Concordia University’s weekly, independent student newspaper
theconcordian
VOLUME 33, ISSUE 20 | TUESDAY, FEB. 16, 2016
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theconcordian
They’re still missing, we’re still marching Montrealers take to the streets to show their missing and murdered sisters are still mourned and never forgotten
News p. 3 also in this issue
life
Barbie hits the town in style
arts
p. 5
music
The Coen brothers The electric take Hollywood p. 7 Rae Spoon
sports
p. 12
opinions
ConU’s student Living with a fear tennis coach p. 15 of living p. 17
news
NEWS EDITORS /// news@theconcordian.com GREGORY TODARO ( @GCTodaro) & LAURA MARCHAND (
CITY BY SAVANNA CRAIG NEWS ASSISTANT
High schoolers in Laval give back to those in need
Robber who had acid hurled on his face pleads guilty Richardson François pleaded guilty for three robberies he conducted between Oct. 2012 and March 2014. On Jan. 22, 2013 he and an accomplice attempted to rob a jewelry store on Querbes Street. According to the Montreal Gazette, the robbers then threatened Verma’s family members in the shop, who armed themselves and fought back. One family member threw hot acid on François’ face. The robbers retreated, but were arrested shortly after. The person who threw acid was not charged, but François faces a minimum jail time of seven years.
Montreal SWAT team subdues man armed with knife The Montreal police SWAT team were called to an apartment at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning in Ville Saint-Laurent to subdue a man waving a knife around. The situation was difficult for the SWAT team, as the man did not appear to speak English or French. “He had a knife in his hand [and] was threatening police. He did not appear to understand what officers were saying to him,” Montreal police spokesperson Benoit Boisselle said to Global News.
CAMPUS
Six-figure settlements: a long part of Concordia’s history
The most recent departure from the university’s administration isn’t rare BY SAVANNA CRAIG NEWS ASSISTANT @savannacraig
Concordia’s former chief financial officer received a $235,000 severance package after only working at the university for three months. The university announced the departure of Sonia Trudel in mid-November last year, but an article from La Presse published on Feb. 10 revealed the cost of Trudel’s payout. This isn’t the first time a Concordia employee was given a severance of at least six-figures: the university was fined $2 million in 2012 by the Quebec education ministry for excessive severance packages and mismanaging funds. The Concordian has compiled a timeline from our archives of severance deals given to former Concordia employees based on previously published stories.
CLAUDE LAJEUNESSE ($1.4 MILLION)
Claude Lajeunesse resigned two years into his five-year contract as Concordia’s president. He had previously served as president at Ryerson University for 10 years. At the time, university spokeswoman Chris Mota told The Concordian: “I think the Board wanted change faster on some level,” said Mota. “I have heard discussions on both sides, governors who argue that the strategic plan that we’re working on has not moved fast enough. Other members think it’s right on track.”
Former Concordia CFO Sonia Trudel.
JUDITH WOODSWORTH ($703,500)
TED NOWAK ($605,000) AND SAAD ZUBAIR ($639,000)
2007
2011
In 2011, Judith Woodsworth resigned as president of Concordia less than halfway through her five-year term, walking away with $703,500. A member of the Board of Governors at the time told The Concordian in 2011 prior to her resignation she “choose to resign as she could have stood up to the board and stayed if she wanted to.” Woodsworth was the second Concordia president to resign in five years. She later returned to Concordia as a professor in the French department.
Ted Nowak and Saad Zubair, both former auditors at Concordia, were dismissed in September 2009 after allegedly not disclosing meal expenditures.
2009
KATHY ASSAYAG ($700,000)
LARRY ENGLISH ($332,000)
The former vice-president of advancement and alumni affairs left her position for personal reasons in September 2010. Assayag walked away with a severance package of $700,000.
2010
Larry English announced his resignation in September 2009 after 13 years as the university’s chief financial officer. He received $332,000.
2009
CAMPUS
CSU’s Anti-Consumerism week launches These workshops can help you consume less and create more BY SAVANNA CRAIG NEWS ASSISTANT @savannacraig In our mass producing and consuming society it can be easy to fall into the grind of solely buying new products. In reality, most of our consumption can be cut by reusing, donating unused items and making products ourselves. To learn how to do this, students can participate in Anti-Consumerism Week hosted by the Concordia Student Union. The initiative, which kicked off on Monday, aims to help inspire students to become more environmentally friendly and distanced from the cycle of buying and disposing. The CSU teamed up with on-campus organizations and students that wanted to help educate others on sustainable, cheap ways to DIY, sticking it to mass-production and capitalism. The main organizer is CSU campaigns coordinator Anastasia Voutou, who also organized last
year’s Buy Nothing Day to promote the reduction of mass consumption. Voutou said that Buy Nothing Day was already wellknown, why not form a whole week against over-consumption instead of just one day. “It’s such a good idea, we had to bring it back this year,” external affairs and mobilization coordinator Gabriel Velasco said. Anti-Consumerism Week started with “Love is Anti-Capitalist,” a talk on how to avoid over-consumption, production of excess waste and ending the capitalist design that created modern society. Another event taught students how to make paper using recycled materials. “I’m doing the 101 papermaking from scratch,” said sustainability coordinator Gabrielle Caron. “It’s basically reusing newspaper or printed paper that is no longer up to date, then we can just reuse it and create our own paper out of it.” In the evening, Velasco hosted a workshop on how to make eight litres of cider for
under $20. “We worked with existing organizations on campus to have them co-facilitate workshops,” Velasco said. Some of the organizations included the Concordia Food Coalition, Sustainable Concordia, Concordia Safe Cosmetics and the Concordia Greenhouse. “By having students physically going up to the greenhouse, seeing the space [and] participating in the workshops, it makes it one step closer to getting involved in that organization,” Velasco said. Most of the workshops take place on the 7th floor of the Hall building, however the Indoor Growing 101, Dumpster Diving will be located elsewhere. “So we tied several organizations [together].” “Some of the executives are going to be doing their own workshops, as well,” said Caron. “There’s also independant students outside of these organizations who have come forward [to share their expertise].” Other events include volunteers at the greenhouse teach-
ing how to grow microgreens indoors in all seasons, a farmers’ market on the Hall building mezzanine, and teaching cyclists on the structure of their bike and how to perform repairs. Anti-Consumerism Week will conclude with an outing to the Jean-Talon Market to dumpster dive on Feb. 18. “We wanted to promote an alternative lifestyle where you’re not just mindlessly consuming [and] creating waste, you’re learning life skills to be more self-sufficient,” Voutou said. She mentioned that this week promotes self-sufficiency and throwing back traditional skills that have often been lost through time due to learning how to buy instead of make. Anti-Consumerism Week takes place from February 15-19 with most of the events taking place in the CSU Lounge on the 7th floor of the Hall building. More information is available online on the CSU’s Facebook page.
PHOTOS: ANDREW DOBROWOLSKYJ, CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY
Staff and students from North Star Academy in Laval handed out food, clothes and other resources to the less fortunate on Sunday. Students and faculty distributed supplies in Montreal’s, Old Brewery Mission. North Star Academy Principal Josée Pepin said, “We went and bought chocolates, roses and cupcakes because we want to celebrate Valentine’s Day with them as well, so they know that they’re thought of.” Global News reported that this is the third year this school has taken action and Pepin said they will continue to do so regardless of the temperature.
@Marchand_L)
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
COVER STORY
Fighting the elements for missing and murdered native women Seventh annual memorial march meets despite bitter cold BY GREGORY TODARO CO-NEWS EDITOR For the families of missing and murdered native women, Valentine’s Day acts as a reminder of what they’ve lost. “They say, ‘there was one day of the year we’re receiving roses, chocolates, kisses, hugs—but we don’t anymore because we lost a loved one,’” Innu spokesperson Michèlle Audette said of those families to the crowd outside St. Laurent Métro on Sunday. Despite the strong winds and temperatures dipping as low as -40 C with the windchill, hundreds of people gathered in Montreal for the annual Memorial March for Missing Murdered Women and Girls. This march was one of the many happening across the country. Montreal-based groups The Buffalo Hat Singers and Odaya
performed to the crowd before the march started. The participants walked north on St. Laurent Boulevard and passing dozens of red dresses on fences and lamp posts representing the missing and murdered native women. The group stopped before Sherbrooke Street and occupied the street, playing music and dancing to keep warm as police directed traffic away from the area. This was the seventh annual event to take place in Montreal. The original Memorial March for Missing Murdered Women and Girls started in Vancouver in 1991 in response to the murder of a Coast Salish woman that received little attention from police or media, according to Justice for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, a Montreal-based grassroots movement.
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NATION BY SAVANNA CRAIG NEWS ASSISTANT
Coldest Valentine’s Day for Canadia since 19th century Eastern and central Canada was hit with extreme cold this past weekend. Quebec’s extreme weather warning had wind chills hitting a low of -46 C which was cold enough to freeze exposed skin within five minutes. Temperatures in Barrie, Ontario dropped as low as -33.3 C, which has not been this low on Valentine’s Day since 1879, when Sir John A. Macdonald was the prime minister. The Toronto Star reported that Valentine’s Day in Welland, Ontario faced chills dropping to -26.9 C, beating the last lowest record in 1885, the year Louis Riel died.
Trudeau plans to cease airstrikes on Daesh
REMEMBERING MISSING AND MUDERED WOMEN “Our sisters can be found everywhere. They can be found in the wind; found in the cold; found in the north, south, east, west; found in the trees; found in the roots of the trees, and in your roots; they’re in your blood; in your eyes; in your spirit; in the spirit we have together. If the wind picks up, it’s because they hear you. And they thank you.” Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, addressing the march. Translated from French. Photos by Marie-Pierre Savard.
The government has set to triple the quantity of its “train, advise and assist effort” overseas. Canada will continue to refuel one plane and two surveillance aircraft within Syria. With 69 special forces currently employed in Iraq, some have mentioned fear that sending more will create a greater risk for issues to arise, reported CTV News. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan commented that this would be more risky, but crucial for Canada to help defend against Daesh militants.
Snoop Dogg enters Canada cannabis industry Snoop Dogg has recently made a business deal with Ontario marijuana producer, Tweed according to the Ottawa Citizen. This is Snoop’s first entrance into Canada’s cannabis industry. The deal will allow Tweed the right to use specific content and brands owned by LBC Holdings, which is owned by Snoop Dogg. The contract will last three years, with the possibility of a renewal for two more years. “There are real social and medical benefits from the cannabis industry,” Snoop Dogg said in the article. The Montreal Gazette reported Tweed president Mark Zekulin said the company will introduce recreational marijuana products, as they currently just produce for the medical marijuana market.
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theconcordian
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
HOUSING
Masters of our own house
CSU housing initiative would offer affordable student-reserved apartments
BY LAURA MARCHAND CO-NEWS EDITOR @Marchand_L Moving in warm lamplight on a dusky late afternoon, CSU general coordinator Terry Wilkings stands with his arms extended, casting shadows on his office wall. His fingers become lines on invisible charts as his voice narrates the steady separation of his two hands. “The increase of cost year over year that students pay for housing far exceeds the rate of inflation,” he explains, his fingers arcing dramatically upwards. It’s a trend that Wilkings claims has plagued the city for the past 30 years, and it’s a problem the Concordia Student Union (CSU) has decided to tackle—for better or for worse—with its ambitious cooperative student housing project. The goal is to create affordable, co-op student housing tied to the rate of inflation. The apartments are estimated to cost about $425-$450 a room per month and would be reserved for Concordia undergraduate students. The project involves the CSU donating $1.85 million from the Student Space Accessible Education and Legal Contingency (SSAELC) fund into the new Popular University Student Housing (PUSH) fund. The donation accounts for approximately 15 per cent of the SSAELC’s total capital, and is a one-time donation from the CSU. The PUSH fund will then contribute approximately 20 per cent of the total cost of the project, with the Chantier de l’économie sociale providing another 10 to 15 per cent. The remaining funds will come from a mortgage negotiated with Desjardins. These funds would then be loaned to the non-profit group UTILE to acquire or build the exclusive student housing. Profits from the rent will be returned to the PUSH fund, so that the fund could one day take that capital and expand to create even more housing. The tenants of the co-op would be responsible for managing the property amongst themselves. Wilkings said the acquisition of the property and the circumstances surrounding it are yet to be determined, but he expects the first students will be able to move in by 2019 at the latest. To start, the CSU is looking to ensure there are a minimum of 100 bedrooms available in at least one building. Currently, the priority
will be in finding a location relatively close to the university, likely in an area such as St-Henri or N.D.G. The project began in earnest in the summer of 2014, when the CSU participated in a study by UTILE that looked into affordable student housing in Montreal. The report concluded what many students in the city may already know. “Students pay a lot more for housing than non-students,” said Wilkings. “It’s systematic. Students are unaware of their tenant rights, so they don’t exercise them. They face predatory landlords that literally prefer students because they don’t know their rights.” It’s worse for international students, Wilkings said, though out-of-province students are close behind. On the whole, students pay over 30 per cent more than the median market rate. “We have a lot of out-of-province and international students,” said Wilkings. “[Concordia] has been disproportionately impacted by the private rental housing market in Montreal. After seeing the results of the survey … it would be irresponsible for us not to act.” He claims that a lack of student housing is pushing students away from financially and socially responsible solutions. “There are 800 residence beds at Concordia. We have 35,000 students,” said Wilkings. “We have several hundred-thousand students in Montreal, and there’s total—with all the residences—probably less than 10,000 [beds]. So where are these students going? They’re going to a predatory housing market.” Wilkings cites for-profit student housing initiatives like EVO housing on Sherbrooke and near Bonaventure as ways students can be taken advantage of. “These private enterprises come in and charge well upwards of 50 per cent over the market median,” said Wilkings. In addition to helping students, the CSU’s ultimate goal is to influence the municipal level to look into affordable student housing and to reverse the impact that students have on gentrification in the city. “In [Coderre’s] platform … he was talking about how he wanted to bring families back into Montreal,” Wilkings said. “However, right now you have a scenario where a lot of apartments that would be for families are being occupied by two, three, four students sharing the rent cost.
PUSH FUND REVOLVING FUNDS PATIENT CAPITAL PARTNER RESPONSIBILITIES : FINANCIAL CONTROL ASSUMPTION OF RISK GROWTH AND PROPAGATION OF THE MODEL
BOARD MEMBER
DONATION CONTRACT
NOMINATED BOARD MEMBER
LOAN CONTRACT
FINANCIAL BACKER RESPONSIBILITIES : LONG-TERM POLITICAL VISION
REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER
LEGAL GUARANTEE OF REFERENDUM MANDATE
COOP
RESPONSIBILITIES : TECHNICAL EXECUTION DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODEL
MANAGEMENT CONTRACT
BUILDING MANAGER
SUPPORTING BOARD MEMBER
RESPONSIBILITIES : LOCAL QUALITY OF LIFE SUPPORT FOR COLLECTIVE AND COMMUNITY PROJECTS
Four incomes can out-compete the one or two incomes of a family, and that’s how you’re seeing inflationary upward pressure on the housing market.” Wilkings hopes that the co-op housing will help reverse that gentrification in the community by freeing those homes for families and residents. “We want to address the needs of students through housing, but also build collective solutions that can foster relationships between students, the university campus, and the neighbourhood community.” The CSU coordinator hopes students will see the difference between the co-op housing project and student residences. “Personally, I find that residence living styles can be paternalistic,” Wilkings said. “There isn’t the same degree of independence.” Students in the housing co-op will not be forced to comply with a meal plan, or any of the restrictions that come with living in residence. Essentially, the building will be an apartment building with affordable rent reserved for Concordia students. Building student housing hasn’t been easy in the city. In 2005, UQÀM attempted
FUTURE BOARD MEMBER
SUPPORTING BOARD MEMBER
to create a new residence and commercial hub for its student population. The project, Îlot Voyageur, was canned only two years later after costs reportedly ballooned above $500 million. Montreal Gazette reported that the project almost tumbled the university into bankruptcy, and student leaders cited Îlot Voyageur as an example of financial mismanagement. “[Îlot Voyageur] was a big debacle,” Wilkings conceded. “As a result, there was a desire to address student housing. A recognition that student housing is problematic in this city.” Wilkings hopes that once the student housing co-op is underway, they can explore further projects to benefit the neighbourhood. “We can develop collective projects for the community that have deep social impacts that far exceed the campus itself.” In the future, Wilkings hopes once other student unions see that the project can succeed, that more of them will follow suit. “We’re empowering students to improve their own living conditions.” Graphic by Florence Yee. Infographic courtesy of the CSU.
life
LIFE EDITOR /// life@theconcordian.com CRISTINA SANZA ( @Cristina_Sanza)
EXHIBITION
Barbies everywhere The Barbie Expo in Montreal is the largest in the world BY CRISTINA SANZA LIFE EDITOR Barbie’s in town, but she’s not just here to play. The Barbie Expo, the largest permanent haute-couture Barbie exhibition in the world, is here to showcase the diversity of Barbie, and it’s located right in the heart of Downtown Montreal. The expo, which opened on Feb. 11 in Les Cours Mont-Royal, features over 1,000 unique dolls, each wearing distinct, limited-edition outfits. The space is 5,000 square feet, very bright, spacious and decorated with huge sparkling chandeliers. A large waterfall area separates the two wings of the exhibit. Entrance to the expo is free, but donations are accepted. All proceeds will go to Make-A-Wish Quebec, a charity dedicat-
ed to fulfilling the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. “It’s fashion for a good cause,” said Valerie Law, vice president of marketing and communications at Les Cours Mont-Royal. You can find Barbie wearing luxurious brands such as Chanel, Givenchy, Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren. The outfits are representative of the brand name, too, be it Barbie wearing a classic pink Juicy Couture velour tracksuit, or a leather Moschino ensemble complete with gold hardware accents. “The expo is important for Montreal because we want to celebrate and highlight the fashion presence that we have here. Montreal is one of the fashion capitals of the world,” said Law. “Les Cours Mont-Royal is a high-fashion mall and all of the brand names that you can find on the dolls can be also found in the stores of the mall.” The expo isn’t just for the fashionistas, though. If you’re into sports, you’ll be amused by the NBA Barbies or the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. If you’re into pop culture, you may gawk at the Jennifer Lopez, Marilyn Monroe and Beyoncé dolls. If you’ve seen wax figures of your favourite celebrities before, the dolls will seem like miniature versions of them. Most of the Barbies are displayed in long rows in a glass encasing along the walls of the expo space, but there are specially designed displays for other dolls, which look nearly like miniature villages. For instance, the Times Square display features a backdrop of the area, a yel-
low taxi cab and the infamous Naked Cowboy. The haute-couture fashion show display features Barbie models walking down a runway as other dolls watch. Flashing lights make the display seem all the more realistic. There’s also one for Comiccon characters and the iconic ‘50s television show I Love Lucy. There are many Barbies that represent different backgrounds, such as indigenous Barbies, black barbies or ones that represent countries. Virtually everyone will find a doll that they connect with. However, the newly-released dolls
that come in different body types are not included in the exhibit. The Barbie Expo is located on the second floor of Les Cours Mont-Royal, 1455 Peel St.
PICTURED Over a 1,000 dolls are displayed at the exhibit. Barbies wear custommade designer outfits from brands like Coach and Calvin Klein. Photos by Cristina Sanza.
APPS
Grab a bite in just a few clicks
The 10 Min MTL app suggests restaurants based on your mood and location
Graphic by Thom Bell.
BY VALERIA CORI-MANOCCHIO STAFF WRITER
Attention Montrealers who enjoy eating and often take public transit: there is a Montreal app that satisfies your hunger while minimizing your data charges. The free user-friendly app 10 Min MTL doesn’t require a Wi-Fi connection. Users simply select what they want to eat based on their current mood and the app presents them with several options, all within 10 minutes walking distance of a metro station. As founder and creator Dan Crisan said, 10 Min MTL satisfies everyone’s preferences. Crisan said the main goal of the app was for it not to rely on Wi-Fi, and to build something different than what’s already in the food app market. It’s his way of giving more people access to simple, straightforward information. It’s for those who may be thinking “I’m hungry, show me [a restaurant] that’s close,” he said. You could
be in the mood for junk food, healthy food and even sweets, and the app will suggest accordingly. Whether you consider yourself a foodie, a party-goer or a late night public transit user, 10 Min MTL quickly seeks out the best, closest sources of nourishment for you without using up much cellular data. After late-night study sessions or in between classes, students can grab a bite with one or two clicks of their iPhones. Crisan, a software engineering student at McGill, thought of the idea a year ago and created it during the 2015 winter break. “Coding has the power to do everything,” he said. His main goal in making 10 Min MTL was to apply a solution to a problem using his own engineering and programming perspective. “I wanted to do something for the city … and the community, to join as many people together as possible,” he said.
Crisan also thought about the generic problems young adults and teenagers face when they go out—someone’s always hungry. But bigger apps like Yelp and Urban Spoon require Wi-Fi and offer a lot of information that slows down actually choosing a restaurant. With 10 Min MTL, determining your destination is simply a few clicks away. The app is always growing as users can suggest new places to Crisan through 10 Min MTL’s ‘suggest a mood’ and ‘suggest a place’ options. The next step for Crisan is to expand the app onto Android phones. He is also considering monthly restaurant sponsorships. Regardless of future adjustments, though, Crisan is adamant on keeping the app free so everyone can utilize it. Learn more about 10 Min MTL at app10min.com
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theconcordian
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
FOOD
Do you want some MELK in your coffee?
This small, intimate coffee shop is the ideal place to relax and sip BY REBECCA LUGER STAFF WRITER MELK is a low-key coffee shop tucked away down Stanley Street—easy to miss, but worth the extra time trying to find it. MELK is very small and quaint, so you really get that intimate vibe when you’re sipping on your coffee—it’s relaxing and comfy. It’s a great way to get away from the hustle and bustle of downtown, without having to leave the area. There are a few wooden tables for patrons, light-coloured, modern-style paintings along the walls and they have a selection of their coffees and coffee-related products hanging on the walls for purchase. The overall look is a tad industrial with modern accents. It’s a simple, clean, neutral-coloured space. I ordered a milk chocolate hot chocolate. It had just the right amount of sweetness and the taste of chocolate wasn’t overwhelming. The milk balanced the chocolate nicely. MELK has an extensive menu of coffees, teas and other drinks. You can get your espresso any way you want—allongé, cortado, american and so on. Cof-
fees can be served either hot or iced. The tea menu is big as well, with tea flavours ranging from green to chai and rooibos. A cool and interesting aspect about the menu is that next to each tea shown on the menu, they list the country that the tea originates from. There’s a small selection of snacks to enjoy with your drink as well. A variety of cookies, brownies, scones and assorted pastries sit at the counter. I decided to try one of their homemade macadamia nut cookies and it was delicious. It was fresh and a fairly big cookie. The texture was soft and gooey, yet it had the perfect amount of crunch to it on the outside. Prices for drinks range from around $2.40 to over $4 and gets pricier if you add anything extra to it. For instance, adding one of their homemade marshmallows to your drink costs an extra $0.50 and getting soy or almond milk is $0.45 more. The calming ambiance of the café makes a it great spot for students to unwind and relax. Soft tunes play in the background, and the overall vibe is calming. It’s the perfect place for doing some school work, hanging out with friends or
enjoying a hot cup of coffee solo. However, there is no Wi-Fi. MELK has two locations. You can hit up MELK on either Stanley Street or on Monkland Avenue in Notre-Dame-deGrâce. Photos by Kelsey Litwin. MELK is open Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and and on weekends 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
SCIENCE
An incredible scientific tool that can edit human DNA
Concordia panelists discuss the ethics of gene editing via CRISPR technology BY KATERINA GANG STAFF WRITER Experts in the social and natural sciences gathered at Loyola campus last Wednesday to kick off Concordia’s Beyond Disciplines discussion series with a talk on the ethics of editing genes with Clustered Regularly-Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology. The talk featured five Concordia professors and one undergraduate from the
departments of biology, philosophy and political science. Panelists discussed CRISPR technology, which now allows scientists to edit embryonic and stem cell genes cheaply and with specificity. Journalism professor David Secko hosted the talk. CRISPR technology functions via natural bacterial immune system reactions. Some bacteria fight infections by releasing enzymes that cut DNA from infectious phage and incorporate it into its own genome to fight future infections. With CRISPR technology, scientists can clone the cutting enzymes and incorporate them with designed matching sequences, giving the module instructions to go and cut DNA at a specific site. Donor DNA can be added, with overlapping sequences at the target site, to introduce mutations during DNA reparation. CRISPR’s potential uses are diverse. “My field uses the power of this technique to edit model organisms to help us understand how specific genes contribute to crucial cell physiological mechanisms,” said Alisa Piekny, associate professor of biology at
Concordia. called “genetic agency” in an individuProfessor of biology Vincent Martin al and on an evolutionary scale, reducspoke about CRISPR’s potential as a tool ing the ways in which the organism can for uncovering genetic causes of diseas- naturally develop. es, rather than curing them. At this point, “We are living beings woven into comhe said, “the solution doesn’t have to be plex relationships with other living beings CRISPR.” around us,” said Morris. “CRISPR presents But some speakers explained ethi- a sudden jump in our ability to modify livcal dilemmas would arise with CRISPR’s ing beings and these relationships. Our eventual use on humans. track record of intervenWhat started as a scientiftions in our biosphere is not What started as ic tool could lead down a good.” a scientific tool slippery slope to “designer With China and Britcould lead down babies” and organisms that ain green-lighting human a slippery slope lack agency with regard to embryo modifications with to “designer genetic development. CRISPR, Piekny warned Associate professor of Canadian policy has to keep babies” and philosophy, Matthew Barkup. “[People] should realize organisms that er, explained all genes exthe importance of keeping lack agency. ist somewhere between our policy up-to-date, so “harmfulness” and “harmthat the ethics and science lessness.” But there is little consensus on are considered together,” she said. where most genes fall and which can be “How does the government and soedited. ciety reconcile that need for scientific While most agree fatal illness- progress and for reaping the economic es should be cured, many disagree on benefits, with claims being made by civil whether disabilities like low intelligence society that these technologies are poor deafness affect wellbeing enough to tentially detrimental to their communiwarrant edits, said Barker. Some deaf ties?” asked associate professor of politparents opposing CRISPR argue removing ical science, Francesca Scala. deafness from kids may negatively affect According to Scala, discussions are their wellbeing by impairing their ability to “a way of bringing in citizens and emconnect with their parents. powering them to exercise their own David Morris, Concordia’s philoso- scientific citizenship.” phy chair, said CRISPR’s specificity may A second Beyond Disciplines event is help end dissent, but issues of organ- scheduled for March at Concordia. This isms’ genetic agency remain. By editing talk will focus on the role storytelling and an organism’s genes, you change it’s fu- narratives play in research. The exact date ture in a definite way. Doing so solidifies is to be confirmed. Graphic by Florence Yee. its future, which removes what Morris
arts
ARTS EDITORS /// arts@theconcordian.com LYDIA ANDERSON ( @LydiaAndersonn) & ELIJAH BUKREEV (
@ElijahBukreev)
FILM
A comedy of faces, Romans and communists The new Coen Brothers film takes on ‘50s Hollywood with their trademark panache BY ELIJAH BUKREEV CO-ARTS EDITOR The Coen Brothers had partially left the field of comedy to experiment with a western and a folk music drama, from which they have returned unhurt—Hail, Caesar! is classic Coens material, complete with a kidnapping, a ransom and deliciously foolish characters. It’s not their best, but who cares? Such cinematic delights are much too rare to turn down. This is original, unrelenting fun, and if you’re familiar with the Coens’ style and ‘50s Hollywood films, it will be right up your alley. Hail, Caesar! is set in the Golden Age of Hollywood, right in the studios and backlots and offices where Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a so-called “fixer,” works on getting stars out of trouble and production running smoothly. He may be the most important man in Hollywood, and he’s certainly treated as such, but he goes to confession every day, full of existential doubting. Still, if you’re a film director and your lead actress gets pregnant, but she’s unmarried and can’t say for sure who the father is, Mannix is your man. If the star of your biggest production gets kidnapped, well that’s going to be a bit more complicated, but Mannix may just get to the bottom of it.
Hail, Caesar! marks George Clooney’s fourth collaboration with the Coen Brothers. Scarlett Johansson stars as a fictional actress whose looks alternate between magical mermaid and femme fatale.
That star is Baird Whitlock, played by George Clooney in another looney performance in a Coens film. Clooney has shared in interviews that he’s concerned about the directing duo saying they write these characters specifically with him in mind. He’s right to be concerned, because he fits Whitlock like a glove, making some of the funniest facial expressions you’ll see this year. Is there such a thing as facial comedy? If so, there’s lots of it here— countless characters come and go with few or no lines, but their faces speak with the virtuosity of silent-era actors. Making a film about Hollywood usually comes with mocking and admiration in equal measure, which is certainly the case here. Scenes of westerns, Biblical epics,
musicals and costume dramas are reconstructed with not only a feeling for parody, but a stylistic and technical precision that spells out the directors’ attachment to the era. As you’d expect, there’s also talk of the Cold War, and a subplot that is so uproariously silly, it might finally put to rest any suspicion of a leftist takeover of Hollywood. Hail, Caesar! is the kind of film where you want to discuss every scene and plot detail, but any trailer—trailers for Coen Brothers films are often masterpieces in themselves—will give you a full feel of what you’re getting without divulging much, and it really is better not to divulge anything about the scene-stealing parts of Alden Ehrenreich and Channing Tatum. The two are total newcomers to the Coens uni-
verse, but they get the tone and the looks exactly right. The line “Would that it were so simple” may not mean anything to you now, but once you’ve heard it in the proper context, it proves rather unforgettable. A leitmotiv of sorts that runs through all of the Coen Brothers’ work, it suggests that while life is often strange and absurd, it’s also entirely possible to have a little fun with it.
HAIL, CAESAR! Directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson Released on Feb. 5, 2016 Duration 106 min
FILM
Claude Lelouch’s latest cinematic ode to love In Un plus une, you’ll find passion, spirituality and two people’s journey through India BY AMBRE SACHET ASSISTANT ARTS EDITOR
to earth and she’s all about spirituality. Anna and Antoine have nothing in common, and yet... Antoine loves to ask himself the quesA film composer who’s freshly in love, tions no one ever seems to ask them- Antoine Abélard flies to India to collaborate selves. Like where did the swallows land with a director from the Indian new wave, before electric wires were invented? This is Raul Abi, on his latest film, titled Juliette and a daily routine for Un plus une’s French pro- Romeo. After being introduced to Anna, tagonist. the wife of the French ambassador, and a After more than 40 films since 1961, in- life-changing country, India, Antoine will cluding Un homme et une femme (1966), find the prejudices he holds challenged, L’aventure c’est l’aventure (1972) and Les one at a time. uns et les autres (1981), famous French di“To love is to love someone else more rector Claude Lelouch proves he is far from than you love yourself.” Antoine slowly out of breath by offering this invigorating learns to let go of his unbearable yet atand realistic vaudeville. tractive selfishness by illustrating little by He’s in love with a pianist and she’s little this quote from Lelouch’s press inmarried to an ambassador. He’s very down terview on his film with Pascale and Gilles Legardinier. Anna is focused on getting pregnant through positive thinking, until she lets herself be seduced by everything she despises. The protagonists suffer the effects of passion as much as the viewer takes delight in Lelouch’s devotion to life in its most Jean Dujardin plays Antoine Abélard, a film composer.
complicated forms. Drawn by the clichés of the male chauvinist and the naive bourgeoisie, the story takes time to settle. But soon enough, Jean Dujardin and Elsa Zylberstein paint a picture of one of the most impenetrable feelings in a most natural way. Drawn by this universal concept since his debut, even claiming to be deeply in love with love itself, Lelouch makes films that hardly give a materialistic representation of love. Amma, whose full name is Mata Amritanandamayi, is currently known as one of India’s foremost spiritual leaders. Yet she considers love as her only religion. Many who were skeptical about her gift will have their minds changed once she’s taken someone in her arms. Amma comes as the the connecting point between the characters and love’s major and purest symbol in this movie. The scene that depicts her embracing people she doesn’t know is overwhelmingly honest. It’s an evident illustration of Lelouch’s ode to love. Anna and Antoine are stuck with each other on a pilgrimage leading to Amma: Anna is on what she calls the “path of fertility” while he just wants to get rid of a headache. The farce is incongruous but lovable in the style of a pure vaudeville. Alice Pol and Christophe Lambert, playing
Alice and Samuel, the pianist and the ambassador, are the finishing but essential touches to this disillusioned quartet. Un plus une is a nod to 1969’s Love is a Funny Thing, one of Lelouch’s classics starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Annie Girardot, to which the protagonist makes a straightforward reference in the breakfast scene. The melodious rhythm of Lelouch’s new film is reminiscent of this ‘60s classic, where music and love blended on a divine level. Anna stops questioning the universe when she finally realizes that the dumbest questions are the most important ones. Whether pure love is possible in the modern age is another question that could be asked here, just as it was in Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse (1962). Un plus une will probably not be considered one of Lelouch’s classics, but the director works in an unpretentious way, demonstrating once more that he has nothing left to prove.
UN PLUS UNE Directed by Claude Lelouch Starring Jean Dujardin, Elsa Zylberstein, Alice Pol, Christophe Lambert Released on Feb. 12, 2016 Duration 106 min
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theconcordian
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
EXHIBITION
New age artwork Virtual reality is quickly changing the way we tell stories and understand our world
VIRTUAL REALITY After the success of Sensory Stories, Phi Centre opened the Virtual Reality Garden. Photos by George Fok.
BY TIFFANY LAFLEUR ASSISTANT ARTS EDITOR @TiffLafleur At the Phi Centre, you don’t merely watch the story unfold. You are dropped in the middle of the action, becoming part of the narrative as current social issues from around the world are revealed through inventive accounts. Wander amongst the survivors of the deadly Ebola outbreak in Liberia. Follow 12-year-old Sidra through a refugee camp in Jordan. Sit across a desk from former U.S. president Bill Clinton. Following the success of Sensory Stories, an immersive storytelling experience which featured 16 works from artists from around the world, the Phi Centre has continued shattering the conventional notion of how we tell stories by opening their Virtual Reality Garden. Using cutting-edge technology, the Virtual Reality Garden features four outstanding works that push the limits of conventional storytelling to address unique points of view on current socio-political issues using creative narrative approaches. With virtual reality, you are not looking through the window as an observer—you have walked through the window and become a participant. Commissioned by the United Nations, Clouds Over Sidra by Chris Milk and Gabo Arora tells the story of Sidra, a young Syrian refugee, as she guides the viewer through a typical day at the Zaatari refugee Camp in Jordan, home to 84,000 Syrian refugees. In Nomads: Maasai by Felix and Paul Studios, you are witness to the Maasai’s incredible heritage in the village of Enkutoto, from beadwork to dancing to singing. This piece has no narrator; you are an outsider dropped in the middle of an
unfamiliar situation and act as observer, trying to make sense of the sights and sounds happening around you. You may follow Ebola survivor Decontee Davis in Waves of Grace, by Milk and Arora. Set in Ebola-torn Liberia, the work recounts how Davis uses her immunity from the disease that nearly killed her to visit Ebola patients in the hospital, helping them on their road to recovery. Or you may travel to East Africa to see with your own eyes how members of the Clinton Global Initiative have helped local communities, be it by teaching them how to use solar power or by giving hearing-impaired children hearing aids. In Inside Impact: East Africa by Felix & Paul Studios and M SS NG P ECES for Matter Unlimited, former U.S president Bill Clinton articulates the difference his initiative has made. The Virtual Reality Garden raises interesting questions regarding virtual reality and how it can be used to report on distant issues that are hard to grasp. Humans understand issues through storytelling. The troubles and sacrifices of a world across an ocean mean nothing unless we have a character to associate them with. With characters, we understand the consequences. The Virtual Reality Garden gives us just these characters, to walk us through the issues and help us understand large and complex phenomena, such as the lives of Syrian refugees, a little better. These 21st
century problems are being understood through 21st century technology. The Columbia Journalism Review is already hailing virtual reality as the next journalism frontier, encouraging newsrooms to start dabbling in the technology if they haven’t already, especially considering how consumer adoption of virtual reality is on the horizon. Through virtual reality, audiences can follow journalists to remote places which they normally would never have been granted access. Despite its space-altering qualities, it’s not perfect. The headsets can be heavy and clunky, tilting forward if not adjusted properly. Glasses do not go well with the experience either, as they’re pushed up to the bridge of your nose. However, the physical discomforts do not negate the upsides of the technology. In a Ted Talk from March 2015, director of both Clouds Over Sidra and Waves of Grace Chris Milk explained how virtual reality films can be used to leave a lasting impact on users, changing minds with the stories they tell. Milk asserts that virtual
reality has a powerful effect on people, drawing on emotions and inducing empathy in the viewer. In collaboration with the United Nations, Milk has been showing his works to those who have the power to change his subjects’ lives. Documentaries exploring pollution in India, disaster relief in Nepal and climate change in China and the Amazon are scheduled for release at a later date. Milk believes that virtual reality is more than just a machine—it’s a way to be more human. “It’s not a video game peripheral,” he said in his Ted Talk. “It connects humans to other humans in a profound way that I’ve never seen before in any other form of media. And it can change people’s perception of each other. And that’s how I think virtual reality has the potential to actually change the world.” To see these space-altering works for yourself, head over to the Virtual Reality Garden at the Phi Center, open now through March 31. Admission is free.
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
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EXHIBITION
Hosting the quintessence of Montreal J’aime MTL opened at Station 16 on Feb. 11, check it out before March 1
STATION 16 (1)The exterior of Station 16 is eye-catching. (2) Nne artists with distinct styles are featured. (3) The word search was done by Ryan Labrosse. Photos by Marie-Pierre Savard.
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BY LYDIA ANDERSON CO-ARTS EDITOR It could be because of the diverse boroughs and architecture, the plethora of festivals and cultural events, the bilingualism or the population of people from all over the world, but whichever way you look at it, the city of Montreal has a distinct and unique personality. It radiates a specific urban taste and is multifaceted in nature, it has something different for every type of person. Montreal is a city to be proud of and Station 16 agrees as they launched their exhibit J’aime MTL on Feb. 11. 2
Station 16 began as a silkscreen printshop that sold their products exclusively online, but after a growing demand from their clients to see prints in person, the founders opened their gallery location on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in 2013. “We thought ‘okay, this is crazy, we should really just open the gallery, quit our jobs and just do our dream job,’” said Emily Robertson, one of the founders of Station 16. She believes their gallery space to be one that differs from the norm and one that can elevate your expectations of what a gallery is or could be. Robertson herself completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree in art history at Concordia. Yet, still to this day, she expressed that galleries have a tendency to make her feel uncomfortable. “There’s no music, it’s totally silent, you can’t talk in front of the artwork, you feel like
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you have to be some sort of elite to have some sort of thought [about] the artwork. And I’m thinking ‘wait, if I’m thinking like this, what about all of the people who have never studied this or who are just walking into a gallery for the first time?’” said Robertson. “It’s so unfortunate that there’s this hierarchy [so] when you walk into a gallery you’re not welcome. So, we just wanted a space where people can just come in, talk, [where] there’s good music [and] there’s good art. That was sort of the goal as to why we opened in the first place.” Robertson said she has been wanting to put on an exhibit exclusively centred around Montreal for some time now, to showcase how artists visualize the 514. Featuring artists such as Jonathan Bergeron, Laurence Vallières, Jason Wasserman and more, the Station 16 team chose artists that depict their view of Montreal through wonderfully individualized and diverse artistic expression. One artist, Marie-Claude Marquis, was scouted by Robertson through social media. For J’aime MTL, Marquis used oil paint and varnish on vintage plates to create decorative dishes that display humorous Quebecois turns of phrase. Marquis’ utilization of vintage plates began in 2014 when she created a wall installation centred around the theme of heartbreak. She originally attempted to use phrases from her personal journal on shattered, broken plates but ended up using plates that were intact. After attempting the same process a second time for a handmade market and succeeding well in sales, Marquis continued to use the medium.
Familiar words such as “tabarnac” are painted in beautiful calligraphy. The plates, as a collection, depict the image and vision Marquis has of our city. “It’s really mostly about Quebec identity … it’s like inside jokes with people I know … Everyone at the end is relating to it because we’re all a bit similar,” said Marquis. “We are like a community … Quebec: there’s nobody like us in the rest of the world, so I think it’s really nice to focus on that and celebrate that.” Another artist, Ryan Labrosse, expressed his fondness for interactive art and because of this he created a massive, bilingual word-search on a chalkboard wall within the gallery. The collection of letters contains phrases and words as well as the names of artists and titles of pieces in the exhibit. Guests are invited to circle their findings in the flurry of shapes before browsing through the other artistic celebrations of the city. From the all-too-familiar image of a spiralling fire escape to cardboard squirrel sculptures or a large can of maple syrup in the middle of the floor, this exhibit offers a variety of takes and artistic endeavours that explore the essence of the city and the province. The collection allows you to look at Montreal through the eyes of creative artists, contrasting or echoing the large culmination of details you have collected which produce your own personal image of Quebec’s metropolis. J’aime MTL is on display at Station 16 (3523 St. Laurent Blvd.) until March 1.
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FEBRUARY 16, 2016
FEATURE
A lifetime through Cabot Square
BY SARA BREITKREUTZ WITH BOBBY VAUGHAN
D
o you remember the first time we met? You were singing. I think it was “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band. Some people call me Maurice… It was almost four years ago, a cold day in February. I was handing out steaming bowls of soup and pieces of bread in Cabot Square, a small park at the corner of Atwater and Ste-Catherine, in the heart of Shaughnessy Village. The incessant, metallic sounds of the construction site across the street drifted around us as you pulled an oversized plastic beer bottle from your winter coat and drank a toast to the towering bronze-and-marble statue of John Cabot that still stands in the middle of the square. Your friend Ced was giving you a hard time for drinking in front of me, but I laughed it off, and then you started telling me about the ‘old days’ when the Forum still hosted the Habs and the square was filled with crowds and pot dealers and line-ups to get into rock concerts. These days Ced is in the hospital and the construction site is now a tall grey condominium with a Starbucks on the ground floor. New cranes have popped up on the other side of Ste-Catherine, promising more condos and more coffee shops. Cabot Square has been
completely renovated, despite fears that the neighbourhood’s rapid gentrification is pushing low-income and precariously housed people further out into the suburbs. But you’ve been sober for six months now and you look great. You’ve shaved your beard. You’ve lost some weight. Everywhere we go people are telling you how much better you look. How are you doing? Me? I just live day by day. I’m just happy you remember me and don’t mind if we take a quick walk around the neighbourhood together. What do you think of how Cabot Square looks these days? What do you think of the ‘facelift?’ I miss the old park. Leaves crunch under our feet as we walk across the porous white pavement that was installed to replace muddy grass. They say this is the future, but what’s the future? It’s so ugly. Five and a half million dollars for that. They said well, at least when it rains the water goes into the ground, it don’t stay on the cement, but who gives a fuck about that? I personally think they did the park like that because of people on the street, people drinking and partying in the park. I think the only benefit about the park is that the police can’t go in there in their cars no more. You have a point. Since the square reopened last summer there have been
more police in the area, but the new design at least prevents them from driving through the park in their cruisers like they used to. Like so many others, you’ve been a regular in Cabot Square for a long time now. It’s not because you have nowhere to stay, but because, as you’ve told me, you struggle with alcoholism. You’ve seen this place go
and your mother, who relied on welfare supplements to make ends meet. You’ve lived around here almost for almost 50 years; your birthday is next week. How did it used to be? It’s not like the old days. You gesture north towards SteCatherine Street and I turn my head as you take me back in time. There were stores everywhere, it was
They say this is the future, but what’s the future? It’s so ugly. Five and a half million dollars for that. through a lot of change and as we keep walking this becomes the theme of the hour. Shaughnessy Village has gone through drastic socio-economic and architectural transformations in the last few decades. Every five minutes or so, it hits you, and you have to say something. It’s so different now! You tell me you grew up on Souvenir Street, behind the now-vacant Montreal Children’s Hospital that looms on the south side of the square. You and your 10 siblings were raised by your father, who worked at the Forum Tavern as a waiter,
lit up everywhere. You’d go along and there was lights everywhere. Now you don’t even see the lights no more. Back in the days, like in the ’70s and even in the ’80s, you’d look down Sainte-Cat’s and it was lit up like a Christmas tree! Everywhere you’d go there was nice lights and clean stores and that. It’s all changing. Maybe you see a lot of lights further down, but everything here’s too dull. From where we’re standing we can see the blocky monstrosity of the Forum. These days people go there to
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CABOT SQUARE The renovated park in the winter means cop cars can’t drive into it anymore, but the perks end there. Photos by Marie-Pierre Savard.
see movies at the multiplex, but from the mid-’20s to the mid-’90s it’s where people went to see the Canadiens play hockey. And the concerts. Did you ever see anyone big there? I think I saw Janis Joplin, I saw the Stones, Jimi Hendrix. I saw them all there. It was amazing. But it looks so different now. I miss the Forum. Especially Saturday night hockey. There were thousands of people, the streets were blocked off! You point to the SAQ at the southeast corner of the building. It used to be an old brasserie where you could go and drink a couple of beers before the game. The brasserie was cool, everybody went in there. It was basically a lot of old people in there, you know. All the ladies would go in there with their husbands. I think they closed at 12 o’clock at night. When you wanted food they delivered it from the deli. You look to the next block over, where the condos went up in 2012. There, right on the corner was the Forum deli. I loved the food in there, especially my club sandwich! Ah. And then beside it you had the… like a Chinese place, they made their own muffins and that… Like a Chinese bakery? Yeah! But it’s gone now, pfft! Here you’ve got a bank, you’ve got the Adonis. It looks like there’s no life there, there’s no nothing. What else has changed? Has
anything stayed the same? You point to the Forum Tavern where your dad used to work and you would sneak in as a teenager to play pool. It’s boarded up now and crowded in by construction scaffolding. You point to where the old Seville theatre used to be, where you and your friends would go every Saturday to see the movies. Now there’s a towering grey condo. And then there’s Moe’s restaurant, maybe the last place that remained from the ‘old days,’ a tiny casse-croute on the corner of de Maisonneuve and LambertClosse where the hockey announcers used to go. It’s still called Moe’s. As we amble back to Cabot Square, we run into David Crane, an outreach worker, whose new field office is in the square’s renovated lavatory. You and David talk almost every day. You tell David what you’ve been telling me, and start to wax lyrical about the old days and all the things you miss in the neighbourhood. David is pragmatic. “There are a lot of guys around here who miss the old days, but you know the old days are never coming back,” he says. You nod. The old days were rough sometimes, too. No one is sure what is going to happen to Cabot Square and the neighbourhood. The Montreal Children’s Hospital closed last year and even more
condos are being built. As we walk back to the Cabot statue we look up at the massive brick hospital building. I’d like to see them do something with that hospital. I keep hearing they might convert the hospital to public housing. But no one seems to know for sure. You know, they’re always saying, ‘Oh, they’re gonna build city houses.’ What do they want to do, put us near the river? What, ’cause we’re poor you want to put us off the island or something? What the fuck is that? We’re human. Like, duh. You know, it’s sick the way the world is now. I don’t know. I guess that’s the way of the future. You ain’t smart enough, or you ain’t… I don’t know. You gotta be educated in the world now. If you ain’t educated you ain’t gonna move on. It’s very simple. Me, I don’t care. Me, I’m fine. I just live day by day. I’m happy the way I am. What do you think people who remember Shaughnessy Village from the old days think about this place and what’s happened to it? I think they’d want the old things back that were here. It was so nice then. There were a lot of stores. Now you’ve got the Tim Hortons, but they’ve got them everywhere. I like the old style, like the old Chinese bakery where they had the muffins and that, donuts, and they’d make your own bread for you, and you’d come back in a couple of hours and it’s
freshly made for you. You don’t have that no more. Everything’s gone, I don’t know. I think a lot of people miss that. I guess a lot of people like that are older people, but even the younger generation would have loved it like that. As we stand here together in Cabot Square and I get ready to leave, I think that maybe if you’re still around, remembering how things used to be, then the lively, well-lit streets of the old Shaughnessy Village won’t quite have disappeared. You and your memories will still be right here at home, as Steve Miller sings, Right here, right here, right here at home…
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The stories in this series are products of the Inclusive Journalism Project, a research initiative that seeks to develop a new way of reporting about poverty and homelessness. Whereas conventional articles speak about the poor and the homeless and address readers outside those communities, the stories produced by this project are written as dialogues, or conversations, with their subjects, and are intended to speak to their communities.
music
MUSIC EDITOR /// music@theconcordian.com SAMUEL PROVOST-WALKER
PROFILE
The humble, quirky talent of Rae Spoon Steeped in personal themes and experience, Spoon’s body of work is truly singular
CATCH THEM LIVE Rae Spoon will be performing with Glenn Nuotio in Montreal on Feb. 25 at Casa Del Popolo. Their new album Armour is out Feb. 19.
BY DANIELLE GASHER STAFF WRITER
R
ae Spoon does everything. They* write books, they work on documentary-musicals for five years, and they make a lot of albums. The Calgary-native’s eighth solo and first self-produced album, Armour, comes out on Feb. 19 and it’s bringing quite a different sound than their previous widelyacclaimed 2013 album, My Prairie Home. “I wanted to move into an electronic direction,” said Spoon about Armour. “In My Prairie Home, I kind of revisited a lot more folk, and a lot of different genres. The album before that was fairly electronic, so I wanted to get back to that.” Over five years ago, Spoon embarked on a powerful, scary and personal journey that would become an immense success and an important project for both their career, and for LGBTQ awareness. The project was My Prairie Home, a documentary chronicling Spoon’s past experiences with gender confusion as well as their musical career. The project started out of another project; in 2007, director Chelsea McMullan was looking for a subversive country musician for a documentary she wanted to make. A friend told McMullan about Rae: “Her friend was like, ‘Oh there’s this trans country singer,’ so I worked on that and [Chelsea and I] became friends,” said Spoon. A few years later, McMullan suggested an idea to Spoon for a documentarymusical about the prairies where Spoon grew up, and the project was built from there. Having grown up transgender in a Pentecostal household with a
paranoid-schizophrenic father, Spoon had an interesting story to share, and an interesting relationship with the prairies. The process for the documentary started with Spoon writing stories and songs for the movie. The stories got published into a book called First Spring Grass Fire, for which Spoon was awarded an Honour of Distinction from the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT writers in 2014. The songs were put into an album, My Prairie Home, which became a longlisted nominee for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize. And the movie? Well it became a
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Spoon prefers to be addressed by the pronoun “they,” as clarified in an interview with Now Magazine; “I think the ‘they’ pronoun is a pretty cool thing. It’s letting a lot of people not have to identify as a man or a woman. Whatever it means to them.”
shortlisted nominee for the Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards. The documentary, as well as the soundtrack that accompanied it, were very personal explorations of Spoon’s life as an agender musician, their childhood, their experiences and their family. Spoon admits that it could be quite uncomfortable talking about such personals parts of their life during the filming process, and that it still is to this day. But Spoon believes discomfort and honesty are important for writing. “I really think with writing, writing books
and writing songs—writing anything—if singer has continuously demonstrated you’re not writing something that really over their career through carefully craftkind of challenges you or makes you ed lyrics and an enchanting voice. feel uncomfortable, it usually doesn’t As the album’s producer, Spoon turn out to be very good… at least for was also in charge of deciding when me,” said Spoon. the product was finished. “When you Spoon admits that writing a new album get very into working on something, it after such an impactful project was an gets hard to become a bit subjective so interesting experience, but they knew I took a lot of time, really working on they wanted to move away from folk for a the writing. I wanted the songs to make while. “It’s definitely interesting to try and sense you know,” said Spoon. write an album after something like that. While the singer enjoyed the I think the most important thing is not to experience, they admitted they were keep replicating. Like, if something works, excited to finish up and get back on the it’s better to move away from it, in my road. experience. Or else, you end up making “I really wanted this album to come like six albums that sound like it, and then out because I was tired of not touring. I you lose the reason why you started in the kind of pumped it out from like April to first place. So I’m always pushing myself to February. It was really a rush. I mixed try new instruments and to write different the album and then it was mastered the songs, as different as possible.” next day and then the press release went “Armour’s self-produced enigmatic out the next day, so it was a pretty bratty soundscapes blur the lines between move on my part,” said Spoon with a organic and electronic instruments,” laugh. “It worked out in the end.” according to Spoon’s website. Indeed, In My Prairie Home, Spoon sings Armour’s sound is one of many sounds. “when you don’t fit into the gender system, The singer plays up their pure and people tell you like you shouldn’t exist, and strong yet fragile voice you don’t exist. I’m here with groovy electronic to tell ya… I exist.” supporting riffs and For people who feel an interesting use of different or who still various instruments don’t know where they such as the cello, exist, Spoon’s advice electronic drum kits is to talk. “Something and electric bass, and that always works for programs like analogue me is actually being synthesizers. more open about my Rhythmically and experiences, because musically, Armour sometimes I think we’re The album cover for Armour. is miles away from socialized to think that Spoon’s country beginnings, but the al- what makes us different, we should be bum holds the same mature soul the hiding it or trying to not be it.”
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
theconcordian
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OPINION
The lasting ripples of Twitter beefs
Quickspins
Get the playlist: http://spoti.fi/1XuIwbt MASSIVE AT TACK
Ritual Spirit (Virgin Records, 2016)
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Though entertaining in its own right, social media has had a troubling impact on hip-hop AVOID THIS
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FLESHGOD APOC
ALYPSE
King (Nuclear Blast, 2016)
In the six long years since Massive Attack’s Heligoland, the duo has not only remained opaque in regards to new music; they’ve remained mum. Grimy and grim, Ritual Spirit serves up a densely atmospheric tease, its greatest offense in the form of its brisk runtime. Clocking in at 17 minutes and comprised of four songs, this is Robert Del Naja’s baby through and through, living and breathing in urban U.K. hip-hop decay, two-step shuffles and ominous tribal percussion. Culminating with a cavernous appearance by trip-hop artist Tricky, Ritual Spirit serves as a potent, if all too brief reminder of Massive Attack’s expert craftsmanship and pinpoint precision. That being said, an LP would be nice. Trial track: “Dead Editors”
8/10 — Samuel Provost-Walker
Committing wholly to their hellish penchant for orchestral excess, Italy’s Fleshgod Apocalypse double down on style and showcase little discernible substance on King, their fourth album. Thanks to a garish mix, the overblown orchestration is given a plastic-y sheen, never given enough room to coalesce with the band’s uninspired death metal. To make matters worse, King’s cabaret-style presentation does the band no favors, its spoken word sections proving insufferable. For all of their commendable attempts at reinvention, Fleshgod Apocalypse simply don’t have the songwriting chops to measure up to genre contemporaries Septicflesh. Symphonic death metal shouldn’t sound this processed and soulless. Trial track: “In Aeternum”
3/10 — Samuel Provost-Walker AVOID THIS KEVIN GATES
Islah (Atlantic / Bread Winners’ Association, 2016)
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ABBATH
Abbath (Season of Mist, 2016)
Black metal’s Abbath has always been distinguished by his love for all things rock & roll, as well as his penchant for taking the piss out of the genre’s incredibly self-serious conceit. It’s disappointing then that Abbath, his first release following a messy, public split with his former band Immortal, is such a shockingly lifeless affair. Featuring overly sterile production and third-rate black metal riffs, none of the new band’s elements play to Abbath’s eccentric strengths, his presence still as commanding and unbridled as ever. A sudden, fleeting foray into orchestral bombast on “Ashes of the Damned” essentially encapsulates the album’s biggest problem—a disheartening lack of diversity—while providing glimpses into the Abbath album that could have been. Trial track: “Ashes of the Damned”
Simply put, Kevin Gates’ Islah is club rap. His beats are generic club bangers, dipped in pop melodies to create a range of sounds that vary from trippy to corny. Though Gates’ flow initially seems somewhat simple, he throws a handful of surprisingly solid verses at the listener later on. These verses come in sharp contrast to his horribly cheesy pop choruses. His lyrical content is basically non-existent; Gates touches on basic gangsta rap themes like doing drugs and being rich. On top of this, he takes a page from pop songs by rapping about banal love stories. If you’re looking for a hip-hop album that displays solid creative content, Islah is not it. Trial track: “Kno One”
5/10 — Samuel Provost-Walker
3/10
— Emmett Stowe
BY CALVIN CASHEN ASSISTANT MUSIC EDITOR Since the advent of social networking services, Twitter has enabled users to exchange information via 140-character messages and discover the latest news relevant to subjects they care about. You’d be surprised by the impact a 140-character message can possess. Twitter supposedly contains information of value, but lately the media platform has become a lightning rod for trash talk. When surveying Twitter, a noteworthy tweet might pop up here and there, but extended slander between artists is sure to pervade your feed. This is known as a “Twitter beef.” A Twitter beef is essentially the airing of grievances towards a person using social networking as a medium of expression. These beefs come in a variety of forms but seem to be mostly aimed at female pop stars and rappers. The media eats this stuff up. and this aggression is a downright cash cow for both artists and corporate structures. This social media free-for-all derives most commonly from a wild misunderstanding, disparaging remarks, or racially motivated censures on pop culture. Take the Kanye West controversy for example, in which he, in classic Yeezy fashion, singled out Wiz Khalifa for name-dropping Kim Kardashian. Further developments revealed that Wiz was referring to, “Khalifa Kush,” his strain of weed. Kanye then engaged in a brawl of ‘@’ signs, after Wiz denounced his new album The Life of Pablo’s former working title, Waves. Wiz instigated the feud, but it serves as a perfect example of a beef blown out of proportion. With often hilarious results, artists have an integral need to prove their worth. Celebrity antagonism isn’t something totally out of the ordinary. From Nicki Minaj’s endearingly absurd jabs at Miley Cyrus (“Miley, what’s good?”), to Chris Brown’s bafflingly enduring contentions, the ‘10s are replete with celebrity hostility.
These feuds usually happen behind closed doors, frequently evaporating from a pop culture centerpiece into an irrelevant thing of the past. Twitter on the other hand, gives artists with a smartphone the opportunity to publicize their hatred. The thing is, once you press that tweet button, it’s permanent. Looking back, 2015 hasn’t been short on beefs. Meek Mill called out Drake for purportedly using a ghostwriter and Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift swapped criticisms about body norms and racial prejudice at award shows. All-out digital war has erupted due to Twitter and it’s downgrading the importance of music in the public eye. This polarization is reinforced by a number of contentious world issues like the rising tide of police brutality and the flaws affiliated with the justice court system. Nicki Minaj brought up some fair points on racial partiality in the VMA awards, quite epically nailing down the problem with Twitter and the award season at its core—“U couldn’t go on social media w/o seeing ppl doing the cover art, choreo, outfits [of her song “Anaconda”] for Halloween… an impact like that & no VOTY nomination?” she tweeted. The fact that blacks are more liable to unfair discrimination on social media and across all aspects of culture, is simply immoral. Making sense of this topic and the aspects that pertain to it is becoming increasingly blurry in modern society. At the end of the day, celebrities are ordinary people—highly prone to spurof-the-moment outbursts. However, if we’re unable to separate image from music, are we really better off watching it all transpire from afar? The fact that rap music is being relegated to a genre of parody, in a time where its communal agenda has never been more relevant is a hate-crime all in itself. My point is that social media isn’t supposed to alienate its consumers from a cultural saturation standpoint; it’s supposed to encourage solidarity. And that is a feeling of security that has been lacking crucially from our social ethics. Graphic by Florence Yee.
sports
SPORTS EDITOR /// sports@theconcordian.com ALEXANDER COLE ( @a_cole39)
ICE CLIMBING
Climbing up the icy walls of Downtown MTL Two Concordia students take a risky trip up the McTavish ice walls near McGill BY MATTHEW LAPIERRE CONTRIBUTOR
Because if you’re most people, it isn’t every day that you get to go ice climbing in the middle of Downtown Montreal. It isn’t every day that you get to look Nick McCullagh and Matthew Packer up at your friend with blades attached are not like most. They’re both Concorto his feet, wielding two axes, kicking dia students and avid rock climbers and and stabbing his way up a sheer wall of adventurers. They do not like to waste ice surrounded by a panorama of sky- time. They’ve climbed mountains as far scrapers. away as the Peruvian Andes and the French Alps. For them, a day spent on an ice wall or a rock wall is a day well spent. A desolate mountain peak? Even better. They’ve recently discovered a new spot to hone their adventure skills right in the middle of Downtown Montreal. The two readily admit that they aren’t ice climbing experts. They idolize ice-gods like Will Gadd and Conrad Anker but they insist you don’t need to be an ice god to enjoy some of the easy vertical ice which Matthew Packer makes his way up the icy wall. is smack in the middle Photo by Mel Allard. of Downtown Montre-
al. Even better if you’re a McGill student; there’s good ice climbing on your campus. Where? The McTavish ice walls. Located just behind McGill, on the side of Mount Royal, is a beautiful ice wall about 300 metres long and five to 10 metres high. The McTavish walls are not world class ice, but they are lots of fun. They form when water flowing down Mount-Royal accumulates above the McTavish reservoir and freezes into a blue-hued facade. Perfect for Packer and McCullagh to use two downturned ice axes and sharp 12 point crampons to hit and kick their way up it. Climbing there is technically illegal but after rappelling down into the basin the two climbers aren’t worried about being caught. The ice is perfect today and the view of Downtown Montreal adds to the adventure. They set up a rope and climb the same route several times, pausing only to reposition it over some fresh ice. The duo is dynamic but not fast: grace is preferable to speed. Ice is delicate; climbing it requires finesse. A poorly placed axe-head or miss kick with a crampon could upset the frozen surface and send the climber tumbling; a result which would likely
leave bruises at best and require a visit to the hospital or morgue at worst, but Packer and McCullagh do not fall. The most dangerous occurrence of the day happens when, as McCullagh climbs, he dislodges an arm-sized chunk of ice. He shouts a warning and Packer nimbly steps out of the way as the chunk shatters at his feet. In the afternoon they become a tourist attraction. As curious Montrealers look on, they pose to make what they’re doing seem especially lethal as photos are snapped. Sweaty and hungry after what seems like an hour, they dismantle their gear, strap the intimidating axes to their packs and trudge down the hill into McGill campus. When asked about their next trip idea Packer responds: “Out west somewhere, to head into the alpine. The climbing in Quebec is good but it’s nothing compared to the real mountains. It’s great practice though.” A look at their phones reveals that without realizing it, almost the entire day has passed. The time was spent violently stabbing a wall of frozen water with miniature pick-axes, surrounded by skyscrapers and tourists. But they wouldn’t have it any other way.
OPINION
Can we have a little bit more pride for our teams? A rant on why it’s dissapointing that the student body dismisses varsity teams BY ALEXANDER COLE SPORTS EDITOR As a student sports journalist who covers the CIS teams here at Concordia, I hear a lot of people tell me that they simply don’t care about the teams here. The reasons people give me for their overall apathy towards the Stingers and any other campus sports team usually boils down to three factors. The first factor being, “Well they always lose so what is there to care about,” the second being, “Who cares about the CIS, it’s not the NCAA,” and the third is, “it’s boring.” Let me just start off by saying that if you believe any of that to be true, you are truly ignorant about CIS sports and how entertaining they really are. I’ll be honest, at first I was skeptical of how good CIS sports could be. In the media, they barely get any exposure when compared to their U.S. counterpart, the NCAA. Even TSN shows more NCAA highlights than they do CIS. While there are a few reasons for that, such as the lack of televised events, one could still get the wrong impression. My attitude completely changed when I covered my first Stingers football game. The Stingers were playing the Carabins from Université de Montreal, who just came off of a Vanier Cup vic-
tory. The Stingers lost 41-28, but it was one of the most entertaining football matches I had seen in my life. The pace was quick. Touchdowns were being scored consistently and the level of play was extraordinary. Writers and other people The pace I have talked to who was quick. have actualTouchdowns ly gone to see were being the Stingers scored play, no matter consistently the sport, have and the level told me how of play was surprised they extraordinary. were by how high the level of play was. Yet those who haven’t taken in a game still remain cynical. This is especially true when it comes to fellow sports journalists who don’t want to cover games because they don’t care enough about the Stingers. They see it as a waste of their time when, in reality, covering the CIS is a wonderful opportunity that can open up so many doors for you. It is baffling to me that in an institution such as a university, where everyone is an adult, people still have childish views when it comes to their sports teams. CIS athletes work just as hard as any. They
have to take the same amount of classes as the rest of us. They have to do all the same assignments as us. Except, they also have to go to practice, play games and deal with the pressures of competing. The idea that our teams always lose is simply a myth. The men’s basketball team went on a seven game winning streak recently. Our hockey teams are going to be in the playoffs. The football team has made the playoffs the last two seasons now and the women’s rugby team made it to Nationals. This idea that we always lose, is completely unfounded.
I think that people forget sometimes that student athletes aren’t just machines that are a part of some brand. They are students and people just like the rest of us. You don’t have to show up to every game or buy all of the merchandise but at least have a little pride in your school. These athletes bust their ass to represent Concordia and it’s discouraging when you hear so many people be dismissive of the Stingers and the CIS in general. Graphic by Thom Bell.
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
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PROFILE
Much more than just your average student Dominic Labelle is the tennis coach for one Concordia’s little known teams SERVE IT UP Concordia tennis coach Dominic Labelle is a final-year exercise science student. Photos by Kelsey Litwin.
BY ALEXANDER COLE SPORTS EDITOR
For Labelle, being a student and managing the team hen people think becomes even more of students who difficult when it are involved in comes to the travuniversity sports, el aspect. The tenmost would assume nis season is from that the student is a player or trainer January to March for one of the teams. Dominic Labelle, and in the 15 weeks however, has taken on one of the most that the season runs important roles a team could offer. for, the team travLabelle is a third-year exercise sci- els to places such as ence student and is the coach of the Laval, Boucherville, Concordia University tennis team. Ac- Vaudreuil and Loncording to Labelle, the tennis team was gueuil. This means founded in March of 2011 by a couple of that every weekend students who wanted to play tennis at can take up a large the university level. By September of that chunk of Labelle’s year, Labelle made the team as a player studying time. but in February of 2012, the coach at the On weekends when the tennis team time had to give up the position, which plays, Labelle is responsible for making left a spot for Labelle. his lineups and ranking his players. As La“At one point I decided to quit because belle described, tournaments can become I couldn’t continue to play,” Labelle said. hectic for him as he has to watch over six “I was already coaching tennis during the games at once. summer and during the season so I decid“For sure sometimes I would like some ed to take [the old coach’s] place.” help and have another coach,” Labelle As Labelle described, it’s not rare for said. “But at the same time, I find that I a student to coach the tennis team, be- am more dedicated to the team, which I cause the club does not yet have an af- like. What’s nice is that I can get some of filiation with the Canadian Interuniversity my extra players to help out on the courts Sport (CIS). Instead, the league is orga- when I’m on another court.” nized by Tennis Quebec, meaning that the Labelle added that tournaments can club is not a varsity team, sometimes run for five to and is not under the Stingsix hours, with tourna“The level of play ers brand. Labelle is not ments usually starting at 4 is getting close paid for his work and hirp.m., which means finishto what NCAA ing a paid coach would ing up at 10 p.m. division two is make the season more Since joining the team, like. I think in expensive for players. The as a player first and then three years we team’s lack of an affiliaas a coach, Labelle has could see tennis tion requires Labelle to be seen the team and the becoming a part more than just the coach. league they play in imof the CIS.” “Right now I’m running prove immensely. AccordDOMINIC LABELLE the budget for the team,” ing to Labelle, last season Labelle said. “This means was a rough year for the that it’s up to me to buy the balls and the men’s team as they had a hard time wint-shirts. I also have to reserve the courts. ning games. This caused some players to But my goal though is for the team to be- give up and not put in as much effort. But come a varsity team.” that has changed.
W
“Both the men and the women’s team have really done better,” Labelle said. “Especially with the guys, they are extremely competitive now. When the team loses, they get mad and want to do better. Even though we aren’t associated with the Stingers, everyone wants to represent Concordia.” “The competitiveness is great because I’m challenged as a coach when it comes to training and keeping up with my team,” Labelle said. For Labelle, being a student as well as a coach can be challenging when engaging the players, as some see him as more of a friend, than they do a coach. “I find that the guys are more open with me when it comes to training and taking advice,” Labelle said. “With the girls I find that I am more of a friend. They realize that I’m the same age [as them] so it’s more of a friendly atmosphere.” Labelle added that some of the players on the team have played at the NCAA level which means they have more experience than he has. This means that Labelle’s role as a coach is more about making sure everyone does their exercises and learns from their mistakes after each game. “I’m not here to change their whole game,” Labelle said. “At this level, it’s more
about thinking up new drills and bringing something new to the table.” Labelle hopes that in the future the team will become affiliated with the CIS, as it would help legitimize tennis in Canadian universities. In Western Canada and Ontario, some tennis teams are considered as varsity teams but many still want the backing of the CIS. However, with the rise of a tennis league in Atlantic Canada, Labelle is hopeful that tennis will soon become a CIS sport. “Representatives from the CIS will be at the Nationals this year,” Labelle said. “The level of play is getting close to what NCAA division two is like. I think in three years we could see tennis becoming a part of the CIS.” In the spring, Labelle will be graduating from exercise science and is then off to the University of Ottawa for graduate school where he will be in the university’s sports psychology graduate degree. While attending the University of Ottawa, Labelle plans to continue working with Tennis Canada and Tennis Quebec as a coach. He even sees himself back with Concordia one day. “If the league can become affiliated with the CIS and become more official, I would love to have a full time job with team,” said Labelle.
opinions OPINIONS EDITOR /// opinions@theconcordian.com DAVID EASEY
I
Lean to consume less and build a community more
f you did your grocery shopping on Monday, could you go an entire week—all seven days—without buying anything else? Would you be able to resist society’s capitalist message—“I consume therefore I am”—for a whole week? Why does it seem like very few Montrealers could actually pull that off? Montreal is not a very eco-friendly city. Coffee cup consumers leave their waste in the gutters, wine bottles are blocked from being recycled for a refund, dog poop is left in plastic baggies around the city, recycled paper is shipped to China to be burnt for fuel according to musemcgill.com, the STM doesn’t run electric busses, and everyone idles their cars. Oh, and there are no fees for improperly recycling, so there is zero incentive to reduce waste. It’s overall just gross, and no one seems to care. Which is why the Concordia Student Union’s Anti-Consumerism Week is a great idea. The event will focus on educating students on how to consume
less, make more DIY projects, question the consumerist economic systems around us today and inspire the community to adopt a more self-sufficient lifestyle, according to the event’s Facebook page. Because we all know Concordia students could learn how to consume a bit less and make DIY projects on their own a little more. While there is a great core of consumer conscious students at Concordia, such as the driving force behind developing the Hive Café at both campuses which uses food from the Concordia Greenhouse, or the People’s Potato’s push to encourage students to bring tupperware to tote their free lunches away in, or the compost, paper and plastic recycling boxes scattered throughout Concordia’s buildings—there are large grounds for improvement. And it can all start with student education.
Did you know Concordia uses power from solar panels which produce enough power to heat seven Canadian houses according to the Globe and Mail, to power the SGW campus? Did you know that you can not only buy used books but also rent your textbooks at the start of the year with the promise to return them to the bookstore at the end of the term? (Using the co-op bookstore to buy and sell used textbooks and coursepacks is also a green initiative). And yet the majority of students still buy non-compostable disposable coffee cups from Tim Hortons, drive to campus when there is a metro stop connected to the SGW campus, or drop their empty plastic water bottles in the garbage—right beside the plastic recycling box. What gives Concordians? Why do you seem to hate the environment so much? What will it take to make you wake up—WAKE THE FUCK UP—and
EDITORIAL
start caring about this planet you’re living on? Because there’s a lot of activism being catered to you, and if you’re still blatantly ignoring it, then you’re likely never going to get the message. So try, for once, to start paying attention to your consumerism habits. You don’t even have to go to a workshop that makes you do anything (like make your own hot sauce, learn to knit, or learn how to grow potted plants inside). You can just attend a talk or a movie, or take it a step further and learn how to brew your own cider or beer, or you could get radical and learn how to dumpster dive. Anti-consumerism week has something for everyone, from the already consumerism-aware to those of you who are just learning how to think beyond what companies are shoving down your throats. Consume less. Build a community more. Attend Anti-Consumerism Week and learn how. Hopefully, in the near future, we won’t need such an event to do the right thing for our planet.
SOCIETY
Where are you from?
Asking questions about ethnicity and culture can be a sensitive topic BY FLORENCE YEE GRAPHICS EDITOR
F
rom strangers cat-calling me with the question, to friends with a rabid curiosity, I often get asked the dreaded question: “Where are you from?” My usual response is “I’m from Montreal,” but I can sense it’s never a satisfactory answer. I then realize this question is a product of my personal appearance as a visible minority, being of Chinese descent. So either consciously or subconsciously, their racial prejudice conjures up a narrative of my personal history based on my perceived ethnicity. They assume that I couldn’t just be from here. One might be thinking that is it just more likely that visible minorities, especially Asians, aren’t “from here.” According to Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey about Asian Pacific immigration, a reported 778,100 people immigrated to Canada before 1990, while 1,860,305 came after. That means that 42 per cent of immigrants have been here for at least 26 years and likely have children that were born in Canada as well. Reducing many ethnicities to ‘permanent immigrants,’ regardless of their experience, would be disrespectful. Even if it were true that most visible minorities are immigrants, individuals
should not be treated as such, so as to avoid making sweeping generalizations. Even when done out of good intentions to “know my culture,” then that also assumes that I’ve kept any of it. Ethnic Europeans can relinquish their ethnic origins if they want and assimilate to North American culture within years, calling themselves simply ‘Canadian.’ No matter how many generations the families have lived in Canada, Asians are still perceived as different and exotic, thus objectifying foreign cultures. The double standard of integration gives freedom to the former, but imposes a narrow narrative for the latter. If I find myself in China and they ask me where I’m from, the answer is Canada. I am so disconnected from Chinese politics, ideas, and contemporary ways of life that I can’t possibly relate to that nationality. Furthermore, if I admit to strangers that my ancestry is from China, it’ll only lead to further stereotyping and categorizing. It’s definitely rude to ask, “what’s your sexual orientation?” out of nowhere, so it should be equally rude to ask “Where are you from?” My cultural background is a big part of who I am, but so is my sexual orientation and my religion (or lack thereof). It’s personal information that I might not want to share with a complete stranger. If being Chinese is important to me, it’ll come up on its own.
In fact, it did last weekend because it was Lunar New Year (Happy new year, everyone!). The same goes for Chinese people who were actually born in China and who are enthusiastic about their homeland. They will tell you. Don’t worry. The question does bother me on a more fundamental level as well because I would like to feel at home in my home country. I care about belonging and not being considered an outsider in the only place I’ve lived. Pluralistic societies can’t operate without acknowledging the diversity of its people and their complex stories. As with any group of people, the experience of immigration in a family is not a monolith. Some may take more pride in identifying with their ethnic culture rather than their national culture. There is no best way of dealing with integration. We need to recognise how personal of a question asking someone’s ethnic background can be. That is why we should let the
person in question bring up their ancestry on their own terms. Graphic by Florence Yee.
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
theconcordian
17
MENTAL HEALTH
Rationalizing the irrational
Tackling the fear and anxiety brought upon by hypochondria BY LAUREN GUARNERI CONTRIBUTOR
dies and solutions to your every question, creating a new breed of hypochondriacs. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, hyWe live in an age where pochondria is an excessive concern about your own we have access to an unlimithealth. It involves believing you have an illness that ed amount of data and inforyou actually don’t have. mation, which has definiteLiving with hypochondria has caused great ly fuelled my hypochondria. anxiety in my life, mostly because the things A recent German study that can cause the illnesses I’m afraid of are in cited by Consumer Reports, our everyday world and are out of my control. found that mice subjected to Where others get stressed over a final exam or a big the type of radiation presshow, I get stressed over a minor headache that I think ent in microwaves and cellmay be a brain tumour. This may seem strange, but I’ve phones promoted the growth lived this way my entire life. I stress about things that I of brain tumours. It is only a cannot control, which is debilitating in its own right. matter of time before this raBut can you really blame a girl for being paranoid? diation affects us too. It may We live in a world where almost just be brewanything can kill you. From radiaing for about I worry about tion to hidden carcinogens, we’re con30 years, but food a lot too, stantly exposed to a variety of toxins. since we have for processed I’ve always been a hypochondriac, our phones and altered food and with the amount of information ciron us every second of every day, products are culating the internet who can blame me? it doesn’t seem so far fetched. not something For example, according to a reI worry about food a lot too, for proport by Consumer Reports, cell phones cessed and altered food products are I want to be emit a type of radiation also found not something I want to be putting into putting into my in microwaves and toaster ovens. my body. It seems that most affordbody. While radiation is not known to alable (and cheap) food contains additives. ter DNA, this data alone freaks me out. After watching the documenIt creates an irrational link within my mind between tary Food Inc., I became way more conscious mobile phones and radiation damage, igniting anxiety. of the food I’m ingesting and where it’s comA report from Reader’s Digest titled “Is Google making from. This led to an intensification of my hying us sick?” talks about how the population has a greatpochondria because I feel a loss of control over er access to information, making self-diagnosis a new my diet, possibly eating poisonous delicacies. normal. Medical websites are inundated with remeLastly, the air we breathe is slowly contributing to
poor health. The air is filled with pollutants like sulfur dioxide, methane, and carbon monoxide just to name a few. According to World Health Organization, air pollution is known to cause an increase in the possibility of developing respiratory illnesses, strokes, lung cancer, heart disease and premature death. You may not smell or see these pollutants, which is what makes them so scary. There is no way to avoid them, we are all subject to it and we will all be affected in some way. I live with hypochondria and at times it can be a struggle, considering we live in a world where I can access thousands of pages of information. Graphic by Florence Yee.
CAMPUS
Concordia: the cash cow Dealing with a deceitful and dishonest university BY DAVID EASEY OPINIONS EDITOR As I scurry through the winding stairwell in the Hall building, I try to understand the actions of my university. How could someone be paid a six-figure salary for less than three months of
work? Anger, disbelief and sheer mistrust soon fill my mind; I begin to fume while slowly sipping a stale black coffee. This all stems from an article released last week by La Presse that detailed the payout of the former CFO of Concordia. The publication revealed
that the university paid Sonia Trudel to run an $8.2 million budget this year a grand sum of $235,000 for working alone. The symptoms of austerity have less than 70 days. already taken effect, and include larger Trudel was first hired at the end of class sizes, fewer resources available to August 2015 as an advisor, and soon students and fewer courses offered. became the CFO a month later accordMany professors no longer have ing to The Gazette. any teaching assistants simply beShe parted ways ‘mutually’ with the cause the university can no longer university in late November according afford to pay them, yet we somehow to a university press repaid Madame Trudel a lease. small fortune. The bureaucrats The bureaucrats are I have lost all hope for are clearly clearly bathing in gold, this school. bathing in while we peasants can The lack of transgold, while we barely pay our tuition. parency at the hands of peasants can Why was this was womthese senior bureaucrats an paid so much money, makes me absolutebarely pay our especially during tough ly sick. The ivory towers tuition. financial times? has failed us and it is time Last year, many stuwe take matters into our dents took to the streets own hands. to denounce the CouilConsidering we stulard regime and the budget cuts to the dents pay these corporate overlords in education sector—myself included. the form of our tuition, I demand we These austerity cuts were to drassee their salaries and begin an era of tically impact the quality of education open honesty. If the school is sufferat Concordia and the services we reing and facing cuts, why should the oliceive. Documents from the CSU’s webgarchs receive a six-figure salary? site say that the university is expected Graphic by Florence Yee.
etc
“Spring break” in MTL
Take me to the beach Everyone loves hitting the beach to get some sunshine and fresh air after living in a library and in a parka after six months, especially in Montreal. No beach you say? No problem! Slap on a bikini and head on down to the Guy-Concordia métro station, where the balmy 30C temperatures will defrost even the most icy hearts. Bring some drinks and snacks, lay out a towel, and relax while the winds playfully tousle your hair around. With the crowds, gravol, noise, salt, and sweaty people packed in it’s exactly like a day spent at the beach. And the best part? No risk of a sunburn! Score. — Michelle Gamage
Tiki night at Le Lab
Night in with a novel
Who needs to waste money on a ticket to the French Polynesia when Le Lab is busy serving it up for you here in Montreal? Tuesdays are Tiki night at this cocktail bar, with orchids and pineapple clocks and flaming drinks all around. Guys and gals alike should brush their cheeks with some bronzer and head out to sip some of the tastiest cocktails around. Drag some friends with you and order a bowl-sized (yup) cocktail and enjoy the ambiance, flavours, how tanned everyone suddenly seems. It’s like a mini vacation, just don’t forget to pack your parka for the chilly trek home. — Michelle Gamage
If you’re burnt out from the last few weeks of school and want to put off your Reading Week workload for just another few days, curl up with that novel you’ve been meaning to read. The best part? You don’t need to spend any money. Bonus? You don’t need even need to put pants on either. So grab a blanket, a cup of tea or coffee and find yourself the perfect little nook and spend your day in the literary world of your choosing. — Jessica Romera
Have a winter adventure
A picnic in the park After a long winter where everything has been dead, frozen, leafless, hibernating, brown, and generally ick, Montrealers are itching to get some green time. While there’s still a metre of ice, snow, gravel and garbage coating the city, Montrealers can escape to greenhouses to be surrounded by lush green plants and balmy temperatures. Hit up the Westmount Greenhouse to chill by a burbling fountain and check out a million types of blooming orchids and tulips, or trek to the 13th floor of the Hall building to kick back at Concordia’s greenhouse. At Concordia’s greenhouse you can even brew some tea for a small donation. Pack some snacks and enjoy a picnic surrounded by things that are lush, green, and alive. — Michelle Gamage
Draw, colour, or photograph something My girlfriend and I recently finished a four-foot long colouring poster themed around Chinese New Year, and we’re presenting it (fingers crossed, Canada Post) to her grandmother in Guangzhou. Colouring in the lines, drawing, and anything else you can do with graphite, bristles, or even your fingers doesn’t have to be relegated to memories of what you did as a child; just pick your medium, go forth and reap the benefits. In most cases, you don’t even have to leave the house. If you’re feeling outdoorsy, and have a camera, take a few grayscale landscapes à la Ansel Adams to explore shade and tone, or go nuts painting with light. The eye is a canvas in itself. — Walid Maraqa
Okay, so maybe you just need to embrace winter. Throw on some cozy layers and head out for a hike on Mount Royal. Pack some hot chocolate in a thermos and some snacks for the trails. Choose a day with some fresh powder still dusting the trees and maybe pack a park map if you’ve never hiked on the mountain before. While the chateau lookout can be subject to some bitter winds the forest is mostly protected and peaceful. You’ll meet fellow outdoors adventurers out for a cross-country ski or afternoon jog. If you bring some seeds or bread crumbs and find a quiet spot along the trail you’ll have chickadees eating out of your hands. Who needs a beach afterall? — Michelle Gamage
FEBRUARY 16, 2016
theconcordian
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theconcordian TINDER OF THE GODS
Photos of the week @DANLUNN His work symbolizes how all students feel during this turbulent and dreadful period of midterms. His art dives into the world of monsters and fantasy, with always a curious and humorous aspect.
PHOTO BY KATMARY
VENUS
Staunch anti-capitalist Voted Green in the last election Enjoys a good joint No filter honesty Green apple smoothies with added kale
The Concordian’s team EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MICHELLE GAMAGE editor@theconcordian.com
ASSISTANT ARTS EDITORS TIFFANY LAFLEUR AMBRE SACHET
PRODUCTION MANAGER PIERRE A. LEPETIT production@theconcordian.com
MUSIC EDITOR SAMUEL PROVOST-WALKER music@theconcordian.com
NEWS EDITORS GREGORY TODARO LAURA MARCHAND news@theconcordian.com NEWS ASSISTANT SAVANNA CRAIG LIFE EDITOR CRISTINA SANZA life@theconcordian.com ASSISTANT LIFE EDITOR SANDRA HERCEGOVÁ ARTS EDITORS LYDIA ANDERSON ELIJAH BUKREEV arts@theconcordian.com
ASSISTANT MUSIC EDITOR CALVIN CASHEN SPORTS EDITOR ALEXANDER COLE sports@theconcordian.com ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR JONATHAN STILL OPINIONS EDITOR DAVID EASEY opinions@theconcordian.com PHOTO EDITOR MARIE-PIERRE SAVARD photo@theconcordian.com PHOTO ASSISTANTS KELSEY LITWIN MELISSA MARTELLA
GRAPHICS EDITOR FLORENCE YEE graphics@theconcordian.com GRAPHIC ASSISTANT THOM BELL HEAD COPY EDITOR NATHALIE LAFLAMME COPY EDITORS JESSICA ROMERA WALID MARAQA copy@theconcordian.com CONTRIBUTORS Rebecca Luger, Valeria CoriManocchio, Katerina Gang, Danielle Gasher, Matthew Lapierre, Lauren Guarneri
BUSINESS MANAGER JAYA GAUTAM business@theconcordian.com ADVERTISING MANAGER PIERRE A. LEPETIT FOR ADVERTISING INQUIRIES advertising@theconcordian.com
Concordia University’s weekly, independent student newspaper VOL. 33, ISSUE 20 FEBRUARY 16, 2016 OUR COVER THIS WEEK
BOARD OF DIRECTORS NATHALIE LAFLAMME JACOB SEREBIN RUBEN BASTIEN MILOS KOVACEVIC directors@theconcordian.com
“Missing and murdered” by Marie-Pierre Savard FOLLOW US ON COME TO OUR WEEKLY STORY MEETING AT THE LOYOLA CAMPUS CC-431 FRIDAY AT 1 P.M. PITCH. WRITE. EDIT. Editorial office 7141 Sherbrooke St. W Building CC - 431 Montreal, QC H4B 1R6 (514) 848-2424 ext. 7499
The Concordian G N I R I H IS
production assistants WHAT YOU NEED TO BE A GOOD PROD ASSISTANT
1
Know how to win at using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop? If you know Quark, that is cute but useless. No one uses Quark anymore.
A creative eye is ideal, and having your own style to incorporate into our own would be rad too.
3
2
Help our production team lay out different sections each week, and pitch and develop your own unique page designs.
BONUS
Be awesome, get literal cookies, win at life.
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WANT TO BE PART OF OUR (INTER) STELLAR TEAM?
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Pitch stories and pick stories up from our mailing list
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