Vol. 56 Issue 4 by The Strand

WO R KI N G CO ND I T I O NS AT T H E C NE

MEN TA L H E A LT H I N A DV E RT I S I NG

CR I ME & C O M E DY I N B R I T I S H T V

MEMO R I E S O F H A L LOW E E NS PAST

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

VOL. 56 ISSUE 4 • OCT. 22 2013 • WWW.THESTRAND.CA

THE LANDSCAPE OF CANADIAN LITERATURE 10

REASONS FOR HOPE WITH

DR. JANE GOODALL This month started with a much-anticipated event at the Earth Sciences building; on Friday 4th, hundreds of eager students, professors, and professionals alike gathered to see the person who many of them cite as their childhood hero – Dr. Jane Goodall. The highly esteemed primatologist, environmentalist, humanitarian, and UN Peace Ambassador took to the stage after introductory speeches by the new Director of the School of Environment, Dr. Kimberly Strong, and University of Environmental Action (UTEA) President Tom McCarthy. In typical Goodall fashion, she began by telling stories. No notes, no power point slides. She told of her adventures walking through the ancient forests of the Gombe Stream in Tanzania where her pioneering work with chimpanzees began. Despite disapproval she received from professors who criticized her use of names for the chimpanzees instead of numbers, Goodall dedicated her life to the study of human’s closest relatives, earning her a PhD at Cambridge University in 1965. In November 1986, while attending a scientific conference in Chicago, it became clear to Goodall that her life-long research subjects were in serious danger of extinction. Human-induced deforestation, environmental degradation and climate change had caused the African chimpanzee population to drop from 1 – 2 million at the time of Goodall’s studies to just under 300,000 in the late 1980s. Goodall explained that she knew then that she must leave her research in Gombe behind and instead dedicate herself to the conservation of wild chimpanzees. For Goodall, Friday night can be seen as a typical “day in the life.” Currently, she travels over 300 days a year, telling stories and spreading awareness to packed auditoriums about the threats facing not only chimpanzees, but also humankind. She passionately describes her four reasons for hope she trusts will ultimately solve the problems that humans have inflicted on Earth: 1. 2.

The Human Brain: “If we can put satellites into outer space, we can do anything.” The Determination of Young People: “As they find out about the environmental and social problems that are now part of their heritage, they want to right those wrongs.”

REEMA KURELSHY

NADINE GALLE

3. 4.

The Indomitable Human Spirit: “We inspire those around us.” The Resilience of Nature: “Animals on the brink of extinction can bounce back, nature can regenerate itself.”

When she speaks, Goodall is never without her favourite stuffed monkey. Gary Haun, a U.S. Marine who lost his eyesight at 25 but still did not give up on his goal of being a magician, gave the toy to Goodall in 1996. Inspired by his spirit and accomplishments, Goodall named the toy Mr. H to honour him. Mr. H is Goodall’s favourite travel companion; she explains that he reminds her of the invincible human spirit and she loves the smiles that he elicits in her audiences. The Jane Goodall Institute has even launched “Mr. H Junior”, a similar-looking toy, so enthusiasts can “carry on Dr. Goodall’s message of peace and hope.” Goodall’s approach to revolutionary change is through promoting lifestyle change and activism. U of T’s School of the Environment is doing its part, expanding with revamped undergraduate programs and graduate collaborations. In addition, they are looking to strengthen ties with their long-standing neighbours in the Earth Sciences building, the Jane Goodall Institute.

RETURN TO NORMALCY?

The Aftermath of the US Government Shutdown MATTHEW CASACA After 16 days of shutdown, the United States Congress passed a bill last Thursday intended to avert the impending fiscal crisis and raise the debt ceiling. Although the legislation was ostensibly passed on a bipartisan basis, the causes that sparked the shutdown remain unresolved. The shutdown began on October 1 when the US Congress failed to pass a federal budget before September 30. Republicans, spurred on by Tea Party members, called for the delay or the defunding of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Consequently, some 700,000 federal workers were forced to take leave from employers as diverse as the Department of Justice to National Parks. This closure was alarming since Congress had failed to raise the debt ceiling—essentially the amount that Congress is allowed to borrow. The fiscal threat of the US defaulting on its $16.7 trillion deficit was narrowly avoided when the Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell introduced legislation to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling hours before the October 17 deadline. The legislation passed in the Democrat-con-

trolled Senate by 81 to 18 and in the Republicancontrolled House 285 to 144. President Barack Obama has lauded the initiative, saying “We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis. . . My hope and expectation is [that] everybody has learned there’s no reason why we can’t work on the issues at hand . . . and make sure that we’re not inflicting harm on the American people when we do have disagreements.” Others, such as Republican House Speaker John Boehner, are still determined to defund Obamacare despite the fact that its implementation was a key part of Obama’s 2012 Presidential election. As Boehner said: “Our drive to stop the train wreck that is the president’s health care law will continue.” Indeed, of the 231 Republicans in the House of Representatives, only 87 voted in favour of Reid and McConnell’s resolution. Obamacare has been controversial since its inception. Part of the problem Republicans have with Obamacare is that the law was passed on a strictly partisan basis before the House elections of 2010. More importantly, Republicans disagree with the provision known as the individual mandate which compels Americans without

health insurance to purchase the federally funded Obamacare. If they do not, they will be fined. The Supreme Court upheld the fine as a valid Congressional tax on 28 June 2012, marking a small victory for the Democrats. Obamacare takes effect in 1 January. When the Republicans conceded, Obamacare was left largely intact—save for one alteration that institutes detailed income and insurance checks of people who apply for Obamacare. According to Standard & Poor’s, a financial research company, the shutdown has caused a loss of some $24 billion to the US economy. It is unclear, however, whether the resolution will solve all of the major issues. The bill passed only funds the government until January 15 and raises the debt ceiling until February 7, so it is possible that another shutdown could occur next year. However, McConnell has emphasised that “there’ll not be another government shutdown, you can count on that.” Trust in the political process has been deeply affected. As President Barack Obama said, “There are no winners here... The American people are completely fed up with Washington.”

MALALA &

WENTING LI

YOUTH ACTIVISM CATRIONA SPAVEN-DONN There are not many people who have met the Queen, visited Obama in the White House, published a book, and been in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize. Even fewer have done all this by the age of 16. Malala Yousafzai has received much media attention over the last year since she was shot by the Taliban as she got off a school bus in her home region of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. She was targeted in this way because of her support for girls’ right to education, which the Taliban oppose. Already writing a blog for BBC Urdu entitled “The Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl” at age 11, Malala was aware of human rights issues from a very young age. In fact, she was not just aware of them; she was active in fighting for them. When the Taliban ordered for all female education to be stopped in Swat, Malala’s activist father was worried about the consequences for the girls school he had set up in the region. However, their classes continued and the Yousafzai family became well-known local advocates for female education. On 9th October 2012, Malala was shot and air lifted to a hospital in Peshawar, and then eventually taken for treatment in Birmingham, England. After brain surgery, Malala woke up to begin a new life in Britain, but still with the same goal and drive to fight for access to education. In July this year, on Malala’s 16th birthday, she stood in front of a group of young people at the UN Headquarters in New York and addressed the issues

which she has been dedicating herself to for years. She told her audience: “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” Since then, she has released a book, I Am Malala; she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; she has been published on the cover of TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and she has won the Sakharov Human Rights prize, which was decided upon by the EU Parliament’s political leaders. In the last two weeks, Malala has also met President Obama and Queen Elizabeth. She visited the White House earlier this month and talked to the American president about his country’s support for Pakistani and Afghan education, as well as for Syrian refugees. She also encouraged him to rethink the US’ use of drones and “refocus efforts on education.” After her visit, the White House released a statement about the International Day of the Girl in relation to Malala and other girls sparking change around the world. It read, “on every continent, there are girls who will go on to change the world in ways we can only imagine, if only we allow them the freedom to dream.” As Malala herself said, “they only shot a body, but they cannot shoot my dreams.” On Friday, The Guardian published an article entitled “Beyond Malala”, profiling other teenagers across the world who are also making a difference and who also have dreams they wish to realise.

Their list included a Sierra Leonean teenager, Kelvin Doe, who recently presented his inventions in the field of engineering to Harvard and MIT. He started out searching in dustbins for electronic parts that could fix problems in his Freetown community. Now young Sierra Leoneans have marked him as a local hero. Rene Silva is a Brazilian teenager who has already published a book about the favela where he lives. At age 11 he set up a newspaper called Voice of the Community and over the years he has continued to reveal the problems of Brazil’s slums in order to fix them. It is impossible to know how many other young people have made a name for themselves before turning 20. How many others like Malala dream of being a prime minister or a change-maker? Those who had parents telling them to “dream big” might have long-standing goals in mind that target problems in their community or further afield. But, as Malala has highlighted to the world, many people do not have the access to an education that allows for these ideas or opportunities. So, when one thinks of Malala, one might also think of the innumerable numbers of young people out there creating change with nothing more than their own initiative and personal drive. Malala has encouraged the world to celebrate all of these unknown names, as well as those which, like her own, have become famous.

NEWS AT A GLANCE

at UofT

in Canada

in the world

The Student Societies Summit will reconvene on Friday to discuss the reconciliation of diverging student bodies, including Victoria College.

Alice Munro is the first Canada-based author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is lauded as the “master of the contemporary short story.”

French school students protest deportations of teenagers. Due to public pressure, Roma girl is allowed to return without her family.

Prime Minister Harper signs a free-trade deal with the European Commission that will open up markets with Europe and drop import taxes on many consumer products such as food and even automobiles.

A UN investigator has called for the US to reveal data on drones attacks. He says that there is no justification for the US keeping hidden the numbers of civilians wounded or killed by their use of drones in such places as Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen.

In a recent ranking, Uof T has been listed as 8th in the world and 1st in Canada for scientific performance. Victoria College Drama Society’s The History Boys runs from 24-26 October.

DEXTER, BREAKING BAD, AND THE GLORIFICATION OF WHITE CRIME

SARA DERIS It’s the end of a T V era, in a way: two of the so-called “greatest shows ever” have come to an end in Dex ter and Breaking Bad. It seems like now’s a good time to reevaluate how we as viewers perceive race and crime—more specifically how viewers devour and aggressively defend T V shows that glorify white crime. Dex ter, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos, House of Cards, Boardwalk Empire: all critically-acclaimed shows with huge viewerships. All shows people love to gush over and beg you to star t watching. All shows that glorify white, t ypically male, crime. White people who commit crimes are por trayed as multi-dimensional characters, with the stor yline focusing on why they commit the crimes they do, how it is possible to forgive these crimes and even love these characters, and often, how they had to do it for their families or for other self less reasons. White people who commit crimes are never simply criminals; they commit crimes only when they absolutely have to. Actors por traying these characters are often praised for their depiction of the complexities of human nature, how people who commit crimes are still people, etc. etc. At the end of the day, white criminals are still human.

Conversely, racialized characters who commit crimes are simply criminals who must be punished and/or eliminated. There’s no overarching reason behind their crimes, not that viewers see, at least. These characters have never had a “good reason” to commit a crime; they are motivated by unadulterated violence, greed, selfishness, stupidit y, or impulsiveness. Racialized criminals do not think things through. They are dehumanized and present a one-dimensional por trait of a dangerous Other needing control. These characters are often used in comparison to white criminals. Dex ter fans, remember Miguel Prado? He ser ved to make Dexter appear calm, logical, and rational, the voice of reason. Miguel Prado, as opposed to Dexter, was deemed “out of control” after one murder and in need of elimination—by Dexter. There are some exceptions to this trend: The Wire, for example, has a diverse cast with wellwritten characters regardless of colour. However, shows like The Wire are rare. Often (but not always suach as in the case of Gustav Fring) the racialized characters that commit crimes are por trayed as animalistic in nature; they are slaves to their impulses, untrustwor thy, and not logical enough to com-

mit “good” crimes like a calm, collected white criminal. Viewers see racialized characters as innately more dangerous while white criminals only use crime as a means to an end. In the odd scenario where a white person will commit a crime deemed “bad” with no “good” reason behind it, they will usually exhibit a racialized characteristic—maybe they are an addict, ver y poor, and unwilling to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or maybe they are *gasp* secretly Muslim. Even then, the viewer will often receive the stor y of how this person “fell into bad ways”, a cour tesy not extended to racialized bodies. If there were to be a show that por trayed a black or brown criminal in the ways that white criminals are por trayed, there would inevitably be enormous outcr y over how the show romanticizes criminal behaviour and encourages dangerous criminal activit y. Read: the socially constructed Other is dangerous, and if a T V show por trays them as human, and provides reasoning behind their crimes, they’ll get ideas. To the Walter (literally) Whites of the world, keep doing your thing, but God forbid a racialized person actually desire to provide for their family in any way they can.

EXPLOITATION AT THE CANADIAN NATIONAL EXHIBITION M.S. Last summer I worked in the CNE food building, a job that has and likely will always be a common summer job for students with little or no work experience. While there I worked 14 hour days and 98 hour work weeks, with no written agreement—in direct violation of the Employment Standards Act. In my initial interview with this par ticular employer, we agreed that I would be paid $12 dollars an hour, and that I would work “full-time.” I took this to mean full-time work in accordance with federal labour laws. When I arrived at my first day of work, however, I realized my employer took the phrase “full-time” quite literally, as I had been scheduled to work ever y possible hour of ever y day. In retrospect, this is clearly the point at which I should have said something. At the time, it didn’t seem wor th the risk. As a young person with pitiful job experience, I don’t have a lot of employment oppor tunities. Any job is rare, and a job that pays well is rarer still. If I had asked for more reasonable hours, they may have had to hire and train another person. That’s simply the nature of shor t-term employment, especially for young workers. Two people were fired after the first day, and overall, I’d estimate about five people ended up losing their jobs. Ultimately, my rights didn’t seem wor thy of the risk of job endangerment, and I chose to grin and bear it. After all, it’s only eighteen days, right? Halfway through the first week, I star ted to get intensely painful leg and back spasms (which are an inevitable consequence of standing still for 14 hours a day). To counteract these, I ended up popping ibuprofen like candy. On one par ticular day, I vomited from exhaustion and got sent home. I should qualify that I was, in the past, a professional athlete and am no slouch—this pain was not a result of less-than-

average endurance. The next day, and all the days after wards, I worked 14 hour shifts. I didn’t work in one of the smaller, less busy booths, where employees get to sit around and talk for most of the day (not that this makes illegal labour conditions OK, just more bearable). My booth was one of the busiest in the entire building: our line would get so long that it stretched out the door. We would have a constant, never-ending stream of customers for both lunch and dinner; there was ver y little down-time, and sitting was not allowed. Ever y day, I would arrive at 9AM, restock, open at 10AM, close at 10PM, clean, and leave at 11PM. Employees were given a thir t y minute lunch break, which could fall any where between 12PM and 8PM. The busier it was, the later we would be allowed to take our break, and there were two days when I didn’t get any break at all. Employees were allowed one free meal a day, and were not allowed free drinks other than the staff water that was provided. We were discouraged from drinking any thing we didn’t sell, because it “encouraged customers to get food elsewhere.” We were not allowed to eat in front of customers, ever. Go back to those two 14-hour days I worked with no break. You’ll realize that I went two full days without any caloric intake. For a different Exhibition employer, I was given a bucket of degreaser to clean with, without being told it was highly corrosive. After about three hours of using it (without gloves), my boss came around and pointed this out. When I got home, I ended up having a panic attack. I sat in the shower for three hours, tr ying to wash off the remains of the chemicals. Luckily for me, the solution I’d been using was highly diluted. Even so, my hands were in bad shape— rough and cracked—for a few days after wards.

a g W e s! w o L Hazardous Conditions!

To this day, I don’t know whether any of my exhibition income was taxed. Two employers never even mentioned it, and the other told me it was “shor t-term employment” and therefore didn’t require taxation. I did however, receive less cash than I was promised, and assumed it was taxed. I’ve accurately repor ted my income in my own personal taxes, but I’m still left wondering whether their lies will come back to bite me. There is absolutely no legal way they could have repor ted the hours their employees were working. All of us were paid in cash, and I actually ended up being paid a dollar less per hour than what I was promised in my inter view. In addition, I have never given my social securit y number to any of my CNE employers, which has unsettling implications—especially when considering migrant and undocumented workers, who would be even more unwilling to say something about unsavor y work conditions. To some extent, I knew what I was getting into. I knew my rights, and I knew that I was assenting to their violation. In addition, my employer’s disregard of labour law meant that I was able to make $2500 in 18 days. What I find worrisome is the potential exploitation of the naive. It’s no myster y that the Ex employs a lot of young people, and that many kids get their first job at the CNE. These inexperienced workers are not only less likely to be aware of their rights, they’re also less likely to asser t themselves and demand that those rights be met. This workforce is deemed disposable and openly violated at a nationally-suppor ted event. If you’re considering a job at the CNE, be aware. The fast, profitable nature of the Exhibition can be seductive. Employers are so preoccupied with profit margins that they disregard the rights and safet y of their employees. Know your rights, and be prepared to defend them.

Crappy Hours!

OUR MASTHEAD Editors-in-Chief editor@thestrand.ca

Patrick Mujunen Paula Razuri Blaire Townshend

News

Catriona Spaven-Donn

Opinions

Sara Deris

Features

features@thestrand.ca

Amanda Aziz Emily Pollock

Arts & Culture

Claire Wilkins

Film & Music

Dominique Béchard

Stranded

Emily Deibert Olesya Lyuzna

news@thestrand.ca news@thestrand.ca

artsandculture@thestrand.ca filmandmusic@thestrand.ca

stranded@thestrand.ca

Production

Nikki Gosselin

production@thestrand.ca

Design

Jade Bryan Sarah Crawley

design@thestrand.ca

Copy

Matthew Casaca

copy@thestrand.ca

Photo

Victoria Chuen Thomas Lu

photo@thestrand.ca

Art

Wenting Li

Web

Thanasi Karachotzitis

Distribution

Nigel Maynard

art@thestrand.ca

Editorial Assistants

Anthony Burton Rhianna Jackson-Kelso Eanna Morrison Barrs Lauren Van Klaveren

Contributors Nadine Galle, M.S., Arash Ghiassi, Tara Abrahams, Geoffe Baille, Megan Tangney, Ilyes Saidani, Lauren Dineley Photos Warren Goodwin, Ilyes Saidani Illustrations Wenting Li, Emily Pollock, Sarah Crawley Cover Photo

The Strand has been the newspaper of record for Victoria University since 1953. It is published 12 times a year with a circulation of 2000 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, homo/trans*phobia, ableism, or other oppressive language. The Strand is a proud member of the Canadian University Press (CUP). Our offices are located at 150 Charles St. W., Toronto, ON, M5S 1K9. Please direct enquiries by email to editor@thestrand.ca. Submissions are welcome and may be edited for taste, brevity, and legality.

T Follow us on Twitter for news and updates:

@strandpaper

A letter to

THE EDITORS

ARASH GHIASSI I read The Strand. I like The Strand. I have contributed to The Strand. However, there is a concern about The Strand with which I have been wrestling in my mind for a while. Bluntly, I think The Strand at times alienates its readers by employing (a) less-than-rigorous reasoning and (b) language that is at times too technical and at times too inflammatory. Appropriately, The Strand has adopted an anti-oppression mandate since at least last year. This is exactly what is needed, and some excellent content has been created under this mandate. However, at times an anti-oppression piece in the paper reads more like a frustrated rant than a well-researched, well-reasoned article. More often than not, this happens in the Opinions section, where pieces too often include logical lapses, emotional reasoning, and hasty generalizations. This undermines The Strand’s credibility, and ultimately undermines the valid anti-oppressive message it tries to disseminate. Let me give an example from the last issue. The piece “Volunteering Abroad: The New White Man’s Burden” grabbed my attention. Since the editors had decided to publish an article originally from Acadia, I had optimistically high expectations of it. In the second paragraph the article reads, “We send our students across the world like the missionaries of old, to dirty impoverished places that lack those holy institutions of democracy and development… Like those missionaries, we build schools and aim to improve the community by imparting our own values and knowledge, which we promise to be of great global value.” Let’s dissect this passage. In my reading, it aims to condemn Student Volunteer Abroad Programs (SVAP’s) and it heavily relies on analogy with clearly condemnable missionary programs in doing so. But analogy is a very tricky method of reasoning. Apples are like oranges in many ways, but also different from them in other ways. In a valid analogy between the two fruits, it is important for them to be similar in the relevant respects. Are the aspects enumerated by the article (i.e. travelling, building schools, aiming for improvement, promising) really relevant with respect to condemnibility? It is unclear that they are, and at any rate “Volunteering Abroad” does not show that they are relevant. Such logical lapses connected with analogy are unfortunately abundant in that article. Now don’t get me wrong—there are a lot of problems about many international aid and volunteer programs. “Volunteering Abroad” just fails to show them. For instance, these programs sometimes fail to treat locals as dignified equals and/or ignore their values and knowledge about development needs. Some include harmful religious teachings about sexual health and/or sexual minorities. Others disrupt the local economies and/or create dependencies. Still others deprive locals from employment and/or professional development by importing foreign student volunteers. But the article informs us of none of the above, and instead keeps repeating that these programs are in some way similar to missionary programs and creates the sense that we should therefore stay away from and feel ashamed about them. This emotional, nonrigorous pattern of criticism, I’m sad to say, has been a trend in The Strand. What’s more, the language used in The Strand

often alienates the readership. It includes concepts and principles that not everyone can be expected to know—even if they really should. Its tone is also very inflammatory and indignant, instead of cool and collected. Perhaps indignation is the right response to oppression, but it does not seem to be an effective method of communication. If a newspaper sees itself as being above all a medium for education, a loud expression of anger at the lack of education is not sufficient; it will only drive away the very people who need to listen. If a newspaper is also a medium for public discussion, a degree of respect even for one’s enemy is warranted. Let me give another example from the last issue. “My Ethnicity is Not Yours to Consume” was an opinion piece by the Opinions Editor about the problematic commodification of “Ethnic” foods. Part of the piece reads, “Commodity culture sees so-called ‘exotic’ difference in Otherness and desires it insofar as it desires to consume and own, not respect.” This statement is stated, not only without any accompanying reasons as to why the reader should accept it, but even without so much as an explanation of the words “exotic” and “Otherness”. As a result, the statement functions much like a note to an insider: someone who already knows it and accepts it. It limits its own audience. In an earlier paragraph “My Ethnicity” warns, “You may love moccasins, but don’t expect your SoftMocs to get you a standing ovation from all Native American people everywhere (who, by the way, are not one homogenous nation bent on ensuring your feet are comfortable),” or, “Shopping in the ‘ethnic section’ at the grocery store … does not make you a worldly, benevolent explorer.” The reader, here, finds his or herself faced with an army of personal accusations and blame about things he or she may not have done or grasped the significance of. I would not be surprised if he or she immediately drops the newspaper, moves on with life, and never grasps the significance of these actions. This seems to be avoidable by using a different tone. The result of this kind of language, then, is the construction of an opaque bubblehouse, inside which reside those who passionately see the world from The Strand’s perspective. Perhaps they are correct and validate each other, but on the outside roam those who find the party too loud and the walls too impenetrable and therefore keep away. The non-rigorous reasoning that sometimes employed also leaves the audience unconvinced and unimpressed. This sentiment is shared with many others I have spoken to, including some with a long and proud history of working in The Strand. It is rather unfortunate, given that The Strand’s critical stance is a much-needed one. For an example of an informative, respectful, wellreasoned, and critical piece of writing, on the other hand, we need to look no further than Jades Swadron’s letter to the editors, which was also published in the last issue of The Strand. I know it’s easy for me to hold The Strand to a higher standard while not working in it. Honestly, I do appreciate very much all of the effort that goes into making a newspaper such as The Strand. However, I worry that that effort does not lead to the effects that it deserves.

from the

AUDRE LORDE

Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change. To those women here who fear the anger of women of Color more than their own unscrutizined racist attitudes, I ask: Is the anger of women of Color more threatening than the woman-hatred that tinges all aspects of our lives?

EDITORS

Dear readers, First off, we’d like to express our thanks to Arash for sharing his thoughts with us- since our mandate is to serve as a journalistic outlet for the Victoria College student body, we welcome any and all feedback and always strive to subject ourselves to (at the very least) the same level of scrutiny and criticism that we apply to the subjects that we cover. We share Arash’s concerns about poorly researched or articulated articles (and, no doubt, we’ve probably printed such material in the past), and acknowledge the level of responsibility that accompanies complex subject matter such as race. However, we disagree with some of the feedback. First, we take issue with the (condescending) classification of Opinions pieces as “frustrated rants”. Not only does this language serve to delegitimize the lived experiences of members of oppressed groups as “inflammatory and indignant” and thus not worthy of consideration, it’s also off the mark given that The Strand is a student newspaper and not, say, a scholarly journal. Naturally, we hold our writers to certain standards of quality in their work, but the nature of the medium dictates that much of our content will be more along the lines of introductory articles, not exhaustive academic exercises. Racism and bigotry warrant no respect whatsoever, nor should marginalized groups have to take responsibility for correcting and educating their oppressors. Our social justice articles are nearly always

written by people who have extensive experiences of the types of discrimination that they’re writing about, and so emotion (including anger, rage, fury, anguish) is an entirely reasonable thing to feel when writing- especially, one feels, when writing for an opinions section. Complaining about tone is used infuriatingly often as a silencing tactic. Social justice writer Julian Agabond provides a helpful overview: The tone argument is where you object to someone else’s argument based on its tone: it is too angry, too hateful, not calm enough, not nice enough, etc. It is a logical fallacy because none of those things has anything to do with whether the truth was spoken. It is used to derail and silence. So screw tone. No reasonable person is going to fault you for being angry about racism. Those who do, those who expect you to be not only sweet and calm but to value their feelings over your own are closed-minded jerks. You might want to give them a piece of your mind, but do not fool yourself into thinking you can reason with them: they have already placed themselves beyond reason.

Naamen Gobert Tilahun also points out why a pre-

occupation with remaining “civil” and “collected” at all times is an inherently counterproductive endeavour: “Even when people of colour are as polite as possible there is still hostility read into the words because people are so afraid of being called racist that they would rather go on offending than deal with the hard road of confronting their own prejudices”. This isn’t to say that the correct response is to go around viciously berating people for any individual slight, but neither should people be expected to approach oppressive attitudes and behaviours with a “happy-golucky smile and a will to teach”. It’s a condescending expectation, and an excuse for people to not take what you’re saying seriously. We’d like to return to this topic in a more comprehensive and coherent manner in the future, since it’s something that we at The Strand wrestle with on regular basis. To Arash and anyone with similar concerns: we appreciate your feedback and welcome the opportunity for discussion. Hopefully we’ve managed to address at least some of the points that you raised, or at least to shed some light on our position. Of course, the most direct way in which a student can involve themselves with the discussions at The Strand is to simply get involved. The Strand functions as a conversation amongst the student body, and as such, we always welcome a variety of voices to participate. Stay tuned.

It’s Personal

by Amanda Aziz and Emily Pollock

This is your brain

On advertising W

ith the recent profusion of advertisements about mental heath (witness the Bell “Let’s Talk” campaign), it’s easy to forget that it hasn’t always been this way. Advertising about mental illness and drug addiction has gone through a rapid evolution in the past 30 years, from scary and simplistic ads that focussed more on shocking people than informing them (we’re looking at you, “This is your brain on drugs”) to cool new ads that might actually (dare we say it) facillitate discussion on mental health. This shift in advertising has mirrored an encouraging move towards making mental health less taboo.

Tv:The Golden Age of the PSA In 1987, a man cracks an egg open, and the yoke hits the frying pan—This Is Your Brain On Drugs. Any questions? The closest thing that the average late 20th century PSA did to touch topic on mental health was to make one about drugs: be aware. Don’t touch, don’t snort, don’t smoke, and don’t talk about it. Just say no. While the message had good intentions, it also isolated the audience by using tiring tropes like the scary drug dealer or dehumanized users. Instead of informing their audience, the se ads aimed to terrify. And most of all, there was zero discussion about the people and the state of mind that would make them addicted enough to use again -- in other words, no discussion o fthe real causes. PSAs were only about anti-drug promotion, but nothing about drug addiction awareness. When the guy on the screen asked if there were any questions, he was only asking rhetorically

Magazines and the Personal Story At the beginning of the 21st century, magazines were how everyone got their information and entertainment, where you could hear about your favourite celebrity’s life, or brush up on the latest current issues affecting your society. You also got to read about interviews or op-eds written by real people about their real experiences ranging from eating disorders to depression. And the people using those scary drugs in the 1980’s? These people could have been your classmates, friends, family members, even you. Of course, mental health talk still needed much improvement, since these stories were still sometimes represented in a condescending tone. And there was an obvious irony in the fact that these same magazines were contributing to low selfesteem and eating disorders through their liberal use of photoshop and advocation of fad diets. But we can credit this shift for one thing: our society’s view of drugs and mental illness started to open up the discussion.

The Internet: Communication Age Oh the internet: the glorious thing that the invention of the microchip has gifted to us technologically dependent people. It took us over two and a half decades to actually learn how to utilize this thing, but when we did, it was as if anyone who had access to a computer, laptop, smartphone etc. also had access to a microphone that could reach hundreds to millions of people around the world á la social networking. And when it came to talking about issues, we talked. Especially within the last three years, we’ve seen the rise of mental health awareness appearing more and more in the public eye. Internet users now have access to viewing campaigns all around the world, from CAMIMH’s Faces of Mental Illness in Canada to Australia’s Soften the Fuck Up. We get to hear real stories and talk about our own as well, all while using humour and being able to be frank, all while being able to empathize (finally). From the bullying monologue of the TV PSAs, we’ve developed more dialogue-based ads that will (hopefully) spark conversation on mental health. Advertisements and campaigns aren’t tell us to beware, but to be aware.

(((( This is a part of our series on mental health, “It’s Personal”. Once a month, we’ll be talking about what’s going on inside our heads - but instead of writing a pSA, we’re making it personal. ))))

Where next? So where are mental health campaigns going from here? The short answer is that we don’t really know. The long answer is a little bit more complicated. We’ve seen the rise of genuinely cool, informative campaigns aimed at making mental health less terrifying to talk about, and that’s awesome no matter how you look at it. But we also have to make sure that awareness doesn’t become an empty word that we throw around instead of doing something real. For an example of what we don’t want to happen, just look at breast cancer. If marketing time for diseases was actually correlated with deadliness, everyone would be dead of breast cancer by now. The “pink ribbon” campaigns and “Walk for the Cures” mean that, unless you live under a rock, you’re aware of breast cancer and the risk factors associated with it. In the bad old days, cancer used to be stigmatized to the point where people thought it was the sufferer’s fault (sounds familiar?), and now we have multi-million dollar campaigns that let people with breast cancer know that they aren’t alone. What could be wrong with that? Well, a lot of breast cancer survivors aren’t happy with how the marketing campaigns have a) weirdly focussed on making breast cancer “sexy” and b) made it a huge moneymaker for companies who run the campaigns. When companies are reaping huge profits on campaigns (or spending most of their money on promotional merchandise), they aren’t giving a lot of money to, you know, actually helping people who have the disease. The danger with awareness campaigns is that we can get so focussed on making cool marketing campaigns that we don’t help alleviate the actual problems. “Ending the stigma” is crucial, but there’s a risk of losing sight of other important issues, like making mental healthcare more accessible for everyone. But mental health is nowhere near being a “sexy” issue. The biggest battle right now is to help people realize that it’s not a scary thing to talk about, and today’s awareness campaigns have been doing remarkably well on that front. Now we’re talking.

a/c

THE NEW LITERARY WORLD: mapping Canadian literature

WARREN GOODWIN

CANADA &

TARA ABRAHAMS When one country has hundreds of years of literary experience over another, how can the latter nation even try to compete? Thanks to Alice Munro’s success, Canada may now be granted a little more territory on the map of notable authors and their origins. But will Canada continue to stay on that figurative map? Although Canada consistently churns out classics, they are (mostly – there are always exceptions!) limited to a Canadian audience. In this sense, from the post-colonial novel to the post-modern poem, Canadian literature has existed in a self-sustaining universe of sorts. With Alice Munro’s recent Nobel Prize win, it looks like it’s going to be a good year for expansion within the realm of Canadian literature. Last week, the Governor General Awards committee released the long list for their fiction, non-fiction, and poetry prizes. The Scotiabank Giller Prize has released its long list as well, and is set to announce its winner soon. Both prizes will bring national acclaim and book sales to the author who grabs the gold. While Munro will go down in world history as the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for literature, the rest of these authors can revel in national fame. Thanks to Munro, however, the whole world will be reading Canadian literature—or, at the very least, Alice Munro’s work with a bit of Atwood thrown in for good measure. But Canadians, and particularly Canadian university students, still struggle to name more Canadian authors than they can count on one hand. Sure, we have Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel, Alice Munro…Can one include Bryan Lee O’Malley? Kate Beaton? That’s all I’ve got, folks. But in all seriousness, a few of those names and their respective works aren’t even commonly recognizable bt rhose with nothing more than a passing interest in literature. Despite the aforementioned idea of a closed universe, then, why do those who inhabit it remain largely ignorant of it? I could turn this exploration into a degenerative claim on international (read: American) media and how it influences Canada’s youth to the point where they forget Canada exists not as an amalgamation of the United States but as its own cultural entity, but that would be counter-productive. Instead, the aim of this article is to focus on what young Canadians are missing when it comes to Canadian literature. Whether it be the fault of media promotion or just a general lack of interest, the knowledge of the general public in regards to the wealth of Canadian lit culture

is dwindling. Here’s hoping it won’t stay that way for long. While the big-name Canadian lit world remains, well, nameless in the minds of most under the age of 35, the indie publishing scenes in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal are going—and growing— strong. On October 20th, Broken Pencil Magazine hosted Canzine, a small event at the Bathurst Centre with the aim of promoting zine culture—a subsection of indie literature that includes, amongst poetry and prose, art and various forms of crafting. “Zinesters,” as they’re affectionately called, usually prefer to remain underground with their works, as they appeal to only a specific group of people. Despite the niche market, the event draws in over one thousand attendees and dozens of local artisans and zine aficionados, with every purchase subtly supporting Canadian lit culture. Aside from Canzine, which takes place in both Vancouver and Toronto, Toronto exclusively hosts Meet the Presses, a small gathering of independent presses. Meet the Presses is set to take place at the Tranzac Club on November 16th. This event, unlike Canzine, focuses more on conglomerate presses rather than single artists. Indie, small, and micro presses are all on their hit list—Coach House Press, Cactus Books, Apt. 9 Press, and Brick Books, a few examples of the approximately two dozen participants. Meet the Presses is a non-profit organization that gives out the bpNichols chapbook prize every year, awarding $2000 to the winning author and $500 to the publisher. Every May, the Toronto Public Library (789 Yonge St.) acts as the venue for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, at which indie comic and graphic novelist stars come to sell their works and wares and sign a few dozen (or hundred) books. Past authors/ illustrators have included Canadians Kate Beaton and Bryan Lee O’Malley, famous in the illustrated and online worlds for Hark! A Vagrant and Scott Pilgrim, respectively. Dry Canadian humour and clever witticisms abound in the simple yet endearing black-and-white drawing styles of both comic artists, and in Lee O’Malley’s case, his story about a Torontonian slacker resonated with the public enough to be developed into a Michael Cera-starred movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Speaking of endearing, in the last year, Quattro Books recently opened Q-space; a small café located at 382 College Street that hosts a myriad of literary events and provides a stage for up-and-coming authors,

poets, and spoken word artists in Toronto. The café offers a welcoming environment for many, and opportunities to meet and greet some future publishing partners. More meet-and-greets took place at Toronto’s Word on the Street festival, where Canadian authors writing in all genres and from a myriad of perspectives talk about and sign their books for their adoring publics. Word on the Street garnered its usual grouping of guests and go-to stalls, including Toronto’s own Humber School for Writers, presses such as Coach House, magazines such as Ducant, Worn Fashion Journal, Blueprint, and Carousel, as well as various independent bookstores and self-publishing authors. Lastly, Victoria University’s own publication, Acta Victoriana, holds a yearly launch party for the journal, featuring open-mic poetry and a lit-loving audience from U of T and beyond. This year, the journal’s efforts are doubled as they plan to put out two issues and supplement the downtime with events, starting on Thursday, October 29th with a planned autumn and Halloween social – check out the Facebook event page for more information. Why, then, do we fear that the Canadian lit scene is endangered? Is it simply because only a handful of Canadians have made it on the New York Times’ bestsellers list? Is it because those who do garner international fame, especially if they are under 35 at the time, are not considered to have Canada as an origin in the public sphere? Canadian literary artists are so focused on getting their work out to the masses when they should be focusing on the many opportunities they have in Toronto and the surrounding area. Open Book Toronto latches on to this idea and promotes it with enthusiasm. It is a site built with care, one that plots and pinpoints various Toronto-based literary events and works to promote them so that they may be seen by the public eye. With a frequently updated event listing and an offered mailing list, Open Book’s easy navigation tactics allows for further exploration of the lit scene in Toronto and the surrounding area. Looking at the map of literary exploits from a birds-eye view, then, it is clear that Canada is not a dull country when it comes to literature. Although small, it stands strong, reflecting the ideals of the country of a whole. Who needs national advertisements and media coverage anyhow? Pull up to centre stage at a poetry reading or book launch with a cup of coffee and enjoy an exploration of a small spot on the large map of Canadian lit for yourself.

David Bowie Is: cash grab or exhibition of true art?

GEOFF BAILLIE V&A. The persona that Bowie has adopted to accompany the release of his latest record seems to be that of an enigmatic, ghost-like presence, refusing to do any press appearances or public performances to promote the album. The exhibit should offer solace for fans who feel deprived of insight into the artist’s latest creative endeavour. Between sketches for costumes and album covers, transcripts of conversations with his collaborators, props from his elaborate set designs, and an acting reel of his Hollywood appearances, the exhibit gives us a comprehensive overview of the creative processes behind Bowie's dynamic output of work. While some may label it as a lowbrow deviation from the standards of artistic merit that should be upheld by an institution like the AGO, David Bowie Is is nonetheless an entertaining spectacle that offers insight into the life and work of an individual who has made unprecedented contributions to pop music in the past 50 years, even if he might not be an artist with a capital ‘A’.

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Bowie's childhood saxophone a higher level of artistic sophistication than the decorative memorabilia at a Hard Rock Cafe? Going out of its way to show that Bowie was more than just a pop star, the exhibit puts a heavy emphasis on his non-musical influences, from German Expressionism to Japanese Kubuki performance, emphasizing that the music was only one element of a larger artistic expression that Bowie intended to convey. The exhibit attempts to show that Bowie merely utilized the image of a pop star to make a statement on the nature of performance as a spectacle. But those who aren't willing to extend their definition of fine art far enough to include Bowie's antics might be tempted to write off the exhibit as a cash grab. The broad appeal of Bowie's work has already attracted massive crowds to the AGO, resulting in an extension of the museum’s hours. And it hardly seems a coincidence that "The Next Day"—Bowie's first album in ten years—dropped earlier this year, coinciding perfectly with the exhibit’s premiere at the

CORBIN SMITH

The Art Gallery of Ontario is the second stop on the world tour of David Bowie Is, a two-floor exhibition dedicated to the career of one of pop music’s seminal icons. Following a successful run at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the AGO is the latest host of over 300 items from Bowie’s personal archive in this immersive multimedia display. Curator Geoff Marsh knew what kind of discussions he would be generating when he titled the exhibit David Bowie Is. Through his constantly changing pop star personas, the ever-evolving Bowie has given us many different ways to finish that sentence. He was a sexually promiscuous alien rock-god as Ziggy Stardust, an agonizingly romantic cocaine zombie as The Thin White Duke, a spandex clad baby thief as Jareth the Goblin King in the 1986 Jim Henson film The Labyrinth. But in all the outrageous personas that Bowie has adopted over the years, has he made enough of an artistic impact to warrant an exhibit in an art museum? At times the exhibit seems to strain itself to answer that question. After all, what gives

TIME TO KILL

F/M

Sherlock

Connected

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman This extremely popular series updates the partnership between Sherlock and Watson as the two solve cases in modern London.

Ripper Street Starring Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn. In the aftermath of the Ripper murders, all of Whitechapel is on edge. In this period drama, a detective works to solve cases concerning London’s disadvantaged.

The Fall Starring Gillian Anderson, Jamie Dornan Stella Gibson is called to Belfast when the police are stumped by two murders. It isn’t long before Stella is leading an investigation into a highly intelligent serial killer.

Wallander

For fans of exotic settings (ie not London)

Combine some of the main elements of Ripper Street and Cambridge Spies in the police drama Whitechapel

Starring Kenneth Branagh Detective Kurt Wallander solves cases in this rather melancholy series based on the books by Henning Mankell. There is also a much darker Swedish series with English subtitles.

Luther

Broadchurch Starring David Tennant, Olivia Colman When the body of a young boy is found on the beach, everyone in the small town of Broadchurch is a suspect. Fear and suspicion rip friends, family, and community apart.

Starring Idris Elba, Warren Brown Detective John Luther investigates London’s most dramatic murders. But, more interested in the dictates of his conscience than the rules, is Luther himself London’s biggest problem?

Jonathan Creek Starring Alan Davies Jonathan is happy to avoid the spotlight as a designer of magical illusions but is thrust into the role of the reluctant detective challenged with a series of “locked room” murders.

David Tennant played the tenth incarnation of the Doctor, arguably the most popular Doctor in the show’s history

AN (INTRODUCTORY) GUIDE TO CRIME AND COMEDY IN BRITISH TELEVISION

BY MEGAN TANGNEY

If you liked Sherlock and Downton Abbey...

Downton Abbey

d by your love

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith Follow along with the lives of an aristocratic family and their staff, with all the drama that entails. Set against a backdrop of major historical events including WWII.

Also available: the Inspector Morse sequel Inspector Lewis

The Hour

Endeavour Ever wish that Hugh Bonneville was your Dad?

Starring Shaun Evans, Roger Allam A young Endeavour Morse navigates the “town vs. gown” politics of post-war Oxford as he rises through the ranks of the police force. Prequel to Inspector Morse.

Lost In Austen

These unique interpretations may make you see two of your favourite stories in a new light

Cambridge Spies Starring Tom Hollander, Toby Stephens. Based on a true story. Four students become Soviet spies and struggle to cope with the pressure of concealing their covert activities as WWII ends and the Cold War begins.

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Jemima Rooper A 21st century woman is inserted into the world of Pride and Prejudice and, in the absence of Elizabeth Bennet, debates claiming Mr. Darcy for herself.

Jekyll For the truly hardcore: Spot one of the Cambridge Spies in David Tennant’s Spies of Warsaw

Starring Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw This series follows the activities of a team of BBC reporters and researchers as they expose the truth behind contemporary events such as the Suez Crisis.

Gavin and Stacey

Starring James Nesbitt, Gina Bellman In this adaptation of the Jekyll and Hyde story, Doctor Tom Jackman struggles to hide his “condition” in a world of technology and secret organizations.

Starring Mathew Horne, Joanna Page In this popular romcom, a man from England and a woman from Wales try to make their relationship work despite cultural differences and interference from family and friends.

Check out series 2 of The Hour for a preview of Peter Capaldi, the new Doctor

Love him or hate him, Steven Moffat has written some of the most memorable lines on Sherlock, Jekyll and Doctor Who

Doctor Who Currently Starring Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman 2013 is the fiftieth anniversary of this longrunning and beloved sci-fi. For new fans, tune in at Christmas when Peter Capaldi becomes the twelfth actor to play the Doctor.

Mock the Week Starring Dara O’Briain, Hugh Dennis For lovers of Whose Line is it Any way? This panel show is notoriously hard on its guests but it’s a great introduction to some of the most popular comedians in Britain.

Merlin Starring Colin Morgan, Bradley James Even if you’re not a fan of CGI creatures, watch this show for the dynamic relationship between the young Merlin and Arthur. Also featuring various Knights of the Round Table.

QI (Quite Interesting) Starring Stephen Fry, Alan Davies This panel quiz show hosted by Stephen Fry is perfect for lovers of fun facts as well as smart and sassy comedy. If you think that you know the answer, you don’t.

“Netflix is the New TV”:

A look at the success of freedom LAUREN DINELEY After the critical and popular success of Netflix’s third original series Orange is the New Black, a number of articles played off of the series’ title, headline writers around the world had a field day, with claims amongst them that “Netflix is the new TV.” Since the beginning of its digital distribution service in 1999, Netflix has been a legal outlet for the streaming of video content online. The creation of this digital database of film and television essentially took advantage of the zeitgeist. The creators of the company noticed that people were downloading and streaming illegally online, and saw an opportunity to create an easily accessible service—both technologically and financially—for the moral and/or less technologically savvy set. In the creation of this service, Netflix gave the audience what television was incapable of: total control. Traditional television has tried to regain what it lost to this alternative with systems like DVR (Digital Video Recorder) and TiVo or TV on DVD, but has ultimately been unsuccessful in giving audiences complete agency. Netflix allows you to watch film and television whenever and wherever without temporal or geographical limitations.

Not only does Netflix give their audience access whenever and wherever they want it, it gives them whatever they want. Netflix is essentially free from the legal and economic accountability that regular television networks—both broadcast and cable—are subject to. Netflix, and its original programming, is not subjected to the broadcast regulations of the Federal Communications Commission (the governing body that controls broadcast in the United States) or any other such governing agencies worldwide including the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Furthermore, Netflix does not need to answer to the public in the same way that proper television does. On network television, it is necessary to answer to both advertiser and audience. They must make television that appeals to broad cross-sections, and that brings in a high number of viewers. Cable television operates in much the same way but must only appeal to the niche audience they are targeting. Pay cable, like HBO, need only answer to subscribers. For this reason, some argue that parallels can be drawn between pay cable and Netflix in that both must appeal to their subscribers; but that is

not quite the case. On a cable channel like HBO, one only subscribes if they like a significant amount of their programming. Alternatively, on a service like Netflix, there are so many options in addition to their original programming that liking House of Cards or Orange is the New Black is simply not a necessity to get a great deal out of a subscription. What all of this means is that the aforementioned Netflix original programming can push content boundaries and experiment formally because they are essentially accountable to no one. To conclude, I would like to take a moment to examine the statement that sparked this article: “Netflix is the new TV.” Netflix, because of its inherent freedoms, is “doing” television better than any cable or broadcast network operating today. That being said, Netflix is not a replacement for television proper but a development on it, one that relies heavily on conventions of contemporary television—the combination of episodic narratives with seriality, and clear and motivated protagonists with large supporting casts, among other aspects—to achieve its success.

An Exuberant Afterlife Blues:

ILYES SAIDANI

In conversation with Fast Romantics

DOMINIQUE BECHARD AND ILYES SAIDANI On October 11th I sat down with Matthew Angus, lead singer of the Calgary-based band Fast Romantics. In only two words, he described his new album as “pretty good”—and I definitely agree. The highly anticipated A fterlife Blues, their third album, was released earlier this month. I asked Angus about the thematic variations of this album and the contrast between them and those of his previous work. “It’s the first time we’ve had a theme, or really thought about what the songs were about. This album has a lot to do with things ending, and finding a way to get through that,” he answered. These concepts are particularly touched upon in such songs as “Afterlife Blues”,

“Funeral Song”, and “Take Me Back”: three of my favorites on the album. Angus also stresses the importance of celebrating these endings. This is sonically supported in the playful drum beats, reminiscent of 70’s pop music, as well as in the halting bass riffs—especially heard in the song “Afterlife Blues”. Although this album concerns itself with serious themes, I find it impossible to feel “blue” while listening to it. During our conversation, Angus named several of his musical influences. Some of these included David Bowie, Elvis Costello, The Kinks, and The Clash. In essence, then, this exuberant, early poprock quality acknowledged in Fast Romantics’

newest album stems from older, but never outdated, influences. When asked which musician he would most like to meet, Angus immediately answered; “Leonard Cohen”. Although Cohen influence is not immediately recognizable, some of the band’s lyrics are evocative of his earlier work. The song “90’s Life” conjures up a Cohen-esque sensual undertone: “You’re a ghost / just a lump inside my throat / in the middle of the night / I can see you, painted white.” Later in the night of October 11th, the band performed to a lively crowd at the Garrison. They are currently touring in Canada and the US, in support of A fterlife Blues.

GHOSTS OF HALLOWEENS PAST EMILY DEIBERT

ART: WENTING LI

As as kid, I spent the entire period of time from the first day of school until somewhere in mid-November talking, thinking, and caring about nothing aside from what I was going to be for Halloween. Now, I’m not going to say that I was the Queen of Halloween costumes or anything, but you should probably know that in high school I won the costume contest two years in a row. And we had over a thousand students, and at least three percent of them participated, so I’d say that that’s a pretty big accomplishment right there. Like all masters of their trades, though, I wasn’t always this great at what I do. And unless your parents were costume and/or makeup artists you’ve probably experienced your fair share of costume disasters. To get you in the Halloween

spirit, and possibly make you feel a little less badly about whatever embarrassing Halloween costumes you may have donned in the past, here are three of my biggest (but certainly not only) Halloween horror stories. You know how you can get those store-bought costumes that always look really great on the packaging but turn out to be the cheapest, shittiest costume ever? Yeah. As a kid, I didn’t. My parents never let me buy them, and so of course I wanted them desperately. There was one year when my best friend at the time was going as Buttercup from the PowerPuff Girls, in a costume she got from Toys ‘R’ Us, and she wanted me to be Bubbles. I begged and begged and begged, made all sorts of ridiculous promises, and finally my parents agreed to buy it for me. I remember it as costing a fortune but considering how young I was at the time it was probably only $20 (which I suppose kind of is a fortune to a seven-year-old). I was so excited ‘cause it was like, official PowerPuff Girls merchandise, you know? But then I got home and tried it on and realized that it was the worst costume ever. Like, it wasn’t just not good. The “wig” was a piece of foam that I was supposed to put on my head. The dress was made of felt. FELT, people. My parents asked me to show it to them but I panicked and told them that I wanted to save it for Halloween. I remember the terror I felt leading up to the big day, desperately trying to think of some way to get around having to wear it. Eventually, on the evening of the 31st, I just broke down and confessed to my parents that it was cheap, consumeristic crap and there

was no way I could show my face in public with it on. They were furious, I was distraught, but luckily my mom had kept my old witch costume from the year before and everything was more or less all right in the end. But I definitely learned my lesson: I was DIY-or-die from there on out. It must have been a few years later that I decided to go as a robot, and let me tell you something: it was the sickest costume ever. We took apart an old computer that we found on the street to make it. I had flex tubing for arms, a silver foil wig, I think it even lit up: the whole nine yards. I was SO EXCITED. I remember that my siblings and our neighbour friends all put our costumes on early that day, and were running around in our driveway showing them off, when all of a sudden our next-door neighbour started crying because he was dressed up as a ninja and one of his nun-chucks had broken. Now, to this day I’m still not sure who did it—my brothers swear innocence, but our neighbour was positive that it was one of them. He told us that he couldn’t go out without his nun-chucks, and that he was just going to have to wear one of our costumes. I’m not quite sure why we went along with it (I was older than him, dammit!) but, of course, he decided that since mine was the best-looking he was going to wear it. And I let him. With only an hour or so until go-time and my perfect costume now unjustly being worn by my neighbour, I had no choice but to dress up in an old one from our costume bin: namely my younger brother’s Cat in the Hat outfit from a few years before. It wasn’t a bad costume, but I spent the whole night hav-

ing to hear parents tell me that “Oh, my baby son is dressed up as Cat in the Hat too!” Not the sort of thing you want to hear when you’re nine years old and you’re a girl. I think I threw together a too-small t-shirt and some makeup and called myself Britney Spears after that, but really, by that point, it was a lost cause. Okay, so my last one is a little harder to explain. I’m still not exactly sure what I was thinking. What happened, though, was this: I found a really cute fuzzy ghost stuffy at the toy store and my grandmother bought it for me. It was so cute, the two of us decided while walking home, that I should make a costume version of it and go trick-or-treating while carrying it around! Good idea in theory, I guess, but in practice? Well, unless you’re an actual ghost, wearing a fuzzy white robe doesn’t actually make you look like a fuzzy ghost toy. I confused parents from one end of the neighbourhood to the next, getting complimented on everything from my “owl costume” to “er, whatever you are!” It didn’t help that I was twelve and in that awkward not-sure-if-I’m-too-oldfor-trick-or-treating-phase (I’m not going to lie: I kept trick-or-treating until the end of high school). In the end I got so many people thinking that I was a bear that I just sort of rolled with it. I may have looked ridiculous, but I owned it. Have your own Halloween costume horror story? Well don’t send it to us, ‘cause that shit’s embarrassing. Seriously. You should probably just forget about it, along with every other day of being an awkward pre-teen.

CHEAP AND CREEPY

A Halloween costume guide for the cheap, broke, or just plain lazy among us. EMILY DEIBERT Just because we’re in our 20s doesn’t mean we have to stop dressing up, does it? (Does it? Please someone tell me I’m not alone on this one). Anyways, if you’re like most people I know you either don’t have the resources or just don’t feel like putting in the effort for a spectacular costume. But never fear! You, too, can look just as good as your over-achieving friends with one of these simple student-friendly costume ideas.

1. Two words (depending on your feelings about conjunctions): bed-sheet ghost. It’s a classic, and if you’re going to Halloween parties you can probably make up some killer pickup lines involving “getting under the covers” and “seeing what’s under these sheets.” 2. 2013 Miley Cyrus. There’s actually a store-bought version of this that really makes me fear for the state of the world, but it’s easy

enough to DIY (and we all know how well store-bought costumes tend to turn out, anyways). All you need is a giant foam finger and enough confidence to stick our your tongue and twerk all night. Plus, it’s topical and clever. Remember when everybody went as the Joker in 2008? Now you’ll get to experience what it’s like to be on the bleeding edge of culture. 3. Toilet paper + you = mummy. PROTIP: Isabel Bader doesn’t lock

their TP in, so you can always get a little extra from them. If you’re that cheap. (I’m that cheap). Act fast before the janitors read this. 4. “Dress up” as a needy university student. Wear that sweater you haven’t washed since the start of term. Don’t go out. Sit in your room in front of your computer working on that essay you probably should have done three weeks ago. Contemplate how sad your life has become.

MIDTERM MADNESS OLESYA LYUZNA Look around you. Can you see crowds of zombie-like students lugging their trendy (and pretty small, you don’t remember them being that small, why are they so popular?) Jansport backpacks to the nearest library? Or the kid sitting beside you in the lecture hall, chewing his pen with the determination of a cat and his scratchpost and muttering formulas under his breath? Or maybe your girlfriend has stopped answering your calls, and when you bumped into her in the quad she accidentally called you Plato? You might think that all of these people have collectively caught a rare disease—and you wouldn’t be too far off. Brace yourself, students—midterm madness is here. Although it might seem harmless at first, don’t be fooled by your friends’ nonchalance. As the days go by, they will grow more withdrawn, rushing off to Robarts at every mention of fun. And it’s only a matter of time before you, too, will join them in their feverish studying, biting your nails and cursing all the time you spent scoffing at revision. You will bury yourself under piles of textbooks and notes, resurfacing only for a rush of caffeine from your trusty Starbucks cup. For those of you who are new to midterm season and the insanity that rushes over the student

body with its arrival, have no fear. It’s easy to get lost in the madness, only to resurface two weeks later with under-eye circles, a handful of barely passing grades, and no recollection of how you got there. However, there are a few simple strategies that will give you the upper hand in the struggle to succeed in these dreaded exams. 1. Study. Just study. You’ve heard it more than once—from profs, parents, and that annoying kid in first year chemistry, but now’s the time to really take the advice to heart. The process of studying is really more straightforward than most make it out to be: find out what you’ll be tested on, then become as knowledgeable about the material as you can. Your ultimate goal? Becoming such an expert that you could rival your prof in an epic academic battle. Just imagine the two of you having a showdown whenever you lose motivation on those long evenings at the library. 2. Lose yourself in Robarts. For a week. If there were a prison exclusively for procrastinating students, it would most certainly be the big, bad, and often frightening Robarts library. With its daunting architecture and eerie bookshelves in primary colours, Robarts will shame you into doing your work whether you like it or not. What’s

more, although it closes at 11PM, you will have no problem losing yourself in its many labyrinths, so you won’t have to worry about being kicked out and having your studies interrupted. You can have a weeklong study session without even leaving the building! Because who needs food when you have a midterm coming up? Right? 3. Positive thinking. We all know that a little self-confidence can go a long way. Why not make use of it when you need it the most? Ditch your studies in favor of a little TLC for your poor deflated ego. Give yourself a thumbs up in every mirror you pass, confidently proclaiming: “I will ace my midterms!” That way, not only will you be constantly reminded of your academic prowess, but other students will grow apprehensive and daunted by your confidence. Some might even drop out of the course for fear of facing an exam in the same room with such a badass! 4. Caff it up. Study. Drink coffee. Repeat. Such is the endless cycle for any student struggling to make a deadline without drifting off to the land of untroubled dreams. You can make use of this foolproof method, too! Whatever your poison—be it regular coffee, fancy lattes with whipped cream, even energy drinks or sugary sodas—stock

up on it and forget about counting calories and carbs. There’s a reason that midterm season and Pumpkin Spice Latte season fall on the same calendar period. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and anything caffeinated is your best weapon during midterm season. 5. Relax. This might seem like unlikely advice in a time of stressful cramming, but in the end, what matters is whether you (and your GPA) come out of the struggle in one piece. There is really only so much studying you can do in the days leading up to the exam. So when you make it to exam day, leave the last-minute revision and all-nighters to your classmates. Instead, get a good night’s sleep, eat a hearty breakfast, and stop stressing so much. Chances are, you know everything you need already. Of course, that being said, we all know that the only foolproof cure for midterm madness is complete abstinence. So if you can, don’t make these exams part of your life, and spare yourself the endless pain and suffering. Go outside! Party! Hang out with your friends! But then again, I suppose we all chose Uof T because we aren’t the kind to pass up a good challenge. So maybe midterm madness isn’t so bad after all. Maybe it’s just the first page of a thrilling university experience?