The Strand | Volume 60, Issue 3

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STRAND VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER VOLUME 60, ISSUE 3 | 03 OCTOBER 2017

In conversation with W. Kamau Bell ARTS AND CULTURE | REBECCA GAO

How do you use that space?

EDITORIAL | ELENA SENECHAL-BECKER

Gertler’s shameless greenwashing OPINIONS | JULIA DASILVA

02 NEWS

EDITOR | AINSLEY DOELL NEWS@THESTRAND.CA

Where is The Victoriad?

Will Victoria College’s yearbook remain defunct? sabrina papas arts and culture editor

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| hana nikcevic

Since 1977, The Victoriad has been the yearbook of record for Victoria College, but as of this term, the status of the student organization is unclear.

Their website—not updated since May 2017—states that the yearbooks were supposed to be distributed to students in April, just in time for the annual Vic Lawn Party. This distribution, however, did not occur last spring for the 20162017 yearbook. The office of The Victoriad, located in room 150 of the Goldring Student Centre has been replaced by Acta Victoriana. So, what happened?

According to Zahavah Kay, VUSAC President, who is covering the portfolio of the vacant Vice Present Student Organizations (VPSO) position, The Victoriad’s spring election failed to garner enough interest, leading to “a lack of

candidates” and in turn, an almost entirely vacant executive team for the production of the 2017-2018 yearbook. Following the VUSAC fall elections, which will appoint the position of VPSO, Kay states that they will once again attempt to assemble an executive team. In accordance with the VUSAC constitution, if this final attempt does not work, The Victoriad will remain defunct for this school year, but the levy cannot be entirely dissolved until after 24 months have passed without a head.

The situation has been especially confusing for former staff members of the organization. Alyssa DiBattista, former Associate Editor of The Victoriad, claims that she and the rest of the 2016-2017 team—not including former Editor-inChief Brenda Bongolan—were “very caught off-guard” to learn about the current status of the yearbook. DiBattista speculates, “Brenda seemed to be singlehandedly in charge of hiring a new Editor-in-Chief and design team, which is not an ideal system. So, it’s possible that the scope of outreach wasn’t broad enough to find a new team.”

Mercer Pommer, former Design Director of The Victoriad, told The Strand that he had difficulties getting in touch with Bongolan over the summer, following the unsuccessful spring election period and yearbook distribution.

In early June, DiBattista says, the yearbooks were delivered to the VUSAC office, prompting her to ask Bongolan how to proceed. Bongolan responded that she was waiting for the incoming Editor-in-Chief to receive a key to The Victoriad’s office to store them there. However, she never followed through with this plan and DiBattista ended up moving the yearbooks into the office in August.

DiBattista continues, “It does seem strange that VUSAC wasn’t more aware of the situation and doing more to support The Victoriad, especially since it was such a small levy.” As of now, distribution of the yearbooks has yet to occur.

The Victoriad was established after the campus-wide UofT yearbook, The Torontonensis, was disbanded in 1977. It’s possible that the threat of The Victoriad’s discontinuation could provoke the same response.

VUSAC holds bi-annual town hall ainsley doell news editor

On September 28, the bi-annual VUSAC Elections Town Hall took place in the Cat’s Eye Student Lounge, giving students a chance to meet their student government candidates and get to know them and their platforms.

In attendance were 12 of the 13 Councillor candidates, the three Sustainability Commissioner candidates, and the uncontested candidate for the role of Vice President Student Organizations (VPSO). The event opened with statements from all of the candidates, in which they touched upon their past experiences and their reasons for wanting to get involved with VUSAC. Candidates tackled a variety of challenging topics, including mental health resources, making the Victoria College community more commuter-accessible, and best practices for addressing larger equity issues.

Themes of respect, accessible scheduling, and education were discussed throughout the event.

On the topic of providing support for mental health, Councillor candidate Vibhuti Kacholia states that residence Dons should be more directly involved in facilitating conversations: “[The focus should be on] bringing it from a forum standpoint to having closer interactions with people you respect.”

Vic student Maia Kachan asked the candidates how they plan to support trans students in the Victoria community. Many candidates mentioned the need for panel discussions and listening to members of the community who identify as trans. Many also acknowledged their own privilege and desire to educate themselves more in order to educate others.

Starting this year, VUSAC Equity is offering equity training for all club and levy heads, but Nick Shyshkin, VPSO candidate, says “we should have equity training for club and levy members.” He continues, “It’s been a bit long overdue.”

A question about tailoring events and initiatives

to commuter students transformed into a discussion of commuter safety. With events happening so late at night, safety becomes a large concern for many students who commute. Councillor candidates extended this issue beyond the walls of Victoria College, calling for collaboration with the UTSU. Ann Marie Elpa, Councillor candidate and commuter student, says that “[VUSAC] should advocate for TTC safety.” Haleema Kahn, Councillor candidate, suggests establishing some sort of “buddy system” for commuters who are going home after events that run late, and puts forward the idea of incorporating that into the Vic app.

Councillor candidate Cameron Davies mentions that commuter students have brought up the issue of transit affordability, and that he would like “to see VUSAC support the UTSU’s push for a transit pass.”

Stephanie Xu, VUSAC’s Chief Returning Officer (CRO), posed the question: “Is it better to be perfect but late, or good and on time?” This question prompted responses addressing the importance of respect and accountability toward the Vic community as a whole.

Michal Leckie, Sustainability Commissioner candidate, began the answering period by tying the question back to sustainability. She said we need to be good and “on time as in right now.” Leckie said we need to be doing everything that we can; there is no time to wait for a perfect solution.

Alexandra Johnston, Councillor candidate, responds, “I think it comes down to respect and impact.

You have to respect the people that you’re meeting and their time. They made an effort to be there, so you should, too. If it’s too late, it’s not going to have any impact.”

Transparency was another buzzword this Town Hall, as it often is, with candidates discussing how best to break down the social walls that surround VUSAC.

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| hana nikcevic

Kathryn Marsland, Councillor candidate, proposes hosting VUSAC open houses periodically in order to get students into the space and aware of what the council is up to.

The discussions at Town Hall made it clear that Vic students are very much on the same page regarding changes they would like to see happen at Vic this year.

Nick Shyshkin, VPSO candidate, speaks to the ideal relationship between the executive and the rest of VUSAC: “We are a council; we are a team.”

A recording of the event in its entirety can be found on the “VUSAC Elections Forum 2017-2018” Facebook page.

Voting ends Monday October 2nd and results will be available at the VUSAC office and online on October 5th.

NEWS 03

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 03 OCTOBER 2017

Examining the Dropbike launch at UofT Will the start-up bike share continue on campus? uma kalkar associate news editor

Drive, walk, board, bike—there’s no shortage of ways to get around campus. Dropbike is an appbased bike-share system that doesn’t need bikes to be docked like the city of Toronto’s Bike Share program does.

Those 18 and older pay a $49 deposit fee to locate an available bike using the phone app, and then receive a code to unlock and rent the bike for $1/hour. The technology on the bicycle then unlocks the back wheel and it can then be returned it to any “haven”—a bike post or rack around the city designated in the app.

Dropbike’s CEO Qiming Weng was inspired to create Dropbike after his own bike was stolen and he was faced with the frustrating task of acquiring a new one. He states that his philosophy is based on similar practices in China, where movement around the city was made easier by the ability to hop on and off of bikes almost anywhere.

On June 15th, Dropbike partnered with UTSU to create a summer pilot program. In this pilot, bikes could only be used around UTSG to create a safe and convenient mode of transportation around campus.

For UofT, it’s evident that an affordable way to get around will help promote healthy lifestyles, eco-friendly living, and more efficient means of travel. Weng believes that Dropbike at UofT showcases the new method of ridesharing.

As of now, the future of Dropbike is uncertain, as UTSU has not released word on whether

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| hana nikcevic

What’s happening around campus this month?

Doc N’ Talk: Human Trafficking October 3, 6-9 PM Cat’s Eye, Goldring Student Centre Join VUSAC Equity and the UofT Muslim Students’ Association for “a screening and discussion of a documentary on human trafficking in the Middle East.”

The event is free and is the first in a series of “Doc N’ Talks” to be hosted by the VUSAC Equity Commission.

Introduction to ASL October 6, 5-7 PM 321 Bloor Street West UTSG American Sign Language Club is hosting an orientation and introduction to ASL. The event is free and open to all current UofT students.

SSO’s Peace of Minds Walk October 14, 8:30 PM David Pecaut Square, 215 King St West The Schizophrenia Society of Ontario’s annual Peace of Minds Walk promotes awareness for mental illness and raises funds for their support programmes and services. Registration for the walk opens at 8:30 AM and the walk begins at 10 AM. UofT Sustainability Career Fair October 6, 10 AM - 3 PM Great Hall, Hart House This free event aims to connect students who are passionate about sustainability with companies running sustainability initiatives. The University of Toronto Sustainability Career Fair will feature representatives from consulting companies, government agencies, NGOs, renewable energy companies, graduate institutions, and engineering service companies.

or not their partnership will extend into the new year. It was originally scheduled to run only into the fall. The simplicity of this system is surely one that UofT will want to encourage and integrate into campus life.

UofT to ban smoking on campus

Trinity College’s 42nd Annual Book Sale October 19-23 Seely Hall, second floor of 6 Hoskin Avenue Trinity College’s book sale boasts a wide selection of 60,000 second-hand books in 75 different categories.

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ainsley doell news editor

Representatives from UofT’s media relations department have confirmed that the university is developing a new policy that would ban smoking on campus.

UofT’s smoking policy was last updated in 1995. This policy was mandated by provincial legislation and municipal bylaws, and outlines research that has shown the impact of secondhand smoke on nonsmokers. Many things have changed since this policy was last updated; according to this policy, smoking is still allowed inside residence buildings, as long as they have been granted status as a “Designated Smoking Area.”

The decision to overhaul the university’s smoking policy follows the implementation of a no tolerance smoking policy at McMaster University, scheduled to take effect on January 1st, 2018. McMaster, however, is not the first university in Canada to adopt a policy such as this one. Dalhousie University, Acadia University, and the University of Winnipeg, among others, have already committed to a 100 percent smoke-free campus. A more extensive list of post-secondary institutions can be found through the Canadian Cancer Society.

Roberta Ferrence, Adjunct Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at UofT and Principal Investigator and Scientific Advisor for the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, asserts that while they do have their limits, “smoking bans have been generally very effective in protecting non-smokers.”

Some have raised concerns about the logistical possibility of implementing such a ban on a campus as large as UofT St. George.

“It is certainly feasible to implement a campus ban,” Ferrence says. “It has been done elsewhere and should be easier as fewer students smoke, and smoking cigarettes has become more unacceptable, particularly indoors.”

Ferrence points to other institutions as evidence of these policies at work: “There are now many smoke-free hospitals, including psychiatric hospitals where the majority of patients smoke, that have developed implementation plans and involved smokers in the process.”

UofT’s 1995 Smoking Policy states that, “The University will provide smoking cessation workshops on campus if there is sufficient demand.” If a policy banning smoking is to be put in place, Ferrence suggests that “providing help with smoking cessation is often a key component for such bans.”

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04 NEWS

EDITOR | AINSLEY DOELL NEWS@THESTRAND.CA

Massey College faces pressure after Senior Fellow uses anti-Black speech on campus College suspends title of ‘Master’ after racist incident erin calhoun features editor

Massey College has come under pressure from UofT faculty and students after Senior Fellow Michael Marrus made a racist comment towards a Black Junior Fellow.

A letter penned by UofT faculty and students explains that at lunch on September 26th, Marrus addressed a Junior Fellow with, “You know this is your master, eh? Do you feel the lash?” when the current Massey College leader, Hugh Segal—whose title as head of the college is “Master”—attempted to join their table.

Junior Fellows who had witnessed the incident quickly responded with calls for change concerning anti-Black racism on campus. The form states the list of demands made by the Junior Fellows. They are as follows: 1. The termination of Michael Marrus’ association with Massey College as a Senior Fellow; 2. A formal public apology issued from Massey College; 3. The immediate title replacement of Master with a suitable alternative title to describe the head of Massey College; 4. Mandatory antiracist training organized by Massey for all Junior and Senior members of the Fellowship—specifically for members of the House Committee; 5. A formal meeting with Hugh Segal and the administration of Massey College to present their plan of action in response to this and other ongoing issues affecting racialized members of the College.

Massey College’s Task Force of the Governing Board has responded to this incident by temporarily suspending the term “Master” to refer to the leader position. Segal accepts the title “Head of College” while final decisions are being made.

The title of “Master” refers to the head of the corporation and was established in

1960-61 through Bill-115, which is under the “Masters and Fellows of Massey College Act.” Segal also plans to work with the Equity Secretariat, made up of Junior Fellows, to build on existing initiatives at the college which include anti-racism and diversity training for all Junior and Senior Fellows. Massey celebrated their first ever Black History Month in February 2016, which was organized by Junior Fellows Eddie Kawooya and Anthony Briggs.

In a message from Segal, an apology is stated where the incident is condemned by the Massey College community: “We are committed to providing an open, welcoming, and inclusive academic and residential community and will ensure that it is a safe space for all our Fellows in which this kind of encounter can never happen again.”

Exclusively through UofT News, Vice-President of Human Resources and Equity, Kelly Hannah-Moffat also reflected on this incident and its delinquency with a standard for equity at the university.

There is no public statement released on the consideration of termination of Michael Marrus from Massey College. Michael Marrus is a Professor Emeritus in the History department and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. Marrus has also published eight books about the Holocaust and has won a “National Jewish Book Award” in 1982 for his work, “Vichy France and the Jews.”

Massey College is a graduate residential college in UofT, independent from university administration, where Senior and Junior fellows are nominated by the UofT community and occasionally outside communities.

Segal states, “There is no place for overt, jocular, or subtle racism here at Massey College.”

TTC launches #ThisisWhere campaign Students voice concerns about TTC’s new anti-harassment campaign ashley meehan staff writer photo

| hana nikcevic

In early September, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) released their new anti-harassment campaign entitled #ThisIsWhere. The campaign consists of posters and ads in stations and vehicles highlighting instances of harassment of all forms and using a hashtag to collect people’s diverse stories.

A TTC news release states that “the campaign confronts different kinds of harassment through a series of real-life customer encounters, including sexual

harassment and harassment based on gender identity, ability, and race.”

This campaign has been received by students and commuters with mixed feelings.

Stefan Vladusic, a physics major at the University of Toronto, St. George (UTSG) campus and a seasoned commuter, is divided about how the campaign presents the issue of harassment: “On the one hand, it is bringing up legitimate issues regarding harassment on the TTC. Drivers and passengers get harassed way more than most would think. On the other hand, it portrays assault and harassment as something very obvious and overt. I think it misses the mark on how most people who’ve been harassed on the TTC have experienced that harassment.”

Vladusic comments on the forms of harassment that he has witnessed on the TTC: “I’ve commuted every day since I was 14 […] I’ve seen less explicit forms of assault, like pushing, shoving, spitting, verbal slurs, nearly weekly.”

“What should be communicated is not only that assault is bad, but also that many things one might not think to be assault are, in fact, assault,” comments Vladusic.

Druv Sareen, a journalism student at Humber who uses the TTC two to five times a week, speaks to the campaign’s shortcomings: “It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough.”

Sareen says, “It doesn’t help the bigger issue, which is that people on the TTC are disconnected from each other and don’t feel like standing up for each other.

When people see stuff going down they just put in headphones and turn up their music.”

Amy Freeman, a neuroscience major at UTSG campus, feels that the campaign and app “might make people more motivated to report harassment, but mainly just raises awareness about how often these things happen.” #ThisIsWhere is also a promotion for the TTC’s new mobile app “SafeTTC,” an app for discreetly

“WHAT SHOULD BE COMMUNICATED IS NOT ONLY THAT ASSAULT IS BAD, BUT ALSO THAT MANY THINGS ONE MIGHT NOT THINK TO BE ASSAULT ARE, IN FACT, ASSAULT.” reporting harassment, available on the App Store or Google Play.

On the #ThisIsWhere website, there are resources, stories, and a link to the app download. The site also highlights other ways of reporting harassment, such as using the intercom in Designated Waiting Areas or pressing the yellow emergency strip located on vehicles.

More information about the campaign can be found at www.thisiswhere.ca.

EDITORIAL 05

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF | MOLLY KAY AND ELENA SENECHAL-BECKER EDITOR@THESTRAND.CA

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editors-in-chief

editor@thestrand.ca

molly kay elena senechal-becker

business manager

mishail adeel

business@thestrand.ca news

ainsley doell

news@thestrand.ca opinions

kathleen chen

opinions@thestrand.ca features

erin calhoun

features@thestrand.ca science

science@thestrand.ca

tanuj ashwin kumar nadine ramadan

arts and culture

sabrina papas

artsandculture@thestrand.ca stranded

rebecca gao

stranded@thestrand.ca copy editing

copy@thestrand.ca design

tristan mcgrath-waugh

amy jiao

design@thestrand.ca photo

hana nikcevic

photo@thestrand.ca art

yilin zhu

art@thestrand.ca web

web@thestrand.ca video

How do you use that s p a c e ?

We need to include a multiplicity of voices elena senechal-becker editor-in-chief

When I talk about spaces, I’m not just talking about the physical. My definition of “space” encompasses anything that can contain our lives. It is the dimension within which all things move and interact. A quick Google search for the word “space” will offer definitions such as: “A continuous area or expanse that is free, unavailable, or unoccupied.”

Therefore, a room can be a space, but so can a job opening, a spot in line, a place in someone’s heart. As such, “space” is simply something that can be filled. The question, then, is what do we fill it with?

A “space” can be concrete, too, such as an art gallery.

This kind of space is made to be filled with people’s artwork, and with those who admire it. It is important, therefore, to be mindful of what is included. White people aren’t usually made conscious of this. I recently attended a small art show put on by students of a local art college. I didn’t notice anything strange, until one of my best friends remarked: “Why do you guys always bring me to these white art parties?”

Although they were partly joking, I also knew there was truth to that statement. While it may have been unintentional, my oversight had caused my friend to feel uncomfortable. Mainstream art spaces have historically been white-dominated and white-centred—this remains true of most institutions.

At a curated talk at the AGO last month, Eileen Myles, Lori Blondeau, and Vivek Shraya conversed about intersections in art. One topic that struck me most about the talk was that they all mentioned their experiences being tokenized; Myles as a non-binary queer person, Shraya as a trans woman of colour, Blondeau as an Indigenous person.

I’ve found that in some circles, when discussing “art” in its many forms, the word “diversity” is thrown around as

a placeholder. It acts as a performative crutch on which we rely to indicate that yes, we are conscious of our choices, without really demonstrating it. Tokenism is what happens when a majority group makes a perfunctory effort to include any minority group. Artists and creators who are in positions of power and privilege often rely on tokenizing marginalized people and performing their allyship when confronted with the reality of their work.

The truth is, I’m a part of this problem. Every white person is. And even my writing of this piece shows a level of privilege that I’ve done nothing to deserve. Recently, Munroe Bergdorf, a Black trans woman, was fired from her modelling campaign job with L’Oreal for stating that “all white people are racist, even those who don’t intend to be.”

She was effectively removed from her spot on the campaign for saying something that white people just didn’t want to hear. This is an example of the double standards I’m talking about; people of colour should be the only judges of what they think is racist, but too often this right is taken away. Racism doesn’t just exist in police violence and white supremacist rallies. It is embedded at the root of the colonialist society we live in. And this isn’t news, but as white people, we are only starting to be cognizant of it.

Dodging responsibility won’t make anything better.

We deal in spaces every day, and we are constantly making choices that affect the spaces we interact with and who gets to fill them. At this point, it is crucial that we make informed, responsible, and actively conscious decisions when faced with this kind of power.

I thought I’d end this article with the names of some collectives/publications doing amazing work on dismantling oppression: Leste (@lestemag), Babely Shades (@babelyshades), GAP (@getartistspaid), Art Hoe Collective (@ arthoecollective), Risen Zine (@risenzine), Yes Yes Y’all (@ yesyesyall416), Gal-dem (@galdemzine).

tyler biswurm amr sharaf

video@thestrand.ca

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podcast

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contributors william dao, julia dasilva, marjan dian, sumeeta far-

rukh, maia kachan, uma kalkar, kody mccann, ashley meehan, wilfred moeschter, leo morgenstern, jess

stewart-lee, annie truuvert, harrison wade copy editors

alyssa dibattista, lauren lacey, mariah ricciuto, julia wyganowski design team amy jiao, molly kay, jill lee illustrations yilin zhu photos art gallery of ontario, grace king, hana nikcevic,

ocadu onsite gallery, toronto international film festival (tiff) cover illustration yilin zhu

The Strand has been the newspaper of record for Victoria University since 1953. It is published 12 times a year with a circulation of 1200 and is distributed in Victoria University buildings and across the University of Toronto’s St. George campus.

The Strand flagrantly enjoys its editorial autonomy and is committed to acting as an agent of constructive social change. As such, we will not publish material deemed to exhibit racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or other oppressive language.

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06 OPINIONS

EDITOR | KATHLEEN CHEN OPINIONS@THESTRAND.CA

The Responsible Investing Report: Gertler’s shameless greenwashing julia dasilva staff writer photo

The cover shows the sun shining on a close-up of three green shoots, just beginning to open their leaves to the sun. This is the 2016 Responsible Investing Report, released this July by the University of Toronto Asset Management (UTAM), the corporation responsible for UofT’s investments. President Gertler directed the UTAM to make this report back in April 2016, after he rejected a petition to divest the university from its fossil fuel holdings after years of campus campaigning.

The logic of divestment campaigns is straightforward: in order to build the necessary social pressure to transition away from fossil fuels, we need to break the power of the fossil fuel industry. This means refusing to invest in this industry and making investing in it socially unacceptable—making it clear that institutions like universities, which receive public funding to lead students into the future, can no longer put their funds into corporations that are actively destroying that future.

Crucially, because the activity of extracting and burning fossil fuels inherently contributes to climate-related damage, these injuries could not be avoided by a shareholder, like the university, attempting to change the practices of companies in which it invests.

The UTAM report attempts to sweep all this under the rug; it is a blatant attempt to cover up the fact that the university has done nothing to address its continued relationship with the fossil fuel industry. The message the administration is sending is clear: there is no cause for alarm. We can put off making difficult decisions—like moving our money into other companies—because the university is already environmentally conscious, already “green.”

In response to recommendations to divest, Gertler published a document titled “Beyond Divestment: Taking Decisive Action on Climate Change,” half of which is a detailed explanation on why divestment is imperative. One would think that an essential, if insufficient, part of “taking decisive action” would involve ceasing to feed money into the primary industry contributing to climate change. However, instead of committing to any degree of divestment, Gertler’s “decisive action” was to request the UTAM report.

Despite Gertler’s claims that the Responsible Investing Report was written in the same spirit as the divestment petition—to meet the “challenges posed by climate change”—all that the UTAM commits to under this scheme is gentle discussion.

The bulk of the report outlines principles of “Environmental, Social, and Governance” factors—how a company interacts with the physical environment, the people it affects, and how the corporation itself is managed. In theory, seriously taking these principles into account when making investment decisions

| hana nikcevic

would prevent UofT from supporting industries that fuel injustice or cause unnecessary harm.

When we look at the report’s description of how these principles are to be implemented, however, we realize that the UTAM could conceivably fill all the goals they outline without altering in the least where their investment money is going. It lists steps that the UTAM is supposed to take when selecting and monitoring investment managers. The language used, however, never gets any stronger than “review” and “discuss.” All language that might suggest genuine intention of “decisive action” is left out; the report does not “insist” that managers adhere to these principles or “divest” from those that don’t.

“Encourage managers to adopt [Environmental, Social, and Governance] focused voting policies, where relevant,” the report says.

But what if managers decide to ignore their gentle encouragement? The report gives no indication as to what would make a manager injurious enough to warrant the UTAM cutting off business with them, or even what the UTAM’s standards might be for acceptable environmental, social, and governance factors in a company—or why these standards do not involve divesting from companies whose “interaction with the physical environment” involves enabling runaway climate change and whose “social impact” includes condemning low-lying island nations to drowning.

This report is nothing but deceptive. The goal was never to reach a sufficient solution; it would be naïve to call these measures anything other than a deliberate attempt to distract the university population from the fact that UofT is invested in destruction. The goal was just what those reassuring, leafy images suggest: greenwashing, or advertising the university’s “greenness” without accepting the systemic change the climate crisis requires. What we’re doing is covering the oil pipelines through which money flows into this institution with a layer of green paint.

These are not the actions of someone trying to “take decisive action on climate change,” but of someone trying to avoid doing so at all costs. They are the actions of an institution that recognizes that actually addressing the climate crisis will involve challenging our economic and political status quo—an institution that is determined not to let that happen.

Calling this report “insufficient” is beyond an understatement. But if we do not challenge it, it could very well achieve its real purpose: to smooth over controversy and lull UofT’s population into complacency. It is our job as students not to fall for this attempt to smooth over controversy—to resist President Gertler’s and the UTAM’s attempt to greenwash an unacceptable portfolio.

OPINIONS 07

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 03 OCTOBER 2017

What it means to be called ‘Asian’ The importance of thinking more carefully about our language annie truuvert contributor

In early June, a student posted a video of a woman yelling at Chinese workers in a Scarborough Foody Mart. The woman can be heard saying, “Go back to China,” and repeating that it is the law to know English if you work in Canada—a claim which is untrue for private businesses.

Racist verbal abuse isn’t always so blatant, but it is all too common, and the majority of racist comments don’t make the news. I’ve received blatantly racist and careless remarks my whole life. In my driver’s education course, a couple of years back, my teacher randomly pointed to every five students to demonstrate a statistic of those who will experience car crashes, and when he pointed at me, one student exclaimed, “Of course the Asian one will!”

However, being mixed-race, I see issues of race through a rather unique lens.

People say things to or in front of me that they would not say to a fully-white or a fully-Asian person.

I think that even mildly racist or thoughtless comments about East Asians sit in such an uncomfortable spot for me because my identification with the term “Asian” is seen as being up for debate.

When you are white, or you pass as white, you have the privilege of not having to constantly define and justify yourself to other people. I find myself often defined by the fact that I am not white because I am not fully white.

I’m often asked: “What are you?” or “Are you half?” by strangers, and often before I’m even asked for my name. I’m asked about my ethnicity so frequently when first meeting people that it has become my go-to “weird or fun fact about me” during icebreaker games—it’s a cycle.

One of my close friends, who is not Asian, recently said something interesting to me: “You’re Asian, but you’re not really Asian.” This wasn’t because I’m half-Estonian in addition to being half-Japanese, but because my family does not abide by traditional, or stereotypical, East Asian cultural practices. It seemed, to her, as though the ethnicity of being East Asian is defined separately from identifying with East Asian culture. “Asian” in this case referred to specifically East Asian stereotypical behaviour.

Someone else once told me, “I feel like your mom is like my mom, but the Asian version.” Somehow, my mom’s Japanese background impeded the similarities between her and my friend’s mom—ironic, considering that the Japanese side of my family repressed their culture and hid their ancestry to fit into Canadian society. My grandparents did not want my mom and her siblings to have accents. My grandfather escaped being interned as a child, and encountered racism during his teaching career.

To impose “Asian” stereotypes onto my mom erases the history of cultural repression our ancestors faced.

Racism and stereotyping directed towards East Asians is rampant in comparison to the amount of discussion there is about it. Why is no one talking about the frequent and socially-accepted racist or stereotype-ridden remarks made towards and about East Asians?

Perhaps it is lack of education about East Asian repression that is to blame. Who, in my generation, actually knows anything about the Japanese Canadian internment camps, property confiscation, and deportation during World War II on the Canadian West coast? Why does this seem to be left out of discussions of WWII and Canadian history?

In my experience, the word “Asian” itself seems to change meaning depending on the social context and who is speaking. It’s common to hear both Asian and nonAsian friends say things like, “That’s so Asian,” “that Asian guy,” “These Asians are…” or even “They’re [insert complimentary adjective here], for an Asian.”

I remember when one of my friends, who is Korean, was asked about what he looks like without his glasses. He took them off, blushed, then said, “I look really Asian without my glasses,” and quickly put them back on.

It’s as though you can be Asian, but not too Asian. You can identify with the culture, as long as you denounce it once in a while.

What’s even more interesting, and perhaps problematic, is that mocking East Asian stereotypes and self-identifying with these stereotypes is often a main topic of conversation amongst a lot of my East Asian friends. Conversations often gravitate towards making fun of their family traditions or mocking their parents’ accents. It’s as though the imposed stereotypes have become a source of bonding.

When East Asians themselves use “Asian” jokes or references to be cool or funny, it contributes to the heritage of East Asian repression by giving other people the impression that this language is permissible for them to use. When someone says something dehumanizing, stereotypical, racist, or incorrect about Asians, they may not be deliberately trying to be malicious, but their words will foster the acceptance of this type of language in other people. The more we speak up and counter racist comments, the more we inspire and encourage others to do the same.

This article is part of an ongoing series in which The Strand tackles issues relating to systemic oppression, privilege, and identity. All are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Pitches should be directed to opinions@thestrand.ca

How realistic is the proposed smoking ban, anyway? carol eugene park podcast editor

On September 20th, 2017, Metro News reported that the University of Toronto was working on a proposal that would follow suit with McMaster University’s complete smoking ban on their campus, effective January 1st, 2018. According to a spokesperson for the University of Toronto, Metro News stated that the details of this campus smoke ban are unknown because it has yet to go through the university’s governance procedure.

Initially, I was surprised by the initiative on UofT’s part, but that reaction quickly turned to scepticism.

Theoretically, the complete ban of smoking benefits much of the student population. It goes without saying that many students are tired of having puffs of smoke blown in their faces when walking to class. Robarts Library, Sidney Smith Hall, and Convocation Hall are a few areas on campus where smokers pollute the space and air before and after classes.

In the past, implementing a smoking ban was proven to be beneficial. In 2010, The Globe and Mail reported that the decline in hospitalizations was allegedly due to the smoking ban that restaurants enforced in the city of Toronto. The positive effect of implementing a smoking ban on UofT grounds will be celebrated among student environmental activists, future doctors, and non-smokers alike.

But just how feasible is this ban? The UofT St.

George campus occupies a large portion of downtown Toronto, and yet, the university is naïvely proposing for a complete ban on smoking in its parameters.

Areas like King’s College are the university’s private property, but what about places on campus that intersect with the city’s public spaces?

Unlike UofT, McMaster University’s campus is tightly packed away in a corner near Cootes Paradise, enclosed by Main Street, and secluded from the larger downtown area of Hamilton. The boundary between the university’s property and the city’s property is relatively clear; the logistics are not as complex as UofT’s.

More importantly, the smoking ban is only a plan—a tentative, developing proposal. It has yet to be approved or voted on by the UofT board. While some Canadian post-secondary institutions have tried their hands at securing a similar ban, not every school has successfully done so. McMaster is only the 14th Canadian university to partake in this movement.

Meanwhile, back in 2009, York University intended to mark its 50th anniversary with a complete smoke ban, but it was not implemented.

Implementing an all-campus smoking ban will ensure the safety of the UofT community, and help the university to move away from policies that contribute to climate change and increasing levels of greenhouse gases. Let us see whether the university will rise to the challenge.

photo

| hana nikcevic

08 FEATURES photo

EDITOR | ERIN CALHOUN FEATURES@THESTRAND.CA

| grace king

Goodbye, Yonge: Urban Development in Downtown Toronto Finding a common ground between municipal growth and preserving local culture kody mccann distribution manager

Toronto's Yonge Street stretches from Lake Ontario at the Harbourfront to Steeles Avenue in North York. It is the physical, and arguably, the metaphorical spine of the entire city of Toronto. East-west streets are demarcated by their relation to Yonge (Queen West being West of Yonge, etc.) and the Yonge TTC line runs under 90% of it, linking the suburbs in the north to downtown. At the intersection of Yonge Street and Dundas Street is the famous Dundas Square and Eaton Centre; farther down, there's the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Stanley Cup. Yonge Street is as old as Toronto but the area south of Bloor Street is coming to an end.

and fast food joints have moved in. The biggest threat, however, is the building of a condominium tower.

Building this condominium tower requires erasing an entire block and restarting from the ground up.

According to Urbantoronto.ca, between College and Yonge and Bloor and Yonge—only a kilometer in distance—there are 12 condominium projects in pre-construction or under construction. These projects include the tearing down of storefronts between Grenville and Grosvenor Streets (but keeping that old clock tower)—notably where the 100-year-old art supplies store Curry’s had been—and using the space to build a 130-metre-high condo tower. Another example is the destruction of the block between Dundonald Street and Gloucester Street for a 150-metre-

All that makes Yonge Street good and bad will be erased to form a modern 21st-century downtown core. This is Toronto’s Yonge Street of tomorrow.

Currently, there is a tax revolt organized by the Yonge Street Small Business Association. The “revolt” is protesting a 100-500 percent tax increase on businesses along Yonge Street south of Bloor. Historically, Yonge Street has been home to smaller businesses like bookstores, barber shops, sex shops, and art supply stores. Over time, increasing numbers of chain stores

high condo tower.

The pièce de résistance of the Yonge Street development is called “The One,” located at One Bloor West, at the corner of Yonge and Bloor. Upon completion, this condo tower with retail space will be the tallest skyscraper in Canada, taller than the BMO Building.

(Yes, you read that right, the CN Tower is a tower and

is not technically considered a building.)

Between the municipal and the provincial governments, Yonge Street south of Bloor is slated for sacrifice in the growing metropolis of Toronto. This is a result of heavy investment in one of North America’s largest cities. Toronto has been experiencing steady growth since the 1950s. From 1996 to 2016 the average growth rate was roughly 3.74, which, if kept up— and projections predict it will—means that Toronto will double in population in 20 years. Already, from 2011 to 2016, over 100,000 people have moved into the city. While Toronto continues to be a destination for newcomers worldwide, it is also one of the most technologically advanced and fastest-growing hubs.

Toronto is growing and therefore it is changing.

The brick mural down on Queen Street West stating “You’ve Changed” is addressing you and me and the city that surrounds us. All growing cities burst at the seams to encapsulate changing demographics.

Toronto is like any growing city in history. In a very broad sense, if a city is growing it cannot stay the same. Building a store or developing a neighbourhood does not guarantee its permanence. Neighbourhoods evolve through history, and forcing an area to stay the same can restrict its growth. Not every historic neighborhood in Toronto will survive the next 50 years.

Change is necessary for growth, but people, myself included, have an immediate aversion to change.

With that said, what is happening on Yonge Street is a very intense form of gentrification, where a wealthy demographic moves in and the neighbourhood is torn down and built anew. Forcing people out by increasing taxes too quickly because the property

FEATURES 09

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 03 OCTOBER 2017

values have skyrocketed is wrong. As someone who has a keen interest in North American urban development, I am not surprised that the city decided to allow a less authentic Yonge Street. We can look at

parallels in New York City. The area around Times Square in the 1980s was extremely run-down and dangerous, featuring sex shops, strip clubs, and adult movie stores. It had a high crime rate and was avoided by most. Mayor of New York City, Ed Koch, decided to gentrify the neighbourhood using city revenue.

He tore down buildings and evicted tenants to “save 42nd Street” and created one of the most recognizable tourist attractions in the world. This decision angered many, but was seen on the whole as a good move. Of course, hindsight being 20/20, it would be silly to argue for a return to Times Square’s former “glory.”

Yonge Street is pretty skeevy. A UofT graduate, who graduated in the late 1980s, told me that they were always told to stay off Yonge Street at night. Two weeks ago, one of my friends was flashed while on their way home in front of the 7/11 on College. I live right on Yonge Street and I have seen my fair share of interesting sights. It is safe to say Yonge Street downtown has earned a reputation.

Yonge Street is going to be torn down within the next 10 years. Take a nice long walk through it and take in those sites because they are an endangered species. Condo towers will reign from Bloor down to Lake Ontario and Yonge Street will be a condo tower jungle by 2027. All that makes Yonge Street good and bad will be erased to form a modern 21st-century downtown core. This is Toronto’s Yonge Street of tomorrow.

Zooming out, this is not at all about being scared of low-income housing and saying they should be removed from a historic area; far from it. We are talking about the issue of gentrification and a changing city.

I am here to argue that a complete rejection of any gentrification grinds the open culture of a city like Toronto to a halt. However, using property value and location to force people out because they cannot afford living there is immoral. We cannot allow nameless, faceless real estate appraisers to dictate how the city should grow. That is the distinction. If an area becomes a student apartment neighbourhood over time because of proximity to campus, and it changes the demographic of that neighbourhood, that is a dynamic sign of a growing city.

Another side of gentrification is that when a

neighbourhood is not doing well economically, it is bought out by larger and more profitable enterprises.

It is important that small businesses belonging to these well-established communities are supported.

Regardless of urban transformations, if a small business is not getting customers, it will disappear. Saying you want things to stay the same and then ordering books on Amazon does not work. The slightly higher costs of items at small businesses may offset a necessity to save money, but it reserves culture instead of eliminating. Or you can seek out a $22 haircut at a barbershop and strike up a great conversation for free.

There has to be much more of a dialogue about gentrification in growing cities.

What I am now addressing can be paralleled to actively trying to live sustainably: recycling, composting, using reusable bags, biking, and cutting down on meat consumption. Supporting local city culture is tantamount to a lifestyle change requiring active thinking and not passive convenience. It is harder in a city than a smaller town. There are hundreds of stores at our disposal, but waking up means going to Canada Computers instead of Best Buy when faced with a broken computer, or buying that book you want at Seekers on Bloor instead of at Indigo. These multimillion dollar investments on Yonge Street definitely inject lots of money into the city but it does not trickle down and disperse throughout the city; it corporatizes the neighbourhood in which convenience is valued over culture.

While urban development, like carbon pricing and net neutrality, is not everyone’s favourite topic to discuss, it is necessary to understand. We should care and be active about our city’s culture because we cannot let more neighbourhoods fall by the wayside strictly because of grand investments of real estate giants. While we may have lost Yonge Street, it’s not too late for Toronto. No matter where you come from, being a part of city culture can start today. Towers will scrape the sky as Toronto develops more and more onto the global stage. But we have the responsibility to strike a balance between explosive, ambitious growth and sustaining the local culture.

photo

| hana nikcevic

10 SCIENCE

EDITORS | TANUJ ASHWIN KUMAR AND NADINE RAMADAN SCIENCE@THESTRAND.CA

Cosmic anomalies Weird mysteries in the sky: are they aliens or what?

nadine ramadan and tanuj kumar science editors

Outer space is peculiar. This is a universal idea regardless of one’s educational standing, comprising human views of the deep dark abyss. From thousands of years ago (when humanity made its first strides to understand the stars, and, in turn, seasons, crop patterns, and other things directly relevant to life back then) to today (where, despite our heavily advanced technology, there are still many gaps in our understanding of the universe), space has offered a multitude of mysteries.

These can be fairly technical or physical, such as the identity of dark matter or the exact mechanics and classification of stellar structure. Knowledge of this sort advances quickly, as we can observe, model, and craft experiments to create new knowledge that builds upon our existing base of understanding. This materialist perspective on the mysteries of space has allowed humanity to, quite literally, advance beyond the stars.

Then there are some philosophical mysteries. While we may not have understood the mechanics of black holes hundreds of years in the past, a big lingering question remains: what lies beyond? Are we the only ones alone in this universe? Will we be visited by, or come into contact with, extraterrestrial organisms in the future? Unfortunately, the formations of this question in the present day are often riddled with a lot of woo and pseudoscience. Fortunately, astronomers ask this too. In fact, the statistical likelihood of the existence of extraterrestrial life is very high—but, it’s unlikely that most of it would be the familiar “greys” that we see, or even that any UFO encounters in the past are valid at all (besides being known cosmic phenomena or, after the 1950s, peculiar military craft).

What becomes particularly interesting is when these mysteries seem to converge through presenting a baffling hole in our understandings of space at that present time. A technical observation that seems to fly in the face of what we know, or offers no proper explanation that fits with current known physics. How do we classify these mysteries? Here are two to whet your appetite: Wow! Signal Despite significant advances in recent years, scientific research is still riddled with unanswered questions. Nowhere is this more apparent than the discoveries of space, whose vastness has revealed mysteries that have perplexed scientists, decade after decade. A prime example of this was the 1977 detection of the “Wow! Signal.”

The Wow! Signal was a radio signal detected by the now-defunct Big Ear telescope in Ohio. What made the signal so amazing to scientists was that its intensity was unparalleled: it was thirty times louder than deep space noise. The signal, which lasted for 72 seconds, appeared to be coming from the constellation Sagittarius, but when scientists looked at the spot in the constellation ar which the signal had originated, they found nothing there.

The signal was hailed as possible evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Scientists at the time believed that if aliens were to communicate with us, they would use loud radio signals of a frequency around 1420 µHz—the familiar frequency of hydrogen—a frequency we humans could quickly recognize and understand. So when the Wow! Signal was detected and happened to perfectly match this criteria, it finally seemed to be conclusive evidence of intelligent life beyond us.

Finally, however, the mystery of the Wow! Signal appears to have an answer. The Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences published research in June 2017 proposing evidence that the Wow! Signal was actually emitted by a nearby pair of comets. These comets, 266P/Christensen and 335P/Gibbs, are surrounded by enormous hydrogen clouds whose radio frequency matches that of the Wow! Signal.

Tabby’s Star Yet another example of the mysteries of outer space is a star in the Milky Way constella-

tion Cygnus known as Tabby’s star. The star, formally termed KIC 8462852, has baffled scientists due to its odd dimming properties.

What makes Tabby’s star so odd is that its dips don’t seem to follow any apparent pattern. Stars do have dips in their brightness from time to time, often due to transiting planets that decrease the star’s light as the planet orbits around it. However, this decrease in brightness would occur periodically with the orbit, something not observed in Tabby’s star.

Moreover, when Tabby’s star does dim, it dims significantly, sometimes decreasing its brightness by as much as 22 percent, which is not uncommon for very young stars, but unprecedented for middle-aged ones like Tabby’s star. Usually, transiting planets only decrease the brightness of a star by less than one percent.

The star’s odd dimming intervals were first noticed in 2011 by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, but scientific analysis confirmed that the star has likely been dimming and brightening for the past century.

The explanations for the odd dimming patterns of Tabby’s star have been widespread.

Some scientists attribute the dimming to a planet passing in front of Tabby’s star, or perhaps a comet. However, this planet or comet would need to be massive in order to cause the magnitude of fading Tabby’s star undergoes. Even a planet the size of Jupiter could only dim one percent of the star’s brightness. Some fringe theories claim that the dimming is due to alien civilizations creating massive solar energy superstructures as Dyson spheres that absorb the star’s light. Up until last week, astronomers have been dutifully keeping track of these dimming periods.

THE STATISTICAL LIKELIHOOD OF THE EXISTENCE OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE IS VERY HIGH—BUT, IT’S UNLIKELY THAT MOST OF IT WOULD BE THE FAMILIAR “GREYS” THAT WE SEE. What are the Answers?

The interesting thing about mysteries straddling the border of technical and philosophically humanistic is that, regardless of their outcome, their status on the precipice of known human knowledge means that we will get an interesting answer regardless of the result. It may very well be intelligent life of some kind, or, as the Wow! Signal case seemed to imply, just cosmic phenomena that we had previously been unaware of, but now understand.

The reality is that the drive to understand the mechanics of outer space has been intertwined with deep philosophical questions about the mysteries of potential cosmic life.

Since time immemorial, cultures have ingrained within themselves the notion of an existence that lies further beyond. Whether these are cosmic space people with Dyson spheres, or perhaps simply the majesty of a universe in which one feels so tiny, only time will tell.

But as even these mysteries show, as long as we have gaps in our understanding that we seek to pursue, the tantalizing fruits of cosmic knowledge continue to generate peculiar questions, helping make space the oddity it is today, as it was when we first set our eyes upon it.

Editor’s note: an online version of this article will contain links to all of the information above, so readers can dig deeper into the cool world of radio astronomy.

ARTS AND CULTURE 11

EDITOR | SABRINA PAPAS ARTSANDCULTURE@THESTRAND.CA

In conversation with W. Kamau Bell The comedian talks activism, podcasts, and self-care rebecca gao stranded editor

W. Kamau Bell is an American “socio-political comedian and dad.” His work involves race relations in America, what being Black in America means, and a myriad of other intersections. His show on CNN, The United Shades of America, recently won an Emmy. Bell also has three podcasts: Kamau Right Now, Denzel Washington Is The Best Actor Of All Time Period, and Politically Re-Active. Despite being an extremely busy man, Bell also just released a book—The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau.

The Strand had the chance to talk to Bell before his performance at this year’s JFL42.

The Strand: How does it feel to be a reporter, though comedic, of colour in America, especially in light of current events?

W. Kamau Bell: That’s funny because I don’t think of myself as a reporter. Because I’m on CNN, people will often refer to me as a reporter or journalist. I am still a comedian, it’s what I put on my tax forms. An actual journalist once said to me: “I think what you do is ‘investigative comedy’” and I was like “THAT’S IT!” I’m using comedy to investigate and learn things.

Do you think of your work as a form of activism?

I’m aware that the work that I do is not the real work of activism—there are actual activists out there doing the boots-tothe-ground work. I think that the work I do can be valuable because it can highlight issues. The episode of United Shades of America that won the Emmy was about Chicago. We did a long extended section about Black Lives Matter and talked with the various activists involved there. Talking to them on CNN and talking about Black Lives Matter on a network where a lot of other commentators and pundits get it wrong, it was important to me that we do it right. I don’t think of it as being the work of changing the world, but I do think I help highlight how others are changing the world. I also teach people watching at home who then go, “Oh, I didn’t know Black Lives Matter was that.”

As a person of colour living in North America, I often feel as though white people are always asking me for my opinions. And in my experience, it can become very overwhelming. How have you balanced the importance of

commentary with the need for self-care?

This is my job and I understand that I’m always in the position to be helping people through things they don’t understand. What I’ve started doing is pointing people to the right resources. Like I’m not gonna explain this to you—I’m gonna send you to this person, or link you to that article, or this Twitter thread. That’s how I’m gonna help you understand. There’s a great Twitter and Facebook account called White Nonsense Roundup (@nowhitenonsense). Basically, when people are really coming after you online, sending you accusations and questions, you can tag them and the white people who run White Nonsense Roundup come in and they handle it. That’s huge part of self-care, letting someone else handle it and feeling like it’s okay to redirect them.

On your show, United Shades of America, you travel to various communities in the US and talk to people in their environment and let them be comfortable. Why do you think it’s important that you portray the other side like you do?

It’s clear [to the audience] what my opinion is when I sit down with the Klan or Richard Spencer. The part that people think is silly is that I let them talk at all. You may be at home going, “I know exactly who Richard Spencer is because I’ve read all the articles and the blogs,” but most people don’t know what those viewpoints are and don’t realize how dangerous they are. Those viewpoints are important because they are a part of this country—and frankly, they always have been—and right now they’re active in the White House. People get frustrated when I don’t yell at these people. But no, I want these people to talk; I want them to get comfortable and say what they’re gonna say.

How do you feel about podcasts as a form of informing the public?

Right now, in the 21st century, there are so many ways to put out your art and your message into the world. For me, I’m pursuing the path I’m interested in. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and that’s why I have three podcasts [laughs]. I don’t think it’s important how you do it, it’s important that you do it in the way that feels best for you. When I meet people in arts and media and they complain about another podcast, I kinda think they’re wasting their time. If you want people to

hear what you have to say, the podcast has been invented for you to do that for very little overhead. I think there’s no such thing as “too many podcasts”; the more podcasts the merrier.

If your podcast is good and you’re active enough, you’ll find an audience.

You also just released a book: The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell. Is there any reason why you chose to tell this story—which is a more personal story—in this form?

I grew up in a house that was filled with books. To me, books are like artifacts. With everything that’s gone down in my life in the last five years, I really thought that it was time for me to catalogue all of that. I had to ask myself, “How did I get here?” It just so happened to be at the same point where we, as a country, are asking ourselves “How did we get here?”

It was written very quickly and very frantically, and it feels kinda hectic. And I kinda had to tell myself, “Well, the country feels hectic, so hopefully this is okay.”

How can university students—and student publications like The Strand—make any bit of a difference?

I think the great thing about university is that you get to experiment and try different styles of writing. The thing I would do is really take the opportunity to push yourself as a creator and a writer. Like, as a journalist, think: “What’s in the world that’s not in the world and how can I make that happen here?” And how quickly can you turn it over? Cause the faster you write, the more you write, the better you’re going to become as a writer.

For me, I always look for the story that’s not being covered or the people that aren’t being covered or the angle that’s not being covered. That’s what I’m trying to do with United Shades. Like, “I don’t know much about Puerto Rico, I don’t hear people in my life talk about Puerto Rico… maybe we should go to Puerto Rico.” And Puerto Rico isn’t necessarily in the top ten stories that people talk about, but for Puerto Ricans, it’s always number one. Sometimes, it’s about the obvious thing. Like, we should talk to Muslims because this country is always talking about misunderstanding Muslims.

So, I think those are the two things—either covering something that is covered a lot but is misunderstood, or covering something that isn’t covered at all.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

A diverse exploration of identity An overview of Toronto’s inaugural Bi Arts Festival maia kachan associate arts and culture editor photo

The first annual Toronto Bi Arts Festival took place from September 22nd to 24th, 2017. The festival’s vision is stated as the creation of “an annual Bisexual Arts Festival that celebrates bisexual visibility, culture, and history.” Planned to coincide with the nationwide bisexual visibility week that began on September 22nd, the festival featured a wide variety of events over three days, providing platforms to promote art by bi, pan, and fluid artists, as well as spaces to discuss the experiences of bi+ people.

The festival started Friday, with D-Beatstro hosting a pop-up market of art by local bi, queer, pan, and fluid identifying people, as well as the launch of the festival’s zine, CRUSH. Edited by Kat Pruss, CRUSH was available for sale throughout the festival and features work by a wide range of bi+ artists. It can still be purchased at D-Beatstro and a variety of bookstores across the city. The pop-up market featured everything from candles to queer- and sex-positive accessories. There was a heavy focus on feminism, positivity, and intersectionality by many of the diverse artists.

Glad Day Bookshop hosted an art gallery, which lasted the entire weekend, and a bisexual writing showcase on Saturday. Saturday night was Smashes, a queer comedy act.

Finally, Sunday featured a Wikipedia edit-a-thon at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA) and a short screening of independent, experimental, and bisexual films

at the Tranzac Club.

Perhaps almost as notable as the broad range of events was the way the festival successfully utilized many spaces across the city. Working with Glad Day Bookshop, the CLGA and D-Beatstro—all spaces focused on the experiences of marginalized groups—integrated the festival into an already flourishing community of local artists who are more likely than the general population to be engaged in an arts festival focused on bisexual visibility. Continuing to build relationships with spaces that hold similar missions to the festival will be advantageous for continued success.

Having been able to attend “Incite: A Celebration of Contemporary Bisexual Writing” on Saturday afternoon, I was impressed with both the quality of the writing presented and the diverse audience that came to the event. Jon Pressick, a “sex radio host, video content producer, burlesque performer, erotica writer, and event producer,” emceed the event, including his own anecdotes on bisexual experience between readings.

Notable performances from “Incite” include an excerpt of a sex scene from Karen Connelly’s new book, The Change Room, Kamila Rina’s work within the glosa poetic structure, and Kate Mildew’s short, sweet poems on being a nurse and being in love, among other topics. There was broad and diverse representation from bisexual identities that intersect

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grace king

with other marginalizations, such as being a person of colour, genderfluid, autistic, and a woman. To see such a diverse collection of experiences, identities, and presentation styles was refreshing.

At “Incite,” founders, Catherine Jones and Stephen Harvey stated their passion and motivation for continuing the festival in future years. The possibility for widespread success is exciting in many ways—for further development of an already incredible event, and for creating space to highlight the work of marginalized groups in Toronto.

12 ARTS AND CULTURE

EDITOR | SABRINA PAPAS ARTSANDCULTURE@THESTRAND.CA

Onsite Gallery presents raise a flag: works from the Indigenous Art Collection (2000 - 2015) An expressive, multifaceted, and crucial first exhibition from OCADU’s newest gallery hana nikcevic photo editor

Collecting and exhibiting works by Indigenous artists is a process that has long been fraught with missteps. There is a history of prejudice and ignorance in the white-dominated world of curating—Indigenous works, if they are shown at all, have tended to be shown decontextualized, as artifacts, and/or as ethnography or “natural history.” In addition, institutions have tended to purchase works that display expected notions of Indigeneity or explicitly address their artist’s Indigenous background, as though works by Indigenous artists are only valuable insofar as they can be didactic or can make obvious the purchasing institution’s ostensible dedication to showcasing Indigenous work. The vast majority of arts institutions in Canada are funded by government grants, most notably those available through the Canada Council, and these grants have diversity requirements. Although the intention isn’t inherently wrong or misguided, this kind of financial incentive for featuring Indigenous work can be conducive to performative actions. The issues continue: the right of non-Indigenous curators to curate Indigenous work is deeply contested and the historic prevalence of group shows can be symptomatic of valuing “Indigeneity” and erasing individuality. Group shows, of course, are common practice—in this context, however, their implications need to be considered. raise a flag, is, yes, a group show, and it does focus on the “general” theme of Indigenous histories in Canada, but it is nevertheless—as Lindsay Nixon, Canadian Art’s Indigenous editor-at-large puts it—subversive. Curated by Ryan Rice, the Delaney Chair of Indigenous Visual Culture at OCAD University and a Mohawk of Kahnawake, Quebec, raise a flag seeks to inspire critical discourse, advocate for justice, and celebrate a “creative legacy.” The show exhibits 49 works from the Indigenous Art Collection, founded in 1965 and overseen by the Indigenous Art Centre program at Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development Canada (INAC). The collection comprises more than 4,000 works by First Nations, Inuit, and Métis artists at various stages in their artistic careers.

The works in the exhibit are richly contextualised: most works are displayed with detailed essays by Indigenous art scholars and curators, such as Wanda Nanibush, Assistant Curator of Canadian and Indigenous Art at the AGO, and Lee-Ann Martin, Curator of Contemporary Aboriginal Art at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. In addition, the Nations of the artists are identified on artwork panels, and common threads of method and meaning run through each of the show’s works. A proclivity for multimedia is clear, as well as the union of the traditional and the contemporary and the oft-ironic joining of Indigenous methods with Settler motifs, or vice versa. Wally Dion’s Shield Wall, for instance, is a row of connected star-patterned shields made from circuit boards, overlaying a traditional plains First Nations motif with the idea of modern excess, including technology, waste, constant communication, and a Plexiglas reference to riot shields. Through painting, in So Much Depends Upon Who Holds the Shovel (2008), Christi Belcourt repurposes pointillism to reference the ceremonial intricacy of Métis floral beading. She also chooses to feature endangered or nearly extinct flora and fauna; references to a national history of anti-Indigenous violence exist in varying degrees of overtness throughout the exhibit. Rebecca Belmore’s

arresting Fringe (2013) suggests horrifying aggression, while also depicting healing through self-representation and cultural connectivity. Ruth Cuthand’s beautifully beaded viruses in Surviving… (2011) note the destructive prevalence of HIV and Hepatitis C in Indigenous communities, but, as Nixon states, serve also to express acceptance and assert identity. Dana Claxton’s photographic suite Tatanka Wanbli Chekpa Wicincala (2015) comments on the commodification of stereotypical Indigenous identities and mocks the disparity between the imagined Indigenous individual and reality. Each artist’s work is uniquely powerful, expressive, and visually compelling; raise a flag, has the potential to become a seminal work.

It goes without saying that a review is no replacement for the real thing: this is a show that warrants a visit.

A print copy of the show’s accompanying Education Guide is offered in the gallery to “enrich [the viewer’s] experience of the artworks” and “aid in interpreting the meaning of Indigenous art forms in the context of tradition, contemporary art and today’s society.” The publication is also available online as a PDF, accessible via the exhibit page on the OCAD website (www2.ocadu.ca/event/raise-a-flag-works-from-the-indigenous-art-collection-2000-2015). As mentioned earlier, an exhibit of Indigenous art does not require a didactic element to be of value; as a response to Canada 150, however, raise a flag, ensures that it works to its full communicative potential.

Onsite Gallery is located at 199 Richmond Street. The gallery is open from noon Wednesday through Sunday; admission is free. christi belcourt michif/otepimisiwak so much depends upon who holds the shovel, 2008 acrylic on canvas, 121.9 x 243.8 cm collection of indigenous and northern affairs canada

Review: Hart House Theatre presents Hedwig and the Angry Inch Forget Crews and Tangos—go see Hedwig! william dao contributor

I admit, I basically knew nothing about this show before going into it. But I think that’s part of what makes this show so special—the narrative is full of surprises and tricks. Going into the show with no expectations is what makes it so impressive.

Hart House Theatre’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical directed by Rebecca Ballarin. The show follows the story of Hedwig, played by James King, throughout her childhood and growth as a genderqueer rock performer. The show starts before the show even starts. As soon as you walk into the theatre, the band is already on stage “preparing” themselves for the show. The audience is buzzing with conversation. It feels like walking into an indie rock concert.

The first half of the show truly does feel like a really good drag show, filled with lively audience interaction. At this point of the show, not much is happening at the surface level. Hedwig is performing some “fun” musical numbers and occasionally teasing the audience with sexual innuendos and references to Toronto.

The plot really emerges during the second half of

the show. The audience’s initial impression of the narrative completely flips, becoming something magical.

Both Hedwig and Yitzhak (Lauren Mayer), Hedwig’s husband, are wonderfully juicy in terms of emotional fragility and depth. Hedwig’s story of growing up is both haunting and draining because of the obstacles she has faced with abandonment—both in her family life and romantic life.

Yitzhak’s story of coping with Hedwig’s abusive behaviour and what he has sacrificed for her brings us moments of comedy while still being heart-wrenching. One can assume that the rehearsal process and the work that we see unfold on stage must have been emotionally exhausting. The actors should really be commended for their commitment to the roles due to these difficulties, as they both knocked their performances out of the park.

This show is very loud and yet the most powerful moments for me are the moments of silence. The stillness that exploded on stage during Hedwig’s biggest emotional meltdown was a clear highlight of this production—in these moments, the entire room fell silent with the show. In the-

atre, you often hear people say “embrace the silence,” and it was so electrifying to watch two actors fully master that on stage.

Another aspect of this show that sets it apart is the intimacy. The show feeds on an intimate feeling—both the performers and Ballarin do an exceptional job at achieving this. There is a door on stage right that the characters open throughout the show, introducing a threat both to the insularity of the show and the psychological safety of Hedwig.

This really brings the audience closer to Hedwig as we are all trapped inside Hart House listening to Hedwig’s life while feeling disconnected from the outside world that is beyond that door.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is perfect for anyone that loves powerful theatre. If viewers come to this production expecting a traditional, fun musical, they will be happily mistaken. This show is much more than a drag show or a basic musical and will absolutely satisfy your need for Crews and Tangos, leaving you with a taste of real humanity.

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@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 03 OCTOBER 2017

The beautifully grotesque worlds of Guillermo del Toro A look inside At Home with Monsters harrison wade associate arts and culture editor photo

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art gallery of ontario

Too steeped in genre for the art crowd, yet too artful to be purely commercial, Guillermo del Toro has always been something of an outsider. Plucking inspiration from art indiscriminately, his movies end up looking like Vermeer paintings while telling the story of a vampire, a devil, or a ghost. It’s this interest in the fantastic which has earned him his fame—besides his refreshing passion for practical effects—and, now, del Toro has brought his creatures and fantasies to the AGO. A complex look at del Toro’s films and the art which has inspired him, At Home with Monsters, makes its last stop in Toronto.

For those who might not know of him, del Toro is a filmmaker who began his career in Mexico before settling into the outskirts of Hollywood. His first feature film, Cronos, tells the tale of a grandfather who is accidentally granted eternal life after being pierced by a gold mechanical bug. It’s a vampire story in its iconography, but a family drama in structure. From there, del Toro has gone on to create Spanish Civil War ghost stories, comic book adaptations, a Kaiju film, and a gothic romance.

What remains consistent is his love for monsters. Ghouls, gods, and demons make up del Toro’s worlds, and it’s their conflict with humans, or lack thereof, which often acts as a catalyst for his stories. This exhibition is not horrific or frightening—del Toro’s monsters are always sympathetic, if not the heroes of their stories. They are embodiments of cultural fears as much as they are personifications of our own imperfections. To accept them, rather than to run in fright, is a political act, as in The Devil’s Backbone.

The exhibition greets you with a floor-to-ceiling photo of the real entrance to Bleak House—the home del Toro has created in California, from which many of the artworks have

been borrowed. It’s also the first of many prints which stretch from floor to ceiling but almost disappear behind the immediacy of all the artworks on display. The exhibition space takes on a number of roles at once: it’s a replica of Bleak House, a spiritual sanctuary to the grotesque, and an attempt to dissolve distinctions between high and low art.

There’s an abundance of art hung on the crimson walls, all loosely grouped by theme: Childhood Innocence; Death & the Afterlife; and so on. Fans keen on finding del Toro’s art will have to browse through illustrations and paintings done by other artists. One of the exhibition’s strengths is just how well these disparate pieces play off of each other. Side by side, it’s delightful to see the resemblances between two books of illustrations—one from the 18th century and one inspired by Pan’s Labyrinth.

I was ready to write about the scope of del Toro’s practical abilities—he worked as a special effects artist to raise funds for Cronos—as well as the range of his output. However, this exhibition is about more than the individual. Curator Jim Shedden and del Toro have brought together a collection of artists, mapping the context of del Toro’s genres into a visible history. This curatorial decision adds depth to his work, while welcoming anyone unfamiliar with his movies.

Some of this artistic history will be more surprising than others. There’s a handful of Disney prints mounted beside sketches of insects and decay. There’s a wall of books next to a wax statue of Edgar Allan Poe, and then a wall plastered with comic books. The range of art on display is reflective of del Toro’s eclecticism and his commitment to actively consuming art. To him, this means finding inspiration no matter the context; there’s darkness in Disney as much as there is beauty in Frankenstein.

But there’s even more to see—and not on the walls—thanks to exhibition designer Katy Chey. Full-scale figures from del Toro’s worlds wait around every corner. Costumes, including the extravagant dresses from Crimson Peak, stand out from the props stuck behind safety glass. A number of black cases of curiosities litter the exhibition, holding skulls, trinkets, and other macabre knick-knacks. Even the floors are covered by vivid carpets, rolled out for the exhibition.

In short, before I give everything away, there’s plenty of art to discover. The range of media is a testament to the collaborative nature of film. Amidst the beauty of all the finished pieces, one display stood out, precisely because it was unfinished. A few of del Toro’s notebooks are displayed like any other book in the exhibition. But, with them are scanned copies on tablets, letting you flip through page after page of notes and sketches. They’re filled to the margins, testaments to the amount of drafting that has gone into each one of his movies.

At Home with Monsters tries its best to take you out of the art gallery. It’s almost an extended experiment in atmosphere, almost a horrific home, but not quite. Not only is the exhibition an attempt to normalize monsters and investigate the grotesque, but also a curation that searches to undo artistic hierarchies. Del Toro spoke about how his Bleak House is not a hobby or hoarder’s collection, but a kind of church. It’s a “compression chamber of inspiration,” and for a moment we’re granted access. Go, get inspired, and maybe discover something about your own fears.

Review: Loving Vincent A loving homage to a beloved painter marjan dian contributor

Vincent van Gogh’s artistic impact on our world is undeniable. One mention of his name, and images of the swirling yellows and blues of his Starry Night flash before our eyes— seeming to come alive and dance before us. To have a film that repurposes Van Gogh’s enchanting style through moving images of his own art is nothing less than a feast for the senses. As “the world’s first fully painted feature film,” Loving Vincent expertly takes audiences deeper into the artist’s tortured soul and delivers a touching homage to his life.

Directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, Loving Vincent focuses on the days following the alleged suicide of Van Gogh. Instead of taking us directly through the artist’s perspective, the film provides us with a puzzle of separate, yet intertwining vignettes that introduce viewers to numerous figures from his life. There is the postman, Joseph Roulin (Chris O’Dowd), to whom the last letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother was left. He then passes it to his son, Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth), who becomes our protagonist and lead detective. From here, the story follows the search for not only Vincent’s brother, Theo, but the answer to Van Gogh’s “suicide.”

Most of the film is structured to convince viewers that there is no possible way Van Gogh killed himself, proposing instead that he was murdered. The portrayal of Vincent’s doctor, Dr. Gachet (Jerome Flynn), as a selfish, indifferent man surrounded by equally indifferent company, leads the audience to assume that he is the murder suspect in question.

But the film does an excellent job of avoiding predictability.

Dr. Gachet’s final meeting with Armand at the conclusion of the film reveals his role as a red herring, tying a poetically tragic bow over all the separate pieces of the puzzle of

Vincent’s life.

Beyond the mystery of Vincent’s death, perhaps the most enticing part of the film was the usage of flashbacks and how deeply they seemed to connect to the overarching legacy of the artist. As Loving Vincent progresses, there are many instances of characters providing anecdotes concerning Van Gogh’s behaviour during the days leading to his death.

Painted solely in shades of grey, black, and white, these moments deviate stylistically from the rest of the film and the colourful works by Van Gogh. My immediate thought was, why? Why choose to reject something so crucial to the foundation of the movie, especially in segments of the film where Van Gogh is depicted alive and dealing with both the good and devastating parts of his life? Were these experiences not crucial to his paintings? Only towards the conclusion of the film did the answer become increasingly clear to me—Van Gogh never got to see the rise of his work’s popularity and his fame was largely posthumous. The choice to depict the life of Van Gogh in this way genuinely mirrors the development of his legacy over time and leaves you with even more to take away from the film than expected.

Brimming with emotion, Loving Vincent eventually comes to ask the question, “Will people appreciate what he did?” The answer to that question is a resounding “yes.” With a production spanning six years and a crew of over 100 artists, the creation of this film exists as proof. It is not only a cinematically stunning homage to Vincent van Gogh, riddled with references to his famed paintings, but authentically provides audiences with a way to truly understand and empathize with the tragic end of a cherished artist.

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EDITOR | REBECCA GAO STRANDED@THESTRAND.CA

Does Anyone Know Who the Pilgrims Were?

I really don’t know! margaret atwood victoria college alumna

Hello, everyone! I’m trying to write a new novel and I need your help. The novel is about pilgrims, and so far it’s very good. The only problem is, I’m not really sure who the pilgrims were. I’ve tried asking my friends, but none of them know either. I know that pilgrims wore hats, but so do firemen. Are firemen pilgrims? Not as far as I know. It’s very important to me that my novels are well-researched, and that’s why I’m reaching out for help. Never let it be said that Margaret Jean Atwood is afraid to ask for help. Before I published The Handmaid’s Tale, my editor helped to make sure I had spelled all the words correctly—I had. I am a celebrated author, so I’m pretty good at spelling. So, if you know who the pilgrims were, please shoot me an email at margaret.atwood3@aol.ca. Thanks so much!

Robarts library exposed as alien spacecraft Students distraught wilfred moeschter staff writer

Robarts Library was a signature of Toronto, featuring in film and television, and was widely considered an icon of Brutalist architecture. Nobody was prepared for last week, when Robarts and the adjoined Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library just kind of decided to leave, and blasted off into the sky. It’s become more and more clear that the library was actually some sort of alien vessel. Here are some eyewitness accounts from students who witnessed Robarts’s departure: Thomas – 2nd year: “I’ve been saying that Robarts is one of those big robot things from the newest Zelda game since March. Turns out that in the air, it’s surprisingly much more aerodynamic than it looks. I always assumed that no human could design something so hideous, so this alien theory checks out to me.”

Leo – 3rd year: “I’ve studied there for two years, and I haven’t yet found an ugly enough place to go instead. I’ve been trying the basement of the Health Sciences building but it just isn’t the same. I can’t go back to my bedroom—something about the natural light coming in through my window and the relative clearness of the air really puts me off.”

Miley – 3rd year: “Nobody knew what those bizarre air-lock looking things on the sides of the building were. It turns out that they were exactly that. To be honest, I’m not even surprised. How could we have

been so blind?”

Alex – 2nd year: “There was always a weird smell around the 13th floor stacks, where I study. Everyone thought it was me, but after this, aliens are the more logical answer—for sure.

Helen – 4th year: “My friend and I saw these grimy-looking figures huddled on the ground in the aftermath. We thought they were grad students, but maybe there had been alien prisoners stowed on board. I think it’s all a hoax, personally. Like, Robarts in general.”

James – 1st year: “If Robarts was an alien ship, then the Starbucks workers there are aliens too. My friends have been aliens all this time. I COULD BE AN ALIEN. OH GOD, WHAT’S NEXT, PRESIDENT ROBINS IS AN ALIEN?!”

“Zarclon” – no year given: “Wait, we’re talking about the alien thing? Yeah, I’m just a transfer student, zero clue what’s going on. Super weird. My name’s actually Zac, I think I said it wrong earlier.

I’m leaving.”

The University is expected to roll out a campaign for a new building design, voted on by students and faculty. Rumoured frontrunners for the design are an enormous statue of university President Gertler, a concrete whale, and a to-scale replica of Alcatraz.

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@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 03 OCTOBER 2017

The results are in!

The Very Important Science is done rebecca gao scientist

After a tense two weeks here at The Strand, the results are in. It’s taken countless hours of labouring over numbers—something that I, as a Scientist, know plenty about—in order for us to crack the code. We now know who the superior pop girl group is. Though it must be acknowledged that all girl groups are magical and powerful, Science has determined that Little Mix is, in fact, somehow better. I’m sorry Harmonizers. I believed, too.

A special thanks is directed to Co-Editor-in-Chief Molly Kay who stuck her neck out in order to get the greatest sample size. To her, we (Science) are eternally grateful.

Here are the results in graph form (very important for Science):

fig.one (upper right)

| science | science fig. three (lower right) | science fig. two (lower left)

Five things students hate more than the terrifying spider that’s crawling up your leg Who cares when you have student loans? jess stewart-lee contributor

1. The TTC being late (again)

3. Overpriced textbooks

Despite both the TTC being named APTA’s 2017 best transit system in North America and the large black widow making its way up your nice new pair of jeans, it always feels as though the TTC breaks down right when you need it most, like right before an exam or when you’re trying to evacuate the zoo because of an escaped creature in the entomology wing. Just your luck!

If you weigh the two equally, a $300 textbook is absolutely going to set you back on rent, but a spider bite is, most likely, only going to send you to the hospital for a little bit. Even if this spider is currently on your upper thigh.

2. Three-hour lectures

Without fail, you do everything right: wake up early, ensure your laptop is fully charged, and get all your school supplies in order, but it always seems that every other student is a step ahead! Maybe if you had gotten that sweet spot in E.J. Pratt, you wouldn’t be here, with a spider’s hairy touch carefully tracing a path towards your clavicle. But alas! What can you do now?

There’s no telling just how poisonous the spider is and— oh look, it’s inching its way up towards your knee! But when you think about taking a six to nine class and then having to commute back home afterwards, the spider thing is definitely put into perspective.

4. The good study spaces being taken already

5. Running across campus for your back-to-back classes The bane of every U of T student’s existence! That spider sure is showing all the telltale signs of aggression that you managed to google before your phone died, but can it really compare to that awful feeling of sprinting across the street from Vic towards Hart House as you dodge cars coming from both directions? No way!

Sure, it may seem like the spider’s tiny yet deadly fangs are a more pressing issue, but the first class always runs late and the second one has attendance at the beginning, so it’s fairly even. If only there was a better shortcut, or even some way to deter spiders from piercing your soft flesh, maybe then you’d be less stressed for the upcoming school year!

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@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 03 OCTOBER 2017

7 WAYS TO GET OVER YOUR UNREQUITED CRUSH ON PENNYWISE, THE DANCING CLOWN He’ll never love you!!!!!! :( :( :( sumeeta farrukh contributor

6. Take him off that pedestal and remember that he has flaws too.

You’re not in love with Pennywise, the Dancing Clown, you’re in love with the idea of Pennywise (the Dancing Clown). Imagine what a life with him would really be like, a life complete with boring routines and every day mundanities. Will you still love him when he leaves the cap off the toothpaste? Will you still find him attractive when he doesn’t Febreze the bathroom after pooping?

Or when he snores? What if he doesn’t tip servers? This isn’t helping, is it? You want all of that. You want him.

You want all of him. Your heart aches for a future with him, you dream that every day starts and ends with him, you want the good and the bad, the fun and the boring, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, you need him and all of his flaws and all of his perfections. Well, you can’t have him.

7. Remember the ugly character he plays.

It’s hard to believe that beneath his beautiful shell, Pennywise sometimes portrays a horrifyingly ugly man named Bill Skarsgård (pictured below). That should be enough to turn anyone off. He’s creepy looking AF. We’ve all been in that situation; hopelessly crushing on someone who will never even look your way. With school back in session, you might find yourself falling for some new campus cutie, or that young professor that teaches you Bio, or Pennywise, the Dancing Clown. Pennywise is the charming and delightfully handsome character from the recent film IT, a romantic thriller that puts 50 Shades of Grey to shame. He’s never going to love you, so here’s a foolproof guide on getting over him.

1. Let yourself grieve.

all the things you could have done differently to make him yours. Maybe Pennywise is just too busy right now for a relationship. Maybe he’s just not that into you.

Why would he be? Have you seen him? Lower your standards.

3. Distance, block, and delete.

Block his social media—you don’t need his adorable, sexy photos clouding your feed. Don’t do things that will remind you of him. The circus, dancing, and romcoms are to be avoided at all costs.

It’s okay to be sad. Pennywise, the Dancing Clown is a huge catch and it’s heartbreaking to know he doesn’t love you back. Let yourself cry it out. Put on that emo playlist from grade seven that you have saved up for these situations. Remember the memories, write a song, or make a scrapbook of the good times.

4. Put yourself out there and meet new people.

2. Don’t get hung up on what could have been.

It’s not easy loving Pennywise, and you’re certainly not the only one who does. The fight to win his heart is not for everyone.

For whatever reason, it didn’t work out. Don’t dwell on

Someone is bound to love you eventually. It just won’t be Pennywise, the Dancing Clown.

5. Consider the fierce competition.

My candidate statement 100 words on why I should be on VUSAC vusac candidate eager first year

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