The Varsity Magazine: You are Here

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 Streeters 6 Reflecting on Toronto’s identity 7 Exploring campus archictecture 11 An interview with rapper John River 14 Student debt in Canada 16 University is not for everyone 18 The future of the TYP 20 Wishing wells of the world 23 Gentrification in the Junction 26 Sitting down with artist Mony Zakhour 29 U of T’s Olympic ice dancer 30 Pursuing a career in eSports 32 Everyone, stop being DJs 34 A music festival for Toronto 36 Who are the futurists?

37 Peace psychology 38 Cult films and aspiration 39 “Expectations,” artwork by Eric Chung

The Varsity Magazine has a circulation of 20,000, and is published

by Varsity Publications Inc. It is printed by Masterweb Inc. Content © 2013 by The Varsity. All rights reserved. Any editorial inquiries and/or letters should be directed to the editors associated with them; emails listed above. The Varsity Magazine reserves the right to edit all submissions.

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THE

VARSITY MAGAZINE VOL. VII NO. 1 21 SUSSEX, SUITE 306 TORONTO, ON, M5S 1J6 (416) 946–7600 thevarsity.ca

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Joshua Oliver

editor@thevarsity.ca

MAGAZINE EDITOR Danielle Klein features@thevarsity.ca PRODUCTION MANAGER Dan Seljak production@thevarsity.ca MANAGING ONLINE EDITOR Murad Hemmadi online@thevarsity.ca DESIGN EDITOR Shaquilla Singh

design@thevarsity.ca

PHOTO EDITOR Carolyn Levett

photo@thevarsity.ca

SENIOR COPY EDITOR Catherine Virelli copy@thevarsity.ca ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR Nancy Ji illustrations@thevarsity.ca ASSOCIATE MAGAZINE EDITOR Victoria Banderob ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR Mari Zhou ASSOCIATE SENIOR COPY EDITOR Lucy Genua COPY EDITORS & FACT CHECKERS Lucy Genua, Elena Gritzan, Jennifer Hurd, Nicole Sconza, Kelly Turner, Catherine Virelli DESIGNERS Kawmadie Karunanayake, Emerald Misquitta, Dan Seljak, Shaquilla Singh, Mari Zhou COVER Michael Chahley PHOTO & ILLUSTRATION Julien Balbotino, Michael Chahley, Eric Chung, Wendy Gu, Courtney Hallink, Trevor Koroll, Jacob Lorinc, Lucinda Ro, Ann Sheng, Jennifer Su, Nicole Regina Wong, Alice Xue, Shijie (Tina) Zhou CONTRIBUTORS Nicholas Carlson, Katherine Dupont, James Flynn, Emma Hansen, Jesse Hildebrand, JP Kaczur, Emma Kikulis, Daniel Konikoff, Sofia Luu, India McAllister, Claudia McNeilly, Ishita Pektar, Corinne Pryzbyslawski, Samantha Relich, Kate Hale Wilkes, Alec Wilson, Theodore Yan, Adam Zachary SPECIAL THANKS Michael Chahley, Kerrie McCreadie, Theodore Yan, Wish Cat, Molly McGillis, Cameron Findlater, Shmucks, Squirtle, Fortune cookie donors, Family dinner, Wish Cat again, Danielle’s half mug of wine, India, Future Bakery, Zebra Katz, Drake (kind of)

Letter from the Editor

Letter from Design

I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

For as long as I can remember, people have been asking me what my plans are for the future, and while I’ve done my best to say something convincing, I’ve never really known for sure. Not all of us have a perfect blueprint for our lives laid out, but most of us are overflowing with dreams — fantasies that seem so absurd that we’re afraid to say them out loud.

For this magazine, we asked what your dreams are. Why did you come to U of T, or to Toronto — what were you longing for that brought you to where you are standing right now? The narratives in these pages explore our secret wishes and wildest aspirations. We talked to people who are going for it — whether trying to make a living playing video games (p. 30), painting (p. 32), rapping (p. 11), or ice dancing (p. 29).

Sometimes, the chances of failure are high.

James Flynn investigated student debt and how it can stand in the way of success (p. 14).

Samantha Relich talked to students at the Transitional Year Programme who are struggling to keep it from being shut down (p.18).

It’s easy to feel like we should keep our aspirations quiet, lest we validate the labels being tossed around about our generation — “entitled,” “lazy,” “millennials.” But our greatest hopes may not be as ludicrous as they seem.

When we try to pursue them, when we want things fervently, we have a shot at realizing them. The age of figuring things out at 18 is past — we will all go through different jobs, change our minds, fail, or triumph. We may not have perfect plans, but we have longings and dreams that spill out onto the streets of our city like frantic energy, whether we share them or not.

For now, you’re here. In a few years, you could be anything — even exactly what you want to be.

Aspirations are a hard thing to visualize.

Whether we’re trying to imagine where we’d like to be in five hours, what our dream house would look like, or even how we’d like our hair cut, picturing the things we desire is difficult.

It seems like the things we want become more tangible when we can see them, but with that tangibility come all the anxieties of possible failure or dissapointment when we are presented with the realities.

In designing the cover of this issue, we were faced with many anxieties about it. Every time we finalized a concept, we doubted whether or not it was our best work, and whether its message would carry to our audience. We photographed and discarded around five different concepts before we finally settled.

The image we finally decided on is one we want to represent those fears and anxieties that surround our aspirations. The figure on the left reading a map represents the logical side of our desires — tactfully planning the best route to success. The figure on the right represents the more emotional side of our hopes — attaching them to sentiments rather than reason.

The cycle between these two aspects of our aspirations represents all of us, as well as the balance we strike as post-secondary students — at once grounded in reason and, at the same time, lost on the winds of hopeful emotion.

— Danielle Klein Magazine Editor, 2013-2014

— Shaquilla Singh Design Editor, 2013-2014

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Defining the city Is Toronto in a state of cultural limbo, or can the city be understood?

By Emma Kikulis | Illustration by Nancy Ji

Toronto a.k.a...

T.O. Taken from the first two letters of the city’s name — earth-shattering.

Hogtown References the once ubiquitous pork processing plants in Toronto. Not a comment on the city’s current leadership.

The Big Smoke

A

sk 10 people in Toronto where they’re from, and prepare yourself for 10 different answers. In a city where you can walk through several cultural districts in only a few blocks, and 50 per cent of residents were born elsewhere, this cosmopolitanism isn’t surprising. What is notable, however, is that people often don’t directly associate themselves with the city.

Toronto’s identity is a subject of much discussion, but so far no one has been able to make a snazzy slogan or singular characteristic stick to our city and put us on the proverbial map. You can visit the Big Apple, Sin City, or the City of Love — or you can visit Toronto, period.

New York City is the cultural capital of the world; Paris is teeming with art and historical significance; Toronto’s charac-

ter is not as clear-cut. The lack of a collective identity in Toronto inspires nostalgia for the places people come from and ambivalence about the future.

This ambiguity is particularly frustrating for students who are desperate to define themselves in a place where there is no mould to do so.

Because Toronto is such a mosaic of people, places, and cultures, we have to work that much harder than a city with less diversity to establish an identity. How do we form a definition for the most multicultural city in the world without excluding anyone or anything? There is a desire for a clearly defined identity, but it is complicated by the costs of attaining one.

Toronto wants something to cling to — an inclusionary definition that will make people feel as if the city is oriented in the context of other

major global cities, or a pinpointed feature to draw people to it. The cn Tower, which is now pretty much irrelevant (thanks Dubai), fails to serve this purpose, as do Casa Loma, City Hall, and all the other sights that tourists amble by before hopping back on their City Sight Seeing Toronto bus. What genuinely defines Toronto are the little boroughs and neighbourhoods that make it unique — the distinct corners of the city that appear disjointed at first glance, but come together to make up an alluring whole.

Ironically, Toronto’s identity is its constant identity crisis — the city refuses to be defined by one word or single characteristic because it cannot be contained. Toronto’s diverse constituents animate the streets of Kensington Market, Little Portugal, Greek Town, the Annex, the Junc-

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We are slowly killing the earth, but at least we have the decency to make light of the situation.

El Toro Literally created in a magazine contest. This is what we’ve come to. You are forgiven your tears.

The Centre of the Universe QED tion, Baldwin Village, and so on. It’s not the skyline, the museums, or the lake that make this city special — though they certainly add to the ambiance — it’s the discord and the instability of the neighbourhoods and the architecture, the multiplicity of cultures, and the difficulty of attempting to pin it all down.

Constructing aspiration Exploring the architecture of U of T and how it affects the mindsets of students

By Katherine Dupont & Adam Zachary Photos by Alice Xue | Doodles by Nancy Ji, Kawmadie Karunanayake & Mari Zhou

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W

eaving through the tree-lined paths that cross our campus, one might look to either side and feel as though they are walking between different worlds: namely, University College — our oldest labyrinth — and the brutalist pile that is home to our medical faculty. These paths could be passages between buildings or centuries. The landscape is unified by the changing seasons and the cn Tower.

Our university is a beautiful place: often hopeless, hellish, and hectic, but surrounded by beauty nonetheless. The campus is housed in the heart of Toronto and built up in waves that spill from the central towers and cloisters of University College. The buildings surround us in an architectural mosaic as diverse as the student body, packed full of exemplars of Gothic, Romanesque, neoclassical, modern, and postmodern styles.

This variety in the built environment is both interesting and

reflective of the greater city of Toronto. It is sure to provide at least a few buildings to please each bright, young, studious set of eyes — but how does it affect our minds? Is scribbling out a test in a fluorescent, whitewashed, cinderblock cellar really so different from lazily writing in a fine oak-panelled parlour? We learn the same things in either room, coughing up the same information, so why do we favour the high ceilings and shadows of the older buildings over the banal Sid Smith and McLennan labs?

Architectural determinism is the concept that our built environment can affect and modify our behaviour. The most notable and quotable example is the theoretical “panopticon prison,” in which inmates may be observed at all times from a guard tower that sprouts from the middle of the circular complex (not to draw too strong a parallel with the watchful arrow-slit windows of Robarts).

Is it possible that our experience of the university is a result of the forms that its buildings take?

A university in a city The University of Toronto is notable for outstanding academics and brilliant achievements in all fields of research.

Ours is consistently ranked among the world’s greatest universities — in 2013, we were ranked eighth in the world for scientific performance by ntu; seventeenth in the world overall by qs; and twenty-first internationally by Times Higher Education. According to most rankings, our school is unmatched by any other in Canada.

What we lack compared to the Ivy League and Oxbridge universities that we rank sideby-side with is a distinct character and a cohesive community. The Canadian universities that rank near us, such as Western and Queen’s, seem to our outsider eyes to have very tight-knit student bodies that wear their school colours with pride, both on and off campus.

These universities seem to have more of a team spirit — perhaps because they are smaller

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schools — and each consists of one clearly defined campus that dominates the surrounding small cities of London and Kingston respectively. These towns are known to us as “university towns,” a category of which there is no risk of Toronto becoming a member.

U of T has a far greater population than these schools, and is spread across three large campuses — each providing a thoroughly different experience. At the St. George campus, the student body is split up into seven undergraduate colleges and many more subdivisions of professional faculties, theological colleges, and so on. There is little opportunity for students to come together meaningfully.

An overwhelming majority of students live off campus, some commuting as many as two hours every morning.

There is also an absence of a uniform aesthetic in architecture and planning that could reinforce our identity.

There is little to differentiate the St. George campus from

tively long when they fell victim to the movement. The brutalist anthill we know as the Medical Science Building (1969) now stands on the site of the original Biological Building and the original Skule; both were demolished in 1966 — long before they reached 100 years of age.

Identity loss

other parts of downtown Toronto that feature a few beautiful relics of the past in valleys bordered by sheer cliffs of concrete and plate glass.

Modernism takes over In keeping with the twentiethcentury trend in North American urban planning, rapid overdevelopment in the postwar era led to the abandonment of heritage preservation as a priority in building the campus.

Toronto adopted modernism, and its university followed.

Modernist architectural theory embraced buildings as “machines for living” that should be efficient, insular, without ornament, and isolated from the streets: criteria often fulfilled with the aid of stern and featureless exterior walls.

On the St. George campus, modernism was first exemplified by the Mechanical Engineering Building (1947)

and Elmsley Hall (1955). At first, these must have seemed like embassies of a blind and heavy-footed alien race. Soon they were joined by a dozen similar buildings, such as the McLennan Physical Laboratories (1967) and the much-reviled Sidney Smith Hall (1961).

We accept these buildings now as unfortunate facts of the St. George landscape, but rarely consider the noble arches that fell to make way for them.

The modernist movement carried with it an indomitable egotism that insisted it was revolutionary. Its disregard for the preservation of old buildings and their styling was akin to an erasure of history. Unlike others, U of T was easily wooed by modernism, and since it is not as old as most of the world’s other great schools, most of the original core buildings had not been around for rela-

Was U of T moving toward a distinct identity?

The old Biological Building, replaced by the plain and disappointing Ramsay Wright Laboratories, was a Romanesque stone mansion that recalled the windows of University College and the heavy but soft shapes of the Victoria College castle. The old Skule was a Gothic block that echoed the Royal Conservatory and St. Michael’s College.

Neoclassicism was also common to the School of Household Sciences — now the Lillian Massey building, the demolished “new” King’s College, and the demolished Chemistry Building. The university had not yet settled on a style, but it was still young.

Much of St. George Street and Huron Street were once lined with residences built for Toronto’s upper- and middle-classes, professors, and fraternities — for example, 24 homes once stood on the half block now occupied

by Sid Smith. As many as 200 did not survive the rapid expansion of our campus.

Many of them were standard bay-gable or Second Empire row houses, but some, especially on the western side of St. George Street, were grander homes that could have been repurposed rather than bulldozed.

For an idea of how the street once looked, walk the northern end of St. George Street, where some of them were indeed preserved and integrated with the campus.

The mansion that now cornerstones the new Rotman addition was once home to the Department of Classics, and a stretch of three re-

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maining houses have become part of Woodsworth College.

“A quintessentially postmodern campus” Leading geographer David Harvey writes that the postmodern “…urban fabric [is] necessarily fragmented, a palimpsest of past forms superimposed upon one another...”

By his definition, U of T has become a quintessentially postmodern campus.

Why has the university followed the path of fragmentation while other top schools have held fast to their roots in architectural tradition? Yale University recently commissioned the world-renowned historicist-architect Robert Stern, responsible for the gleaming white condominium that casts a morning shadow down Charles Street, to design two new residential colleges that will heavily borrow from and fit in with its nineteenth-century neighbours.

Newer colleges at Oxford, such as Green Templeton (2008) and Kellogg (1994), opted to renovate old homes and institutional buildings rather than demolish and build anew. The University of Tokyo — which is perhaps of more comparable age, size, and global status to U of T — has opted to shift most new construction to its periphery to preserve its nineteenth-century core. The university is long past having decided against preserving its archictectural heritage — but with the adoption of fragmentation, it will soon have even less of a stylistically defined core to discern.

Dealing with construction is just as much a part of life on campus as it is across the rest of the city. In our lifetimes, the Bahen Centre has risen at the south end of St. George, and the Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building has newly crowned the southern corner of Queen’s Park. On the north end of campus, the new Munk Centre has just opened in the thoughtfully renovated Meteorological Building, and before many of us graduate, the angled columns of the new Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport will loom over Devonshire Place.

It is an exciting time to watch the campus change around us, but all of this new development is still not moving in any one distinct direction. The university administration seems to have no desire to unify campus; rather, it seems to be more interested in simply commissioning whatever is in vogue at the time of planning. Our walks to class have become walks through an exhibition of architectural fashion over time. Consider how different these four new buildings are, and what different impressions they would give if a new student were to see one of them upon first visiting the campus.

Towards coherency New construction at St. George does not present or suggest any specific aspirations as U of T’s oldest buildings do.

The neoclassical columns and heaven-minded towers which once decorated the campus, nodding to the Greeks and Romans studied within the buildings, have been replaced by modernist standins. Elegant feats of stone and metal that could once inspire passing young engineers are also long gone.

Much of our campus is visually unpleasant, full of tired brashness — but we are still surrounded by the beauty that

is ongoing. Few of us could deny the science fiction appeal of the Donnelly Centre’s dna patterns or the soaring atrium of Victoria College’s new Goldring Centre. Maybe U of T was nearing an architectural archetype before the crush of modernism and mess of its aftermath, and maybe it is unknowingly nearing one once again.

Though incoherently, our school is redefining itself, and our lives will change with it.

Every physical cause has an ef-

fect, from the raising of roofs to the falling of leaves. The sun begins to set at 5:00 pm, and the rapidly changing colours cast different lights across the gargoyles of University College. Every tower’s peak casts a long shadow across streets and quads, like a sundial that counts down the sun setting on another school day.

Some think that fall is the most picturesque season on our campus, with the falling tide of orange and red leaves bringing promises of

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winter. In our little world from College up to Bloor, we think that winter is more beautiful. Snow covers our campus like an equalizer, covers each hard line of windowsill and soft curve of roof in a white togetherness. Everything feels more like a home, connected by a common thread. Hopefully, in the long and bright future of this school, our planners and architects will find some common threads and tie them tighter together.

“You’ve got to work your miracles” An interview with 19-year-old Toronto rapper John River on chasing his dream

By Corinne Przybyslawski | Photos by Jennifer Su

M

atthew Derrick-Huie, who goes by the name John River, is a former high school runner and soccer player from the gta whose pursuit of a dream, rather than a finish line, had him taking down license plates, stalking vehicles, and idling at airports. With a selfproduced mixtape and his charity, Hope City, the 19-year-old’s remarkable humility and drive steered the odds into his favour.

When an interview with J. Cole, organized

by Hip Hop Canada, fell through, DerrickHuie decided to chase down the celebrity to meet him as well as Ibrahim Hamad, president of Cole’s label, Dreamville Records.

Derrick-Huie met J. Cole at Pearson Airport on his way back to Toronto. Soon after, the two met at Hamad’s New York City home, where Derrick-Huie rapped a verse for him.

Derrick-Huie’s years of patience, in conjunction with his extraordinary route to the industry’s doorstep, has earned him brotherly recognition and respect from Cole and Hamad, as well as the Toronto rap community. The Varsity caught up with him in Mississauga to discuss rap in Toronto and how he has pursued his dreams.

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“Understand that despite my success, it could have been anyone. We got downtown, we ran into the president of Dreamville, and that was pure luck.

Will Smith said once that the universe moves to you. He was sounding a little weird to me then, but how wrong was I? Everyone has their own secret, their own story. Let me tell people that if you want it, go get it.”

— Matthew Derrick-Huie

The Varsity: Who is John River?

Matthew Derrick-Huie: “John River” is a name that started with hope. When I left Europe and turned down a career in soccer, I had my future in front of me. I made that sacrifice — that’s automatic credibility.

There’s a greater purpose right now. Sending back money wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted to make an impact at the grassroots level. I shouldn’t have to be a billionaire and “come back” to my city. My job is to connect people, especially if they feel like there’s nothing else they could be doing. John River is the artist to mobilize that movement.

TV: Considering how disjointed the Toronto rap community is, it would almost seem delusional to pursue a career in it.

What compelled you?

MD: I’ve always liked the ability to express myself. I had an opinion about the world, and I was looking for a platform. I’ve never looked at it like, “I’m a musician.” It was just something I did. Rapping wasn’t anything like it is today when I started out. There were maybe 10 kids listening to it. It wasn’t a profitable job market — you just did it because you loved it.

TV: How did you know that rap was the style for you?

MD: I started with beat boxing. I never wrote anything down, but by high school, when people started getting into the genre, I knew I was really good. At Clarkson Secondary, we used to hold 200 people in the stairwell and have two people go at a freestyle against each other. Bets started going around in this too. People always thought I had my stuff written down, so I started going off what people were wearing — you can’t script that without seeing them. At that point, people knew I hadn’t been training for that moment or nothing… I never wanted anyone’s money, though. It was enough to know that people were recognizing me for something I was really good at.

TV: Is the industry as exclusive as outsiders believe?

MD: It is and it isn’t. You’ve got to go to the big guys and start. Kanye, Kendrick, Jay-Z, Drake, J. Cole. You choose one, but let’s say that road closes for whatever reason. Then you go to the next masthead, and your fashion of getting to them will have to be completely different each time. Take Drake, for example. He got booed at a lot of places in

Canada. People said he sucked and would never have any success, but he’s laughing now. Maybe he couldn’t fill the genre he wanted to, fine. He went and just reinvented it, though, so he could. You’ve got to be proactive rather than praying: “I’ll be the one.” Do it yourself, man, Home Depot.

TV: What’s your best advice to others with a similar dream?

MD: Understand that despite my success, it could have been anyone. We got downtown, we ran into the president of Dreamville, and that was pure luck. Will Smith said once that the universe moves to you. He was sounding a little weird to me then, but how wrong was I? Everyone has their own secret, their own story. Let me tell people that if you want it, go get it.

You’ve got to work your miracles. J. Cole was that miracle route, but it didn’t have to be me first.

TV: When you decided you wanted this career, did you have an initial course of action in mind?

MD: I never had a direct path of getting where I am now. In the summer when Drake was recording at Metalworks, I was waiting there from 1:00 am until 6:00 am four nights a week, hoping to see 40 [Noah Shebib]. Every night, the bouncer would come out around 4:00 am and tell me to fuck off, so I would grab my skateboard, make the 20-minute ride home, then come back the following night. One night, Future The Prince came out, Drake’s right-hand guy. He comes up to me and says, “Hey, you’re that kid,” and so I hand him my cd.

He actually took it. Man. That was that.

TV: What happened between Future taking your CD and the J. Cole concert?

MD: Everything happened on the fly. An interview I was supposed to attend with J. Cole got cancelled, but I knew I had to get it done. That encounter held the opportunity to give me the break I needed.

If all it was going to take was rapping for him, I’d better find a way. Now we’re at the J. Cole concert in August, at Starbucks and charging the phones, getting ready for the big follow. We knew they had to have come in some vehicles, and we knew that those vehicles, once we found them, would be carrying our man, so I took down the license plates as soon as I saw what I thought I was looking for. Thankfully the odds were in my favour.

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TV: And that was when you decided to follow them?

MD: A couple of weeks before the show, I crossed very narrow paths with 40 and Future around the block from where the show was at. Knowing that by chance, I was able to get my cd to both of Drake’s right-hand guys was the biggest, most definite sign in the world. I had to find J. Cole.

After the concert, we followed the cars on foot. It was crazy, but there was so much traffic for a couple of blocks to follow, so as they started to turn, we hopped into a cab and told [the driver] to follow those cars.

He actually kicked us out and told us that shit only happened in the movies. We were back on foot, so we started running. Three blocks later we break stride, but we figured they had to be headed home. Logically, the airport was our next stop, and so there we were, 2:00 am, waiting for our guy [J. Cole] in Departures [at Toronto Pearson International Airport].

TV: After following J. Cole down to the airport, doing a verse, and finally meeting Ibrahim, what was your headspace like?

MD: I was embarrassed. I caught up with Bas after all of it, and he told me, “Ibrahim kept saying that you kept apologizing. What were you sorry for?” Just because I have a story to tell doesn’t justify crossing the boundaries I did. Who was I to be profiting off someone’s privacy? I just want people to look at this as a motivationally driven story.

The guys at Dreamville are so brotherly to accept what I did and understand where I was coming from. I only did what I thought I had to do, for the people I thought I had to do it for.

TV: You chose to pray on a miracle to get your way. Did that [take a] toll [on] your optimism at all?

MD: There are so many parts to the story where I think, “I could have stopped there.”

I didn’t know I was going to take it as far as I did, but that’s exactly what made me realize how badly I wanted it. There is no not making it. I think if I was only doing it for me, I would have been too scared… The day I decided I’m not going to settle for a no, I’m going to work hard and try and get J. Cole, I run into 40 on my way there. You give and you shall receive, man.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The cost of being here

By JAMES FLYNN

I

n his first year at the University of Toronto, Dan (name changed) was a model student. He had a 4.0 gpa, wrote for a campus newspaper, and was on his way to earning a history degree and beginning a career in education.

However, due to struggles with student debt, Dan was forced to drop out of university. He is still paying off $18,000 in loans that he incurred while in school.

Dan attributes his struggles with student debt to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (osap). Under the program, financial aid is allocated based on a formula that takes into account the student’s income, tuition, and book costs. It also considers parental or spousal income, if applicable. The maximum amount a student can receive is $560 per week.

Dan asserts that this figure does not properly take into account cost of living.

In his second year at U of T, for example, osap only offered a loan of $5,000, but his tuition was more than $6,000. “[I was] going into debt every month,” Dan says. “I don’t think that’s fair.”

According to the U of T Governing Council’s 1998 Policy on Student Financial Support, “No student offered admission to a program at the University of Toronto should be unable to enter or complete the program due to lack of financial means.” To this end, U of T provides non-repayable grants to students whose financial needs exceed the capabilities of osap. Yet some students, like Dan, still drop out of university due to financial concerns.

Today, a record 48 per cent of U of T’s undergraduate students receive osap funding. By graduation, these students owe over $20,000 to the government.

On average, it takes these students nine and a half years to pay off student debt, at a market-like interest rate of 3.5 per cent. That amounts to $6,448 in interest over the course of the repayment period.

Student debt is a reality of education in countries around the world. In Canada, outstanding student loan debt currently stands at over $15 billion. In the United States, outstanding student loan debt stands at over $1 trillion. This is more than their outstanding credit card debt.

Different effects According to University of Toronto Students’ Union (utsu) Arts & Science director-atlarge Ben Coleman, “the point of osap is socioeconomic mobility — an opportunity, through education, to do better than your parents. Where’s the equal opportunity when you have to start your adult life with a debt burden and richer students don’t?”

Student debt limits opportunity, causes stress, and inhibits educational attainment.

Many students with high debt loads are forced to take on jobs that limit extracurricular involvement and academic achievement.

Student debt also has spillover effects into other areas of a student’s life. Students with high debt loads are often forced to delay important life decisions. For example, they are less likely to start a small business or pursue further educational opportunities, such as graduate school. They are also more likely to delay home ownership and retirement saving.

Advocating change “Students see the worst effects of student debts after graduation. Students who end up repaying their loans after graduation end up paying a lot more than students who end up paying up front,” says utsu vice-president, equity, Yolen Bollo-Kamara.

Bollo-Kamara advocates increased provincial funding for post-secondary education.

At the moment, Ontario’s spending on postsecondary education per student is the lowest in the country, while Alberta’s is the highest.

Bollo-Kamara also advocates changes to U of T’s institutional interest on tuition fees. “Under the current system, students have to pay 60 per cent of fees up front to be enrolled in classes. After November 15, they start incurring interest on the balance of their tuition,” Bollo-Kamara says.

“If students are unable to pay tuition fees up front, they end up paying almost creditcard level interest rates for their tuition.”

Under osap, students are allocated financial aid in two installments: in September and in January. According to Bollo-Kamara, this system penalizes disadvantaged students who are unable to pay their tuition fees up front.

Coleman — referencing student debt data for the U of T St. George campus, which he

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received after filing a Freedom of Information request — advocates the implementation of per-semester, per-course tuition. At present, U of T operates under a flat-fee model, in which students pay the same tuition whether they take three, four, five, or six courses. Coleman believes that changing the current model will “help osap students greatly.”

Dan agrees: “If I was able to take and pay for three courses, I could work a part-time job while attending school.” Under the flat-fee system, this is not feasible.

Another option is to change the interest rate charged to students. At the moment, both the federal and provincial governments charge interest on student loans. In Newfoundland and Labrador, where tuition fees have been frozen since 1999, and in Prince Edward Island, students pay no interest on student loans. A similar system is in place in other countries such as New Zealand.

Benefits of widespread access to education Allowing widespread access to education promotes innovation and economic growth. More people have the opportunity to attain the skills necessary to fill labour gaps and shortages. According to Statistics Canada, there are currently 5.3 unemployed people for every job vacancy in Canada. Many of these people cannot afford to attain the skills necessary to fill the vacancies. Education also promotes economic mobility. Students with higher education are more likely to determine their own economic outcomes, as opposed to simply taking on the economic position of their parents.

Ontario asserts that it is committed to making post-secondary education accessible to all families, regardless of financial position. To that end, the Ontario Student Access Guarantee offers bursaries, scholarships, work-study programs, and summer employment programs to students who are unable to fully cover their expenses under osap.

Still, student debt is a difficult reality of life for many Canadian students. “All I wanted was the chance to get an education,” says Dan. Under the current system of student loans, this goal is unattainable for many Canadian students.

A profile on student debt in Canada and the financial burden of U of T students

4.3%

Tuition increases (%) across the provinces

ALL OF CANADA

2011 – 2012

0%

2.9% 2%

1.4%

ALBERTA

BRITISH COLUMBIA

3.1%

NEW FOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

4.5%

MANITOBA

QUEBEC

SASKATCHEWAN

5.1%

2.5% Incidence and Average Amount of Debt to only PEI Non-Government Sources at Time3.6% of Graduation 4.3% O NTARIO

Class of 2005 DOLLARS 30000

NEW BRUNSWICK NOVA SCOTIA

Incidence and average amount of debt to non-government sources at the time of graduation

PER CENT

Class of 2005

25000

60 50

20000

40

15000

30

10000

20

5000

10

0 Source: Statistics Canada

COLLEGE

BACHELOR’S

Average debt at graduation

MASTER’S

DOCTORATE

Percentage of graduates with only non-government debt

— 15 — THE VARSITY MAGAZINE

0

University is not for everyone Why getting an undergraduate education is not always the best option

By Alec Wilson | Illustration by Julien Balbontin

W

hen my grandfather was 19 years old, he walked through the front doors of Stamford Collegiate High School in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and applied for a job. He was one of eight children, all boys, who were born and raised on a small Ontario farm during the Great Depression.

Barely out of high school himself, he was hired on the spot as a gym teacher and guidance counsellor. He would spend the rest of his adult working life at Stamford, coaching soccer and basketball. He raised two daughters, was able to purchase a new car every few years, and had a summer cottage up north to which he would eventually retire

with my grandmother. My grandfather took a year-long accreditation course at McMaster University to become a guidance counsellor before going back to complete a ba once he found a paying job.

Both of his daughters went to university in Ontario, one of whom, my mother, went on to earn a doctorate degree at the University of Toronto. While her father, with no experience to speak of, was able to walk to the local high school and get a job, my mother’s working life has been complicated by changes in employers, locations, and lengthy commutes. My mother and father, in the prime of their working lives, only recently paid off

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the debt they incurred more than 25 years ago when they first entered university.

There are approximately 818,000 fulltime undergraduates currently enrolled in classes at Canadian universities. Many of these students are contributing to the nation’s growing national student debt — which, according to the Canadian Federation of Students’ website, has long surpassed $15 billion and continues to grow. More and more students are enrolling in universities every year, university tuition rates continue to rise, and the debt keeps mounting.

In a piece on its website earlier this year, the cbc indicated that Ontario has the

The likelihood is that you will graduate from university in four or more years with some, if not significant, debt and no more employable than you would have been if you had spent those years doing something else. worst youth unemployment statistics in the country. “There is only one in two Ontarians between the ages 15 and 24 who have paid employment. What that is, is the worst numbers we’ve seen since Statscan has kept these numbers since 1976,” said Sean Geobey, a doctoral candidate in social and environmental finance at the University of Waterloo. Geobey’s research contributed to the findings covered in the article. While Canada has fortunately not experienced the same kind of economic lag that is still devastating other nations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the country is still struggling to make up lost ground. In the city of Toronto alone, 18.1 per cent of youth are currently without paying jobs.

Amidst these discouraging statistics, the government of Ontario has been embattled with partisan platforms looking to make fundamental changes to the province’s post-secondary education system, in an attempt to better prepare the next generation’s workforce. Last year, for instance, the provincial Progressive Conservatives, led by Tim Hudak, released a white paper titled “Paths to Prosperity: Higher Learning for Better Jobs.” The controversial policy paper has been the source of much debate over the future of Ontario’s employment market since its release. The current Liberal government, under Premier Kathleen Wynne, has yet to respond with its own proposal.

There is virtue in proposing a fundamental shift in the way Canadian society thinks about post-secondary education.

For decades now, a university degree has widely been considered a prerequisite to a fulfilling work life. A generation of young Canadians has been misinformed about the value of the university experience, and our economy is suffering as a result. Canadians need to stop and reconsider the purpose and reality of a university education. Unless you are

enrolled in a practical discipline, like engineering or certain sciences, university is not about preparing for the working world, nor is it about developing essential skills for employment.

The four-year-degree structure is ultimately about developing responsible, intelligent citizens. This is not to say that employers are not looking for intelligent, reasonable people — they certainly are, but it is not nearly enough. University is about developing critical thinking skills and gaining a specialized education. At the risk of sounding elitist, students dragging their feet through arts degrees, sleeping in lectures, and waiting on osap or other loan payments to make tuition are simply wasting their time if they think a job is waiting for them.

Year after year, a class of indebted young people is unloaded from the university system in Canada, smiling in their graduation pictures, diplomas in hand. The sad truth is that very few of these bright-eyed graduates will make a seamless transition into the working world, where their experi-

vice to their students and to society as a whole if they continue to offer degrees to anyone who can pay.

Universities cannot be advertised as a way station to fulfilling employment; they must be considered centres for higher learning, institutions dedicated to the development of well-rounded citizens, and that is all. The truth is, you do not need to be well-rounded to find a job in Canada right now — you need skills. You need to be able to make or fix things. There simply is not enough room in the job pool for a thousand art history majors.

Most of the change needs to take place in homes and high schools. Parents, teachers, and guidance counsellors need to reexamine the way that university is presented to students. University is expensive, it is hard, and it is not for everyone. Students need to have a sober and objective understanding of what they are getting into before they accept admission offers. It is a significant expense, either for the family or the individual, and it represents a significant opportunity cost: there will be substantial lost wages in return

Year after year, a class of indebted young people is unloaded from the university system in Canada, smiling in their graduation pictures, diplomas in hand. The sad truth is that very few of these bright-eyed graduates will make the seamless transition into the working world, where their experience is relevant. A shift in society’s perception of the value of a university education must happen, and it must happen soon. ence is relevant. A shift in society’s perception of the value of a university education must happen, and it must happen soon. A new emphasis should be placed on education in the trades and other practical skill sets. There are simply too many people in Canada today without jobs, and too many jobs without people.

The universities themselves are complicit in this crisis. As institutions admit more and more students and collect tuition fees, they devalue the degrees and certifications they grant. If the only criteria for receiving a degree are that you are able to pay and satisfy the lowest standard of achievement, then the degree is worthless. It is a simple question of supply and demand: the more ba students there are floating around the job market, the less valuable the degree becomes. Universities are doing a disser-

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for your undergraduate efforts, and you will have lost time that could have been spent developing other skills or pursuing other experiences. The likelihood is that you will graduate from university in four or more years with some, if not significant, debt and no more employable than you would have been if you had spent those years doing something else.

What Ontario and Canada need now are fewer universities. We need to foster and develop institutions that provide young people with the skills they need to support themselves financially. I would personally much rather enjoy my life as a pipefitter, welder, or plumber — making a respectable wage with which I can support myself and a family — than I would working at a coffee shop, without an office wall upon which to display my degree.

A fighting chance Transitional Year Programme students share their stories and express fear for the program’s future

By Samantha Relich | Photos by Michael Chahley & Courtney Hallink

Transitional Year Programme class of 2011-2012. Courtney hallink/the Varsity

I

f you could ask students and alumni of the Transitional Year Programme (typ) as children what they wanted to be when they grew up, you would likely get typical answers: a zoologist, boxer, dancer, or pediatrician. If you asked the same question to them as young adults, you’d get a very different answer: alive.

Since its inauguration in 1976, the typ has been in place to assist adults without formal educational qualifications in building the foundation needed to successfully attain an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto. The program, however, goes far beyond its written mandate. Behind the walls of 49 St. George Street, the central typ office, there is a palpable sense of community and cooperation — the building is also a home, and a symbol of renewed confidence and access to opportunities.

“This place is special,” comments Michael, a typ alumnus from 27 years ago.

Michael still remembers his admission in-

terview clearly. “I grew up thinking that I would never be anything… When they asked me why they should accept me, I said, ‘Just give me a chance, a chance to try.’” He went on to complete his Bachelor of Arts at U of T, and his Bachelor of Law at Osgoode Hall in York University.

Current typ student Cheyenne is pursuing post-secondary education to provide a better life for her four-year-old son. She grew up in subsidized housing with a single mother and spent her teenage years living with whichever friend’s parents were kind enough to take her in.

“I realized that I was repeating the choices my mother made and decided I needed to make a change for my son’s sake,” she reflects. “This place is like a family. Everyone wants to help.”

This is especially true for the tight-knit community of single mothers: “Last year before an exam I couldn’t find a babysitter, and I knew I could leave my son here with the other moms and he would be safe,”

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said Cheyenne. She now aspires to become a film director.

Rehema, also a current student of the program, immigrated to Canada from Kenya four years ago to find work to support her family back home. With the help of the typ, she hopes to someday return as a doctor to an orphanage at which she previously volunteered to help children born with hiv/aids.

Alumna Michelle Jarvis credits the program with changing her entire outlook on life: “The program is completely inclusive. Here, all voices are relevant.”

Shazali Samah, also an alumnus, agrees. To him, the program provides a space where students from marginalized backgrounds can pursue their dreams without fear of authority or feelings of inferiority. While Samah hopes to pursue law school, Jarvis, like many undergraduates, isn’t quite sure of her career path, but knows she wants to help people.

View of the Transitional Year Programme house on St. George Street. MICHAEL CHAHLEY/THE VArsITY

Helping others is a value emphasized and strengthened by the experience of studying through the typ. Samah notes: “We’re very family-oriented. This place is a home for most of the students, and alumni come back because they want to support and give back to this place.”

This sense of home is what students and alumni now fear losing, as the U of T administration has proposed a merger of the typ with the Faculty of Arts & Science. The move would entail relocating to Woodsworth College, which also houses the Academic Bridging Program.

The typ Preservation Alliance (typpa) is a group dedicated to ensuring the program’s continued existence. Rather than contest the physical relocation of the program, the group is more concerned that the new space and the loss of autonomy will damage the integrity of the program and, by extension, its ability to support students in their goals.

The typpa has several concerns about the proposed space at Woodsworth, including the facility’s decreased size. This will impede alumni from visiting to the same extent that they have so far and prevent students from having drop-in access to faculty and advisors — the exact kind of support that is a hallmark of the program.

With rumours swirling that the typ will be forced to move this December, there is

“

The program is completely inclusive. Here, all voices are relevant.”

— Michelle Jarvis, TYP alum

growing anxiety among students who want a promise from the administration that their needs and voices will not be ignored.

“I’m concerned that the change isn’t what’s best for the program. The discussion [with the university administration] has been onesided. There’s been a lot of talking with staff and no talking with students to hear their perspectives and needs,” said C.C., a program alumnus and active member of the typpa.

Michelle, a 2012 alumna, laughed as she described her sometimes difficult relationship with the program: “It was hard, but it was life-changing. This place became a home. The people here became family, and the support was what kept me on track.”

Michelle’s fear is that the program will eventually be phased out or amalgamated with the Academic Bridging Program: “Losing this program would mean a huge loss of knowledge, and it would silence so many distinct voices that deserve to be heard.”

“When I first got here, I was lost. I had people helping me, the older alumni, and that’s what has inspired me to give back,”

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adds Samah. He worries that the move will eliminate easy access to support from alumni and faculty, and compromise the unique nature of the program and the safe space it provides for students.

Samah expressed concern that if students lose the sanctuary the program currently provides, they may feel too overwhelmed to achieve their full potential: “It’s intimidating, coming here [to the downtown campus].”

For 37 years, the typ has been, and continues to be, dedicated to supporting individuals who need the help in achieving their academic goals. More than its practical impact, the typ has served as a boon for its students and alumni, providing an understanding, close community on the St. George campus.

Changes to the typ, for better or for worse, seem inevitable. The move to eliminate the program, however, is unlikely to withstand the opposition of the strong cohort of students that testify to the impact of the program upon their lives. The typ goes far beyond building academic foundations and supporting career aspirations. It rekindles students’ dreams and provides them with the hope that their aspirations can become reality. It gives people a home, a community, and a chance — and they are determined to fight to ensure that it will continue to exist and offer these same opportunities to incoming students in need.

Wishing Wells of the World 1 2

Without a st There’s something about a fountain make that wish come true.This stra The Varsity explore

Covadonga Sancutary

Shoe Tree

3

Snow White’s Wishing Well

13

N E

W S

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14

Fountain of Love

tar to witness it, you can always pause to make a wish. n, though, that conjures up a sense that making a wish before it will somehow ange faith is manifested and celebrated in unique ways throughout the world. ed some of the most famous places people visit to make a wish.

4

Pont de l’Archevêché

6

5

The Fountains of Peterhof

Trevi Fountain

7

10 Qianqiu Pavillion

Hagia Sophia Wishing Column

8

Western Wall

9

Qutub Minar Iron Pillar

11 Erawan Shrine Osun Osogbo Sacred Groves

Lam Tsuen Wishing Trees

12

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Turn Page for Legend

1.Shoe Tree Middlegate, Nevada Although vandals chopped down this emblem of love in 2010, this shoe tree was once the largest in the States, and inspired a cultlike following. People came from all over the country to throw their shoes into the tree as a sign of solidarity in times of hardship.

2. Snow White’s Wishing Well Anaheim, California

6. Trevi Fountain Rome, Italy

draws visitors in with its legacy of grandeur and mysticism.

Legend has it that if you make a stop at this cultural icon and throw a coin over your shoulder with your right hand, you’ll be sure to return to Rome. This worldfamous fountain gathers over 3,000 euros in revenue per day, most of which is donated to a local supermarket for the needy.

11. Lam Tsuen Wishing Trees Hong Kong

7. Hagia Sophia Wishing Column Istanbul, Turkey In Roman times, rumour had it that Emperor Justinian’s headache was cured by leaning his head on this column. People from all over would touch the hole in the column to their afflicted body parts to heal them. Today, visitors to the Hagia Sophia delight in making wishes by rotating their thumb clockwise around the hole.

True to Snow White’s belief in her own wishing well, this spot in California’s Disneyland grants wishes to children all the time. Surrounded by marble statues of Snow White and her seven dwarves, the money thrown into the wishing well is donated to a variety of children’s charities.

12. Erawan Shrine Bangkok, Thailand

3. Covadonga Sanctuary Cangas de Onís, Spain In Asturias, Spain, there’s a little cave; and in that cave, there’s a little chapel to the Virgin Mary; and underneath that chapel, there’s a beautiful wishing pool.

This sacred site is also the burial place for the founder of Asturias, Pelagius, and his family.

4. Pont de l’Archevêché Paris, France The more famous of Paris’ two bridges featuring love locks, Pont de l’Archevêché is filled with padlocks with names written on them, locked with keys that now lie at the bottom of the river Seine — signifying the undying nature of love. This bridge is meant for lovers — particularly the unmarried ones.

5. The Fountains of Peterhof St. Petersburg, Russia There’s no place more grand to make a wish than among the 64 different fountains, complete with brass statues and decorations, that make up the complex of fountains outside the Grand Palace. The Grand Cascade fountain is particularly imposing, and is the first sight visitors see as they arrive by sea to Peterhof.

Beside the Tin Hau Temple in Hong Kong grow two large banyan trees. It’s an age-old tradition to write your wish on a piece of joss paper, tie it to an orange, and throw it to see if it will hang on one of the branches, signifying that your wish will come true.

Today, wish-makers tie their wishes to wooden racks and imitation trees beside the banyans in order to preserve them.

8. Western Wall Jerusalem, Israel Continuing a tradition more than 300 years old, visitors to Jerusalem slip notes inscribed with their prayers in the crevices of the ancient wall, once the site of the Jewish Second Temple.

9. Qutub Minar Iron Pillar New Delhi, India Built to honour the Hindu god Vishnu and the passing of King Chandragupta ii, traditional lore states that if you can hug this iron pillar with your back against it, your wish will come true.

10. Qianqiu Pavilion Beijing, China Located within the Forbidden City itself, the Qianqiu Pavilion boasts a beautifully structured, ancient wishing well, which guarantees love and prosperity to the wish-maker. With such unique and mysterious surroundings, this well

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When the construction of the Erawan luxury hotel was plagued by catastrophes in the mid-1950s, the superstitious workers refused to continue working unless the spirits of the land were appeased. The shrine was the hotel’s answer. It pays homage to the Hindu god Brahma, and invites thousands of visitors of all faiths to make ceremonial wishes at the shrine, with everything from flower garlands and fruits to teakwood elephants.

13. Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove Osogbo, Nigeria The Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove is one of the last remaining sacred forests in Nigeria. Established over 400 years ago, it is a place of worship for the Osuba, Yoruba’s fertility goddess.

14. Fountain of Love Montevideo, Uruguay The plaque beside this fountain reads: “The legend of this young fountain tells us that if a lock with the initials of two people in love is placed in it, they will return together to the fountain and their love will be forever

By Ishita Pektar Illustrations by Ann Sheng

On the fast track Gentrification in the Junction and Toronto’s changing neighbourhoods

By Kate Hale Wilkes Photos by Nicole Regina Wong

T

oronto is a city of neighbourhoods.

Each one has its own character and culture that separate it from the others. If the city has one universal feature to blend it all into one, it’s the collision of old and new on every corner.

Wedged between trendy, hip streets lined with condos and coffee shops are old, mangled buildings, touting the badges of history and graffiti tags.

Another merging of opposites occurs in neighbourhoods where old homes, slashed into mice-ridden apartments, stand beside sky-high condos with stainless steel appliances.

Gentrification — the creeping in of the middle-class milieu — is embod-

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ied in Toronto by the condos on Bloor Street, the sale of Mirvish Village, and the heavily contested discussion of bringing a Walmart to Kensington.

Queen Street West, Leslieville, and King Street West are also examples of areas undergoing gentrification.

Gentrification entails turning cheap, grungy, and usually avoided areas of cities into swank hotspots housing yuppies in condos, lofts, or renovated Victorian houses with hip new bars and restaurants tailored to the latest culinary trends. Cafes are filled with strollers and sidewalks with joggers decked out in Lululemon, their pets dressed in similarly expensive attire.

Showing the signs The Junction is another pocket of Toronto where the term gentrification is being tossed around. At first glance, it seems that the Junction, at the intersection of two railways, is the perfect candidate for gentrification. It has hip people, trendy stores, and a catchy name. It also features empty warehouses, ideal for loft conversions, and a rich history that lends the area a unique, charming character of particular appeal to the affluent.

New businesses along Dundas West, between Keele and Runnymede, are indicative of this change. The cafes, organic and local grocers, vegan brunch spots, and home décor and antique shops make the Junction a perfect Saturday destination.

This past Nuit Blanche, there was an exhibit on Bloor and Lansdowne illustrating the vibrancy of this new cultural centre emerging in the west of the city. The area is increasingly attracting young entrepreneurs, resulting in thriving new businesses throughout.

Aboveground Art Supplies has found a second home on Dundas West, and Articulations — an art supplies store, studio, and gallery hybrid — has also sprung up in the area.

The negative aspects of gentrification are easily forgotten on a visit to the stylish neighbourhood. Customers and baristas exchange chuckles and conversations in cafés, and neighbours greet one another in the streets. The Beet, an organic, fairtrade grocer and café is a particular gem of the area, offering delicious, healthy meals across a range of dietary restrictions — gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, and so on — and a plethora of local produce.

It’s a haven for hipsters and yuppies alike.

Displacing the community In spite of the excellent strolling potential of the area, there are downsides to its gentrification. A typical issue with gentrification is the inevitable displacement of the original community. The Junction has a long history preceding its recent transformation into an attractive and hip neighbourhood.

It begins with artists, who are attracted by affordable rents, but then become victims of their own cool appeal as the area’s cul-

— 24 — THE VARSITY MAGAZINE

tural thriving draws a middle-class crowd with competitive middle-class incomes.

The original community is often forced out by the high cost of living, or because the neighbourhood’s identity no longer suits their needs.

Already, the Junction has the fastest rising real estate values in Toronto. New stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues have generated buzz, and have caused many to deem the area Toronto’s

next big neighbourhood. Embedded within this up-and-coming reputation is the problematic corollary effect of displacing community members.

Gentrified neighbourhoods come to embody a consumerist lifestyle. Only those who can afford this lifestyle can actively participate in the community, at least financially. Furthermore, once-thriving businesses, catering to specific local demands, are ousted.

Cultural signifiers and ethnic businesses also suffer, and sometimes disappear, when gentrification occurs. Cultural establishments cater to the unique population and define the neighbourhood. The working class population of artists and young adults in the Junction also has cause for concern as fewer and fewer local businesses remain to cater to its financial bracket.

Barriers to gentrification While this narrative may seem clear, various factors are already standing in the way of gentrification in the Junction. The neighbourhood is unique because it is surrounded by less appealing industrial areas, as opposed to the chic areas that typically attract gentrification.

West of Runnymede, Dundas is uninspiring. The wide lanes, fast traffic, box stores, and plazas with asphalt parking lots are not conducive to pedestrians. To the north, St. Clair West is similar. Once known as the stockyards and meatpacking district, St. Clair West has been developed into a motor-centric area with big box stores and seas of parking spaces. South of the Junction, however, are High Park and Bloor West Village, which have both been established as affluent neighbourhoods for decades.

Additionally, the influx of new businesses has rebranded the area a great deal.

Many of the original, iconic storefronts remain. While it seems that their future may be short, one must remember that they have stayed firm for years amid the ongoing process of gentrification, appealing to both middle- and low-income families and individuals.

Gentrification isn’t entirely a menace, although some uncomfortable realities coincide with it. Building community identity through cozy cafes, chic boutiques, and hip new bars is the sign of a lively city — but the cost of that progress falls upon the exist-

— 25 — THE VARSITY MAGAZINE

ing population in the area, which may be forced to move to more affordable areas in the sprawl of the gta.

The narrative of the Junction follows the course of the city, as areas gentrify constantly, uncomfortably brushing up against the aging architecture of the past, but never managing to completely stamp out the remnants of the city’s heritage. While the wrong side of the tracks in the Junction may continue to get shinier, urban history indicates that the area may yet hold tight to its character.

Pints and paintbrushes A look inside the studio of Toronto artist and part-time bartender Mony Zakhour

By Claudia McNeilly Photos by Shijie Zhou

B

etween the tangle of cafes and Portuguese bakeries on Dundas West, an empty space with hardwood floors and stark white walls overlooks Toronto. On the walls, a modest selection of paintings are hung sparingly. Two homemade wooden benches are positioned in the centre of the room, rising out from the hardwood.

“Back here is where our studios are,” says 29-year-old Toronto-based artist Mony Zakhour, welcoming us into his work space. Zakhour is one of the artists who uses Erin Kjaer’s Dundas West gallery and studio space, Creatures:Collective.

He leads me through the empty, lightsoaked room to his studio, where a gaggle of canvases are woven together by spray paint cans, easels, empty Perrier bottles, and the heavy pigmented smell of acrylic paint. Portraits line the walls, staring out at the studio’s inhabitants. Mona Lisa, Albert Einstein, Jay-Z, and Bob Marley smile and squint at me through canvases of melted colours and disjointed shapes.

The circles, squares, and triangles that compose each portrait snap into one an-

other with sharp precision. Each icon, although from a different era, rests comfortably beside his or her neighbour. In these humble confines, Jay-Z and Einstein look like the best of friends.

We make our way back to the gallery space, slinking into the wooden benches as we begin hashing out the realities of the lives of Toronto artists, who supplement their income by doing double duty as bartenders and baristas.

Zakhour divulges how Toronto plays a role in both his work and the work of other artists based out of our city: “I love that it’s fast. I grew up in a small town, so I always looked for a busier, bigger city. I love just walking the streets with a coffee and kind of taking it.”

Reflecting on how he started out as an artist, Zakhour recalls: “I never knew what I wanted to be when I was a kid. My parents had a pizza restaurant, so I was raised in that industry. Working with them in the pizza restaurant, I always wanted to open up my own restaurant and work in the food industry. I only got into painting in

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2008. I was taking a business course at a community college in Halifax. On my lunch breaks, I would go to a local gallery and see Justin Bua’s paintings. He’s a Brooklyn artist. They were amazing; I was blown away by him. In the time that I did have off, I wanted to do paintings like those. I wanted to mimic him. And I thought, because I had always drawn, that maybe I wouldn’t be as good, but I could do my own thing with it. I was living with my cousin at the time and decided to pick up a canvas and start.”

It took some time for Zakhour to hone his skills: “Everything turned out horribly wrong. I couldn’t for the life of me get a painting right. I finally did a Bob Marley painting. I tried doing the painting at least eight times and finally it worked.

It actually worked. That got me painting even more.”

Zakhour was particularly inspired and influenced by urban milieus. “As a kid growing up watching films by filmmakers like Spike Lee, I thought everything filmmakers like him did was absolutely

amazing. I was always drawn to that. I was also always drawn to urban culture like New York City.”

A highlight of his career was when he gave Spike Lee one of his paintings at the director’s request.

Zakhour’s time living in Japan in 2009 was also a major influence on his work.

“Being away from the Western world, I found I really missed it — I missed the culture, so I started reaching out to films that I hadn’t seen in a while. I tried to listen to music that I had been neglecting as a child growing up… I was also doing a lot of painting. It was all fueled by missing the culture.”

Longing for Western culture, idolizing Justin Bua, and working as a bartender all bleed into the final products that are Zakhour’s paintings. As we go on in our discussion, the interconnectedness of each

element involved in creating art is revealed and our talk begins to take on the composition of a Zakhour painting — each part of the conversation rests comfortably on the last as it starts taking on the shape of a distinct icon.

Zakhour continues to work, bartending Monday to Friday. “It’s the interactions with people and their different stories that you take in. I think interaction with people in general kind of keeps you going and keeps your mind going. As artists, we’re lucky that we have the freedom to do what we love. Really, I just want to continue to paint,” he says.

He sits beside me in a hoodie and jean jacket, squinting at the sunlight beating into the empty room. I ask him if he would be open to doing a bit of painting on camera and, after a brief phone call to get permission to use the wall in the back

— 28 — THE VARSITY MAGAZINE

of the studio to paint, he leads us to an exposed brick hallway outside.

“I’ve actually never graffiti spray-painted before. This is my first time doing that.

I think it turned out alright,” he muses as he observes the portrait.

His willingness to expand and be seen as an artist begins to peer out through the portrait’s wet paint eyes. I ask him what he thinks about artists of all forms reaching the levels of iconic success that they had once aspired to.

“It’s no longer the struggle,” he says. “As an artist, you’re someone documenting your life and what you’re doing. When [artists] become successful, they’ve done that, and they forget about it. What they’re doing is new but… it’s no longer the struggle.”

“They’re no longer the outsider looking in?” I ask.

“Exactly.”

Dancing for the gold Olympic ice dancer Paul Poirier on his skating career and goals for the future

By Elizabeth Benn and JP Kaczur

206

Ice Dancing became a part of the Winter Olympics

Number of Canadian athletes that participated in the Winter Olympics

1952 Ice Dancing became a part of the World Figure Skating Championships

0.0000059%

Percentage of Canadians that competed in 2010 Winter Olympics

Most common types of ice dancing

6+5+16+8+2+11+6+4+1

1976

6 types of jumps

5 types of throw jumps 16 types of spins 8 types of step sequences

2,566 Number of athletes that competed in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics

2 types of spiral sequences 11 types of pair lifts 6 types of dance lifts

4 types of death spirals

1 type of dance element

P

aul Poirier is a 21-year-old University of Toronto student majoring in linguistics — who happens to also be an Olympic ice dancer.

Poirier’s skating career started in Unionville, Ontario, where his family moved shortly before his fifth birthday.

Unionville presented opportunities for him that his hometown could not, such as hosting a competitive figure skating club.

Although Poirier started at a young age thanks to the nearby facility, he insisted that his parents did not move to Unionville with any grand plans of raising an Olympic ice dancer: “They just found a house they liked and moved there. I was fortunate enough to live near very good training facilities.”

Poirier has a strong relationship with his parents, and attributes much of his success to their constant support, without which his training would not have been possible.

According to Poirier, skating can cost upwards of “$30,000 – $40,000 a year,” and therefore financial support from parents or other sources is vital. He also stressed that he is not a product of overbearing sports parents: “All [my parents]

required from me was constant effort and that I was enjoying [skating].”

Poirier acknowledged that he wasn’t always the model child athlete, but his parents were there to keep him focused on his dream: “I had my slacky days here or there and I got my stern talking tos.” However, Poirier didn’t need his parents to hold his hand throughout his training: “For the most part, I’m pretty self-motivated.”

The team effort between Poirier and his parents manifested itself in his great success as an athlete — specifically a fourteenth-place finish at the Olympics, as well as Canadian National titles. When Poirier was 19, he felt as if he had plateaued with his previous partner, Vanessa Crone.

“I think we were at the point in our careers where we weren’t working well together. We competed at the Olympics, finished in the top ten at the world championships twice — which is a great achievement,” he explained.

Despite their success as a pair, Poirier felt he was not able to reach his full potential as a skater with Crone, who he acknowledged was a very talented skater.

According to Poirier: “...[We] were heading in different directions.”

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Poirier was considering taking a year off because, he said, “at 19, it was my last shot to find a new partner.” He wouldn’t settle on just anyone. Luckily, he found a new partner in Piper Gilles.

Gilles, an American-born skater, has Canadian citizenship and has been competing with Poirier since his breakup with Crone.

The two are aiming for a chance to represent Canada at the Sochi Olympics. Poirier noted that he and Gilles are athletically “compatible” and specified that they are both “quick-twitch” athletes. However, he was also reserved in his overall assessment.

“For Piper and I, our goals at this point for our skating and where our skating needs to go, we lack what I call finesse straights — we won’t step at the same time, our legs won’t be at the exact same height.

We’ve got a lack of polish, but it’s something we are working towards,” said Poirier.

With Gilles, Poirier looks to the next step, which is qualifying for the Olympics. Poirier is not in a medal-or-bust mindset: “It’s really easy to get sucked into results-based thinking. Everyone does it.”

He adds: “We want to compete at Sochi.

But [we know] that’s not our [only] shot at a medal.”

Defense of a passion The plights and possibilities of pursuing a career in eSports

By THEODORE YAN | Illustration by DAN SELJAK

O

n August 11, 2013, five men won over $600,000 playing a video game.

The International, Dota 2’s world championship, had come to a close, and Natus Vincere (Na’Vi for short), perhaps the most storied team in the history of the game, had just claimed that formidable sum by coming in second place to the Alliance.

Alliance got $1.4 million.

ESports, the industry term for competitive video games, has gained a prominence that nobody could have imagined less than a decade ago. Valve, the developer of Dota 2, can afford to give out over $2.8 million in prize money at an annual tournament. Similar amounts of money are available for champions in Starcraft and League of Legends, and professional League of Legends players are now recognized as professional athletes for the purposes of visa distribution by US Citizenship and Immigration services. Competitive gaming is profitable; it is professional; it is, dare I say, cool.

In the middle of all this fanfare, however, are the same people who were always there.

People who love video games.

People like William Lee, more often known as “Blitz” — because the Dota community, like that of every eSport, refers to players by their screen names.

“I grew up in a traditional Korean home with divorced parents,” says Blitz. “I lived with my mom, and she was really against me playing video games in general, and so, up until the time I was about 15 or 16, I didn’t acquire a pc or anything. I actually had to go to my father’s house just to be on a computer.”

“My sister’s ex-boyfriend randomly took me to play DotA 1 one day, and I remember very clearly I was playing Sven, a really simple hero at the time, and I just absolutely fell in love with the game.”

Dota 2 is, on the surface, a simple game. Two teams of five players, each controlling a character (called a “Hero”) chosen from a pool of 102, fight to destroy a large structure called an “Ancient” in the centre of the other team’s base. What distinguishes the game, however, is how immersive it is. This results, in part, from the number and diversity of heroes players can choose to play from. There are infinite ways the characters can interact with each other and the Dota landscape. By the time the first minute of game play has passed, each game of Dota is different from any other game of Dota ever played.

Blitz graduated from Purdue with a double major in management and classical literature. He had reasonably good grades, took the lsat, and was ready to go to law school. He has also sunk countless hours into Dota and is famous for being the single best “Storm Spirit” player in the world. He has thought about attempting to pursue a career playing the game professionally.

Stories like his abound, but eSports are a young phenomenon, and very few players can make enough money to survive. “I’d say about maybe five to ten per cent of players could make a livable wage,” explains Blitz, “livable meaning about 2,300 or 2,400 dollars a month, right?”

“A lot of people say things like, ‘Well, you’re making a living playing games; that’s fantastic that you’re getting anything at all,’ but that’s the wrong way to look at it because playing games for a living, you’re sacrificing a lot,” he goes on. “For a lot of people, they won’t have the support of their families; they have to work another job; they might be giving up a better job for this, because playing Dota is really demanding.”

The very best players in the world can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and can afford to play full-time. The vast majority of eSports players — who

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“

A lot of people say things like, ‘Well, you’re making a living playing games, that’s fantastic that you’re getting anything at all,’ but that’s the wrong way to look at it, because, playing games for a living, you’re sacrificing a lot. For a lot of people, they won’t have the support of their families; they have to work another job; they might be giving up a better job for this, because playing Dota is really demanding.”

— William “Blitz” Lee grew up loving video games and found, in the end, that there is nothing they love more — must work day jobs. They need to find some way not to starve while they pursue their dream, and so, they have less time to practice — making it even less likely that they will succeed.

“I’d like to be optimistic and tell myself I can do anything and accomplish anything,” said Blitz of his chances of ever winning The International, “but, realistically speaking, there’s so many things that are against me.”

“You know what’s always confused me, on a side note? It’s this whole thing like if you believe enough, you can do it.

But isn’t every other person in my situation also trying really hard, and putting their all into it? I was always confused by that. Sure, I can believe in myself, and say: ‘Yeah, maybe I can!’ But realistically speaking, the odds are low.”

Blitz is a reasonable person. Most professional Dota players are. He, like his peers, acknowledges that his chances of making enough money to live on playing Dota are slim, and his chances of making enough to live comfortably are almost nonexistent.

An additional caveat is that video games are still stigmatized. Dropping every other priority in the attempt to become a professional athlete in more traditional sports is comprehensible to most people, as is pursuing a dream of becoming an artist. “Playing video games” is very often still shorthand for being an immature, directionless slob.

If Blitz fails, then he will have wasted years of his life developing no marketable skills and will have a résumé that will be laughed out of the door by most employers.

He realizes that, statistically speaking, he will almost certainly fail.

In November, 2013, William “Blitz” Lee boarded a plane to fly to Korea to begin his Dota career.

DOTA 2 BY THE NUMBERS 1.4 MILLION DOLLARS FIRST PRIZE AT THE INTERNATIONAL 600 THOUSAND DOLLARS SECOND PRIZE AT THE INTERNATIONAL

PUDGE (THE BUTCHER) THE MOST-PLAYED CHARACTER CHEN THE LEAST-PLAYED CHARACTER

6,218,934 UNIQUE PLAYERS AUGUST 2013

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Everyone’s a DJ Canadian DJs on their influences, origins, and why anyone can spin these days

By Nicholas Carlson | Photo by Carolyn Levett

I

n a sweaty swarm of nerves and instincts, people move, smile, sway, bump, grab, dance, make out — not noticing that the sounds burrowing into their ears are creating and sustaining a common sensation among them, syncing their emotions for that instant.

West Coast dj Cooper Saver is engaged in an existential search for the manifestation of this scenario: “I want people to interact with each other while I’m providing a vibe for them to get lost in.”

Electronic music and its entanglement with nightlife culture have exploded into a formidable milieu over the last several decades. There are many young artists, djs, and producers like Saver who are turning to music-mixing and electronic music production to add to what has already become a thriving community. Today, there are more and more people turning to electronic music as opposed to other catego-

ries of expression, sometimes because of a desire to positively affect themselves and the people they play music for.

The obvious answer to why there has recently been a rise in the number of selfproclaimed djs is the advent of accessible music production technology. Saver comments, “People are probably very excited and intrigued by this phenomenon that hasn’t existed until now due to technology. Right now, you can download software today and get started, but before you needed access to a professional studio.”

The impulse to create music to facilitate celebration, ingathering, and community is nothing new. What is unique is that, in our day and age, people can be djs instead of members of a band simply because access to newer technologies has allowed them to pick from a wider set of choices than past popular music forms. This provides them with a public platform to share

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their music, without the added requirement of an inherent musical talent or the ability to play a musical instrument.

“The electric guitar was a popular invention for twentieth-century musicians, and was neglected by many when it was first popularized, much like the use of a laptop today… Everything progresses,” added Vancouver dj Patrick Holland, who goes by 8prn. The advent of a greater preponderance of djs in musical culture today is less a break from past modes of production than it is an extension of the timeless urge to make aesthetic noise with the now-added benefit of a home studio.

If some generalizations can be made among djs, their status as individuals is reaffirmed by their differences in approaching electronic music and how they interpret music itself. Holland said he had no intention of becoming a dj when he started producing electronic music.

Rather, he claims music: “…was an escapist intention to get away from… doing science at university when I started. Making music has since become what I do with most of my time, so it’s not as escapist, but more of an outlet for creativity.”

Toronto dj Mike Rose revealed an alternative origin: “I used to play in a punk band, so this was new territory for me — just another way to express myself.”

Saver explained that he started out by making mixtapes in high school before moving on to produce his own music: “I never really look for anything else besides self-satisfaction.” Holland described his original influences as “mellow hip-hop and slow surf rock,” but now his work is inspired by an array of sources — from hip-hop and trance to electro-pop. A recent mix of his used the opening theme from David Lynch’s tv series, Twin Peaks.

Rose transitioned away from punk rock to appreciate more hip-hop and electro. House is now his genre of choice. Saver’s style incorporates ’80s pop, classic rock, funk, and soul, beyond an electro sound.

At present, there is plenty of disagreement over what a dj is and does.

Holland suggested that an important distinction is needed between djs, who mix existing music, and producers, who make the music that is used. Someone could be both, but by lumping the two terms together, Holland felt that “it’d be like calling a curator and a painter the same thing.”

Rose and Saver felt that dj was a broader term, encompassing anyone who plays recorded music for other people, although this is a decidedly modern conception. Saver added that a dj is, “…supposed to create an atmosphere… make people have fun.”

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Saver also expressed confusion regarding the phenomenon of large concert-style techno shows: “I’m not asking people to stare at me as if they were at a rock concert … the records should be the focus, not me.”

Holland agreed: “I feel that people are starting to view djs as a spectacle, like a band, where you’re a physical performer… Playing live electronic music and djing is honestly, in my opinion, not exciting to view, but instead enjoyable to listen to.”

Undoubtedly, there are a wide range of perspectives on what constitutes a dj today, some of which are problematically broad. Still, there is a cohort of people striving to push electronic music in a different direction by taking advantage of the accessibility of creation brought on by modern technology. Saver summarized the common drive to create a new sound that these artists share as, “a universal longing.”

A music festival for Toronto Why Toronto isn’t yet a music city, and how it can become one By Sofia Luu Photos by Carolyn Levett

J

eff Cohen doesn’t believe that Toronto has the potential to be a world-class music city, because the reality is that we’re already there. Toronto is both the fourth-largest city and the third-largest music market in North America. In 2012, The New York Times claimed Toronto was having a “Seattle” moment based on the number of its critically successful hometown heroes — such as Drake, Feist, and Fucked Up, to name a few.

There are many aspects of the music scene in Toronto worthy of a pat on the back or two. We have a vast number of quality venues — such as Massey Hall, Horseshoe Tavern, and El Mocambo. You are never more than a stone’s throw away from seeing a friend of a friend of a friend play in an impromptu side project.

What’s missing from the picture is a large-scale, weekend-long outdoor music festival to pull it all together. Almost every city, big or small, has one; Montréal has Osheaga, New York City has Governors Ball, and Manchester has Bonnaroo. Los Angeles (technically, Indio) is home to the “godfather” of all North American music festivals: Coachella, which has been so successful that organizers decided to expand it to run for over two weekends.

Toronto has been without a music festival for years — is it time for us to have a festival for us to call our own? And if it is, can we actually pull it off?

Ghosts of festivals past The closest thing we have had to our own Osheaga in Toronto was the UK-imported Virgin Festival (V Festival). The festival began in 2006 but, after a rocky four years, the 2010 festival was cancelled due to poor ticket sales and unforeseeable logistical problems.

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Since then, other festivals such as Edgefest and the hugely popular Veld have taken place. However, such festivals cater to a specific genre of music and, in short, cannot be considered in the same light as Osheaga or Coachella.

Perhaps the real problem with V Fest was that it was not built from the ground up. It lacked support from Toronto’s hugely diverse music community. The acts that were signed on to perform — those that did not cancel at the last minute — were massive: Björk, The Smashing Pumpkins, Oasis, and The Killers, to name a few. Although they had the potential to draw massive crowds, these choices were generic, mainstream, and failed to pull from Toronto’s impressive resources.

Small festivals in Toronto V Festival has proven that having a major headliner or two is not the secret to having a successful festival: “The kind of bands that would play a large-scale event already do. That’s not always the case in Austin, small-town Tennessee, Ottawa, or Montréal.

When Depeche Mode or The Cure play Austin City Limits, it’s a big deal. Here, it’s likely their second play on that record in the mar-

ket,” explains Cohen, owner of the legendary Horseshoe Tavern and Lee’s Palace and main booker of Collective Concerts and the Toronto Urban Roots Festival (turf).

When it comes to booking for a festival in Toronto, it comes down to the overall quality of the line-up — not the number of Grammy Award-winning acts with stadium sell-out potential.

Kate Killet, a Toronto-based music blogger who has been to music events all over North America, believes that Toronto already has great festivals. However, many of them don’t receive the attention they deserve: “Just because the headliner isn’t a huge name doesn’t mean it’s not a great festival.”

Calling on City Hall What works for Montréal or New York might not work for Toronto, but there are other cities we can learn a few things from: namely Austin, Texas — otherwise known as the “Live Music Capital of the World.”

With 842,592 people, the city’s population is about three times smaller than that of Toronto. However, according to 4479, Austin generates three times the amount of economic activity in the music industry

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that Toronto does. 4479 is a Music Canadafounded initiative that, according to its webpage, seeks to establish Toronto as “one of the greatest music cities in the world” and “create energy and action around the concept of Toronto as a music city.”

Toronto does not need to be the Seattle or Austin of the North. We have already proven ourselves to be a world-class music city and there is no need to define our music identity based on what we do not have. The problem isn’t in getting people to the festivals or creating a line-up that works: “All the difficulty is behind the scenes. Government interference, insurance, silly laws, agco rules, the City Municipal Standards and Licensing are the biggest pain in the arse — I call ‘em the no-fun police,” explains Cohen.

All we really need is for City Hall to open its doors to the music industry — embrace the music festival as an event that has both cultural and economic benefits. Becoming a fully realized music city will foster a stronger, more defined identity for Toronto.

The city has both citizens with a passion for music and a hipster appeal to artists across different genres — with support from City Hall and the logistics sorted out, everything else will fall into place.

Who are the futurists?

The science of predicting the future — and getting paid for it

By JESSE HILDEBRAND | Illustration by WENDY GU

C

hange is everywhere.

Mankind is fundamentally in its technological and scientific infancy.

Every day we are presented with new gadgets, medicines, means of transportation, and ways of looking at the world.

With such an overload of novel information, it is often hard to make sense of it all.

What to buy, what to invest in, and what to worry about can become overwhelming. In response to this feverish activity, there are futurists — individuals who specialize in synthesizing all the chaotic activity and data, working to make sense of it all. As practitioners of an interdisciplinary approach to global trends, futurists are more than armchair predictors; they try to look insightfully at what changes are most likely to occur, and how best to prepare for them.

Perhaps surprisingly, their insight is highly valued — individuals such as James Hansen and Ray Kurzweil have achieved success through their forecasts of environmental change and technological progress, respectively.

Massey College has even appointed a “Resident Futurist,” Sanjay Khanna, who is studying the Ontario health -care system as well as climate change in Africa.

Even for professionals, figuring out the future is fraught with difficulty. Our moon bases, jetpacks, flying cars, and robot servants have all failed to appear.

Some predictions, however, have been extraordinarily spot-on. We now have the capacity to bring species back from extinction, as seen in Jurassic Park (though sadly, not dinosaurs). Star Trek gave us a sneak peak of the cell phone and 2001: A Space Odyssey contained precursors to the touch screen.

With futurist predictions, we find all the traits that make us the interesting species we are — visions of great hope and predictions of impending doom, guesses of great insight and others with a little less (Thomas Edison tried to create and market concrete furniture, for one).

Our desire to figure out what will happen next is universal and extends back to pre-history: before science fiction and futurists, there were oracles and sages.

Before them, cave paintings and ceremonies tried to change or “see” what the future would bring.

Whether that meant a bigger harvest, a more successful hunt, or more recent speculations on the

“singularity” (where artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence), futurism is an attempt to envision a greater tomorrow. Khanna said that his aim was to: “… help make people and organizations healthier, more resilient, and successful… to be a force for good.”

Looking ahead can be a difficult proposition, and yet everybody does it. From everyday speculation on what tomorrow will bring to professional scientists trying to decode the fu-

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ture from what’s happening today, we like to think forward. It is easy to see why — our abilities to plan, imagine, and create make us unique. Through trying to envision possible futures, we set ourselves up to create the ones that make our world better. Futurism is a reflection of the human desire to dream, and to dream big — even if those dreams seem outlandish and risky.

In doing so, we create a foundation to make those dreams a reality.

Pushing and shoving

Using peace psychology to make Toronto a more pleasant place

By EMMA HANSEN

A

t rush hour on the ttc, people do what they have to do to get onto a packed subway train. The hustle and bustle of the city provokes stress in the minds of Torontonians. The violence that stems from aggression is usually mitigated by societal influences, which suppress the desire to shove a fellow Torontonian in favour of a mumbled curse word. When societal influences fail to diminish rage, the result can be an outright violent act towards others, as demonstrated in the recent Nuit Blanche stabbings — the good spirit of a united community was tarnished, and the night’s beauty decayed quickly.

Aggression and violence in humans is best demonstrated by the role that war has played in the evolution of our species — a common theme studied in anthropology and evolutionary biology. The impact of war on human evolution is interpreted differently among scientists. A piece in New

Scientist in November 2008 praises war for increasing the level of cooperation required among allies, which implies that war has played an essential part in humanity’s development. According to this view, aggression and violence are adaptive — they were needed at some point in our development, and likely always will be. Critics have complained that these interpretations will become self-fulfilling prophecies in society.

Conversely, some have suggested that peacekeeping was and is adaptive. The thought of lessening our collective tendency towards violence by just thinking about doing so is the subject of peace psychology. This is a relatively new field that, according to social psychologist Dr. Bernhard Leidner, aims to use psychology as a normative force to “...mitigate violence and war and promote nonviolence and peace.”

Anthropologists also adopt a peacekeeping-oriented approach to the study of con-

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flict. A recent paper in Science studies three modern and distinct “peace systems,” each of which has six features that are hypothesized to be necessary to create and maintain inter-societal peace. These features completely leave violence behind, and instead implement the belief that a society of peace is what is necessary.

Peace psychologists and evolutionary biologists won’t have an immediate impact on the frequency of violent actions that take place worldwide, and these papers certainly won’t bring down Toronto’s disheartening crime statistics right away.

Nevertheless, they do suggest a new way of looking at violence that in turn suggests a more hopeful future. Maybe just thinking about our society as a peaceful place could impart thoughts of peace and goodwill.

— With files from The New York Times, New Scientist, sciencemag.org., Leidner, Tropp, et al.

Save Ferris

The appeal of escaping the everyday in cult films

By DANIEL KONIKOFF | Illustration by LUCINDA YAE-RIM RO

R

arely has an audience received such profound wisdom from a fictional character as when Ferris Bueller, laying waste to the fourth wall, proclaimed: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Throughout its run time of approximately 103 minutes, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is an exercise in youthful imagination — a fairy tale played out in a bustling metropolis. More than anything, Ferris Bueller teaches us that a world of possibility is readily available if we seize it by our own volition. What awaits us, though, lies for the most part outside the mundane drill of attending school.

The tension between remaining grounded in education and ultimately transcending it, taking advantage of what lies beyond the pressures of academic success, is a conflict often explored in films that go on to achieve cult status. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Risky Business, and Rushmore are all inherently different, but are tied together by a common comedic thread. These films show the mundanity of everyday existence, scholarly or otherwise, and the

conflicting desire to break free from that by any means possible.

Take, for example, the beginning of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. On a beautiful spring morning, Ferris looks out his window and says: “How can I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like today?” Brief shots of Ferris’s school show a droning Ben Stein, whose monotonous delivery has left the class (and, intentionally, the audience) on the verge of a Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act-induced slumber. We have all had those lectures worth skipping, and we have all been tempted to break the shackles of alarm clocks and timetables and go about the day differently.

In a similar vein, Risky Business, starring a pre-couch-jumping Tom Cruise, features the ironically named Joel Goodson, an upper–class prospective Princeton student who participates in an extracurricular activity in which students start small businesses. When his parents go away on vacation, Goodson breaks free from academic pressures and lets loose, taking his father’s Porsche on a pleasure cruise; running around in his underwear; and, ultimately, opening up a profitable brothel in his parents’ home.

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After jeopardizing his chance at getting into Princeton, Goodson does not seem terribly fazed — his satisfaction in having excelled in his extracurricular pursuits as an entrepreneur provides him with all the fulfillment he needs. Although grand theft auto and prostitution are not the best ways to shatter monotony, it is worth noting that, sometimes, reaching to a risky fantasy can be just as, if not more, rewarding than plateauing in academic reality.

Ferris Bueller, Joel Goodson, and Max Fischer from Rushmore are all irresistible by virtue of their ability to fulfill the mundane wish of so many young people; that is, they manage to escape the social mores that dictate how our youth plays out. They embody what most of us are too afraid to do, dissolving the tension between what we think we ought to do for the sake of our academics and what we want to do for the sake of our happiness. Life is only as mundane as we make it, so if we don’t stop to look around once in a while, we might miss it.

“Expectations.” ERIC CHUNG/THE VARsITy

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