The Strand | Volume 61, Issue 2

the

STRAND VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER VOLUME 61, ISSUE 2 | 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

Piecing together the past kathy du news page 3

The Strand at TIFF

The boomers and the world

harrison wade and mena fouda arts and culture page 13

valentine lynch opinions page 7

02 NEWS

EDITOR | ROBIN DINESH NEWS@THESTRAND.CA

“Coffee is where it begins at Caffiends” How the volunteer-run cafe operates and promotes sustainability robin dinesh news editor

The Strand sat down with Grace King, co-manager at Caffiends, to learn more about Vic’s volunteer-run café. As a model of environmentally and socially conscious business, how does Caffiends promote the environmental stewardship, fair trade, and social justice?

Can you describe the Caffiends mission?

Caffiends began 12 years ago as a coffee cart in Old Vic called “The Human Bean.” The mission of Caffiends is to create the least waste possible, have the strongest impact on our community, and source things as directly as possible.

How do you uphold your commitment to, and promotion of, environmental sustainability within the community?

We are known for our signature no-takeout cups program: we don’t have paper cups in our café. We never have. We never will. If a customer wants to take [one of our mugs] outside the café, they can take it anywhere on campus, and bring it back to the crate outside our door at any time.

Last year we had a volunteer social that was focused on the idea of carbon privilege. So we all talked about the different areas of our lives in which we accrue a carbon footprint and analyzed every area, from the gym to our clothes and our food. We put it together to find out just how much of a carbon footprint we had as individuals. That was a huge step for Caffiends, we’d never talked about it on such a large level. For a fundraiser last year, we stepped away from the Toronto bubble and we donated funds to a group called Raven Trust that funds Indigenous legal cases in protection of the environment. We’re trying

to expand our platform more to include an awareness of environmental justice, not just coffee, and this year I’m hoping to continue doing more of the same.

You’re an entirely volunteer-run cafe. What makes this model work? What are the challenges and benefits of this model?

We have a body of about 160 or more volunteers at Caffiends that rotate through the café on a weekly basis. Every volunteer has an hour-long shift per week with two other shift mates per hour. So on the half hour, every hour, three shift mates leave and three shift mates come in. This model relies on trust and interest, and willingness to contribute to the Caffiends community. It is a logistical nightmare sometimes with so many people coming in and out of the café. But we’ve developed a bit of a miracle here in the café where we have committed volunteers who truly want to be in the space for at least an hour a week, learn skills, and make friends at the same time.

The whole café operates on trust. From hiring 160 volunteers a semester, to hoping people will bring back their mugs, it is all about trust, and I think it’s kind of beautiful.

Your products are all ethically sourced and cruelty-free.

Can you explain why you have chosen to offer the products that you have?

We have some wonderful suppliers. Chocosol is our coffee provider, and they have Fair-Trade certification and work on a direct trade model where they source the coffee directly from the Oaxaca region of Mexico. Our new espresso bean, Detour, works on a direct trade model where they visit the producers, they know who they are, they have direct importation, and they roast in Toronto. [This also goes for] our tea producers. Our baked goods are all vegan,

from Sweets from the Earth and Tori’s Bakeshop, both located in Toronto. So everything that we source is from within as small of a radius as we can try [to source]. Coffee obviously doesn’t grow in Canada, so there will always be that [issue]. But we make sure that our coffee roasters are in Toronto, and know their suppliers and their producers well, and treat them with equitable wages and standards.

The reason we care about this is because not only are we just a café that wants good coffee, I think we’re a café that wants the people who come into the café to leave after their time here with a better stance on their role as an average citizen, as a consumer. My goal is for volunteers to leave with a more rounded perspective on what it means to be an environmentally conscious citizen, because coffee isn’t where it ends. Coffee is where it begins at Caffiends.

Is there anything else we can expect from the team at Caffiends this year?

This year, we are paying more attention to the language that our volunteers are using in the space. We’re trying to educate them more about using gender-neutral language in customer service. Our training videos have been re-done this summer to include a new segment on this and encourage our volunteers to avoid gendered terms that slip out so easily in customer service. We care about this because we want the space to be safe for everyone. [We want it to be] a place where people do feel like they can stay, learn, and meet people who also care about the environment, equity, and social justice, where they can participate and share their experiences as well.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Ontario government demands free speech protections on campus Funding cuts threatened for non compliance nicholas freer associate news editor

On August 30, the Government of Ontario announced a directive obliging every publicly-assisted college or university to “develop and publicly post its own free speech policy by January 1, 2019” or face funding cuts.

In the statement, the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities required each policy to adhere to a minimum standard set by the government but modelled after the University of Chicago’s Statement on the Principles of Free Expression. The four principles directly assert that universities are places of discussion and free inquiry, that they should not shield students from offensive ideas or opinions, that members of the university are free to criticize these views but not allowed to interfere with their expression, and that illegal speech is not permitted.

To monitor the development of these policies, an annual report will be submitted starting next September to record the level of compliance from each university.

The Progressive Conservative Party’s fake news service, Ontario News Now, stated in a video posted to Twitter that the budget cuts would come in the form of a “reduction in operating grant funding,” and that, on the level of student action, students who did not respect freedom of speech would be subject to disciplinary measures from their university.

While there has been some criticism of the government’s statement from individual members of student bodies and faculty at a variety of universities, the statement has, officially, been accepted.

The Council of Ontario Universities, of which the University of Toronto is a member, issued a statement on the

same day that the directive was released: “Ontario universities share the Ontario government’s interest in protecting freedom of speech…we welcome further discussion with the government on how freedom of expression may continue to be protected.”

According to the President of UofT, Meric Gertler, the University of Toronto has already made efforts to protect free expression with their own statements and policies.

UofT News quoted President Gertler as saying that “our principles [of free speech] have served us well and must continue to guide our practices.” The Dean of Arts and Science, David Cameron, affirmed President Gertler’s words in his own statement, writing: “universities are places where many of society’s stresses and strains are experienced first or most acutely. As institutions of learning and discovery, they are also places which, uniquely, protect academic freedom and depend upon free expression to achieve their mission.”

Thus, the direct effect of the Ford government’s free speech announcement and its affirmation from the Council of Ontario Universities is unlikely to change life on campus in a notable way, as the protections requested from the government have been in place since the 1990s.

These protections, found at freespeech.utoronto.ca, explain that the 1992 Statement of Institutional Purpose and the Statement on Free Speech form the bedrock of UofT’s free speech protections—which were further expanded upon in the 2006 Statement on Equity, Diversity, and Excellence. In the Statement on Free Speech, which is similar to the University of Chicago’s Principles, UofT states, “all members of the University must have as a prerequisite freedom of speech and expression” and that “the University must allow the fullest range of debate. It should not limit that debate

by preordaining conclusions, or punishing or inhibiting the reasonable exercise of free speech.”

However, President Gertler also noted that “it’s important that members of our community understand the university’s policies on how we address these issues.” Further-

AN ANNUAL REPORT WILL BE SUBMITTED STARTING NEXT SEPTEMBER TO RECORD THE LEVEL OF COMPLIANCE FROM EACH UNIVERSITY more, a requirement from the government announcement is that “existing student discipline measures apply to students whose actions are contrary to the policy.” This requirement is already in line with the University’s Policy on the Disruption of Meetings which condemns those who prevent speakers or campus activities from taking place. However, the specifics of these disciplinary measures are not defined in the document.

Much of the criticism directed at the Ford government so far has not been an objection to the protection of free speech itself but rather the method of enforcement. In the Opinion sections of The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and The Varsity, writers have noted that the threat to withhold funds is a step too far into university affairs. Nonetheless, though the government’s announcement has yet to be formally legislated or further defined by the Premier’s office, it appears as though UofT is already compliant to the intentions of the announcement.

NEWS 03

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

Piecing together the past Exploring the archives at Victoria College

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victoria university archives, ephemera collection

kathy du contributor

Textbooks and Wikipedia articles give easy-to-access and quick overviews about a person or an institution. However, such articles often miss the intimate, and at times inaccurate, details found in diaries, letters, and drawings. Archives, which are collections of primary resources such as photographs or manuscripts, provide the evidence used to interpret the information that goes into textbooks and obituaries.

Victoria University has two archival collections available to students. The Victoria University Archives holds the University’s records of permanent historical value, and the E.J. Pratt Special Collections holds primary documents from notable alumni such as Augusta Stowe-Gullen and Northrop Frye. The archivists and researchers at Victoria University do wonderful work and make insightful discoveries. For example, a previous archivist at Vic discovered an uncatalogued box of letters (dating from 1820 to 1869) written by William Egley, a British painter who made portraits of prominent families such as the Churchills.

Browsing the complete selection of the holdings that are available at Vic can be done easily online. The Discover Archives Portal contains holdings of all 11 of UofT’s archives. Descriptions of photographs contained in the archives can be searched on the Photograph Database and scans of certain photographs can be viewed in Digital Collections. A short biography as well as the type of documents within specific collections in the E.J. Pratt Special Collections can be found on www.library.vicu.utoronto.ca/collections/special_collections. Ephemeral material detailing the history of Victoria University such as programs, tickets, brochures, and pamphlets, or descriptions of such material can be found on www.library. vicu.utoronto.ca/archives/ephemera.

Records from the special collections can be viewed at Emmanuel College Library and E.J. Pratt Library by appointment only. Those interested in conducting research are also required to complete an application form and must contact the archives at Vic through their email at archives@vicu.utoronto.ca or call them at 416-585-4562. Access to these collections is available to all members of the public regardless of occupation or level of study; however, due to the fragility of many of the materials within the archives, certain collections are likely to be prioritized for individuals with legitimate research requests.

If research in the archives interests you, careers that work within libraries, museums, and galleries, known as GLAM, may be a great fit. Victoria University’s Records Manager and Archivist, Jessica Todd, received an Honours BA in History and a Masters of Information degree focusing on archives and records management. She suggests that while the specific undergraduate degree isn’t of utmost importance, it is beneficial to prioritize attention to detail and to develop strong skills in reading, writing, research, critical thinking, communication, organization, and computer-literacy. While Victoria University is not currently taking any volunteers, there are many GLAM organizations outside of the University with opportunities that can be found by researching online.

There are also several courses, such as VIC184, that provide students with the opportunity to research within archives. Anne Urbancic, professor of VIC184, teaches courses that involve working with archives because she believes that archival research gives students the confidence to look at sources beyond those printed, and to recognize that while primary sources may not be as valid, they’re still important, stating: “I would like my students to recognize that the story is just as valuable as the official history.”

Alana Eliasmith, a former VIC184 student, said that “doing research in the special collections gave [her] a glimpse into little history that often gets left out of

textbooks. It was a fascinating opportunity to look through the minutiae of life in another time and find connections between that world and ours today.”

Todd echoes similar thoughts about the value of archival research in terms of the unique, unfiltered, first-person accounts that add a personal addition to our understanding of history. The vastness of history means that there are always new discoveries to be made and discussions to be had through interaction with primary sources. While primary sources may not always be entirely truthful or objective, they are necessary to better understand the events of the past. She also advises that patience is key in archival work as many of the documents are fragmented or lack context. Exploring primary resources to find patterns that build a narrative takes time and effort, as well as an understanding of possible bias. Thus, in addition to patience, prior consultation of secondary resources and working alongside a librarian are necessary additional steps.

Doing archival research through the resources available at Victoria University offers many opportunities to discover a wealth of knowledge that goes beyond traditional textbooks. A quick browse through the scans available on the Digital Collections provides an interesting look into a unique part of history.

27TH ANNUAL

VIC BOOK SALE For more information call 416-585-4585 www.vicbooksale.utoronto.ca vic.booksale@utoronto.ca Proceeds go to Victoria University Library

NEW OPENING DAY HOURS: Thursday September 20: 2 pm – 8 pm* Friday September 21: 10 am – 8 pm Saturday September 22: 11 am – 6 pm Sunday September 23: 11 am – 6 pm Monday September 24: 10 am – 8 pm

in Old Vic 91 Charles Street West (Museum Subway Exit) *(First Day Only: Admission $5, Students FREE with I.D.)

04 EDITORIAL

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF | AINSLEY DOELL AND SABRINA PAPAS EDITOR@THESTRAND.CA

Engaging in our community

the

strand V O L U M E

What it means to be a citizen of Victoria College

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editors-in-chief

ainsley doell sabrina papas

editor@thestrand.ca

| hana nikcevic

business manager

business@thestrand.ca

mishail adeel

news

news@thestrand.ca

robin dinesh

opinions

opinions@thestrand.ca

georgia lin

features

features@thestrand.ca

rebecca gao

science

science@thestrand.ca

tanuj ashwin kumar

arts and culture

artsandculture@thestrand.ca harrison wade stranded

stranded@thestrand.ca

leo morgenstern

copy editing

copy@thestrand.ca

tamara frooman

design

design@thestrand.ca

jay bawar

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photo@thestrand.ca

hana nikcevic

art

art@thestrand.ca

mia carnevale

web

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eric mcgarry

video

annika hocieniec sonya roma

video@thestrand.ca podcast

strandcast@thestrand.ca

samantha greco jasmine ng

editorial assistants

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ainsley doell editor-in-chief

contributors cameron davies, marjan dian, kathy du, sumeeta farrukh, mena fouda, tom fraser, nikki frazer,

nicholas freer, ritika lal, michal leckie, valentine lynch, wilfred moeschter, terese mason pierre,

hannah stroud, erica sung, annie truuvert copy editors

alyssa dibattista, nicholas freer, arin klein, max nisbeth design team jay bawar, molly kay, sabrina papas illustrations mia carnevale, grace king, tanuj ashwin kumar, fiona tung photos marvel studios, hana nikcevic, tiff, victoria univer-

sity archives, walt disney studios cover illustration mia carnevale

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

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

The Strand is a proud member of the Canadian University Press (CUP).

Our offices are located at 150 Charles St. W., Toronto, ON, M5S 1K9. Please direct enquiries by email to editor@thestrand.ca. Submissions are welcome and may be edited for taste, brevity, and legality.

FOLLOW US @STRANDPAPER WWW.THESTRAND.CA

In 2015, the Victoria College application asked: “What does it mean to be a good citizen?” As another year begins, I think it’s important to take a moment to reflect on this question and how we can implement the answer on our own campus.

Whatever your connection to the university, reading this paper is engagement with the Victoria College community. We all share this space, and participating in this community comes with rights and responsibilities.

Victoria College offers students a myriad of resources: academic supports, clubs, levies, and more. In exchange for these resources, we have a responsibility to respect our community, and to contribute where and when we can. In the spaces in which you live, you have the opportunity to learn and to teach. Some of that teaching is as simple as leading by example and laying the groundwork for future community members.

The benefits of extracurricular involvement are touted far and wide. It’s probably the advice that I’ve received most since entering university: join things! You’ll meet friends, you’ll find a healthy work-life balance, and it’ll get you out of your comfort zone. You’ll get to know people outside of your program and form connections that can help you even beyond your undergrad.

While all of these are valid reasons to become involved with our community, they focus on how you, personally, can benefit. Becoming an active member of your community, however, also means that you’re helping weave the fabric of a community of student support.

You can become a part of something that will enrich someone else’s student experience. When you attend a Vic event, think about all of the students that volunteered their time to give you

that experience. Often, getting involved on campus means joining an organization run entirely by students. Student government organizations see high turnover: if you have the time, energy, and commitment, holding a leadership position is entirely feasible. Not everyone has the time or the resources to be able to devote enough time to sit on the VUSAC executive or to run a levy, but there are so many different ways to be involved.

Contributing to the community is as simple as voting in the upcoming VUSAC elections.

In the Spring elections of 2018, 83 percent of Victoria College students did not vote. When you hear criticism of the college and our student government, ask yourself: what are you doing about it? Voting in the Fall and Spring elections and following student politics is about understanding and shaping the decisions that affect what resources are available to you as a student.

When I’ve heard students complain about the Victoria College community, they’ve usually not been interested in doing anything about it.

They have problems with our student government, but they would never go anywhere near the VUSAC office. They have problems with the ideas being promoted on campus, but they aren’t using their voices to try and change the dialogue. The burden is not on any single individual to change everything, but how can we change anything without conversation?

Campus engagement is about conversation.

University campuses have proven time and time again to be an effective locus for social change, but how can that happen without an engaged student body? Join a club, cast your ballot, and ask questions: there is room for everyone to make a difference. The best way to get what you want out of your university experience is to put the energy in.

OPINIONS 05

EDITOR | GEORGIA LIN OPINIONS@THESTRAND.CA

Dear first-years: Can you trust UofT? Why pursue a university degree here? annie truuvert contributor

So, ACORN just processed the entirety of your bank account. Now what? As you step into your first lecture at Con Hall with a thousand other firstyear students gripping their brand-new notebooks, you realize you’ve put an immense amount of trust into UofT’s bureaucratic system and its people to give you the tools you need to graduate and enter the “real world.”

Settling into your carefully chosen lecture seat, you give up your existentially confused and mildly hungover head for the next hour to the figure at the front of the room. Maybe it’s a tenured professor, or perhaps it’s a post-doc instructor still navigating their career. Maybe they believe they can change your mind, and that you can change the world, or maybe they’re just going through the motions to get home. No matter their state of mind or their ultimate goals, you are about to write down whatever comes out of their mouth.

At some point, you’ll question how much your lecture notes will actually help you out in this socalled “real world.” Why are you getting a university degree? What are these “tools” that you’re supposedly about to gain? Perhaps it’s a job guarantee. UofT will take you in, assign you a ten-digit number, and churn you out, fully ready to take on the workforce.

You just need the credits and the certificate, and you’re good to go. Yet at the same time, your friends are telling you that your desired degree in philosophy and comparative literature won’t get you any-

where. You can’t help but think, with all of these maybes, that maybe you shouldn’t have just poured your life savings into UofT’s hands.

The illusion of a “teen movie university experience” shatters for everyone. In first year, I realized I wanted to change programs and most of my courses would not count toward my new degree. I made new friends, and lost some, too. In second year, I watched as professors, who I had up until that point perceived as gods, clashed over the Jordan Peterson scandal. A friend came to lecture covered in bruises from one of the protests. In third year, a friend transferred to UofT because of mental health problems, and when their equivalent courses did not transfer, they had to retake 100-level courses that would not count for their GPA or breadth requirements. I watched my highest grade fall to my lowest ever because the professor needed to make the course appear harder than it was. I watched as the proposal for UofT’s new Mandated Leave of Absence mental health policy passed, despite pushback from the majority of people around me and recurring student protests.

So how much trust should you put into your university experience to get you where you want to go? It seems like we are supposed to pour all of our energy into our academic lives, especially as we watch our yearly budget dwindle after purchasing winter semester textbooks. But perhaps it’s not entirely about trusting your registrar, TAs, or Degree Explorer. Perhaps it’s not about using your Bachelor’s degree to get a job. Perhaps it’s not about essays and club meetings shaping who you are, but about

shaping your own university experience in order to know yourself better—to get to know who you’re going to become—because there’s no guarantee that your degree will get you the life you’ve dreamed.

Navigating your university experience requires learning to trust yourself, and that’s not taught to us. This trust fall has to be actively pursued.

Learn for the sake of learning. These next years may define how you shape yourself, and can create a foundation that you will have when everything else seems to fall apart. Your decisions are up to you to make, and your assignments are up to you to complete. Make sure you become who you’ll want to stand by. Your time here is not so much a matter of trusting ACORN or the world of academia, but trusting yourself to make the right choices when the system lacks transparency. Push yourself to uncover the truth when you find inequities that permeate the system. Even with safeguards set in place, it’s ultimately up to you to be informed, look for flaws and point them out, and make the necessary changes. And remember: your professors, TAs, and college want you to succeed, despite the unfairness of university rules and structures. Choosing to treat UofT as the enemy will only bring out its worst elements. Talk one-on-one with people in the community whenever you can. Trusting UofT, from my experience, comes down to the quality of these personal connections. When you can, take courses and opportunities you believe your role models would take. Get to know yourself. Pouring your savings into ACORN is an investment in yourself, so be selfish. That’s what you’re paying for

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| hana nikcevic

06 OPINIONS

EDITOR | GEORGIA LIN OPINIONS@THESTRAND.CA

Maintaining mental health in first year Overachieving is a myth that needs to be busted erica sung contributor

My first year wasn’t great. Most of my friends shared this sentiment, although no one said it was terrible either. We agreed, however, that knowing that the transition into university is difficult doesn’t make it any easier. I don’t mean to make it sound as though first year is agony—I don’t look back on any of my experiences with regret—but there are certain challenges that just can’t be easily overcome: maintaining my mental health being my biggest obstacle.

For most of first year, I was losing myself in everything new, even in a city I had known my whole life. The high school from which I graduated had a competitive academic environment, therefore I didn’t find UofT’s to be extremely different, with one exception. While the smaller quarters of high school tend to have individual accomplishments reverberate through a few sets of halls, UofT’s gigantic student body seems to generate an overwhelming atmosphere of determination and overachievement.

For someone new to UofT, and university as a whole, this is a scary thing to face.

At times it felt easy to be anonymous, since such a large space provides room for individuality and expressing the aspects of your identity that you may have felt compelled to hide before. However, being anonymous can also mean feeling like your identity is insignificant, and what you do doesn’t make much of an impact. Your work directly contributes to your success, but the motivation to do it can be difficult to access when you are now the sole person accountable for your actions.

Despite trying to shed the notion that my worth is determined by my grades, it was hard to forget when everyone else seemed to excel. I was beginning to inflate the importance of my academics and forgetting that I’m a person before I’m a student.

For the first time in my life, I was realizing my autonomy as an adult, and I didn’t know how to appreciate what came with it.

Ultimately, what took the biggest toll on my mental health was not taking enough time to be myself. Academics came before anything else, and any difficulties I was experiencing in school pervaded other aspects of my life, even unrelated leisurely activities that could no longer make me happy.

I wish I had spent more time with friends outside of an

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academic environment, indulged in hobbies more often, focused on anything but school for a moment and reveled in the fact that being a student is only one part of my life. Furthermore, I wish I had kept in mind that my mental health isn’t something to be minimized, but rather something to be considered alongside everything I do. Being mentally healthy isn’t a straightforward path—it’s a means of readjusting to the circumstances of your life as they change, and entering university requires a major overhaul.

If you’re feeling like it’s taking too long to get accustomed to the environment, don’t be discouraged. Like anything, it takes time, and in the interim, stay grounded in what is familiar.

Engage in what interests you—that’s where extracurriculars are especially important, since they give you a place to meet new

| hana nikcevic

people in a setting that’s comfortable for you. Keep in touch with friends from back home and catch up with them; it gives you an opportunity to be yourself with ease and talk about the anxieties of university with someone who will definitely sympathize.

University doesn’t give you much time to take it easy, so it’s in your best interest to learn how to fit into it. First year involves being chucked into a hectic environment and learning how to cope with being busier than ever while also navigating a social life and creating a strong self-identity that is imperative to your growth as an adult. It would be hard for anyone. Don’t expect yourself to become familiar with the school overnight. You’ll be just fine.

The falsehood of "Better Local Government"

Doug Ford's bill to slash Toronto's city council hurts student representation cameron davies and tom fraser contributors

On July 26, 2018, Doug Ford’s Ontario government announced its intention to slash Toronto’s City Council from 44 wards to only 25, throwing this fall’s municipal election into disarray mere months before voting day on October 22. The Ford government justified this move by claiming that, from Ford’s personal experience, Toronto’s city council is “increasingly dysfunctional and inefficient,” and that “[a] streamlined Toronto City Council would empower Toronto's mayor and help ensure [...] an efficient and effective municipal government.” Despite coating the announcement in language of efficiency and fiscal responsibility, Ford’s move appears to be vengeance towards both the council and city that had stood in the way of both his own agenda and that of his late brother and former Toronto mayor, Rob Ford. The emphasis on empowering the mayor is a pointed response to the council’s censure of Rob in 2013, and the reduction of the individual representation of Torontonians comes after the city rejected Doug Ford’s politics—first during his failed bid for mayor in 2014, and now as Premier of Ontario in 2018.

As a response to Ford’s cuts, the City Council of Toronto voted on August 20 to challenge the Ford government in court. While many councillors have emerged as strong defenders of local democracy, the response from Mayor John Tory has been lacklustre at best. Sensing the urgent political mood, he eventually came out as an ‘opponent’ of the cuts, but only because of their timing—his frustrations are not with the re-

duced representation, but rather with the process. As the provincial press release suggests, Tory would have much to gain from Bill 5—a smaller council would make it far easier for him to imprint his agenda onto Toronto, and he has shown himself willing to work closely with Ford in the past.

These cuts are especially harmful to students of Toronto’s three downtown universities, including UofT. At the base level, the council cuts greatly undermine the representation of all citizens of Toronto by increasing the average ratio of councillor-constituent from one councillor per 58,119 citizens to one councillor per 109,263. Compounding matters, the downtown neighbourhoods where many students live are projected to grow much more quickly than the rest of the city over the coming decades. The municipal government was scheduled to implement a council expansion that followed a new 47-ward boundary model in time for the municipal election. This plan was intended to increase representation in downtown by adding three new wards to student-heavy areas. The 47-ward boundary is no longer intact, as Ford’s “Better Local Government Act” has passed, reshaping the format of council to specifically under-represent and undermine the downtown core. The bill’s benefactors are mainly comprised of councillors who represent the inner suburbs, and many of them support the cuts. Student voices will simply be dampened under the new council model. If Ford wins in court, expect student issues such as transit, affordable housing, and cycling to become shelved as council becomes weaker and increasingly aligned with the goals of the Ford government.

Ultimately, this legislation and the ensuing reaction has shown that Toronto needs strong leadership, which is not being provided by its current mayor. The Ford government is governing directly in opposition to Toronto, and John Tory is willing to be an active partner in diminishing Toronto’s autonomy. Toronto needs leadership that will forcefully stand against policies aimed at setting our city back. It is imperative for Torontonians, especially university students who may have recently turned of voting age, to elect a strong progressive candidate as mayor this October. Polling suggests Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto’s former Chief City Planner, is the only forward-thinking candidate with a shot at toppling Tory. When you vote this fall, consider that Tory, the incumbent, doesn’t seem strongly opposed to Toronto operating as a mere creature of Doug Ford’s Ontario. Keesmaat has shown through her actions and words that she will be a strong voice for Toronto, and that she has a vision for Toronto as a modern world city. Go out and vote in October to preserve our democracy.

Update: After Ford’s cuts were declared unconstitutional in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the Premier invoked section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows him to proceed in spite of the ruling. By using this “notwithstanding clause,” the Ford government is admitting that the council cuts violate Torontonians’ constitutional right to freedom of expression. Ford has decided that exacting revenge on Toronto City Council is more important than Canadians’ fundamental freedoms.

OPINIONS 07

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

The boomers and the world Environmental devastation was caused by the boomer generation valentine lynch contributor

In 1945, the world changed. World War Two had officially ended, the ink of the politicians’ signatures had dried. Dozens of cities lay smouldering.

Two were nuclear wastes. The United States had emerged as a superpower and the Soviet Union was readying as a foil. Sixty million people were dead who should not have died.

Between 1945 and 1965, there was a huge spike in births worldwide. Soldiers returned home, got married, and began to reproduce in rapid numbers. The global population skyrocketed, and the children who represented this rise grew up, grew old, and took over the world while they were doing it. For decades, the Boomers have had undue influence in the world, mostly because of their demographic power. Even when most other Boomers have retired or are close to retirement, the current American president—the socalled “leader of the free world”—is one of them.

In the 50 years since they came of age at 18 in the United States, they've consistently exploited the world's resources for their own benefit. In the 1960s, they created disposable culture to reduce the need to clean; plastic plates, napkins, packaging, clothes, and industrial parts were produced under the guise of efficiency. Now, 50 years later, over a million people in India live in landfills while a plastic island the size of Texas floats in the Pacific Ocean. This attitude of disposability was so seductive that they even applied it to our planet,

falsely convincing themselves that the same factory manufacturing model could work on Earth’s resources. Lawmakers from the Boomer generation passed legislation in the U.S. Congress that irresponsibly used more and more fossil fuels while simultaneously claiming that the science behind climate change “wasn't in yet.” Furthermore, the American Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 provided $25 billion to create the Interstate Highway System—that’s $25 billion to promote the use of cars and, by extension, fossil fuels. Pesticides and herbicides were sprinkled onto global farmland like seasons of monsoon rain and they had the audacity to call it “agricultural progress.” The runoff seeped into wild terrain where plants drank the chemicals as if they were water; the birds then ate those plants and died from the harmful substances they had inadvertently consumed. DDT alone decimated entire populations of bald eagles, pelicans, falcons, and ospreys. The slow decay of biodiversity and natural resources was a major side effect of the Boomers’ “agricultural progress” that ignored any semblance of sustainable practices. Whole forests were razed and when the soil washed away, this was a mystery and a problem for someone else to fix. All of the Boomers' problems are for someone else to fix.

Now that the consequences of their actions have moved into the public eye, the Boomers are conspicuously absent. They are retired, dead, or just “too old for this.” If none of those excuses work, they can always say that they didn't know,

or that no one could have known. They could have known. It should have been glaringly obvious that the plastic was not just a mere production fad, and obvious that soaking the ground in industrial strength chemicals would result in irreparable damages. Obvious that once there were no longer plants to hold it in place, the soil would just wash away. They just didn't want to know.

Collectively, the Boomer generation is a powerful force of destruction. The era of their childhood was one of hope and prosperity; the Allies had won the war, and we were invincible. They could not adjust to a world in which they could fail as fallible human beings, and that was their downfall. As Earth’s temperatures and seas rise, resulting in an increased amount of natural disasters and creating whirlpools of devastating storms and societal chaos, we will want someone to blame.

As birds fall from the sky because their food and lungs have been poisoned by pesticides and herbicides, we will want someone to blame. As the surges of refugees fleeing environmental catastrophes come knocking at our borders, because the Boomers cultivated a post-war, saviour-like image in themselves, we will want someone to blame.

As we ourselves become refugees fighting over the last scraps of land and food, we will want someone to blame. As the world inevitably and irreversibly changes around and within us, we will know who is to blame. They will be long gone by then.

illustration

| fiona tung

08 FEATURES

How

to stop a leak

EDITOR | REBECCA GAO FEATURES@THESTRAND.CA

A closer look at Universal Basic Income ritika lal contributor

What is Universal Basic Income?

In theory, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an unconditional, no-strings-attached, flat payment made by a government to all citizens as a form of welfare.

The questions of its implications and implementation carry ambiguity and are debated globally. Currently, there are two main philosophies around how a UBI should work: The first philosophy believes that a UBI is about ending poverty, the concomitant social and economic issues, and the stigma of aid by making payments exclusively to low-income citizens. The second philosophy targets irreversible systemic changes and antipoverty mechanisms by introducing a truly universal payment—one that goes to everyone regardless of income.

The idea of UBI has gained steam because it has a lot of potential. It would lay out ground rules for what it means to be a part of society, ensure that those boundaries are respected, and compensate unpaid labour. Many in Silicon Valley and on the political left see it as a solution to the unprecedented level of economic and social disruption caused by artificial intelligence and the surge in in-work poverty. A UBI can also function as a way of expanding the safety net in preparation for a future where technological growth no longer means more jobs for humans. The unconditional nature of UBI also promotes improved working conditions, contributing to the community, and autonomy in spending while cutting through levels of bureaucracy that can hinder access to aid. Many also see UBI as a possible source of relief to economies struggling to keep large corporations competitive—communities are seeing low-income workers become increasingly supportive of reactionary right-wing, xenophobic, and anti-free trade policies—by providing for basic needs and countering unpredictability. There is hope that in enabling access to higher education, the ability to gain more relevant skill sets, and striving to end cycles of poverty, there is a solution to the problem of encouraging job growth as demand for jobs rapidly rises.

illustration

| mia carnevale

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

FEATURES 09

It would lay out ground rules for what it means to be a part of society, ensure that those boundaries are respected, and compensate unpaid labour.

The Controversies

basic needs. Hence, this meant more regulations and barriers—which other UBIs are conceptually One of the main difficulties with UBI is the am- against. Furthermore, the pilot’s duration—just biguity around what role it should play, and who two years—has been criticized as being too limit should sustain. A key dilemma is that if it meets ited to get accurate results. everyone’s needs, it comes with a tax burden; if payments are reduced, it no longer protects cer- Ontario tain groups from poverty. The question of funding emerges in different ways in every society, The recently terminated Ontario pilot was one of although experts think shifting funding from ex- the most promising and exciting. It was directed isting insufficient welfare programs can bridge the as an antipoverty mechanism, was meant to last gap. As UBI frequently replaces existing forms of three years, and it provided income-based aid welfare, another major concern is the possibility without eliminating the need to work for randomthat low-income groups would be made worse ly selected low-income and unemployed residents. off—and there is no guarantee that economic and The experiment also included a control group of social inequalities will fade away. The UBI debate residents with similar circumstances who did not also affects immigration, as there are concerns that receive any UBI payments. See here for more dea UBI could lead to policies that dissuade increas- tails on the Ontario pilot. The program saw considerable successes: people found it easier to afford ing the population of citizens. healthier food, were able to meet healthcare needs, took time to volunteer, started the process of payPilots ing off debt, pursued higher education or trade There are several pilot programs currently running school opportunities, found stable housing, were and planned around the world. Pilots exist in vari- able to stay in low-paying but socially critical jobs, ous stages of planning and at various scales in the and made neighbourhoods more friendly. Many United States, Canada, Brazil, Namibia, India, felt that it introduced hope to areas that had seen the Netherlands, Italy, Uganda, Kenya, Scotland, substantial deterioration.

Despite the positive impact the pilot generand France. Thus far, overall results have shown decreased crime rates, poverty, and malnutrition ated, the newly elected Progressive Conservatives levels, and improved education, housing, confi- decided to scrap the pilot in July 2018, and particdence in the future, healthcare use, and economic ipants in the pilot will receive their last payment on March 31, 2019. activity.

Premier Doug Ford’s decision to scrap the pilot has had domestic and international conseFinland quences. Those finally lifted from generational An important recent case study is Finland’s failed cycles of poverty are struggling again and governexperiment with UBI. The Finnish design strayed ments around the world seriously considering UBI considerably from traditional UBI: the trial pro- lost an invaluable opportunity to analyze results. vided the pre-existing welfare payments to the Furthermore, the end of the pilot program has insame group of people and only removed condi- spired protests and participants are looking to sue tions. The hope was that people would use this the Ontario government for “breach of contract, extra freedom to take actions that would improve negligence, and misfeasance in public office.”

The justification provided by ministry officials their chances of finding employment. Payments were kept to a limited group, which excluded highlighted that the program was not encouraging some of the unemployed, and were insufficient for people to work, and that it cost more than it was

worth. However, as the project ran for only a third of its originally intended time and never saw the third-party review that was meant to follow the pilot, this claim has drawn extensive criticism and is largely considered baseless. According to experts, there simply isn’t enough data to make such a categorical claim at this point.

This justification introduces a critical counterargument to a UBI: what about those who won’t contribute? While UBI brings a reduction in the labour force, studies show that the groups who choose to stop working are typically new parents, people with disabilities, those pursuing higher education, those searching for work, and the elderly.

In other words, they are those whom the welfare state should, in theory, be taking care of. The other major concern is that people might waste money.

While this has thus far not been supported by the Ontario pilot, it will be an important issue to keep track of in future pilots.

Regardless of how governments feel about it, UBI is not going away any time soon. In a way, we’ve been conditioned to act with distrust, and this is reflected in our institutions. We assume that welfare recipients will make the worst decisions, and so government aid comes with conditions that often hinder access to and the usefulness of aid. Reconditioning ourselves to act with trust can come with benefits: if aid is unconditional, recipients can fully benefit themselves, their community, the economy, and the government. To make the best decisions over the course of the next 20 years, we need to make sure that we pay due diligence at this stage and set our primary focus on gathering data points. Crafting and tailoring policy should be secondary, and built on our findings, not our feelings. We need to ensure pilots test a diversity of scenarios and UBI philosophies.

We need to let pilots run their course and analyze as much data as possible. Every government, regardless of location or level, should understand the gravity of each trial. Each pilot is valuable and the world needs the results.

10 SCIENCE

EDITOR | TANUJ ASHWIN KUMAR SCIENCE@THESTRAND.CA

The placenta

The first body part of a biweekly series illustration

michal leckie associate science editor

Some cultures choose to bury it. Others eat it. Others turn it into skin creams. Often, it goes straight into a biohazard waste bag. Despite being our very first organ—one with a vast range of duties, one that brings two people’s bloodstreams so close but never in contact—the placenta is unfamiliar to many, and often incompletely understood.

The placenta forms during pregnancy, attached to the inside of the uterus. The fetus does not breathe through its lungs or eat through its mouth. A twisted white cord, containing three vessels, connects the fetus to placenta. One vein in the umbilical cord carries oxygenated blood and nutrients to the fetus, and two arteries send blood out to the placenta to pick up what’s needed and deliver it back. We only have a placenta for the first nine months of our lives, but during these months, it has numerous functions. It acts as lungs to bring the fetus oxygen and it acts as a digestive system to deliver nutrients.

It takes on the role of the liver to detoxify any harmful elements that may be present in the mother’s blood, but allows important things, like antibodies, to pass. It acts as an endocrine organ to secrete many hormones; one reduces maternal uptake of glucose so more is reserved for the fetus, another maintains the required uterine environment for the fetus.

All of these functions occur without the

maternal and fetal blood ever touching. The placenta is made up entirely of fetal cells that form branch-like structures. The outer layer is composed of a continuous layer of cells, called a syncytium. The branches, called chorionic villi, bring oxygen- and nutrientdeprived fetal blood into a bath of maternal blood, where an exchange occurs between mother and fetus. The fetal blood will pick up oxygen, glucose, proteins, and fatty acids from the maternal side, and this rich blood returns to the developing fetus through the umbilical cord. When the oxygen demands of the fetus increase, at the tips of the villi, the nuclei of the syncytium are pushed away so that a layer thinner than a cell separates maternal and fetal blood and provides optimal gas exchange.

The demands of the growing fetus call for about 600ml of blood to enter the placenta every minute. To allow for such high volumes of blood to enter the space between the villi (intervillous space), changes must occur in the maternal vasculature. In 1774, anatomist William Hunter produced the first image of spiral arteries, the vessels that supply blood to the uterus. During pregnancy, extravillous trophoblasts—fetal cells which have moved beyond the trophoblasts that make up the villous structures of the placenta—invade into the maternal spiral arteries. They replace the maternal cells lining the vessels, remodelling the spiral arteries into high capacitance and low resistance structures, to achieve the high volume of

| tanuj ashwin kumar

blood flow that the fetus demands. Only in the beginning of the 1900s were these extravillous trophoblasts that invade the maternal tissue confirmed to be of fetal origin.

When the remodelling of the spiral arteries does not occur properly, the diameter of the arteries is far smaller than what it should be. Consequently, the fetus does not receive enough oxygen and nutrients from the mother, resulting in neurological and developmental issues, and growth restriction. The placenta, starved for oxygen and nutrients, will begin releasing various factors into maternal blood, in an attempt to get more blood delivered to the intervillous space of the placenta. The released factors cause endothelial damage in the mother, most notably resulting in an increase in blood pressure, as well as kidney failure; when severe, this disorder of pregnancy is termed preeclampsia, and affects about five percent of pregnancies. The only cure presently known is delivery of the baby and placenta.

Though often called the afterbirth, it is before birth that the placenta feeds, protects, breathes for, and connects to the fetus. It is before birth that this tree-like structure, its name meaning simply “flat pancake,” continues to mystify researchers. Though you will never yourself form another placenta, perhaps recall those extravillous trophoblasts that ensured your healthy arrival into the world, and the tree that was once your neighbour.

If you would like to write a piece on a body part, send your pitches to science@thestrand.ca

EDITOR | HARRISON WADE ARTSANDCULTURE@THESTRAND.CA

ARTS AND CULTURE 11

Timeliness is next to timelessness

Singer-songwriter Jill Barber on personal growth, identity, and creating art for the moment hana nikcevic photo editor

Jill Barber’s career has run the genre gamut with such latitude that “singer-songwriter” now remains the only catch-all term for her work. From folk to jazz to French and Quebecois; from girl-group-motown to a hint of country twang to, now, pop—it’s like she’s throwing spaghetti at a wall, and, somehow, everything is sticking. Her most recent album, however—Metaphora—is a departure from her previous work in more than just sound. Nobody is as proficient as Barber at both personalizing the universal and monumentalizing the minute, and her albums have, typically, been studies in love and timelessness. Metaphora, meanwhile, focuses on the self rather than partnership, and it works as a meditation on moving through the world as a woman. The Strand got in touch with the singer to talk about this new direction, and what it means both to the artist and within the world at large.

There’s one photo from this new Metaphora era where you’re sitting in a diner, pouring sugar into a cup of coffee, very liberally and unapologetically. I thought it was a great photo—metaphorically, it’s both subtle and straightforward. So: how involved are you in the visual aspect of your career, your persona, and do you see that visual aspect as meaningfully communicative?

That’s an excellent question. I love it. I’m very involved—it’s not the aspect of my career that I’m the most confident in, but it is important to me to be very, very involved in making all of those creative decisions because, you know, what I do and who I am are very closely connected. The work that I create is very much about who I am as a person. And, of course, when you start getting real about what it means to do publicity shots, you realize—or, at least, I realized—I may have started in this business because I love to write songs, but the fact is that every musician or band in the music industry is building a brand. Only in the last few years have I even become comfortable with that kind of terminology, because I don’t think of myself as a brand. But the less I've become afraid of that concept, the more I’ve been able to realize that, actually, I can just own it. I can create something that feels authentic, and compelling, and representative of who I actually am and what my music is about—and then that can actually be really empowering. So I’m involved in all of the creative decisions. The diner I’m sitting in for that shot is the local diner of—like, it’s this funny, weird old diner near the home of the photographer that I worked with, and the sugar idea was just a very on-the-fly idea that I had: I should just fill this with sugar. I don’t even take sugar in my coffee! I liked the idea that I could pour it very liberally and with abandon, and that’s also kind of the theme of [Metaphora]. I have taken a certain amount of abandon when it comes to this album in that I decided I wanted to be free, to experiment, and work with people that I’d never worked with before, and really get out of the somewhat restrictive genre that I started to feel other people were putting me in.

I read in another interview that you said that you feel you’re moving through the world in a new way, and that you felt, newly, like a modern woman. Was that change a sudden change, or was it more of a process? And what did you feel brought it about?

Oh, definitely more of a process. I mean—I think we’re all involved in the process, as human beings. I think it’s a combination of me being more of a seasoned performer and musician, and having more literal experience under my belt, from a professional point of view. I feel like I’m not 20 years old anymore with something to prove to the world with my music. I’m much more confident and I know who I am, and I feel I've earned a certain amount of… well, I’ve earned it to experiment and try different things. I feel like I’ve earned my place in the industry. Also, as a person—and, I would say, specifically as a woman—I feel that in the last few years I have harnessed my power as a woman more. I think that that also just comes from experience. The experience of becoming a mother has, I think, made me way more fearless and fierce and more powerful—I have a sense of how powerful I am. And not just in terms of, like, me disciplining my kids! My body, for instance—my relationship with my own body changed a lot when I actually gave birth to human beings. It was something that I felt more respect for after that. The fact that my body then fed my children… you know, things like that. I’ve realized what strength women’s bodies have, and what strength women have, in bodies and spirits and minds. I think I’m just growing up and becoming wiser.

This new album is very much linked to that idea of harnessing your power as a woman, and that is clearly relevant in the current moment and in this political climate. Do you feel that so clearly linking this album to a contemporary social justice movement will have an effect on its staying power?

I have no idea! I feel like I used to make records—like you mentioned, Mischievous Moon—that were very much a throwback. I think that I did that in part, well, because I love old music, and I still feel very much inspired by older music, but now in retrospect I realize I was playing it a little bit safe in that I was taking my inspiration from music that did have a staying power, a sound that was kind of… well, I was trying to create music that sounded timeless. Now I’m making music that I hope sounds timely. And that could really go either way, because, you know, time moves quickly, especially in this day and age. Maybe it won’t have the same power, but, on the other hand, maybe it will be a part of a chorus of voices in the political climate that we’re in that will have a lasting effect—the way certain songs from the 1960s that we still listen to now are anthemic. But the one thing I’ll say is: I certainly don’t write music in terms of whether or not I think it’ll be around in five years, or ten years. I write it more instinctually: based on the song that needs to be written. I write the song that I need to write, at the time I need to write it.

In your career, there’s been a lot of reinvention in terms of genre; with this album, as you’ve said, pop has been a good way to address something that’s of the moment. I was wondering: does that sort of reinvention appeal to you in theory and as a form, or have you felt it to be a natural complement to the development of your writing process? Or—both!

I’ve noticed that the artists that I follow for a long time are the ones that do evolve and change. That’s the amazing thing about making music and making records: if an artist that I love changes in a way that I don’t love as much, I still have that record that I connected with. That’s how I reassure myself when I make changes: because I’m trying something new now, that doesn’t mean that people that loved the older stuff can’t still love it. But—I do feel like true fans of an artist—and I speak as a fan of other artists—have to at least support the artist that they love in their creative journey, even if they don’t love the music. I just think that anyone creative—or with any sympathy for anyone creative!—has to understand that it’s essential that people do evolve and change, and that it’s a positive thing to try new things, even if the results don’t yield great things. I think it’s important for artists of any kind to change. I don’t know if I really addressed your question…

Yeah, I remember—I saw your show at the Rebecca Cohn in Halifax a few years ago, and before you sang Sous le ciel de Paris, you told everyone to close their eyes and imagine they were in Paris. It was very theatrical, in a very interesting way.

That’s cool that you remember that. There is something really powerful about a group of people in a theatre together. We’re all there to have an experience… everyone’s having their own unique experience, and yet we’re doing it all together.

Yeah, that’s cool that you remember that.

Do you have a favourite album of yours? How do you relate to your past music?

My favourite album right now is, of course, my latest record, because I'm excited about it, and it’s new and really fun for me. And I really see myself in it right now, and I feel proud of it. So I have to say Metaphora is my favourite right now, but I have a lot of affection for my older records, and I am proud of my whole body of work. There are some records that I like more than others, but I remember making them all, and I remember that for each one I wanted to make the best record I possibly could. I wanted to capture where I was at and be expressive and connect with people through it. I guess I like them all, and some of them stand out for me—I’m a little inclined to like the ones that are the most popular, and I’m grateful to them. They’ve opened some doors for me, and they've allowed me to build my audience, which I’m extremely grateful for. I think of them fondly, and I still play a lot of music from my older records, because I recognize that that's how people got to the show that night. It’s not necessarily because of my new record, although—maybe! Fingers crossed it might bring some new people out. But I really want to acknowledge the songs that people have connected to the past, because I think that’s the reason that a lot of them come to shows: they want to connect again to those songs, and so I always want to deliver. I hope that that answers your question, and, really, your questions were really interesting.

Jill Barber will be performing at Roy Thomson Hall on October 16, 2018 as part of the Metaphora tour.

This interview has been edited for length, style, and clarity. For the full interview, see www.thestrand.ca

12 ARTS AND CULTURE

EDITOR | HARRISON WADE ARTSANDCULTURE@THESTRAND.CA

illustration

In The Strand’s inaugural Flashback column, I’m pleased to present two stories of fantasy and self-discovery, of femininity and memory. These are ways of bringing magic into reality. If you’d like to write about an artwork that’s at least ten years old for a future Flashback column, send an email to artsandculture@thestrand.ca The Magic of the Moving Castle In a land where fairytale tropes are the norm, a cursed young woman sets out on an adventure with a dramatic, mysterious wizard, his apprentice, and a wise-cracking fire demon. Sound familiar? Published in 1986, Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones was the inspiration behind Studio Ghibli’s wildly popular film of the same name. To any die-hard fan of the film I say—you have to read the book.

Though it bears some resemblance to Miyazaki’s film, Wynne Jones’ novel is without war and breathes more character into the memorable cast.

The plot centres around Sophie, the eldest of three sisters, and thus, the sibling who is fated to a dull life. However, after the Witch of the Waste curses her to live as an old

|

grace king

woman, Sophie stumbles upon Wizard Jenkins’ infamous Moving Castle and makes an interesting wager with the fire demon who inhabits it; a wager that could alter both of their lives and spin Sophie’s tale into anything but dull.

Without spoiling the novel, I can say that watching Sophie learn to love and believe in herself, despite everything in her life saying otherwise, was a message I desperately needed when I first read the book. This message remains the biggest reason why the book has found a permanent place in my heart. If you find yourself enjoying this novel as much as I did, there’s more good news: Wynne Jones continues the magic in two sequels entitled Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways.

-Marjan Dian The Prince & Me and University Fairytales present a straightforward contract: choose love, and receive happiness. But real life seems to be different. I have never felt the loneliness of a princess without a prince, because I have my life goals. And yet, I still fall under the spell fairy-tales cast on romantic souls. I know that I’m not

alone in this confusion. Which is to say, there’s a different kind of fairytale movie: The Prince & Me, released in 2004, shows that you can have an uncompromising goal and still meet your prince.

The movie opens, not with a sad princess, but with a happy, busy medical student named Paige. She is finishing up an internship, preparing for school and attending a friend’s wedding. Of course, Paige’s life is paralleled with the reckless Crown Prince Edvard of Denmark (or as I have nicknamed him, Hamlet). But, to me, this movie is about Paige. Meeting her prince is not her whole story—it’s not even the climax. Love is only another chapter in her story.

UofT is actually host to many of the scenes, including the famous library flirtation between Paige and Hamlet which was filmed at our very own E.J. Pratt Library. I’m guessing the chairs are still the same. I hope, in sharing this, to provide relief to those who are as worried about missing their royal adventure as I was. Don’t ever be afraid to be intimidating, motivated, or focused. The right prince or princess will love you for it.

-Nikki Frazer

Writing in Toronto

Finding a community as an emerging writer terese mason pierre contributor

If I’m being honest, I really don’t know how I got here. I was at the most recent Vacant Nobodies Prose Reading at Mây Bar on Dundas Street, feeling a little tipsy, and I said to a friend and fellow poet, “Come September, I’d really like to get more involved in the literary scene in Toronto.” He laughed and replied, “Yeah, because you’re so out of touch, right?” His sarcasm was accurate. I wasn’t out of touch. I was very much in touch. I was so in touch that people noticed when I didn’t attend a poetry event. I was so in touch, I became a co-organizer of the most diverse reading series in the city, Shab-e She’r.

I’ve spent four years at the University of Toronto.

I’ve met many young, emerging student writers who feel ready to share their creative work, to seek feedback and advice from others, but don’t know where to go or whom to turn to. UofT has a reputation for being large, overwhelming, and isolating—the information is there, but often students don’t know what they don’t know and so they don’t ask. Regarding involvement in the literary community on and off campus, I appreciate when students, in spite of this unique academic isolation, reach out for help. I try to reach out to them first, if I can.

The first thing I ask emerging student writers is what they’re looking for. Do they want to share work?

Do they want feedback on their work? Do they just want to hear great work by emerging artists? Do they want to publish their work? After they’ve determined what their goals are, I tell students to start within their campus to find clubs and events that cater to their needs and goals. Do they need a creative writing group? Do they want to go to an open mic? Do they want to get involved with a campus magazine editorial board? Do they want to meet other, more established writers for advice? These groups and activities on campus are vital not only for engaging in the university community (which I advise all students to do, writing-related or not), but potentially for forming writing circles and making genuine friends. One of the most insidious stereotypes about writers is their introversion, but interacting with like-minded, sup-

portive writers can only help.

Students, if they wish, can limit themselves to on-campus organizations. They certainly have enough going on, between classes and clubs. In my experience, many people only attend a creative writing workshop or occasionally go to an open mic. But for students who have a bit more time or flexibility, or for non-students, I would encourage attending, at least once, an off-campus literary reading or event.

Toronto is quite diverse in this area, as I gleefully discovered. But it doesn’t have to feel like diving into a cold pool.

Here, I recommend using social media, Facebook especially. Many reading series—and even campus organizations—use Facebook to advertise events. Facebook itself offers the option to search events by type and area, opening doors for exploration. Liking the Facebook pages of Toronto publishers and magazines gives you access to their events and launches. Attending these events can expose students to new work and great people, even potential mentors. Many Toronto reading series and monthly/ weekly writing groups also have frequently updated Facebook pages. Some of these reading series have open mics, which are good places to simultaneously share work and practice public speaking.

In my opinion, the more that emerging writers attend events, give feedback, and support their fellow writers, the more they will be drawn into and feel welcomed by this vibrant and diverse community.

As with UofT and its services and resources, I found the Toronto literary community to be one where effort and engagement on the part of the individual is crucial. If one wants to be involved, one must be serious about being involved. Since, however, attending events alone or reading work onstage is scary and nerve-wracking for some, I sometimes offer my presence at these events for someone who is attending for the first time. I also introduce them to the people I know. Better yet, checking the specific Facebook event’s list of attendees is a good way to find company for going to a reading. Even knowing one other person at an event makes a difference.

Like I said, I’m not sure how I got here, but I don’t want to discredit the work I did, nor do I

want to disregard the individuals who welcomed me into the literary communities. I am greatly insecure about my own work, but I share and publish anyway. I think being 23 years old makes me liable to not be taken seriously, but I attend events regardless, introduce myself, and add people on Facebook.

A friend of mine—a speculative fiction writer whose book is coming out next year—jokes that I know “everyone in the universe,” because of my ability to navigate these literary spheres. He claims he has gone to events I’m absent from, mentioned my name, and has met new writers from within my circle this way.

I doubt this, but it is nice to hear.

I’m not, by any means, an expert. There are, of course, literary communities that I’m not familiar with, such as the slam poetry community, but that just means I have more to learn, more places to go.

And the more places I go, the more I can help others and pay it forward.

Toronto Reading Series Facilitate Vacant Nobodies Pivot Emerging Writers (EW) Boneshaker Shab-e She’r Legible Intelligibles Art Bar Rowers Reading Series Sharing Work Draft Toronto Firefly Creative Writing Inkwell Workshops Facebook Groups/Pages that post other events Hart House Literary and Library Committee Writing in Basalt Creative Writing at the University of Toronto

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

ARTS AND CULTURE 13

The Strand at TIFF harrison wade and mena fouda arts and culture editor and associate editor

Beautiful Boy A subdued drama that simmers, but never boils. Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet each give heartbreaking performances, as father and son who have to overcome the hurdles of drug addiction, while Chalamet’s character lives them. Based on a true story, and adapted from two books, the film seems as lost as its main characters. There is no discernable narrative progression—the story meanders as the filmmaking confuses. It does not reach a point of emotional catharsis, but instead wallows in its melancholy for hours, leaving a taste of dissatisfaction at the end. The film’s redemption comes specifically from Chalamet’s transformation—the subtleties and details that he imbues in his character render his performance a true masterpiece. –MF High Life Yes, that TIFF film where Juliette Binoche carries Robert Pattinson’s semen in her cupped hands. It’s the kind of thing that makes sense in High Life, a film about sex that never becomes erotic. Claire Denis’ first English-language film leaps through time, presenting a temporally disordered story about a group of criminals sent to investigate a black hole. They do little to drive the mission—their role is to be bodies under observation. Denis’ movie is pre-occupied with bodies, partly to reclaim their humanity. As the movie opens, the camera pays close attention to Pattinson’s chest and face and the moments he touches his infant daughter. Each image is a sculpture in blue and orange glows, capturing all the curves and lines of each actor’s body. As they get closer to the black hole, the body becomes contested. Memories intrude, and the film’s most visceral moments are ones in which the body becomes a site of violence and orgasm. In other moments, High Life dreams of a transcendent body, one that can become earthen or cosmic. –HW Mid90s Mid90s is a nostalgic and sentimental representation of the time period and the characters it introduces. Stevie, played by Sunny Suljic, is a young man who has just begun to discover what it is that makes him… him. Skateboarding, puberty, and friendships all become part of Stevie’s life, as he navigates a new world of cool. All of this is explored against a backdrop of older rock and rap music, ranging from Nirvana to Seal. Jonah Hill’s directorial debut (which he also wrote) does not ever pretend to be bigger than it is. Rather, it is low-key and charming. Its fleshed-out characters are products of their time and environment, all bound by an early sense of friendship. –MF Ash is Purest White Jia Zhangke’s newest feature is his most sprawling investigation of disillusionment yet— spanning 17 years and several provinces in China. After firing a gun into the air to save her boyfriend’s life, Qiao (played by Zhao Tao, Jia’s regular collaborator) is sentenced to five years in prison. When she gets out, she sets out to find Bin and discovers a China dominated by transportation and media. It’s easier, now, to move around the country, but most people have nowhere to go. Ash is Purest White is partly about the failure of love and partly about the struggle of genre. It returns—to the gangster movies Qiao and Bin grew up on, to the places they tried to escape, and to Jia’s filmography. Part of this story has been told in Unknown Pleasures (2002) and Still Life (2006). But while those movies were about a sense of local entrapment, in Datong and Fengjie respectively, Ash is Purest White realizes confine ment on a national, possibly cosmic, scale. –HW

Shoplifters This heart-wrenching picture manages to take grim situations and wrap them in hopeful disguises. It is the slow and gradual tale of a found family and the moments in which their lives spiral out of control. Kore-eda’s film forces into existence the question: “What is it that makes a family?” Its answer suggests that bonds can exist outside of blood. Shoplifters is an evocative film that delicately deals with the topics of child abuse, poverty, and puberty. Even in their lowest moments, the main characters never fail to make you want to reach out and give them a hug, wipe their tears away, and help them dig their way out of their suffocating situations. –MF The Grand Bizarre As a celebration of patterns—in maps, language, tattoos and, most of all, textiles—The Grand Bizarre is something of an anomaly. It’s a flurry of fabrics, an extended montage that travels around the world, showcasing the places of textile production. What makes Jodie Mack’s ode an anomaly is its firmly experimental structure and its joyously fun presentation. Pop songs give The Grand Bizarre a music video feel, while Mack makes playful animations out of patterns. Fabric flashes in the rear-view mirror of taxicabs, over seats and public spaces. As much as Mack is interested in these repeating patterns, she’s also interested in the spaces around them. Where and how these textiles are produced, and where they go, are the marginal political considerations of The Grand Bizarre; Mack’s physical sensation of travel carries through the film, overriding the static, dominating patterns that appear on maps. –HW The Image Book The Image Book is an essay without a thesis. Jean-Luc Godard’s newest is an angry rumination on the use of images—a collage that revels in its own destruction. Beginning with a section on the images and sounds of war—both real and staged—the screen is cut up. Most clips are tweaked, re-sized, or digitally degraded. The Image Book moves through a section on trains, technology linked cinematically to representational freedom and historically to death camps, and towards a final sequence entitled “la région centrale.” No longer deconstructing Western art, Godard ruminates on the Middle East under “the eyes of the Occident.” This sequence is the most distressed and most hopeful; as The Image Book critiques Western representations of the Middle East, it also presents texts produced in the Middle East. The montage becomes more obscure, in part, because these texts implicitly ask the viewer why they haven’t already been seen. –HW ROMA This is a moving, semi-autobiographical tale, shot in black and white by Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón. It tells the story of a Mexican family and their loving maid Cleo (played by first-timer Yalitza Aparicio), who finds herself in an isolating situation.

The setting—Mexico in the 1970s—completely comes to life through Cuarón’s camera, with all of its inviting music and authentic characters. As it progresses, ROMA becomes increasingly harder to watch due to its subject matter, but it is impossible to tear your eyes away from the screen. Aparicio’s performance in the latter half is, single-handedly, the most heartbreaking that I’ve ever witnessed. A true gem of a movie and a tribute to the women who shaped Cuarón’s early life. –MF

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EDITOR | LEO MORGENSTERN STRANDED@THESTRAND.CA

Weekly round up What’s new at Vic this week? leo morgenstern stranded editor

Caffiends is out of ketchup The Strand has bad news for anyone hoping that Caffiends might finally restock on ketchup: they haven’t. Caffiends has been out of ketchup since the cafe first opened in 2006. What if you bring your own fries? Well, unfortunately, you’ll have to settle for another one of Caffiends’ offerings, such as tea or coffee.

Communist infiltration at Vic? A crowd of red-shirted newcomers was spotted last week chanting and marching all over campus. Currently their whereabouts and motives are unknown, but The Strand will provide further updates when they become available.

Victoria College Drama Society still a thing apparently According to a report from an anonymous source, the VCDS is apparently once again set to produce a season of theatre on campus, despite the fact that they did that exact same thing last year. “Why don’t they do something different this year?” said the anonymous source. “For an artistic organization, they sure are uncreative.”

Pictured: A crowd of the communist invaders, raising their arms in what is presumed to be violent rage.

Rejected election forum questions anonymous source contributor

During VUSAC elections, the CRO moderates a Facebook group where members of the VCU can ask questions to the candidates. The majority of questions are approved and published for the candidates to answer, but some of them are unfortunately deemed “inappropriate” by the CRO. However, we here at The Strand think all of your questions deserve answers, and so we’ve published the questions that VUSAC won’t.

Tips for those new to Toronto wilfred moeschter staff writer

Many new students at the UTSG campus are unfamiliar with the Toronto, but if you’re finding it overwhelming, don’t worry! Here’s some local advice to help you feel more at home in the city.

1. Shout “That’s my stop!” whenever your stop is announced on the TTC. Torontonians are supportive and kind-hearted, so next time your stop is announced on the subway, make

sure you let everybody know by shouting: “That’s my stop!” You’ll be sure to receive some hearty applause and congratulations from your fellow passengers.

2. Ask the UTSU for the secret menu.

Although many locals visit the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) every day, few know about this little trick. If you go to the front desk and ask for “the secret menu,” you can get things that aren’t on the regular menu.

3. Don’t talk about 2007.

Ever wanted to know the quickest way to get a Torontonian angry? Now you do. It’s best to avoid the subject matter altogether. It’s okay if you don’t know what happened, because, rest assured, EVERYONE ELSE remembers.

4. Send Bryan Cranston an email.

If you’re ever bored or unsure of what to do around the city, flip Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning actor Bryan Cranston an email at his email address! He actually owes a great debt to the city of Toronto, so it’s really no

problem for him to help you out.

5. Listen to “Mambo No. 5” by Lou Bega.

6. Kill the stingrays that have taken over Ripley’s Aquarium.

We’ve tried for so long to kill the death rays that have displaced the other aquarium residents and held the staff hostage. Our efforts have proved futile. Your resolve could finally help us tip the balance.

7. The Cheese Dash.

Don’t knock it til’ you’ve tried it.

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@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

milk and ravioli

i thought you were my prince charming but it turns out you were prince harming

she wears short skirts i wear t-shirts she’s cheer captain and i am t-shirts

everyone says good morning but no one ever asks how morning

ravioli ravioli give me the formuoli - s. farrukh and w. moeschter

Hatfishing is the new catfishing Quiz time! Here’s how to know if it’s happening to you hannah stroud milliner

Whether we’ve swiped for ourselves, a friend, or a coworker, most of us have experience using a dating app. As much fun as they can be, trying to find that perfect match doesn’t come without risk. You’re probably familiar with creepy messages and catfishing, but neither is as bad as the newest danger facing dating app users today: hatfishing. Hats may serve a functional purpose or be a stylistic choice, but they can also be used as a tool for deception. Think someone might be hatfishing you? Take this short quiz to find out!

1. Are they wearing a hat in every single photo? ☐ Yes ☐ No One photo? Yellow flag. Only group photos? Red flag. Wearing a hat in every single photo?

Two red flags 2. Are they sporting more than one style of hat in their photos?

☐ Yes ☐ No Ball caps, toques, and fedoras, oh my! Sure, they might just like hats, but maybe they like them a little too much…

3. Do they have a job or enjoy a hobby that involves headwear? ☐ Yes ☐ No Maybe they have a hot profession like a firefighter or a cyclist. Maybe they’re obsessed with that fancy new helmet they bought because they’re “into safety.” Or maybe not…

4. You’ve decided to ignore the red flags and go on a first date. Do they show up wearing a hat? ☐ Yes ☐ No Pro tip: The Strand suggests going on a first date somewhere where you wouldn’t normally wear a hat, like a restaurant or the line up at airport security, rather than some place where it’s normal to wear a hat, like the Tour de France.

If you answered yes to two or more of the questions above, someone might be hatfishing you! So, what should you do about it? Nothing! If the conversation is good, give them a chance. A hat can be a part of somebody’s personality and that’s okay.

hat·fish /’hat,fiSH/ verb 1. fish for a hat.

2. informal augmenting or hiding your true appearance, especially in your online dating profile, by wearing a hat in all of your pictures.

Ex. “I thought Larry was cute on his Tinder profile, but it turned out that I really just liked his helmet. I totally got hatfished!”

Editor’s Note: Additionally, The Strand recommends adding “You Can Leave Your Hat On” by Randy Newman to your sexy time playlist.

Trust us, it slaps.

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@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

Coming up in the next issue of Stranded Pick up our next issue to read these great articles and more! leo morgenstern stranded editor

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Ranking Every Movie Ever Made The Strand’s film review team will be presenting our definitive ranking of every movie ever made. Make sure you get a magnifying glass, because this article will be printed in size two font.

Official VUSAC Election Betting Odds It’s that time of year again folks!

Pull out your cheque books and get ready to bet on which first years will become councillors and which will go home with absolutely nothing.

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An Interview with Goofy The Strand sits down with Disney’s famous funnyman to discuss his legacy, his love life, his 14 illegitimate children, and more!

Opinion: Tom Holland Should be my Boyfriend I’d really like it if Tom Holland was my boyfriend. Find out why in the next issue of The Strand!

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