The Argosy, February 1, Vol.147, Iss. 14

THE ARG OSY

NEWS Conversation cafe invites special guest (Pg. 4) Pleasing everyone since 1872

ARTS & CULTURE The return of Maria Dime (Pg. 6)

SPORTS Mt. A swimmer breaks 30-year-old record (Pg. 9)

OPINIONS Yik Yak’s untapped potential (Pg. 10)

Mount Allison’s Independent Student Newspaper

COVER: GABRIELLE JOHNSON, BORDERING VOIDS, TORONTO ON, 201X, 2018.

February 1, 2018 Vol. 147, Iss. 14

02 NEWS

EDITOR: MAIA HERRIOT & MINNOW HOLTZ-CARRIERE | FEBRUARY 1 2018 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

ASTRONOMY

Starry Sackville talk covers habitable zones, existential dread

Community members learn about life and the future of humanity THURSDAY, FEB. 1 Physics Speaker Series Dunn 406, 1-2 p.m.

Quo Vadimus Dunn 101, 4-5:30 p.m.

President’s Speaker Series: Naiomi Metallic Brunton Auditorium, 7-8:30 p.m.

FRIDAY, FEB. 2 Last day to change course registration Registrar’s Office, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Order of Canada celebration Purdy Crawford, 12:30-2 p.m.

Economics Roundtable: The Corporate Tax Avard Dixon 120, 2:30-4 p.m.

SATURDAY, FEB. 3 Faculty Recital: variations Brunton Auditorium, 7:30-9:30 p.m..

SUNDAY, FEB. 4 Vespers Chapel Manning Room, 6-7 p.m.

STARRY SACKVILLE INCLUDED A TRIP TO GEMINI OBSERVATORY. GILLIAN HILL/ARGOSY

AMELIA MACDOUGALL-FLEMING

News Reporter

On Friday Jan. 26, about 30 members of the Sackville community came to terms with the fact that, according to science, humanity is doomed.

Starry Sackville is a free public lecture and observatory viewing organized by Mount Allison’s physics

department that covers current astronomy-related topics twice a semester. At the Mini Wu, Friday’s talk tackled the topic of habitable zones and life on Earth.

To begin the lecture, astronomy professor Catherine Lovekin outlined the requirements for sustained life: “Elements are pretty prevalent throughout the universe, so we don’t

MONDAY, FEB. 5 Deadline to transfer to BFA program Registrar’s Office, 8:30-4:30 p.m.

Resume and Cover Letter Workshop Dunn 106, 5:30-6:30 p.m.

TUESDAY, FEB. 6 Quaker contemplative worship Chapel Sanctuary, 12-1 p.m.

Tea on Tuesday Chapel Manning Room, 3-4 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 7 Interview skills workshop Dunn 106, 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Amnesty International presents: Human Flow Library Theatre, 7-10 p.m.

Ladonna Brave Bull Allard talk Dunn Wu Centre, 7-9 p.m.

MT. A PROFESSOR CATHERINE LOVEKIN LEAD THE TALK. CHAOYI LIANG/ARGOOSY

have to worry about that too much.…

There’s lots of different sources of energy depending on where you are.

The real question then is water.”

Lovekin explained that, although Venus and Mars are relatively close to the Earth, the two planets are currently outside the habitable zone, as they do not have liquid water.

According to Lovekin, at some point in the next two billion years, Earth too will move out the habitable zone and lose all of its water. Luckily, by the time this happens, Mars will have moved into the habitable zone, at which point humanity can move to Mars. However, the Sun will only be around for another seven billion years or so. After that, people will have to relocate to a new star. Eventually, the galaxy will run out of stars, meaning humanity will have to travel to another galaxy. Unfortunately, Lovekin explained that this may not be possible, as the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

Lovekin ended the presentation on an unsettling note: “Eventually, we’re going to be left in a galaxy that does not have any gas left to form stars. All the existing stars will die, the universe will become a dark, boring and fairly uniform place. There will be no source of energy, there will be no source of light.” Lovekin also offered her take

on the future of humanity: “Unless we can all figure out how to become energy beings by then, everything is awful and we’re all going to die.”

Julia Connolly, a first-year psychology student, said, “I feel a little overwhelmed about how insignificant we really are in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t make me feel scared or hopeless, it just makes me feel amazed at the world and the universe.”

Starry Sackville also draws in people from outside the Mt. A community. Emma Chisholm, a 14-year-old from Truro, is interested in astronomy, so her science teacher recommended the event to her.

Chisholm is an optimist about the future of humanity. She said, “I think that it’s kind of scary, but I also think that science can get us there, so I think there’s hope. Especially about Mars.… I think scientists could get us there in the future.”

After Lovekin’s lecture, some of the attendees crossed the street to the Gemini Observatory. Here, Lovekin guided people toward the moon, Uranus and the Orion Nebula. The night finished at the observatory around 9:30 p.m.

The next Starry Sackville is tentatively scheduled for March 16 and the topic is yet to be determined.

MASU elections to be held January 31st to February 1st The Mount Allison Student Union is holding elections for the positions of president, vice president academic affairs, vice president external affairs and vice president student life. Candidates gave general speeches in Gracie’s on Tuesday Jan. 30. The speeches were streamed live, and video recordings are available on MASU’s Facebook page. All Mt. A students are eligible to vote online for their preferred candidates. Students should receive an email with instructions on how to access the ballot. The online ballot also includes the option to abstain from voting.

NEWS

THE ARGOSY | WWW.SINCE1872.CA

ECONOMICS

Economics seminar discusses Canada’s upcoming recreational cannabis policy

03

Mount Allison alumnus Dr. Jason Childs breaks down the differences between the proposed cannabis regulations of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick’s provincial governments MINNOW HOLTZ-CARRIERE News Editor On Friday, Jan. 26, the economics department hosted Jason Childs’ talk titled Legalizing and Regulating Recreational Cannabis. A selfproclaimed libertarian dressed in a three-piece suit and cowboy boots, Childs graduated from Mount Allison in 1996 and is currently a professor at the University of Regina.

The event was a part of the economics department’s series of seminars and roundtables on current economics issues.

The lecture summarized and expanded on a report issued in November 2017 by the Johnson Shoyama School of Public Policy.

The report, titled Legalizing and Regulating Cannabis in Saskatchewan, aimed to analyze policy decisions made by provincial governments in the lead-up to the passing of Bill C-45.

Bill C-45 will legalize and regulate recreational cannabis consumption and production in Canada, allowing adults 18 and older to possess up to 30 grams of cannabis purchased from a legal retailer and to grow up to four of their own plants. It was introduced in the House of Commons in April 2017 and is currently in the Senate for its second reading. The bill is set to come into effect by July 2018, at which point provincial governments will be responsible for the sale and

distribution of cannabis, much like the sale of alcohol is a provincial responsibility.

“We’ve got to start with a very clear realization,” said Childs, “and that is that cannabis is ubiquitous.

Anybody who wants it is already smoking it.” He cited statistics stating that 50 per cent of Canadians have tried marijuana, while 20 per cent are regular users. According to Childs, about 25 tonnes of cannabis are used per year in Saskatchewan, while in New Brunswick that number is closer to 15 to 20 tonnes per year.

The main cited reasons for the Government of Canada’s decision to legalize cannabis were to restrict youth access and use, dismantle the black market and illegal cannabis use, and protect public health and safety through regulation. “The government never does anything just for the reason they’re telling you they do it,” said Childs, suggesting that the government’s implicit objective was increasing revenue. He cited Colorado as an example, which has generated over $600 million in revenue from cannabis sales since its legalization in 2014.

Childs emphasized that because so few countries have legalized recreational cannabis, there are no established best practices. He made several comparisons to early alcohol markets, and expressed a belief that it would take several years to optimize the system. “This is going to be great

for the social sciences,” said Childs.

“It’s a natural experiment. It’s going to be fun. I’m looking forward to doing this a year out and seeing how different markets like New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, which developed from very different policy regimes, do.”

In the case of New Brunswick, where production and distribution will be run by the government based on the model of NB Liquor, Childs argued that the policies would not be capable of dismantling the illegal market for cannabis because of their inflexibility. He was also skeptical about the New Brunswick government’s ability to outprice the illegal market and to make money from the sale of cannabis. Childs argued that legal cannabis would have to be priced competitively, and be of equal or higher quality and convenience than illegal cannabis.

In the case of Saskatchewan, Childs estimated that the provincial government had not committed to purchasing enough product to actually satisfy demand for recreational cannabis. He was, however, slightly more confident in its distribution model’s ability to compete with the illegal market.

Childs recommended that governments embrace flexibility through a semi-privatized model.

“If the objectives are truly as stated by the federal government, you have to be using market forces. You can’t

BILL C-45 IS SET TO LEGALIZE RECREATIONAL CANNABIS IN CANADA BY JULY OF THIS YEAR. SARAH NOONAN/ARGOSY have market forces pushing in one direction and your regulations or your market structure pushing in a different direction,” he said. “What we’re suggesting is, let the private sector do what it’s good at – retailing – but limit the number of licences for private sector retailers.”

He still recommended that already existing liquor authorities be in charge of regulation, in order to take advantage of their experience with regulating alcohol. “Don’t regulate the price,” argued Childs. “Let the retailers and the market set the price.

If your objective is to eliminate the illegal market, you have to allow the flexibility of the market to do that.”

Ultimately, Childs tried to highlight the idea that, due to the novelty of the situation, issues would come up regardless of the policies governments put in place. “Nobody is going to get this right off the hop,” he said. “Every province is going to roll their own solution out, and everyone is going to look around and say, ‘That didn’t work’ in way X, Y, Z. You’ve got to be able to adapt, and change your actions.”

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Ableist Movie Night tackles harmful tropes

Association of Chronically Ill and Disabled Students takes on pop culture and disability stereotypes in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ with bad representation bingo and film discussion LILY FALK News Reporter

ACID RAISES AWARENESS OF CAMPUS DISABILITY ISSUES. TO THIRD-YEAR STUDENT GABRIELLE GAGNON, THESE TYPES OF EVENTS “HELP ME BE MORE AWARE OF MY PRIVILEGE.” LOUIS SOBOL/ARGOSY

“I’m not a cripple, I’m a scientist.”

These are the first lines spoken by the only disabled character in The Amazing Spider-Man. On Monday, Jan. 22, ACID, or the Association of Chronically Ill and Disabled Students, hosted their first Ableist Movie Night of 2018 to facilitate discussion about common disability tropes found in popular films.

Madeleine Léger, a third-year philosophy student and member of the ACID executive team, said, “The movie night is one of those endeavors trying to remind people, in a fun way, that campus is not accessible and a lot of other parts of society aren’t either.”

ACID is an advocacy group that works to bring awareness to issues of accessibility and disability on campus.

They have been hosting Ableist Movie Night in the library theatre for three years now. Originally, it started as an opportunity to show films that had

positive representations of disability but the group quickly ran out of options, and instead began showing films that could provoke discussion about disability stereotypes.

“We chose a superhero film because the trope of the disabled villain is so common, from Marvel to James Bond,” said Léger. To highlight how common these stereotypes are, ACID hands out dry-erase markers and laminated bingo cards with disability tropes such as “can’t have sex,” “dangerous mental illness” and “heroic caretaker.” Participants mark off tropes as they watch the movie and have a discussion at the end.

Jonathan Wood, a third-year PPE student, is a regular at these movie nights. On his bingo card, the stereotype “I just want to be normal” stood out the most in this film. “It’s his entire concept as a villain!” said Wood. The villain, Dr. Curt Connors, loses his arm while working as a surgeon in the U.S. army and turns to work as a geneticist, trying

to find ways to harness the power that lizards have to regrow limbs.

When he experiments on himself, he accidentally turns himself into a giant lizard.

While watching a superhero movie may not directly impact campus accessibility, these nights are an opportunity to have difficult conversations where students question their assumptions and reflect on how we as a society think about disability. “I am very abled and privileged,” said Gabrielle Gagnon, a third-year PPE student. “These events help me be more aware of my privilege.”

Léger said, “It also serves to bring people together who aren’t directly involved in a disability activism or haven’t thought much about accessibility issues.” ACID hopes to keep hosting Ableist Movie Night once or twice a month alongside continuing to advocate for a more accessible university campus.

04

NEWS

STUDENT RESEARCH

FEBRUARY 1, 2018 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

COMMUNITY

Honours student Sackville United Church research profiles hosts Mt. A student at

Conversation Café

Activist and second-year student Ashley Rose Cummings invited to be special guest at community Q&A session

EMILY HUBLEY IS A FOURTH-YEAR HONOURS STUDENT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY.

“I am currently working on my honours thesis with Dr. Gould. My research focuses on oral hygiene of older adults in long-term care. For my project, we will be implementing a new form of in-service training where care aides will discuss the problems they encounter when providing oral care for residents with advanced dementia. Dental care is important for seniors because serious health complications arise due to inadequate care. We are hoping the staff will be more satisfied with this type of training and that it will lead to improved oral hygiene.”

JESSIE MCINTYRE IS A FOURTH-YEAR HONOURS STUDENT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE.

“Hey everyone! I’m working with two supervisors – Dr. Diana Hamilton and Dr. David Lieske – on a remote sensing mapping project concerning the migration habits of the whimbrel in northeast N.B. The whimbrel is a large, long-distance migrating shorebird that stops in Atlantic Canada to build up energy reserves before its long journey to South America. My goal is to further understand the land use in the region and how the whimbrel are moving on this landscape to further increase our knowledge about this species of concern.”

CUMMINGS SHARED HER EXPERIENCES AS AN INUIT WOMAN WITH THE CONGREGATION. CHAOYI LIANG/ARGOSY

MAIA HERRIOT News Editor On the last Sunday of every month, Sackville United Church holds a “Conversation Café” halfway through their 11 a.m. service, inviting a special guest to “help extend the experience of welcome and community” at the parish.

This past Sunday, the special guest was Ashley Rose Cummings, an Inuit activist originally from Nunavut who is currently in her second year at Mount Allison.

Walking into the church hall, the room buzzed with warm welcomes for every newcomer and affectionate greetings for familiar faces. As Cummings went upstairs with the children at the beginning of the service, Rev. Lloyd Bruce began announcements, which included the decision to discontinue the tradition of passing around a collection plate to avoid alienating those who have nothing to give and not acknowledging those who give donations other than money.

Halfway through the service, Cummings returned, and Lloyd sat down with her at the front of the room for a short question-andanswer session in the interest of creating “dialogue that leads, for this community, to service in the world.”

Lloyd began by asking Cummings to tell the congregation about something she used to do as a child that brought her joy, and then moved into questions like “When did you first become aware that your experience as an Inuit woman would be different than that of others?”

Cummings responded to the latter by telling a story about moving from Nunavut to Nova Scotia as a young

girl, where she encountered verbal racism from other children and was blamed for responding in frustration.

Cummings also told a story about a woman named Sedna (or, in Cummings’ region, Nuliajuk) who was very independent and resisted her father’s demand that she be married.

Her father did not respect her wishes and took her out on an umiak (a large boat) to ask her one last time. Sedna refused and her father became so angry that he threw her off the boat.

When she hung on by her fingers, he cut them off. When Sedna fell into the sea she became the sea and her fingers became its animals, like the seal, narwhal and fish that provide for the Northern people. Cummings said that she recognizes Sedna’s determined and independent spirit in herself and wants kids to be able to look up to her in the same way as an advocate for Inuit rights: “I want kids to be able to see me and go, ‘I wanna be like her.’ ” When sharing memories of her hometown Pangnirtung, Cummings teared up, saying, “That landscape, a lot of people see it as barren and bleak, but when you know the land and you know where you come from, you know it is so abundant in so many things.”

When Lloyd asked Cummings what her hope for the future of her community was, she answered, “Suicides happen so often among Inuit and it’s just a constant reminder of the difficulties that exist in our communities because of intergenerational trauma and colonization, and I just want to see more resources available to people who feel like they want to get out.

That is starting to develop more and mental health is a larger conversation

in Nunavut now – last year, for the first time in 17 years, there were no suicides in my hometown.”

Lloyd closed the question period by asking Cummings what people who benefit from white colonist-settler privilege can do to help. “Something that anyone can do, regardless of race or culture, is just to listen to other people. Dialogue allows for understanding amongst everyone – your world gets a bit bigger.”

Lloyd then asked the congregation to divide into small groups and discuss how Cummings’ stories challenged and expanded their knowledge and what they will “take with them on the journey toward reconciliation.”

When the congregation came back together, Lloyd asked if anyone had anything to share from their discussions. There were many volunteers.

One parishioner said she was thankful that Indigenous people are “still willing to communicate with us after so many years of hurt and trauma.”

Another told Cummings, “We were filled with admiration that you came here.… there is no doubt that you are going to be a person that people listen to.”

One woman holding her young child said she wished her older daughter had been there that day. “I want her to grow up to be a strong woman like [Cummings], to be able to be herself,” she said.

Their Sunday worship service closed with the congregation singing the hymnal refrain “all are welcome, all are welcome in this place” and setting out food for a community potlatch.

EDITOR: ALIX MAIN FEBRUARY 1, 2018 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

DRAMA

ARTS & CULTURE 05

Curtain Closes on ‘The Addams Family’

Another successful iteration of Garnet and Gold’s annual musical ended on Saturday RYAN KARIMI Arts & Culture Reporter Last Saturday, Jan. 27, was the closing night of Garnet and Gold’s production of The Addams Family.

Gauging from the fervent applause of the audience, the show was a success.

Audience members enjoyed all sorts of theatrical antics, from a quip about an old woman smoking weed in the attic to moving musical numbers about being pulled in new directions.

As an attendee put it, “All the lead family members sung well and were excellent actors, especially the father, Gomez [played by Grayson Kenny].

He communicated a range of emotions from helplessness to swaggering confidence, and helped tie together the different plots by having a well-crafted relationship with each important character. [His] chemistry with his wife Morticia [played by Mirren Lithwick] was convincing and great fun to watch.”

That chemistry was not exclusive to the matriarch and patriarch of the Addams family. The sense of comfortable ease among the cast lent itself well to the macabre yet humorous script; the musical

appealed to a part of you that cannot help but chuckle at a dark joke despite your better judgement.

As an audience member, it is easy to underestimate the hours upon hours of work poured into the show.

For example, the show boasted an impressive set. “I found [it] ambitious and interesting to look at, with the upstairs level being used by the actors to great dramatic effect,” said the attendee, who wished to remain anonymous.

“For the past week, we’ve essentially been here from 6 to 12 every night, and on weekends, even longer. So it’s been pretty hectic – not a lot of time for homework but definitely worth it!” said Emily O’Leary, who played Wednesday Addams in the musical.

I caught up with a member of the pit orchestra, Owen Switzer, after the show. When asked for his thoughts on the whole experience, he replied, “It was good! I enjoyed learning the musical. It’s a hard one for reeds, that’s for sure. Just because there are so many instruments for reed players, there are a lot of tight switches. But I enjoyed it a lot.”

Claiming it was difficult to switch between instruments was certainly

“WHEN THE OUVERTURE STARTED AND THE

CURTAIN OPENED, I THINK

EVERYONE HAD CHILLS ALL OVER THEIR BODIES”

not an exaggeration. Switzer played the flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone and soprano saxophone in the two-hour span of the show.

When I asked him about his favourite moment of the whole experience, he said without hesitation, “that would have to be putting [the instrumental and vocal lines] together with the cast. We had the music by ourselves and it was going all right but then we got the cast in it and it just felt good.”

When I asked the same question to O’Leary, she responded similarly, saying, “the best moment would have to be the first time we ran the show with the orchestra pit. When the ouverture started and the curtain opened, I think everyone had chills all over their bodies. It was really magical.”

O’Leary’s last sentence sums up the show well. To be brutally honest, this reporter is not particularly a fan of musical theatre, something which likely stems from too early and hasty an introduction to High School Musical and his mother’s forced Saturday night community theatre outings.

I went into Convocation Hall with my expectations primed accordingly.

But when I emerged afterward, I was blown away. The musical was like strawberry rhubarb pie – one wouldn’t think upbeat musical numbers, ballet and dark humour would go together, but against all odds, they do.

TOP: GOMEZ, PORTRAYED BY GRAYSON KENNY. BOTTOM: GRAYSON KENNY, MIRREN LITHWICK, EMILY O’LEARY, MICHAEL MCCRACKEN. GILLIAN HILL/ ARGOSY

FILM

Sharp Reviews: ‘The Disaster Artist’ It’s a shallow cash grab! Shallow! You’re tearing me apart, Franco!

there are enough people in the world who expect nothing more than a bigbudget, meme-tastic time to make it profitable.

I, however, am not a fan of The Room, so I went into The Disaster Artist hoping for something more than just inside jokes and careful recreation. I was disappointed; the film generally fails to tell any story worth telling.

The Disaster Artist is almost in awe of itself, amazed that it is even being made, as it almost certainly started as a joke idea from Franco or Rogen that gained traction when they realized it could sell. The main draw of the film is Franco’s performance.

He impressively e m b o d i e s W i s e a u ’ s strangeness and recreates the mysterious accent pretty much perfectly. Technically the protagonist is Greg Sestero, played by James Franco’s brother Dave Franco, but Sestero pales in comparison to the strange charisma of Wiseau.

That’s the problem with The Disaster Artist: Greg Sestero isn’t that interesting, and Tommy Wiseau

is too much of an enigma in real life to really allow for any thoughtful or worthwhile characterization. They do attempt some sort of characterization by positioning Wiseau and Sestro as best friends and Hollywood outsiders – the latter of which is dropped within the first act. The friendship between Wiseau and Sestro is technically a focus of the plot, but it follows a predictable path and ultimately feels unattached from the main focus of the film: the making of The Room. This lack of depth is pervasive throughout the entire runtime, much of which is devoted to simply watching Wiseau’s abrasive personality create tension with everyone around him.

The Disaster Artist may be a bad movie. It may be shallow and it may be a cold, hard cash-in on The Room’s cult status, but that doesn’t matter. It is also a supremely competent, almost reverent ode to a strange and baffling film. It is deeply saturated with a love for The Room – an attractive concept for many, I’m sure.

A PHOTO IS ALL YOU

NEED TO UNDERSTAND

DEREK SHARP Columnist Following any discussion around The Disaster Artist in any way requires context. It is a dramatization of the book written by Greg Sestero that chronicles the making of The Room, a 2003 drama starring Tommy Wiseau and Sestero. The Room is, according to its fans, so totally bafflingly bad that it’s good. There are annual sold-out

midnight screenings worldwide where people laugh and revel at its absurdity. The Room is, and I don’t think I’m falling into hyperbole, a genuine cultural phenomenon – phenomenon fueled not only by the movie itself but also the mystery of its chief creative, Tommy Wiseau.

Seriously, just Google the dude; a photo is all you need to understand that this man is extra as hell.

Because of its reliance on an

appreciation of The Room, The Disaster Artist is a bit of an aberration for me. I can say with certainty that there is an audience for this film – an audience which, I expect, also loves The Room.

They’ll be awed by the care taken in recreating sequences from The Room, and they’ll adore James Franco’s transformation into the enigmatic auteur Tommy Wiseau. This is the strongest element of this film: it knows what it is, and it knows that

THAT THIS MAN IS EXTRA AS HELL

06

ARTS & CULTURE

FEBRUARY 1, 2018 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

SERIAL

Small Town, Big Mystery

Chapter Five: Fall Together MARIA DIME Columnist

A refresher for my dearest readership: In the little town of Lincolnshire, life has been disrupted by the murder of Herr Hansel. After being dropped from a military plane, Hansel’s body was found by our young hero, Ralph.

Convinced of the local authorities’ inability to solve the case, Ralph has taken it upon himself to solve this mystery.

Ralph stepped out onto the precipice and bent his knees in preparation. His breath shook as death slid up alongside him, closer than it ever had before. He doublechecked the clips on his chest and waist, and, hearing an impatient grunt from the small crowd behind him, leapt off the cliff.

Our hero was, of course, base jumping. Why, my gracious reader might ask? Why else, but to bring his soul closer to Herr Hansel’s.

He somersaulted through the air

PUBLIC ART

like a slinky on a staircase. Sky, cliff and earth melted into a pot of whirling blues and browns. He counted ten spins, as he’d been taught, then tensed his muscles to steady his fall. A pocket of cold air punched his stomach (the guides had warned him of this) and left him gasping for breath.

The dense boreal forest below grew bigger and bigger. Is this what you felt, my friend? He let his mind go limp and felt everything, everywhere.

But, a buzzing on his wrist brought him back and he tugged on the cord that flapped by his waist to release the parachute. The parachute jerked Ralph back from his fall like a ghoulish hand that grabs Shaggy by the back of his shirt as he sprints down a dark hallway. For a split second he was sure the straps that held him to the parachute were going to snap under the sudden pressure.

They didn’t, of course – these things are generally made with the utmost attention to quality – and he was comfortably eased towards the earth. As his body descended he felt

his soul leave his body, and climb up to the clouds in search of Herr Hansel. Please, find my soul.

It had been three weeks since Herr Hansel’s shocking death, and, as Ralph had predicted, no explanations had been offered. And nobody seemed to care. Ralph had got nowhere in his quest for justice. His own search for answers had yielded next to nothing. So, he had turned to alternative measures: soul-searching.

Not intrapersonal soul-searching, but extrapersonal. Ralph’s theory was that if he could find a way to connect his soul to Herr Hansel’s, he might be granted insight into the circumstances surrounding the German enthusiast’s death.

The unmistakable sound of a hunting rifle rang through the Dufresne Valley as he neared the ground, and a flock of black-capped Chickadees rose from the forest below. They flew directly up towards Ralph, the entire flock engulfing his parachute as it whipped by.

Miraculously, they caused no damage to his gear. Once passed, they took a hairpin turn and launched b a c k

towards him, filling his senses with black and white and the sharp cut of their call. They repeated their turn again, and R a l p h drifted the final few metres to the ground in the mass of chickadees.

By Jove, Providence speaks!

Ralph realized he was moving faster than he’d thought, and as the forest came closer and closer he flexed his legs to

brace himself as he was violently ushered through the outer foliage and wedged into a maple tree. He felt around his body for any blood, and, satisfied, allowed himself to relax into his position. He was stuck high up in a tree, after a fall off epic proportions.

He had lived Herr Hansel’s final moments.

He could feel the man’s soul, pulsing within him. Guide me, my friend, on this quest for justice.

‘SHOAL’: A temporary reliquary in the grass

THE CHARRED LOGS HAVE NOW DISAPPEARED, PRESUMABLY FOR THEIR OWN PRESERVATION. CHAOYI LIANG/ARGOSY

MATHIEU GALLANT Managing Editor At the edge of what is arguably urban Sackville – just off of Lorne Street, across a small canal and nestled in the tall grass – stood a large sign reading “SHOAL,” its five letters arranged in a large X. Installed as early as Aug. 4 (Sappyfest weekend and the probable date SHOAL went up), SHOAL is an installation that seems to join the borders of civilization to those of nature. Its creator was unknown to me, likely the work of a local artist (I would later discover this to be Shamus

Griffith). The only overt indication of its meaning and origin were small cards left in a box under the sign that each read a brief “SHOAL, A Reliquary” with a minimalist map marking its location.

SHOAL’s location seems to be as important as is its components: it can be found off Lorne Street, only indicated by its sign (now fallen) and tall, thin logs protruding from the tall grass. When I first visited SHOAL, Lorne was completely dug out for construction. I had to navigate the site carefully, climb into the newly dug canal, balance myself across

a rickety plywood bridge (for all I knew this was wood stolen from the construction site), and then sidle along the opposing edge of the canal, brushing past tall grass. I could here see that below the large sign was a bench, presumably so I could catch my breath after the urban gauntlet I had just endured.

The installation itself was inside the tall grass, which had been packed down in a gourdish shape, its stem being the entrance next to the sign. A rail was installed behind the sign to help visitors into the heart of the installation. Once I got

closer I could see what the thin logs were for: to border the enclosure I now found myself in. Set up in a semicircle around the stamped grass and lined with a net, this border was reminiscent of a cage. Poking through the net’s holes were sprigs of unstamped, tall grass.

Inside the enclosure were several hollowed-out logs mounted on thin poles, each approximately kneehigh. These were scorched inside and very smooth – man-made creations altered beyond anything else found inside the installation. They were holy relics contained within the reliquary, I suppose. Also found inside was a dead bird, bound and suspended by rope, that acted as an archway into the enclosure. This was my first experience with SHOAL. After the summer, I returned to SHOAL. The installation itself initially appeared untouched. The first difference I noticed was the state of Lorne Street. The construction had progressed, but not by much.

The street was no longer a ravine; it was now an extended dust bowl. The second thing I noticed was that the bridge had mysteriously vanished.

This meant I had to go around the now-filled canal and balance along the entire edge of the canal, while the tall grass pushed at me like hundreds of tiny arms, to get to the installation.

By the time I was comfortably planted on my two feet and ready to

revisit SHOAL, I was uncomfortably covered in burs. My entire left flank, including the exposed part of my left sock, resembled a spiky carapace.

It took about an hour of dedicated picking to have these totally removed.

I had to interact directly with nature to visit the installation, and it looked like the installation had had its own interactions with nature as well.

The thin logs that prevented visitors from stamping down any unpartitioned tall grass had begun to collapse; the wood must have been rotting. The fibres that suspended the bird corpse had begun to disintegrate and the bird now dangled from only one of its two supports. The trampled grass had begun to bounce back, unfurling after having been pressed so flat against the ground. The charred logs seemed to be the least altered by time and elements, although they were altered by humans prior to installation.

I returned to SHOAL again in the winter. The sign was now lying on the ground and covered with snow. I think the bench was gone. The charred logs had also disappeared, presumably to preserve the labour that went into making them. SHOAL’s degradation seemed to have halted for the season, but it would probably continue in the spring, perhaps disappearing into the tall grass with as little a trace as it appeared.

ARTS & CULTURE

THE ARGOSY | WWW.SINCE1872.CA

FINE ARTS

07

Two thousand pictures worth two million words

Owens Gallery houses many paintings, sketches and other works often overlooked by visitors RYAN KARIMI Arts & Culture Reporter How much does the average student know about the Owens Art Gallery?

While much has been published in the Argosy about the installations and exhibits featured at the Owens over the years, relatively little has been said about its permanent collection or the gallery itself.

The Owens was established in 1895 in a building constructed by renowned Toronto architect Edmund Burke, making it Canada’s oldest university art gallery. “The Owens collection is one of the oldest public collections in the country,” said Gemey Kelly, the curator of the gallery. “Today the collection has grown to include works in all media, including video. A recent acquisition was the stop-motion animated film Secret Citadel by Sackville artist Graeme Patterson.

The future for the collection is exciting.”

If you take a right at the reception desk, you will find a room dedicated to the works of Alex Colville, a graduate of the class of ‘42 and later a faculty member at Mount Allison.

His most prominent and renowned work, Athletes, was displayed in the Athletic Centre until 2016, when it was moved to the Owens for permanent exhibition due to damage

caused by high air humidity near the pool.

Colville’s mastery of the human form is evident; his pieces have a certain stillness about them, like a snapshot of a continuous narrative.

The Owens has many of his halffinished sketches on display, which elucidate his thought process when creating a piece. “He had geometric lines and he was using carefully calculated angles to figure out the best composition of the piece,” said Liz Rooker, a first-year art history student. “Specifically with Athletes, you can see how that played out. You can see he was using principles of design he really understood.”

The vault storage area in the basement of the Owens also houses many pieces that are not usually on display. According to Jane Tisdale, the fine arts conservator at the Owens, “The paintings vault houses about 800 paintings and there are more than 2,000 works of art on paper in the print vault.”

A large portion of the gallery’s art was purchased in Europe by Canadian artist John Hammond 11 years prior to the opening of the gallery and sent to the Maritimes. Tisdale explained that the original Owens collection was “used for teaching, particularly in the 19th century when students copied these paintings. There is one painting

“THE OWENS COLLECTION IS ONE OF THE OLDEST

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS IN THE COUNTRY”

by Louis Welden Hawkins titled The Departure. It was never completed and the artist’s outline of the figures is clearly visible. We believe that the painting was likely acquired in this incomplete state in order to demonstrate painting techniques to the students. The painting was purchased in France directly from the artist’s studio in 1884. This painting has been exhibited many times during the gallery’s salon hanging exhibitions.”

The Owens also has a few student employment opportunities.

Tisdale said the best strategy to find employment there is “to drop by with a resume [and] contact information and let us know that [you] are interested in working here.” Students usually work at the reception desk, but there is also a mentorship program run out of the gallery’s art conservation lab. This program, Tisdale explained, allows “one or two students each year [to] gain some practical experience working with the gallery’s fine arts conservator.”

Lucy MacDonald, curator of education and community outreach, said, “In addition to exhibitions, the Owens offers many other ways for students to engage with art, including visiting art talks, openings and a popular series of after-hours art workshops called Maker Maker.”

All in all, the Owens has a lot to offer, not just when it’s actively hosting a temporary exhibit. Even if you think that art isn’t really your thing, it would definitely be worth your while to pay a quick visit.

MUSIC

Guest performers show off impressive technique

Everything was minimal except the audience MAX CHAPMAN Arts & Culture Reporter Friday night in Brunton brought Mount Allison students a performance of minimalist pieces.

Road Movies, a minimalist concert, commanded the stage for the better part of two hours. Ms. Nadia Francavilla was primarily featured, as she performed several pieces on violin. The pieces were composed by some of the most recognized minimalist composers on the planet, to whom Francavilla referred to as “the fathers of minimalism.” This performance drew a large crowd due to the rare chance to hear this type of music live.

Francavilla, a violin professor at Mt. A, performed five pieces. The first, Ten Reader, featured no traditional instruments, just ten people on the stage reading random words from random books. The words clashed and complemented each other in a confusing yet oddly exciting arrangement of rhythm. The piece lasted nearly 20 minutes and saw

the crowd transform from confusion to amazement at the abilities of those performing. A student in the audience jokingly asked, “What was the time signature?”

The third piece that was played was Museum Pieces. Written by Mr. Jordan Nobles, the piece is meant to be accompanied with paintings. The performers were scattered around the audience and stage, and played totally different melodies, producing a piece that was difficult to follow, yet beautiful.

“When one walks through an art gallery, one is confronted by unique artworks on different walls all together in the same room. Museum Pieces tries to capture the spirit of multiple works together in the same space,” said Nobles on his piece. This was perhaps the most traditional of the five pieces. It was much easier for the ear to follow the story, and wrapping your head around the concept was not difficult.

The headlining piece, Road Movies, is a three-segment violin and piano composition that is intended to be

foregrounded by three short movies.

The unconventional accompaniment makes it imperative that the musicians be perfectly in sync with not only each other but the films as well. Francavilla played violin and Carl Philippe Gionet (another guest performer) played the piano.

The crowd was enthralled with the repeating progression of chords, in which one could easily lose oneself.

“I loved it,” said Graham Kidd, a second-year music student. “This kind of music puts you into a trance.”

The crowd absolutely adored these performances. After each segment ended, there was thunderous applause followed by excited murmurs. It is not every day that students get a chance like this to explore a lesser known genre.

“It was great, I loved all the compositions,” said Kidd. “You don’t get this kind of music all that often.

It’s pretty rare. You have to take every opportunity to hear it live, because it doesn’t happen at small universities like this.” It is a privilege to be exposed to these niche genres.

TOP: MAKER MAKER BUTTON MAKING WORKSHOP HELD IN SEPTEMBER 2017.

GILL HILL/ARGOSY BOTTOM: STUDENTS FROM THE MT. A WOMEN’S COLLEGE COPY PAINTINGS AT THE OWENS ART GALLERY C. 1895. OWENS ART GALLERY/SUBMITTED

08

ARTS & CULTURE

FEBRUARY 1, 2018 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

DRAMA

Tintamarre’s big-time bully

COLUMN

Bilingual theatre troupe stages original ‘REX!’ JENA MCLEAN Arts & Culture Reporter Though the Motyer-Fancy Theatre has been transformed into a pastel paradise for Tintamarre’s production of REX!, the titular character is anything but innocent.

I sat down last week with Alex Fancy, the director of the bilingual theatre troupe, to learn more about the collaborative production. He said the show follows “the trajectory of a baby bully who grows up to be a bigtime bully.”

Rex, the titular character, might inhabit another world, but he seems like he’s been plucked from our own.

The character is shown to be spoiled and pampered from an early age and displays Machiavellian tendencies.

Rex also owns a chain of world-class hotels and “tweets at night.” Early in the show he informs two Internet trolls, “I don’t want friends. I want fans.”

Sound familiar? He should. By using the template of a real-world figure with a major platform – though Fancy spoke of a pact “where we don’t name a certain bully” – Tintamarre hopes to spark dialogue.

“Rather than talking about a specific person or persons, we are looking at a social pattern, a social problem and a kind of behaviour that is quite prevalent nowadays,” said Fancy, explaining that “People

LOUIS SOBOL/ARGOSY

become devoid of empathy and passion.”

“Tintamarre productions always touch upon issues that are important in our society today,” said Caitlin O’Connor, who plays Rex, in an email. “From critiques on capitalism to cyberbullying, this play has it all,” she added.

This play likely brings in such varied elements due to the collaborative creation process. The theme of bullying was proposed last March and the troupe’s volunteers brainstormed and experimented during the fall semester. From these rehearsals, Fancy took his inspiration for the French and English script.

“We don’t believe in boundaries or hierarchies in cast and crew,” Fancy said. Once the script was completed, the cast nominated each other for roles and indicated which characters they would like to play.

“People are playing roles that they helped to create,” said Fancy. “It helps to create a real sense of ownership.” It also fosters Tintamarre’s tight-knit “community within the community.”

This aspect of Tintamarre is what initially drew Madison Fairweather to the troupe. “It just sounded like an amazing opportunity to get to know this whole pre-made group of friends,” said Fairweather, an actor and REX!’s assistant director. “It was a really welcoming atmosphere.”

O’Connor agreed, saying, “I felt like

it was a community that was made for me.”

Tintamarre’s main goals as a theatre company have helped contribute to this community atmosphere.

“Our first goal is to celebrate our differences and our second goal is to show how theatre can play a role in the world in helping us to ask questions,” Fancy said. REX! has gender-blind casting, which is encompassed in Tintamarre’s goal “to break down stereotypes and make it hard for people to assign labels to people and characters.”

“We want to encourage people to ask questions, like what it is in our environment that causes people to become bullies,” said Fancy, something that is also important to Fairweather.

“This play makes accessible to everyone a lot of the deeper political issues that we have going on in the world right now,” she said. “We’re not setting out to poke fun at the situation, we’re more just trying to make people think a little more about what’s going on and what you can do to maybe change it for the better.”

Tintamarre’s production of REX! runs from Jan. 31 to Feb. 3.

Tickets are $5 for students/seniors, $10 for non-students. Thursday’s performance is pay-what-you-can.

Tickets can be reserved by emailing motyerfancytheatre@mta.ca.

TINA OH & JILL MACINTYRE Columnists Body positivity as a movement has the potential to radically alter the way in which we view our bodies and our culture as a whole. The term was created in the 1990s by two teenage girls as a response to the idealization of thin, conventionally attractive bodies as the only acceptable bodies.

Since then, it has flourished into a movement led by women to draw attention to these unrealistic and deeply unhealthy Western beauty standards.

The movement has not only shed light upon the ways in which women are perniciously made to feel inferior about their own bodies: it also draws our attention to the ways in which body politics lead to discrimination against certain bodies. In media, we see thin, white, cisgender and able-bodied women placed upon pedestals while bodies who do not fit these narrow standards are left feeling marginalized. While it would be easy to say that simply loving yourself could solve this problem, this ignores the societal constraints placed upon those bodies who are unable or simply do not want to conform.

Our capitalist reality is that we are judged daily for our (in) ability to ascribe to these largely unattainable beauty standards, and are punished materially as a consequence. False assumptions about the health, intelligence and work ethic of plus-sized women have led to lower earnings on average and a higher likelihood of being passed over for promotions than straight-sized women. Women of colour, particularly Black women, are often told that their natural hair is “unprofessional” for the workplace and thus face discrimination.

Disabled women are twice as likely to face domestic violence in their lifetimes as able-bodied women are. Trans women and non-binary femmes face physical and emotional violence on a daily basis if they cannot or choose not to ascribe to “feminine” beauty standards and thus do not “pass” as cis women.

Low-class women are also impacted materially by beauty ideals, as many cannot afford the barrage of cosmetic products, gym memberships, “clean” foods and dental care to occupy a conventionally attractive body.

As the body positivity movement grows and encourages the celebration of all bodies, corporations have found themselves in a unique position to profit off of women’s empowerment.

Clothing brands like Aerie are known for their “untouched” photography campaigns – which reel in massive profits – while sizes larger than XL are rarely found in their stores. These mainstream ideas of what constitutes health have co-opted the movement and become the benchmark of socially-acceptable body positivity with images of thin, white, cisgender, carefree women as their spokespersons. Instead of radically challenging the pervasiveness of beauty standards, the movement has, once again, idealized a desirable body. This is not to say that thin women aren’t allowed to love their bodies, but that those bodies have always been widely-accepted. We want to see more advertisements with femmes that are subverting conventional beauty. We want fat acceptance. We must not forget that the purpose of the body positivity movement has been to fight classist, racist and transphobic hatred. We are reclaiming what has been taken from us – which is being able to proudly, and without shame, love who we are.

ARGOSY@MTA.CA

VARSITY SPORTS

SPORTS & HEALTH 09

Mounties shine heading into championships

With ten medals, a record breaker, and two spots sealed at nationals, the swim team is looking forward to finishing off the season strong at the AUS Championships in February record in the 200-metre breaststroke.

In 1988, Krista Burris set the record time of two minutes and 40 seconds.

Burris was a Canada Summer Games medalist at the time, making this feat that much more impressive. Feschuk posted the new time of two minutes and 38 seconds. “It’s one thing to break the record, another thing to break it by two whole seconds,” said Peters.

On the men’s side, Berger led the way, winning gold in the 50-metre freestyle and placing in the 100-metre freestyle.

“IT’S ONE THING TO BREAK THE RECORD, ANOTHER THING TO BREAK IT BY TWO WHOLE SECONDS.”

THE MOUNTIES VARSITY SWIM TEAM SHOWING THEIR SUPPORT FOR MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS INITIATIVE, BELL LET’S TALK. BACK: JAMES KWAN, WILL STEWART, MADELEINE HENRY, MOLLY MACMILLAN. MIDDLE: OLIVIA FESCHUK, ANNIE FRISE, LOGAN HUNT, IAIN CROWELL, LIAM BULGER, LUKE MURCHISON. BACK: EMMA SMITH, QUINN COBER, SABRINA BAKER, KATYA PARKER, LAUREN DESSUREAULT, AND MEGAN FITZGERALD. JOHN PETERS/SUBMITTED

HAMZA MUNAWAR Sports Reporter On Jan. 20 and 21, the Mounties swim team had its fourth meet of the season at Dalhousie. “I was very happy with the results this past weekend,” said head coach John Peters.

“We had a great meet in Halifax,” said fourth-year Geraint Berger, a veteran of the team. “Coming out of Christmas training we didn’t know what to expect, but we had a lot of the team pull some very impressive races with some of our best times.”

Peters elaborated further, saying,

“The tough training camp in Clermont, Florida, at the National Training Center is already paying off.”

That weekend, the Mounties swam to ten medals in Halifax.

On the women’s half, second-year Maddy Henry won her first AUS

race, capturing gold in the 200-metre backstroke. Henry also placed third in the 100-metre backstroke and earned Athlete of the Week for her performance. Other medal-winners include fourth-year veteran Olivia Feschuk who was awarded six medals.

Feschuk also broke a 30-year

“The performances this weekend gives us great confidence going into the AUS championships,” said Peters.

The AUS championships takes place on Feb. 9 to 11 in Saint John.

The AUS championships is the final chance to post national qualifying times in order to make the event.

The Mounties have already qualified Feschuk and Berger for the nationals in Toronto. “It’s a relief knowing I’m already qualified,” Berger said.

“With it being my last year, I’m really looking forward to ending my career on a positive note.”

The team is hoping to qualify more of their athletes to compete at the U Sport championships, which are happening in Toronto from Feb. 22 to 24. The championships will be the team’s 25th appearance since Peters took over as head coach.

WELLNESS CENTRE

Athletes join in on discussion to end stigma Bell Let’s Talk Day continues to inspire discussions regarding mental health across Canada KATHLEEN MORRISON Health Intern Mental health is relevant to all of us.

It refers to our thoughts, feelings, behaviours and, like physical health, is an integral component of our wellbeing. The words “mental health” are often only used to refer to the one in five people who experience mental illness, but in reality, five in five people have mental health. This means that conversations surrounding mental health are pertinent to everyone.

In 2010, Bell Let’s Talk started an important conversation about mental health in Canada. This initiative has contributed to growth in access to mental health resources and in research conducted at institutions and organizations that support mental health. To date, Bell has donated over $86 million to mental health

programs across Canada.

Last Wednesday, Jan. 31, was Bell Let’s Talk Day. On that day, Bell donated to mental health initiatives in Canada by contributing five cents for every eligible text, tweet, social media video view and use of their Facebook frame or Snapchat filter.

The day promoted awareness and brought attention, bringing us closer to a stigma-free Canada.

Mount Allison has been involved with Bell Let’s Talk for a number of years and continues to help end the stigma surrounding mental illness.

This past Sunday, Bell Let’s Talk Day was recognized at the Mounties’ volleyball, basketball and hockey games. Athletes wore blue Bell Let’s

Talk hats and a banner was signed by athletes, fans and students.

The Student-Athlete Mental Health Initiative (SAMHI) is a new group on campus that includes Mt. A athletes who are hoping to continue this important conversation beyond Bell Let’s Talk Day. Fourth-year Mt. A students, Erin Steeves and Becky Miller, who are part of SAMHI, helped organize the Bell Let’s Talk games this past weekend.

Steeves explained SAMHI is an initiative that “looks to support and provide resources regarding mental health to student-athletes and coaches at our university.”

Miller added, “Groups like Jack. org and Change Your Mind have

“WE, AS A STUDENT BODY, CAN CONTINUE TO HAVE OPEN DIALOGUE”

done an amazing job of promoting mental health and tackling the stigma surrounding mental illness at Mount Allison. It is our hope that SAMHI can help to continue these efforts.”

Steeves remarked that she hopes that “we, as a student body, can continue to have open dialogue about the importance of mental health.”

Mental illnesses are often misunderstood and sometimes feared. However, learning and understanding more about mental illness can reduce many uncertainties.

The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) provides a number of reliable and helpful resources about mental illness on its website. CMHA says that mental health is about finding “a balance in all aspects of your life: social, physical, spiritual, economic and mental.” This balance will be unique

to you and the challenge will be found in maintaining the balance.

If you or someone you know is struggling with a mental illness, it is important to seek help as soon as possible. Chimo Helpline (1800-667-5005) is a toll-free crisis line that is available 24/7 and can provide crisis intervention, resources and help with issues including suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, employment, accommodations, general information and loneliness. If you are in crisis, go to the hospital or call 911 immediately.

Bell Let’s Talk has helped us engage in open discussion about mental illness and instilled a new hope for those who struggle with their mental health. It is our job to now continue this conversation and educate ourselves. Be kind, listen, ask questions and talk about it!

10 OPINIONS

THE ARGOSY w w w. s i n c e 1 8 7 2 . c a

Independent Student Newspaper of Mount Allison University Thursday, February 1, 2018 volume 147, issue 14

SOCIAL MEDIA

The negatives of losing Yik Yak

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on Unceded Mi’kmaq Land 62 York Street W. McCain Student Centre Mount Allison University Sackville, New Brunswick

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EDITORIAL staff EDITORS-IN-CHIEF | Adrian Kiva, Mirelle Naud MANAGING EDITOR | Mathieu Gallant NEWS EDITOR | Maia Herriot, Minnow Holtz-Carriere ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR | Alix Main OPINIONS EDITOR | Allison MacNeill HUMOUR EDITOR | Carly Penrose COPY EDITOR | Charlotte Savage

PRODUCTION staff PRODUCTION MANAGER | Marina Mavridis PHOTOGRAPHERS | Gillian Hill, Chaoyi Liang ILLUSTRATION EDITOR | Sylvan Hamburger ILLUSTRATORS | Sarah Noonan, Louis Sobol VIDEOGRAPHER | Louis Sobol VIDEOGRAPHY PRODUCER | Lily Falk ONLINE EDITOR | Marina Mavridis

REPORTING staff NEWS REPORTERS | Amelia Fleming, Lily Falk ARTS & CULTURE REPORTERS | Max Chapman, Ryan Karimi, Jena McLean SPORTS REPORTERS | Keifer Bell, Hamza Munawar

OPERATIONS staff BUSINESS MANAGER | Jill MacIntyre DISTRIBUTION MANAGERS | Matthew Hamilton Fyfe, Shannon

DANIEL MACGREGOR Contributor Now bear with me for a second here.

I know that I just dug up a year-old corpse most would like to stay well buried under the ground. However, I ask you to tolerate the stench for about five hundred words, so I can show you, via an autopsy of the decayed mass, that it was not all cancerous growths and casual racism.

The hardest part of this article is defending an app that was known for its offensive nature and enabling of racism, and I will fully admit, as you can see from my portrait thingy, I don’t experience a whole lot of discrimination myself. However, Yik Yak was no more than a tool, and like any tool it is as good or as bad as the people using it. The anonymous nature of Yik Yak allowed for unadulterated shitposting by people who think books are only good for starting fires. However, it allowed everyone else to isolate this

Maria Dime (Pen name), Daniel MacGregor, Tina Oh, the Rev. Perkin, Derek Sharp, Katharyn Stevenson, Will Traves COVER | Gabrielle Johnson

PUBLICATION board Leslie Kern, David Thomas

DISCLAIMERS & COPYRIGHT of Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. The

KATHARYN STEVENSON Contributor

opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Argosy’s staff or its Board of Directors. The Argosy is published weekly throughout the academic year by Argosy Publications Inc. Student contributions in the form of letters, articles, photography, graphic designs and comics are welcome. The Argosy reserves the right to edit or refuse all materials deemed sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic or otherwise unfit for print, as determined by the Editors in Chief. Articles or other contributions can be sent to argosy@mta.ca or directly to a section editor. The Argosy will print unsolicited materials at its own discretion. Letters to the editor must be signed, though names may be withheld at the sender’s request and at the Argosy’s discretion. Anonymous letters will not be printed.

Comments , concerns or complaints about the Argosy’s content or operations should be first sent to the Editors in Chief at the address above. If the Editors in Chief are unable to resolve a complaint, it may be taken to the Argosy Publications, Inc. Board of Directors. The chairs of the Board of Directors can be reached at the address above.

All materials appearing in the Argosy bear the copyright of Argosy Publications, Inc. Material cannot be reprinted without the consent of the Editors in Chief.

YIK YAK WAS LAUNCHED IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA IN 2013 AND SHUT DOWN IN MAY 2017. AT ITS PEAK, THE APP WAS WORTH $400 MILLION. SARAH NOONAN/ARGOSY the roads clear in a winter storm, telling everyone that there were free cookies in the library, or allowing two random people to meet up IRL in the north-side quad to make a snowman.

Why is this dead and forgotten app even slightly important? New anonymous apps are set to take the throne left empty by Yik Yak, and these titans of social media have become polarized war zones

(especially since Twitter became the capital of Trump’s America). We should remember, now more than ever, everything Yik Yak did right if we are to put an end to the continuous flame wars and petty arguments that are status quo.

Mount Allison needs a qualified university librarian, not a manager

CONTRIBUTORS

opinion and the arts, written, edited and funded by the students

bullfuckery and challenge it, criticize it, and try to use words and faith to make the shitposters entire argument moot, if not change their minds, without fear of repercussions. Also, anything could be downvoted and removed, which meant the most toxic of posts could be removed via direct democracy.

Yik Yak was at times as toxic as teenage drama (because half the time that was all it was), but, as mentioned above, everyone could use the app.

Unlike other social media apps, where you are confined to the limited number of people you know from the gym or Magic: The Gathering tournaments, Yak connected everyone in a small radius regardless of their clique. As a person who loves debate, it is strange to me that the only platform where the entire student body could, in theory, engage with everyone else was an anonymous app.

It permitted all sorts of people, who would never even look twice at each other, to talk and share their feelings.

It was a respite for those who needed to vent their feelings, where others would provide support, as the app was anonymous.

People shared kind-hearted jokes that cheered up the entire Yak community. People could share praise and advice without expecting a shred of personal attention (outside of upvotes). Some examples included thanking the plow drivers for keeping

ADMINISTRATION

Power

The Argosy is the official independent student journal of news,

EDITOR: ALLISON MACNEILL | FEBRUARY 1, 2018 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

Over the past couple of weeks, the Mount Allison community has been discussing the recent decanal reconstruction proposal from Provost Jeff Ollerhead and what it would mean going forward for the University library and archives. This proposal, circulated by the provost, included the potential phasing-out of the university librarian position. The university librarian would potentially be replaced with a non-academic management position that would not require any specialized librarian experience or knowledge. Essentially, this proposal is suggesting the removal of the head librarian, who serves to manage, oversee and advocate on behalf of the rest of the librarians and library staff. In the grander scheme of things, this proposal seems to fall in line with the University’s desire to

streamline and reorganize things at the administrative level.

Our libraries are a crucial space for nearly every student and faculty member on Mt. A’s campus. Whether you’ve only been to the library a few times throughout your entire degree or you’ve spent more late nights in the stacks than you care to remember, the library is an integral place to the Mt. A community. The librarians are some of the kindest, most hardworking folks at Mt. A – always there to help find the best resources, answer research questions or simply be a smiling face on your way to and from class. It’s extremely disheartening to see the administration devalue the vital hard work that the librarians and library staff do for everyone here at Mt. A. How can you expect a university to produce high-quality research and provide the best academic resources for its staff and students when you can’t even be bothered to properly fund and organize the central space where all of this takes place? How can you expect a university to be ranked number 1 among all other universities when its most fundamental resource isn’t treated with the importance and respect that it should be?

Eliminating the position of the university librarian is not entirely shocking, to be quite honest, when reflecting on the administrative agenda of Mt. A these past few years.

MT. A’S LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES IS COMPRISED OF THE R.P. BELL LIBRARY, THE ALFRED WHITEHEAD MUSIC LIBRARY AND THE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES. LIANG CHAOYI/ARGOSY This proposal and the potential changes that it includes are a clear indicator of what is important and valuable to the University’s administration and what they feel they can cut corners on and get away with. It is simply another nudge towards minimizing certain aspects of the University that do not fall in line with, or serve to uphold, the shiny, corporate facade that Mt. A works so hard to keep up for all those Maclean’s readers. The demand for tuition rebates, the demand to support a women’s and gender studies program, the demand to divest from the fossil fuel industry – the list goes on. These aspects of the Mt. A

community are effectively seen as an inconvenience to this university’s administration. Should we let the University treat our library and our librarians as simply another line in the budget? As another inconvenience that can be shrunk down and minimized to better “streamline” at the administrative level? Absolutely not. As students, staff and members of this community, we need to stand up for our librarians. Keep engaged, keep informed and use your voice to speak out in support of the library.

The library is the heart and hub of our community here at Mt. A and we must treat it as such.

OPINIONS

THE ARGOSY | WWW.SINCE1872.CA

COLUMN

11

The Doomsday clock is a call for action we must answer through hopeful, positive change

THE REV. JOHN C. PERKIN Columnist For the second time in just over twelve months, the hands of the Doomsday Clock have been moved closer to midnight, the symbolic time of the collapse or annihilation of the human race. Usually the hands are moved by increments of a minute, or several minutes. Last year, the hands were moved ahead by 30 seconds, and

this month another 30-second move forward brought the hands to two minutes to midnight, or doomsday.

The term “Doomsday,” suggesting the final day of judgement, came into English usage in reference to the comprehensive record of lands owned and taxes owed in 1086 by order of William the Conqueror. It suggests final debts, but has also come to connote the judgement of the dead and the final divine judgement or

even destruction of the earth.

Not a biblical word, doomsday has nonetheless long been associated with biblical notions of apocalyptic judgement and destruction, expressing more recently the fear of destruction through nuclear war.

Nineteen adjustments to the clock have been made over the years, and the closest time to midnight, two minutes before, was recorded during the nuclear threat of the

1950s; the hands have now returned to that position. Highlighting the international challenges of the last year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the organization behind the Doomsday Clock, noted that “in 2017, we saw reckless language in the nuclear realm heat up already dangerous situations and re-learned that minimizing evidence-based assessments regarding climate and other global challenges does not lead to better public policies.”

While many may be alarmed at the new time, I think the message may be, in Douglas Adams’ famous phrase from A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, DON’T PANIC. As one who teaches apocalyptic studies, I return to the ancient apocalyptic texts and their meaning, which was to inspire confidence, hope and ethical behaviour in the face of challenge.

The texts spoke in polyvalent images and symbols of destruction, but rather than giving a message of doom they expressed hope through renewed effort.

Perhaps we should return to the essence of the apocalyptic images, and find inspiration and encouragement.

Since the “clock is ticking” for earth, we can and must use this as incitement to action. This could include:

completing negotiations that provide for reductions in nuclear warheads and delivery systems; adopting and fulfilling climate-change agreements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; and moving away from fossil fuels and to renewable energy resources.

The Doomsday Clock was a novel way of introducing the world to the threats of its own extinction. Perhaps after over 70 years we have become so inured to its existence that we forget the urgent call to action it represents.

But if we can hear the ticking clock not simply as a countdown to destruction but as a call to action, perhaps we can move away from living on the edge of disaster and find a way to sustain life and hope on earth. As the apocalyptic texts of long ago were a call to action, so the Doomsday Clock can echo that intent; it is time to decide, with the time still approaching midnight, to live instead in the full light of day, knowing that there will be a morning and a new beginning. As the president of the Bulletin writes, “It is urgent that, collectively, we put in the work necessary to produce a 2019 Clock statement that rewinds the Doomsday Clock. Get engaged, get involved, and help create that future.

The time is now.” In the countdown to Doomsday, time is in our hands.

LGBT2Q+

Allies must make an effort to learn about the trans community and to participate in difficult conversations NARISSA GALLANT Contributor You would not know unless I told you directly. My gender identity is something as basic to me, to who I am, as the lines on your hand are to you. My journey does not need to be shared with every person I meet, but I deserve respect as much as anyone else. My identity does not presuppose any set of core beliefs or ideals. It does not determine my interests or hobbies, nor does it explain my personality or behaviours.

I am genderfluid.

The reason I share this is twofold.

Firstly, it is because all of my friends here have accepted me, proving to me that the world is changing for the better and that I am able to feel safe and welcome. This is surprisingly true even in large groups of people, who come from all over the world, with diverse backgrounds, perceptions and understandings.

The second point is that life must continue to shift and progress.

There is no reason for one to become complacent. Complacency, although it may feel comfortable, is not comfort. It is the avoidance of discomfort only. It is a lack of action when action must be taken.

Transgender recognition and visibility is, for many, an issue that is not at the top of their priority list.

I want to try to express my feelings

from my own experience and hopefully help any cisgender person reading to get a better understanding of why this is so important.

It is exhausting to be in a class and to be misgendered by my classmates and my professors. It is exhausting to have to write emails; have meetings with professors, faculty and house staff; and constantly remind friends, classmates and professors what my pronouns are – mine are they/ them, by the way. It is exhausting to hear in sociology, psychology and philosophy binary terms such as “male” and “female” or be told that a certain experiment is, for example, “for women only” when they simply mean “only for those with vaginas.”

The constant feeling of non-existence, of subhumanity, that I and many of my friends experience is difficult to deal with on top of all the regular, culturally understood problems and dramas related to university. At some times it’s a constant nagging feeling and at others an unbearable sense of brokenness, a fear of how others will react when I out myself. I wonder sometimes what the world would be like if I didn’t have to experience this.

Unfortunately, my ideal solution to this is vague. The majority of students here are cisgender, and I have yet to meet any transgender faculty. I believe that if we are to achieve solutions that last and actually really work, there needs to be a continuing series

of conversations, both within the trans community and between trans people and cis allies. We need allies to listen to our stories, since most policymakers and other individuals in positions of power are cisgender.

Perhaps the heaviest, most in-depth discussions will happen in the future, but they must happen soon, and we shouldn’t wait to start talking. I understand that things are not always easy, and change sometimes must be painfully gradual. But the effort

to create change should never be cast aside at the expense of students who need support and deserve to feel complete, whole and worthy.

Of course, this is larger-scale thinking. On the smaller scale, I implore cisgender students to be open and accepting, and I encourage them to research on their own. Look up definitions, look up histories, look up significant historical and modern figures in the community, look up the significance of LGBT2Q+ flags. It is,

of course, important to talk to your trans friends, but I believe it would be easier on them – on us – if you came with information and requested clarification or assurance rather than simply asking your friends to explain everything to you. Advocacy is strongest when you take action yourself. I believe in my heart that the population of Mount Allison is capable of that love, of that strength.

I trust in that, and I trust all of you.

GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT AND EXTENDS FAR BEYOND THE TRADITIONAL MALE/FEMALE BINARY. SYLVAN HAMBURGER/ARGOSY

HUMOUR 12

EDITOR: CARLY PENROSE | FEBRUARY 1, 2018 | ARGOSY@MTA.CA

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ACROSS 1. This baked good is healthy, right?

10. To brag 14. A classic sleepover game makes you tell two of these 18. Takes out of 19. This connects to the humerus to make the elbow 20. What hemophiliac blood does not produce 22. Beats a bogey 23. What Barack Obama did in the U.S. for eight years 24. Best way to eat cake for breakfast 27. A feeling of awe 29. Dr. who probably doesn’t have a PhD. 30. Prefix that refers to smell 31. Beige-y colour 34. One of two options for a light switch 35. -fi, a necessary connection 36. @ 37. A treasure ______

39. Olympic achievement 42. To get used to 46. The second smallest continent 47. Competitor for Nike and Adidas 48. Ethnic antagonism 49. The ATM in the Stud is affiliated with it 51. What a sprained ankle does if not iced 54. Spongebob used this when jellyfishing 55. Prefix meaning upward 57. Greek celebratory exclamation 58. Many of these have happened due to the fentanyl crisis 60. Lion’s living space 62. A movement did this to Wall Street in 2011 64. Political channel in the U.S. 66. Counterfactuals ask “what __?”

68. Nickname for the celebrity father figure in The CW’s Jane The Virgin 69. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the same as Great Britain

ADVICE

TRILL WAVES Contributor What up, pleasure seekers. It’s Trill again. I may or may not have forgotten to write you guys tips until the last possible minute but, like, don’t worry about it. I was talking to one of my many fans on the phone earlier today and she wanted to know how to make a good Tinder profile. Well, as much of the Sackville Tinder community already knows, I am the god of Tinder. As usual, I’ve got three tips for your success, so let’s crack into them.

Tip 1: The Pictures. A phrase I like to use often is “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.” This applies to your pictures on Tinder. Your Tinder pictures should effectively work as a trap. Lure them in with a good

picture of you, maybe you in a group of other people. This forces people to look deeper into your account to determine who you are and also whether or not you look nice enough for them to swipe right. Maybe post a second nice picture, but after that you must show your true colours.

Up-the-nose close-ups, shirtless pics revealing your mostly hairless, skinny-fat dad-bod, and, of course, a pic of you, severely drunk, passed out in some public place (mine is at a church). If they aren’t enticed by the real you, then they don’t deserve you.

Tip 2: Your Bio. Do not leave your bio on Tinder blank. That’s a fucked thing to do. You need to continue drawing them in with your bio. A list of acceptable questions for your potential matches to ask is good; that way you can prepare

70. This noble gas is often used in store signs 71. Dilapidated, or not quite right 73. Exclamation of sadness 74. The production, distribution and trade between certain parties 75. Locations built for filming TV shows or movies 77. A “Galway girl” might know this singer (they’re probably on a firstname basis) 78. Kronk’s livelihood depends on pulling these 81. Honduras, online 82. Slang term for something that is definitely going to happen 84. British grocery store 85. A New York baseball player 87. Swedish car company that no longer makes vehicles 88. British artist whose albums are named for her age 90. Troubles 92. Wear deodorant if you want to

impressive answers. Also be sure to connect Spotify and have your top artists as Slipknot, Korn, like three ska bands, and some, like, obscure harsh noise band. Other acceptable additions to your bio are the exact dimensions of your junk (including mass and volume), a web address to your LinkedIn, and the phrase “420 freindly.”

Tip 3: Messaging. You can walk the walk, but can you talk the talk?

What you say on Tinder is very important. You want to be bold, yet subtle. Flirtatious, yet disinterested.

Gross, yet somewhat pleasant. My favourite form of communication is to use primarily Randy Savage (RIP) GIFs. There’s a lot that the Macho Man can convey and I think that he’s a prime way to a woman’s heart.

Also a good move is to text them “u up” or “wyd” at, like, 11:30 p.m.

Bonus Tip: Who to Like. The answer is everyone. Get Tinder Gold and like everyone. Every.

Single.

Person.

On. Tinder.

I hope you’ve all found these tips useful. I sure have. Catch me back here next week – if they allow me back, lol (always unsure of that). xoxo – Trill

avoid having one 93. A bad vacuum both does and doesn’t do it 94. Kills 99.9 per cent of viruses and bacteria on your countertops 95. Israeli news source presented in English

DOWN 1. Reagan was in power during this period 2. This dream stereotypically involves 2.4 kids, a white picket fence 3. Roller-coaster, e.g.

4. Show of agreement, on Twitter 5. Name of a germ voiced by Chris Rock in a 2001 movie that takes place in a human body 6. If you’re making something up, you’re going off the ____ 7. Cat-eating extraterrestrial from the 80s 8. Made from yarn 9. British barcode number 10. Company known for making kitchen appliances 11. The show named after this place featured characters Sandy and Kirsten Cohen 12. First name of this “weird” musician 13. Smaller than a city, bigger than a village 14. Watch this channel to get caught up on the scores from last night’s games 15. To invert 16. Sticky, brown industrial material 17. Toby’s department in The Office 21. There are three feature-length Pixar stories about being one 25. The counterpart to a download (abbr.)

26. Like the UPS guy, but for humans 28. Bambi’s mom 32. A trendy ____-latte is made in the peel of this fruit 33. Cried, but dramatically 36. To go on the offensive 37. People in Boston threw it in the harbour way back when 38. Like the yolk of a perfect overeasy egg 40. First word in the title of a song

typically sung to ring in the New Year 41. Cowboy’s vital tool 43. To be sent a copy of an email that was not originally addressed to you 44. Type of language that does not employ metaphor or hyperbole 45. Type of professional fighting that Conor McGregor practices 50. The trendiest meal of the day (and an excuse to drink before noon!)

51. Country of origin for paella 52. Hermione’s is made of vine wood and dragon heartstring 53. Everything and everyone was packed into the car 56. This first part of this province’s name, but in the second official language 57. The Call of Duty video games’ were black 59. Like an affirmative response from Dora 61. Sniffers 63. Rose-like flower that is most common in spring or summer 64. Art form practised by Jerry Seinfeld and Fred Armisen 65. Opera tenor Michael 67. Not well-defined; low-contrast 71. Like the food from the farmers market 72. What you might hand in at the end of a course instead of writing an exam 76. A tall one of these can result in short patience from listeners 77. Descriptor for someone in their “scene phase” 79. A vasectomy involves getting the ___ deferens blocked or cut 80. Bank whose mascot is an animated man in a bowler hat 83. If an offer is available for a “limited time only” (acronym) 86. One of the many nicknames for Toronto 89. Precedes Niño to make the name of a weather pattern 91. Vincent, Nicholas and Lucia all prefer to be addressed this way

Find last week’s answers on the Argosy’s twitter feed (@The_Argosy)

ADVENTURES OF PUNNY PAUL

JASMINE HO /SUBMITTED

Joke of the week: WHY ARE PLUMBERS SO TOUGH? BECAUSE THEY’VE SEEN SOME SHIT MARY MCGAFFEY /SUBMITTED