The Cascade Vol. 26 Issue 4

JANUARY 31 TO FEBRUARY 7, 2018

VOLUME 26 ISSUE 4

Well we’re in quite the pickle since 1993

WEIGHT CUTTING UFV research looks at the sporting trick

UFV PLAY A preview of Desiree Hale’s new play, Intimacy.

3 8-9 11

CUTTING COOKIES 14 Netflix and the rise of homogeny

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Editorial // STAFF Editor-in-Chief Joel Robertson-Taylor joel@ufvcascade.ca Business Manager Quintin Stamler quintin@ufvcascade.ca Production Manager Caleb Campbell caleb@ufvcascade.ca Production Assistant Renée Campbell renee@ufvcascade.ca Copy Editor Cat Friesen cat@ufvcascade.ca Illustrator Amara Gelaude amara@ufvcascade.ca Online Editor Jeff Mijo jeff@ufvcascade.ca Distributor Alena Zheng distributor@ufvcascade.ca

Managing Editor Kat Marusiak kat@ufvcascade.ca News Editor Jessica Barclay jessica@ufvcascade.ca

More regs for bitumen

Opinion Editor Jeff Mijo jeff@ufvcascade.ca Feature Editor Laurel Logan laurel@ufvcascade.ca Culture & Events Editor Cassie de Jong cassie@ufvcascade.ca Arts in Review Editor Martin Castro martin@ufvcascade.ca Staff Writer Aleister Gwynne aleister@ufvcascade.ca Staff Writer Jennifer Klassen jen@ufvcascade.ca

THIS WEEK’S CONTRIBUTORS Jake Gibson Jasleen Grewal Saheb Sandhu Mike Friesen Paul Okano Cover: Renée Campbell Back Cover: Joel Robertson-Taylor

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@UFVCASCADE FACEBOOK.COM/UFVCASCADE INSTAGRAM.COM/THE.CASCADE Volume 26 · Issue 4 Room S2111 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529

The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It originated under its current name in 1993, and achieved autonomy from the university and the Student Union Society in 2002. This means that The Cascade is a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published in an entirely student-run setting. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley.

The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds, and is overseen by the Cascade Journalism Society Board, a body run by a student majority. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a print circulation of 1,000 and is distributed at Abbotsford, Chilliwack (CEP), Clearbrook, and Mission UFV campuses and throughout the surrounding communities.

The Cascade is open to written, photo, and design work from all students; these can come in the form of a pitch to an editor, or an assignment from an editor. Pitch meetings are held every second Monday at 2:30 p.m. in The Cascade’s office on the Abbotsford campus.

In order to be published in the newspaper, all work must first be approved

by The Cascade’s editor-in-chief, copy editor, and corresponding section editor. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. Letters to the editor, while held to the same standard, are unedited, and should be under 400 words. As The Cascade is an autonomous student publication, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, The Cascade’s staff and collective, or associated members.

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JOEL ROBERTSON-TAYLOR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

In an act of long overdue wisdom, B.C.’s environment minister, George Heyman, proposed new protections for B.C.’s inland and coast — directly impacting the jolly oil giant, Kinder Morgan.

“The provincial government is proposing a second phase of regulations to improve preparedness, response, and recovery from potential spills,” the beginning of the province’s news release read.

Last year, following a 29-month review, the National Energy Board (NEB) approved the Texas-based oil company’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project, with 157 conditions.

Since, a handful of groups including the Sierra Club, Ecojustice, the Globe and Mail, and activists, called the NEB’s credibility as a national regulator into question. The Sierra Club even published a thorough report on deficiencies in the NEB’s approval process. B.C.’s now more rigorous regulations stand out as a focused attempt to mitigate potential ecosystem damage.

In principle, Heyman announced the NDP’s following through on campaign promises, and their grievance with the NEB’s review.

Alberta premier, Rachel Notley, called out the B.C. government on Twitter, saying B.C.’s decision must be seen as “Political game-playing and political theatre.”

She went on to accuse B.C. of exer-

cising power it doesn’t have, saying the government’s act “could have serious consequences for the jobs and the livelihoods of millions of Canadians who count on their governments to act within their scope of their authority.”

This 1,150-kilometre cross-province pipeline is governed federally. Since Ottawa’s approval shortly after the Trudeau government gained office, the decision has been beyond B.C.’s jurisdiction. Kinder Morgan released a statement yesterday acknowledging the province’s proposal, saying it’ll actively participate in the engagement and feedback process, but noted that federal approval was already given.

Even still, B.C. must employ regulations that will protect the environment, as well as the global climate.

Last Monday, the NEB began hearings to listen to concerns about the proposed route for the expansion project that will run through Burnaby, Coquitlam, and north Surrey. Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan recently said in a statement: “Because of the damage and disruption it would cause to the city and Metro Vancouver's environment, economy and neighbourhoods — in perpetuity — the City of Burnaby is determined to ensure that this route is never approved.” The cities of Burnaby and Coquitlam, some Indigenous groups, and landowners are others among the stakeholders speaking against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Burnaby and Kinder Morgan have been in an ongoing battle for permits

relating to tree-cutting and zoning bylaws since October. In December, the NEB ruled that Kinder Morgan doesn’t have to comply with Burnaby bylaws.

In light of these developments, pipeline approval or disapproval isn’t the main issue — government listening to citizens’ concerns is. So much of the initial review process was marred by hastiness, ignoring key issues, and limiting public involvement. This is why Heyman’s proposals are significant; they attempt to set a standard that has citizens’ best interests in mind.

It’s very unlikely that Ottawa will reconsider their approval. As reported by the Globe and Mail, the vice-minister of financial and economic affairs said China won’t move forward with a proposed “historic” free-trade deal with Canada without “concession on investment restrictions and a commitment to build an energy pipeline to the coast.”

Killing the pipeline expansion would put a damper on Canadian-Chinese trade. That means the expansion will remain approved. At least Horgan’s government might negotiate a better deal.

B.C. and the rest of the stakeholders should continue to focus on working with the pipeline giant to establish policies that work and protect the local ecosystems.

NEWS

Jessica Barclay — News Editor news@ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

UFV Chancellor //

NEWS BRIEFS

Students want to see loan repayment assistance extended to new parents

Weight cutting cuts performance, researchers find Weight cutting may not give MMA fighters the edge they’re looking for

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) is proposing that the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) be extended to include new parents. RAP temporarily excuses post-secondary graduates who make less than $25,000 annually from making student loan payments.

Many new parents who collect parental leave benefits are earning only a fraction of their wages, bringing some just above this minimum.

“Given that the average age in which Canadians start families overlaps with student loan repayment timelines, we believe that extending the loan repayment assistance program to provide new parents with support is imperative,” said Shifrah Gadamsetti, CASA’s board chair.

-Canadian Alliance of Student Associations

Abbotsford group documenting racist incidents gets new funding The provincial government has announced that $200,000 in additional funding will put towards the provincial run Organizing Against Racism and Hate.

Abbotsford’s share of additional funding will go towards the Fraser Valley Human Dignity Coalition (FVHDC), which includes the Abbotsford Police Department, University of the Fraser Valley, and human rights groups. The FVHDC runs workshops for local organizations on how to handle and prevent discrimination, and documents cases of discrimination in Abbotsford.

“There have been several prominent examples of racism in Abbotsford in recent months, including the distribution of Ku Klux Klan pamphlets, a racial tirade captured in a viral video, swastikas painted on cars,” reports the Abbotsford News.

-The Abbotsford News

A fighter is awarded a belt post-bout. (Alec Chu/Flickr)

JESSICA BARCLAY NEWS EDITOR

Drs. Michael Gaetz and Jason Brandenburg, associate professors of kinesiology at UFV, and student researcher Jason Soolaman, have found weight cutting in mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes can lead to altered cognitive function, reduced upper body strength, and reduced cardiovascular functioning.

Weight cutting is a common practice in many combat sports with weight classes.

It involves rapidly losing weight for the day of the official weigh in, in order to fit into a lower weight class. The rapid weight loss is done through the loss of water weight, leaving the athlete severely dehydrated.

As Gaetz explained, fighting in a lower weight class theoretically means that the heavier fighter will be stronger, and harder to handle.

“It’s done to get the advantage, but what we found is that you may not actually be getting any advantage at all,” Brandenburg said.

For MMA fighters in B.C., the official weigh in is 24 hours before the fight. The athlete then attempts to rapidly return to their pre-cut weight.

Gaetz, Brandenburg, and Soolaman tested the athletes 10-14 days before

the fight, when they had not yet started the weight cut, and on the day of the official weigh in. Some of the athletes also agreed to be available to the researchers on the day of the fight.

On each of the three testing days, strength, dehydration, cognitive abilities, and cardiovascular function were assessed. On the day of weigh in, when the athletes were the most dehydrated, it was found that there was a dramatic decrease in upper body strength, and an alteration in heart rate. The dominant leg was also favoured in jump tests. In cognitive testing, athletes maintained pre-cut testing speed, but made more errors than before.

“It seems like there was a little bit of a slipping of control, in a way,” said Gaetz, in reference to the cognitive and jump test results. “I’m still not quite sure how to interpret it yet.”

At the day of weight in, the average weight loss in this study was found to be around five per cent of their body weight, with the highest loss being upwards of seven per cent. On the day of the fight, despite rehydrating, most athletes were found to only have regained about 90 to 95 per cent of their pre-cut strength and cognitive function.

“Is that ideal on the day that you're competing, coming into the fight at less than

100 per cent?” questioned Gaetz. “You have to be paying attention to all sorts of cues in the ring, and if you're making errors in that regard, you're leaving yourself open to all sorts of problems.”

This study was commissioned by the B.C. Athletics Commission, who hoped to study the health consequences and, to a lesser degree, performance loss associated with weight cutting.

The BCAC also commissioned a short documentary on the results of Gaetz and Brandenburg’s research, hoping to reach fighters, and inform them of the dangers of severe weight cutting, and the damage they could be doing to their bodies and internal organs.

They hope, as well, that the work they have done may result in rule changes for the B.C. MMA. “There are health consequences, but it's up to the government body now to make a smart decision,” said Gaetz. “We’ll see what happens.”

Soolaman has presented the research at the 2017 International Sports Science and Sports Medicine Conference in Newcastle, UK, as first author, where it was well received. He is working on getting the research published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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OPINION

Jeff Mijo — Opinion Editor opinion@ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Grammar //

should i break the rules of english JEFF MIJO OPINION EDITOR

While it’s been denounced and maligned as “text speak,” or just plain lazy writing over the past decade or two, the practice of a purposeful flaunting of English’s conventions is as strong as ever — though the reason why may be changing.

You can find people intentionally ignoring everything we were taught about proper writing everywhere. Spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar are frequently ignored or outright misused all over the internet. It’s an easy case to make that this kind of shorthand, including an ever-growing list of abbreviations, came from the era of limited, slow flip phone texting. But that doesn’t explain why they’ve stuck around. Nearly everyone who communicates electronically these days does it from either a smartphone, a tablet, or a computer. With built-in spell checking, autocorrect, and predictive text, it’s easier than ever to follow the rules, and often harder than ever to break them.

For the many of us who identify as either current or perhaps recovering grammar sticklers, this can be a touchy issue.

Once you’ve gone through all the trouble of learning and perfecting the rules (as much as anyone can perfect an understanding of the English language), it can be off-putting to see those rules thrown to the wayside. In certain contexts there is absolutely a place for those rules — say, a newspaper — but in casual conversation, where shorthands just accelerate the speed of conversation, is it truly harmful to the language?

Let’s look at an example: the word “what.” It’s widely acceptable to use it as a spoken exclamation of surprise or disbelief, and while it’s also used as a way to ask someone to repeat themselves, the context generally makes it clear whether it’s rhetorical or not. Online, though, the phrase is more ambiguous in it’s meaning. Imagine you send your friend a text telling them that somebody had just walked up to you on the street and called you a “rancid turnip.” They could respond with just that one word, but how they write it matters.

If they say “What?” you might assume they’re confused or angry about it, but it’s unclear.

If they say “what??????” then it emphasizes the shock.

If they say “wat” or “wut” with no punc-

tuation, then it’s clearly a reaction to the absurdity of the insult, and the strangeness of the situation.

The third option is the quickest, and most efficient to write (disregarding potential autocorrect issues), and conveys the clearest meaning, despite being the most egregiously “wrong.” The first two could have their tone easily enhanced with an emoji, which is another valuable part of language that’s quickly becoming pivotal to shorthand communication, but that’s a topic for another day.

Even in messages longer than one word (or perhaps especially so), these rule “violations” are incredibly valuable. Imagine you saw a tweet from your friend that read “Oh god, I’m so excited about the new Star Wars, you don’t even know.” It’s probably genuine, if a bit understated. Compare that to “oh god, im so excited about the new Star Wars, you dont even know,” which comes across as sarcastic and detached, or “OhgodI’msoexcitedforthenewStarWarsy oudon’tevenknow,” which tells you they’re practically overwhelmed with authentic anticipation.

You’ll hear all the time that language is a growing, changing thing, usually in

response to people complaining that the word “selfie” got added to a dictionary, or that “literally” doesn’t mean “literally” anymore. But it applies to writing, too.

Electronic communication is developing it’s own dialect, its own unique subset of the English language, and it’s one that’s tailored to the medium it’s transmitted across.

Just like regional slang might shorten words important to the region (would someone visiting the area have any idea who/what/where PoCo was?), these visual, written cues have a place in our way of communing. Just like contractions and abbreviations make it easier to speak and write without massively elongating every sentence (“I will be there as soon as possible” vs. “I’ll be there ASAP”), these emerging signifers of tone cut the excess from language when it isn’t needed, and focus in on the point of language: to convey a message, and have it understood by the reader.

And if you know that your reader will understand your tone of voice when you reply to them with “wat,” then you should go right ahead and do it.

International Moods //

Minister for Loneliness JEN KLASSEN STAFF WRITER

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Recently, the U.K. appointed a Minister for Loneliness, a person in charge of navigating the sweeping epidemic of isolated individuals in the modern world. In light of Bell’s “Let’s Talk” Day on January 31, which highlights mental health awareness, this story seems incredibly timely. Loneliness is an experience that I would daresay all of us know. That aching sensation in your chest usually coupled with pessimistic thoughts. The Western world has glorified busyness as an indicator of “success” for so long that it has neglected the parts of the person which long for social connection as a means to feel seen and heard, and to create a sense of belonging and personhood. Instead, we create a schedule focused so much on “doing” that we forget about “being.”

The idea for the government position comes from Jo Cox, an MP who was murdered on June 16, 2016.

Before she died, she had set up a cross party commission called the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness. After her untimely assassination, the commission made a recommendation to the government on ways to fix the problem that Cox had committed her life to, bringing awareness and solutions to the isolated. Thus, the Minister for Loneliness.

Enter Tracey Crouch. The announcement was made January 17 that she will be the superhero filling this position. She is ready to take on the challenging task set before her and begin to forge a new trail in an office never seen before in the government, but in my opinion, so desperately needed.

The duties that define this position are still a little unclear, but it is a solid step in the right direction to begin to shine a light on this heartbreaking reality that so many people, not only in the U.K., but also

around the world, face every day.

The sad truth is that this loneliness does not discriminate based on age, race, or gender. It has been linked to many serious ailments, including depression, anxiety, and has even been seen to be causal of heart disease. “It is worse than smoking 15 cigarettes per day,” stated Mark Robinson, head of Age UK, to the New York Times.

Historically, the English have been stereotyped to be cold and unfeeling, putting them in stark contrast to hyper-emotional North Americans. With this rather uncharacteristic acknowledgement, and subsequent appointment, it may mean that it is time for the rest of the world to take note. So, what about us? Where do we stand in all of this? How do we compare to the Brits on our loneliness levels?

There has been a growing awareness around mental health lately, an upswing in combating the stigma surrounding mental illness. That shift has hopefully lessened the loneliness for those living with mental illnesses, and driven society to stand up, and gather around in an affirmative group hug.

The reality is that the very heart of the loneliness epidemic is this sensation that we are “the only one.”

This idea makes it difficult for the individual to step out in courage to change their circumstances, because they don’t want to be judged. It compounds the sensation in a never-ending cycle, as isolating thoughts lead to isolating action.

I think this new, and very uniquely British, way of approaching this problem is a fantastic step in the right direction. I am happy to see this progressive thought at the government level, and I hope it brings in a new era of mental health awareness.

I expect great things from this, and look forward to seeing the way it improves the livelihood of the people in the U.K.

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Vancouver City //

Endangered species, or fossil?

Vancouver’s Chinatown to become UNESCO heritage site?

ALEISTER GWYNNE STAFF WRITER

Chinatown in Vancouver, which is already a National Historic Site, is being considered for a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. This comes with the realization that Vancouver’s Chinatown is in dire straits, and is at risk of losing its identity.

The main symptom of this decline is the loss of local businesses selling fresh foods, about half of which have shut down since 2009, according to a CBC piece on the subject. Conversely, Chinatown is undergoing gentrification, with hip boutiques and coffeeshops intruding on the neighbourhood, eroding its distinct character. The question being debated is not so much whether or not Chinatown should be preserved, but how.

Chinatown now stands at a crossroads, both literally and figuratively, between two extremes. On one side, you have Gastown. Gastown certainly doesn’t lack in historic buildings and streets, and it has a rich sense of character, but over the years it has been gentrified to hell and back. The place is beautiful, and I enjoy being there, but I get the nagging feeling that this place is not meant for people like me, who are neither tourists nor obscenely rich.

Gastown simply has no place for those of us who aren’t in “the club,” so to speak. A few blocks to the east, and you come to the notorious Downtown Eastside, which can be pretty scary at times with its run-down buildings, and equally run-down homeless population. Still, as a (mostly) life-long Vancouverite, I can’t help but take a perverse sort of pride in the Downtown Eastside and places like it, because it represents a more honest and accepting face of the city, a place that hasn’t yet been sanitized, gussied up, and purged of “riff-raff,” like so many other parts of the city.

Yet at the same time, one cannot ignore that it is a nest of poverty, drug abuse, and urban decay.

The Downtown Eastside merely shows the prob-

lems of a troubled city from a different perspective.

Chinatown is somewhere in between. It still has that grit, and that distinctive and inclusive identity that I know and love. At the same time, it still has aesthetic appeal, and is something a resident of the city can take deserved pride in. I would hate to see Chinatown fall to either extreme, becoming either an alley strewn with used needles, or Trump Tower.

Dr. Ho Yin Lee of the University of Hong Kong, interviewed by the CBC, made some very astute points. The two main takeaways were that one should strive to “keep a living community living,” and keep the right cultural perspective in mind.

Preserving monuments is the easy part. It wouldn’t require too much effort and expense to keep the key structures, like the main gate, the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Gardens, or the red lamp posts with the golden dragons, in good repair.

But you can no more bring back a community once it has been extinguished than you can bring back the people who once thronged the streets of Pompeii or Teotihuacan. It is these people, dead or alive, who truly stir the imagination, and make a community what it is. Preserving this aspect by involving the younger generations, and ensuring that the oldtimers aren’t driven out by skyrocketing real estate prices, among other things, should be essential.

Investment cooperatives, which are used in places like Minneapolis and New York, were cited in the CBC as possible ways to inject new life into Chinatown’s traditional businesses, and by extension, the people who rely on them.

Lee also stated that making Chinatown just a “Chinese thing” wouldn’t work, and that it is important to frame Chinatown’s preservation in a Canadian context. I am inclined to agree. Turning Chinatown back into a narrow enclave won’t make most people care. Instead, we should recognize the important role that Chinatown, and the Chinese community, has played in the past and present of Vancouver. Without their contributions, represent-

A bustling city street in Vancouver’s Chinatown. (Xicotencatl/Wikimedia)

ed by Chinatown, Vancouver wouldn’t be the same as it is today, any more than Boston would be without the Irish, or New York without the Italians and Jews, and so on.

In the big scheme of things, the question of Chinatown is the question of whether we are able and willing to preserve that which we know and love about the places where we live, not only within Vancouver, but everywhere. It illustrates the challenge of making our communities safe and appealing, while at the same time allowing as many people as possible to have a place in that community. A straight diet of artisanal avocado toast will make you sick just as surely as eating nothing but cheap instant ramen will, because that’s all you could afford after paying rent. Personally, I would prefer the rich stir fry that I believe Vancouver still represents, and I hope will continue to represent in the years to come.

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OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

I think I’ve been playing D&D too much

Bugs are people too A lot of people are scared of little critters that they have no need to be afraid of. In fact, some of our little friends (I’m looking at you, spiders) are actually really helpful, and because we live, you know, on the Earth, it’s not like were going to stop encountering them anytime soon.

I have thus concluded that what this world needs is an accurate bug identification app.

Is this a happy, mosquito-catching friend, or a death-murder 5000? I don’t know, let’s Insect-o-spect it! The app could tell you about your newfound BFF: what his feeding habits are, what he’s doing in your bed at 4 a.m., if he could potentially murder you, and how to best get him out of your bed, and back outside without hurting him.

Knowledge is power, and perhaps with the knowledge that not everything is out to get you, people would be less likely to clobber our little buddies, and more likely to take them outside.

Brief bits of bite sized brevity

Jessica Barclay

Why can’t life be one big Dungeons and Dragons game?

We could roll d20s (those neat looking, 20-sided die) to see how well we do in social interactions, sports, and general life situations. And with the modifiers that you’re born with, or build up over time (think bonus points you earn from practicing something over and over), you get a boost to anything you roll. So maybe you roll an 11 to see if you pass your history test, but your plus six to intelligence bumps that up to a 17; therefore, you pass the test!

What might not be so great about this is when you roll a one; instead of acing the test, you fail miserably, and end up breaking your ankle, or flipping your car into a ditch. (Don’t ask me how, that’s just the way the game works.)

Maybe it’s better not to leave our life decisions up to the roll of a die, after all.

SNAPSHOTS

No pet-idemic

Snappyshot

An increasing problem in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley is rental availability.

Within that crisis, there is a second, evergrowing issue that needs to be addressed: pet-friendly housing is all but absent in local classifieds.

I am currently in a living situation where I live happily with my dog. However, that arrangement is not indefinite. The thought of having to someday leave her behind terrifies me, as I know it will be a living nightmare trying to find an affordable home where I am still able to keep her.

It is understandable that some homeowners might fear the possibility of damage done to carpets and walls by pets. Let it be known that in my experience, such damage is rare, and easily fixable. When all else fails, pet deposits exist for the worst of incidents.

I am in no way suggesting that taking away a homeowner’s freedom and forcing them to allow pets in their suites is the answer. But a little compassion goes a long way in this world, and everyone needs a few more friendly furry faces in their lives.

I can’t snap my fingers. In the realm of personal inadequacies, that’s not such a big deal. It’s not something I find myself moping over day in and day out. But every now and then, a situation where a snap would underline a point presents itself, and I don’t have that option, or I’m in a situation where everybody’s snapping their fingers, and I have to just mimic the motion soundlessly and hope nobody catches on.

It’s not that I physically can’t, either — I made a point of learning a few years ago.

I did it fine, without thinking about it, for a couple of days. And then I didn’t have a reason to snap my fingers for a few weeks, and when I tried to draw on that knowledge again, it was completely gone. Now I’m back to just making a pitiful swish when I try, and end up with my fingers in a tangled knot.

Maybe my muscle memory is just full, and I need to forget how to tie my shoes in order to free up some space.

Illustrations: Amara Gelaude

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Cassie de Jong

Cat Friesen

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

Jeff Mijo

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Can You Hear Me Now? //

Calling out mobile plans Don’t worry, the cost of more gigabytes won’t bite (unless you missed out on last month’s cheap deal) per cent for plans with more than five gigabytes. In these same two data categories, Australia and France were found FEATURES EDITOR to have had the lowest prices.

Calling up your wireless phone company is no small comDowntown Sydney, Parisian cafés, and cheap phone mitment — an entire evening can easily be consumed lis- plans? Please excuse me while I start packing my bags. tening to the cheap, staticky, elevator music as you wait on But honestly, do any of us really need 10 gigabytes of hold to speak with an agent. But last month, the wait may data? According to Virgin Mobile’s data calculator, with 10 have been worth it. Canada’s three largest wireless service gigabytes of data, you can watch an estimated 166 hours providers — Rogers, Telus, and Bell — nearly synchronized of YouTube, browse 59,000 web pages, or send 500,000 the release of an almost too-good-to-be-true phone plan emails. I don’t know about you, but I feel dizzy just thinkfor residents of B.C., Alberta, and Ontario. For just a few ing about sending 500,000 emails. And although I defidays, they were each offering 10 gigabytes of data with un- nitely want to watch 166 hours of YouTube, there’s no way I limited texting and calling for just $60 a month. would have time.

To compare, both Roger’s and Bell’s most popular plans Recently, the City of Vancouver announced that they’ve usually offer 3 gigabytes of data, with 300 local minutes added nearly 500 new free Wi-Fi hotspots all across the for $75 a month. Telus, however, usually offers 1 gigabyte city. And, who knows, maybe that will soon creep out into of data for $70 a month. the Fraser Valley. Maybe one day every square inch of this A recent study commissioned by the Government of planet will be Wi-Fi accessible, and the need for data will Canada found that Canadian prices were ranked highest be gone. But, I’m sure the phone companies will still find a for data plans ranging from two to five gigabytes, and sec- way squeeze every last dime out of us somehow. ond highest (following the U.S.) for anything over five giThe idea of always being connected to Wi-Fi is pretty gabytes. Though, since last year, prices have decreased by neat, but sometimes I just want to be disconnected. Maybe 7.4 per cent for two to five gigabyte data plans, and by 4 I want to go spend the morning at the beach, and maybe,

LAUREL LOGAN

Diagonally displayed devices. (Intel/Flickr)

just for a few hours, I don’t even want to have the option to be available online to anyone.

Phone plans just seem so much more complicated nowadays. I almost feel nostalgic for the days when my flip phone only cost somewhere around $20 a month. Sure, there was no data, and I could only send a finite amount of text messages; but at least every message I sent felt a little bit more valuable, and browsing the web all the time felt a lot less necessary.

A Whale of an Idea //

Taking the whales and dolphins out of the Vancouver Aquarium solves nothing harmful to it, and for one dolphin, Helen, transfer could lead to death. Currently, she is kept at the aquarium, but CONTRIBUTOR with all of the other dolphins transferred away, she’s Vancouver Aquarium is being made to get rid of their being kept alone, which everyone can agree isn’t ideal. dolphins and whales. Why? Because some well-inten- There’s an activism movement to get Helen put in a sanctioned, but utterly misinformed activists raised a big tuary, which isn’t feasible. To quote Vancouver Aquarium enough stink. It’s another case of the mob mentality CEO Clint Wright, when he spoke to the Vancouver Sun, thinking that caused mercury to be removed from vac- “It’s really a fantasy to think that these animals could cines. Because a simple idea sounded bad and scary to just go off to a giant ocean playground.” a small group of people who made a lot of noise, and no Even if we were to decide as a society that keeping ceone paid any attention long enough to stop them. taceans in cages is always terrible, and completely irreThe idea of keeping a cetacean like a dolphin in captiv- deemable — which we shouldn’t do; that’s an overly ideity sounds terrible, until you realize that we don’t catch alistic point of view — then this ban still doesn’t make dolphins, we wind up with them. Poor fishing practic- any sense. Because zero cetaceans are being released. es lead to dolphins getting injured in fishing nets and That’s right, zero. No one is winning here, all that is other man-created tragedies that occur can cause these happening is that we’re traumatizing these creatures by dolphins to end up in the aquarium. If a dolphin is be- placing them into restricting transport tanks, and reing kept at the aquarium, it’s because they aren’t able to moving them from their handlers, who they have been survive in the wild. In short, we all agree that keeping shown to develop relationships with. Activist groups are dolphins in captivity is suboptimal, but the alternative taking this atrocity of an outcome as a win. According to is to let them die. the Vancouver Sun, the animal rehabilitation program I agree that there are issues in some aquariums with will continue to function the exact same way it did becontainment conditions for cetaceans, but those issues fore, except now any animals in need of long-term care exist mainly within for-profit aquariums. So go and hate will be transferred to other facilities. No dolphins will be on Shamu, because that’s wrong, but don’t group non- released as a result of this move. profits in with them — nonprofit organizations exist to If you’re passionate about the ocean, this is not where research and rehabilitate oceanic wildlife, not to make you should be putting your effort. Support a charity, a buck. The Vancouver Aquarium exists as a nonprofit, clean up a beach, don’t fight battles that result in losses and hasn’t ever even been credibly accused of mistreat- for everyone. Unfortunately, the Vancouver Aquarium is ing animals. They keep their animals humanely. far from the only nonprofit aquarium targeted by these Do you know what is happening now? They aren’t re- toxic activism groups. Unless there’s a fundamental leasing their cetaceans, they are just transferring them change of point of view within the vocal public, Vancouto other facilities. Transfer of a large marine creature is ver is just going to be one of many equally infuriating

JAKE GIBSON

A trainer interacts with a cetacean. (Pelican/Flickr)

news stories of marine mammals being shuttled around, and disappearing from local nonprofit organizations.

7

Q&A with Billeh Nickerson to help writers find their truth, see the world in a new light.

Billeh Nickerson, UFV’s 2018 Writer in Residence, here to help writers connect.

By: Cat Friesen Billeh Nickerson is UFV’s 2018 Writer in Residence.

Billeh is the author of five books, including The Asthmatic Glassblower, Let Me Kiss It Better, McPoems, Impact: The Titanic Poems, and Artificial Cherry, and is a former editor for Prism International and Event. Previously, Billeh was writer in residence for Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, as well as at Berton House in Dawson City.

As the writer in residence, Billeh will host guest lectures in writing classes, participate in writing workshops and festivals in the Fraser Valley, write the foreword for UFV’s literary magazine the Louden Singletree, and will write blog posts for the English department’s blog, Write of Passage.

Between January 22 and February 5, you can catch Billeh in his office, D3009 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Mondays, and 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Tuesdays. After reading break, from February 20 to March 28, he’ll be on campus 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. on Tuesdays, and 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Wednesdays.

What first prompted you to start writing poetry?

To be honest, I’m not 100 per cent sure. I remember once in high school I was walking and writing

this terrible poem about mirrors and not being understood, and now reflecting I just think “Oh my god, I was an early emo.” I guess I started becoming more serious about that in high school when I realized that you could share stuff, it was just another way of conversing. I was known to read poems to people after they’d eaten cafeteria food, because when people eat, they tend to not run as fast. They have to digest, so it’s the perfect time to grab them.

Did you know then that you’d want to write poetry books?

I didn’t even know what that was; I had no concept of what a literary journal was, it just seemed so removed. Most of the stuff we read is dead white dudes. I grew up in Langley, and my last year of high school I worked at a friggen McDonald’s, so that wasn’t the career path I was thinking by any means.

I love hearing the writing processes of different people, I know writers vary drastically in how they do it. What’s your writing process, how do you go about it? Any weird rituals or innovative techniques?

It’s changed; I used to be a night writer, and I blame my cats. I adopted two young cats and they wanted my attention. It was hard to focus, so I’ve started to become a daytime writer, which is strange. And I’ve actively gone back to journals more than computers. I’ll just kind of barf onto the page, and then I can go back, and then go onto the computer. But that was great, doing that. I went to London, England, I had a friend who had this place, and he was going to be gone for a while, and I was like “Yay!” I walked every day for a couple of hours, and then I wrote. And what an amazing city; you go to a museum every day, you walk around, you write, and there was no pressure. That was wonderful.

A lot of your poetry leans towards humour, I’m thinking of Artificial Cherry, but I hear that most of your collections have humour in them. Would you say using humour in writing makes it easier to talk about certain topics?

It can. I have a lot of humour, but the humour quite often is also connected to what I call “cheeky sweet,” or bitter sweet. You can get into the most serious topics, finally, when people let their guard down with the humour. So that’s the best time. Metaphorically, if you’re going to pull a knife on someone, do it when they’re laughing. It was interesting when I was doing the Titanic book, because I tried to have some funny poems, but it just felt weird. I’m sure people were laughing on the Titanic, but it just felt too forced, and it didn’t feel organic. So that was the strange one for me, to not be able to have that, and that was hard to do readings, because I’m normally a humourist, and then I would go up there, and I would read these really depressing poems, and people were like “Oh, okay,” because it’s not what they expected.

We see a lot of personal expression in your poetry, as to be expected. Do you find it hard to write about deeply personal thoughts and experiences, knowing that thousands of people are going to read it?

I mean, there’s some things now that I’m like “Oh, god, do I need my students knowing that?”

“my job as a poet is to make people see the world in a new way.”

Artificial CH

But you’ve got to be true, part of being authentic is being honest. You’re going to expose parts of yourself. But it’s strange, as you get older and have different experiences, different things bother you.

Look at the times we’re in right now, the truth is under attack. If I’m not truthful with my own readers, even if I’m writing personas — it’s weird, because my first book is called The Asthmatic Glassblower, and I’m not asthmatic. To this day — it’s been 20 years — there’s people coming up and telling me their asthma stories, and I’m like “Great, but I’m not asthmatic.” The voice of that character... I made that up. You can never tell.

What are the defining moments in your life that have shaped your poetry?

Oh jeez, the pivotal moments. I think growing up in Langley, coming out, and realizing the possibilities of poetry — and that’s something that I keep learning. The possibilities keep changing, and that’s always really pivotal, like “Oh, I can do this, I can do that.” Working at McDonald’s, falling in love, having my heart broken — some of the basic ones.

I love that you talk so freely about sexuality in your poetry, especially in Artificial Cherry. Has poetry helped you be more open to talking about it, or were you pretty open talking about it before?

I don’t know what came first — kind of like the chicken or the egg — or if it was at the same time.

I wrote a column with Extra West, which was the gay paper across the country, but there was one based in Vancouver, and that was pretty pivotal. It allowed me to explore, and make mistakes. I had 500 words, and I was able to put this stuff out there.

I think having that, along with the poetry, allowed me to do that, but I’m not big on silences or shame and all that.

That’s where the humour works best; I get to debunk shame, or show people their bias. The Wayne Gretzky poem was a big deal for me for my first book, because CBC would play it late at night, and it was published everywhere. That’s probably one of the poems I’m most famous for. I was worried, the first time I went to Alberta, and I read the Wayne

ERRY

Gretzky poem, which was an erotic fantasy about Gretzky. I thought “Oh, I’m going to get the crap kicked out of me.” But all these guys, these bros, were coming up to me like “Bro, that’s totally a funny poem, thank you so much.” I learn too.

So it really affects a wide audience, then, because it’s not just the gay community who find interest in your poems.

Oh yeah. And women buy books. For me, lesbians have been the saviour of my career, because they get it, they’re political. Men could buy more books. Even straight women, they’re the ones buying the books, they’re the ones being more open.

And I’m quite aware of that.

Some poets want sexuality to be the main focus of the work, the main theme, and some see it as an afterthought, like “Hey, this is who I am,” and it works into the poetry naturally. Would you say you fall into the first or the second category?

It depends on the project. I don’t really think the sexuality stuff comes up in McPoems or Impact at all.

I’m a weird bird in the sense that I was a competitive curler, so I have that, and I have all these really random hobbies and areas of knowledge, so I think that areas of knowledge and passion inform my poetry, and because of that, my sexuality, my way of viewing the world, and some of my experiences, that’s how it plays in.

What are you trying to achieve with your poetry? Is there a central message, or do you focus on sharing your thoughts and feelings?

That’s a tough one to answer about poetry in general, because I think that each poem or each project has a different goal, or a little fascination to it.

Sometimes it’s political, sometimes it’s very much about a small moment, a quiet moment, and that’s a more imagistic kind of piece. The big thing is that I totally believe that my job as a poet is to make people see the world in a new way. It’s that simple. I think a lot of writers and critics have said that kind of thing in their own words, but that is ultimately one of our responsibilities. So, that’s what I try to

do. And whether it’s a cheeseburger, or the Titanic, or sexy times, or whatever, just get people to stop and consider.

What are you hoping to achieve as the writer in residence?

I’m hoping to assist people to find a new truth for themselves, or a deeper sense of their truth in their writing. It’s weird, I’m an insider in the sense that I have a long history in the Valley, but I’m an outsider to the institution. So I can ask things and try things, and try to get groups together, which is hard at any institution, so I’m hoping to be a bit of a connector.

If you could give one piece of advice to writers, what would it be?

Floss, and listen.

“I’m hoping to be a bit of a connector.”

STUDY BREAK Crossword //

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Made by Cassie de Jong

ACROSS

DOWN

1: An alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey and water.

3: A hockey team based in Edmonton.

5: Tea that does not come in tea bags.

8: A piece of writing on a particular subject, written often by students.

10: A word to describe a person who is nervous and uncomfortable around other people.

11: A mythological creature similar to a fairy or goblin, who is always playing pranks, and causing mischief.

12: A hockey team based in Toronto.

14: To earn the title of Dr. in your name, you must first earn a _ _ _.

17: A flight that departs late at night, and arrives early in the morning.

18: First name of the actor playing the latest movie adaptation of the superhero “Flash.”

1: A event in the night sky where a number of “shooting stars” can be observed.

2: A building in which judo, karate, and other martial arts are practiced.

3: A nocturnal bird of prey with large forward-facing eyes, and a hooked beak.

4: A soft drink made from Smilax ornata plants.

5: A cord or strap attached to items such as keys or identification cards.

6: The internationally recognized morse code signal of distress.

7: Chronic tiredness is also known as _ _ _.

8: A long, thin fish with poorly developed fins, and an affinity for electricity.

9: An English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968.

13: Patches of hair that cover mammals.

15: A long piece of cloth worn around the neck for a professional, decorative purpose.

16: A laundry detergent company whose pods are quite popular among today’s youth.

LAST ISSUE’S ANSWERS: Across: 1: Troll 3: Steam Shovel 8: Wham 10: Tomb 12: Skiing 13: Avatar 14: Crib 16: Army 17: Death Valley 20: Rupee

Horoscope //

Illustrated by Amara Gelaude

Astrological mysteries rudely interpreted by Lady May

Aries — Mar 21 to Apr 19 Self-admiration is a bad habit of yours.

You have been known to kiss mirrors, and often demand near-constant attention and admiration. Take it down a notch Narcissus, we all know this doesn’t end well for you.

Leo — Jul 23 to Aug 22 If you asked a Leo what the one thing they would bring to a desert island would be, they would say a Sagittarius. This may or may not be because Sagittarians, being such party animals, always bring beer wherever they go.

Taurus — Apr 20 to May 20 You have your fair share of happy accidents in store for you this week. But beware, for every happy accident you encounter, an equally unhappy accident is lying in wait.

Virgo —Aug 23 to Sep 22 Virgos have a natural talent for losing things.

You kick your keys under the fridge on a daily basis, and have lost your phone more times than you can count. Perhaps this week is a good time to get a little more organized.

Gemini — May 21 to Jun 20 Geminis have a hard time buying cars, because no car is ever good enough. If they do manage to find the perfect vehicle, it is wasted because they keep it “safely” locked away, and never used. Try not to let this habit affect other objects (or people) in your life.

Libra — Sep 23 to Oct 22 Libras never get any work done, especially if they live with a Virgo. A Virgo roommate is the worst kind of enabler, and will definitely convince you to stay up until 4:00 a.m. with a bottle of wine and the “recently added” section on Netflix when you have a project due the next morning.

Aquarius — Jan 20 to Feb 18 You take being a hermit to the next level.

You can remain in your home for months at a time, leaving only briefly to replenish your stash of cheese balls. Amazon and online courses are your truest friends.

Scorpio — Oct 23 to Nov 21 If you were an engineer, you would design the most ludicrous system of highways and overpasses known to the developed world.

Should you ever find yourself leading such a project, keep in mind that success is the result of good planning.

Pisces — Feb 19 to Mar 20 Small things amuse small minds, especially if that mind belongs to a Pisces. This week, you will be discovered repeatedly opening and closing your refrigerator door in the middle of the night, watching for the exact moment when the light flickers on and off.

Cancer —Jun 21 to Jul 22 Cancers always seem to hold management positions. Whether this is because everyone likes you, or because you’re really good at being bossy, remains to be seen. Your key to success is finding a happy medium between the two.

10

Down: 1: Tea 2: Leo 4: Elm 5: Monograph 6: Hydrangea 7: Vat 9: Alibi 11: Otter 15: Boa 16: Awl 18: Tar 19: Lye

Sagittarius — Nov 22 to Dec 21 Sagittarians constantly ask people to critique their work openly and honestly, but can never take the criticism. Pro tip: ignore those who seek to tear you down, but listen to those who seek to build you up. They often have good advice.

Capricorn — Dec 22 to Jan 19 All Capricorns deserve parades on their birthdays, and every other day of the year, for that matter. Always keep close with your friend in event planning, and make sure they always owe you one. You’ll have easy access to all the birthday parades you could ever need.

CULTURE

Cassie de Jong — Culture Editor culture@ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Distilled //

In good spirits Fraser Valley Distillery Festival showcases B.C. distilleries ALEISTER GWYNNE STAFF WRITER

Last Friday, Chilliwack Cultural Centre played host to the Fraser Valley Distillery Festival. At this well-attended event, B.C.’s distillers showcased their products, and offered samples of their wares to the paying public. On offer were a wide array of spirits, including vodkas, gins, whiskies, liqueurs, and more. Other features of the festival included hors d’oeuvres, live music, and a silent auction.

There are, alas, very few distilleries located in the Fraser Valley — only one, in fact: Roots and Wings Distillery in Langley, whose products include a vodka, a gin, and a coffee liqueur. Their vodka, made from a blend of potatoes and corn grown on their own farm near Langley, has a distinct flavour, but is quite strong, and therefore best served mixed.

The only other distillery that could be said to reside in the Fraser Valley (if you stretch the definition a bit) would be Dragon Mist Spirits of Surrey. Their specialty is in various liqueurs. Their blackberry liqueur was disappointing flavour-wise, but was very mild and smooth.

Noteworthy Gin deserves top points for presentation.

Oranges are the signature ingredient in their aptly named gin, and there is indeed a noticeable orange flavour. Oranges were greatly emphasized, with the presenter even dressing up in an orange suit. (Where would you even get one of those?) However, the orange taste was muscled aside by the blend of spices that are also used in the recipe, and the resulting concoction has an overwhelmingly spicy taste, which is more pleasant a few minutes after it has been drunk.

Taynton Bay Spirits of Invermere had a number of tempting offerings, including a raspberry vodka among others, with a “survival kit” containing a bottle of each being one of the bidding items in the silent auction. Sinsation is their cinnamon liqueur, which they described as being “Fireball on steroids.” While Sinsation has a very clear aroma, and rich taste of cinnamon, it is in fact very smooth, and far less spicy than one might expect. It is a great pleasure to drink straight.

Legend Distilling’s Black Moon Gin, in addition to the hint of lime one expects from gin, has a distinct taste of rosemary, which is the signature ingredient in their wares.

Apart from the unique rosemary flavour, there is nothing particularly remarkable about it.

Wayward Distillery of Comox’s Unruly Gin has a classic flavour, with a pleasant aroma and a bit more sweetness than is usual on account of honey being the primary ingredient in their products.

Next came Maple Leaf Distillery of Penticton, whose products are made from fresh Okanagan Valley fruit.

Their kirsch is a cherry liqueur commonly used in southern Germany and parts of France to flavour dishes such as fondue and black forest cake. This is probably the best use for it, as when it is consumed unadulterated, it is quite strong, and the cherry flavour is somewhat faint.

Shelter Point Distillery’s single malt whisky was described as being much like scotch in flavour. However, it is much less sweet, almost bitter or sour, in flavour.

Crow’s Nest Distillery produces a remarkable dark rum that is smooth, and has a rich and pleasant flavour. It is good both straight-up, or with a mixer.

Ampersand Distillery’s gin was thoroughly average in

Connoisseurs trying new tastes. (Aleister Gwynne/The Cascade)

what one can expect from a gin, with a mild blend of citrus and spices for flavour, and is not too strong.

Prizes were awarded at the end of the event, but unfortunately, I had to leave before they were announced in order to catch the bus home. For myself, it was a toss-up between Taynton Bay’s Sinsation, and Crow’s Nest’s dark rum. I ultimately cast my vote for the latter, since I felt they weren’t getting enough love. As thanks for my generosity, I am now the proud owner of my very own hip flask.

(I’ve always wanted one of those.)

UFV Theatre //

Play preview: Intimacy JOEL ROBERTSON-TAYLOR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Written and directed by UFV student Desiree Hale, Intimacy is a collection of personal stories relating to intimacy — what it means, the varying experiences, how the definition changes as people mature. It’s a study in relationships, sexuality, and identity.

Hale spent a month interviewing for stories on intimacy, then compiled it into a “large blog” to be arranged into a script.

“What I found, throughout the interviews, was that there were shared experiences and opinions and ideas,” Hale said.

“The topics that got talked about flowed together pretty well.”

Intimacy’s script is made from roughly 10 people’s stories, including Hale’s own.

She removed names for anonymity, and tried to treat each story neutrally when composing it to be Intimacy’s script. The many stories were arranged and divided amongst the play’s three performers.

Hale specified that she refers to performers as conduits for the script to be brought to stage, as opposed to individual characters. Because of the array of stories, she attempted to give the impression that there’s more than three people on stage.

Hale wrote the play to learn about others’ experiences, as well as share her own.

She said she’s had to navigate new forms of intimacy with her girlfriend, which opened her up to talking about reapproaching intimacy, and the struggles that accompany it.

“I wanted to create a piece that could

show the world this experience that I’ve been having, this journey that I’ve been having — discovering and reevaluating intimacy,” Hale said.

As a production, Intimacy is minimalistic in terms of lighting and design. For it, Hale was her own design team; this includes costumes, lighting, set, and sound.

“It’s been an interesting challenge, and quite the learning experience, having to think about my show as a whole,” she said.

“I’ve been thinking about it in these little chunks, like okay, this scene has to look like this, and what not.”

Having broached this complex topic, Hale wants to continue with playwriting and directing.

“I’ve definitely found a love for doing this,” she said. “It’s something that I’ve wanted to try for a little while. Now I actually have the opportunity to experiment with it, to learn and stumble, and get myself back up, and make mistakes and learn again. Intimacy itself is not going to stop here.”

Intimacy runs 30 minutes and is broken into seven scenes, divided by poems Hale wrote. It will run in D105, Feb 7–9, with performances Feb 7 and 8 at 4:30 p.m. and Feb 9 at 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. UFV performance dates and times can be found at ufv. ca/plays.

Intimacy’s performers. (UFV Flickr)

11

CULTURE

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

UFV Club Event //

Yoga just got even more interesting Glow in the dark yoga event illuminates Evered Hall

CASSIE DE JONG CULTURE & EVENTS EDITOR

If you spotted glowing lights peeking out under the doors to Evered Hall in the Student Union Building last week and were wondering why there wasn’t any music, have no fear. You were not witness to a silent rave, but rather the UFV yoga club’s third annual Glow in the Dark Yoga, more commonly known as “Glowga,” to which people of any and all skill levels were invited to participate.

Before the lights went out, attendees were invited to get creative with glow in the dark paint, and add their contribution to a paper mural titled “What Inspires You.” There was also a raffle at the event, which gave away prizes graciously donated by Haven Yoga and Wellness.

Free items were offered to students, such as tea, feminine and other hygiene products, including tide pods, just to keep things interesting. A table was also set up to educate students on the various clubs and associations they can become involved with, and the channels and options available to those who are struggling with mental health issues.

This event was a joint effort between the yoga club and the mental health awareness club, who also worked with Campus Recreation and SUS. There was also participation from local Abbotsford business Haven Yoga and Wellness.

The instructor from Haven Yoga and Wellness was the studio’s founder and instructor, Rebecca Marshall. Marshall did an excellent job keeping the attendees engaged and excited to be there. The atmosphere was comfortable, and students were

invited to let loose, and laugh at themselves a little. Positivity could be felt in every corner of the room, which allowed the group to work on improving their physical and mental capabilities.

The space in which the event was held became possibly the most colourful room of yogis UFV has ever seen. Black lights, disco lasers, glow paint, and glow bracelets transformed Evered Hall, and put an interesting twist on the popular practice.

Mia Harries, president of the UFV yoga club, was able to answer a few questions in a post-yoga interview.

“The purpose of the event is just to bring UFV students together, to create a sense of community, and to show students that yoga is fun and engaging,” said Harries.

“Also, to make this an activity that’s accessible to everybody, no matter your ability or experience with yoga. But overall, just to

come out to have fun, and to connect with other people.”

Harries counted roughly 45 yoga enthusiast in attendance, not including the various members of the involved organizations who also participated. Such enthusiasm is what inspires the yoga club to continue hosting events such as these.

The UFV yoga club is hoping to continue Glowga in the future. However, everyone currently in the UFV yoga club is set to graduate this year. For this reason, they are recruiting new people to join their executive team for next year. Hopefully this is a tradition that the new group will continue.

If you missed this event, do not fret.

The UFV yoga club offers weekly sessions, Wednesdays at 1:00 p.m. in Evered Hall for the remainder of the semester.

Cascade Events Calendar January - February

Note: Some of these events require tickets, most are on Facebook.

If something catches your eye, take to the internet for more details.

31

01 02

President’s Leadership Lecture Series @ UFV Abbotsford Student Union Building, Evered Hall, 4:30

Trevor McDonald: Piano & Vocals @ The Wellington Social House (Chilliwack), 6:30- 9:30 p.m.

Logan and Nathan @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

Switchcraft @ Captains Cabin Pub (Mission), 8:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.

Byrd Dawg and the Vintage Electric Band @ G.W. Graham Theatre (Chilliwack), 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

Chicken-Like Birds @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

Oldhand Coffee IPA Release @ Ravens Brewing Company (Abbotsford), Noon - 8:00 p.m.

06

Listen Write Now @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 p.m.

Hedley: Cageless Tour @ Abbotsford Centre, 7:00 p.m.

Play: Misery @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre, 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.

14 15

08 09

Get Air Abbotsford’s Anniversary @ Get Air (Abbotsford), 10:00 a.m. 8:00 p.m.

Bottom Shelf Bourbon Trio @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

PIGS: Canada’s Pink Floyd Tribute @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre, 7:30 10:15 p.m.

Chill Rose Place featuring Hubbo, Bhura, xCephasx, & DJ Darko @ The Stage in Mission, 7:00 - 11:59 p.m.

Old Dominion @ Abbotsford Centre, 7:30 - 10:30 p.m.

Rock, Paper & Scissor Tournament @ Townhall Public House (Abbotsford),10:00 - 11:00 p.m.

Play: Cinderella @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

Ballet Jorgen Masterclass & Pointe Shoe Clinic @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre, 3:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Galentine’s Day: A Fundraiser for Matthew’s House @ The Reach Gallery Museum (Abbotsford), 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Brian O’Brien @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

16

At The Movies: The Bergmann Duo @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre, 10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.

17

All About Kids & Family Expo @ Chilliwack Heritage Park, 10:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m.

Picture This! Research Project @ UFV Abbotsford Building B, Room B121, 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Trevor McDonald: Piano & Vocals @ The Wellington Social House (Chilliwack), 6:30 - 9:30 p.m.

12

12

50s Sock Hop Dance Party @ The Stage in Mission, 8:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.

The Jupiter Rebellion: A Zach Zultana Adventure @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre, 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.

05

11

The Church of Rock n’ Roll @ Corky’s Irish Pub (Chilliwack), 9:00 p.m. 12:30 a.m.

TEDx Chilliwack @ Cottonwood 4 Cinemas (Chilliwack), 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.

Groundhog Day Party @ Townhall Public House (Abbotsford), 8:00 p.m.

- 1:00 a.m.v

03

10

Whisky and the Wailin’ Witch @ Replay Boardshop (Abbotsford), 7:00 10:00 p.m.

WiL @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

3rd Annual Hero’s Gala 2018 @ The Stage in Mission, 6:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.

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All About Kids & Family Expo @ Chilliwack Heritage Park, 10:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m.

Jana @ The Wellington Social House (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Vancouver Pet Lover Show @ Tradex (Abbotsford), 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Old Time Country Night with Boots and the Hoots @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

CULTURE Column //

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Kin Korner

A deterrent from detox teas JASLEEN GREWAL & SAHEB SANDHU CONTRIBUTORS

Kin Korner is a health and wellness column by the students of Joanna Sheppard’s Kinesiology 360 class. Check back every week for a wide variety of tips and tricks on how to stay sane as a student in an insane world.

Detox teas should be avoided for a number of reasons. Whether it’s FIT Tea, SkinnyMint, or T-tox, society is bombarded with images of thin, beautiful people “detoxing” with tea.

Celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Snooki, and Hilary Duff all endorse these teas through their social media accounts, and many fitness models who’ve found fame on Instagram are also encouraging young adults to follow the “FIT Tea” craze. As influencers like these tend to look aesthetically pleasing, many consumers are easily duped into purchasing the teas.

Detox has become a colloquial term, but what does it even mean? Originally, detoxification alluded to the series of metabolic reactions that are involved in excreting foreign chemicals, but later was used as a term describing withdrawal from substance abuse. In today’s age, the term detox is used in relation to dietary routines that eliminate toxins from the body. These teas supposedly help you lose weight, increase energy, and cleanse the body, and are sold at the rate of anywhere between $5 to $100 per box.

Detox tea diets often include consuming large amounts of tea every day, and can last anywhere from one to 28 days.

There are a few different approaches to detox teas that include fasting, consuming only juices and liquids for a few days,

eating only certain foods, using the tea with dietary supplements, or a combination of these.

The way that these teas are being related to weight loss and detoxification is relatively new. However, scientifically, the breakdown is simple. The liver is a vital component in a healthy body and is responsible for the filtering of blood, plus removing toxins such as drugs and alcohol, fighting infection, recycling old blood cells, and repairing damaged tissue, just to name a few. The liver is already extremely efficient at getting rid of any harmful substances that may be accumulating.

There are also many safety concerns linked with drinking detox teas, as they are linked with liver failure. With the low calories, and copious amounts of water consumed, tea drinkers may see quick changes in weight. This drop in weight is due to a diet change and/or increasing physical activity. Seeing this result can lead people to believe that the tea works, which can in turn lead to dependency, possibly an eating disorder, water and electrolyte imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, and disruption of the digestive system. Another trick detox teas use is adding laxatives to the tea, which is why many see an initial weight loss.

Today, there is no evidence that suggests that detox diets are efficient for weight loss or toxin elimination, as most of the research on the subject supports the fact that the teas are very flawed. The possible negative effects are much more significant, and clearly display that more research needs to be done for these types of diets to be considered safe and effective. So, before you put down a handful of your hard-earned cash on a dietary or health fad, be sure to know the facts.

Writer in Residence //

A full house for Billeh Nickerson’s welcome event Billeh Nickerson floors audience with humourous, insightful poetry CAT FRIESEN COPY EDITOR

On Tuesday, Jan. 30, upwards of 50 students, staff, and faculty gathered in A225 for the welcome event for the Kuldip Gill writer in residence, Billeh Nickerson. Melissa Walter, UFV’s English department head, opened the event by acknowledging our presence on unceded Stó:lō territory, followed by appreciation for the creation of the Kuldip Gill Writing Fellowship, which

allows for UFV to take on a writer in residence from January to April.

Rare January sunlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows as the audience sat in rapture. Nickerson read, beginning with a poem titled “Gonorrhea,” followed by several poems from each of his collections: “Pickle Sundae,” “Group Photograph, South Hampton,” and “The Hockey Chicken.”

Though all his poems were humourous or impactful in their own way, I found two to be more hard-hitting than the rest. The

Column //

Physics and Folly

Makin’ nukes MIKE FRIESEN STAFF WRITER

Physics and Folly applies real world science to familiar and fantastic situations.

Discover the answers no one has heard, to the questions no one ever asked.

I’m sure that between the atomic tests North Korea has been performing, the Hawaiian ballistic missile scare, and the current political situation in our nearest southern neighbour, you’ve probably been wondering the same thing I have: How can we bring an advanced nuclear weapons program to UFV? This will be a guide for the ages, or at least for the end of them, as I lay out the three simple steps to become a player in the nuclear weapons space.

Step one: Acquire the materials. Of the two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, one used uranium, and the other used plutonium. However, if you decide to head out into the wilderness looking for either, you might not turn up any results. Plutonium is a bit trickier to make a nuclear device out of, and it occurs naturally in such small amounts that we have to make it in a lab — out of uranium. Luckily, uranium is several hundred times more plentiful than gold throughout the Earth’s crust, but because it’s dispersed fairly uniformly, you’re going to have a difficult time finding any just laying around — except in Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan has the world’s highest quality uranium deposits, with concentrations of uranium ore reaching up to 18 per cent. But for those of you suddenly worried about your second cousins out east contracting radiation poisoning, uranium by itself is actually fairly harmless. Well, harmless via radiation poisoning. It’s still a toxic metal, so don’t tell your Saskatchewan friends it’s safe to eat ore samples if they’re visiting the uranium mines up north. But really, don’t tell anyone to eat ore samples — or rocks in general.

Regardless, say we manage to head up to the middle of nowhere, and mine ourselves some tasty, tasty uranium, we’ll find ourselves ready for step two.

Step two: Spend some time with it. Using commonly known refining techniques, it’s relatively easy to purify ore into a metal.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you value the survival of the human species) this purified uranium is still not able to make a bomb go boom. See, a little over 99 per cent of the uranium that we find is a pretty stable isotope: U-238. It’s only the U-235 isotope that is fissile — capable of undergoing the rapid sustained nuclear reaction

first was “No Pickle,” a poem about a man at McDonald’s who began to cry after receiving pickles on his burger for the third time that week. Of course, the tears are due to something deeper, and the narrator, recognizing this, circles around the counter to comfort the man. The second was “Six Years On,” a narrative of how deeply Billeh misses his friend, who passed suddenly six years prior. The poem cycles through questions and grief, wondering on “what ifs,” before centring on a series of photographs including Billeh’s friend, fragmented mem-

that we need to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, who we’ll refer to kindly as Space Nazis.

Regardless, both of our uranium isotopes act similarly chemically, making it hard to isolate the U-235 that we need.

So, what we’ll do is abuse the fact that our U-235 atoms have three less neutrons, making them weigh about one per cent less than their uninteresting U-238 counterparts: we’ll turn the uranium into a gas.

That in itself is a tricky process, which we’ll leave to the chemists always stinking up the A building. Once we have our gaseous uranium, we just need to spin it through a series of hundreds or thousands of towering centrifuges, each centrifuge working to separate out a small percentage of the lighter U-235 from the slightly denser U-238. If we’re doing this on the UFV campus, I say we use the C building for this. C for centrifuges, it just makes sense. We then turn to the chemists again to turn our newly enriched uranium into a solid metal, and finally we’re ready to teach those Space Nazis a lesson, right?

Well, not quite.

Step three: Making the bomb. To actually make a device capable of horrendous hellfire, we could take a couple of approaches, but since this is our first time, we’ll take the simplest one.

We’re going to need a really big gun, like a cannon. Not to shoot very far; all we need is about a cannonball’s worth of barely subcritical (slightly too small of an amount to be incredibly dangerous on its own) enriched uranium to collide with another barely subcritical mass of enriched uranium. You see where this is going.

The two colliding chunks of uranium quickly form a large critical mass, causing an out of control nuclear fission reaction, releasing the energy equivalent of thousands of tons of TNT. Of course it’s still a bit more complicated than that — the uranium bullet is actually going to be a hollow cylinder, and the target uranium is shaped just right so that the hollow cylinder will slip neatly over it, and we’ve also got to deal with pre-detonation issues, and a bunch of other problems that are complicated and interesting but are really hard to explain without the use of complicated diagrams and technical jargon that is far beyond my pay grade. And then we still need to ask Elon Musk for a rocket, to build us a launchpad, and to rewrite the nuclear prohibition laws. But if all those things happen we’ll finally (finally!) be able to kick some Space Nazi butt.

ories that hold snapshots of their relationship.

The event concluded with a question period, where the audience received excellent advice from Billeh: “Understand what works for you,” “work smarter, not harder,” and “READ!” Billeh will be on campus Mondays and Tuesdays until reading break. After reading break, he’ll be around Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He invites everyone to come by for a visit, talk about writing, or even to just come “shoot the shit.”

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ARTS

Martin Castro — Arts Editor

arts@ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Netflix Review //

CHARTS

SHUFFLE

1

Hop Along How Simple

AARON LEVY

2

Faith Healer Try ;-)

3

tUnE-yArDs I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life

CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy has finally started and finished Black Mirror, so here are some songs that relate one way or another to the groundbreaking, dystopian futuristic series!

Go Eagles!

4

Shopping The Official Body

5

Porches The House

6

Loka Northern Oscillations

7

Colleen A Flame My Love, A Frequency

8

Leo Sins Soul Love

9

Car 87 No Hope

10

Brandon Isaak Big City Back Country Blues

11

Shame Songs Of Praise

12

Ariel Pink Dedicated to Bobby Jameson

13

Technical Kidman Bend Everything

14

Termite TV Termite TV Demo

15

Chris-A-Riffic I Was at the Height of My Powers

16

Lindi Ortega Liberty

17

Miles Recommends Extended Play

18

Frankie Cosmos Jesse

19

John Maus Screen Memories

20

Daniel Romano NERVELESS

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SNAPPY & RELEVANT BYLINE

Cutting cookies: Netflix, and the rise of homogeneity in entertainment How our addiction to genres has crippled our ability to tell human stories.

Irma Thomas — It’s Raining I’ve been loving Irma Thomas’ somewhat snappier, Allen Toussaint penned, Detroit Cobras covered, “It’s Raining,” but this also classic 1972 romantic ballad was written by another man with a name you might recognize; not Ed, but Pat Sheeran, not spelled the same but phonetically homographic (pronounced the same, but different).

Dionne Warwick — Always Something There to Remind Me Dionne Warwick sang this original tune in 1963, and it’s since been covered numerous times, perhaps most notably by the 1980s group Naked Eyes, and the Warwick version is featured prominently in the series (?) finale of Black Mirror, appropriately titled “Black Museum,” wherein the secrets of the universe are revealed.

Sublime — Get Out Though the film starring the Black Mirror actor that features the title of this song has nothing to do with the subject matter of the song itself, I’m reaching, and the vocal performance on this Arrested Development lifted riff-based ditty is an all time fave of mine from the Nowellsinator.

Jessica Brown-Findlay — Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand) Not the original recording, but a positively harrowing version of the Thomas original, from the 15-million episode, where our heroine attempts to wow the judges with her meek and mellow vocal stylings, but faces instead the sexism and patriarchy that makes modern life such a minefield of power and subjugation.

MARTIN CASTRO ARTS IN REVIEW EDITOR

Last week —on Tuesday, I think— I watched all of Netflix’s The End of The F***ing World in one sitting. Granted, the Netflix Original production only runs eight episodes long with a run-time of around twenty minutes per episode. What’s interesting, though, is that my binge-watching is neither an isolated phenomenon among my age-group (or any agegroup, really), nor is it a new behaviour. The difference between binging through all of Breaking Bad, and binging through any of Netflix’s more recent original programing is clear: shows like The End of The F***ing World are made to be binged. This is apparent even in the way we’ve begun to speak about television.

We don’t crowd around the water cooler and excitedly tell our disinterested co-workers about the latest jaw-dropping episode, we tell them about the season.

Broadly speaking, television has very successfully encroached on the movie industry. On-demand entertainment providers like Netflix managed to build a platform which didn’t just blur the line between what a movie and a television show is, but it almost single-handedly decimated the DVD/blu-ray industry. Very few, if any, people buy copies of the latest Marvel Studios movie precisely because they know it will invariably pop up on Netflix, and in the meantime, there are digital copies available from just about every tech giant from Microsoft to Amazon.

Netflix, to its credit, has found a way to keep their audiences coming back for more through niche marketing. For example, Netflix has produced a lot of

foreign-language crime dramas.

I stopped counting after finding 20 of them. All were released within the past three years.

These wouldn’t be made if Netflix didn’t know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that people would watch them. Moreover, Netflix’ habit of breaking everything up into genres gives viewers a limited palette from which to choose. It blinds them to the possibility that there may be productions that don’t follow genre conventions.

This might not immediately seem problematic; the fact that people can find more of what they like ought to be a good thing, right? Once we take into account what’s happening on the big-screen, however, we realize there are consequences that have already begun to change the way we think about entertainment.

Moreover, it’s painfully evident that Hollywood just doesn’t know how to deal with the Netflix problem.

Now, television shows haven’t entirely replaced movies as entertainment. There are still theaterwide releases that people turn out in droves for. Marvel Studios’ entire catalogue of movies are a great example of theatre releases that still manage to be profitable. However, the problem lies in what these kinds of productions lead to. There is, among the viewing public, a divide between people who have grown accustomed to the kinds of productions that Marvel is emblematic of: genre-dependent narratives which are flashy and, for the most part, impatient in their direction, always cutting from one sharp bright scene of action to the next. Dialogue is pared down to soundbites. This isn’t just a problem with superhero movies, but they’re emblematic of the fact

that many of us rely on knowing what kind of movie we’re watching in order to digest its plot.

The problem rears its head when a movie like Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird hits the screen. A coming-of-age drama about a young girl in her last year of high-school isn’t ground-breaking. But it was definitely panned by many for being an “Oscar” movie, or for being slow. The film itself does break with conventions by telling a story which doesn’t really stick to a plot. The titular character stumbles through her own life trying to figure out what she wants, and by the end, she is a little closer to knowing what that is. That’s it.

No bad guys, no good guys. Just a headstrong girl, being a girl. Figuring out what it’s all about.

There’s drama in the film, but also comedy. Invariably, Netflix will stick it in the Drama section, and be done with it. However, the problem here, as with movies like Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! or Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman, is that we can’t really know what we’re getting, until we get it. Yes, there’s horror elements in some (Mother!), and comedy elements in others (Birdman, and Lady Bird), but for the most part, what ties these films together isn’t that their plot is similar, but that they give us a glimpse into how people deal with life once it’s been thrust upon them.

Whether or not that’s the bar by which we judge a film to be “intellectual” (and therefore “boring,” or “self-inflated and not for me”) is up to you.

ARTS

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2018

Podcast Review //

Southern business baptists

Netflix Review //

The Open House probably won’t find any buyers anytime soon

The Entreleadership podcast offers quality business education outside of the classroom.

PAUL OKANO CONTRIBUTOR

Powerpoints and group projects that explain market share and present recommendations for investors are fun and all, but the fairly sterile environment of the classroom often leaves me longing for the gritty reality of a full-time, nine-to-five job.

A place where failure is rewarded with more than a low grade point average, it’s the livelihood of yourself and family, as you are fired, and find yourself down and out, scrambling frantically to scrounge up enough dough to pay the bills at the end of the month. The school of hard knocks is unforgiving, yet it’s the teacher whose lessons often last the longest. This is what the Entreleadership podcast offers, and why I love it so much. The guests featured on it have been knocked down a few times, but nonetheless got up, and kept walking.

Dave Ramsey, founder of Ramsey Solutions, the company of which Entreleadership and its podcast is a part, is a prime example of this.

Having gone into bankruptcy once, he bounced back to start a business that now has more than 500 employees, and more than $100 million in revenue as of September 2015. His 2011 book, entitled Entreleadership, has an online description which reads: “What does it take to build and grow a successful business? Here is everything you wanted to know, but didn’t know who to ask. It’s 20 years of practical business wisdom from the trenches!”

As a result of others having mucked around in the trenches, so to speak, we can learn from them, and then avoid dirtying our trousers. The Entreleadership podcast debuted in the same year as the book, and was initially a means of garnering attention and attendees for Dave Ramsey’s Entreleadership live events. It has now been downloaded millions of times, and has arguably expanded the English language.

A combination of entrepreneur and leadership, the Entreleadership podcast teaches the meaning of both of these words as lived and felt in the lives of successful people. I had initially come to it with

an interest in business, assuming it would give me information not readily available in the classroom, and have been grateful to discover that it offers much, much more.

Each episode features the host (currently Ken Coleman, formerly Chris LoCurto and Chris Hogan) in conversation with a guest speaker for the episode’s feature. This is also occasionally prefaced by teachings from Dave in a recording of a past address.

The medium of podcasts offers an intimate perspective into conversations and lives that I might not otherwise get to learn from, and interact with. You can listen to conversations held with the likes of Mark Cuban, Robert Kiyosaki, and Tim Ferriss. While the majority of guests are heavily business-oriented, other speakers have included “America’s Rabbi” Daniel Lapin; retired lieutenant general of the United States Marine Corps George Flynn; former assistant NBA coach Brendan Suhr; and others. Such a diverse group of speakers has undoubtedly expanded my view of what entrepreneurship and leadership really mean.

My only complaint would be the way marketing is handled. Listeners probably spend five minutes hearing about how they should go to Dave’s Entreleadership live events, or how they need to buy the guest speaker’s new book, and so on. With my lack of a business, and ownership of student loans, I’m perhaps not the target demographic for the show’s marketing arm. I must admit, however, that I do see the wisdom in Entreleadership’s marketing strategy. I guess that is the price one must pay for quality information.

The podcast is now in its sixth year and has released nearly 250 episodes. It is recorded in their studio in Nashville, Tennessee.

Hearing this American perspective from the Deep South offering their Christian point of view on “entreleadership” is refreshing. It’s a great way to get the inside scoop on some of the great minds of today, and spice up your commute or gym time. A solid 9 out of 10.

KAT MARUSIAK MANAGING EDITOR

The following review contains spoilers.

2018 looks like it has the potential to be a great year for scary movies. As a huge horror buff, I’ve been checking out whatever trailers I can find, and quite a few have looked promising.

(Although these days, I never get my hopes up too high.) One of these was for a Netflix film released on January 19: The Open House.

The main gist of the plot is as follows: after his father is killed in an accident, our protagonist, Logan (Dylan Minnette) and his mother, Naomi (Piercey Dalton) are left in a bad financial situation, so they move to her rich sister’s old place, which is currently for sale. The only catch is that they must not be there whenever an open house is held to show potential buyers the place.

The house happens to be in a secluded mountain town (because of course it is), and as expected, there are some potentially suspicious characters: a weird old lady who lives in the next house through the woods, the pushy realtors, a man named Chris at the grocery store who seems like a kind, well-intentioned guy, but is he really? You never know, the whole neighbourhood might turn out to be really nice.

The first half of the movie isn’t bad. Although it definitely feels like a B-rate film, the acting is actually decent, and the soundtrack is pretty well done, doing a great job creating atmosphere and building tension

— albeit this built-up tension rarely leads to anything more than someone innocuously walking by for an attempted jump scare, or absolutely nothing at all.

The scenery is beautiful, and some of the shots are quite captivating. As for the story, I found myself genuinely intrigued in the beginning.

Weird things keep happening in the house, but no one can determine the cause. However, the mother notes that it doesn’t feel random, but “personal.” The old lady, it turns out, suffers from Alzheimer’s, thus seeming strange, and a possible red herring. But she had also recently lost her husband, and was always making insidious comments about how death never leaves you, it follows you around. Was this perhaps a supernatural problem?

It would explain the antagonist’s ability to get around and do whatever they pleased while never being seen or heard (unless it suits them).

Following horror tropes, all the instances in the movie’s first half led to a reveal, and a final 20 minutes that left me wishing I’d looked up a little bit more about this movie before watching.

After trusting Chris despite not really having any reason to do so yet, turns out he was nice. So Logan finds him dead outside. A man then knocks Logan out, covers him in something — possibly gasoline — and then just leaves him there. He ties up Naomi, and breaks all of her fingers on one hand, possibly both, then leaves again for some reason I never quite caught (if one ex-

ists). She screams for Logan until he wakes up and comes to the rescue, only to quickly leave her again. He then manages to accidentally stab her later on while attempting to save her. She tells him to run, falling down to presumably die. He runs and, after resting a few moments, he hears a noise behind him. He screams for his life, and the mystery murderer kills him. Logan lies on the ground dead. Another shot of the house. The end.

It’s like the writers got bored towards the end, so they just inserted some random, big, scary-looking figure in black, and never let the audience see their face, or hear a name, or discover any kind of clue as to their motives. Psychopaths, can’t understand ‘em, oh well.

All of The Open House felt like nothing but a bunch of empty promises. Everything made to seem to matter was meaningless, no real answers for anything were given, and chances for some actual originality were sadly ignored. The audience isn’t left with any kind of closure, just a hollow feeling of disappointment over an opportunity wasted for this to have been anything more than just a waste of time.

A lot of B-rate horror flicks manage to be entertaining, despite being known as “bad” films. But, in large part because it had the potential to not be but blew it, this one is just plain bad. Hopefully Netflix learns to differentiate between the two.

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I’m sorry,The Cascade,

I’m afraid I can’t do that.