The Cascade Vol. 24 No. 14

MAY 25 to JUNE 8 2016

VOLUME 24 ISSUE 14

Exactly what you want us to be since 1993

GRAD WEEK 2016 EDITORIAL 路 PG. 3 OPINION PG. 8 Four new degrees approved 路 pg. 5 SUS president on reporting sexual violence 路 pg. 10-11 Depression and Dark Souls III 路 pg. 15

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY. MAY 25 2016

CONTENTS

News

Opinion

Culture & Events

The fires of Fort McMurray

Trudeau drops the elbow

Local painters fight it out at Art Battle 398

Dying over and over and over again

Jonathan Hughes discusses the fire’s environmental and economical impact

P.M. Trudeau’s behaviour in the House of Commons draws ire from opposition

Painting competition season comes to a close

Contributor Chris Towler delves into the world of videogames and how they reflect our own emotions

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CONTRIBUTORS

STAFF Editor-in-Chief Michael Scoular michael@ufvcascade.ca

Opinion Editor Alex Rake alex@ufvcascade.ca

Illustrator Sultan Jum sultan@ufvcascade.ca

Managing Editor (interim) Glen Ess glen@ufvcascade.ca

Culture & Events Editor Glen Ess glen@ufvcascade.ca

Online Editor Tanya Vanpraseuth tanya@ufvcascade.ca

Arts in Review Editor Martin Castro martin@ufvcascade.ca

Multimedia Editor Mitch Huttema mitch@ufvcascade.ca

Production Manager Brittany Cardinal brittany@ufvcascade.ca

Staff Writer Sonja Klotz sonjak@ufvcascade.ca

Production Assistant Danielle Collins danielle@ufvcascade.ca

Advertising Rep Kayla Schuurmans kayla@ufvcascade.ca

Business Manager Jennifer Trithardt-Tufts jennifer@ufvcascade.ca Copy Editor Kat Marusiak kat@ufvcascade.ca News Editor Vanessa Broadbent vanessa@ufvcascade.ca

Arts in Review

Aman Bhardwaj Panku Sharma Cameron Schmitke Chris Towler

WWW.UFVCASCADE.CA @UFVCASCADE FACEBOOK.COM/UFVCASCADE INSTAGRAM.COM/THE.CASCADE

Volume 24 · Issue 14 Room S2111 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Cover Design: Sultan Jum Back cover photo: Mitch Huttema

The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It originated under its current name in 1993, and achieved autonomy from the university and the Student Union Society in 2002. This means that The Cascade is a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published in an entirely student-run setting. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds, and is overseen by the Cascade Journalism Society Board, a body run by a student majority. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a print circulation of 1,250 and is distributed at Abbotsford, Chilliwack (CEP), Clearbrook, and Mission UFV campuses and throughout the surrounding communities.

The Cascade is open to written, photo, and design work from all students; these can come in the form of a pitch to an editor, or an assignment from an editor. Writers meetings are held each Monday at 2:00 p.m. in The Cascade’s office on the Abbotsford campus.

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In order to be published in the newspaper, all work must first be approved by The Cascade’s editor-in-chief, copy editor, and corresponding section editor. 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. Letters to the editor, while held to the same standard, are unedited, and should be under 400 words. As The Cascade is an autonomous student publication, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, The Cascade’s staff and collective, or associated members.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 2016

EDITORIAL

NEWS BRIEFS

EDITORIAL

Wisdom for the ages Commencement approaches. What magic does it hold in store?

MICHAEL SCOULAR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

UFV and FSA meet for mediation at Labour Relations Board After several weeks of negotiation, representatives from the faculty-staff association (FSA) at UFV applied for mediation — a sign that, more than two years since the last negotiated contract between the two parties expired, resolution of differing positions was unlikely.

“The FSA bargaining team applied for mediation, and UFV supported this as a good course of action to help move negotiations forward,” writes Leslie Courchesne, the director of university relations at UFV, in an email update to staff, administrators, and faculty.

Mediation began with a meeting earlier this month, continues with a second meeting May 26, and will potentially continue into the summer — Courchesne says in the same address that UFV has requested further dates in June.

“The mediator has been very helpful and will continue to assist both parties to achieve a clear understanding of the ways open to them to achieve a mutually beneficial settlement,” Courchesne adds. “We remain positive that a settlement can be achieved.”

The FSA did not return a request for comment by press time.

UFV invests $1.5 million in teaching and learning UFV has announced that it will invest a $1.5 million surplus “to support new initiatives in teaching and learning.” The funding will be used to created a learning innovation fund, which will help to create new teaching and learning approaches, as well as improving related facilities. The funding is available partly due to a result of higher-than-projected international student enrolment.

Women’s basketball leader continues to collect awards Kayli Sartori of the women’s basketball team has been named BC Basketball’s female university athlete of the year.

This isn’t the fourth-year guard’s only award of the season, as she has already been named a Canada West first team all-star and a CIS second team All-Canadian, as well as UFV’s female athlete of the year. Sartori will be starting her fifth and final year of eligibility this fall.

“Although I oppose the idea of the Commencement address, I have been thinking about what would have been useful for me to hear on the day I left college. I wish that someone had said to me that it’s normal to feel lost.”

— Ira Glass “Whenever we speak, we tend to make matters sound simpler than they are, and than we know they are.”

— Susan Sontag “Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.”

— Mary Schmich “All go their separate identical ways led by the longing in the obsessed, obscene heart.”

— “The Commencement Day Address,” Delmore Schwartz I could go on, quoting from commencement day addresses, calling it a commemorative noneditorial for the class of 2016, and call it a day.

There is no longer the exclusive feeling surrounding the ceremony: the pageant is still something different to experience in person, both ridiculous and reverent, but you can call up, for example, a list of over a hundred “best” commencement speeches compiled by National Public Radio in the States. This is a list with Arianna Huffington on it twice and Ed Helms three times, but it’s lengthy enough that you’ll also see the hits: J.K. Rowling, David Foster Wallace, the first two quoted above, presidents, cultural idols, the kind of speakers who, upon seeing them, will be a special private experience you’ll be able to take with you: “At my graduation, X spoke. They were actually pretty real.”

But that isn’t UFV: the world is full of inspirational speeches, loosed by the publication of overpriced 40-page hardbacks and the internet, but anyone attending their graduation will likely feel pulled between two worlds: the personal, internal one, calculating and writing the narrative that brought them to this moment, and the one actually seeing what is before them. Like any ritual, there is the pull to tread lightly here: commencement is about as religious as UFV gets, and God knows there’s an immense amount of work that goes into securing speakers and choosing everything, from the chairs to the lights to the sound. So there are the unwritten rules: Don’t be disrespectful, do realize you’re a part of something bigger than just you, but also take pride in yourself.

I’ve attended one commencement ceremony (last year’s), and most of its memory is washed away by the actual moments that matter to students: the five seconds spent crossing the stage, and the hours spent after exiting the doors outside, where, outside of the sanctuary, arena, whatever you want to call it, you’re finally free to talk.

As I’ve watched the people I’ve known gradu-

Illustration: Sultan Jum

ate UFV, many of them before me, it’s with an awareness of: this could happen to you. You could get a job and leave for another city; you could stick around in the Fraser Valley, minutes away from campus; you could decide, in the way speeches seem to describe, to abandon a set plan and choose to live in a way that defies the narrative of your colleagues and parents and friends; you could meet up, every now and then, on Facebook walls and at parties, and talk about how great university was, and how cool you were, and what you miss. So to say this is good and this is pretty boring about commencement is really beside the point: who was there and what was said won’t matter much in the end. The ceremony exists to flatten out experience: the tears and agony and defeat, and the jubilation, the sense of an ending, the relief all meet together and look the same and know the same core, uh, institutional outcomes.

But for those about to sit through your last moments as a student, a few things to note: UFV’s identity is vaguely positive, and cards declaring what you need to do to activate your alumni membership will be pressed into your hand, and it will all be very didactic. “Take this wisdom, this identity with you, not because I say so, but because it’s probably true,” the speeches mostly say. UFV has assembled four honorary speakers: Halldor Bjarnason, Linda Frimer, Luigi Aquilini, and George Peary, one for each ceremony. Maybe they will break through and say something memorable. It’s almost inevitably

the same, though: as Sontag calls it, it’s a secular sermon, a genre of alarm, then exhortation.

It’s awful out there, but you’re here, so you must know how to struggle well. Don’t worry, they’ll also make you laugh a little. Feel inspired and misty a little.

In my opinion, UFV could do more to acknowledge its unique place as an educational institution: it doesn’t always get the star students, the affluent citizens of the world that will find ways to make others more affluent, it really isn’t the first choice of many of those that walk through its halls. Yet they find a way to love something about it anyway, and get through their four or five or six years. An institution that, even if not entirely, is a place that gives access to students who otherwise could not afford a university education, is a place where many students are the first in their family to graduate, is a great one. Instead, many of the pats on the back will likely end up sounding as specific and genuine as The Onion’s parody of Hillary Clinton empathizing with young Americans. You guys all like coffee and all-nighters, right?

Anyway, if there’s anything I’ve learned from reading up on commencement before writing this, it’s that the speeches are really only opening acts: no matter how many carpe diems and unlikely stories of survival, the key is brevity and wit and getting out of the way of the future. So, I’ll go.

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY. MAY 25 2016

NEWS

The future of Fort McMurray Economic and environmental impacts abound in Alberta

Photo: Stuart Rankin Flickr

GLEN ESS THE CASCADE

Summertime in Western Canada always carries with it the risk of forest fires. The Fraser Valley is no stranger to this and last summer saw massive clouds for days on end from the Pemberton fires.

It’s something we’ve come to treat with momentary disdain before continuing on with our regular routines. However, our Albertan neighbours have had to make significant changes in response to the raging fires that continue to plague Fort McMurray and have spread to other areas of the province.

Though the Fort Mac fires aren’t comparable to anything here in B.C., the location of the fires — around the oil sands which have been such an attractive employment area and an economically vital region to both Alberta and Canada as a whole — mean that these fires carry with them the potential to leave long-lasting scars on the region itself and on the Canadian economy.

The Cascade sat down with Jonathan Hughes, an associate professor in the geography department here at UFV, to learn a little bit more about the Fort Mac fires.

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What do you see the long-term effects of the fires being?

I think it’s more of an economic impact actually, a lot of the workforce for the oil fields was based in Fort McMurray, and it’s a hub of support for the oilfields. With that town in upheaval because of the fires, there’s not that support, there aren’t the workers, so that has an economic impact above and beyond the fires.

A side effect.

A pretty harsh one for Alberta — they were already struggling with the price of the oil, and they had problems getting the oil and distributing it properly, so now the fires are another impact to their provincial economy, which will have ramifications for the national economy.

What about the environment in that area?

The boreal is sort of interspersed with all sorts of bog habitats: bogs, swamps, and mires, that sort of thing. It has a thick carbon accumulation in the form of peat deposits.

So in places where the fire burns so intensely, which this fire did, then that can ignite the peat and the peat can burn for a very long time.

Usually that peat is basically sequestered carbon, it’s not going back into the atmosphere.

It’s an anaerobic environment — the wetlands

are inundated with water throughout the year, so that carbon stays, essentially, intact and inert in that system.

But when burned it’s released into the atmosphere — and that’s true of all the trees and organic material that got burned in the fire. The peat can also burn for a long time, it’s hard for it to go out once it catches. That might lead to some places where there are lingering sources of fires, and lingering impact.

What would the peat deposits burning do to the area’s overall carbon emissions?

A punctuated release means that, for that time, there would be a lot of carbon released. But you might look at the fire through the impact it’ll have on the oilfields, as the field’s production is reduced — maybe then the total amount of carbon will also have reduced, as the oilfields won’t be contributing to that.

The ash from the fire could also cause damage to the water supplies and air quality, right?

It would clear the slopes of vegetation around the area, and then the soil is eroded that much more readily by rainfall, which causes increased sedimentation into the rivers. And where you have soils that are particularly rich in certain heavy metals or other sort of things, naturally

occurring and artificial, then that can make its way into the streams and that can impact aquatic wildlife, and water supplies. It’s something to keep in mind for sure.

How do you see this affecting us beyond the daily news reports we’re seeing?

This is in many ways an unprecedented fire, maybe the largest fire of its kind in recorded history, and I think that it might be the greatest natural disaster in Canadian history, in terms of the economic impact. So there’s going to be a lot of research, not only in the political-economic side, but in the environmental. There’s a lot of contamination in that area, and I don’t know what happens to that when it’s heated, and how it gets distributed.

I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of uncertainty and there are going to be a lot of thesis projects and funding to look at that, how it gets recolonized and the best management for those lands. Essentially, how do we rebuild?

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 2016

NEWS

UFV expands application of readmission fee SONJA KLOTZ THE CASCADE

Students returning to UFV after more than one year of not taking classes, as well as students switching program paths, will now be required to pay a $20 reapplication fee.

While there has always been a readmission fee to compensate for the work to review entrance requirements, the new fee is now extended to students enrolling in different programs, even if the programs are in the same faculty, and will be applied to students who are returning after not taking any classes after one year, rather than the previous limit of two years.

Because the application process requires the same amount of work from the Office of the Registrar for every student, regardless of whether or not they already attend UFV, Delinah Marples, the admissions coordinator in that office, says the change was made because UFV felt that it wasn’t fair to only charge a portion of applicants.

“Entrance requirements have to be reviewed, regard-

less of what type of student you are,” Marples says. “If you’re wanting to be considered into a program, you’d have to meet the entrance requirements … it takes the same type of review from admissions whether you’re a brand new student, a current student laddering into a new program, or a transfer student.”

Due to these changes in the admissions policy, some current and returning students have been surprised by the fee itself.

“It’s been a bit of a challenge as far as making sure we’ve communicated the new policy,” Marples says.

In an effort to prevent confusion among students, the Office of the Registrar is working to make students aware of the fee before the time comes for them to pay it.

“We decided to put out some communication to the general UFV community, in hopes that when people show some interest with an advisor, for example, they are educated,” Marples says. “When they get to the web app, they’d be forced to pay anyways, but it’d be nice to give them the heads up so they’re prepared for that, especially for students who have been here for some time and are used to the [old policy].”

Picture: Mitch Huttema

Ministry of Advanced Education approves four new degrees Announcement follows series of delays and unanswered questions MICHAEL SCOULAR THE CASCADE

After over a year of delays and gaps in communication, the Ministry of Advanced Education has approved four new degree proposals from UFV. The degrees approved are: a bachelor of agricultural science, with a major in horticulture, a bachelor of arts in indigenous studies (major and minor options), a bachelor of education, and a bachelor of media arts. For media arts, there will be five concentrations: applied interactive media, digital art, interactive media leadership, media and performance, and screen studies. In the case of the bachelor of education, the degree will be awarded in place of the current teaching certificate.

Addressing the UFV community in an email, vice-president academic Eric Davis included a timeline of correspondence with the Ministry, showing numerous gaps in communication. In one recent case, following news in October of last year that six degree proposals, including the four just approved, would be sent to the province’s degree quality assessment board (DQAB) for further review, the Ministry did not return multiple requests for information until December.

Davis theorizes that, while he was never given an official explanation for the delays, it was likely due to the Ministry reviewing, then revising, the entire degree approval process. In the most recent correspondence noted in the timeline, a DQAB contact “expressed appre-

ciation for [UFV’s] patience in being a ‘test case’ for the new process.”

Moving forward, deans and each respective department will work on how and when to implement the new programs, which are, with the exception of the bachelor of education, entirely new — only certificate accreditation or overlapping courses were previously available to students.

The approval, however, omits two degrees previously grouped together with UFV’s submissions to the Ministry. A theatre major and peace and conflict studies major and minor within the bachelor of arts have yet to be approved — in both cases, the degree proposal has been in some form of waiting approval since 2014.

Addressing those two degrees in an email from the Ministry, Davis was given a minimum of context.

“Staff are working on getting more information for Bachelor of Arts theatre major, Bachelor of Arts peace and conflict studies,” it reads, with no explanation as to what additional information might be needed.

With those two degrees, as well as two degree proposals sent since the initial delay (a bachelor of professional communication and a computing science major within the bachelor of science), the waiting resumes — the approval of four may or may not indicate anything about future communication.

“I’m hoping that process will be more efficient going forward,” Davis says. “I’ll never really know all the reasons why, but I’m pleased that four of them now have received approval.”

Picture: Mitch Huttema

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY. MAY 25 2016

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

OPINION Crossword

In your eye like a big pizza pie

Across

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1. A very thin crust made without yeast, and typically cut into three or four inch rectanges.

Popular in the American Midwest 2 Typically has a thick, deep dish, twice baked crust. Unlike most other pizza’s it has a chewy texture due to being baked in a well oiled pan

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5. Thin crust, square pizza with sauce on top of the cheese

3 5

8. Coming from the big apple, this pizza is a large, hand-tossed, thin-crust pizza with wide slices. It’s crust is crisp but remains pliable enough beneath the toppings to be folded in

4 6

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half to eat 9. A deep dish styled pizza, baked in a rounded pan which provides it with a high edge and a deep surface for a large amount of cheese, and a chunky tomato sauce.

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10. Pizza dough folded over to encase the toppings in a crescent shaped turnover.

Down

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1. A thick crusted, and rectangular type of pizza orignating from southern Italy 3. Unlike it’s italian predecessors, this pizza is baked in a shallow pan, rather than directly on the pizza oven’s bricks.

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4. A thin-crust style of pizza with unusual toppings. Made famous by Wolfang Puck 6. Created in the northern Italian town of Naples, this type of pizza always uses Water Buffalo derived Mozzarella 7. A controversial choice of toppings marks this pizza as a the subject of heated debate. Do pineapples belong on a pizza?

Horoscopes

EclipseCrossword.com

Star Signs by Sybil la Clair Sagittarius — Nov 22 to Dec 21 Practice your batman growl, and walk around in the dark more. This city needs you.

Taurus — Apr 20 to May 20 I see a tall, dark, and handsome man in your future. Unfortunately he also has a lisp.

Virgo —Aug 23 to Sep 22 Your new next door neighbour is a budding broadway star. Brace yourself for off-key renditions of “Singing in the Rain.”

Capricorn — Dec 22 to Jan 19 Has anyone ever thought about taking timbits, and putting them back into donuts?

Gemini — May 21 to Jun 20 Take advantage of the next two for one deal you see. Even if it’s for something you’d never use.

Libra — Sep 23 to Oct 22 Run.

Aquarius — Jan 20 to Feb 18 There’s no food on campus after 4:00 p.m. so remember to pack something for dinner.

Cancer —Jun 21 to Jul 22 Pet your kitty. If you don’t own a cat, then look in your garage, you’ve probably got a stray cat hiding somewhere in there.

Scorpio — Oct 23 to Nov 21 Taking three condensed courses this semester wasn’t a very smart idea.

Pisces — Feb 19 tozz Mar 20 The time is right. Strike while the iron is lukewarm.

BY ANTHONY BIONDI

Leo — Jul 23 to Aug 22 Campus is empty during the summertime. No one can see you skip across the green.

SPACED

Aries — Mar 21 to Apr 19 Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s the insurmountable number of things you still have to do! Better get cracking on your mountainous to-do list will only get larger.

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 2016

OPINION Civic impermanence and flapjack anthropology Or, getting freaked out by the fact that there are a lot of people MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE

A “For Sale” sign popped up in front of one of the bigger house-on-top-of-the-hill type of homes near my neighborhood in Mission the other day, and just as soon as I’d registered its existence and came to expect its brightly coloured silhouette, it disappeared! Not two weeks into its unflinchingly steady, brutally insistent sales pitch, the sign was gone! In its place: a family, maybe — or just one wealthy person with a lot of stuff.

Similarly, the Abbotsford-Mission highway has always been a generally calm strip of pavement, or as balanced a stretch of infrastructure as a cement pathway — superimposed onto what before was probably just a sleepy, grassy field (and afterwards stayed just as sleepy a grassy field, only this time with cars buzzing impatiently through it) — has any right to be. And then, with the same quiet totality as families have been replacing “For Sale” signs in the Valley, a giant glowing colossus of a billboard appeared, blanketing its immediate vicinity with the same cold, effulgent glow one might associate with the kind of lamp dentists swing overtop of your head before doing whatever it is dentists do.

Mission’s (and, I assume, Abbotsford’s) hot-item houses and the highway billboard (a testament to capitalism’s triumph over the dark of night) aren’t unrelated. They indicate a change we often hear of but never really register until it’s already happened. We show up to our favourite restaurant and

can’t get a table or a reservation for the next three months and we think: What happened?

People. People happened — are happening.

Toronto hasn’t always been as cramped or as sprawling as it is now; its age and the fact that it’s the presumed cultural and economic capital of Canada are both responsible for its growth. But a town turns into a city as its economy grows, and pushes outwards. Toronto’s 630 square kilometres, home to 2.5 million people in 2006 according to the Census, had gained a little over 100,000 inhabitants by 2011.

I use Toronto simply because it’s a big city with a welldocumented population growth, but the same goes for Vancouver. There were fewer people in it 10 years ago than there are now, and at some point things got crowded. So where do those people go? They gravitate towards a city because it’s big and has all the amenities that come with being Vancouver, so they move to Burnaby or Richmond or New West. Maybe it’s gotten too expensive to live in Vancouver, maybe it’s gotten too crowded. It doesn’t matter. Like batter skilfully being poured onto a hot skillet, slowly stretching out into a flapjack, Vancouver’s inhabitants are seeking new, less-crowded ground.

Vancouver is annexing us all, not in name but in practice.

It might not be tomorrow, it might not even be the day after that, but one of these days, soon enough, you’re going to wake up, and look out your window as the ruins of Old Abbotsford are gutted to make room for new and luxurious and increasingly smaller and more expensive apartments, and you will say, “This town ain’t what it used to be.”

Illustration: Danielle Collins

Trudeau’s elbow How did it go so wrong so fast?

CAMERON SCHMITKE CONTRIBUTOR

Illustration: Sultan Jum

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On May 18, before a vote on legislation related to assisted death, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau incited a fracas with other MPs in the House of Commons. Trudeau strode forward purposefully, wading through a small crowd of MPs to grab opposition whip Gord Brown’s arm while, according to NDP MP Tracey Ramsey, swearing. As he would attempt to explain later, Trudeau tried to “assist” Brown to his seat for the vote. Brown did not find his assistance welcome and, in the crowd of bodies, Trudeau inadvertently elbowed NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the chest. The episode devolved into a shouting match, with Thomas Mulcair calling Trudeau “pathetic.” Afterwards, opposition MPs lambasted the Prime Minister.

Take it as a given that whatever offense Trudeau may have given has been elevated to a Greek tragedy at this point. That is just politics. The opposition MPs will bring this incident up for the foreseeable future. Regardless, it is still a serious incident.

Brosseau, who had to leave the chamber and missed the vote, felt genuinely affected by Trudeau’s conduct.

Suggesting she should toughen up misses the point: she should not have been put in that situation. While Trudeau hurt her accidentally, he was behaving in a reckless manner. It is troubling that the Prime Minister thought he could make unwelcome physical contact with any MP. What’s more, he did not even accomplish his stated goal of expediting the vote on C-14. Rather, he brief ly turned

our highest elected body into something resembling reality television. Now we all have to sit through multiple recaps. How much time could have been saved if he had simply allowed the person empowered to speed up voting — the speaker — to do his job?

The incident is simultaneously surprising and predictable. Part of Trudeau’s appeal are his off-the-cuff sensibilities. Where Trudeau fires from the hip, Stephen Harper had a sniper’s precision. Harper’s messaging was targeted and careful, often to the point of making the man behind the message seem impersonal — even invisible. When he deigned to do so much as (gasp) play the piano and sing, the Canadian political scene was astonished. Trudeau’s contrasting style made him appear more genuine. Now we have seen a display of genuine foolishness. Hopefully it is not the first of many.

If you thought Trudeau was already drawing unmerited comparisons to his father, just wait. Pierre Trudeau became infamous for his use of expletives and gestures in the House. Now the inevitable references to the senior Trudeau will come thick and fast. Trudeau has previously attempted to draw distinctions between himself and his father, in terms of policy. Antics like this will make those arguments fall on deaf ears. The younger Trudeau might fall into the trap that was perhaps inevitable — his father’s fans will become his fans, and his father’s critics will become his critics. Pierre Trudeau’s legacy is often viewed through rose-coloured glasses. Yes, he consistently ranks among the greatest Prime Ministers, but he was and remains a polarizing figure. Thanks to his recent lapse in judgement, Justin Trudeau’s image as a more conciliatory and unifying figure has suffered a serious setback.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

OPINION S

How someone’s “honest mistake” can hurt Glen Ess

SORRY MOM Down with a case of grad apathy

I’ve never had to suffer through any sort of hate speech, and I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at me and said to themselves: “I hate him, because he’s brown.”

But I have had to deal with a lot of stereotypes, and misconceptions of me as a person because of my skin colour, and quite frankly, that gets old fast.

I always have people asking me where I’m from, and then when I give them the honest truth, that I was born and raised in Botswana, a country in Southern Africa, people will express surprise. If they really lack tact, something along the lines of “Wait, you’re not Indian?” I’ve gotten used to that, but it’s not what upsets me. Not really.

What I find most distasteful is when someone just assumes things about what I do and how I live. I’ve had people, of all sorts of cultures and backgrounds, ask me if I speak Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, if I like eating dhosa, and what my favourite Bollywood movie is.

The answers to those are: No, no, no, only tried it a few times, and heck, I don’t know!

Please stop asking those questions. We live in a multicultural, ethnically diverse country and making assumptions about a person’s heritage is rude.

I’m not really excited about convocation. One of the things I liked about university after the five-year fever dream of high school was how many awards ceremonies I ***didn’t have to sit through, and if I did have to go to some event as a university student, it was either for something I care a lot about, or something where food would be served for free.

Convocation will just be another couple hours of standing around sleepily waiting for my name to be called.

On the other hand, I really shouldn’t have procrastinated on renting my gown, because now my mom is mildly disappointed in me (mild disappointment is the worst) and I have to show up early to rent one on site.

Graduates of next year, don’t let apathy lead you to a life of procrastination — for your momma’s sake.

Illustrations: Danielle Collins

Five years on: remembering the poetic poise of Gil Scott-Heron Martin Castro

All float on Mitch Huttema

Alex Rake

CASCADE

the

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

is hiring!

I was speaking with a friend about all the musicians that have been dying lately. Bowie, Lemmy from Motorhead, Prince. And somehow we got onto the topic of Gil Scott-Heron, who passed away in 2011.

May 27 marks five years since he passed away. And at a time when the majority of the population of both Canada and the U.S. seems to be irreconcilably fragmented, either for or against Trump or Hillary or Trudeau or any other politician, more often than not, this staunchness in political ideals (whether they lean to the left or the right) leads to an inability to empathize with others’ points of view.

And that leads to hatred, mostly because humans tend to reject wholeheartedly that which they can’t understand or reconcile within their own framework of viewing the world.

Then I thought of Scott-Heron, a musician and poet who made it perfectly clear that the situation in America under the Reagan administration, in its disenfranchisement of African Americans and what he saw as the militarization of police at the time, left him absolutely livid. And his point of view, I imagine, must have been irreconcilable with that of an upper class white man.

But instead of oppressing others, verbally or not, he chose to make music, and write poetry. And at the end of his life, through his anger, he left us richer than we were beforehand.

You know those days where you get stuck in traffic and sit there for way longer than seems humanly possible?

The kind of traffic that is so long that it allows you to go through all five stages of grief? I was stuck in that kind of traffic the other day. Somewhere after the phase of “How are there even this many cars on the fucking road,” and just before the stage of “I have come to the realization that I am a powerless pawn in the chess game of a higher power,” I started thinking about how easy and unhealthy it is to categorize and write off people based on a few initial observations.

Looking into the windows of the lives of the other people sitting in their own metaphorical boats and realizing how intricate and complex their lives are was probably what led me to be able to refrain from going Rambo on everyone around me. You don’t have to marry everyone you meet, but do your best to consider that even a fast food server hates messing up just as much as you hate them for messing up.

The Cascade is looking to fill a number of positions! Let us know if any of these opportunities are catch your eye!

• Production Assistant: Designing and laying out sections of The Cascade as directed by the Production Manager.

• Illustrator: Designing and creating The Cascade’s cover illustrations as well as other illustrations throughout the issue.

• Distributor: Delivers the latest issue of The Cascade to a variety of locations throughout the Fraser Valley.

The deadline for applications is June 3. To apply, or request further information, please email: glen@ufvcascade.ca

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

FEATURE

“There is an important conversation that needs to take place on our campus” The new Student Union Society president on surviving sexual violence, where to find help, and what needs to happen next SUKHI BRAR SUS PRESIDENT

“Sukhi, what led you to come back for a second term at the UFV Student Union Society?”

This is a question that I have encountered surprisingly often since I began my term as SUS president at the beginning of this month. Each time this question has been posed to me, I usually respond by saying that I enjoyed the advocacy work I did last year and I’m back because I want to continue doing work that benefits UFV students. While all of that is certainly true, what I’ve struggled to publicly acknowledge is what ultimately compelled me to return to our Student Union Society this term: the opportunity to work on addressing a student issue that has significantly impacted my life.

My intention has always been to do this work quietly, but recent conversations on our campus have compelled me to share a closelyguarded piece of my life with you.

I’m speaking out and sharing my story because I believe our campus community can come together with the shared vision of improving our institutional processes to best serve UFV students instead of falling into discourse that might isolate students who are sexual assault survivors.

Last year, my life completely changed after I was sexually assaulted by another student. In the aftermath, I attempted to go about my life as if it had never happened. But as hard as I tried to, I couldn’t. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I suffered from regular panic attacks/anxiety. Eventually, I was formally diagnosed with PTSD. To the people in my life that noticed these changes in my behavior, I tried to pass it all off as the stress that comes along with a busy and involved student life.

I’m a very driven person and it’s important to me to be self-sufficient. Because of this, I really struggle to reach out for help — especially at times when I know I need it the most. For the longest time I pretended my life was not impacted by what had happened to me. I denied, I invented cover stories to reassure the people around me that I was

10

Photo: Mitch Huttema

okay, and I repeatedly told myself that I had the situation handled and did not need help. It’s really difficult for me to admit this, but it eventually got so bad that one day I ended up on my bathroom floor contemplating taking my life.

I’m still alive today because I’m a student at UFV. I’m still alive today because UFV has a campus culture where a UFV administrator, Jody Gordon, noticed my behavioral changes and actively rallied to make sure I got the help and support I needed.

I could not and would not have reached out for help on my own. I’m so fortunate that I’m on a university campus where ultimately I didn’t need to. I’m happy to say that I’m at a point in healing today that I feel able to report and pursue criminal charges against my attacker.

From my own experience, I’ve learned that sexual assault is not something you walk away from without it profoundly affecting your life. It’s why it is so important that sexual assault survivors know that there are resources and support that they can access on the road to recovering from a traumatic experience. Knowing this, I found it extremely difficult to read an article in The Cascade that implied UFV students who have survived sexual assault are rendered silent by a process at our institution that is designed with institutional self-preservation in mind. There are already so many barriers that inherently exist on the road to reporting a sexual assault; it’s my fear and concern that a UFV student who might have otherwise come forward to report an incident may have been dissuaded based on The Cascade’s coverage of this topic. A lot of information presented in that article is completely at odds with my own experience, the experience of several students that I know who have navigated the non-academic misconduct investigation process at UFV, and what I’ve learned about our institution’s investigation process in relation to the processes that exist at other Canadian universities.

I want to stress that I am not trying to imply that UFV has a perfect investigation process.

I’m not trying to diminish the experience of students who have been victims of sexual assault and did not feel completely supported by the processes that currently exist at UFV. There is an important conversation that needs to take place on our campus on how we can best support UFV students and improve our processes so that we can minimize the impact of sexual assault in the lives of survivors. This is a profoundly difficult and complex conversation to have. But it’s not fair, accurate, or helpful to imply that our institution does not have the best interest of students in mind as we try to set the foundation to navigate this conversation.

I share the concerns of UFV president, Mark Evered, that UFV students who have read the article published in April may believe that they have nowhere to turn to for support at our institution, whether that support comes in the form of formal support services or the act of reporting a sexual assault. I’m extremely disappointed that these concerns were subsequently dismissed by our campus newspaper in their coverage of this topic. While I may not always agree with every decision our institution makes, from everything I have observed and experienced during my undergraduate career at UFV, I have never doubted the fact that our institution prioritizes the well-being of students in its decision-making; our university really is student-centered. With this in mind, I encourage our campus community to come together and engage in a positive dialogue on how we can best support students who survive sexual assault. I believe this is essential in driving the development of processes that best serve our student body.

It comes as no surprise to those who know me well that I really value my privacy. It’s

exceptionally difficult for me to make the decision to come forward and share my story publicly. But I believe it’s important that UFV students who have survived sexual assault realize that they can find support on our campus. It is my sincere hope that these students do not hesitate to reach out for help from UFV staff, faculty, administrators, or any member of our campus community that they are comfortable reaching out to. I know reporting a sexual assault and going through an investigation process is not easy and might not be a process that is helpful for all survivors on their path to healing.

But for those who are ready and willing, I sincerely hope you feel safe coming forward to report. It is never okay for one individual to assault another.

This is behavior our campus community does not condone and will not turn a blind eye to.

To students whose lives have been impacted by sexual assault: as profoundly difficult as it is to live with trauma, I promise you that there are people and resources, on our campus and in the wider community, that are available to help you.

Please do not hesitate to reach out and use these resources:

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

FEATURE ON OUR CAMPUS SUPPORT SERVICES UFV Safe Student Community

(www.ufv.ca/safe-student-community) For information on: • Student rights and responsibilities (behaviour expectations) • Behaviours subject to intervention/discipline • UFV policies relating to conduct • Process to report allegation of disruptive behaviours • Reporting a non-academic conduct violation

UFV Student Services office

VP Students Jody Gordon: 604-854-4518 Abbotsford office: 604-854-4528 Chilliwack office: 604-795-2808

UFV Counselling Services (including Crisis Appointments)

Abbotsford: 604-854-4528 (or visit room B214 Monday to Friday, 9am-4:30pm) Chilliwack: 604-795-2808 (or visit room A1318 Monday to Friday, 9am-4:00pm) Emergency and after-hours crisis line: 604-951-8855 or 1-877-820-7444 (toll-free) For immediate safety risks, please call: 911

UFV Security (including Security Safe Walk Program)

For emergencies: 911 First Aid: local 7770 or 1-855-282-7770 Security (or to request a Safe Walk): local 7654 or 1-855-239-7654

UFV Disability Resource Centre

To ask a question or set up an appointment: 604-854-4528

IN THE COMMUNITY SUPPORT SERVICES: VictimLinkBC — anywhere in BC (24-hour, toll-free information, support and referral line for victims) “…a safe and confidential service where you can discuss your experience and decide what to do” Phone: 1-800-563-0808 TTY: 604-875-0885 Victim Services — Abbotsford “Victim Services is a non-profit organization that works with community partners to assist victims of crime and tragic circumstances” Address: 200-1925 McCallum Rd, Abbotsford BC V2S 3N2 Phone: 1-888-999-8828

REPORTING AN INCIDENT Royal Canadian Mounted Police Community Police Office - Chilliwack Address: 45924 Airport Road, Chilliwack BC V2P 1A2 Phone: 604-792-4611 Abbotsford Police Department Address: 2838 Justice Way, Abbotsford BC V2T 3P5 Phone: 604-859-5225

Editor’s Note: This article was cross-published on the Student Union Society’s “President’s Blog.”

Photo: Mitch Huttema

11

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

CULTURE & EVENTS

Something funny’s happening in downtown Abbotsford

SONJA KLOTZ THE CASCADE

If you, like me, think there isn’t very much happening in Abbotsford, then you’re in for a big surprise. Little did I know that I would find a comedy club in one of the most conservative towns in B.C., but sure enough, there it was: Yuk Yuk’s Stand Up Comedy Club.

Yuk Yuk’s, established 40 years ago in Toronto, is part of a flourishing national franchise of clubs across the country featuring professional, amateur, and beginner comics.

Every Wednesday night in Abbotsford, Yuk Yuk’s hosts a “Pro-Am Showcase” that costs $5 instead of the usual $19.05 on weekends. To a university student, that discount is almost impossible to pass up on. These evenings provide an opportunity for emerging or aspiring comics to showcase their material in

Photo: Yuk Yuk’s Abbotsford

front of an audience. They are often hosted by local professional comedians, such as Sunny Dhaliwal, with the occasional guest comic. Every showcase ends with a professional headliner as a way to wrap up the entire evening with a big laugh.

So there I was, a broke university student in downtown Abbotsford on Pauline Street, one of many sketchy-bar streets, wanting to enjoy an entertaining night out with some of my friends.

Walking into the club is like walking into a secret cave, hidden away from the public eye. It is dark, with several small round tables all over the room, and a dimly lit bar at the back. As you walk into the lounge, the stage is centred by the wall across from the bar. It is a small, simple-looking black stage.

This past week’s showcase night was different from others I’ve seen in the past few months. Most of the time, the emerging

comics are either from the Fraser Valley or Greater Vancouver.

This time, however, the majority of them were from Victoria, and it was a full house.

I was laughing, cringing, and at times just simply not impressed.

This is what you get with the Pro-Am Showcase: you get the great, the good, the mediocre, and the bad, all mashed up into two hours of entertainment. Despite some minor hurdles with the slow service itself, I can say that this was the place to be in the middle of my hectic week. Taking a pause on life by enjoying the company I was with, sharing a few drinks, and laughing at some of the most ridiculous comic sketches out there made it possible for me to recharge before diving back into responsibilities and commitments.

Playing with vibrators and breaking things beneath a church Just another night of punk rock in Abbotsford GLEN ESS THE CASCADE / PHOTO

12

Punk shows in the Basement (a nickname for the basement of the Trinity Memorial United Church) are always fun, casual, and usually end up featuring at least one inexplicable event. On Friday, May 20, at a show with Nic Fits, Slow Erase, Riot Porn, and Like Bears, the aforementioned inexplicability came in the form of a bright green vibrator.

Nic Fits, who recently recorded for the first time at CIVL, opened the night with their particular brand of angry adolescent punk music about the vile nature of milk, and age restrictions. As always they brought something along for the crowd to play with. This time they chose two wooden folding chairs which were, in no time, reduced to scrap by the audience members in the pit in front of the stage. At one point two enterprising audience members, one of whom was Like Bears’ guitarist and singer Leo Nickel, took upon themselves to hold an impromptu combat using the remnants from the chairs.

Slow Erase, a Vancouver-based punk rock and metal trio, followed, with bassist Jillian Papp sounding like a cross between sludge metal and a more frenetic punk sound. Meanwhile, lead singer and guitarist Dave Hallman had to scream his heart out to be heard over the din.

Montreal’s Riot Porn would take the stage next, and Emily Tank’s particular brand of

environmental anarcho-punk was thoughtprovoking. While I doubt it’s normal to contemplate the continued destruction of oceanic habitats while moshing, it was certainly the result of the band’s set.

However, it wasn’t until Chilliwack’s feel-good indie-rockers Like Bears started their set that things really went wild. The band, who recently released their debut album vvWe’re Fun performed with their naturally effervescent nature. Living up to their album’s title, the band’s set included a cover of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” which came at the evening’s sound tech’s request.

Before their set had reached the halfway mark, from somewhere in the crowd came the strangest of projectiles. A bright green vibrator. Which also happened to be switched on. While no one present took responsibility for the sex toy’s presence, both the band and the crowd began to engage in some good-natured goofing around. Highlights included Leo Nickel using the toy to play his guitar, members of the audience playing “hide the sausage,” and Nickel placing it on drummer Ted Kim’s snare, where it proceeded to create what could only be described as the oddest drumroll.

The Fraser Valley’s young musicians continue to entertain. While none of these four bands took themselves very seriously, all that meant was that they were more willing to engage in shenanigans of all sorts with the small, but noisy, crowd.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

CULTURE & EVENTS

UPCOMING EVENTS

Nationwide speed painting competition continues with Art Battle 398 GLEN ESS

MAY 26 MAY 28

Cafe Amarti opening @ 3033 Immel St.

The Fraser Valley Blues Society present: Angel Forrest Concert Dance 7:00 - 11:30 @ the Stage 32998 1st Avenue, Mission

Neck of the Woods w/ The Mountain Man, Giants Arse, and the Fifth Circle 9:00 @ Captain’s Cabin: 33331 Harbour Avenue, Mission

MAY 30 MAY 31

UFV Yoga AGM at Castle Fun Park

6:00 p.m.

CICS Present: The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan by Amardeep Singh @CICS (F125)

UFV Convocation

JUNE 2 JUNE 3 JUNE 4

@Abbotsford Centre

THE CASCADE

The bright lights, the circling crowd, Aaron Levy cajoling them to circle faster — you’ll see this at any Art Battle here in Abbotsford. The latest in this long running, cross-Canada event was no different. Art Battle 398 was held at The Reach Gallery and Museum on Friday the 13th, and featured a large crowd stalking some local artists as they competed with one another for a place in the regional finals to be held late next month.

As the world’s largest organized painting competition, the stakes are high at Art Battle, and with all the many distractions of an audience, it was a testament to the intense focus of the artists that they barely broke a sweat over the course of three 20-minute battles. While many of the artists had competed at other iterations of Art Battle held here in the Valley, there were some fresh faces stepping into the fray for the first time. These newer artists, such as the wildcard pick, Chelaine Neufeldt, certainly held their own against the more Art Battle-hardened group of artists, which included eventual winner Cindy Dohms, fellow finalist Rose Ross, and Angela Tucker.

Over the course of the first two battles, the members of the crowd were instructed to rotate around the artists, who were arrayed in a circle in the centre of the gallery. Once the timer had come to halt, audience members were given the opportunity to vote on which of the four they believed to have created the most interesting pieces. The top two from each battle were then set against one another in the evening’s third and final battle. As Chen, Ross, Dohms, and Shan Thiesen faced off in their third bout of the evening, every second counted, and the audience reached a fever pitch by the time the clock ran out.

As the final votes were tallied (and bidding closed on the silent auction where all of the evening’s creations had been up for sale), both artists and audience members alike enjoyed the breather. It may sound somewhat strange, but the sustained concentration required by the artists was taxing, on both them and the audience.

As the evening drew to a close, Cindy Dohms’ excellent performance was rewarded as she booked her spot in the regional finals to be held June 25, where she’ll compete against other artists for the opportunity to go to the National Championships to be held in Toronto in July.

Photo: Ken Schellenberg

UFV India 10th Anniversary and Top 10 alumni awards 7:00 - 9:30 p.m. @SUB

UFV Cascades men’s soccer fundraiser

Doors at 5:00, Buffet at 7:30 @The Rancho, 35110 Delair road

Stand Up For Choice Aboriginal Arts and Culture celebration 11:00 - 4:00 @Kariton Art Gallery

JUNE 6 JUNE 9

Open Mic Night

6:00 - 10:00 @O’Neill’s Home Cooking

UFV at the Festival of Learning @Delta Burnaby Hotel & Conference Centre and BCIT

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

ARTS IN REVIEW GAME REVIEW

The Banner Saga 2 is a moving mythological twist on Oregon Trail

Shuffle AARON LEVY

CHARTS 01

Anvil Anvil Is Anvil

02

Wolfmother "Victorious"

03

John Cale M:Fans

04

Santigold 99cents

05

Basia Bulat Good Advice

06

King Gizzard & The Lazard Wizard Nonagon Infinity

07

Car Seat Headrest Teens Of Style

08

Explosion In The Sky The Wilderness

CIVL STATION MANAGER

MS: What do you think this shuffle’s supposed to be about?

Aaron didn’t write an intro.

GE: Well, all three songs look like something someone would listen to when they’re going through an adolescent grunge phase.

MS: Do you speak from personal experience?

GE: Um, maybe? I’m pretty sure we all did? Back me up? [looks to the rest of room] ALL: [Silence.]

Staind "Epiphany" Such a pretty word, such an ugly voice, such a successful run in the early aughts, including a Fred Durst duet, as well as both underground and mainstream screamo / nu-metal hits with dark, suburban currents of unrest and disappointment! No, this isn't Josey Scott, from the Spider-man / Nickelback / Hero song!

System of a Down "Soil" You'd be surprised how philosophical these Armenian soul metal poli-rockers that got big with songs like “Toxicity” and “Chop Suey” are. Environmentalism, the business ethics of music, fascism, drug culture, and war are all common themes for this antidisestablishmentarianism outfit. This one addresses the ground, like CIVLOXFAM! Refused "Return to the closet" “Culture requires love design.”

Dennis is always so cheeky when he describes the failings of a cultural set of norms that we've all been raised to know, love, and enforce with vehement peer pressure. If there's a better melodic screamer with more en flic corporate analysis, I don't know them.

14

A Sunny Day In Glasglow Planning Weed Like It's Acid/ Life Is Loss

09 10 11

The Julie Ruin Hit Reset Dead Ghosts Love And Death And All The Rest

12

Drake Views

13

Iggy Pop Post Pop Depression

14

Nic Fit Nic Fit

15

You Say Party You Say Party

16

Jordan Klassen Javelin

17

Necromancy Ancient Wrath

PANKU SHARMA CONTRIBUTOR

The Banner Saga series should be near the top of the list when developers and fans make the case for video games as art. Few other titles (such as Shadow of the Colossus and Papers Please) have inspired as much genuine emotion and investment in their story’s outcome. While certainly not perfect, The Banner Saga 2 continues the tradition of achievement from its makers and is a solid installment in the hopefully never-ending series.

The world is ending and the gods are dead. There is perpetual daylight, the sun will no longer set. An ancient enemy, the “Dredge” — a stone-like and mysterious people crafted by a jealous god — have begun pouring out of the earth and overrun most of the land. Even worse, a giant snake is devouring the mountains and the Earth's crust.

The player takes the role of a desperate caravan of survivors led by the hunter Rook and his daughter Alette as they make their way towards the capital of Abberang. With you travel the last few hundred of the Varl, led by their king of sorts, Hakon. The Varl, a cross between humans and a species known as “yox,” are giants that tower above humans and sport horns and immense strength. While they once held fortresses on the edges of Dredge territory, they have been overrun. Unlike humans, the Varl are all male and cannot reproduce. The rest of the caravan is made up of human clansmen and fighters, the remnant of great cities and villages who have banded together to escape the encroaching end.

The world in Banner Saga is incredibly rich and beautiful, rooted mostly in Norse mythology but also with other original inspirations. The writing is full of depth and the characters are well-rounded compared to typical fantasy narratives. The art direction, animations, and especially sound are incredibly detailed and intricate; the passion of the Stoic team for their work is very evident.

When not in combat, the majority of the game is played through a travel system as you encounter random events and decisions that must be made for the wellbeing of the survivors. At the top of the screen, above your stores of supplies, is a running count of clansmen, fighters, and Varl

that follow your banner. Every decision you make (whether to rest, train fighters, accept refugees, or react to the changing landscape around you) affects those numbers. It’s an effective reminder of your responsibility in the game, and many times I found myself dreading having to make a choice, as the consequences for even small decisions can be profound and frightening.

As you progress, Hakon will lament the dwindling number of Varl that follow your banner, and urge you to pick up any survivors you can. However, the bigger your party, the less food there is to go around and the more attention you attract from the Dredge and the apocalyptic, earth-eating snake. I’ve never played Oregon Trail, but many reviewers and fans have likened some of Banner Saga’s mechanics to that game.

The only weakness to the game, aside from its relatively short length, comes by way of the combat mechanics.

While the character progression, variety, and skills are very interesting, the fighting is limited in strategy due to how turn order works in the battle system. Each character is assigned armour (how much damage you can deflect) and a strength value (which serves both as your health and how much damage you can deal out), and the option of which value, armour or strength, to target with your attacks.

Perhaps to circumvent the common tactic of rushing enemies one at a time, Stoic decided to pace the game so no matter how many enemies there are, the opposing team takes the alternating turn. That means that even if you have taken the Dredge force down to one unit, it will get to act more frequently than your characters. Thus, at higher difficulties, the best tactic to survive more strenuous encounters is to whittle down enemies to low health so they are alive but dealing minimal damage. It’s unique and very interesting, but considering the setting and sense of urgency in the battles it doesn't feel very fulfilling. I just want to kill things. That's rewarding.

However, even despite this blemish, the combat is still engaging, offering the player a lot of different strategies and team compositions to explore. Overall this is an amazing game; Stoic Studios might have outdone every other major studio game I’ve played in the past year.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

ARTS IN REVIEW GAME REVIEW

Why go on? A look at depression through the lens of Dark Souls III

CHRIS TOWLER CONTRIBUTOR

Imagine: you’ve spent the better portion of your afternoon exploring a darkened catacomb, lit only by the fire of your torch. Scimitar-wielding skeletons leap out at you from the darkness while ghostly skulls scream at you from above, attracting the attention of monstrous, horned demons that begin to enclose upon you from every angle.

Somehow, you deftly dodge their attacks and put them down in turn, one by one. You’ve been here before. This time, you were prepared.

Having felled your enemies, you are able to turn down a corridor that, last time, stopped you a few inches short. What seems like an insignificant number of steps forward feels to you like a massive personal achievement — until you step on a trap and find yourself impaled. You’ve died.

You lose everything you’ve gained in an instant.

You are sent back to where you started, having to do it all over again.

Because the third game in the trilogy was recently released, it seems an apt time to reflect on what this series has meant to so many. Sure, the Dark Souls series is a well-crafted trilogy of action RPGs set in a gothic fantasy landscape,

with a compelling narrative and a unique delivery method for imparting in-game lore, well known for its brutal and unforgiving difficulty. But is this really what has made the game so popular?

What is it about this series that has resonated with so many?

The player’s character in Dark Souls III is, as the game identifies, an “Undead”: an unfortunate being that finds themselves bearing the curse of the “Dark Sign.” The curse grants immortality, but at the cost of your sanity. Your character can never stay dead. They are always returned to a bonfire, where they are doomed to repeat their Sisyphean ordeal over and over again, until eventually they die one too many times and it takes its toll on their mind. Those that have tried and failed one too many times are referred to as having gone “hollow.” The Undead are drawn to various locations in the series, usually by the false promise that in completing the quest given, the curse can be broken.

And that is where the Dark Souls series is less about any of the compelling lore, or immersive fantasy backdrop. What makes the series so interesting is the personal story it tells. And that story is yours. In playing the game, it implicitly asks you a very personal question: why go on?

Why do you do this to yourself? You know the world is a brutal and unforgiving place, you

will die many times, failure is assured, and you will lose everything, over, and over, and over again. So why do you press on in the face of overwhelming despair?

For anyone who knows depression, these questions will seem very familiar. In fact, the world of Dark Souls III itself probably feels very familiar. It is a world that is not just indifferent to you, but actively hostile to your existence.

The feelings of loss, suffering, and being endlessly trapped in a cycle without hope are the quintessential symptoms of the condition.

Not everyone may awake each morning aware of the curse of the Dark Sign, knowing they must defeat towering enemies with little hope of success or reprieve, but to those suffering from mental illness, this is what facing the day can feel like. The “hollowed” are a constant reminder of this: shambling zombies that merely go through the motions, having been left as walking husks from their inner torment.

Often, from the perspective of a person dealing with emotional suffering, just giving up seems like the best available option. The Souls games are littered with non-player characters that have done just that. They give voice to those that have given up, expressing the utter hopelessness that characterizes the bullying voices in our heads.

My personal favourite, Saulden the Crestfallen,

is a prime example. He has lost everything, his family and friends, and just like you, set off on the quest to break the curse, only to realize how fruitless the endeavour is when he grasped the sheer magnitude of the task.

Saulden has given up, and he reminds the player character of this often: “What we call the curse is traceable to the soul. Do you see what that means? To be alive … to walk this Earth …

That’s the real curse right there.”

Saulden understands that the origin of the curse of the Undead springs from the very thing that makes life possible in the Souls games: the soul itself. The curse and life are interwoven; they are inseparable. And so it is in facing existential depression. It is a consequence of the nature of being. So we ask ourselves, why? Why do we keep going? What is your reason? Why persist?

Saulden has given his answer. But Dark Souls implicitly asks these questions of its players.

What motivates you to keep playing? I can’t answer that for you; it would defeat the purpose.

For me, it’s the knowledge that I haven’t seen everything yet. That what comes next might surprise me, despite what the affliction tries to convince me of otherwise.

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

www.ufvcascade.ca

ARTS IN REVIEW ALBUM REVIEW

The evolution of Chancelor Bennett continues on Coloring Book MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE

In early 2011, 18-year-old Chancellor Bennett was given two weeks’ suspension from his Chicago high school after being caught with marijuana on the school’s property. Two weeks later he’d written the majority of his debut mixtape, the soul-and-jazz-influenced 10 Day. Almost exactly a year later, Chance released Acid Rap, once more as a free mixtape.

There was a time when I actively avoided rap, a time when I could confidently say it was my least favourite genre of music. And then I listened to Acid Rap. The first 40 seconds of “Good Ass Intro” sold me on Chance. The choir vocals in the background, the bouncy and infectious organ, the relentlessly cheerful energy of the track all just work so well. By the time I got to Noname Gypsy’s verse on “Lost,” four tracks later, I was sold.

While I loved Donnie Trumpet’s (Nico Segal) Surf and its more enthusiastic embrace of jazz and soul aesthetics, Chance made it clear that Surf was not Acid Rap’s successor. That third mixtape, referred to as “Chance 3” since it hadn’t been named — nor was it, until the day it appeared online, again for free, as Coloring Book — would come later.

The lyricism and instrumental aesthetic on Coloring Book is a stark contrast to Acid Rap’s.

While Acid Rap was somewhat depressive in its lyrical content (“Why’s God’s phone die every time that I call on Him? If his son had a Twitter wonder if I would follow him”), Coloring Book is positive as hell.

The question of why Coloring Book is so positive is answered right out of the gate: “Man my daughter couldn’t have a better mother / If she ever find another, he better love her / Man I swear my life is perfect, I could merch it / If I die I’ll probably cry at my own service.”

Chance is outright ecstatic throughout most of Coloring Book. And the religious aesthetic is carried on by the choir that provides backing vocals for just about every track, as well as the lyrical content. On Coloring Book, Chance The Rapper did something I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone do — he made a gospel album, then marketed it and released it as a hip-hop album.

“Blessings,” which makes absolutely no attempt to hide its gospel-ness, is a perfect synthesis of the witty, razor-sharp lyricist cracking wise on AcidRap and the rapper / father / sermon leader we’ve been introduced to on this record. “I talked to his daddy, said you the man of the house now look out for your family, he has ordered my steps, gave me a sword with a crest, and gave Donnie a trumpet in case I get

shortness of breath.” Although its positivity can get predictable, Coloring Book is as impressive and witty lyrically as its predecessors, and more ambitious in its attempt to diversify, song by song, the genre-specific influences it draws on and emulates. “No Problem” incorporates gospel and funk, for example. And “Mixtape” emulates the trap-influenced content of more mainstream artists like Future and Young Thug (both of whom appear on Coloring Book).

For an artist who’s not signed to a label, and a project that got released free of charge, Coloring Book has a staggering number of high-profile features (Kanye West is on the first track, Lil Wayne is on the second), the most impressive of which is Jay Electronica’s verse on “How Great,” a track that’s dropped every intention of trying to appear as if it’s not a worship song, and instead embraced it, making for a sweet little joyous addition at the tail end of the record.

Tracks like “All Night” and “Angels” (the latter of which Chance kicks off by singing / yelling, “I got my city doing front flips! When every fatherrapper-mayor jumped ship”) are less reflective of the gospel aesthetic apparent throughout Coloring Book, and more of a bursting-at-theseams, in-the-moment enthusiasm that grounds the record in an admittedly simple, yet equally appealing sentiment.

Is Coloring Book as thematically complex

as AcidRap? No. But only because it’s so overwhelmingly positive in its outlook that it foregoes complexity and instead opts for unapologetic enthusiasm.

Coloring Book was as satisfying a record as I had hoped for, but for listeners still unconvinced, as a way of explaining its intensely energetic yet narrow-scoped content, I’d argue that this isn’t a record by Chance the Rapper, or even Chance the Preacher. It’s a record by Chance the Father.

ALBUM REVIEW

Aesop Rock, seven albums in, still finding new words, new levels of honesty PANKU SHARMA CONTRIBUTOR

When I began writing this review, I spent a lot of time agonizing over whether I should treat it as an introduction to Aesop Rock as an artist or really go in-depth into his progression from his earlier projects. Then I remembered that even though he might be a giant in the underground scene, associated with both the heyday of Definitive Jux (NY label founded by El-P from Run the Jewels) and the midwest Rhymesayers Camp, that most people outside the HipHopHeads subreddit don’t listen to underground rap. If by chance you, the reader, do listen to underground rap and have liked Aesop’s past work and side projects, then I have a good news. It’s classic Aes. You’re probably going to like this too.

For the uninitiated, Aesop Rock is a rapper and artist with a career that started in the late1990s beginning with numerous solo projects, followed more recently by some collaborations, including one with anti-folk and Juno soundtrack legend Kimya Dawson. (Their album ***Hokey Fright, while somewhat of a mess, was incredibly fun and heartfelt.)

What has always set him apart has been both his voice (I’ve always likened it to the darkly

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comic toad monster who lives in the death swamps outside your village and will tag along during your quest) and his lyricism. Analysis conducted by Matt Daniels a few years ago, a data scientist and designer, ranked him as having a greater vocabulary than the likes of Eminem, GZA, and even Shakespeare. His wordplay is rich, at times esoteric. Many of his songs benefit from replay value as you dissect and extract new meanings and metaphors from his lyrics. Aesop himself highlights his tendency towards the abstract on the track "Shrunk,” in an exchange with his psychiatrist: She said, "When you start getting all expressive and symbolic, it's impossible to actualize an honest diagnostic."

I said, "When you start getting all exact and algebraic, I'm reminded it's a racket, not a rehabilitation,” okay Agree to disagree as grown-ups from opposing clans Honoring the push and pull, I should have called the Scholomance” That being said, compared to his past discography, The Impossible Kid is probably the most accessible work he’s released. The writing and narratives are more straightforward and linear, such as his encounters on “Lotta Years” or the childhood stories from “Blood

Sandwich.” The production as well is a far cry from the clamour and lo-fi sounds of Music for Earthworms or Float. His skills as a producer have continued to develop, and there is a variety and depth to the soundscape of this album.

The Impossible Kid hits on a lot of different notes and themes, the most prominent of which is his dark reflections on loss and suicide. In “Water Tower” he recounts a suicide attempt, and reflects: “Hmm you'd think he would've learned back in the ‘80s When they pulled him out of class over concerns about his safety” But he didn't, it wasn't cause he doesn't get the message More he doesn't judge a man by how honorable his death is On "Get Out of the Car" he relates his titular moniker as a stubborn quest for happiness after the loss of his friend, Camu Tao, label mate from Definitive Jux who died from lung cancer in 2008.

Ah, Watch the Impossible Kid / Everything that he touch turns promptly to shit / If I zoom on out I can finally admit / It's all been a blur since Mu got sick / None of the subsequent years stood a chance / Whether you his moms

or his mans / Whether you his pops or his girl / I was poison, heart full of canines, head full of voices / Whole life trying to quiet 'em down / Like a suicide king with a knife in his crown While this isn’t new ground for Aesop, whose work has always been preoccupied with the dark, weird, and dangerous, The Impossible Kid is him at his most honest. While he retains his drive for intricacy, the stories he tells are relatable whether he hides them behind metaphor and reference or not.

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

ARTS IN REVIEW ALBUM REVIEW

On A$AP Ferg’s second album, a rapper dreams of both normalcy and fantasy AMAN BHARDWAJ CONTRIBUTOR

Always Strive and Prosper finds A$AP Ferg experimenting with new sounds and ideas, while showing instances of progression in his music and lyrics. The risks taken in this sophomore effort manage to pay off for the most part, as Ferg, one of the leading members of the A$AP Mob hip-hop collective, is able to create music that doesn’t stick to the same type of sound or concept displayed on his first album, ***Trap Lord.

While Trap Lord was more of an aggressive, ignorant, braggadocious, and thrill-seeking type of album, Always Strive and Prosper puts more of an emphasis on uplifting and positive themes, such as family, making it out of the slums of Harlem, acquiring wealth, and building an empire.

“Beautiful People,” “Let You Go,” and “Grandma” are tracks that deviate from Ferg’s original sound, but they are successful in showcasing his introspective side as well as his evolution as an artist. Ferg is focused on success: making it out of the inferior, substandard conditions of the neighbourhoods

in his hometown of Harlem, providing for his family the best way he can, and establishing a legacy and empire that will place him at the forefront of hip-hop in the future. He has his own American Dream of sorts and is determined to do anything to reach it, even at the cost of ending his relationship with his girlfriend in order to focus on himself and his family, while keeping his main priorities in check, as revealed in “Let You Go.” The confident and braggadocious tracks also come into play here, as Ferg celebrates his current successes with those who are close to him. “Hungry Ham,” “Let It Bang,” “New Level,” and “Yammy Gang,” are all tracks that exude confidence. “New Level” in particular, which contains one the most infectious and catchy instrumentals of the year, showcases Ferg’s ability to flow with the beat in multiple ways and construct a chorus that is so simplistic, yet so captivating. Ferg’s lyrics in this particular track are consistent with the narrative of this album: “Daddy looking down, I know he see me blowin’ up / My grandma would be so proud / Up in heaven, Yamborghini, know my brother see me / I’ma make my bro proud.” Even in the midst of all the celebratory drinks and parties and all the wealth he has acquired, Ferg has not

lost sight of what is most important to him in his quest for success — his family.

Unfortunately, there are a number of flaws that prevent Always Strive and Prosper from being a solid record all the way through.

One of the biggest issues of Always Strive and Prosper is the lack of cohesiveness. Productionwise, this album is all over the place, with tracks that sound nothing alike, although the messages in many of the tracks manage to be similar.

However, at certain points throughout this 18-track album, even the focus in the messaging sometimes shifts abruptly — “Swipe Life” and “Uzi Gang” do not really tie into the concepts of “striving” or “prospering.” Instead, these two tracks delve into the concepts of violence, spending large sums of money, and having affairs with multiple women. “Swipe Life” and “Uzi Gang” may be two of some of the most uninspiring and uninteresting tracks this year, as both tracks consist of instrumentals that are overly basic and dull, which raises the question of how these tracks even made the final cut in the first place. As well, more could have been done in terms of sequencing the tracks on this album, as it makes no sense to have “Uzi Gang” followed by “Beautiful People,” a track that explores the idea of inner beauty within people,

as opposed to physical features.

Although it falls victim to a lack of cohesion and filler, Always Strive and Prosper is still a good and sometimes great album that exhibits A$AP Ferg’s growth as an artist. He shows that he has a diverse musical palette, a variety of flows, charisma, and a knack for storytelling in his lyrics. Although the messaging in this album may end up being distorted at certain points, Ferg manages to pull it all together, for the most part.

ALBUM REVIEW

Blessed's debut sets a new standard for the northwest postpunk scene GLEN ESS THE CASCADE

It's post-punklandia out here in the northwest, a land where the punk, post-punk, and noise-rock genres thrive. Abbotsford's Blessed are the latest to emerge from the bubbling scene that birthed the likes of Greys and White Lung. It could be argued that Blessed, currently on tour and working their way east, constitute a supergroup formed from the Abby scene — members of the quartet boast a history which includes the likes of GSTS, Casinos, Little Wild, and Open Letters. It’s quite the pedigree.

With their self-titled debut EP, Blessed have cemented themselves as key players in the local music community, and have drawn praise from the likes of Exclaim!, Noisey, and BeatRoute. And rightly so, because the EP is a fascinating and thrilling one. From the first notes of “Waving Hand” all the way to very end of “Feel,” this four track EP sets Blessed apart from their

contemporaries here in the Valley.

The EP manages to be rough, uncontrolled, and passionate, while still being a very precise, tightly produced, cohesive record. This is mostly (but not entirely) due to the ease with which guitarists Reuban Hoewling and Drew Riekman are able to switch tempo at a moment’s notice.

This technique is most clearly apparent in “Cop” and “Feel” but present in all four tracks in some form, coupled with Jake Holmes’ drumming and Mitchell Trainor’s bass. Blessed mine their members’ talents for versatility — transitioning seamlessly from being the loudest, most abrasive thing you’ve ever heard, to a cross between Ought and a slightly angrier Interpol.

This would-be disparity is held together by Riekman’s vocals — a drawl that sounds bored and angry at the same time — and his ability to belt out the lyrics (particularly in “Waving Hand”), providing a structure around which he and Hoewling can alternate their guitar playing between a fuzzed-up, grimy noise rock and a more melodic indie rock.

“Repossess,” the EP’s third track, is probably the most eclectic song I’ve heard all year; it bounces around with a strange sort of glee. One moment it’s a post-punk masterpiece, later on it’s a softer Mogwai imitation — there’s even a classic rock riff that pops up every now and then before the track culminates with an alt-rock finale. All of this occurs over a five minute span, which is a feat in and of itself, but it isn’t even the biggest feat on the record. That honour goes to “Cop.” “Cop” is a song that features all four members of Blessed performing at their best. It’s got sudden changes in direction, passionate yet strangely relaxed vocals, and it’s also the track where Holmes’ drumming really shines. If I had to put money on which song would really take Blessed to the next level, I’d pick “Cop.” That said, no record is perfect, and Blessed does have some minor faults. Its production is along the same lines as other post-punk records and doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. Riekman’s vocals sound as though he’s

a mile away from the microphone, and despite his great delivery, they can get a little muddled.

Additionally, the record as a whole is a little too reverb-heavy. It’s also too damn short. While it is an exhaustive and intense record to listen to, it always leaves you wanting just a little bit more.

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

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ARTS IN REVIEW

S undBites

TitleMarr Superstar Har

Bob Dylan

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Best Summer Ever

Best Summer Ever, possibly the most eccentric album of the year so far, just doesn't subscribe to a single genre, or even a single overarching theme. It's a bounding, leaping album that hops between genres and eras, and has no respect for anything, or anyone — fitting, considering Har Marr Superstar’s man-behind-the-curtain Paul Tillman’s irreverent nature.

From R&B-influenced opening tracks to a pop-drenched middle, all the way down to the garage rock, old-school rockabilly ending, Best Summer Ever is carefree and takes some radical approaches to production.

The album's penultimate track, “Famous Last Words” is evocative of a draft-era lamentation

Mini album reviews

Fallen Angels by a young man leaving home. For the most part, it features garage rock production qualities, with fuzzy guitars and crackling sounds trickling through the track, but it also features an occasional dubstep-esque bass drop where the sound goes haywire. It's something that was best described by CIVL’s Dave Cusick as “the sound of Kylo Ren's lightsaber just being dropped randomly into the song.”

Whether or not these production risks are something you appreciate, Best Summer Ever tries its damndest to appeal to all sorts of listeners, whether pop lovers, funk fanatics, or a garage rock fan.

Last April I wrote a review for Bob Dylan’s collection of old pop covers, Shadows in the Night, which I suggested was best enjoyed while feeling blue. Fallen Angels, another batch of melancholy pop covers, is more of the same. Put it on at night and submit to its nostalgic mood.

On the other hand, this new record is far more upbeat. While the instrumentation is more or less the same — with violins, double bass, subtle percussion, and trebly guitars — the musicianship is quicker and more playful,

Glen Ess

Eleanor Friedberger

99.9% mellow Hammond organs and steady drums and lots of space for riffs before a final chorus.

So, nothing too surprising. But pick a song, like “Your Word” or “Cathy with the Curly Hair,” and you’ll find poetic twists, unexpected in the verse-chorus structure, that show why Friedberger is a lyrical league ahead of most in her genre — like Jenny Lewis, Dean Wareham, or Joe Walsh, time away from the band she made her name with might have lessened her star appeal, but the old excitement, the possibility of spontaneous-seeming narration still shows up, for instance, on “Does Turqoise Work,” a failed memory escape line of “something something / oh never mind, nothing!” followed by a brief wall of sound.

Michael Scoular

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Glen Ess

Kaytranada

New View

Eleanor Friedberger’s perspective is always stretching wider than it was the last time — the last time things didn’t go according to plan, or someone said the wrong thing, or a character in one of her songs took too long to make up their mind. To make New View, Friedberger disrupted her usual way of putting an album together; the New Yorker started creating material in Los Angeles with a new backing band, recorded live, applied the lessons of a stint with Seth Meyers’ rotating late night music team. “That taught me to not be too precious and to write quickly,” she says in an interview with the Quietus. Though the elements of Friedberger’s first two solo albums are still there, the result is a bit of a pullback from Personal Record: easy rock with

and Dylan’s voice sits more comfortably in the arrangements. The prime example is “That Old Black Magic,” which moves so free and easy that you forget Dylan’s voice is supposed to cause you and your earholes pain.

This second stab at traditional pop isn’t as strong as the last in terms of its purity of mood, but consequently it can be enjoyed in a slightly wider range of moods. If you dug Shadows in the Night, you’ll dig Fallen Angels.

Canadian producer Louis Kelvin Celestin’s debut under the stage name Kaytranada is another record that further blurs the lines of hip-hop aesthetics. Celestin’s production work throughout the record is itself instrumental, featuring vocal acts such as Vic Mensa and Anderson Paak on a trackby-track basis.

The material found on 99.9% is mostly reflective of funk and disco influences, and as far as the source material is concerned, the record is fairly consistent. Although it might veer towards the modern in more drastic instances, such as “Drive Me Crazy,” on which Vic Mensa sounds right at home, the core instrumental aesthetic always seems to gravitate back towards its early disco and R&B influences.

The two standout tracks on the record

— because at 15 tracks,99.9% gets a bit muddled, tracks blur into one another — are “Glowed Up,” and “Weight Off.” The first, on which Anderson Paak lends his Kendrickesque flow, oozes California carelessness over its first half before morphing into more melancholic tones. “Weight Off,” bolstered

by BadBadNotGood, is just as reflective of East Coast flavours, all synthesizers and funk percussion, with the added benefit of a simple bass hook that pushes the track on.

I want to see Kaytranada break out of the disco and R&B pigeonhole, if only for an instance. As it stands, 99.9% is a solid record, but one on which Kaytranada risks being irreparably typecast as another artist shamelessly mining the ‘70s for everything they’ve got.

Martin Castro

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2016

ARTS IN REVIEW MOVIE REVIEW

In Neighbors 2, social awareness gets commodified

MITCH HUTTEMA THE CASCADE

the

In contrast to the slapstick humour and cleverly arranged jokes of its predecessor, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising tackles a target university audience with the same kind of dialogue that they experience on their campuses. The film tackles sexism, feminism, ageism, racism, and every –ism relevant to the engaged college student all while draping a comedic blanket over it. The sequel targets a much different audience than the initial film, and aims not to simply entertain but also to inform — in some way or another.

The crux of the film is pretty much the same this time around. A trio of loner sorority-less girls — Shelby (Chloë Grace Moretz), Nora (Beanie Feldstein), and Beth (Kiersey Clemons) — raise

hell at a particularly inconvenient time for their neighbours, Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne), who are in the process of selling their home.

The humour of in Neighbors 2 focuses more on the politically-correct question more than most comedies in the genre, however, there are several breaks from this pattern with the quintessential Jewish prods that Seth Rogen’s character can never resist. Rogen’s usual fondness for pot does not escape this film either, playing a fundamental role in the turnaround and climax of the film.

The cinematography in this second installment of the series is much more exploratory and daring than the first. In the original, the cinematography seemed somewhere along the lines of “set up a couple of cameras and shoot off some ad lib jokes,” whereas this film feels more structured. It is as if the studios gave director Nicholas Stoller, Rogen, and pals some

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cash to make the first film without much in the way of expectations, did a double take at the box office success ($18 million to produce with a $270 million gross) and decided to fine tune the machine for a more calculated second shot at the cash cow. Rather than prop up a camera and do take after take looking for comedy, camera movement was essential to storytelling and drive home the general criticisms of misogyny.

The average mega-college student will find themselves in familiar territory with this film, which is perhaps one of the movie’s main selling features. Neighbors 2 makes a clear point of outlining the sexism inherent to the Greek letter organization university social system, but sometimes has a tough time following through.

Yes, there are more than eight occasions where characters explicitly speak about women’s rights (that includes Seth Rogen on several occasions), yet one of the main plot resolutions is centred

fully on the certainty that the whole sorority will be single-mindedly focused (read: distracted) on Teddy’s (Zac Efron) oiled-up striptease.

While there are feminist themes, women and femininity often wind up as the butt of the joke.

There is also a vocalized movement for racial inclusivity in the film, yet the cast is still dominantly white and the only Asian character is heavily stereotyped. I was rooting for the character to blossom out of her stereotype and affect change within the plot, but was left cringing when she did not.

Sorority Rising, then, is a mixed bag: enough social justice awareness thrown in to appease an audience looking for “relevance,” but a limited sense of what inclusivity and cultural awareness really mean.

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Then join The Cascade and gain valuable experience in the field of journalism!

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