The Cascade Vol. 22 No. 4

Vol. 22 Issue 4

www.ufvcascade.ca

January 29, 2014 to February 4, 2014

Forged in the fires of Mt. Doom since 1993

Poetry as institution, poetry as freedom Talking creativity with poet-in-residence Daniela Elza

p. 10-11

Pay for your condo with bitcoin p. 3

A very special Cascade colouring page p. 9

2

NEWS News

4

Opinion

8

Culture

14

Arts

18

Sports & Health

19

News

Briefs

Mountain bikers beware Those hoping to test their skills on the Vedder mountain trails should do so with caution.

Two incidents of vandalism occuring on the trails were reported in the last two months.

Some jumps were made to look intact, but in fact were sawed right through; not even a brace could have patched the damage, reported the Chilliwack Progress. Going forward, the Vedder Mountain Trails Association is considering surveillance and an increased number of volunteers to protect the woods.

Parking fees reduced at AESC Following a market research project between UFV business students and the Abbotsford Heat Hockey club, parking fees for events at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre will be reduced by half according to the Abbotsford News. Effective immediately, the lots cost event patrons $5 instead of the previous $10, and the prices to park on surrounding Gillis and McKenzie roads has also been reduced.

Public hearing for the homeless Time to voice your opinion at Abbotsford’s February 3 public hearing regarding the proposed housing unit for Abbotsford’s homeless men. After months of controversy over the homelessness in downtown Abbotsford, a 20-man housing unit is on the table. Abbotsford council wants to hear the people’s opinion before deciding the best course of action for the proposal.

Have a news tip?

Let us know!

Email news@ufvcascade.ca or tweet at @CascadeNews

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

#thingsSUSdoes

Find out what went down at the SUS board meeting and the Extraordinary General Meeting. Then head on over to Twitter and follow all the things SUS does with the live tweets going out from the meetings.

What’s your favourite fun fact?

Turns out that UFV students have a plethora of odd facts tucked in their heads. Did you know that J. K. Rowling doesn’t actually have a middle name? That coffee tastes disgusting if you put cinnamon and / or cherries in it? Check out UFV speaks for more data.

Reaching out

As the fifth-largest municipality in B.C., our local art gallery has a lot of different exhibitions to offer our dynamic community. But the executive staff at the Reach is headed for a change.

Get Sher-locked

The new season of BBC’s Sherlock has turned many a viewer’s world upside-down. Spoiler alert: Sherlock isn’t dead. Check out the review (there are no more spoilers, don’t worry, and that one wasn’t even really a spoiler so quit yer whining).

Comets bring the Heat

This weekend the Abbotsford Heat battled the Canucks AHL affiliate the Utica Comets. Tim Ubels’ Heat Report has all the gory, hockey-licious details.

Let’s talk.

I agree with breaching the silence that often surrounds mental health.

I don’t agree with Bell slapping a logo all over it.

DESSA BAYROCK

THE CASCADE

Four years ago, Bell launched an initiative called “Bell Let’s Talk.”

It’s a simple phrase. Let’s talk. It can be used in a thousand contexts, from I haven’t seen you in a while and we should catch up to We need to discuss where this relationship is going to That creepy guy is staring at me again pretend to have a conversation with me so I can act like I don’t see him.

In the context of this campaign, the phrase “Let’s talk” means Mental illness exists all around us, and people deal with it silently. Let’s stop the stigma.

Let’s stop the silence. Let’s talk.

By using such a short phrase, Bell nailed one of the core values of what helps something go viral: a simple message.

They’ve packed a lot into just a couple of words, and it’s something that can be passed from person to person, Facebook status to Facebook status, extremely easily.

On one hand, this campaign and its support is staggering, inspiring, and absolutely necessary. The message — that mental illness isn’t something to be ashamed of, that it is something we should be helping each other with, that is it’s something that needs to be spoken about — is something I believe needs to be brought to the table. Bell can track exactly how many people tweet and post this simple message, and it’s well into the millions

Volume 22 · Issue 4 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 Copy editor katie@ufvcascade.ca Katie Stobbart

Image: pixabay.com

Raising awareness doesn’t require a brand name.

clude the company name in the slogan, and one reason only: it makes good marketing sense.

Not that you’ll find that reasoning anywhere on the website or press releases.

Reading Bell’s information about the campaign is like playing that game where you break open your fortune cookie and add “in bed” to the end of your fortune.

“Talking is the first step toward meaningful change and to build greater awareness—” Of Bell.

“—acceptance—” Of Bell.

“—and action.”

Possibly toward purchasing a new smart phone and upgrading your current plan to include data.

We live in an age where ad space is at a premium, where corporate names bedeck parks, stadiums, and literary awards.

Maybe it’s naïve to think some things should be able to stand alone without the name of a bank or a cola or a media company plastered all over it. But that is what I think.

Encouraging mental health awareness and support is crucial, and not always something that’s on the agenda. If we can bring that to the forefront, into both public and private conversation, then this campaign has succeeded.

But when I offer my support to those around me, whether or not they have or will or do struggle with mental health, I’ll be leaving Bell out of it.

Let’s talk.

every year, often added to personal stories of mental illness or messages of support.

But Bell sneaks something else into this message, which (after all) isn’t two words but three: Bell Let’s Talk.

Branding.

Yes, Bell media uses this campaign to broach the subject of mental illness on a national scale. But the media conglomorate also uses this campaign as advertising — also on a national scale. The entire campaign is three words: Bell Let’s Talk. The official hashtag is

#BellLetsTalk. The website is letstalk.bell.ca. Sensing a theme? The two parts — corporation and message — are never seen apart.

This bothers me on several levels.

A nation of people admit that it’s okay to be vulnerable, opening their hearts and minds to those who struggle with mental health. While these people are feeling tingly and supportive, why not encourage them to link those fuzzy feelings with Bell?

There is one reason to in-

News editor jess@ufvcascade.ca Jess Wind

Production manager stewart@ufvcascade.ca Stewart Seymour

Printed By International Web exPress

Interim opinion editor opinion@ufvcascade.ca Dessa Bayrock

Art director anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi

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.

Culture editor christopher@ufvcascade.ca Christopher DeMarcus Arts editor sasha@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt Sports editor nathan@ufvcascade.ca Nathan Hutton Staff writer nadine@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt News writer katherine@ufvcascade.ca Katherine Gibson

Production assistant production@ufvcascade.ca Kaitlyn Gendemann Photojournalist blake@ufvcascade.ca Blake McGuire Contributors Vivienne Beard, Taylor Breckles, Owen Coulter, Brittney Hensman, Lauren Southern, and Tim Ubels

Cover image Anthony Biondi

3

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Will trade condo for bitcoin Digital currency moves to the real estate market ANTHONY BIONDI

THE CASCADE

It wasn’t long ago that a coffee shop in Vancouver installed a bitcoin ATM in their establishment.

Now Quantum Properties, an Abbotsford-based real estate agency, has stepped up to the plate to accept the new currency. The company’s CEO Diane Delves credits the bitcoin-friendly coffee shop for inspiring the agency to move toward digital payment options.

“I saw they took bitcoin, which, of course, further spurred my interest. So, I did my research and thought, ‘Let’s do this!’” she says.

The bitcoin is a digital currency that exists only in digital wallets on the web. It functions outside the Canadian dollar and has its own conversion rate.

According to Delves, accepting bitcoin as payment for services is “just becoming the norm.” She lists the SPCA taking bitcoin for donations, retail establishments accepting it as

Image: btckeychain/ flickr

A currency that belongs to the internet is slowly seeping into real life. payment, as well as another realtor stating that he will accept bitcoin for his commissions.

Delves perceives the bitcoin as a coming trend that will result in a wide acceptance of the digital currency to the point where it will be uncommon for

companies to make the choice not to accept it.

“With the number of online transactions, it’s just kind of natural to have a digital currency,” she says.

In the age of digital shopping outlets such as Amazon

and eBay, it is common to make digital transactions via credit card. Companies such as Pay Pal have moved beyond credit card to accepting debit payment through digital banking.

However, the digital shopping era is no longer limited to

trinkets and books.

“A friend of mine is involved with a company called Rent Moolah. It’s an online payment processing for rent payments,” Delves states.

Quantum Properties has also been approached regarding bitcoin payments on their rental suites. She sees the world as changing; it’s all about convenience.

“It’s less convenient for people to have to show up in person and hand over cheques or cash,” Delves says.

Quantum Properties is accepting credit card as payment for property in a manoeuvre that Delves describes as simply opening up options for their buyers.

However, Delves notes their acceptance of the bitcoin has led to a large number of questions about what the currency even is; a natural response considering the newness of bitcoin.

In response, Quantum Properties will hold a series of info sessions in February for people who are interested in learning how the currency works and how to earn it.

Arguing about the rules before the meeting even starts

What went down at the SUS EGM: the drama of missed motions, the battle to suspend bylaws, and a vote in favour of SUS board reform JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

After cancelling their November Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) and failing their first rescheduled attempt in early January, the Student Union Society (SUS) EGM made good use of Robert’s Rules of Order.

Quorum was achieved with 41 attending members, three of whom Skyped in from Chilliwack.

Before the agenda was adopted, representative-at-large Jay Mitchell presented two motions. The first moved to adopt Robert’s Rules of Order for the meeting, and the second sought to suspend section 16 of the SUS bylaws which define “special business” at a general meeting.

VP finance Ryan Peterson chaired the meeting and ruled that the adoption of Robert’s Rules was redundant as per SUS bylaws, and that bylaws cannot be suspended as per the B.C. Societies Act. Neither motion was added.

Biology and Chemistry Student Association (BCSA) president Jennifer Martel then asked to amend the agenda, requesting to have her motion added, without it having been approved.

Martel’s motion

Image: Kyle Sorkness/ flickr

SUS will restructure following the approval of a board reform motion at the EGM. would see SUS mandated to put at least 55 per cent of its total budget directly toward student clubs, associations, and events.

Peterson ruled that because of the nature of the motion, it would need to be submitted as a special resolution.

“We’ve proposed policies in the past at meetings, there’s never been a problem proposing a policy such as this, as opposed to a bylaw. It’s never required a special resolution,” Martel said.

Special resolutions are required to be submitted at least 14 days in advance of a SUS

general meeting, and since the motion constituted special business, Peterson ruled it would not be added to the agenda.

However, Martel said she contacted SUS in November, prior to the first scheduled EGM, and was told that because SUS had already printed the agenda on posters to put around the school, the motion would not be added and the posters not reprinted.

She said she was not contacted when the next EGM was scheduled and her motion was left off the agenda.

VP academic Kristianne Hendricks recommended the motion be tabled in order to give the general membership more time to review it, but Peterson reminded those present that since the motion was not yet added to the agenda, it couldn’t be tabled.

In response, Mitchell stood up to appeal Peterson’s ruling.

“It appears the chair refuses to accept any business from being placed on this agenda. The general membership appears to believe otherwise,” he said.

Peterson explained that while Robert’s Rules would al-

low them to suspend bylaws, the B.C. Societies Act that governs SUS supersedes Robert’s Rules.

After more back-and-forth regarding Peterson’s ruling, the interpretation of Robert’s Rules, and the status of Martel’s motion, it was ruled that none of the proposed motions would be added to the agenda.

With this decision, at least a dozen of the members in attendance left, and the meeting moved on to the approval of the agenda.

Forty minutes into the meeting, the agenda was finally approved, and the annual auditor’s report quickly followed.

Peterson then moved on to the purpose of the meeting: a board reform motion over a year in the making. Hendricks outlined the main points, recapping the information presented at several info meetings over the last month, and the motion was unceremoniously approved.

Business moved along quickly thereafter with elections policy updates amended and voted in, and the induction of MNP as SUS’s new auditor.

The meeting adjourned at 4:11 p.m. More details to follow regarding the controversy of Martel’s motion.

4

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Science on Purpose

Bombs: bad for people, safe for beer TAYLOR BRECKLES

CONTRIBUTOR

An atomic bomb has been dropped in Abbotsford and nearly everything has been obliterated. People are running around in search of food or beverages in an attempt to survive. Luckily, one product remains: beer.

That’s the idea behind the U.S. government’s study “The Effect of Nuclear Explosions on Commercially Packaged Beverages,” (also known as Operation Teapot) which tests the effect of radiation on beer. The U.S. definitely had some of its priorities straight when it began this study in 1955.

Bottles and cans were placed at various distances from Ground Zero, and when the bomb was activated, many survived. Once the containers were checked for levels of radiation, the scientists found they were radioactive, but only mildly and in such a way that the radiation would not affect the drink inside the container.

Science historian Alex Wellerstein tells NPR that the drinks were within the permissible emergency use levels, indicating they’d be okay in a pinch.

Image: Anthony Biondi / The Cascade

After an atomic bomb, beer is reported to be drinkable. “[Drinking the beverages] won’t hurt you in the short term,” he said.

However, there are skeptics.

Reyco Henning, an assistant professor of physics at the University of North Carolina discussed the effect of neutrons on the bottles and the beer inside in an interview with Life’s

Little Mysteries.

“A nuclear explosion puts out a tremendous amount of neutrons and neutrons can transmute elements and make them radioactive,” he said. “Generally heavier elements are more susceptible to this than light elements.”

Metal cans and silicate bot-

tles have a chance of picking up coppers, as well as other contaminants, during brewing, which gives them a higher chance of being able to hold on to radiation (compared to purified water in a plastic bottle).

Henning adds that the true challenge would be trying to find pure water because of

radiation-drawing substance contamination that is commonly found in water sources.

“I would go for the purest water you can make stored in a plastic bottle,” he noted. “Beer I would probably not drink under any circumstance.”

Radioactive or not, one question remains: how does post atomic bomb beer taste?

Most of the drinks were said to be “of commercial quality” according to the official report from 1955.

However the beers that were affected the most by the blast were said to taste “definitely off,” enough that the beer would never have been made available for public sale.

Considering how difficult uncontaminated water would be to find in the event of an atomic blast, Wellerstein concludes that beer could keep you hydrated and alive.

“For me, the takeaway here is that the next time you find yourself stocking up on beer, remember, it’s not just for the long weekend,” Wellerstein remarks, “it might be for the end of days.”

#thingsSUSdoes Fashion funding, Chinese new year, SUB gets a bank account of its very own KATHERINE GIBSON

THE CASCADE

The Student Union Society (SUS) returned to their regular board meetings on January 22, despite initial issues with trying to achieve quorum.

After attempting to contact missing board members, the SUS board reached interim residence representative Jun Feng.

However at the time of the call, Feng was only available for fifteen minutes. So, in order to maintain quorum and keep the meeting running, SUS president Shane Potter, on leave due to illness, was also phoned.

After the fashion design department’s grad presentation, it was realized that Potter’s call had been dropped, and the meeting was temporarily suspended, as rep-at-large Thomas Davies called Potter back. Once Potter’s phone connection was re-established the meeting reconvened and continued without further interruption.

Fashion design department requests funding for grad show.

Fashion design department head Deanna Devitt spoke on behalf of the 40th anniversary UFV grad show. The request is for $1500 to $5000 depending on the level of funding SUS can allocate.

Devitt explained that a ben-

efit to sponsoring the event is increased promotion at the April 29 event as well as promotion in the “swag bags” which are handed out to event participants and high school students. “[High school students] will know about the student union before coming here,” Devitt bargained.

Beyond connecting SUS to prospective students, Devitt also expressed the department’s desire to make this grad show a community event, connecting the entire UFV campus and the local public.

“We’re trying to get everyone involved so it becomes an event that includes everybody around campus,” she said. “We want to invite a lot of people around the community, so it becomes a bit of a community event too.”

VP internal Greg Stickland questioned how much of the event was student-driven. Devitt answered that the event was largely student-run, except for larger duties that required her take them on due to liability.

“All the garments are the students’; they put together all their photo shoots, all the look.

They help with all the fundraising when they can. We talk to them; I’m in their meetings to help them learn about what it is to put on an event and

how to raise money,” explains Devitt. “What’s nice about the fashion design association is the students from year to year have passed on their skills of what to do and what not to do … [students] want to be a part of it — it is their grad event.”

The fashion design’s proposal was heard by the board and will be reviewed by the finance committee before approval. $570 allotted for Chinese New Year campus event.

The Chinese culture club submitted a request for their upcoming Chinese New Year event. Rep-at-large Thomas Davies spoke on behalf of the finance committee’s decision to approve the request despite discrepancies in the paperwork.

“It’s very well-attended, a popular event, and always well-run each year. Strangely their budget is for $570, yet their request form says $600,” says Davies. “In the end, we decided to recommend funding for the amount that they actually budgeted for, which was $570.

With no discussion, the board voted in favour, passing the motion unanimously.

Opening of new bank account for SUS building.

Further on in the meeting, the SUS board discussed opening a bank account with Envision Financial, in order to directly pay mortgage payments on the new SUS building. Explaining the rationale behind opening this new account, rep-

at-large Thomas Davies spoke to the validity of the motion.

“We are required to have an account with Envision basically just to facilitate the transfer of mortgage payments,” he notes.

“All of our banking is currently through UFV, but just to make it faster and more convenient for everyone we need to set [an account] up with Envision, because Envision is our mortgage broker.”

After a small group discussion, the motion was passed unanimously by the board.

The next board meeting will take place February 7, at 10 a.m. on the CEP campus.

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5

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

SNAPSHOTS

Not just a joke after all

Planet Hillary

JESS WIND

Lauren Southern

Getting an “A for effort” is either a sarcastic reminder that you tried and failed at something, or the product of an over-congratulated generation.

But when it comes to the grey areas of arts disciplines, getting an A for effort can sometimes result in an A for a course. The idea isn’t that far-fetched and it’s time to share the secret.

Step 1: Don’t pick the easy essay option.

Your professor will be so bored after having read the same thing from everyone else in your class that by the time they get to yours — on the same topic — they’ll just want to get through it.

Step 2: Find the links. Believe it or not, all these things are connected. The dead guy you learned about in history wrote something important for English, and it still matters today in sociology or media studies.

Step 3: Talk to your prof. Toss ideas around until you come up with something resembling a creative approach. After a co-brainstorming, the ideas are bouncing around in their head too — which means they’ll look forward to your paper.

The result: an A for effort and for your paper.

Editor’s note: The Cascade is not a real doctor and cannot guarantee grades.

This week is off to a good start with exposure of the New York Times Sunday magazine cover, which features “potential” 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as a fleshcovered planet in a starry galaxy.

The cover seems to have brought about controversy from individuals offended by the portrayal of the feminist movement’s golden calf. According to angry bloggers like Maressa Brown the cover is, “bizarre at best and cringe-worthy and sexist at worst.”

Apparently portraying female politicians ridiculously is sexist and unacceptable bigotry, even though this was not intended to be offensive.

As creepy as this cover is, it’s also one I think is hilarious. I find it refreshing that the magazine is comfortable treating female politicians the same as males, so I give it top marks. I think those offended by this forget the New York Times cover where Mitt Romney was portrayed as a Weeble toy.

In response to the controversy, Lauren Kern (NYT deputy editor) stated, “It’s a challenge to show politicians in a new and different way,” and I hope they continue to do so, even if it is primarily for my own amusement.

This week’s theme: “A for effort”

Canada: spirited teen Underlining? More or USA-copycat? like underwaving KATIE STOBBART

DESSA BAYROCK

Canada is young, really. I think it’s time for a little teenage rebellion.

We should close ourselves off from our parents and cultivate a “badass” persona.

We are polar-bear tamers! We live in ice houses! We trudge to school through 60 feet of snow, the wild western wind whipping our faces. We are stewards of lush, barren, and impossibly vast landscapes. We are survivors. “Eh!” is our anthem and our warrior cry.

We have been cement-stacking, oil-slicking, and tech-swallowing for too long — buying into the drugs of the modern era.

Can’t we be a spirited teen country without doing what our buddy on the other side of the parallel is doing? Let’s put in a little effort to be individual, to preserve what makes us unique.

Because let’s face it. Right now, we’re not badass. We don’t unite and cry “Eh!” We’re more than happy to copy big brother USA’s attitudes.

But I give us an “Eh!” for effort.

I can’t underline in a straight line to save my life.

It took me three years of university before I realized the value in underlining important points in assigned reading, but unfortunately that didn’t leave a whole lot of time in my degree to refine the skill of scraping pencil underneath sentence.

Which leaves me nearing the end of my degree with a stack of textbooks as high as my waist, every other page punctuated with squiggles and waves. I still have these texts because I can’t sell them; for some reason, the fact that the lines go through the words as often as under them tends to alarm any potential buyers.

At the beginning of each semester, I vow that I will use a ruler to guide my lines cleanly, and maybe my texts will be in some semblance of sellable condition by the end.

Inevitably, however, I lose the ruler or can’t be bothered to find one as I feverishly try to finish chapters before the final exam.

I’m just glad that underlining isn’t typically a testable skill. And as long as it’s something that can stay between me and my textbooks, I hope that in the grand scheme of things I can at least get marks for trying.

What can you bring on a plane?

TAYLOR BRECKLES

CONTRIBUTOR

Earlier this month, a man was arrested for carrying a pipe bomb in his luggage in an Alberta airport.

Apparently, he made it as part of a travelling-unrelated hobby and accidentally forgot it in his camera bag when packing for a trip to Mexico. Accidents happen, we all have those “oops” moments, but the shocking aspect of this story is that after the pipe bomb was discovered, the authorities tried to give it back.

Even trained officers can make mistakes, and yes, after the initial mistake the bomb was noticed by another officer and the man was detained. But this occurrence does make you want to watch television shows like Border Security a tad more closely.

This incident provokes a deep, meaningful question of particular importance: what can you bring on a plane? Aside from the typical (and allowed) entertainment (books, magazines, iPods, laptops, etc.), less-than-100mL containers, a couple of snacks perhaps, what do you think you could sneak in if

you tried?

Following this thought, a true craftsman could possibly sneak some crucial travelling items into his carry-on bag. Think of the possibilities! Have you ever wanted to bring, perhaps, 105mL of liquid?

Some nail clippers for a last-minute trim? If you fly in Canada, you just might pull it off!

The clippers can fit into a lens cover for your camera — another occasion to pull out the “Oh no, I completely forgot about this photographically relevant item in my camera bag!” alibi. The liquids could be squeezed into a child’s toy (what kind of monster would cut open a plastic pink elephant?).

That bottle of water that you bought just before going through security, which happened to cost you four dollars, can be placed in a prosthetic of some kind; after all, if Barbossa could fit rum into his peg leg, we can too.

This pipe bomb incident has not only made people question what they cn get away with, but has also added to the Canadian stereotype of being lax (although I’m sure we prefer the phrase “laid-back”).

But let’s look at the bright side: at least Canada might become popu-

You can’t say “bomb,” but you can bring it on. lar over the internet for something other than Rob Ford and hockey riots. Honestly, if we have the option of being famous for drug-using politicians, sports violence, or

dopey airport security, the third option might just be the least of three evils. Now that Canadians have the possibility of by-passing security, no traveller will have to

Image: Rose Bennet/ flickr

do without nail clippers again.

Welcome to 2014. The future sure does look bright.

6

OPINION

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Co-curricular record: reinventing the wheel?

ASHLEY MUSSBACHER

THE CASCADE

One of my first jobs was filing eviction documents for a run-down property management company.

My favourite task in the office was to create paperwork for anyone and everyone, because it would give me something to do.

This is exactly like UFV’s co-curricular record: an attempt to make the administration more effective at the expense of efficiency and economy.

Don’t get me wrong — students should always be encouraged to dive into activities on campus.

Getting involved in any way, be it a volunteer governance or co-op position, is a great way to build experience for the ultimate graduation portfolio. Involvement looks good on a resume, and it feels great knowing you’ve contributed to the community even if it’s in a small way.

So if the CCR is just there to encourage students to get involved, it suggests a question: what’s wrong with the old-fashioned curriculum vitae? When you start looking for work after graduation, you’re going to have to put together a CV

Image: UFV / flickr

Graduating already comes with a hefty stack of official paperwork. Do we really need more? anyway — it’s basically a resumé on steroids, listing everything you’ve written, published, edited, or researched.

Where the CV focuses on the academic, it makes sense that the

CCR takes a more communityminded listing.

But does it?

After a browse through the CCR system online, it quickly becomes clear that not all campus activities

Ode to a necessity TAYLOR BRECKLES

CONTRIBUTOR

We’re hiring!

CULTURE EDITOR We’re looking for someone who loves local events: concerts, museum exhibits, lectures, events, and more. Strong writing skills are necessary, but editing experience isn’t. We’ll train you up if you’re willing to dive in feet-first.

Dear campus heroes Tim Hortons, AfterMath, and Sodexo, What would we do without your brimming pots of liquid onyx, and sweetly coated confections? What would happen to the student body without mac and cheese, chicken strips, or burgers?

How would we survive without the nourishment that you provide us?

We wouldn’t.

This is why, dear franchise friends, I take it upon myself to thank you, for all the good deeds you do for the floundering, suffering, starving students of UFV. Even though the Tim Hortons on campus doesn’t accept gift cards, we love it anyway. Even if AfterMath sometimes runs out of products because of late deliveries, we continue to swarm to it as if it were a watering hole in the Sahara.

We would like to thank Timmies for allowing us to refer to it by cutesy (and sometimes not so cutesy) nicknames while we wait, sometimes seemingly forever, in the long lines that form during mid-class breaks.

Let me just say, Timmy Ho: the caffeine, doughnuts, and bagels are worth waiting for.

Sodexo, we thank you for providing the food necessary for the campus establishments, such as the cafeteria, to function. We can only eat packed lunches for so long before a treat is necessary, and some of us can neither manage nor bother to pack a satisfying lunch for ourselves even on a

and unpaid positions are listed.

For instance, it turns out that none of the general rep positions for student associations are available for selection, even in the advanced search menus. As far as the

CCR is concerned, if you’re not in an executive position, your job doesn’t exist. You can get the organizer of the association to add the position, but this is where we see the extra paperwork again for both student and administrator: both are wasting time, but only one of them is getting paid for it.

The CCR appeals to students who intend to search for employment after graduation — so that would, hopefully, be all students — by reinventing the wheel in the form of an extra-curricular list you can hand over to employers or use in applying for a master’s degree.

The only problem: if you already intend on adding your activities to your resume, the CCR is completely redundant. Most master’s degree applications only accept the bare minimum of paperwork.

If you have to put all the pertinent information in a single word document, why bother with a CCR? Since I like to keep everything super-organized and on-record, I suppose the CCR is good for keeping track of even the smallest detail of my co-curricular activities.

But that’s assuming they’re included on the system’s menu.

Image: Jeff M for Short / flickr

Embrace the savoury taste of this culinary pariah. good day. Without Sodexo, we the lazy, flustered, and stressed would starve.

We students spend a great deal of time and money eating, drinking, and making excuses to eat and drink. Without you, the providers, we would be lost — hopelessly meandering around campus in the early hours of the morning without the necessary jolt to awaken our senses. Likewise, we would be helpless to sate the festering hunger that strikes us before class, during class, after class, and while skipping class. Without you, dear AfterMath, those of us who drink beverages with an XXX label would be forced to go to Finnegan’s, which is much too far away.

I don’t think people realize how necessary you three wondrous establishments are to us. While we may become frustrated if we have to wait or if you run out of our favourite treat, at least we have you here.

Likewise, we thank the workers

for putting up with our constant demands and trying to appease our fussiness or frustrations. They are the angels from heaven (not at all an exaggeration). Can you imagine having to work the many rushes at Tim Hortons? I can only imagine a hectic, chaotic mess of busy.

I say, there should be a day on campus dedicated to thanking Tim Hortons, AfterMath, and Sodexo. We can call it everybodygets-a-free-doughnut day! After all, according to ever wise words of Justina Chen, “Adventure in life is good; consistency in coffee even better.”

In short, our adventures are born at UFV while the coffee (and food) of you three heroes allows us to keep pushing forward towards our goals.

For this, we are ever in your debt.

Love,

Taylor Breckles

OPINION EDITOR We need an individual who isn’t afraid of voicing opinions and encouraging others to do the same. Our dream candidate will have a finger on the pulse of current events and know how to win an argument, but also how to listen to both sides of the story. Writing skills are necessary, but passion and a willingness to learn are more important.

You might be exactly the person we need.

Email Michael@ufvcascade.ca for more information. Or if you have everything you need, send along a resumé and writing sample.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

OPINION

What’s your favourite random fact?

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

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014

COLOURING FUN!

Grab a fistful of markers and give this bat / rabbit couple some colour.

What else are you going to do in class?

While we’re at it, do you draw a comic? We want to publish that. Email us at culture@ufvcascade.ca.

www.ufvcascade.ca

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU PUZZLE

Public intellectuals

by Christopher DeMarcus

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EclipseCrossword.com

ACROSS 1.

6.

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Red storyteller Journalist turned anti-hegemon Bowling Alone NAACP, died in Ghana Loud Orwellian athiest Lament for a maple leaf The End A linguistic garden gnome Freedom Fries Slovenian Marxist philosopher; lumberjack on meth Munro vs. ________

DOWN 2.

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Teacher of Alexander the Great Canadian shock doctor The medium is the . . .

Socrates’ X-factor Ecological motor company This means war American Marxist philosopher; negative of Mark Twain Father of the science of pork Will multiculturalism make it?

Answer keys Last week’s crossword

Sudoku solution

ACROSS 1. TOMATE 3. SUPERMERCADO 4. GUITARRA 6. EXPLORADORA 7. MUSICA 10. CAFE

DOWN 1. TOMATE 3. SUPERMERCADO 4. GUITARRA 6. EXPLORADORA 7. MUSICA 10. CAFE

The Weekly Horoscope

Star Signs from January Jones* Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22: In a parallel world, you are a professional wrestler with the stage name “Dengue Fever.” In this world, however, your only brush with Dengue Fever will land you in a hospital. Be warned.

Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18: People don’t understand you, but you might have more luck if you try Spanish.

Gemini: May 21 - June 21: Uganda is calling your name.

Literally. Put your ear next to the atlas.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20: Don’t give up. You will find Waldo.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22: You were switched at birth with another baby. I hate to break it to you, but you were supposed to be born into a Flames dynasty, not a ‘Nucks cult. Don’t tell your uncle.

Aries: March 21 - April 19: Cabbage should never go in soup. Maybe limit your culinary skills to sandwiches this week, okay? Use mayonnaise instead of Miracle Whip. It’s a little easier than constructing chowder.

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22: You know what goes well with homework? Merlot. And have you seen how much you have to write? Better break out the Bordeaux too.

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21: Your tongue and your teeth are planning to overthrow your mouth. If I were you, I’d get on in there and floss.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20: Life is a game of Scrabble, and you really just need to go for the triple word score.

Virgo: Aug 23 -Sept22: Ferry boats are lucky for you this week. Try and get yourself a ferry boat. I hear they’re relatively cheap in Eastern Europe.

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19: Ladders are bad luck for you this week. So are hotdogs, umbrellas, and haircuts.

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21: Juice-fasting is an urban legend. Embrace the carbs.

*No, not that January Jones

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CULTURE FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Place and presence: a dial with writer in residence D KATIE STOBBART THE CASCADE

I met with Daniela Elza in the bright open space of Alumni Hall on UFV’s Abbotsford campus, which Elza says she prefers to her office in D3009, in part because of the view of the Rocky Mountains.

Elza has three books of poetry: the book of IT, the weight of dew, and milk tooth bane bone, and is also featured in 4 poets. Born in Bulgaria and raised in Nigeria, she earned her PhD in education from SFU, and since 1999 has lived in Vancouver.

Well, the first thing I want to ask — it’s almost an icebreaker question — is why poetry?

What speaks to you about it?

Well, I think poetry kind of more naturally happened for me, because when I started writing and to seriously write, I only had chunks of time. I had two kids, and at that time they were in strollers and daycare, so what happened [in my times for writing] were these intense, short things. I also feel I’ve written poetry for the longest time. I’m attracted to concise expression put beautifully.

I remember as a child, my dad had this little journal in which he would only write quotes. I called it the white book. I would read those over and over; there were concise little quotations from politicians, from poets, literary and any kind of quotations. I was in love with that book, and I realized I had love for that conciseness and beauty of expression.

On your blog, Strange Places, you said the blog is about bringing poetry and philosophy together. You also mentioned “the institutions that hold worlds and words prisoners, and with them our imagination.” Can you elaborate on that, and explain how philosophy impacts your writing?

Right now I’m writing a piece for Poetic Inquiry, and that’s exactly where I start. I’m constantly torn between these two spaces: poetry as institution and poetry as freedom. The institution, of course, will tell you oughts, should-nots, and it can get discouraging because there’s this power structure that says, “We know what poetry is and you are going to learn from us what poetry is.” Then you turn, you move away from that, and you look at how poetry can be part of your daily life and actually grow you as a person. It can serve a lot of purposes other than poet and profession. You can play, you can be reverent. I think that even the whole notion of poetry and how poetry is associated with academia … “the creative writing department” is

an odd entity because it kind of adheres to an institution but at the same time poetry wants to be free. It does not want to be talked about, it wants to do its thing.

The more we try to define it, it’s going to try to run away. It’s going to elude, I think.

In your poetry, you use punctuation in unique ways. With parentheses, you either don’t open them, don’t close them, or you use them to represent movement like pooling, or waves coming onto the shore.

What inspired you to start experimenting with that?

You know, the parenthesis is dear to me. When the parenthesis opened, it didn’t want to close. But I realized the parentheses get stacked, and I thought, it makes so much sense to me because it’s comfortable to open a parenthesis and to close it, and once I open a parenthesis you as a reader expect it to close.

But life doesn’t work that way.

It’s complex.

We can’t neatly just close this off and say we’re done with this, because it’s a part of everything.

But that’s one of the things about the parentheses, and also opening a space away from or toward a certain group of words … All of a sudden you look out the window, and you see: that mountain. And you’re in this different space.

“I’m attracted to concise expression put beautifully.”

In many of your poems in the weight of dew, you merge references to language, etymology, and words with natural references. You talk about things like “the definite articles of place” and relate grammar to leaves and wild grasses. You also asked, in “in the city,” if poetry is a mutation in language. What are your thoughts on the relationship between the natural landscape and the poetic landscape?

I’m still thinking about all that, but I believe that language is very powerful, and a word is an action. That’s how I experience language. When somebody says something jarring and harsh, I physically and viscerally feel the language. How we — it kind of moves back and forth — how we narrate our world defines what that world might become. So we must be aware of that.

There’s so much danger in the narratives we create. We can see that in politics, the narrative can change how you are in the world, so I’m constantly working around that and of course we have our notions of how we are with our reality and our environ-

ment. Our environment is struggling, but we’re so detached from it. Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac, I believe, talks about reading the farm as a book. He also says — I hope I’m quoting him correctly — “we can only grieve that which we know.” So just, you know, if you can read the farm as a book, right there is that whole notion of language and your physical surroundings, but also: how much do we know that reality, get out of Facebook and Twitter.

Unless we have been truly present, we can’t describe what it’s like. We look at our trees as utilities, what we can get out of them instead of what they can

do for us. Maybe it might even go toward the idea — and I don’t have answers to any of these things, maybe that’s the beauty of it, that I keep constantly circling around these thoughts — the notion of eros. To me it’s a very curious notion.

Tim Lilburn talks about ways of being, and one was like a thief, like a stranger, and he says there’s this third possibility — the thief is going in and taking stuff out, the stranger is always on the outside, but there’s this other third possibility he wasn’t very hopeful for, and I just took it and ran with it, is where eros becomes part of the cosmology, where this tree, in order to be this

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CULTURE FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

logue on poetics Daniela Elza cause I felt like she was not giving me my history. She died, and the last time I saw her, she said, “I want to give you something.”

And I said, “Grandma, give me photos. Give me memories.” She said, “Okay, I’ll send you some.”

The next thing I knew she had died and I don’t know what happened to her stuff.

My parents actually allowed themselves to speak of those memories of theirs, to me it was so precious. But then, how do you put that in a book that is actually coherent? Then the crows become that impermanence, impermanent in terms of flight. So maybe the answer to that question about place is, you know, where is that place?

I don’t feel at home anywhere — well, I didn’t. Vancouver seems to be the most like home to me because so many people come from somewhere else, it’s a conglomeration of cultures and languages and different wild understandings.

A home, a place that you feel at home is one that embraces you back, it’s not just you embracing it. So in some ways, maybe that’s what I [feel] in Vancouver. Being close to the mountains and the water makes a big difference.

The city gets to you sometimes — busy, do this, do that. Then the water; you can get lost in those moments, you open those brackets, and that works for me.

Image: Anthony Biondi/The Cascade

“How we narrate our world defines what that world might become.

There’s so much danger in the narratives we create.” tree, needs you or me or someone to need it, to love it, then it becomes itself in the excitement of human consciousness. It’s a big idea. Those are some of these big ideas that keep guiding me.

You have a number of different physical geographic places

that influence your writing.

How would you say those places have influenced your work?

I liked what Aislinn Hunter said in the introduction to milk tooth bane bone. Having grown up in so many places it seems like the only way I can speak of this tapestry of memories that I’ve inherited — that I don’t know what to do with because they’re not a coherent story — I just keep getting them as little bits and pieces.

My grandmother never wanted to talk about the war, she lived in both of the wars, and she used to say look ahead. Don’t look back.

I was very resentful of that, be-

You’ve published three poetry books in the past three years.

They’re so full, they have so many poems in them, and even when I referenced individual poems during the interview, you knew exactly which ones I was talking about. What’s your writing and publishing process?

The three books happened bam, bam, bam, because for a decade I’ve been working. I have one that’s going to be even more, let’s say, my research on metaphor in poetry form. And I have one right now that I pretty much wrote this year — I’ve never done so much writing in two months — on loss and grief.

And there’s one on collaborations, I’m hoping to put a book together where I collaborate with other writers, whether one or more poems, but the whole book will be me having written a poem with someone else. That’s kind of unique, I think.

What do you hope to bring to UFV, to accomplish? Or focus on, might be a better way of putting it.

Well, one thing is I don’t want to come in and impose my ideas in a sense, I just want to sense what UFV is excited about me offering. So, I’m kind of feeling my way around right now.

Feedback is great — when I go to classes I sometimes worry, did

I just go over the heads of these people, but usually I like to err on the side of no, because I believe you’re smart, that you get it, because even if it’s a big idea, honestly that’s what has taken me to where I am. Like, Gaston

“It’s comfortable to open a parenthesis and to close it, and once I open a parenthesis you as a reader expect it to close. But life doesn’t work that way.”

Bachelard said “poetry forms the dreamer and his world at the same time.”

Ah! Talking about place, and that connection. Well, you know, when I read that quote, I didn’t get it. But that was like, six, eight years ago, I don’t know how long. But I put it on top of a poem, and I wrote with it and I sat with it and I lived with it and I ate with it, and I think I’m beginning to understand what that means now. So isn’t it interesting — there are some things that come to you, and you don’t know why you’re attached to that, and it takes time to learn, but something tells you this is important to you, so pay attention.

What are you hoping to take from UFV, to get out of your experience here?

Your excitement, your … just to know that you’ve been inspired, even in the smallest of ways, that I have sparked a fire somewhere … there’s no bigger reward for me than to hear that I might have changed someone’s life in some way, even a little bit.

And that’s hard, because as a teacher or writer, you can’t know that. I don’t think of my work as being about me, to me it’s almost like I want to make you think. If I can make you think, then I’ve done my job. It’s made me think, and if I can pass that along, if I can make you play, if I can make you experiment, if I can make you get excited.

One of the classes I went to we did a writing exercise, one of the guys came up to me after all jittery and excited about it. He couldn’t sit still. He said, “Oh my god, that was great,” and I thought, “Okay. That’s my reward.”

I know now what my goal is here! I want to invite everybody to write something that surprises them before I leave.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. An extended version of this interview is available online.

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Local Music

Local band Doja takes a new hybrid of funk to the main stage CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS

“What’s great about the valley is there are lots of killer bands. But the downside is there are almost no venues.”

THE CASCADE

Before hearing Doja a couple months back, I didn’t expect much. The venue seemed awful by description — there was no stage, the band set up on a make-shift dance floor in front of the bar. The place felt more like a creepy uncle’s basement than a music venue.

But the trio lit up the room with a heavy dose of groove.

Every song was laced with a thumping downbeat and heavy doses of funk.

“Bands [can] meld the boundary, keeping the energy and rawness of rock while mixing the tightness and edge of funk,” bassist Steve Kalkman says.

“Bands use funk to their advantage, even bands you would never guess, or some obvious ones like the new Daft Punk stuff.”

On a whim the band decided to answer an online ad looking for acts to play a show at the Rickshaw in Vancouver. When they showed up, they found out the event was a contest; bands were judged by the audience.

Doja was voted best of the show.

They won a pack of prizes and left the gig with free recording time at Vancouver ’s Blue Wave studio.

“We wrote the songs for our EP in high school, then final-

Image: Sarah Fawcett /redonblackmusic.com

The venue wasn’t great, but the Doja made up for it with funk. ized them for recording in the studio.” drummer Brad Desjardins says. “The drum kit I play is made locally by Abbotsford company Casey Drums. Jason Kliewer, who runs the shop, built the entire kit to the specific sizes I wanted.”

Most bands today lie on one side of the spectrum or the other: heavy metal or indie rock. But Doja is able to capture something new and something old: modern funk. They play the music they like, inspired by a plethora of different artists. “We

listen to Otis Redding and the Red Hot Chili Peppers,” Desjardins says.

The band is unique, bringing a little bit of everything to the table. Some may be fans of the vocal harmonies and melodic leads, but the rhythm section is what drives the band’s accessibility. Doja lays down a two story foundation of groove.

“What’s great about the Valley is there are lots of killer bands. But the downside is there are almost no venues. Most of the places to play get quickly

shut down, or are poorly run.

[Bands] are playing house parties in basements,” Desjardins says. “Vancouver is kind of the opposite. There are good bands, but almost too many of them.

And there is a ton of venues to play — too many.”

Doja has a show in Vancouver coming up at the Biltmore on January 29, and they’ll also be playing Lucky’s in Victoria on Jan. 25.

They are working on a fulllength record, which they finished recording at Chilliwack’s Tractor Grease Studios. For the new set of songs the trio did the recordings themselves, then brought in an engineer to mix and master the tracks.

“I would love to continue to learn about the recording studio and equipment ourselves but it’s always nice having someone else there as an outside ear as well as someone that’s savvy with the gear just in case. We were fortunate to have Jeff Bonner from Tractor Grease,” Kalkman says.

Doja’s 2012 EP, Set and Setting, is available to stream on Bandcamp.

Humour

Marxist grad student shops for the revolution at Highstreet Mall CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS THE CASCADE

While on the hunt for a new Che Gevera t-shirt, Joseph Trotshinski didn’t want to think about the revolution and class struggle.

“I just want find something that shows I like world music and social justice,” he said.

Clutching a venti mochaccino, Trotshinski explained when the revolution comes he’ll be the first one to shop.

“The symbolic gesture of purchasing free-trade coffee and foreign-produced clothing is a signifier for how globalization will naturally evolve into communism.” he said. “If we embrace corporate communications like Facebook and Twitter, they’ll naturally become a source of freedom. It’s the thought behind movements that count.”

Trotshinski, with his full tattoo sleeve of interlocking hammer and sickles, has been a big part of the modern Marxist movement in British Columbia.

Fresh out of UFV’s political science program, he left for the real world fed up with the status quo of capitalist production.

His special interest group, Occupy Production, has been running large fundraising campaigns at local shopping centres.

All the money raised is going to an awareness campaign.

“We’ve ordered some really ironic CCCP shirts. We’ve even got Karl Marx action figures and plush toys for the kids.” he said.

“We want to raise awareness about a lot of different issues.

Kind of like what newspapers used to do.”

“We have to adopt more modern theories of Marxism: fake it until you make it, be all you can be, an army of one,” Trotshinski explained. He admitted that it’s strange to embrace capitalism in order to get the message out.

But his idea behind revolution is more of an “aesthetic,” which he thinks will ultimately lead to “positive change.”

“We see what’s going on the Ukraine right now, and they’re doing it all wrong. Sure, it makes for some cool pictures,

but they would have been a lot more effective — and safe — if they used Facebook and blogs to get the message across,” he said.

And the power to shop for social change isn’t only in the hands of hipster college students and their esoteric professors. Companies like Tom’s shoes are getting in on the action. For every pair of shoes sold the company will donate an additional pair of shoes to children in third world countries.

“We’ve decided to make a new campaign for our growing market. This year we’re going to include a free cocoa-farm kit with each pair of flip-flops that we send to more than 60 countries.” marketing director Lulu Leopold explained. “Customers can Instagram their cocoa plants, comparing their minifarms with those in poorer countries. It’s a fun way to get everyone involved, and ties in with our ‘one smartphone per child’ campaign.”

Leopold hopes to expand the donation program into online education, allowing every child in the global south to gain access

to micro-economics courses.

“What Bill Gates said about there being no poverty by 2035 is absolutely true. It’s already happening,” Leopold said. “Being able to Instagram and tweet to a child in need is a form of art that is leading to real social change.”

Other workers at Highstreet don’t feel as engaged in politics.

“I’ve been a barista at Starbucks for a couple of years. Before working here, I got a masters degree in sociology. I used to do fundraising for Worldvision.”

23-year-old Amy Slater said. “I used to get paid to sell baseball cards in the mall that had pictures of needy children on them.

But it felt like I was selling people, so I quit.”

Amy doesn’t like working at Starbucks, but she feels it’s more honest than pretending she is a part of an authentic social movement. “I just want to pay back my student loans,” she said.

Upcoming

Events

Jan 23 - Mar 30 Clash: Conflict and Its Consequences The Reach is featuring a collection of work from national photojournalists with the theme of war and conflict: memorials to the fallen, objects that survived atomic blasts, sites of concentration camps, and the link between photographer and subject.

Jan 30 About Face UFV associate professor Shelley Stefan is in a North Vancouver Community Arts Council exhibition on portraiture at CityScape Community Art Space.

Feb 1 Annual theatre students’ Cabaret This variety show features performances written, acted, and composed by UFV theatre students. The cabaret is a fundraiser for their 19th Annual Directors’ Theatre Festival at the Yale Road campus in Chilliwack.

Feb 3-7 Laura and David Saito Exhibit Former UFV grads are showcasing visual arts linking history and memory to the future’s inherent uncertainty. This is the first time Laura and David Saito will have done an exhibit together. Check it out in the UFV gallery.

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Fashion Forward

Mid-part style is back in fashion, but not for everyone the mid part look as though they are going to eat me with their eyebrows, even if they have a smile on their face. What they fail to realize is that the middle part is speaking louder than they are. The mid-part manipulates their eyebrows into conveying a seemingly evil message. Hey, that’s not fair to your eyebrows — they didn’t have a say.

BRITTNEY HENSMAN contributor

The middle-part hairstyle has made a series of fashion statements in past decades, dating as early as the 1800s. We saw it elegantly framing Elizabeth Bennet’s Victorian brow, backed up with a pinned bun as Mr. Darcy proposed. We saw it making a beeline from John Lennon’s forehead to his crown in the ‘70s, as he sported the coke-bottle glasses and serenaded his fans with the sweet melodies of “Imagine.” We saw it attempt to make a “trendy” comeback in the 90s, but fail miserably — it was defined it by horrific streaks and emphasized with gelled strands of hair.

Alas, the middle part has again come into fashion this season, but I’m not convinced it’s a good thing. I fear we are adopting this hairstyle without realizing that it may be doing more damage to our appearances.

There are biological factors that may be out of your control, and plain stylistic problems which will, unfortunately, lump you into the majority who can’t make the mid-part work. Here is the breakdown.

Biological factors Widow’s peak: the mid-part

Image: Britanny Hensman

If you’re thinking of parting your hair directly down the middle, think again. won’t work if you were born with a cowlick or a widow’s peak. It’ll be hard to find the middle of your head to create the part, and it will give you an uneven hair line.

You’ll also run into problems if you have a small forehead: some people have a smaller forehead due to a low hairline. If this is you, the mid-part will pinch your head horizontally and make it hard to determine the top of your head from the front

of your face.

If you fall under these biological categories, then sorry, guys, you — along with me — are out of luck.

Stylistic problems The puppy dog: If you attempt to part your hair down the middle and you have bangs, you’re in for the puppy dog look — your bangs will end abruptly in comparison to the length of the rest of your hair. There will be

an awkward chop of hair framing your face. If your hair has extensive volume, a mid-part with poofy bangs will make you look as though you have puppy dog ears.

The a-line: Unfortunately, the mid-part will often give you an a-line shape of head. This makes the face look long and drawn out, like your hair is creating a tent over your face.

The angered eyebrows: most of the people who I see wearing

How it works Call them “the elite” or call them “the chosen ones,” but in order to be deemed one of the select few who can pull off the mid-part you must possess these qualities: a straight hairline, a mid to high forehead, and long hair with no layers around your face. That’s it!

Although the mid-part can only be pulled off by a select few, it doesn’t mean that it is the most flattering way to wear your hair. Just because it’s fashionable doesn’t it mean it looks good, and just because it’s popular doesn’t mean you should do it.

The mid-part is back. There is clearly no denying it. But, hands down, parting your hair on the side has always said, “Hello, I’m classy and sophisticated.”

The side part has the power to redeem a bad hair day, a way of melting everyone’s heart with its undeniable charm.

We n e e d y o u r h e l p .

With rising production costs, printing costs, and equipment upgrades needed, The Cascade is asking for a small amount of support to redevelop itself.

Our plan.

• Expand an online presence to include full multimedia coverage, with video and original content.

• Upgrade paper quality for a more consistent and professional product.

• Realign staff for better coverage of student stories and events.

• Provide more students with leadership opportunities, resume building in areas including journalism, business, graphic design, and governance.

• B r i n g i n t e r e s t i n g g u e s t s p e a k e r s t o U F V.

P l e a s e v o t e Y E S i n T h e C a s c a d e ’s r e f e r e n d u m a s k i n g f o r only $1.50 a semester and help keeping up with future inflation.

Jan 29 - 31 m y U F V. c a

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CULTURE

Art gallery opens new exhibition before top executive changeover

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Discussions below the belt

STIs on the rise

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS THE CASCADE

The Reach has opened a new exhibition featuring photos from the National Gallery of Canada.

The central theme: war and conflict.

Images of of amputated children, dying soldiers, and nuclear decay have been hung on the gallery’s clean walls to remind us that war is not only a force that gives us meaning, but an ultimate sacrifice.

The photographs of horror and destruction were juxtaposed by the gallery’s opening crowd, a mixed group of Fraser Valley citizens who packed the the exhibition space to its maximum capacity. Art enthusiasts sipped the Reach’s own brand of vino as they stared back at the faces in the photos.

“How old you do you think he is?” asked a young boy, pointing at a photograph of an 11-yearold boy from Nicaragua holding an AK-47. “I wouldn’t do that.

I’d get all the kids together and fight back. I’d revolt!”

The young boy, about the age of nine, moved back into the crowd, explaining the situation of the picture to his younger bother. Both were confident they would never be child soldiers.

For them, the photo must have been a fiction.

Mayor Bruce Banman took the opportunity to speak to a captivated crowd.

“The Reach is one of our best kept secrets in town. It’s a gem.

Bringing excellence in culture to Abbotsford. What is the world, what is life, without art and history?”

Behind the mayor was a sixfoot-wide photograph of a dying Canadian soldier.

After the mayor ’s speech, curator Scott Marsden explained the exhibition as a chance to “explore the personal legacy of war and trauma.”

But the new exhibition was not the only thing to be announced.

“My departure is bittersweet, but I have a wonderful opportunity to start a new facility in Whistler,” executive director Suzanne Greening said. “The own-

Image: Robert Elyov / flickr

It’s like a present: you have to wrap it first.

XTINA

SEXPERT

Image: Sam Tata/National Galley of Canada

The current Reach exhibition features images of war and conflict. er of Polygon Homes has hired me to operate a larger, private facility.”

Michael Audain owns Polygon Homes. As the Vancouver Sun reported back in May, plans for his museum have doubled in size to a full 55,000 square feet. Audain’s facility is now expected to cost over $30 million, $10 million more than when the the project was announced.

Referred to as a philanthropist by many art collectors in the Lower Mainland, Audain has built over 21,000 homes since 1980 and donated over $10 million to the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The Reach, on the other hand, is funded by local citizens and small business groups. According to a 2012 Community Report authored by the Reach, the gallery paid $69,217 in licensing fees to artists from 2009-2012.

The payments are a commitment to local artists and the arts community.

The Reach also supports young artists with their Young Contemporaries program, which books local music and arts exhibitions along with craft beer tastings once a month.

At the same time the war exhibition is on, there are other showings of post-modern and traditional world views represented by a dynamic range of painters and multi-modal visual artists.

Down one hallway gleam the flexing muscles of a luchador wrestler, down another is a sculpture made of plastic bags, commenting on our society’s relationship with plastic consumerism, nature, and pollution.

“It’s great, in’t it?” museum volunteer Debrah Gary said.

“You have to come back more than once. You can’t absorb it all in one evening.”

In addition to being an art gallery, the Reach also functions as the city’s archives. The records are a treasure trove of data for university professors, writers, and casual researchers who are given open access to the archives online.

“Our collections manager Kris Fouls has digitized over 16,000 photos. They’re being accessed from all across Canada,” Greening explained.

The current exhibitions are what the Reach does best: documenting the art and history of our world. The images of war that currently hang on the walls are hard to view. They function as windows into a the present state of violence and catastrophe around the world.

The job of the Reach is to continually teach us that despite our own comfort, disaster lies just beyond the frame of a photograph.

Sex is great. But have you considered that it is also a potentially dangerous activity? Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are still on the rise in young adults.

According to Fraser Health and the Centre for Disease Control, STIs are particularly prevalent among those in the 15-24 age range. Why? There seems to be a combination of behavioural, biological and cultural reasons for this increase.

Behavioural Teen sex is never wellthought-out. Usually it’s spurof-the-moment or a half-baked plan. It’s generally clumsy and awkward at best. Maybe it’s in a damp basement on the original shag carpet that hasn’t been cleaned since the ‘80s — you’ll definitely be picking that stuff out of your hair later. Or perhaps you have access to a car with almost enough room to get horizontal in.

Whether it’s a stale basement or cramped car, the cavalier nature of teenage sex almost guarantees condoms will not be available. Getting tested before rolling around in shag carpet or making heel marks on the roof of that Civic may be a winning idea.

The same issues can be seen in 18-24 year olds. They may have upgraded to a messy dorm room or shared apartment, but the lack of a prophylactic is still an issue. Does this sound familiar? “I guess we don’t need a condom; I’m on the pill.” Too bad that pill doesn’t protect

against STIs. Is pregnancy really the worst thing that can result from unprotected sex? Think again.

There are diseases floating around out there that can make your sexual organs virtually unrecognizable. Google some examples. I guarantee you’ll be scarred.

Biological Adolescent females are at an increased risk of getting some STIs. Chlamydia, for example is more common among teen girls because of increased cervical ectropion — when the epithelium protrudes outside the external os of the cervix. This is not abnormal, but leads to higher risk of infection. Chlamydia affects one in 15 girls aged 14-19 and, if left untreated, can lead to serious reproductive problems.

Another reason to rubber up before waving your private parts at someone.

Cultural Cultural and socio-economic barriers are responsible for their share of infections. Many young men and women are uncomfortable talking to their parents about sex. And the idea of talking to a stranger about it is out of the question. Lack of resources, transportation, and education are also to blame for the spread of STIs. It takes a determined and resourceful youth to overcome these obstacles and find prophylactic paradise. Unsafe sexual partners are lurking at every turn. But if you can persevere, you will have healthy sexual organs in the long run.

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Film Reviews

Her MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

Spike Jonze isn’t content with creativity, creativity (again), and childhood. Now he aims to dissect, define, clean up, and send the concept of love into cinematic future history.

Jonze has been sketching out this idea for a few years, in his computer-head half-hour I’m Here and picture book stop-motion short Mourir Auprès de Toi. His previous feature films, too, contain segments of ideas that get centre stage in Her (most notably Meryl Streep’s under-theinfluence dialtone synchrony from Adaptation.)

All of these, Her included, are extremely defensive statements of artistic principles, which sounds officious, but for all the narrative and visual tricks Jonze is known for, when it comes time for any narrative development his films have the tenor of an educational program. Or in the case of his and Dave Eggers’ elongated interpretation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, “a child’s point of view.” Everything is obliged to exist for the main character, every problem takes on symbolic meaning for the entire world, and the only thing standing in the way of the (always artistically gifted) main character is himself.

In Her, the elaborate premise is in the future tense. Anxiety over alienation and dependency on “smart” technology arrive unharmed and only slightly modified. Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) dictates saccharine correspondence for people who have forgotten how to handwrite (the era’s folk art, surely) from within the bright, airy chambers

of what, if freezeframed, would look like an ad for Google, Apple, or the Gap. He commutes via elevator and leaden walk to a glass-panoramic apartment (all the better to feel lost in), dozes off to tinkly piano and harmonium rattle courtesy Win Butler (Arcade Fire) and Owen Pallett, and repeats. In this version of the future, indoors and out are nearly indistinguishable. Rather than a Minority Report assault of personalized surveillance and promotion, all is antiseptic and friendly. It’s comfortable, convenient, and along with Los Angeles’ imagined turn toward a cityscape that’s pollution- and crime-free, in style.

Into this, a relatively low-key product launch (though, like all the scenes in Her, still one jewelled and glorified) gives Theodore what he needs: the gradual erasure of his self-doubts. The product is Samantha (he gets to choose the gender), an operating system with a large personality

database, no shortage of ways to make file organization and appointment scheduling seem like glowing fun, and the voice of Scarlett Johansson.

Within seconds his email history is known, instantly his existence becomes all-important, and through Samantha’s perky curiosity and his wounded melancholy, they fall in informationlove, which is really closer to a form of therapy. Samantha becomes the voice inside his head that convinces him to get out of bed in the morning, pushes him to set up a date some friends have already set him up with (he’d be reluctant to call himself reluctant), and assures him a human being is an enviable thing to be. Before long they’re laughing, running through sunbeams, playing wordgames, and writing each other songs. She’s the guide through his dreams, the spring in his step, the cellphone in his pocket. It’s nauseating, unless you’re into that sort of thing.

Even if you are for monotonous love narratives, Her still has the same problems as the rest of Jonze’s pictures: ideas precede actors. Olivia Wilde, Amy Adams, Portia Doubleday, and Rooney Mara all give performances suggestive of directions that are considerably more interesting than the central “I’m having all kinds of feelings I’ve never felt before” couple, but are useful to the narrative only in how each represents something to Theodore. They are experiences he can interpret, failures to learn from, people he can use to boost or steady himself. Where most of the movie tortures itself trying to get the audience into Theodore’s interiority, there’s nothing like that for the short, but far more unpredictable intervals these characters show up for.

It’s typical of a Jonze movie, especially the ones written by Charlie Kaufman, to feature lines that essentially criticize

Saving Mr. Banks TAYLOR BRECKLES CONTRIBUTOR

Mary Poppins has been revisited, though not in the way you’d think, with the release of Saving Mr. Banks.

In this film, Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) tries to persuade P. L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the author of Mary Poppins, to release the book’s rights in order to make the beloved character and her story into a movie.

The film bounces between the present and the past, providing a backstory for Travers. When a film relies so heavily on flashbacks, it can either be a great success or a horrendous failure.

Personally, I think that the flashbacks were nicely timed in order to foreshadow present events.

Certain flashbacks also tie into the film Mary Poppins, which is a nice touch. These hints are subtle; touches that only a fan would particularly notice, but they also add to the story. When “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” is sung, for instance, the camera focuses on Travers’ foot as it’s tapping along to the beat, the same way that Mary taps hers during “Step in Time” in Mary Poppins.

As far as casting goes, I was wary of Tom Hanks portraying Walt Disney. Don’t get me wrong, Hanks is a great actor with many talents, but anyone who dares to play such an iconic figure had better do a bloody fantastic job.

I was impressed. Now, anyone who knows me knows I know my Disney, so you can trust that he did a good job if even I’m im-

pressed. Hanks is able to capture the humour, kindness, and evidently persuasive nature of the character.

One thing that surprised me was the lack of Walt Disney in the film. He is there, naturally, but the majority of the movie was focused on Travers and her life. I completely understand why they made that choice —

because of her original complete disdain for a movie portrayal of her characters. But I thought that Disney would have been featured at least a little more.

Even so, the gradual reveal of the true character of Travers, with nudges from Disney, makes the story captivating. You will fall in love with the author just like you fell in love with Dis-

the whole movie, only to move on, as if voicing a criticism is the same as avoiding being the direct target of one. It’s intelligent posture and nothing more. Her is more interested in coddling than criticizing its perspective.

Every time Phoenix puts his OSwhite earpiece in with a smile, it’s a sign the scene will go nowhere. One of the few scenes not reduced to context-elided shorthand, a divorce signing, (the one scene where Mara’s character gets to actually speak any lines and isn’t a presentation of Theodore’s selective memory), comes as a break from Johansson’s positive reinforcement. But by the time the movie reaches its Fight Club-echoing ending (of all things), Jonze’s script chooses to push away anything uncomfortable, and with it tunes out its most varied and arresting voices.

“Am I just programming?” asks a voice at one point, making explicit the code and data parallels of humans and their technology that’s the movie’s sort-of subject. Her basically stops there, spending the rest of its running time cheering on its “sensitive guy” (Theodore’s workplace gets a speech on the subject) with nods to thinkpieceready relevance. What form will love take in the future, and what do screens have to do with it? Apparently the same role as Lady in the Water’s Story or Spielberg’s extra-terrestrial, the innocence that shows the way before departing for a home planet.

Considering this, along with all the moody montages and atrocious Karen O songs, Her fits best, perhaps, in the sci-fi category of dystopia.

ney’s Poppins.

Everything about Mary Poppins is explored in this movie, from the songs to the cinematography. Even the choice of actor is brought up. The audience gets a new way of understanding the meaning behind the songs and their inspiration. This peek into the development of a beloved classic provides a lot of insight into how much detail and how many small touches were added in the final film. Now I know that Travers absolutely hated the idea of animation being featured in the movie, yet the dancing penguins in the final version are animated. How did Disney manage that? Watch and find out.

Saving Mr. Banks is filled with humour, sadness, longing, and — to quote the meme — “feels.”

It’s amazing how a movie can make you want to both cry and smile at the same time. Just remember to stick around once the credits start rolling if you want to hear a clip of the real Travers hashing out details during one of the production meetings for Mary Poppins, a seemingly small touch that held the entire audience in their seats.

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Album Review

Young the Giant – Mind Over Matter

of this album will resonate to a different crowd of listeners, with its evocative lyrics and darker feel interwoven through the tracks. It is an album you will

want to put on for that summer road trip, those nights at the lake, or the drive downtown. It is a summer anthem that will tell your story.

Mind Over Matter first draws in listeners with “Slow Dive,” through its instrumental purpose and gradual build up of its aforementioned synths, followed by the inventive track “Anagram” — a guitar riff and catchy chorus infects the soul with an urge to dance. My initial favourite is “Firelight,” where Sameer Gadhia’s sustained vocals allow your mind to be entrenched in the album, and want more. “Teachers” is a throwback to the band’s debut album, taking out the synth and adding a guitar sound that hooks you, the type of sound that made the Californian quintet a contagious playback on the radio. It’s the chord progression that makes this song another favourite.

Young the Giant still invoke youthful exuberance, but mature on Mind Over Matter to poetic phrases filled with meaning.

Each track on the album has its own identity, and is kept together well enough so the listener isn’t confused with the direction the album is heading. The diversity of Gadhia’s voice is shown through soaring high notes and

Roseanne Cash The River and the Thread

Dum Dum Girls Too True

Switchfoot Fading West

Au Revoir Simone Move in Spectrums

I’m not a fan of what they call “musical royalty.” Those musicians who have inherited a name are often a letdown, hardly even an afterthought in the legacy of their parents. Rosanne Cash, however, has proven herself something else. It’s not going to be her vocals that draw you in. Cash has a voice that’s plain as yogurt. No, for The River and the Thread it’s going to be the depth and open-heartedness of her lyrics, brimming with melancholy and character. Cash writes loneliness (“His words are cruel and they sting like fire / like the devil’s choir”), she writes eerie metaphor (“So open up the window/ And hand the baby through / Point up towards the ghostly bridge / And she’ll know what to do”), and — perhaps most beautifully — place (“Dark highways and country roads/don’t scare you like they did / the woods and winds, they’ll welcome you / to the places you once hid”). From Alabama, Arkansas, the Mississippi, and Memphis, Cash works her way around the South with the flowing surge and pull of the (as promised) thread and river. This isn’t a driving album; listen to Cash’s album outside and watch the world move around you, rather than vice versa.

The Dum Dum Girls have steadily evolved since their formation in 2008, going from a strictly lo-fi formula that invoked ‘60s girl group melodies with ‘80s garage rock to a cleaner and lush style of pop. Here on Too True, that cleaner pop sound is fused with darker lyrical undertones, as the group begins to dabble in shoegaze and rockabiliy to keep the listener bopping along.

Lead singer Dee Dee Penny demonstrates a range of vocal abilities here, but her versatility and charm extends into her chic fashion sense. The always starry-eyed Dee Dee kicks off the record with “Cult of Love,” where she proclaims “I belong to the cult of love.” But as Too True wears on, it becomes apparent that the Dum Dum Girls find themselves going back and forth between the garage-pop grit of their past and a more polished style of production. Their formula and song structure remain intact, but even Dee Dee admits on “Lost Boys and Girls Club” that “There’s no particular place we are going, but we’re going.” Is Too True a transitional record or a deviation? Only time will tell.

As per usual, Switchfoot’s newest album is a mix of cheerful, inspirational, and optimistic, bordering on naïve.

“Love alone is worth the FIGHT!” Jon Foreman sings on the first track, sounding like a more motivated Chad Kruger seasoned with a decent dose of Christian ideology. It’s easy to rag on Switchfoot for being so damn cheerful all the damn time, but the music has its merits. Sometimes it’s nice to immerse yourself in an album’s worth of songs that sound like the soundtrack to a romantic comedy at the exact moment the two protagonists realize they can’t live without each other. The only time this album fails, in fact, is when it gets too far away from the beaten path of Switchfoot style, as in “Say It Like You Mean It,” which edges on spoken word, and “Let it Out,” which lays claim to repetitive guitar slams and background synth that would be more at home on a One Direction album.

But at the end of the day, they know how to make it work: “Slipping Away” neatly folds into the classic vanilla structure Switchfoot has cultivated for a decade, a not-poisonously cheerful track that could easily play on a top 40 station.

It’s hard to believe that the trio of Au Revoir Simone has been together for 13 years. Over that time band members Erika Forster, Annie Hart, and Heather D’Angelo have crafted a sound that bubbles ethereally and smoothly with classic pop elements.

This sound is mostly made of keyboard synth and drum machine and that’s particularly true for their fourth full-length, Move in Spectrums. At 46 minutes this album is a precise delivery of everything that the band stands for.

What really brings this album home, though, are the tracks that flourish in the heavily glossy ‘80s influence, such as “Somebody Who” and the ultimate track “Gravitron.” Of course, there are also the cooler-temperature ones such as “Boiling Point” and the laser sighted album closer “Let the Night Win.” This album ultimately isn’t about the lyrics but the electronic journey that traverses both valleys and mountainous heights.

SASHA MOEDT

TIM UBELS

Dessa bayrock

joe Johnson

OWEN COULTER CONTRIBUTOR

Mini Album Reviews

SoundBites

Young the Giant’s second album Mind Over Matter adds a new vibe of dominant synth cords, and features less of the SoCal feel which made the band so popular. The alterations made by producer Justin Johnson, who worked on Paramore’s self-titled album last year, helps the band avoid a sophomore slump (think MGMT’s Congratulations).

It has been four years since Young the Giant released their self-titled debut album, with its massive hits “My Body” and “It’s About Time.” They’ve lost their indie edge, and have veered into an alternative sound.

It has a strong synth influence with some plucky guitar that can sometimes sound like Coldplay.

The album is nonetheless solid and has set the stage for something different for this band.

Mind Over Matter even ventures into post-rock: grand guitar sound, skittering percussion fills, and larger vocal charisma.

The all-around final production

a controlled falsetto, which is apparent on the track “Crystallized.”

Granted, I’m a fan, but am I more of a fan of their original work? Absolutely. Nothing makes me want to sing along more than “My Body” or “It’s About Time.” The band, like any other, is experimenting with different sounds, but this sophomore production gets lost when placed next to Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto or The Killers’ Battle Born.

It is not a sophomore slump, but they don’t replace the addiction I have for their first album. Mind Over Matter attempts to stretch their boundaries in an organic way, and I do like the use of a story being told throughout the album, but I feel dissatisfied with the feeling that seems to drag in the latter songs (with the exception of “Teachers.”) It will take some getting used to, but I’m still looking forward to seeing them live, where they will likely pull from both their debut and sophomore album.

Are your headphones always on?

If you listen to new music, we want you in this section.

Email arts@ufvcascade.ca for more information

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Book Review

milk tooth bane bone

by Daniela Elza CHARTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

First Reign Harvest of Shame Kat and Tony Everything Blue Ollie Vee Lonesome Girl Sexy Mathematics Electronics

Tough Age Tough Age

Old Cabin Old Cabin

The Stanfields For King And Country Kristin Witko Aquitaine The Royal Oui The Royal Oui Silkken Laumann Not Forever Enough

Alden Penner Precession

Little Suns Normal Human Feelings

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Angela Galuppo Angela Galuppo Recondite Hinterland Jordana Talsky Standard Deviation Bruce Springsteen High Hopes M.I.A. Matangi

Childish Gambino Because The Internet The Dismemberment Plan

Uncanny Valley

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Ken Aldcroft’s Convergence Ensemble

Saskatoon

Shuffle AARON LEVY

CIVL STATION MANAGER

CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy has regrets, and so do all of these songwriters. This is a shuffle in honour of such truths.

Girls — “The Oh So Protective One” Some Girls songs are full of unbridled, infectious joy, (“Summertime”) or otherwise guised depression purporting to be unbridled celebration (“Lust for Life”), and others, such as this, are full of solemn, individualistic sorrow. Musically, they’re a band for this age, with stories about our times and their difficulties.

Yeah Yeah Yeah’s — “Zero” Karen O never sounded as cheeky as she does whilst instructing one to “get to know it in the dark.”

Climbing the ladder, representing yourself as one who will achieve but not be deceived, nor allow yourself to be misled — all of these themes are common for the Triple Ys. Taj Mahal — “Queen Bee” An eclectic track of ebullient worship, Taj Mahal is well-known among his contemporaries, but most recognizable to those of us mainstreamers who can appreciate a feel-good love song in culturally diverse stylings, and don’t mind hearing a man old enough to be our grandfather sing about the deed.

The Rolling Stones — “Beast of Burden” Neither Jagger nor Richards have thus far been put out of their misery. They’ve, at times, been out on the streets, and no doubt in the ‘60s and ‘70s been found with no shoes on their talented feet. They’re both rich enough, and you’d better believe they’re tough enough. Burdensome?

Janelle Monae — “Tight Rope” You can’t get too high, or you’ll surely be low. You may not be surprised Big Boi is on this record, but who would’ve thought that, pre-Fun and their being young, that the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy and Bad Boy Records would’ve had a big hand in this recording.

KATIE STOBBART THE CASCADE

“How does it start? Read me the first line,” a colleague said, spotting my copy of milk tooth bane bone on the desk. Another coworker balanced the book in her hand, turning to the first poem.

“Today, a crow flies up,” she read. The response was a smile.

“That sounds like a ‘Katie’ book.” Maybe because I love poetry, maybe because I have been vocal about my feelings on crows, of being haunted by them. Either way, Daniela Elza’s most recent collection of poems resonates with me on a personal level. It attends to the curious blend of fascination with and fear of crows I’m sure many of us feel at some time or another, and to their insistent presence in our quotidian mythologies.

Although Elza never explicitly states, “This is what crows are.

This is what they mean,” her poetic exploration in milk tooth bane bone implies there is an answer. In many ways, the collection recalls Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” not just because the subject is the same, but due to its pure, emotive ambiguity, and because to understand it means looking deep into the eye of mystery — of feeling something rather than trying to logically justify it. Elza takes it further: she gives us hundreds of crows, murders of them. She observes their patterns, their strangeness, and their familiarity. She explores the tight weave of two narratives: the crows’ and our own.

“We look at each other sideways crow & I for an instant agree— this kind of sustenance is miserable.”

The collection is at once a product of obsession and philosophy, resulting in both mythology and truth, by means of both language and the unsaid — perhaps the unsayable. Yet it is concrete. We see “dendrite reflections of trees” and the flash of sunlight on a black wing. The poems are intimate, too; the speaker ’s personal history is spread open, laced with crows.

I read the poems aloud as I walked to work early in the morning — you can’t walk anywhere here without seeing them. At times the reading was difficult; through unique use of punctuation and italics Elza captures the nuances in language, coaxing the words with-

in words to emerge (sinew and ripples and skin), and opening up spaces in language which are unpronounceable with a singular voice. Perhaps it is this layering of meaning that makes each poem in milk tooth bane bone feel like part of a mythology. Elza also uses parentheses in a distinct way — she will open them without closing them, for example. The spacing of words on the page also affects the ways the words can be read and the poems are full of movement. I don’t believe they should be read a certain way; Elza’s choices in language are all about possibility, not rigidity.

The poems themselves are characters in this curious myth.

In a way, my colleague was mistaken. This is not just a book for someone who already loves poetry, or whose mind is preoccupied with birds. Milk tooth bane bone is about presence, about seeing the mysterious life of the seemingly ordinary entities around us. It is an attempt to understand what we do not have adequate words for, and it is a reminder that we are not alone. It explores symbiosis.

And more still. Most importantly, I think, it tells us to be attentive.

“Words are lumps of coal come alive. they spread their wings and fly off into the night.”

To me, this articulates the idea of consciousness. How many moments like this do we ignore?

Milk tooth bane bone is insightful, philosophical, and mindful. It is a book worth reading, but more than that, it is a book you live with, you eat with, you walk to work with, and each time you take something new from it.

Throughout the book Elza explores the links between the crows, the poems, and the elusive feathers of memory that construct an ideology.

“An instant’s sleek shadow across my face pecks a memory out of my eye,”

“I gave my teeth to the crows and they have not left me alone.”

Come to a writers meeting!

It’s not just for writers! We also need artists, designers, photographers, ad salespeople, and people who drink a lot of coffee.

Join in Monday mornings in C1421 at 8 a.m. or email michael@ufvcascade for details.

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Channel Surfing

Sherlock: Season 3

LAUREN SOUTHERN CONTRIBUTOR

We’ve been Sherlocked once again!

The third season of BBC’s Sherlock premiered January 1 this year and ended in the blink of an eye on January 12. The three episodes, each around an hour and a half long — “The Empty Hearse,” “The Sign of Three,” and “His Last Vow” had me laughing, crying, and picking my jaw up off the floor.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Sherlock Holmes, the mastermind detective and self-proclaimed “high-functioning sociopath” as always in the show.

From his inhuman intelligence and perception to his unknowingly Machiavellian treatment of others, he is truly a unique individual. Sherlock would be perfectly content never loving another human being as long as his mind was amused. From playing the violin, dissecting eyeballs, solving Inspector LeStrade’s cases and occasionally shooting up (supposedly a past hobby), this man clearly has no respect for the social norm. Though the new season of the BBC hit show has thrown a new challenge at Cumberbatch, a new side to the ever so logical Sherlock Holmes is revealed, a more emotional and less self-centred side — a weaker side, you might say, one we have only seen vaguely in previous seasons of the show.

Martin Freeman does an outstanding job playing Dr. Watson, Sherlock’s more human counterpart. Watson, a former army doctor, met Holmes through a mutual acquaintance who set them up together with a flat; in the new season Watson is to be married

to Mary Morstan, this is the first time we see Sherlock really fear for his friendship. In fact Sherlock is surprised to be considered someone’s friend, although the two of them became quite close in the previous seasons, solving cases together, saving each other ’s lives, and mourning over those lost. Sherlock maybe not mourning but rather regretting his failure to succeed in solving cases perfectly without casualties; Watson in previous episodes is the one attempting to save lives and suffering from the emotional backlash. Holmes repeatedly acknowledges this idea in the third season: that while he may be able to solve a case, it is always Watson who saves the

life.

The contrast of the protagonists in the show and their compelling interactions is not the only thing that keeps fans’ eyes glued to the screen. The less focused on but just as important supporting characters in Sherlock are just as unique, intelligent, and even more mysterious than Holmes and Watson. The villains of Sherlock, his intellectual equals, seem to be the first true super-geniuses when it comes to antagonists. Instead of trying to tie up and kill the hero after telling him their magnificent plan to destroy the earth, these villains are far more cunning. They seek to destroy hope, reputation, and sanity and do it in such a cool

and collected manner and with a devious intelligence only Sherlock (and possibly his brother) could counter.

Charles Augusts Magnussen, the third season’s villain, brings a whole new meaning to disturbing. He gathers and uses people’s emotional weak points or what he calls “pressure points” to exploit their positions of power. He pokes at people, torments them with threats to expose pieces of their dark pasts, and makes them his slaves through blackmail. Despite Sherlock’s equally genius but more mature brother Mycroft’s attempts to keep him away, when Magnussen gets Watson involved in his emotional torture, all hell breaks loose.

Of course it can’t just end there; the season once again leaves you dumbfounded and waiting for more, according to writer Steven Moffat, season four is already mapped out. After a writers meeting, Moffat announced at the BAFTA season three screening, “The ideas we had that day, I thought were the best we’ve ever had.” Just when fans thought it couldn’t get any better! If you have not jumped on the Sherlockian bandwagon and you are looking for a good show to watch, this is it! I will warn you though: one episode and you’ll be hooked.

Dine & Dash

Pho Abbotsford #1 NADINE MOEDT THE CASCADE

We went to Pho Abbotsford #1 to see if the Vietnamese cuisine lived up to its name.

The restaurant certainly has an interesting ambience. We were greeted by a murky fish tank which contained a company of perpetually surprised koi-like fish. They were staring, so we felt it wouldn’t be rude to stare back. After a conversation about how displaying tropical fish in restaurants is a little out of date, décor you are more likely to see in your dental or orthodontic office, I decided against ordering seafood.

The restaurant’s seating area is poorly lit by neon lights, giving it a diner sort of feel, but has a comfortable atmosphere. No one is there to judge how proficient you are at scooping egg noodles out of your pho with chopsticks.

The menu offers a wide selection of pho, with both pescetarian and vegetarian options. Each bowl comes with piping hot soup, rice noodles, and uniquely prepared meat, tofu, or seafood.

The basic options are priced at

Image: Nadine Moedt

Pho Abbotsford #1 may be number one pho in town, but probably not the number one Vietnamese food. $7.95 for a medium bowl; seafood options and anything with vegetables are $8.95. We opted for the “chicken meat and egg noodle” pho, which came with an assortment of fresh vegetables.

The soup and vegetables were flavoured strongly of chicken, lending it a familiar homemadechicken-noodle-soup feel.

We also sampled the appetizers. The deep fried shrimp is a

must-try; the shrimp is fresh and padded with deliciously spiced batter. They came out with surprising speed and were served with two types of sweet dip.

We also tried the vermicelli and

spring rolls. These were a little less spectacular — I have a high threshold for satisfactory spring rolls, which I order at nearly every restaurant that offers them — although the noodles and accompanying salad were fresh.

The service was polite and speedy; often restaurants have the waitresses asking how things are at annoyingly invasive intervals, but we were checked on and offered refills very tactfully.

The menu overall suits a student’s budget. A bowl of pho for $7.95 is enough food to satisfy.

Its other options — the lunch and dinner combinations generally priced around $14 to $16 — are certainly interesting though meat-heavy. Most of the meals include grilled meat patties; if you’re a pork lover, this is the place to be.

As for its claim as Abbotsford #1? The pho is fresh and if that’s all you are after, this restaurant will suit. While it’s certainly worth the trip, if you are in the mood for sampling other Vietnamese cuisine, this is not my first pick in Abbotsford.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

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SPORTS & HEALTH

Heat Report

Comets douse the Heat at home TIM UBELS

CONTRIBUTOR

Twenty-three-year-old Utica Comets keeper Joacim Eriksson may have been the difference in net this weekend, but it was Benn Ferriero who provided game-winning overtime goals in back-to-back contests, extending the team’s unbeaten streak against the Abbotsford Heat to six games.

Playing in front of a nearly packed house on Friday and Saturday, the Heat had their eye on top spot in the West, but were foiled by the great play of Eriksson, who stopped 59 of 62 shots over the weekend.

Despite sloppy play and a number of poor turnovers, the Heat’s first period had some highlights. Aldergrove native Jordan Kremyr, playing in his first home-province game after an ECHL call-up, laid out Comets defenseman Yann Sauve in the Comets’ end. The Heat’s best chance came from Markus Granlund, who was stoned by Eriksson with the glove hand to keep it scoreless through the first period.

Eriksson brought the fans to their feet once again at 5:24 of the second period, as a loose puck made its way in front of the Comets’ goal and onto the stick of Sven Baertschi. The only thing standing between Baertschi and a surefire goal was the goalstick of Eriksson, who miraculously made contact with the puck. The goal horn sounded, the referee signalled a goal, and the Heat began to celebrate the icebreaker.

But after about a minute of confusion on the ice, the referee reviewed the goal, ruled that the

Image: Clint Trahan

Comets keeper Joacim Eriksson extended a Heat-exclusive shutout streak into the weekend’s games. puck never crossed the line, and waived it off. Undaunted, the Heat kept pressing.

Max Reinhart, who briefly left the game for stitches in the first period, returned in the second and was blanked by Eriksson on several occasions. The most notable of these was a clear-cut breakaway Reinhart had near the end of the period. Heat defenseman Chris Breen feathered a perfect tape-to-tape pass to Reinhart at the Comets blueline, but Eriksson was there to turn the chance aside with his pad.

After a generally unremarkable third period of scoreless action, the two teams picked up a single point and prepared

for sudden-death overtime. It wasn’t long before Benn Ferriero sauntered off the corner boards and whizzed the winner over Joni Ortio’s shoulder to end the scoreless draw and seal the victory for the Comets.

After the game, Heat coach Troy G. Ward remarked that the team wasn’t very good fundamentally on Friday night, citing that the rust from being inactive for a week was hard to shake.

He complimented the 6’6 Breen, commenting that in the first period, “he made more saves than Orts.” Breen, who was named the game’s third star, blocked shots and cleared pucks all game long, arguably playing his

best game of the season.

On Saturday night, the Heat attempted to end their losing skid facing the Comets once again, but fell behind early as Utica forward Brandon DeFazio was the beneficiary of a lucky bounce off the endboards, registering his fifth of the year to open the scoring at 2:05 into the first frame. The teams then exchanged goals, with the Heat’s coming from Granlund on the powerplay. His top-corner wrist shot counted as their first goal on Eriksson in almost three games, dating back to the two teams’ mid-December meetings.

Brett Olson momentarily gave the Heat the 3-2 led in the third

period after a great individual effort led to his first point in the 13 games. After the game Olsen said that it felt good to get “the proverbial monkey off the back.” Ward added that Olsen was nearly a healthy scratch, but ended up getting the call for the Heat and delivered. Soon after Olson’s goal, Comets forward Pascal Pelletier took advantage of a defensive miscue between John Ramage and netminder Joey MacDonald, feeding the puck out to Alexandre Grenier for the easy tally. Ferriero wired his 15th of the season past MacDonald in overtime, giving the Comets the weekend sweep, who are now rolling with four consecutive victories.

In other news, Heat defenseman Mark Cundari has been officially loaned out to the Chicago Wolves in exchange for centre Corey Locke. This deal will see Cundari returned to the Flames organization at the end of the season, but Locke will stay with the Heat. The move solves both teams’ problems, as the Heat have a surplus of defenseman looking to dress every night, while the Wolves have too many veterans on their team every night, resulting in a number of unnecessary healthy scratches for both teams. Locke, who heard about the trade on Thursday, travelled all day and all night to get in the lineup for Friday night’s matchup and said he was excited to get into a game.

The Heat will look for the first win of their eight-game homestand against the Hamilton Bulldogs next Friday at the AESC. The game starts at 7 p.m.

The truth behind the cleanse VIVIENNE BEARD CONTRIBUTOR

Although cleanses have been around for centuries, they have only recently gained enormous popularity in North American society. In India, internal cleansing has been practised by Yogis for generations, and Europeans similarly used sauna sessions as a way to detoxify. For centuries across the globe, different cultures have creatively discovered natural and chemical-free ways to help their bodies move toward complete internal health.

Most cleanses today encourage large amounts of fluids, fruits, and veggies; some are entirely based upon liquids. Juicing cleanses gained immense popularity in the past year. The juice involved in these cleanses is pressed from whole, raw fruits and vegetables. They are void of added sugars, chemicals, or preservatives, but instead offer nutrients in nature’s purest form.

So why juice? It’s almost im-

possible for us to be overloaded in the vegetable department, yet all too easy to be lacking.

By primarily juicing vegetables with fruit for added sweetness, all of the plants’ body-benefiting nutrients and minerals are concentrated into the resulting juice. Juicing breaks down the plants so that the nutrients alone, minus the insoluble fibre, are left in the juice. By drinking the fruit and vegetable nutrients directly, our digestive systems are able to take a much-needed vacation from their duties. Our bodies are able to reap the benefits of the plants’ nutrients without having to break them down.

It’s no secret that freshly pressed juice is pure heaven for our bodies. Kale, spinach, carrots, and beetroots are some of the most popular vegetables to juice, each mineral-rich and packed with vital nutrients.

But while the benefits of juice cleanses may sound wonderful, they come with a catch that poses a difficult obstacle. Juicing fresh fruit and vegetables can be very time-consuming and pric-

ey. Some juice recipes call for 20 apples, while others list seven mangos, amongst other ingredients in the recipe. For those of us on student budgets, a $300 juicer isn’t quite at the top of the list of needs. If juicing isn’t an option, how can we cleanse our bodies from the inside out without breaking the bank?

Just as juicing uses whole fruits and veggies to cleanse our internal system, our daily diet can do just that — no juicer necessary. Instead of offering realistic lifetime health solutions, juice cleanses only focus on three to 14 days of diet change.

While juicing has the potential to transform some, many people complete a juicing diet only to turn back to French fries and chocolate bars the next day.

The solution to this is to work on cleansing our bodies daily, not as part of a specialized diet, but as a way of life. I firmly believe little steps over time can have a huge impact. Sipping on lemon water is an excellent place to start. Simply squeeze half a lemon into a pitcher of water

Image: Sahua d/flickr

Hand-squeezed juice is one, but not the only, way to get detoxified. and enjoy throughout the day.

Lemon water works wonders at stimulating and purifying the liver. A detox bath is another way to aid your body’s natural detox system and also end the day in relaxation. Add some skin-softening baking soda to your next bath. This will help neutralize any chemicals found in the bathwater and prevent them from entering your system.

One of the best ways we can cleanse our bodies daily is by incorporating foods that naturally flush toxins out of our bodies. Apples, avocado, and grapefruit are some of the best foods to chow down on and give your body an internal cleanse — without juicing a single thing.

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SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca

Varsity Sports

Cascades men’s basketball on a record-breaking winning streak NATHAN HUTTON THE CASCADE

For their first home game of the calendar year, the men’s basketball team played host to the UBCO Heat (3-11) in back-toback games.

The Cascades entered Friday night’s affair one win shy of UFV history, having established a six-game winning streak on the road.

Through the streak, the Cascades fought their way into second place in the Pacific Division with a nice cushion: six points behind first-place UVic and four points ahead of third-place TRU. Friday night’s contest did not begin well for the Cascades. A surprisingly potent UBCO attack gave the visiting side a four-point first quarter lead.

Cascades power forward Kadeem Willis struggled to find his game early on, and after he was called on two early charges, had to sit the majority of the first half.

The first half was rough for the Cascades, who shot under 28 per cent from the field — 10 per cent from the three-point line.

A five-point half-time deficit was the perfect scenario for head coach Adam Friesen to remind his team what they had accomplished up to that point in the season and what was needed to turn things around.

“It’s not like we forgot what we were doing, it was just getting back to it,” Friesen said after the game.

The second half proved how

Image: Blake McGuire

Kevin Ford attacks the rim in a blowout win over the Heat. the Cascades had grown over the past six months, as they took over the game and started to play like a team deserving of national recognition in the second half, outscoring the Heat 21-18 in the third quarter and closing the gap to two points heading into the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter was where Manny Dulay thrived; Dulay caught fire, hitting four threepoint field goals in quick succession, helping his team to a 24-8

quarter and the 69-55 win, their record seventh in a row. “[We didn’t play] our best basketball. I think as a group we were nervous about this” Friesen said. “When you come off a multiple week road trip, sometimes the toughest game is the first home game ... Once we got a sense of urgency at half, we started to play like we have been the last couple weeks.”

The Sasquatch player of the game was Jasper Moedt, who

finished with 29 points and 14 rebounds.

The second game of the weekend did not prove to be much of a contest as the Cascades walked all over the Heat, winning the game 79-32. Not only did the Cascades smash the previous win streak record with backto-back wins this weekend, but they also set the Canada West record for fewest points allowed in a game.

After the Friday night game

Moedt commented on the winning streak and whether it means something to the team.

“I think it will looking back at it, but right now I would rather see it be eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, or whatever it is going to be.”

The Cascades are back in action next weekend to battle with the University of Regina and Brandon University.

Cascades women recover from slow starts

Expecting an easy win against the UBCO Heat, UFV’s women’s basketball sneaks a hard-won victory NATHAN HUTTON THE CASCADE

The Cascades women’s basketball team was supposed to have two easy wins this weekend, but in sports it is never easy.

The women’s basketball team entered the weekend in first place in the Canada West Pacific division, with a 12-4 record, leading the second-place UBC Thunderbirds by only two points.

The Cascades competition for this weekend was the UBCO Heat; seventh place in the eightteam division. UBCO entered the game struggling with consistency, sitting with a dismal 3-13.

The Friday night game, the first at home in nearly two months for the Cascades, was a test as UFV shooters struggled from the field, hitting only 12 shots in the first half. Usually on point when it comes to their three-pointers, the team couldn’t get their offensive flowing, and were not able to demonstrate their skill early in the game.

The one positive of the first half was that the Cascades were

playing the low-ranked Heat and could afford to have a lessthan-stellar game from the field.

The Cascades opened the game up in the second half as they registered 23 third quarter points, held the Heat to seven, and rode the momentum to a 6631 victory.

The Sasquatch player of the game was Sarah Wierks, who registered a game-high 15 points and seven rebounds.

“I thought defensively we were pretty solid. We forced them into taking a lot of tough shots and that is always our number one goal” said head coach Al Tuchscherer. “Offensively I thought in the third quarter we got things going … we moved the ball a lot better and I think that was a positive.”

The next day the Cascades faced a much more difficult task as UBCO was far more prepared to face the Cascades.

The back-and-forth affair was a difficult one for both teams.

UBCO jumped out to an early 15-7 lead, taking the Cascades by surprise. Once again the early story of this game was the Cascades’ shooting woes from all around the court.

But their problems did not persist as they had a strong second quarter, and led 26-22 at the half. The Cascades compensated for their shooting difficulties as they pulled down rebound after rebound after rebound and finished the game with 39, outrebounding the Heat by 17.

The Cascades returned to their formidable form in the third quarter, pulling ahead with 24 points in the quarter and cruising to a 65-52 victory.

Sarah Wierks took player of the game honours again. Wierks finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds, and three steals, leading her squad to a weekend sweep.

The Friday night games also held a lot of merit with the community. The Cascades hosted an Abbotsford School and Kid Sports Night. Free admittance was given to kids under the age of 17. They also received a chance to win prizes if they wore their school colours.

The Cascades are home again next weekend. They’ll try to increase their division lead against the University of Regina and Brandon University.

Image: Blake McGuire

Player of the game Sarah Wierks dominated the Heat in both games.