vs Zombies

SARscene games

The Reach gallery’s Young Contemporaries host their first event bringing together young local artists, musicians, and craft beer. Come out to soak up the creative talent that Abbotsford has to offer. The show starts at 7 p.m, admission is $5 for the general public, and free for members of the Young Contemporaries.

Cover Image by Anthony Biondi

‘Tis the season of pumpkins and more importantly, costumes. Don your best Rocky Horror outfit and come out to AfterMath for a night of beer and Rocky Horror Picture Show themed antics. Hosted by the Student Union Society, this pub night is sure to rock.

Doors open at 6 p.m.

It’s the first apocalypse of the semester. Come out with your nerf gun ready to take on the epidemic of zombies invading campus. Everyone starts human; how long will you survive?

The game starts at 5:30 p.m. at AfterMath on the Abbotsford campus.

Designed to showcase the skills of BC search and rescue (SAR) teams, this one-day event promotes friendly competition among SAR professionals. Taking place at Canada Education Park in Chilliwack, the games begin at 8:30 a.m. and will continue throughout the day.

Printed by International Web exPress

Volume 21 · Issue 26 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Editor-in-chief dessa@ufvcascade.ca Dessa Bayrock Managing editor michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular Business manager joe@ufvcascade.ca Joe Johnson Online editor ashley@ufvcascade.ca Ashley Mussbacher Production manager stewart@ufvcascade.ca Stewart Seymour Art director anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi Copy editor katie@ufvcascade.ca Katie Stobbart News editor jess@ufvcascade.ca Jess Wind Opinion editor nadine@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt Arts & life editor sasha@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt Sports editor esau@ufvcascade.ca Paul Esau Photojournalist blake@ufvcascade.ca Blake McGuire Staff writer christopher@ufvcascade.ca Christopher DeMarcus News writer katherine@ufvcascade.ca Katherine Gibson Arts writer jennifer@ufvcascade.ca Jennifer Colbourne Contributors Vivienne Beard, Remington Fioraso, Kaitlyn Gendemann, Jeremy Hannaford, Nathan Hutton, Adesuwa Okoyomon, and Tim Ubels

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 75 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.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013

3

NEWS

Theatre major in the works www.ufvcascade.ca

Despite challenges, department endures, thrives – and grows

JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

As the UFV theatre department gears up for its first show of the season, The Little Mermaid, department head Bruce Kirkley is gearing up to submit a proposal for a theatre major.

Although UFV gained exempt status over the summer, meaning adding new majors to the selection will be easier and cheaper than ever before, the process for getting an entire major approved is still long and arduous.

The theatre department has been working on it for years.

The program has grown from offering just a diploma, to having minor and extended minor options as well as a drama concentration in the English major.

However, a theatre major would have been a reality sooner had it not been delayed when UFV gained university status, explains Kirkley.

“Just before UCFV became a university, we had been given the green light to go ahead and develop a major at that point,” he says. “So we were right on the cusp of that and when we became a university, every- Kirkley says the current theatre thing changed ... we probably would have a major now if we ning are the small size of the just stayed a university college, department and funding. Kirkironically enough, but because ley notes UFV would ideally of all those other changes, this hire more full-time faculty and proposal got delayed while all include different streams of the other governance process- study in the program, such as es got worked out.” design and branches of study Back on track to develop the and theory. major, Kirkley has dedicated Another challenge on the more of his time this year to horizon is the potential sale the proposal than ever before. of the theatre’s facility, the old Since being hired nearly 20 Chilliwack campus on Yale years ago, Kirkley has direct- road, casually referred to as ed a show in UFV’s season of Chilliwack North. theatre almost every year; this “The Chilliwack North situyear, he is not. ation is really challenging, I “The only way [the major think for everybody,” Kirkwas] going to happen is if I ley says. “It’s a great facility; create that space it’s probably one of time. Directing “We probably of the best little a show is [a] huge p o st- s e c onda r y commitment of would have a theatre facilities time and energy,” major now if we in the province. he says, noting It’s a great learnthat the propos- had just stayed ing environment al is in its final a university for students.” stages of conKirkley adds college, ironistruction. “We’re that the space really far along. cally enough.” was designed We’re looking at specifically with having this done and ready to students in mind. move forward in early 2014.”

“It’s a thrust theatre: ... it alIt then passes through a lows students to get a really gauntlet of committees before good sense of how the audimaking it to the minister of ad- ence is responding to their vanced education for approval. performance. There’s a lot of During the process, the the- really nice interactivity that atre department sought input happens there.” from theatre students. They Should the campus sell, were able to voice their opin- Kirkley is considering other ions on what will make a well- opportunities to ensure therounded, comprehensive the- atre can continue to be exatre program. plored at UFV. Canada Educa“One of the things that be- tion Park (CEP) has a studio came really clear was the im- performance space on site and portance of that fourth year the university is looking into capstone course or experi- creating other spaces in Abence,” explains Kirkley. “May- botsford. be try to find ways that stuFaced with the problem of dents can have opportunities finding a suitable performance to do small studio shows or space, UBC Okanagan, began staged readings of plays.” to look at site-specific perforSome of the challenges of mance, taking it outside the getting the major up and run- theatre to other spaces, ex-

Keeping up on campus GreenSPEAK blogs The GreenSPEAK series occurs every Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. in U-House on the Abbotsford campus.

Starting with the October 15 presentation, The Cascade will be recording and posting the talks online.

Visit ufvcascade.ca to stay up-to-date with this environmentally conscious speaker series happening at UFV.

Puppy room returns UFV’s counselling department is getting in on the puppy action. Introducing a new program called “PAWS for a Break,” students will have the opportunity for 15 minute drop-in sessions with Mac, the department’s registered therapy dog. Sessions will be available to students on Tuesdays between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.

space is one of the best in the province.

Image: UFV/ flickr

What’s up, theatre?

UFV Theatre kicks off its season of love. Exploring the ideas of love beyond all odds, The Little Mermaid, Age of Arousal, and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet will be gracing the UFV stage.

Look for updates regarding the shows, what it takes to make a play, and the developing state of the department and its location at the Chilliwack Yale road campus.

Bursary season

plains Kirkley. important for young people “I’m not saying that because to have those opportunities, I’m suggesting that’s what because if you don’t get them we need to do,” here, you’re goKirkley notes. “Bottom line, ing to go to “I’m just saying Montreal, you’re that I think that we’ll find a way going to go to Tokind of creative to keep doing ronto.” energy and spirit Despite all ... will find an what we do and the changes and outlet whatever offer a solid challenges to might happen.”

UFV’s theatre deNo matter what theatre major partment, Kirksort of perfor- no matter what ley maintains mance spaces that the departhappens. ” linger on the homent will endure rizon, Kirkley and thrive. explains the major is instru“I think there’s lots of reamental to keeping students sons to be optimistic despite studying and developing with- the fact that there are chalin the province. lenges,” he says. “Bottom line, “British Columbians need we’ll find a way to keep doing to wake up because we’re get- what we do and offer a solid ting left way behind. We’re not theatre major no matter what too far lost at the moment, but happens.” we’re going to be if we don’t recognize there’s exciting new possibilities out there,” he says. “I just think it’s really

Those in financial need may be in luck because October is bursary application month at UFV. Students who are eligible may receive up to $1500 per semester.

Check back for what it takes to access these bursaries and how often students pursue their options for financial aid at UFV.

Have a news tip?

Let us know!

Email news@ufvcascade.ca or tweet at @CascadeNews

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DESSA BAYROCK

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

SCIENCE ON PURPOSE Going to space? Don’t forget the jellyfish

THE CASCADE

Somewhere among the freeze-dried food and extra space suits, NASA found room for live jellyfish on a trip to space.

It might seem like an odd choice, but the decision to bring the floppy sea creatures along was actually kind of brilliant, summed up in two words: gravity receptors.

Or, to make it sound even more like science fiction than it already does, graviceptors.

Let’s back up. Picture a jellyfish for a second.

You probably envision a floating, gently glowing mass, both delicate and terrifying, an odd combination of chiffon, jello, and tentacles.

Lacking spines (or, really, bones of any kind), jellyfish depend on the water around them to give them shape. Add this to the fact that jellyfish weigh so little, and you find yourself with a nearly weightless creature.

So what happens when you take a creature that is used to being nearly weightless and introduce it to an environment where it’s totally weightless?

This is where we get to the gravity receptors.

Image: Anthony Biondi

Jellyfish need gravity just as much as people do – and they get just as confused without it.

People have a structure in the inner ear that regulates balance and movement, relaying information to the senses to tell the brain just how fast everything is moving and how to respond. This structure— the vestibular system—is responsible for telling the body when to be dizzy and basically keeps all of humanity upright on a daily basis.

It turns out that jellyfish have something similar, which scientists have dubbed gravity receptors. NASA describes them as “microscopic fingers”

surrounded by calcium crystals called statoliths. Together, the gravity receptors and statoliths tell the jellyfish what direction it’s facing and whether it’s pointing up or down.

Calcium crystals also form part of the human vestibular system, and although NASA researchers would love to look at some to see how they’re affected by a weightless environment, the crystals aren’t exactly easily accessible for study.

Ergo, jellyfish.

Because the crystals are fairly similar in both humans and

jellies, packing a few jellyfish into space became the most elegant solution to the problem.

As a bonus, jellyfish grow from infancy to maturity in a matter of days; NASA would not only see how the crystals were affected by weightlessness, but also if they form at all in a creature that has never known gravity – something definitely not possible with a human subject.

The result? Jellyfish that grew up in space formed the same graviceptors as Earthgrown jellies, but significantly

fewer statoliths. Jellyfish just didn’t need the crystals in space, where facing in any direction feels exactly the same to both jellyfish and humans.

Distinguishing between up and down becomes not only impossible, but unnecessary.

Unfortunately for the jellyfish, this meant that returning to Earth was more than a little confusing. Without the crystals—or, really, any understanding of gravity at all—figuring out how to pulse like a normal jellyfish was really, really hard.

Although it’s a sad ending for the jellies, the NASA researchers found out exactly what they wanted to know.

Ground-grown jellyfish (crystals and all) could adapt to a gravity-free environment, and probably could have adapted back again if they’d lived long enough – just like humans. The space-born jellies, on the other hand, while able to move about the weightless environment, couldn’t figure out how to live with gravity after their initial development left them without statoliths. Logically, the same would be true for humankind – any people born in space would stand a good chance of being totally baffled by gravity should they ever return to Earth.

From policy drafts to Baker House funding KATHERINE GIBSON

THE CASCADE

The latest Student Union Society (SUS) held its bi-weekly board meeting on October 11 at Canada Education Park. These meetings are open to the public and rotate among the Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission campuses.

Governance committee motions new electoral policy Two substantial changes to this policy include a more detailed outlining of the rules and penalties within SUS election procedures, and the proposed moving of regular election dates.

“This is a rather extensive change,” VP internal Greg Stickland explained. “It clarifies all the rules much more clearly than the old policy did, it specifies penalties a lot more clearly, and it moves the election up one month so that nominations will begin in January, the elections will happen in February, and then that leaves March for transition.”

President Shane Potter acknowledges these changes as being a positive addition to the policy, noting particularly the benefits of moving the election dates.

“It allows us to actually transition the new government in order,” he says. “When I came into government—like a lot of us—one [government] ends and the next day the new government begins ... you’re left

with two or three months trying to get your feet under you.”

In the end, the motion was tabled in order for the board to review the policy further, after VP academic Kristianne Hendricks proposed several changes.

SUS turns down athletic funding request The rowing club requested $2000 from SUS for race costs and travelling expenses for the 2013 Canadian University Rowing Championships. After reviewing the proposal, the finance committee recommended denying the full amount.

The board’s concerns came from uncertainty over whether or not the request had come from the rowing club or UFV’s varsity rowing team.

Overall, the board felt that the varsity team should be funded by the Athletics Department.

“This was sent back for review to gain more information regarding whether or not the rowing team was a club or whether or not it was a university department,” VP finance Ryan Peterson explained. “As far as we are aware, the rowing team is granted funds by the university.”

He goes on to explain the finance committee’s reasoning for denying the funding.

“This is something that the university should be funding itself if it is under the umbrella of the athletics department,” Peterson continued. “It’s un-

SUS board meeting happenings

fortunate that with provincial cost cuts that universities are suffering so much, but at the same time I don’t feel that SUS’s position is to start shouldering the shortcomings of the university.”

Upon further discussion, Stickland explained to the board that he believed the funding request was not coming from the rowing team, but rather the rowing club.

However, due to continued confusion regarding the request’s origin, Stickland suggested that the funding request be denied, and that the board start from scratch to more clearly outline the differences between the rowing team and the rowing club.

SUS website development update VP east Jarret Bainbridge did a short presentation regarding his progress in creating a mar-

keting plan for SUS. “We do not currently have [a marketing plan] right now.”

Bainbridge explained, “and one of our problems is that we are not getting our message across to students.”

Bainbridge has created two marketing plans, one aimed at more advertising students the specials, services, and reopening of AfterMath, and the other geared to transmit general information about SUS. Bainbridge also noted that the SUS mobile app has been downloaded over 500 times since its September launch.

SUS funds residency conference The first presentation was given by two resident assistant (RA) representatives from Baker House, asking for a $1322 grant from SUS for an annual RA conference they are attending in Nordec, Alberta.

One of the Baker House representatives used his own personal dorm experiences to highlight the importance of going to this event.

“When I was a resident, I realized that when my RA came back from the conference they were much more polished, there was much more that they were bringing back – so if I go there, I will come back with more skills that I will use to enhance residents’ lives.”

Ultimately, this motion was carried by SUS and the grant was given to the Baker House RAs in full.

Additionally, a road trip planned by and for international students living in Baker House was granted $900 pending the finance committee’s approval.

The next SUS board meeting will be on October 25 on the Abbotsford campus in room A360.

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5

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013

A cornucopia of writers bond together at Kawkawa lake www.ufvcascade.ca

KATHERINE GIBSON

THE CASCADE / PHOTOS

While most of us were stuffing ourselves with turkey this Thanksgiving, a small group of 12 people were up at Hope’s Kawkawa Lake taking in an intensive weekend of writing.

Hosted by Michelle Vandepol and Allison Kilgannon through UFV’s continuing studies program, the Writers’ Weekend gave individuals ranging in age from 16 to 71 the opportunity to find encouragement and workshop their creative works in a safe environment.

“When you’re coming together as writers there’s a little bit of fear involved in it – it’s hard to say where people are at in their confidence level,” Vandepol explains. “We can have people who have done readings [and] people who have never shared their work with anyone, but we’re excited to try and make this as least scary and most exciting for everyone.”

Beyond creating an avenue for personal writing, Vandepol also notes that this event is about building community and giving participants a break from their everyday lives. “[We’re] doing outdoor pizza oven baking, [taking] kayaks out, and we have [writing] workshops too,” Vandepol continues. “I think writers will be

super excited to come here because it is such an artsy place and it’s a bit of a destination.

People are coming out from Abbotsford and beyond, so that way when they come here they’ve had a little holiday removed from their everyday life.”

The event also gives participants an opportunity to learn skills relevant to future success within the writing business.

As 16-year-old Hunter Ramey, the youngest participant of the weekend, explains, the event has helped her acquire knowledge surrounding her aspirations to be published.

“I want to get something published in the future and I’m really working towards that,” she explains. “[Writers’ Weekend] really helps you develop your story writing and novel skills – you get to discover things that you didn’t know before.”

While the weekend was about polishing writing skills, for 71-year-old Bill McGladdery the event was also about learning to believe in his own creative abilities.

“I’m not that confident in my own imagination – I wasn’t even sure that I had one,” McGladdery explains. “But Michelle [and Alison] are so encouraging – it’s just nice to know that you’re doing something right, and that’s an invigorating part of [the weekend].”

Sub-committee information by application only

JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

The Student Union Society (SUS) makes decisions every day regarding the direction to take SUS and its members, but where do these decisions come from?

In the summer, SUS made the move to allow students to apply to be on a range of subcommittees responsible for developing new ideas and opportunities for the entire student body. Included in the list are the finance committee, transit committee, advocacy committee, and others.

The committees discuss different projects, then bring them to the bi-weekly SUS board meetings to be approved or denied. Previously, new SUS projects were discussed at these board meetings, which are recorded and open to the public. But now much of the discussion is happening at the sub-committee level, detailed in reports that are distributed internally prior to the board meetings.

SUS president Shane Potter explains that the committee reports and meeting minutes are available to anyone

who asks, but they must be requested as they are not yet available on the website.

“Before, the committee meetings weren’t even published at the board level, so now ... we’ve made it so the committee chairs are sending reports,” Potter says. ”They’re reporting on what they’re doing, and they’re also submitting minutes to the board for the public level.”

Beyond that, Potter suggests asking committee chairs for details about what goes on in subcommittee meetings. Otherwise, he assures that the information should, and will, be accessible online – eventually.

“Anything that’s at the board level, which includes the committee minutes and reports, should be accessible so that any student could go online and read them,” he stated.

Potter cannot currently offer an estimate of when USS will begin posting minutes to the website.

Minutes from regular board meetings also have yet to be posted to the new SUS website on a regular basis. SUS cites difficulties adapting to the redesign.

Vandepol hopes that the success of the weekend carries over into the future, giving new batches of writers the opportunity to take part in similar events.

“We’re hoping in the future to do some one-day Saturday events because we’ve had feedback from people who were saying, ‘Oh, I would love to do that, but my schedule doesn’t allow me to stay there for that whole time,’ or, ‘That’s a bit too much for my student budget,’” Vandepol concludes. “We are also totally thinking hugescale too: a writers’ festival would be like pie in the sky down the road – it would just be awesome.”

A diverse group of writers came together for the weekend.

Hope’s Kawkawa lake was the site for an intensive weekend of writing over Thanksgiving.

BC declares provincial awareness day for gender equality CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS

THE CASCADE

“October 11 shall be ever known as The Day of the Girl

by British Columbia,” Abbotsford-Mission MLA Simon Gibson read from an official proclamation to the public at the Centre for Indo Canadian Studies (CICS) Every Girl Matters Day on October 11.

Before the declaration was made, BC Minister of Finance Mike de Jong addressed the room.

“We still have impediments to equality in society that prevents everyone from being ontask and moving in the same direction. The best vehicle by which we can change things for the better is education,” he said.

One foundation working to provide that education is GirlKind, a locally based nonprofit that works for gender justice among men and women. Sharanjit Sandhra, coordinator for GirlKind and the CICS explained the reasons behind the day’s events.

“The United Nations has declared October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child and our Every Girl Matters Day is in conjunction with that day. It is a day

to raise more awareness of all that needs to be done to save females around the world, not just in third world countries,” she said.

The task of GirlKind is threefold: promoting equal gender values in societies, raising awareness about gender discrimination, and supporting orphaned girls around the world.

Sandhra’s need for a focus on both local and national gender issues was echoed by de Jong.

“I was at a girl’s orphanage in Punjab last September.

For practical reasons, the orphans were given the same birthday because they didn’t know when they were born,” he explained. “We were able to assist these girls [in getting] proper government documents and passports. We helped 30 girls out of 30 million. But we have work to do in Canada as well.”

Several civil servants were in attendance for the declaration ceremony including Abbotsford school board trustee Jon Sutherland, Abbotsford city councillor Patricia Ross, and UFV president Mark Evered.

However, the day was about more than public announcements. Both the BC govern-

Image: Christopher DeMarcus

ment and GirlKind want authentic advocacy. GirlKind is currently running a social media campaign through its website to raise awareness about gendercide and gender discrimination.

“It is not enough that people attend an event, and then simply leave feeling that they have done their part,” explained Sandhra. “It takes much more effort to become an active member of society and become aware of all these horrible events happening around the world against women, and these are not coincidences, but more like an epidemic.”

6

OPINION

OPINION

SNAPSHOTS

Oil campaign hard to swallow Katie Stobbart

So, why does Harper plan to squander millions of dollars in advertising this time?

Well, he’s having a bit of difficulty these days convincing local folk that a potential oil spill in our lush temperate rainforest is a good idea. Go figure. Also, everyone seems to be so negative about his pet project in Alberta. Oh, and those darn international organizations keep criticizing our government’s policies on this sort of thing.

I keep remembering my favourite Harper catch-all rebuttal from the last election, which he used to dismiss any views he didn’t like: “That’s simply not true!” True to form, instead of addressing widespread concerns and perhaps reconsidering his government’s unhealthy fixation on dirty oil, Harper would rather forcibly pour oil down our throats with a $24 million ad campaign.

Ah, so this is why we can’t afford to fund scientific research!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

Pro-life is pro-daycare

Math anxiety: a mental state or a cop-out?

Like campaigns

Christopher Demarcus

ASHLEY MUSSBACHER

REMINGTON Fioraso

I’m pro-life. I like living. Most of the time, I don’t want to kill anybody.

I think it’s a good idea to help young girls have babies. I’m pro-babies. But why is it that once a girl has a kid, that’s it? Our support systems seems to say, “Once that baby comes out, you’re on your own!”

If you want to save the babies, I applaud you. But remember that those kids live a long time and they get mad when they’re hungry. If you want life, you might want to think about helping Mom and Dad give the kid a good one.

Pro-lifers, put your money where your mouth is. We need universal daycare. We need to tell moms and dads that being a strong parent means being there for your kids, not buying your way into their hearts.

Pro-choicers, we need your help in this, too. The best society we can build is one where women have support— no matter what they choose. Every life is sacred; young, old, inside the womb, or out. The abortion debate of “when life begins” bores me to tears. What is clear is that we need to do a better job of taking care of the kids that are walking around.

From a very young age, kids are taught to fear numbers. The new fad “math anxiety” seems to be taking over, giving students and people working in jobs where arithmetic is needed an excuse to perform poorly.

Apparently there are even physical symptoms related to this state of mind: tension, sweating, increase in heart rate. These symptoms are often coupled with feelings of apprehension and fear, and as a result the individual’s math skills suffer.

It’s interesting to note that there is no such thing as literature or painting anxiety.

But then again there is never any shortage of English or Arts teachers. Meanwhile, the highest paid jobs are math-based. How sad.

I suppose most people are content to regurgitate cliché metaphors and lame juxtapositions rather than buckle down and fire up synapses to solve real-world problems.

What do going to Disneyland, having a child, getting a dog, and reassembling a failed marriage have in common? With the “like” campaign phenomenon on Facebook, they are all up for grabs.

Scrolling down the news feed, a seemingly endless stream of cat memes, photos of food, “shares” from news media, and a post from a kid requiring one million “likes” for their parent to allow them to get a dog appear. While wishing for the children to succeed in their conquest, it begs the question, “why do they need to do this?”

If you need to gain so many likes in order to proceed with a campaign, is it really worth it? Strangers aren’t likely to understand the complexity of the situation before clicking “like,” so why post beyond the people who matter in your life? In this case, your social network, not random unknowns on the internet.

Although the potential to become a viral hit may seem to be a cool thing, if you are trying to get attention for the average decision, please keep it to your friend list.

Local politics play out like a bad movie

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS

THE CASCADE

The movie Sharknado had quite the buzz this year, despite being an absolute piece of garbage. The film’s low-quality cheese-factor is what propelled it into popular view. Cable picked up the movie; viewers had to know how such a brainless and vulgar plot, smothered in barely passable CGI effects, could get any type of traction.

The pointless spectacle of Sharknado reminds me a lot of our local politics. We’ve shifted from an engaged democratic experience to a gong show of complaints and boutique special interest groups. Like how Sharknado was a b-movie for the sake of b-movies, playing politics has become the only reason to be in politics.

Let’s start with the big three issues: economy, environment, and equality.

Economy: we can’t frack our way out of this. The biggest problem today is unemployment and underemployment. Right now, the main solution from the BC Liberals is to up the export of our resources, mainly mining and natural gas.

That sounds alright because it’s what we’re used to. But the globalized economy has changed. Jobs that would be made in these industries do not employ enough to sustain us for the long term.

If you want to make new jobs,

Image:scholarhero/wordpress

With as much meaning as Sharknado, local leaders are playing politics for the sake of politics. you need to make innovative industries. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel here, but we do need to look outside of our resource-only toolkit.

International education is a strong sector for BC in a globalized economy, but we can’t confuse the good universities with SharknadoU. Private “career schools” need to better labelled and regulated. Too

many of our hard-working youth fall into the private school trap – training for small, almost non-existent careers like audio engineer, aroma therapist, or artist manager.

Environment: we still can’t frack our way out. We need the water, you know, to drink it. Oh, and we can also sell it. Companies like Nestlé are currently pumping millions of litres of our own natural

water, so they can bottle it, sell it back to us, then charge us to recycle the bottle. This may sound like madness, but welcome to stimulating the economy. So hey, while they’re pulling us by the chain, why not at least charge them for the water?

Because BC doesn’t have any legal method to regulate the water.

The Water Act is outdated. And

the government doesn’t think it’s important for Nestlé to pay. On the other side of the equation, Nestlé Canada’s VP said on CBC Radio back in August that they’d like to pay, but there is no government there to bill them. Ah, the West, a new frontier for water profiteering!

Equality: greed is not good. Like I said, there is more to an economy than oil and gas – we also have a good, globalization-friendly education sector. Education heals the gaps in the economy. Knowledge is an equalizer for social gaps: i.e. income, gender, and race. The university provides an environment where innovation can take place without the pressure of freemarket competition. The academy serves as a container for those that have fallen through the economic cracks.

Higher education often gets demonized in our culture with pathetic platitudes: “Those that don’t do, teach,” or “Student loans are a debt trap.”

But the reality is, it is much harder to teach than do. A monthly student loan payment, even in these bleak economic times, comes out to be about the same as a new car payment. A new car will not make a student as happy as an education. In fact, education is a mental health issue. It keeps people happy. The examined life is one worth living.

We should be asking more from our leaders than Sharknado politics.

7

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

The Province: drop the boomer-centricity, drop Jon Ferry NADINE MOEDT

THE CASCADE

Every once in a while you read an article that gets your goat. The writer is a smug bastard, you vehemently disagree with the points made, and even if you’re not usually one to swear, the expletives come all too readily.

This happens to me every time I read Jon Ferry’s column in The Province.

Ferry is a rabid anti-environmentalist, and thoroughly boomer-centric. And his position at The Province? Covering the “metro view:” issues and people in the lower mainland.

Here are a few examples of his latest columns that, as residents of the lower mainland, supposedly cover our concerns.

On October 9 Ferry tackled the

topic of eco-density, a urban design vision to increase the density in cities to prevent urban sprawl.

The plan is designed to allow these pockets of density to gather around light rail stations, decreasing our reliance on cars. It would allow for a focus on public transportation, a necessity if we want to phase out infrastructure that is reliant on fossil fuels. It’s an idea that would take some thought; these types of high density situations have to be livable for residents too. But I would think that anyone with an environmental conscience would see it as a step in the right direction.

Ferry does not. As he puts it, this is just another “Big idea” thing.

This “Big idea,” or as Ferry so cleverly puts it, “Big lie” (see what he did there?), is hell-bent on trying to upset everyone about some cli-

mate change scare.

In his typically smug fashion, he takes an environmental activist— in this case Man of Peace recipient and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bob Geldof—and rags on the dissonance between their environmental views and personal actions.

Yes, Ferry, Geldof has a mansion in the English countryside. But what does that have to do with the rest of us, who don’t want to be trapped in a fossil fuel-based economy and infrastructure?

Ferry’s tendency to try to shock us by taking big name environmentalists and “exposing” their inconsistencies speaks to Ferry’s petty and small-minded vision of environmentalism. His article entitled “Silly time for Suzuki to visit Australia” criticizes David Suzuki’s airplane trip (it used jet fuel!

Scandal!) and his decision to speak

in a country whose citizens voted into power a man who abolished the climate commission in Australia. By the end of the article, Ferry has called environmental policies “scare mongering,” and labelled climate change theories a “hysterical load of eco-codswallop.”

This isn’t even the worst of it.

An especially smug article entitled “The Jon Ferry Ecochallenge: I dare you to live without oil” revealed a completely out-of-touch and, quite frankly, incredibly ignorant approach to environmentalism. According to Ferry, all environmentalists do is preach from their “eco bully pulpit.” And all he wants is to be left alone to “happily live with and enjoy the remaining oil while it lasts.”

Ferry does not seem to understand what environmentalists stand for. Right now, no one can

live without oil. But the reason people are protesting pipelines and advocating for a green existence is so that we can move towards a more environmentally friendly way of life; one that attempts to focus on creating a society that is sustainable and that is based on a green economy.

Ferry disgusts me with his self-absorption and sense of entitlement. He is the epitome of boomer-centricity; he is myopically concerned with the needs of the baby boomer generation to the neglect or detriment of other large segments of society and future generations.

It reflects badly on The Province to allow Ferry a soapbox to spew his near-sighted selfishness and his tired and typically negative perception of the concerns of younger generations.

Freemen: taking freedom too far?

KATIE STOBBART

THE CASCADE

What if you didn’t have to pay taxes? What if someone told you there was a way—even an easy way—to opt out of all the things you find unjust or unpleasant about society? Getting a driver’s license. Paying fines and parking tickets. Paying the mortgage on your house. You wouldn’t have to do any of that.

I can see how it might be appealing to many people. All of us probably have something, a law or lack thereof, we disagree with or would like to change. There are obligations that come with participation in society it would be nice not to have to fulfill. I have certainly pondered the question of autonomy before. Are we really free? Do we have full jurisdiction over our own actions?

According to the Freeman-onthe-Land movement (FotL), we are not free – unless we choose to be. Freemen believe all statutory law is a contract to which an individual must consent for it to be applicable. They allege the birth certificate is essentially a contract; they claim it is a trick played by the government to steal ownership of children from their parents.

Fortunately, according to FotL, it is possible to get out of this contract, as it was entered under false pretenses. The axis of the movement is that by revoking use of one’s legally-represented identity (usually by use of a self-made affidavit or similar document), the real person withdraws his or her consent to be accountable to government within a given nation.

Those who have done so refer to themselves as “sovereign citizens” or freemen; refuse to pay taxes, mortgages, and fines; and decline the use of birth certificates, driver’s licenses, social insurance numbers, etc.

One problem with this is that separating the two identities while remaining a citizen is an impossibility; a citizen is a legal member of

a country. By refusing to be recognized as a “person” under the law, the individual denies his or her citizenship and thereby renounces the protection of his or her rights by the nation. The idea of being a sovereign (self-governing) citizen, then, is inherently oxymoronic.

Is it considered legally valid to cut all document-based ties with society? This is a source of friction. Freemen believe it is; the law believes it isn’t. But it’s not just a matter of taxes and parking tickets.

FotL might even seem relatively harmless but for the fact that the actions of self-proclaimed freemen affect people who are wilful and law-abiding citizens.

Recently, Mario Antonacci (a.k.a Andreas Pirelli), a self-described freeman took over the home of a retiree in Alberta under the pretense of renting it out, and declared it a “sovereign embassy.”

He gutted the house, changed the locks, and refused to pay rent – additionally, he put liens on the property and reportedly sent the owner, Rebekah Caverhill, a bill for work done to the home. In this case, Antonacci was eventually arrested after two years of occupying the residence, and will face assault charges related to a separate incident with a landlord in Montreal, but Caverhill will have to deal with the liens in court.

After Antonacci was arrested at the end of September, Caverhill toured the home. One of the rooms in the basement had a sign on the door reading “Core Meeting Room of The First Nations Sovran Embassy of Earth.”

“It’s a war room,” Caverhill told CTV News. “It’s making war on Canada.”

In a related article by Global News, Alberta justice minister Jonathan Denis expressed his frustration with FotL, saying he hopes to discuss what can be done to protect taxpayers.

“When it comes to Freemen, I frankly have really had it with these people. They are taking up resources with our courts that could be used for legitimate civil

The freeman movement goes deeper than tin-hat-sporting eccentrics with a cause. or criminal cases, and this isn’t a er discourse. What are the roots of this ideology and how do we deal new thing either,” Denis said.

This is not the first case in Can- with individuals who don’t want ada involving FotL, and warnings to be a part of society in the conhave been circulated in the legal text of the modern world, where it sphere as well as in the RCMP. In is essentially impossible to get off the US, the FBI “considers sover- this ride. The physicality of inviseign-citizen extremists as compris- ible political boundaries, the notion that land ing a domestic terrorist move“You can’t just de- is owned by and/ ment which, clare yourself autono- nations or individuals, scattered across the United mous. You can’t just means there is States, has exist- take over someone’s no place to esed for decades,” house and declare it a cape to – you can’t just run according to into the woods a law enforce- sovereign nation.” and live off the ment bulletin released in 2011. FotL has also raised land because it already belongs to someone else. issues in the UK. Our society is certainly flawed.

The question on the surface seems to be: how do we, as a so- It contains many examples (even ciety, deal with law-breaking free- in its own founding) of injustice.

But creating more of those exmen?

However, I hope to see our en- amples is not an effective way to counters with FotL take on a deep- resolve those injustices. You can’t

Have an opinion about something? Share it with us.

Image:Buckdaddy/flickr

just declare yourself autonomous.

You can’t just take over someone’s house and declare it a sovereign nation – Europeans did it, and I think most of us can agree that was wrong and had terrible consequences. What we can do is endeavour to create change within the parameters of society in the hope that there will be fewer injustices.

We are not totally free. We are not sovereign. We are not separate from the system into which we were born—birth certificate or no birth certificate—and which formed our adult selves. But ultimately, as individuals, we are still held accountable for our actions.

You can refuse to pay taxes or drive without a license. You can cause trouble and distress for innocent people. In the end, though, you will have to own up to the consequences.

Comment on our website or email your thoughts to Editor@ufvcascade.ca

8

OPINION

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Who would you nominate for a Nobel Prize?

Feel like sharing your short-andsweet opinion? Keep an eye out for our whiteboard-toting pollsters roaming the halls.

9

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Haute Stuff

Winter accessory secrets

the foot department. As a purely aesthetic rule, I’d say don’t wear knit warmers with leggings, and don’t wear legwarmers on bare legs. Like shoes, buy warmers in neutral colours ... But also like shoes, you have to have at least one crazy pair to wear now and then. Maybe a Christmas pair?

SASHA MOEDT

THE CASCADE

Monday morning, 8 a.m. It’s winter, it’s still dark, and you’re trying to save on the bill so you didn’t turn the heat on. You have class at 8:30 a.m. which mean you have to throw off your blankets, put the coffee on and—the horror—get dressed. The air is biting cold. Jeans are always frigid to slip on. Long-sleeved shirts are too thin. And those sweatpants are looking mighty tempting.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to bash sweatshirts or sweatpants.

I think we’ve all had enough of that. But there are options that are far more interesting when it comes to staying stylish, while still feeling like you’re in a warm bundle of blankets so you can get through that early morning class.

There’s the basic law of winter clothes: layering. You can keep your outfits fresh and stylish using various formulas: chunky sweater + scarf + leggings + lined boots. Flannel boyfriend shirt + jeans + leg warmers + heels.

Oversized cardigan + loose dress + leggings + flats. Max-skirt + leggings + flats + cardigan. The list goes on, and with a few basic garments in the closet, you’re set for the season.

Accessories might be something you’re missing out on, though. Here are some warmthgiving accessories to focus on this winter.

Leg warmers They can be knit, they can be bright, and they can tie an outfit together. If you have a busy outfit going on, be careful with leg warmers – it’s better to wear them with a simple outfit. Flats and open heels can really make you cold; body heat leaves from the feet, so the addition of legwarmers really heats things up in

Earmuffs You’ll find if your hair is tied up, or you have bare shoulders, you get cold much faster. Like your feet, the head is a place where heat likes to escape. Earmuffs are amazing. Many people find the wind is a killer for your ears – pop on a pair of earmuffs, and you’re good. Granted, they aren’t always stylish— I wouldn’t say anyone would wear them for the aesthetic benefits—and they are tricky to pull off. Avoid the really fuzzy ones if you don’t want to look goofy.

Go for plaid or neutral patterns, and find one that doesn’t stick out of your head. image: Maria Morri/Flickr

Snoods, despite the Seuss-like name, are definitely fashion-mag friendly.

image: A. Turner/Flickr

Not brave enough to sling on a snood, maybe a toque is more your style.

Toques Toques keep the heat in well.

Plus you don’t have to do your hair. But make sure your prof is okay with you wearing them in class. You can be playful with an adorable pom-pom on your head (the person behind you in class will be guaranteed to hate you), classy with a deep red knit, or casual with a trapper hat. Or ... you can be Davy Crocket with a raccoon cap.

Scarves and snoods You can throw them on with practically any outfit. Scarves are extremely versatile. I gravitate towards solid colours and cotton fabric, because they are far easier to match. Wool has a cool, chunky look, however. Infinity scarves (scarves knit into a circle that you wrap around your neck) are useful because you don’t need to adjust – although, is that really an issue

with scarves?

Snoods are either a new thing, or something that’s been around for a long time but everyone hated the name so no one talked about it. It’s part hat, part scarf.

It looks like a tubular neck scarf when you wear it around your neck, and you can flip it up as a hood – it looks especially nice with a heavy winter jacket.

image: es74237/Flickr

Cute earmuffs are +5 effective against the threat of frostbite.

image: Rich Mckay/Flickr

Leg warmers look best with leggings.

Book Review

Worst. Person. Ever. by Douglas Coupland DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE

Fulfilling the promise made in the title, Douglas Coupland’s latest novel does, indeed, introduce you to the worst person ever.

Meet Raymond Gunt.

We’re thrust mercilessly into his crass and petty thoughts as he narrates a journey from London to a remote island location, where he has landed a gig as a camera man for a reality TV show in which “highly-fuckable” people eat bugs and shag each other to survive.

Gunt is the sort of person who falls madly and unabashedly in lust with every nubile young woman he meets.

He is the sort of person who rips a skintag from the shoulder of the woman riding the bus in front of him and becomes offended at her reaction.

He is the sort of person who says, “I’m obviously a sensitive man who enjoys the fine things

in life: food, wine, and art – yay art! Art everywhere! Art for everyone, even for useless people!”

He is the sort of person who would rather eat a handful of tree nuts to set off a severe allergic reaction rather than deal with certain social situations.

An example of Raymond Gunt’s spectacular narrative: “Honolulu was a total donkeyfuck, starting with the ridiculous amount of respect paid to that repulsive corpse Bradley, as if dying on a plane is some big accomplishment. Thirty minutes were wasted while medics came to retrieve his husk, and there weren’t even any snacks or drinks while we waited at the gate for them to do their thing.”

This man Bradley, by the way, is an overweight man whom Gunt was stuck sitting beside on his plane and insulted until he had a heart attack and died.

This is pretty typical of Raymond Gunt.

50 pages into the book, I came to the conclusion that the novel is Coupland’s worst – and I’ve

read a lot of Coupland and disliked more than a few.

100 pages into the novel, however, I reconsidered.

Coupland shows off a remarkable talent in this novel, which is to truly and deeply plant the reader in the main character ’s head. The fact that he created such a thoroughly loathsome character—and still manages to pull the reader head-first into that perspective—is impressive to say the least. Coupland pulls the character to the far end of the spectrum, and miraculously does it without losing his audience. Gunt is so purely, so thoroughly, so hilariously meanspirited and foul that it’s impossible to find a single redeeming feature. It’s shocking. It’s appalling. And frankly, it’s remarkable.

If I had such a difficult time dealing with Gunt, after all, what was the process like for Coupland – who spent a lot more time with him than I did?

To highlight Gunt’s nastiness even further, Coupland has provided a foil in the character of

ex-hobo Neal, whom Gunt originally recruits to be his slave— sorry, personal assistant—if only to have someone around to make him feel better about himself.

This plan quickly backfires. Neil cleans up extremely well, and turns into the perfect juxtaposition against Gunt: he is affable, easy-going, easily impressed, and, above all, attractive to the opposite sex.

But Neal also provides a problem to the reader: with a sinking feeling, we find ourselves relating more to the ill-tempered and constantly-complaining Gunt than we do to the ever-patient, even-as-a-keel sidekick. Neal might be happier, but he also comes off as naïve, and (to be frank) a little insufferable. Even worst is the realization that Gunt is saying things that everyone wishes they had the balls to, and at the very least is saying things everyone says in their own head, even if they scold themselves firmly after doing so.

In other words, Gunt inexplicably becomes the protagonist,

despite the fact that he remains as hateful as ever.

It’s a brain-teaser, it really is: I started out hating the novel, passed through phases of immense enjoyment, and finally ended on even, if puzzled, footing, with no strong feelings about it one way or another. In an era of rooting for the hero / underdog / unexpected plot twist, Coupland plants a thoroughly hateful character squarely in front of the audience without an ounce of regret. It becomes increasingly clear that Gunt only has one abrasive layer, and any search for deeper meaning is bound to turn into self-reflection on the part of the reader.

In typical Coupland style, the book ends almost as an afterthought; even though I knew better, I was expecting a plot point that would neatly wrap the book up, or at least explain what Coupland was trying to accomplish. No such luck: it’s hardly spoiling the book to tell you that Gunt stays nasty right to the end.

10

ARTS & LIFE FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Speaking to the unacknowledged world

UFV professor Miriam Nichols to lecture in UK on modern poetry JENNIFER COLBOURNE THE CASCADE

Miriam Nichols has been an English professor at UFV since 1994, specializing primarily in 20th century literature and literary criticism. Recently, she published a book entitled Radical Affections: Essays on the Poetics of Outside, and she is currently on sabbatical writing the biography of BerkeleyVancouver poet Robin Blaser.

Nichols edited Blaser’s collected poems, The Holy Forest, his collected essays, The Fire, and has another of his works, The Astonishment Tapes, in the midst of publication. Now, this November, Nichols is heading to the UK to talk about Robin Blaser and 20th century poetics.

You’re lecturing at East Anglia University in Norwich and the University of Kent in Kent, correct? What are your lecture dates?

I am attending a one-day conference at East Anglia on November 23. This event is about the Vancouver Poetry Conference (VPC) of 1963, a rather famous event that brought a lot of American poets to UBC for lectures, workshops, and readings.

The participants of that conference became very well-known.

Among the Americans were Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, and Denise Levertov, all of them rock stars of the mid-20th century literary avant-garde; the Canadians were student-poets at the time, but they too developed luminous writing lives – George Bowering, Fred Wah, Daph-

Image: Wikimedia commons

Nichols is a respected scholar in 20th century literature and poetry. ne Marlatt, and Frank Davey among them.

The East Anglia event is called Beyond the Border, and it is a retrospective look at the intellectual heritage of those poets and of events like the VPC. That 1963 conference is the most famous of its kind from that period, but it was one of many. UBC professor Warren Tallman and his wife Ellen brought the New American poets, as they were called, to Vancouver on numerous occasions, so that there was a real cross-border discourse going on.

The other event is scheduled for November 27, at Kent University. The English department at Kent has a series going for

guest lecturers and I’m to be one of them. So it’s not a conference – just me and some Kent faculty and students.

What are your lectures about?

The East Anglia paper is about the poet Robin Blaser ’s take on the Berkeley poetry scene of the 1950s. Blaser was a colleague of Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, and Charles Olson, and of that generation of New American poets, he was the one who actually immigrated to Vancouver. He taught at SFU from 1966 to 1986, when he took early retirement.

I have done a lot of work on Blaser and this paper is coming out of a series of Blaser audiotapes that I have edited for publication. Blaser called these taped talks about his life and work “Astonishments,” and a selected version of them will be published as The Astonishment Tapes. The University of Alabama Press is doing that, but … I don’t know when it will be coming out exactly. Presses move in their own mysterious ways.

My paper for East Anglia is called “The Astonishment Tapes: Robin Blaser on the Berkeley Scene.” The scene in question is the arts scene around the University of California at Berkeley in the late 1940s. Some commentators call that period the Berkeley Renaissance because there were so many new writers and artists with new ideas floating around. Many of them went on to become pretty well-known, but they were students at that time. Blaser did his undergraduate work there between 1944 and 1949.

The Kent lecture is a little more general. It is called “Variable Measure in Modernist Poetry: Pound, Olson, Hejinian.”

The term “measure” in the context of the paper refers not only to prosody [poetic form], but to aesthetic and social judgment – a worldview, in other words.

I am comparing three generations of 20th century writers from early modern [Ezra Pound], mid-century [Charles Olson], and contemporary [Lyn Hejinian]. In my view, these poets constitute a particular line or genealogy in avant-garde poetics, and my purpose is to track changes in that line over the three generations.

I think these poets are important because they try to do for the 20th century what some of the great epic writers did for the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Consider, for instance Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, the great Catholic epic of the 14th century. Dante gives us a journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven, and the cosmos that comes out of that journey gives shape and meaning to historical person and events. That’s what poetry is about – making meaning rather than creating knowledge in the scientific sense. Or consider John Milton, the poet of Paradise Lost, who again re-wrote the universe, this time from a Puritan perspective.

We don’t see the writers of our own times in the same way, perhaps because they are too close to us, but Pound, Olson, and He-

if he and the disciples were to reconvene in the year 2000?

Blaser wrote the libretto, Birtwistle the music, and the opera was debuted in Berlin in 2000. That libretto was Blaser ’s last sustained work, although he wrote a lot of short lyrics afterwards. Blaser died in 2009, but he was ill with a brain tumor some years before that. I’m hoping to talk to Sir Harrison about the process of writing the opera and about his impressions of Blaser.

Image: Miriam Nichols

Nichols is spending her sabbatical researching poet Robin Blaser. jinian, after their fashions and from a secular perspective, give us the world again.

Tell me about your sabbatical project.

My sabbatical project is a literary biography of Robin Blaser.

It will be called Performing the Real: A Biography of Robin Blaser.

A literary biography considers the work, as well as the life, of its subject, so I am writing about Blaser ’s development as a poet and the significance of his work as well as the details of his life.

This project is closely related to the UK papers. The talk at East Anglia on The Astonishment Tapes is directly relevant to the biography. The tapes are, after all, Blaser ’s own account of his early life. They were never finished, but they contain some very important information. Blaser worked his way up to about 1955 (he was born in 1925), and then the energy for the series just ran out.

To contextualize a little more:

Image: Miriam Nichols

Blaser’s self-recordings are the base of Nichols’ work.

these talks were recorded at the home of Warren Tallman [the above-mentioned UBC professor] in front of a small group of Vancouver writers. There were tensions between Tallman and Blaser from the beginning, and some of them were over what biography is supposed to be.

This was one reason why the series was never finished. Blaser always considered his writing life an integral part of his biography, and by writing life I mean his journey in language as a poet – the intellectual moves he was

able to make and the battles he fought with his peers over poetry. Tallman was more interested in biography in the conventional sense as the personal story of a life. There is a lot of push-pull on the tapes over the direction of the talks.

The talk on modernism at Kent is related to the biography at the level of ideas. I’m not talking about Blaser, but I’m talking about a genealogy of poetic art that he spent his life thinking about and contributing to. I’m sure it seems quaint to talk about poetry now because it is such a marginalized genre, but think about it as the engine under the hood of the literary car. Most people want to know how fast the car goes and whether it looks cool. But the engine makes it go.

Poets are technicians of the literary imagination. To shift metaphors, Shelley said that they are the unacknowledged legislators of the world; Charles Bernstein said that they are the legislators of the unacknowledged world.

How did these opportunities come about?

The contemporary poetry world is pretty small. I heard about the East Anglia event through a friend who is doing graduate work on contemporary poets at the State University of New York at Buffalo and just sent in a paper proposal. (And by the way for your readers, SUNY Buffalo has one of the most comprehensive poetics departments among US universities).

I didn’t want to cross the pond just for one conference, however, so I contacted a friend at Kent to ask if there was anything else going on in poetics at that time.

Are you excited to go on your trip? What else do you plan to do in England?

Well, I have some days in London between East Anglia and Kent. If I can get it set up, I would like to interview Sir Harrison Birtwistle for the biography. Sir Harrison is a composer and he worked with Blaser on The Last Supper, an opera about the titular biblical event that focuses on an imagined conversation between Christ and his disciples. What would Christ say about the history of Christianity

Do you think it’s important to lecture abroad/bring in guest lecturers to universities?

It’s important to keep up, however one manages that. I love the exchange with colleagues and students. I find that very stimulating. Sometimes that exchange can really shift one’s point of view and I look for those occasions. Keep moving, keep thinking, get better. There’s a phrase by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze that I love—the clear zone—expand your clear zone – that’s the point. I need a T-shirt with that phrase on it.

I suspect that many students, if you asked them to come and be lectured to (especially about poetry), would run screaming, but such events can be trans-

Image: Wikimedia commons

Nichols traces the tradition of poetry from Dante through to modern-era poets.

formative. I had a wonderful experience with some Berkeley students this past spring. They pushed me hard with their questions, I can tell you, and I’m always grateful for that. Universities have as a mandate the exchange of ideas, and guests can contribute mightily to that aim.

Events don’t have to be faculty-driven either. The whole Vancouver Poetry Conference thing that has gone down in literary history as such a big deal was very much student driven.

Tallman had a class on what was then contemporary poetry – we would probably call it postmodernism. It was awfully hard stuff and the students had lots of questions, so they put their money together and paid Robert Duncan’s travel expenses from Berkeley to Vancouver. They wanted him to explain his difficult poetry. The 1963 VPC came after that event. So who would you like to see? You never know – it might be possible.

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ARTS & LIFE FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Grappling with the future

Fraser University (where they train with the national team).

I don’t think I fully appreciated the dedication it takes to participate in a CIS varsity team, or the punishment athletes need to handle on a daily basis. UFV wrestling won’t be officially competing in the CIS until next fall, and yet there they were, 7 a.m. on a Tuesday, voluntarily entering the crucible.

PAUL ESAU

THE CASCADE

Seven a.m. on a Tuesday is never a good time to be in a headlock, but for the members of UFV’s wrestling team, it’s just another day on the mats.

Head coach Arjan Bhullar told me to show up for practice with shorts, athletic shoes, and a fair degree of humility. I showed up, but any aspirations of training with the team died when I couldn’t complete the warm-up (I didn’t realize wrestling involved handsprings and cartwheels). Until co-coach Raj Virdi got his team down to business, the whole thing felt eerily similar to the time I tried out for the cheerleading team…

Except with way more aggression.

Wrestling is a rough, rough sport. Two straining, sweating, bruised opponents struggle to rope each other into a position so uncomfortable they are forced to submit. They capture arms, feet, heads, and twist them at strange angles until the unfortunate owner of said body part leaves the ring or rolls onto his back.

At one point during the practice, Virdi caught one of his wrestlers in some sort of shoulder lock and flipped him three times in a row, both of them slamming repeatedly into the mat. When he released the hold, both men just lay there for a moment, Virdi’s partner a little stunned, before resuming the practice.

“Sweet Santa,” I said to my

Interview with co-coach Raj Virdi:

Photo: Blake McGuire

Coach Raj Virdi shows Jaskarn Ranu a thing or two about takedowns. photographer Blake McGuire, “They would have killed me!”

Blake nodded solemnly. “This is why I don’t play sports,” he said.

Meanwhile, AJ Gill, a firstyear recruit with the body of a young Hercules was busy laying a beatdown on Prabjot, his smaller opponent. I watched him “shoot” for the legs of his teammate, forcing Prabjot to hop backward across the mat with one leg held in AJ’s vicelike grip.

“Can I take my shirt off now?”

AJ said, eying Blake’s camera.

It was a strange request, but I didn’t blame him. Maintaining

the body of a Greek god takes a lot of work, which is why you don’t see more of them walking around. I wouldn’t be surprised if AJ’s abs alone win him a couple matches next year, as they had better definition than most of YouTube.

The wrestling team finished practice with a brutal combination of suicide lines, burpees, Japanese push-ups, and frog jumps. By the end, even AJ was sweating hard, and “blondie” Jaskarn Ranu had lost a bit of his mojo. It was a hard practice, both physically and mentally brutal – and they were going to do it all again in the afternoon at Simon

So what is it that makes wrestling such a popular sport inthe East Indian community?

Wrestling in the East Indian community – it’s been there for thousands of years in India. It’s where all of us learned how to wrestle, as well as some of our parents and our ancestors. I didn’t have anyone who wrestled in my family, I just started because in the East Indian community wrestling is really popular. That’s why much of the wrestling community [in BC] is East Indian.

Who was your inspiration to take up wrestling?

My inspiration was my high school coach; his name was Memo Marrelo and he got me into wrestling. I was a small skinny kid and he just thought that I should wrestle.

You volunteer to coach here at UFV. You essentially are volunteering a year of your time, volunteering to be here at seven

in the morning several days a week. Why would you do this?

I love wrestling, I’ve done it my whole life, and it’s a way of giving back to the sport. There’s a lot of potential here in the Fraser Valley … and our goal is to win the CIS and I’m sure that we will. We’re not doing this just part time, we’re doing this full time, and we’re completely 100 per cent committed.

How did you and head coach Arjun Bhullar meet?

We weren’t really friends in high school, we were from different places … but when we got into university we were on the same varsity team, we had very similar personalities, and we had similar interests. We became best friends, we were on the national team together …

I see the guy every single day now. Working with him is awesome because I don’t think I’d want to work with anybody else.

Wrestling seems like a rough sport both mentally and physically. It takes a lot of strategy and gives a lot of pain. How do people excel at it?

Honestly, wrestling is one of the toughest sports in the world ... the last two minutes of the match are most crucial usually because that’s when you’re completely exhausted and you have to train your mind especially to push past that and tell your mind and body that you can keep going.

Interview with wrestler Jaskar Ranu: How long have you wrestled?

I’ve been wrestling for five years now. This is my sixth year.

In Abbotsford?

No, in Surrey. The Khalsa Wrestling Club, under Raj Virdi.

Why do you wrestle?

Wrestling builds strong character – it teaches you how to survive out there. Why I wrestle is because you have no one else to depend on except yourself, so all that hard work and dedication you put in is going to pay off.

You can’t blame anybody [but yourself] … the more work you put in the more results you’re going to get.

How do you take that kind of abuse day after day?

When you start out it’s hard.

One thing I will tell you straight out is that when you start out you break, in the five years that you [wrestle] in university you’re going to break.

When you wrestle all out against your teammates, does it make you get angry with them or do you become better teammates?

I dunno, wrestlers are pretty open as people. You do get pissed off sometimes … but that just makes you closer as friends.

Photos: Blake McGuire

Wrestling recently joined the list of varsity teams at UFV, led by co-coaches Arjan Bhullar and Raj Virdi. The team trains in the early mornings.

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ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

An evening with the pinball wizard

Pinball king John Kremmer and his backyard empire.

JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR

The thrill of pinball is the lack of routine. The ball is always wild and you never can be certain what will happen. That’s why I love pinball, and also why I suck at it. But as I sat in a small garage listening to the sounds and lights constantly blurting out from the various machines, I couldn’t help but feel the urge to play.

John Kremmer is just a regular kind of guy at first glance. He is a trained graphic designer, and he used to have his own printing press back in the day. He was vice president of BC Christian News and helped publish a youth magazine across Canada.

He also is one of the best pinball players in the world.

After being invited into his personal garage, I was in awe of the machines, awards and fan memorabilia neatly organized throughout the small space. Star Wars, the Simpsons, Black Knight, F-14 Tomcat, and more; Kremmer has collected classic pinball machines over the course of his life and replaced the

ink and oil from his old printing press with clean and exciting machines. As a kid, he went to local arcades with a quarter and played on a machine until he won 10 to 15 free games and then would sell them to people for a dollar. Kremmer was able to roll the machines, which involves restarting the scoreboard with ease and it helped him win his first tournament. A new arcade had opened up, and on the first day Kremmer came in and rolled the machine. A month later, he came to collect his trophy and saw that no one had placed on a massive scoreboard set up for the tournament due to his score!

But there was a time when he stopped playing pinball. For 20 years he rarely ever played unless he came across one in a hotel. But during a weekend in Pittsburgh, he entered a tournament in the B Class with more experienced players and ended up finishing eighth out of over 100 players! Since then he has returned to the games and won tournaments all over. Kremmer loves to compete, from Denver, where he placed first above both the number one player in Canada and the number one in the

image: Jeremy Hannaford

world, to the Flipper Freaks tournament held at Castle Fun Park a few weeks ago. The recent tournament had a great turnout. Though being sick hampered his final day performance, Kremmer’s 11thplace finish wasn’t the whole story.

Kremmer says he enjoys the social interaction just as much as competing.

Kremmer remarks upon how the lack of human interaction from texting or Facebook has made some people long for social interaction. The principal of getting together and having fun has helped build the reputation for the pinball league. After going from 10,000 official pinball players to 20,000 in just three years, it is certain pinball is on the raise. Later on, he and I played a game on his new Demolition Man machine. I was amazed as he casually got over a billion points. When he realized how late it was, he finished the game by letting seven extra balls he had won go down the machine!

Alongside pinball and graphic design, Kremmer also collects various items: comic books, record albums, pinball posters, and the like.

He has so many stories of finding

and selling rare items that his wife never knows what he will bring back.

Kremmer also spoke about his good friend, Robert Gagno, Canada’s number one player, and how through their pinball connections they have gotten to meet former NFL superstars and play pinball in their homes. Kremmer also isn’t a retro kind of guy. He enjoys current video games and he has owned every major Nintendo system ever made. He says he enjoys video games and commends them on the advancements they have made but he still prefers a regular game of pinball because of the constant challenge.

After discovering that The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” was the first song Kremmer had learned to play on the drums, I really got an idea of Kremmer’s life. He may be a great pinball player but he also is a man of other hobbies. He is a man of many talents and fascinations and is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. This introduction into the pinball world has piqued my interest and now I feel more than willing to spend a few quarters on some games.

image: Jeremy Hannaford

Kremmer racks up the points on one of his personal pinball machines, stored snugly in his small garage.

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ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

CROSSWORD

Answer Keys

Ways to get warm

LAST WEEK

by Katie Stobbart

sudoku solution

Across 1. CANDY 5. HARVEST 7. COZY 8. BONFIRE 10. UMBRELLA 11. SWEATER

Down 1. CIDER 2. OCTOBER 3. HAYRIDE 4. JACKOLANTERN 6. APPLES 9. FOG

SUDOKU PUZZLE ACROSS 2. Sheep seem warm – steal their secret to keep your feet toasty. (4, 5) 6. Gather plenty of these heart-warming embraces. (4) 9. Tuck this up under your chin. (7) 10. Turn this all the way up to raise the temperature in your house. (10)

DOWN 1. Sip this delicious beverage to cut the cold and cocoa cravings. (3, 9) 3. Spread your arms and legs as you hop. Repeat. These will get your heart pumping.

(7, 5) 4. Plugging in one of these is a good way to heat small rooms. (5, 6) 5. A hot one of these will warm you and clean you up. (6) 7. Stay snug in one of these – function over fashion! (7) 8. Take a trip south of the equator. (8)

The Weekly Horoscope Star Signs from Sumas Sibyl Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18: Don’t even bother trying to communicate with Pisces.

They only understand Wingdings.

Gemini: May 21 - June 21: You may be behind on chores, but don’t worry. Your broomstick will sprout arms and take over.

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22: You’re going to get a frog in your throat. Avoid ponds.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20: Aqu twe wetmck kpin bfzx.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22: All cancers are bad. You make me sick.

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21: Have a problem? Just dump chicken shit on it. It’ll probably go away.

Aries: March 21 - April 19: You really should take your major in Defence against the Dark Arts and minor in Herbology. Arithmancy and Divination are worthless after graduation.

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22: The fox actually does say “Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingering-ding.” Do with this information what you will.

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21: It is your destiny to popularize Cockney rhyming slang at UFV. Take a butcher’s if you haven’t a Scooby Doo.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20: Don’t go to Candy Mountain.

It won’t be an adventure.

Virgo: Aug 23 -Sept22: Science and safety are not going to mix well for you this week. You’re gonna need another Timmy.

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19: Your odds are pretty good for winning the lottery this month, if you buy 14 million tickets.

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ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Film Reviews

Enough Said, Gravity, Captain Phillips MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

1 2 3 4 5 6

Shuffle

CHARTS

AARON LEVY

Teen Daze Glacier

CIVL STATION MANAGER

CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy is excited for this Thursday’s (October 17) Young Contemporaries event Art on Tap with Boys Who Say No and Abbotsford’s Oh Village at The Reach Gallery and Museum on 32388 Veterans Way in Abbotsford. Visit Art on Tap on Facebook for more details!

Shad Fam Jam b/w Stylin’ Losses Demos The Dragstrip Devils The Dragstrip Devils

Tera Melos X’ed Out

Boys Who Say No – Atonement This Toronto band makes no apologies for its blend of good-time excitement and well thought out songwriting. It’s not a crime to have fun and write considered, explorative pop music that demands to be acknowledged and regarded as valuable. After gigging for years, their album’s about to make a splash.

Chvrches The Bones Of What You Believe

7 8

The Sadies Internal Sounds

How To Destroy Angels Welcome Oblivion

Oh Village – In This House Powerful, characteristic songwriting coupled with lush instrumentation is not always what one comes to expect from undergraduate students and those under the age of 25 unless their surnames are Oberst or Welch and did most of their writing in that bracket five to ten years ago. Oh Village is on the horizon.

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Young Galaxy Ultramarine The Brains The Monster Within

Fur Trade Don’t Get Heavy

We Are the City – “Feel Is a Word”

Random Recipe Kill The Hook Lindi Ortega Tin Star The Albertans Dangerous Anything

The Howlin’ Brothers Howl

Broken Social Scene – “Major Label Debut” An appropriate-enough track to use for this occasion, as Kevin and Chuck from BSS are helping Boys Who Say No demo their new album THIS VERY WEEK! Whether or not that means BWSN will release a proper “Major Label” debut off the bat with its first fulllength effort notwithstanding.

16 17

Boreal Sons Threadbare

Shawn Mrazek Lives!

Thought He Was Dead

18

The Cumberland Brothers Gamey

The original lower mainland band projecting shimmering, placid lake imagery interrupted by swells of crashing tides in the realm of what you’d call a set of phenoms, We Are The City’s music is in many way akin to that of Oh Village. Will they both prove to be Peak Performers?

Enough Said (dir. Nicole Holofcener) Every movie, beyond its worth as a coherent story or series of images, is a record of people and places at a specific moment in time. Being sucked into a narrative often takes precedence, which makes it possible to appreciate a classic film from the 1930s without constantly thinking of how everyone involved with its making has passed away, or how much of the landscapes or city streets in the background of a shot might still resemble their past record today. But these thoughts do show up, in website projects, in written remembrances, or in the merging of coincidence, such as an anniversary, with a movie screening.

In the case of Enough Said, the passing away of James Gandolfini since the movie finished its principle photography but before its wide release makes his performance more bittersweet, grow larger in significance.

But as Ignatiy Vishnevetsky remarked at the time, what marks Gandolfini as a great character actor is how a case can be made for just about any of his performances as his best. Enough Said joins this group.

Galdolfini and Julia-Louis Dreyfuss are both divorced parents with daughters about to head to university, and when they both recognize this, and awkwardly say some variation on “me too!” at the party where they’re introduced, it’s also an introduction to Nicole Holofcener ’s style of romantic comedy writing. Rather than perfect repartee and theatrical quotables, Holofcener ’s characters are not funny in the way people trying to be funny often end up being, and the movie and its supporting characters embrace them for this.

Holofcener ’s style can seem like a close cousin to television (the warmth of many of the relationships and the way characters struggle against the narrowness of their experience recalls a bit of Gilmore Girls), and yes, there is B-plot juggling, and yes, there isn’t much distinguished, musically or visually, about the movie. But Holofcener distills rather than overplays. Enough Said is a movie that respects the individuality of its characters, despite the fact that a romantic union is the subject, to the point where when the comedic staple of embarassment shows up, it affects both characters involved. Gandolfini and Dreyfuss both play with tired courtesy, familiar imperfection,

and modest understanding as the scenes play out.

Gravity (dir. Alfonso Cuarón) There’s nothing modest about Gravity, at least if you hear about it from awards bloggers and advertisement campaigns. The expanse of space usually brings up lofty questions, the key one here being how the idea of being impossibly small makes you feel, with the usual response as either meaningless fear or liberating perspective, but what Gravity suggests is that the whole thing is quite hilarious.

Alfonso Cuarón’s first film in eight years is basically 90 minutes of the seamlessly stiched-together long take (and apparently little else) director playing with excitement, with a little maxim-izing about keeping it together and moving on to make the whole thing relatable (with even this pitched to maximum volume). The ingredients for Cuarón’s space-physics model: the funny, talkative George Clooney, not the serious actor one, a melancholic newon-the-job Sandra Bullock (reminiscent of her performance in the underrated The Lake House), no celebrating or hands-clutching-head shots of Mission Control, and everything that can go wrong going wrong.

Gravity’s presence as the first semi-realistic space movie in a while has brought out discussions of its attention to reality, and criticisms, because of its explanatory title card about the absence of sound in space, for its use of dramatic score. But despite its (sentimental) message of rationality, Gravity is a movie that cares mostly about dizzy subjectivity: a ridiculous Hans Zimmer-meets-Sigur Rós resurging wave of sound is how the mind, in 2013, chooses to accompany life-or-death situations, and despite the same problems of plane-separation, 3D allows the movie to loom as large as it possibly can, the scientific possibility of its subjects thrown to the wind.

Gravity is a movie where everything humans have launched into space is turned into a mortal weapon, which is less horrifying discovery and more of an opportunity for fun, pitched at such a concentrated level of out-of-breath adrenaline that it, switching between beauty and goofiness, begs to be counted as a reason to be happy to be alive.

Captain Phillips (dir. Paul Greengrass) Realism and shaky cam still have the same tired relationship

(something wonderfully absent in Gravity) and Paul Greengrass is probably the name most associated with this marriage. At this point, most will be familiar with the logic of the style’s spatial leaps and unsteady hand, but simply accepting the mode Greengrass uses in Captain Phillips robs the movie of any of its contradictions, something carried over from Greengrass’ previous, mostly-forgotten Green Zone.

In that film, the objectivity and reliability of journalistic and military operations in Iraq were undermined, leading to a happy ending where comeuppance was served. Captain Phillips, on the other hand, is a Zero Dark Thirty-like account of Things That Happened, with some hints at the flimsiness of the intel everyone is acting on.

Tom Hanks, in the main role, is believably serious, organizing his crew and operating according to protocol. Speaking without a trace of irony, he’s honest, loyal, faultless. The complications then, come from the film’s depiction of the Somali pirates that attempt to board and take hostage of an American vessel.

There is the choice in the first place to tell this story over any others. Americans, evidently, like to make versions of history that make claim to empirical, straight sequences of events even as there is always a vested interest at work. Captain Phillips makes some effort at humanizing the situation that traps the four main Somalians, suggesting that were it not for American interests shipping cargo through and using the resources from the area, this might not ever occur, and they might instead be fishermen.

Even if it’s barely connective, the framing of the state of affairs recalls the unprofitable fisherman from Luschino Visconti’s La Terra Trema, an example illuminating if only because Visconti, an actual titled count, was making a film about those in poverty, trying to enliven a situation totally not understood. American treatment of other countries, particularly those in conflict, almost always has the same air about it, and not half the care of Visconti’s films. While Greengrass and screenwriter Billy Ray may try to add some internal conflict to the straightforward, if often tense water-vessel-standoff plot, what stands out is how whatever the disclaimers may say, Hollywood cares about fidelity to American military history if nothing else, which leads to lengthy credit blocks thanking every member of the original personnel involved and position titles like Department of Defense Entertainment Media Liason. Even if the military has to stand up to some criticism, it gets the job done. And Greengrass’ camera, super-focused and illuminated in the light of high-tech displays, can’t help but show it off.

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ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Film Review

Metallica Through the Never JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR

Mini Album Reviews

SoundBites

While the genre may not be box-office gold, theatrical concert films have made serious advancements in both technology and production in the past decade. Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light featured the use of IMAX cameras. Also, while it may have been more a cash grab than a technological advancement, Justin Bieber and One Direction were the subjects of 3D concert films which have generated large revenue. So when Metallica has a concert film featuring both those features and events happening during the show incorporated with a short film, the bar has certainly been raised.

Through the Never starts with roadie Trip (Dane DeHann) riding up to BC Place (the concert footage comes from Rogers Arena and Rexall Place but BC Place looks much cooler) on his skateboard. As he walks inside, he sees frontman James Hetfield roll up in a car spouting huge flames from the exhausts and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett’s guitar dripping blood. These small peculiar instances give

image: Kreepin Deth/Wikimedia commons

films.

Metallica brandish many creepy (yet intriguing) set pieces including massive coffins containing frightening people via a screen, and crosses appearing out of the stage. The incorporation of imagery helps set the tone for Trip’s story.

When “One” begins, things become very interesting. After seemingly attacking the stage with bombs and bullets via pyro effects and creative lighting, Trip comes across a battle between rioters and police officers. With images of the Vancouver riots still fresh in people’s minds, the battle brings back those images head on. The violence is brutal for a music video especially when the rider appears.

As Trip’s future adversary, he strings up rioters and cops alike and hangs them across the street.

Trip becomes his next target and the chase begins.

While it does play out like a fairly long music video, the editing is fantastic as it spaces out the concert and story perfectly and creates anticipation for both events. Editor Joe Hutshing really delievers an entertaining dual experience. Having worked on big pictures like Oliver Stone’s

JFK and several Cameron Crowe films, Hutshing has a knack for perfect timing. He spaces out Trip’s story fluidly amongst the concert footage. He leaves the concert uninterrupted for short times when it isn’t necessary.

Trip’s story is placed exactly where it needs to be, as songs collaborating with the on-screen events.

People dousing themselves in kerosene and igniting themselves to fight off the mobs and destroying the city with a massive hammer alongside “Master of Puppets” in the final act was amazing to watch. As the hammer strikes, the concert itself falls to shambles with scaffolding falling from the rafters, light projectors exploding with sparks, and stage crews catching fire and running across the stage.

While some of these events have been used in previous Metallica concerts, it was very entertaining to watch them on the big screen.

Trust Metallica to push the limit when it comes to both concert performance and film production.

the audience a taste of what is to come. After opening with one of their earlier songs, “Creeping Death,” Trip is sent out to retrieve a package from a truck that has run out of gas in the city.

Filmed in Vancouver and Edmonton in August 2012, Metallica’s highly entertaining concert was recorded with several IMAX cameras via versatile cranes and by hand. The revolving effect and constant motion created a

more immersive experience unlike standard mounted cameras.

Not being a big Metallica fan myself, I was still fairly entertained throughout the film and never wished to stay with just one medium. While some things made me laugh, like drummer Lars Ulrich’s ridiculous facial expressions or Trip’s repeated obliviousness to the surrounding events, it’s a new level of camera engagement for concert

Darkside Psychic

Miley Cyrus Bangerz

Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience Part 2 of 2

Joshua Radin Wax Wings

Darkside’s Psychic is a seance of a rock album, even more than the duo’s three-track debut from two years ago, where the worlds of genres seem to not quite apply and Nicholas Jaar’s slowburn electronic style encounters Dave Harrington’s guitar and organ work, both hypnotic. Another point of comparison is Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, which the duo reworked as a critical dissection, tossing out entire tracks and stretching out small parts of others, as Random Access Memories Memories earlier this year. Darkside uses the two sides of instrumental musicianship and digital remaking together in a way that doesn’t sound like presets working toward a model, but a free-form search for the mysteries in the gaps between traditions of music.

Songs run as long as 11 minutes or as short as two, but more important than the structuring of words or a span of virtuosity is the mood of the piece: the disassembling of surf-rock drumbeats on “The Only Shrine I’ve Seen,” the four-minute pulseless build of “Golden Arrow,” or the radio-switch echoes of “Freak, Go Home,” moments that, regardless of track length, induce the effect of song-replays within songs − not earworms, but their affective dreams.

Anyone who doubted Miley Cyrus’ ability to put her Hannah Montana days behind her only needs to listen to this album to be convinced. After her shocking performance at the MTV VMAs, critics were provoked and popular culture was tempted.

This good girl gone bad has certainly changed her image, and a lot of people seem to think it wasn’t for the best.

But the American singer’s new album has “got two, ooh letters for you / one of them is F / and the other one’s U.” “Maybe You’re Right” has Cyrus cowriting with John Shanks, a collaborator on her previous hits “When I Look at You,” “Can’t Be Tamed,” “The Time of Our Lives,” and “The Climb.” The verdict is in – Shanks and Cyrus still make magic together. In this personal song, she beautifully belts out, “You might think I’m crazy, that I’m lost and foolish leaving you behind, maybe you’re right.” On album-closer “Someone Else,” a love song with deep bass beats, Cyrus opens singing, “If you’re looking for love know that love don’t live here anymore.” It is no surprise that Cyrus also co-wrote this song.

Beyond any doubt, Bangerz shows that Miley Cyrus is growing up and exploring music. She has an incredible voice and is certainly on the verge of something different and amazing with her music career.

After “experiencing” Justin Timberlake’s comeback record in March, it was hard not to hope for a quick follow-up. Although Timberlake has obliged, he misfires. Releasing The 20/20 Experience Part 2 of 2 only six months after 1 of 2, an album that was brimming with style and confidence, one would assume that the themes and production would be similar, however, this new record has more in common with his 2006 record FutureSex/ LoveSounds. Both records have been produced by Timberland, but 2 of 2 is chock full of the self-indulgent sonic tics that inhibit Timberlake’s creative range. With someone as wildly talented as Timberlake, it’s difficult to listen to a record that falls back from the strides he made on 1 of 2, as the songs here are obviously scraps from the cutting room floor from the original recording sessions. The album treads water for a few tracks, but even Timberlake’s undeniable charms can’t save this hollowed-out record. It hits rock bottom on the twangy blues track “Drink You Away,” where Timberlake fumbles through the awkward chorus, “I can’t drink you away, I’ve tried Jack, I’ve tried Jim, I’ve tried all of their friends.” This track, sounding like a Kid-Rock parody, is better suited for an SNL skit, and doesn’t belong on the record of a genuinely savvy pop writer like Justin Timberlake.

If you’re not the kind of person to get absorbed into deeply romantic piano and guitar folk styling, then it may be difficult to see the beauty in Joshua Radin’s music. I do, which has made Wax Wings a very personally invested album. Having said that, Radin’s first two albums were absolute killers and this release is only a slight step lower than those two. Interestingly, Wax Wings is being released only 10 months after his fourth album, Underwater, which I hate to call underwhelming.

Since then, Radin’s left his record label and has turned to self-releasing, which is almost undoubtedly why Wax Wings is a return to form. What he’s returned with are 11 impeccable tracks. There are only a couple missteps, mostly on one of the upbeat songs, “When We’re Together,” which has strange boyband backing vocals. Then there’s also “Like They Used To” which edges, musically, just a touch too close to being piped music – albeit with lyrics that are still touching. Other than that, the album’s immaculate. The best songs, as they always will be with Radin, are the ones with deep emotional attachments. This includes “Cross That Line,” a song about breaking through a relationship to take the next step and express one’s love. Then there’s also the closing track, “My My Love,” the story of pressing through life alone to finally meet your love and realize that this is what life is really about.

michael scoular

ADESUWA OKOYOMON

Tim Ubels

Joe Johnson

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Discussions below the belt

Sex with the ex: a guide XTINA SEXPERT

Let me give you a scenario: You are single and out with your friends. You run into your ex who looks and smells amazing and for some reason isn’t making you want to turn and bolt. Do you stay and flirt and see where it goes? Is having sex with your ex ever a good idea? MJ Angel of Life & Style magazine looks at a study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology where “researchers examined a group of 137 divorcees and asked how many of them had fallen off the break-up wagon and back into bed with their ex – 82.5 per cent of participants said they remained in contact with their ex after the separation and almost 21.9 per cent (one fifth) fessed up to sex with the ex.”

This is never a black and white issue. Ex-sex, while it has the potential to be hot and exciting, can also be tricky to maintain without throwing you back into the issues you split over in the first place. If attempting post-breakup sex with your ex, try to stick to these guidelines and hopefully you will avoid disaster.

Let the hurt heal Time is essential for facilitat-

ing a functional fling with an ex.

Let enough time pass for both partners to be emotionally secure with sharing that intimacy again. If one or both of you are still hurt or in love, avoid the inevitable catastrophe and keep your hands and genitals to yourself for now.

Define your non-relationship Be clear about your intentions.

If you both decide that sex is just sex then it should not mimic a relationship. Avoid cuddling or back rubs. And definitely don’t play with their hair or use old pet names.

Keep it casual I can’t tell you the magic number of encounters that will turn your casual hook-ups into a wannabe relationship, but it can happen if you’re not careful. Don’t call them and tell them about your day. Don’t plan weekends away.

Do not talk about why you broke up It’s nice to reminisce, but in this case it’s not a great idea. Reliving the ‘good times’ can bring up more than just memories, it can unearth old feelings as well.

It’s best not to allow either of you false hope that the relationship will ever magically mend

Image: hang_in_there/Flickr

Considering rekindling the flame with an ex? No one’s judging, but here are some ground rules. itself. After all, you broke up for a reason.

Keep it in the bedroom If you have defined your relationship as a purely sexual one then stay away from dinners together, drinks with mutual friends, watching movies together, or anything that resembles a date.

Give it an expiration date It’s only a matter of time be-

fore the arrangement becomes problematic. If you set an end date for a few weeks down the line it will reinforce the temporary nature of the non-relationship. Any longer than that and the potential for rekindling the romance only grows with the added time.

Perhaps you’ll discover that you and your ex aren’t finished after all. Maybe the time apart gave you a chance to reorganize your life and you have found

a place for him/her in it once again. Or maybe now is just the time to enjoy this no-strings-attached sex with someone you’re comfortable with. Whatever the case, make sure there is perfect clarity and understanding.

While one of you may be only looking for a shag, the other may be desperately hoping for reconciliation. And no sexual exploits are worth causing further pain to someone you once cared for.

Psych Talk

Chimp chums: Simian similarities predict friendship JENNIFER COLBOURNE The Cascade

The Science A new study has found that, once again, our nearest relatives are far more similar to humans than we might expect.

Researchers from the University of Vienna and the University of Zurich studied the personalities of 38 captive chimpanzees in DierenPark Amersfoort Zoo and Royal Burgers’ Arnhem Zoo to determine the factors that predict friendship, other than kinship. What they found was that, like humans, chimpanzee friends tended to be similar in personality.

The chimpanzees had their personalities assessed according to six social and non-social personality dimensions: sociability (i.e. frequency of giving/ receiving grooming, number of individuals in close proximity), positive affect (i.e. frequency of hugs, kisses, initiating play), anxiety (i.e. self-scratching), grooming equity (i.e. number of grooming partners), exploration persistence (i.e. time spent with new objects and puzzles), and boldness (i.e. approaching a model predator). Over nine months, incidences of contact sitting were then tracked, as sitting in contact is a sign of friendship among chimpanzees.

What researchers found is that chimpanzees that sit together frequently rate similarly on sociability, grooming equity, and boldness. Sociability and bold-

Image: Wikimedia commons

According to chimps, opposites can put up with each other but similar monkeys prefer to hang out together. ness were compared to the human trait extroversion, which also predicts friendship in humans.

“We found that, especially among unrelated friends, the most sociable and bold individuals preferred the company of other highly sociable and bold individuals,” said researcher Jorg Massen in Science Daily, “whereas shy and less sociable ones spent time with other similarly aloof and shy chimpanzees.”

“We suggest that similarity in these personality traits is adaptive, because it may enhance

partner reliability in cooperative interactions, including grooming, cooperative defence, and coalitionary support in aggression.

Similarity in these characteristics may be especially relevant in bonds among unrelated individuals,” researchers Jorg Massen and Sonja Koski stated in their article “Chimps of a feather sit together: chimpanzee friendships are based on homophily in personality” in Evolution and Human Behaviour.

“Our results resemble homophily found in human friendships. This suggests that the mechanisms of friendship for-

mation and/or maintenance are similar in ourselves and our closest living relatives.”

You, me, and UFV In the war of proverbs, it appears that “birds of a feather flock together” trumps “opposites attract.” It is important to note, however, that personality homophily works only on certain levels with both humans and chimps – for instance, there is no friendship correlation of similarities in chimp anxiety, nor the human trait neuroticism with which it is equated.

There’s a lot of common sense

to this, and not just for evolutionary adaption. Human friendships thrive on similarity in interests – for instance, extroverts would enjoy having a friend who wants to go out with them and try new things, whereas introverts might prefer a friend who is okay chilling at home.

However, two neurotic friends are probably going to drive each other crazy.

This isn’t a hard and fast rule for humans, as it’s pretty easy for most of us to think of friends we have who are dissimilar. But humans have an undoubtedly more complicated social structure – often friends who are dissimilar have been friends since childhood, friends because their spouses are friends, or friends because work forced them into close regular contact. With chimpanzees, these kinds of considerations are eliminated.

This offers a lot of insight into some of the struggles found in human relationships. Some areas of perpetual disagreement probably arise from fundamental differences in personality – you may resent someone for not being more extroverted, but that can’t necessarily be changed.

Such a relationship will require compromise, whereas friendships that require less work are more likely to occur between similar people.

Perhaps a new proverb should be coined: “Opposites can put up with each other, but birds of a feather get along together.”

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Heat Report

Corban Knight’s fresh start in a new town TIM UBELS

CONTRIBUTOR

Following an equally uneasy and exciting off-season, the Abbotsford Heat lineup has been transformed from a roster of mostly veterans into a collection of young players all competing for the next call-up to the big league. This rebuild had a lot of moving parts over the past six months, and included a trade that landed Corban Knight, the University of North Dakota’s star centre. Considering the gaping hole that remains down the middle of the Flames’ roster, it comes as no surprise that the team is restocking its prospect pool with players like the bigbodied Knight.

A top 10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, which is bestowed upon the NCAA’s top college hockey player, Knight failed to come to terms with the Florida Panthers over the spring after he finished his fourth year in college. This led to the Panthers trading the 23-year-old to the Flames, who subsequently signed Knight to a two-year entry-level deal. The trade only ended up costing Calgary a fourth-round pick in last sum-

mer’s entry draft, as Knight was set to become an unrestricted free agent later in the summer, so his trade value was dropping with each passing day. Buried on the Panthers’ depth chart behind recent draft selections Jonathan Huberdeau, Vincent Trocheck, Nick Bjugstad, and Quinton Howden, the former fifth-round pick in 2009 will have a much easier time competing for top minutes with the Flames organization.

In an online press release, Flames general manager Jay Feaster revealed that Corban Knight had been a player that was targeted by the organization while his rights still belonged to the Panthers.

“When Florida did not sign Corban this spring, we contacted them and asked for permission to speak with him. Florida granted teams, including ours, that opportunity on the condition that we were prepared to trade for his rights,” Feaster said.

Knight, who was born in Oliver, British Columbia, has family ties in Calgary. His family moved to High River when he was three, which played into his decision to join the Flames this summer. After impressing

Photo: Clint Trahan/Abbotsford Heat

New players like Knight (11) will have to adjust to the tougher, faster-paced professional game. management at the Young Stars Tournament and completing a decent training camp with the team, he was assigned to the Abbotsford Heat on September 26 along with Max Reinhart and Michael Ferland. Although the news of his assignment to the Heat came as a bit of a surprise for those who tabbed Knight to make the Flames lineup from the day he was acquired, if he can continue his strong play in Abbotsford, Knight will be an injury call-up sooner rather than later.

And they’re off!

NATHAN HUTTON

Picking up a goal and an assist in the Heat’s first two games of the season, Knight is already giving Heat fans a taste of his potential while adjusting to a professional league. A pointper-game player during the last three seasons he spent at the college level, Knight led the Fighting Sioux last season with 33 assists in 41 games.

Corban Knight is the kind of forward that knows how to use his large frame to his advantage, something that a lot of young prospects can’t adapt to once

Women’s volleyball kicks off the season

CONTRIBUTOR

This past weekend the women’s volleyball team began their quest to become back-to-back CCAA national champions, opening up their regular season with a home and home against the Columbia Bible College (CBC) Bearcats.

The women have 12 returning players from last year’s national championship squad and four new players including Rachel Funk from Pacific Academy, last year’s AA High School Provincial Championship silver medalists, and Mandelyn Erickson from Seaquam Secondary, the AAA silver medalists. The girls are poised to make another strong push toward national championship contention, with returning players like fifth-year Jenna Evans and third-year Kierra Noot (seventh in the league last year in blocks, averaging .74 blocks per game and registering 51 for the season).

Last year the girls were extraordinary all season long, becoming one of the most dominant teams in all of CCAA history and earning the national championship after an extremely hard-fought game against the Lakeland Rustlers of the Alberta Coast Athletic Conference (ACAC). This year’s team was able to hold onto a key leader when Evans decided to return to school for her super-senior year.

Evans dominated all last season, earning herself the MVP of the national championship tournament.

However, the team lost three key contributors to last year’s

they reach the professional level. The 6’2, 200 lbs centre likes to get under the skin of his opponents, but also has flashy moments and a quick release on his wrist shot. Soft hands and a big body is a nightmarish combination for any defender, and while there is room for improvement in his play, Knight is a promising prospect and should see time with the Flames sometime this year.

Photo: Tree Frog Imaging

Coach Dennis Bokenfohr instructs his squad. success, including Katie Bilodeau, a second team all-star, Brittany Stewart, one of three first team all-stars, and Kayla Bruce, last year’s CCAA national Player of the Year, who led the PACWEST conference in nearly every statistical category.

When asked if his team felt any pressure to repeat as the national champions this coming year, head coach Dennis Bokenfohr said that the team is feeling relaxed and prepared.

“I would not say pressure to

repeat. There have been high standards set over the past two years. It’s a journey and it will be interesting to see where it will take us. Hopes are high and [the ladies] have enough skill to have a shot. That is really all you can ask.”

Four new players were added to what promises to be a strong Cascades team this year: Monique Huber, Claire Mcloughlin, Rachel Funk, and Madelyn Erickson. Both Funk and Erickson will take this season off as red-

shirts, getting the opportunity to learn and grow from the leadership of the older players on the team without hurting their eligibility and their chances of becoming the future core of a strong program at UFV. “It was a different decision for two very good players. It was a matter of this year not having enough room for them on our game-day roster. I am impressed by their effort and enthusiasm each practice though. I really think the future is bright for

both of them,” Bokenfohr said.

In contrast, both Huber and Mcloughlin will get the opportunity to immediately impact the squad. Both will start this season on the game-day roster, with Huber becoming the thirdstring middle and Mcloughlin taking on the role of back-up setter. Bokenfohr commented on their efforts so far this season saying they were “looking great.”

With four starters leaving from last year’s team, one focus this offseason was developing team chemistry.

“With a new team and new leadership, I would say [we’re focused on] just getting to know one another. [The team] spent a lot of time together and [are] getting to know each other on different levels. For many it was as much them getting to know who we are and my system, as well as me trying to figure out what makes them tick,” Bokenfohr explained.

The games against CBC this weekend went as the women planned. They controlled both their home court and Columbia’s, winning back-to-back games three sets to none, and hope to continue their winning ways against Douglas College on Friday, October 18.

It is difficult to say if this squad has the talent and chemistry to repeat as national champions, but with strong coaching, excellent recruitment, and a robust start the Cascades women have served notice that a return to the big game is a strong possibility.

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Spartan “Beast” Race at Sun Peaks A trial of cold, muddy pain Date: Sept 28, 2013 Length: 17k+ Obstacles: 25+ Conditions: Snowy, slippery, cold Emotional Status: PAIN

Photo: Jeremy Hannaford

The members of Team Domination: Andrew Hale, Jeremy Hannaford, Matthew Hidasi, John Gammater, Marcus Tatum, and Jonathan Webber.

Photo: Jeremy Hannaford

The difficulty of the Spartan Race is not to be underestimated.

JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR

The Reebok Spartan Race is a Tough Mudder equivalent organized into three categories: Spartan Sprint, Super Spartan, and Spartan Beast. Cascade reporter Jeremy Hannaford bravely sacrificed his body to get down and dirty with this ultimate fitness challenge.

Within the first five minutes of the race, I realized that I had not trained nearly enough for this event. Since the Tough Mudder back in June, I had increased my overall strength from working out at the gym and my cardio had also improved. But I had not done any hill running. This

was the biggest mistake I could possibly have made.

For the first hour, there were hills followed by hills followed by more hills. Then once I thought I had reached the top, there were more hills. After only three kilometres, I honestly wanted to quit. I was tempted to fall to the ground and roll my body down the hill to the ski resort below. But my team captain, John, and the other members of “Team Domination” pushed me on.

Sun Peaks is a ski hill resort, so eventually we were going to hit some snow. It was a lot more than what even the Spartan Race staff had expected. Heavy snowfall forced them to shorten the race length for the safety of the

Photo: Jeremy Hannaford

The cold weather itself can be an obstacle in the Spartan Race. runners, but according to everyone else, it was still long enough to get pretty cold. Maybe because I spent a winter in Quebec years ago, I found the cold to be the easiest obstacle. Running through freezing muddy water and into heavy winds with snow and rain added extra bite, but I still felt fine. When we came to a long underground trench covered by wooden logs, some runners found comfort in the protection from the cold. As some of our group waited for the rest to catch up, we huddled to keep our group members warm.

One, Matthew, had jumped or fallen into a mud pit earlier and was shaking badly. We needed to keep moving to get off the mountain.

Most people would be fine with going down a hill rather than going up. After having gone up and down hills several times that day, I was seriously afraid I would lose control and fall and break my body. I had to stop myself and rest every 50 metres toward the end. The pain was incredible and my race became a crawl to the finish.

While the Spartan Race does serve up several obstacles, they are not as well spread out as on the Tough Mudder course, nor as inventive. The first few obstacles I faced posed almost no challenge. Later on, they were either extremely difficult or nearly impossible depending on what was left of your body strength. And for every obstacle

you failed, you had to perform 25 burpees. One obstacle had participants walking along the face of the wall holding onto small foot-holds. My team members helped each other across as it was physically impossible to hold on to the wall due to all the mud and water from earlier runners. Sometimes there were large gaps between obstacles, yet five obstacles appeared right at the very end of the race. A wall walk, rope climb, spear throw, fire jump, and Spartan beat-down stood between our group and the finish line – all within 100 feet! I was able to get over the wall, but then I fell on my spine when I tried to climb the rope. The spear hit the target sideways, and I almost fell into the fire.

After our team captain tackled one of the “Spartans” who meant to attack us with padded weapons at the end, we finally crossed the finish line. We were not given beer as promised, but flavoured sugar-water. Still, after only receiving small quantities of water throughout the race, these drinks tasted like gifts from the gods!

My time was over four hours and I never want to hear the word “burpee” again. I wasn’t as proud of myself as I was after finishing the Mudder, but it has inspired me to get back on the track for next year. The Spartan Beast was probably the most painful thing I have ever done in my entire life.

Water worries: are you drinking enough?

VIVIENNE BEARD CONTRIBUTOR

We’ve all been there before: tired, sluggish, and grumpy after a long day of classes. But before you put it down to a challenging midterm or a long paper, look back at the amount of water you drank throughout the day.

Drinking enough water is easy to overlook, yet it’s one of the best things you can do to keep your body energized and your mind sharp. Countless times I have been told that eight glasses of water (about two litres), is the perfect amount each day for our bodies to stay completely hydrated. However, in my experience, drinking eight glasses

of water a day isn’t a recipe for hydration success, but for a day full of bathroom runs.

After reading past the headlines and into the heart of the matter, I found out a few key things to keep in mind when it comes to getting the right amount of water.

When studies first came out saying that eight glasses of water is the number to reach, I, along with many others, assumed that only plain drinking water was included. However, eight glasses is just the total amount of water recommended. Thankfully for our bladders, these two litres of water don’t have to come from drinking water alone.

This water can come from all sorts of fresh, body-benefiting food such as fruit and veg-

etables. Watermelon is about 92 per cent water, and a tomato is whopping 95 per cent water.

Even a baked potato is 75 per cent water. Without even sipping water from a glass, your daily intake will already be on its way to two litres by simply eating these water-rich foods.

Sugary drinks also count toward your total intake, but keep in mind that along with water, you’re also taking in not-so-nutritious refined sugars.

To reach a healthy and hydrated state, try drinking a glass of water or a non-sugary beverage with every meal, and never deprive yourself of a sip of water when you’re feeling thirsty.

Green tea, almond milk, or regular cow’s milk are also great options. Although these bever-

ages contain ample amounts of water, remember that the best source of water is pure water itself. For simple and stress-free hydration, try keeping a water bottle with you throughout the day. It’s an easy and convenient way to stay hydrated throughout long lectures and study sessions.

On top of sipping plain water, eating plenty of fresh fruits and veggies—foods loaded with hydration power—is another easy and delicious way to get your necessary water at the same time as key vitamins and nutrients.

Since all our bodies are unique, it’s impossible to pinpoint an exact amount of water that the average person needs to consume. A daily total of two

litres of water has been proven as an effective amount in many studies, but the fact remains that all human beings are unique.

An active body will need more hydration than someone who isn’t as mobile. Instead of guzzling down water to reach the recommended eight glasses, take time to listen to your body.

Lethargy and unusual tiredness are often symptoms of dehydration, and a tall glass of water or a juicy apple works wonders in replenishing our bodies with hydration and a boost of energy.

Thirst is also often misread as hunger, so first have a glass of water or other healthy beverage, and then see if you need to eat a snack. After all, the human body is about 75 per cent water itself.

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