The Varsity Magazine: Winter 2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS Inside student wardrobes 4 Music and social justice movements 6 U of T’s feminist letter writing collective 8 What the hell is a subtweet? 10 Getting rowdy with roller derby 12 Talking sampling with Hrmxny 15 The stand-up jitters 17 Drag meets burlesque 18 Why the face? 20 Language matters 22 3D printing and other cool things 25 Opening up the Internet 28 Toronto’s art cult 30 You don’t need all your things 32 Why you should downward dog 34 Profiling artistic talent at U of T 35 Fiction and poetry 37 “Artemis”

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VARSITY MAGAZINE vol. viii no. 2

21 sussex, suite 306 toronto, on, m5s 1j6 (416) 946–7600 magazine.thevarsity.ca EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Danielle Klein

editor@thevarsity.ca

MAGAZINE EDITOR Samantha Relich features@thevarsity.ca PRODUCTION MANAGER Catherine Virelli production@thevarsity.ca MANAGING ONLINE EDITOR Shaquilla Singh online@thevarsity.ca DESIGN EDITORS Mari Zhou design@thevarsity.ca Kawmadie Karunanayake PHOTO EDITOR Jennifer Su

photo@thevarsity.ca

SENIOR COPY EDITORS Lucy Genua copy@thevarsity.ca Rose Tornabene ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR Julien Balbontin illustrations@thevarsity.ca VIDEO EDITOR Jamieson Wang

video@thevarsity.ca

ASSISTANT MAGAZINE EDITOR Sarah Niedoba ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITORS Janice Liu Vanessa Wang ASSOCIATE SENIOR COPY EDITORS Hunter McGuire Sean Smith EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Malone Mulliin COPY EDITORS & FACT-CHECKERS Matthew Boissonneault, Travis Boyco, Sonali Gill, Alexandra Grieve, Julia Hanbury, Emma Lawrence, Fu-Yuan (Andrew) Liu, Hunter McGuire, Malone Mullin, Lauren Park, Sean Smith, Maria SokulskyDolnycky, Tina Ta DESIGNERS Jasjeet Matharu, Janice Liu, Vanessa Wang, Mike Wong,Tiffany Wu, Mari Zhou COVER Design by Mari Zhou Photo by Jennifer Su Model: Brianne Katz-Griffin BACK COVER “The space between my head, heart, and hands” by Myealah Komoseng-Innis SPECIAL THANKS Brianne Katz-Griffin, Emma Kikulis, Joe DeMarco, cookies, Varsity Stuff, Squirrelin-Chief, antibiotics.

The Varsity Magazine has a circulation of 20,000 and is published by Varsity Publicatons Inc. It is printed by Masterweb Inc. Content © 2015

by The Varsity. All rights reserved. Any editorial inquiries and/or letters should be directed to the editors associated with them; emails listed above. The Varsity Magazine reserves the right to edit all submissions.

Please recycle this issue after you are finished with it.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

LETTER FROM DESIGN

It can be indescribably challenging to say what you mean. We spend our lives communicating through words, gestures, and actions. The curation of this magazine was an exercise in this daily practice as we sought to communicate our theme through the pages you now hold. Our shared goal, regardless of our message, is to be heard. The contents of this magazine is a testament to this challenge, but also to the nuances of expression.

They answer a question that we posed months ago when this magazine was first conceived, asking about the many ways in which we communicate.

What we discovered is that the means available in our storytelling are nearly endless, from the twitches of our faces (pg. 20) to the letters that we pen (pg.

8). Sometimes, the stories that we tell are our own, and other times we seek to convey a particular message and intention. In the pages that follow, writers explore the communication of identities in roller derby (pg. 12), the growing connection between humans and technology (pg. 25), and a cult of communication (pg. 30).

As exemplified in the pages of this magazine and through the people represented on them, communication comes in many forms. We each have our own messages we wish to convey — whether we are dancing, signing, or writing our way to making them known.

When we were shooting the cover for this edition of The Varsity Magazine, one of our central preoccupations was getting just the right “swoosh” of the fabric. Our incredibly cooperative model, Brianne (pg. 35), did jump after jump as we threw fabric around her, working to get the perfect shot.

Separately, our illustrations editor, Julian, put out a call for student art. Our photoshoot coincided with a design meeting in which we perused what we received — Myealah’s piece (back cover) stood out instantly as in clear conversation with our cover shot, and a beautiful back page.

Another piece that came in, from Brianne (pg. 39), also happened to echo the breezy, flowing movement of the cover.

We didn’t provide a prompt for the artists — the clear discourse amongst the pieces was a matter of happenstance.

The inspiration behind our cover was the idea of expression as organic — people express and create out of something within them that compels them to put that out in the world. In designing this magazine, we tried to both let the work of our writers and visual artists breathe, but also express our design process by injecting our own perspectives into the magazine. We left spaces to celebrate the expression of design, and the movement behind it — the first drafts and small choices that frame our content and reveal ourselves.

— Samantha Relich Magazine Editor 2014–2015

— Mari Zhou & Kawmadie Karunanayake Design Editors 2014–2015

On the rack Students share insights into their personal styles Article by Rose Tornabene Photo by Jennifer Su

Zareen Din “Clothing should be like writing… functional.”

Anya Zaporozhchenko “[I] like to be a little rebellious and spontaneous… but… also prefer a polished and presentable look.”

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There are few things with the potential to be as truly individual as fashion. A signature outfit encapsulates more than a person’s physique. Clothing allows people to express themselves through the items that they choose to wear. Through clothing, people are able to create or display an identity. Students delved into their closets to share the pieces that are most significant to them, bringing light to their individual senses of style.

Franz* Anna Modugno “One of the fun parts of fashion [is that it] doesn’t necessarily reflect the person inside.”

“I know what I like and I tend to wear similar things.”

*Name changed at student’s request.

Extended online at var.st/closets THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2014

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Singing in solidarity Professor Joshua Pilzer speaks on protest music in Native American pop culture Article by Jacob Lorinc Illustration by Catharine Solomon

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Tribe Called Red found themselves pitted against their predominantly Caucasian fan base as they stepped onto the stage at the Electric Forest Festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was the summer of 2013, and a disturbingly large portion of the audience was wearing Native American headdresses in an unsuccessful attempt to integrate with the show’s Indigenous themes. Those responsible for playing “Indian” dress-up seemed unaware of their obvious racism in doing so, and, in the process, managed to take a step backwards in the uphill climb that is race relations for Indigenous people in North America. Collectively, we cringed.

A Tribe Called Red is a Canadian EDM collective that consists of three members, all of whom are of Aboriginal descent. They are one of many Indigenous musical acts that have been politically outspoken in their music, and have joined forces with Idle No More and other political movements to help bring some resolution to the Aboriginal situation in Canada and the United States.

The genesis of Indigenous protest in music seems to come from artists like Buffy Sainte-Marie, a Cree singer/songwriter active in the latter half of the twentieth century, but is neatly summed up in five minutes by a former Indigenous hip-hop trio from

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the late ’90s called War Par'. One of their most popular songs, “Feeling Reserved,” spells out their struggle and responsibili' to take action in the song’s chorus: “I’m feeling reserved/Man, that’s how I’m living/I’ve gotta do with this mic I’ve been given/To try to get by, no word of a lie/We’ve got to try to restore pride.” It’s a fantastic song, stringing politically conscious lyrics over a slow and steady groove, allowing the listener ample time to revel in the song’s medley of political and melodic ingredients.

War Par'’s thought-provoking song is a staple of what we can call “protest music” for Indigenous peoples, and the same goes for the works of Buffy Sainte-Marie and A Tribe Called Red. These Indigenous artists, though, are a small sample of the long history of protest music in popular culture. Professor Joshua Pilzer, who teaches a course entitled “Survivor’s Music” for the U of T Facul' of Music, provides some context for the origins of expressing political discontent through music. “The idea of music as protest is very old,” says Pilzer. “Much classical and religious thought, from East Asia to Greece to the Middle East, has long held that music expresses a moral order and in other words, the right relations between tones and instruments is an expression

THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

of the way things should be organized in socie' in general.”

Looking back at past political movements by marginalized groups of people, music can be seen as playing a significant role in their various forms of demonstration. The African-American Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s, for example, was accompanied by artists such as Mavis Staples, Aretha Franklin, and Curtis Mayfield, all of whom incorporated the ideolo) of the movement into their music in order to help further its reach. Later on, during the third-wave feminist movement of the ’90s, bands like Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill helped to develop a sub-genre of punk music known as “Riot Grrrls,” a genre which allowed for these musicians to be openly vocal about women’s rights in North America.

Nowadays, artists such as Pussy Riot, D’Angelo, and plen' of others are creating music to represent each of their respective revolutions. Look at any uprising of an oppressed group of people, and you’re bound to find a soundtrack as an accompaniment.

This begs the question as to why music is so often used as a medium to express problems within our socie'. Why not protest through public speeches and gatherings, where you’re open to the public eye and guaranteed attention from the media?

According to Pilzer, much of this has to do with the creative freedom that comes with making music. “Music, conceived of as a form of entertainment, is often thought of as relatively harmless or unimportant,” he says, continuing, “So rather than speech, which is often closely monitored by states and people in power, music, in a way, is less policed. Oftentimes people make music intentionally designed to sound happy while expressing political and other kinds of criticism, so that only the initiated know about the critique. In this way, music can placate people in power while serving as a medium for political foment.”

While plen" of protest music is created with these sorts of tactics to guide them, many musicians simply speak their minds, candidly and without any sorts of boundaries or guidelines. In a 2012 interview, Sainte-Marie talks about her politically driven song “Universal Soldier” and how

she went about writing it.

“Universal Soldier was just an artist speaking the obvious,” she says. “It’s obvious that we are responsible for the world we live in, so how can you give that [song] to people in a way that will motivate them instead of turn them off?”

Pilzer suggests that music’s abili" to motivate and move groups of people, especially in the context of folk music from the time of Sainte-Marie, has to do with “taking music out of the exclusive hands of professional [musicians], and returning it to ordinary people.” This kind of audienceinclusive music is exemplified in songs like “Give Peace a Chance” by The Plastic Ono Band, or even “Fight The Power” by Public Enemy — both of which feature easy-to-remember choruses that send a clear message to those listening.

As A Tribe Called Red experienced, the primary obstacle that protest mu-

sic faces is the inevitable backlash that accompanies it, whether intentional or not. For musicians like John Lennon and Public Enemy, the backlash was extreme and resulted in violence and discord between demonstrators and authorities; for A Tribe Called Red, however, the fake Indigenous headdresses were discomforting rather than provocative.

Luckily, there’s a constructive way of looking at these situations. According to Pilzer, we can learn from reactions like these and use them to help fine-tune the way in which protest is portrayed through music.

“I think these sorts of incidents are bound to happen until something dramatic changes,” he says. “However, such experiences, although uncomfortable, are opportunities for understanding the embededness of racism in culture and for transforming societies, hopefully in a peaceful way.”

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“Putting ourselves back into writing” Opening up a safe space for personal letters at HERE Article by Victoria Wicks Photos by Jennifer Su

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’ve always thought certain !pes of writing should be private. Reflections in journals, letters to friends, notes passed in class — they’re handwritten, personal, and thus seem inherently confidential. It is unsurprising, then, that each of my diaries has “do not read” scrawled angrily inside the cover.

Naturally, I was intrigued when I heard about Jane Alice Keachie and Marsha McLeod, who are deliberately putting personal stories at the centre of public attention.

After realizing that the Universi! of Toronto is sorely lacking in explicitly feminist publications and spaces, Keachie and MacLeod decided to create a feminist writing socie!, named HERE, in the fall of last year. At monthly meetings, contributors handwrite letters in response to a general prompt, with some choosing to read their work aloud. At the end of each session, Keachie and McLeod collect the letters, and later scan and upload them onto HERE’s website.

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THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL Even the quickest scan of HERE’s online archives reveals the intimacy of contributor’s stories, which recount experiences with body image, mental health, harassment, and, of course, sex.

To be entirely honest, I felt quite uncomfortable reading most of the passages.

Not necessarily because of the nature of the topics, but rather because I could find myself reflected in certain elements of each story. It’s chilling to read a stranger’s particular account of navigating puber! and the shame that comes with it, only to realize I went through almost exactly the same experience.

“Once you start to interrogate your own life, you realize there’s a lot of fucked up shit that you thought was normal,” Keachie says, adding, “Once you start talking to someone else about it, you’re like, ‘There’s a bigger problem here.’”

Indeed, personal stories provide a visceral, accessible avenue to explore the seemingly abstract and broad issues of feminism and sexism. What’s more, the emphasis on the individual is a direct resistance against academic constraints on expression.

At such a large institution like U of T, students can end up feeling insecure, as though they’re just a number.

“We’re always taught to be objective, and take ourselves out. How am I supposed to pretend I’m not there?” McLeod asks exasperatedly. “This is about putting ourselves back into writing.”

A UNIQUE STYLE HERE emphasizes the individual not only through their content, but also through their preferred form of expression. Handwriting effectively captures a writer’s personali!, which could be lost in a standardized !peface. Since each !pe of handwriting is distinct, it forces readers to slow down and engage with the text.

Handwriting also makes editing a lot

harder to do. While unedited work can be considered sloppy in the world of academia, Keachie and McLeod assured me that it encourages more meaningful and honest responses.

“People end up saying things they’ve never told anyone before,” Keachie explains, adding, “You start questioning, why have you been censoring yourself?

Why don’t we talk about this?”

Letter writing was another deliberate s!listic choice for the group. Historically, letters have been a subversive form of communication for feminists. HERE recognizes itself as building upon this tradition. Letters aren’t articles or essays, yet they remain very direct and purposeful.

“I’m calling you out, I’m writing to you: an institution, a thing, myself,” McLeod says. “It has a point, because it’s to someone, and implicates something.”

I didn’t fully appreciate these sentiments until I actually tried writing a letter myself. Though it was outside of the group’s monthly meeting, I still felt the rush of confession through directing my letter to the HERE communi!. There’s also something immensely satis$ing about seeing your own handwriting take up space.

GROUP VALIDATION Perhaps most interesting is how HERE provides a space to have your voice heard, literally. The intonation, pauses, volume, and speed of reading out loud give stories personali! which would otherwise be lost if simply read in someone’s head.

Reading aloud also allows contributors more control over their work, and is an empowering practice.

Especially in the context of feminism, reading aloud amplifies women’s voices in a way that is desperately needed. It rejects the sexist caricatures of women as simply narcissistic or shallow for talking about themselves and is an antidote

THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

to the constant silencing of women who speak out about oppression.

“I think girls can often be made to feel silly when talking about feminism,” says Kendall Andison, a fourth-year contributor.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to trust that what you have to say on the subject is of value.”

Consequently, reading out loud to attentive, like-minded listeners is a way of instilling a sense of ownership and pride in personal experiences. In fact, every contributor I spoke to expressed almost identical feelings of validation. Even the simple act of mailing my letter to HERE prompted similar, albeit diluted, excitement that my story was worthy of being published and read.

CREATING SAFE SPACES Emphasizing personal experiences has the potential to promote greater inclusivi! because all stories are appreciated. This is particularly significant for feminism, which has long been monopolized by white, heterosexual women. In fact, Manaal Ismacil, a third-year contributor, had a high school teacher once tell her that feminism was simply “a white woman’s approach to how white men treated them.”

As a queer black woman, Ismacil discussed how this rhetoric made her feel excluded for a long time. Such stories prompted Keachie and McLeod to speci$ in their constitution that HERE is safe space for everyone.

“We really emphasized from the get-go: if you have felt that feminism doesn’t include you, we want to be the kind of feminism that includes you,” explains Keachie.

Their dedication to inclusivi! has been successful. All feedback thus far praises HERE for establishing a positive and nonjudgmental environment. There is little doubt that HERE will continue living up to their namesake: boldly taking up physical and intellectual space, declaring a feminist presence on campus.

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I have nothing to say On subtweets and other anti-social media, and why they are both terrible and great Article by Danielle Klein

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t started with lyrics.

A line from a song that someone else wrote somehow seemed to say it all attached to my name and next to a music note in all lowercase letters, because capitalizing proper nouns was not fashionable on MSN Messenger — you either went all lowercase, or Capitalized The First Letter Of Every Word. My MSN status was a message to whomever I was pining after at the time.

As far as evidence suggests, these were either never received or consistently ignored, despite my strategic hourly practice of signing in and out like a flashing crush notice.

It may have been more effective to express my feelings by actually saying them out loud, rather than through a carefully curated strand of John Mayer’s musings.

There was, however, a certain satisfaction in the simultaneous exposure and complete lack thereof of vague statuses shared with my MSN buddies, shrouded in squiggly lines and asterisks.

I call this the passive-aggressive webbased non-gesture — a pseudo-confession completely opposite to the grand romantic gesture. Rather than confronting someone directly with their feelings — romantic, infuriated, or otherwise — the non-gesturer coyly expresses their sentiments on the Internet without naming who they are directed at. In the case of my MSN names, I hoped that the subjects of my subliminal messaging would somehow read between the lines of Fall Out Boy and know that I was talking to them, and realize that they should demonstrate their reciprocal feelings by, for example, I don’t know, serenading me with that very song at the school talent show, or whatever.

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These sorts of non-gestures have borne terms less wordy than mine, and the most prominent seems to be “subtweets,” which stands for subliminal tweeting. “Vaguebooking” is also sometimes used to refer people’s vague Facebook statuses, and “#oomf,” which stands for “one of my followers” or “one of my friends,” is often affiliated with “#subtweet.”

What I find most interesting about the phenomenon of subtweeting is that it seems antithetical to what social media is actually all about. Subtweets sometimes contain the affiliated hashtags, but don’t need to, and never directly mention their subject — making them effectively untraceable unless they come up on your news feed or you search the user. Subtweets are essentially private, anti-social media — they are a virtual retreat from confrontation. Rather than interacting with someone and starting a conversation, subtweets are, put succinctly, shy. They are the online equivalent of standing on the sidelines at the dance, staring at the object of your affection intently and silently, and hoping that they might notice your gaze.

The secretive nature of subtweets has earned them a poor reputation online.

They’ve been characterized as gossipy, cat#, a form of bullying, and attentionseeking, and were in fact declared “dead” in a #pically balanced, sober, and notat-all overstated Buzzfeed headline in October 2013. A lot of the #subtweet feed on twitter is made up of people criticizing others for cowering behind subtweets (and, in fairness, some of it is also pictures of submarines and subway sandwiches).

As one user tweeted: “why subtweet when THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

it’s so much more convenient to hit the @ button” — emphasizing that subtweets are a soapbox for the passive-aggressive.

For me, though, there’s a certain poetry to subtweets — or at least an affini# between something like a stream of consciousness poem and subtweets. They’re personal and raw like a journal, peppered with emotion that apparently refused to be contained. It’s fitting that my first subtweet-like expression was through lyrics, because subtweets remind me of songs. They’re about someone, but they don’t need to tell you who, and they let you slip into the first-person through a retweet if you’re so inclined, just as the unnamed subject of any song can be the object of your desire when the melody comes through your speakers.

The simplest subtweets have this global application, saying 1,000 words in under 140 characters — “Apparently I was wrong.” “Sorry I bothered you with my face.” “Oxford comma, motherfucker.”

“Take out the garbage.”

And then there’s the rush — the strange satisfaction of putting your emotions out there in the world, or making a quip about someone or something around you.

People are using social media outlets more and more to craft their personal brands. Users painstakingly work on their tweets and making them fit the character limit, monitor the analytics of their accounts, and remove content that isn’t performing as well as they had hoped. Social media platforms can be as career-based as they are attention-based, demonstrating on a public scale the user’s real or perceived interests and insights.

When subtweets find their way into even those professional profiles, they are a break from the usual stream of strategic retweets and replies. They are personal — and, even at their most pointed and scathing, subtweets are vulnerable. They say everything and nothing at once, broadcasting a confession to an audience that may or may not arbitrarily include their subject. They are full of personali# yet surprisingly generic, and casually biting while utterly ineffective. Subtweets are impulsive and, to a large extent, stupid, but they are often hilarious and nearly always honest, standing out in a social media culture broadly composed of branding and posturing.

For me, it continued with lyrics. My MSN statuses evolved into tweets and Tumblr posts of more song snippets, tagged #np for “now playing,” but never explicitly mentioning who the lyrics may be particularly pertinent to in that moment. Aside from stray observations of miso)ny or strange behaviour in the coffee line, my days of subtweeting are mostly over. I still find myself occasionally #ping them, but never hitting “publish.”

My litmus test for subtweets is to ask myself whether I would say what I’m about to tweet out loud to someone distinguished. In conversation with Hilary Clinton, for example, if it were how I was feeling, would I say: “Seriously considering legally marrying my bed THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

after my last dating experience,” or “Replying to my text with one word 16 hours after I sent is a cool thing to do”? Unlikely, but maybe if we were drinking — which we probably would be, because we’re best friends in this scenario.

Regardless, I usually backspace.

As for the subject of some of my MSN sub-statuses, who ultimately did not reciprocate my younger self’s feelings, I have nothing to say, and I am far too mature to subtweet on the subject any further as I work tirelessly towards establishing my own social media brand, etc., etc., — except, of course, that I hear you’re into urinating on ladies these days, and that’s a hard pass for me. #subarticle

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Be your own hero Article By Emma Kikulis Photos by Evan Luke

Inside Toronto’s roller derby community and its growing traction

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houts ricochet off the walls and ceiling. Voices are echoed by the sound of dozens of roller skates rushing around a wooden track.

A far cry from the old-school derby of the ’70s, roller derby has evolved and moved away from the violent theatrics and staged “hits” of decades prior, and has shifted its primary rules and regulations toward recognition as a legitimate sport.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is in the fact that people assume roller derby is just about violence,” says Rachel Paris.

“The sport has evolved into an intricate and elaborate set of rules… it demands a lot of skill beyond the old ‘American Gladiators’ s%le of play,” she adds.

Paris, who is a second-season bench manager for the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad — Toronto Roller Derby’s (ToRD) rookie team — has been involved with ToRD for three years and maintains that the sport is much more than throwing punches and kicks.

Perhaps due to the aggressive nature of the sport, teams and players alike have faced the struggle of getting roller sports, like roller derby, recognized and sanctioned as an official sport.

Roller derby is a highly sophisticated contact sport. Two teams of 14 choose five of their players at a time to play. It is played on a flat track — not a banked track — with roller skates rather than roller blades. The intention is to have a member of your team lap the other team as many times as possible. The person doing the lapping — the “jammer” — accumulates points by lapping the opposing team. The team with the most points at the end of two 30-minute “jams” wins.

The sport involves far more than skating in circles. Jammers must face an onslaught of retaliation by members of the opposing team while trying to score.

These other players, “blockers,” simultaneously play offence and defence, making roller derby one of few sports requiring this kind of multitasking from its players.

The pace of play is exhilarating and entertaining for spectators. However, it is the passion and commitment of the players that make the sport. According to Jan Dawson, a seventh-season blocker and line leader for the Death Track Dolls, the passion fuels the competitiveness, which makes the sport enjoyable for players and spectators alike.

“There are many levels of play to be watching as a skater, ref, or fan,” Dawson explains. “This may be perplexing the first few times someone sees the sport, but soon they become track-aware and it all makes sense and sucks them in,” she adds.

Dawson, who started her skating career after watching a roller derby game while completing her master’s degree, posits that the sport is often met with mixed re-

actions because of its relative obscuri% and the preconceived ideas people may have about roller derby.

“People aren’t completely aware that it’s a full contact sport on a flat track,” Dawson explains. “There are always questions about the roller blades and… the banked track.”

AESTHETICS AND IDENTITIES Each team in ToRD has a unique name and distinct look.

On game day, some players and teams don “boutfits” — uniforms for the match or “bout.” However, for the most part, players tend to keep it simple, sporting their team’s uniform.

“Some players go the boutfit route and wear tutus or fun patterned tights and some prefer to just wear a simple pair of athletic shorts or pants. It’s all about your comfort level,” says Ally Zingone of the Smoke Ci% Betties.

Each player is encouraged to come up with a “derby name” or “rink name.”

These nicknames sometimes manifest THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

as alter egos for skaters, and are %pically wit% representations of some aspect of a player’s real name or something identifiable with their personali%.

Paris’s pseudonym is Ani Phylactic. “I have a vast number of allergies; food, pollen, insects, synthetic fibers — you name it,” she explains, “and it’s pret% much become one of my primary identifiers, so I wanted to pay homage to that.” Ani Phylactic is a pun derived from anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction.

Zingone created her derby name, Zomboney, out of a life-long joke about her last name.

“As a kid I used to get teased by other kids who would call me Zamboni,” she says. “I was going to use Zamboni as my derby name but my friend suggested Zomboney since I’m such a horror fanatic.”

Zingone also maintains that a skater name isn’t a prerequisite of the sport.

Some skaters — in an attempt to legitimize the sport — have purposely forgone a derby name in favour of their legal name.

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“Some players have… been using their real names on the track,” Zingone explains. “[This is] an effort to have the sport more widely recognized as a real sport and not something kitschy.”

Dawson, who uses her last name as an identifier while skating, maintains that the “switch” she flicks on while skating is not an alter ego, but more of a competitive one that she is still actively developing.

“I use my last name because that’s what people call me,” Dawson explains.

“I don’t have an alter ego, but I have an athletic switch.”

A SAFE SPACE Though the league is open to and encouraging of interested individuals, players make it clear that it’s a serious time commitment. Being on the cusp of mainstream, there currently aren’t any pick-up teams or leagues for the casual derby-er.

“I would encourage the majori" of people to try derby unless they have a fear of falling down or if they are too busy to commit to a pret" rigorous schedule of practice and volunteering,” Paris says.

The sport’s demands are akin to that of a competitive hockey or soccer team.

Players are expected to commit to weekly practices, games, and fundraising.

These efforts aim to grow the ToRD organization and help further the legitimacy of roller derby as a sport.

“I long for the day when derby is big enough to have low-commitment pickup leagues,” says Paris. “But until then,

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you’ve got to be willing to put in time to support the organization that you play in, no question,” she adds.

Roller derby provides a unique formative experience and a venue for self-expression for its players. The iconic line, “Put on a pair of skates and be your own hero,” from the derby film Whip It , encompasses this feeling.

“I’ve learned how to be tough and confident on the track,” explains Dawson. “[This] has [infused] lessons about being tough and confident in my professional life,” she adds.

This feeling is something both Zingone and Paris relate to. “I think there’s a kind of self-expression in teaching and encouraging people to hit each other,” explains Paris. “I wouldn’t normally get to promote [that] in my chosen professional field of social work,” she adds.

Zingone attests to the feeling of communi" that the sport offers and attributes this camaraderie to the ease of expression that roller derby allows. “I would not be the person I am today if it wasn’t for this sport,” asserts Zingone.

“Not only because I have a safe way to get out aggression… but also because of the personal connections I’ve made along the way,” she explains.

This particular sport offers more than the usual benefits of being active and part of a social group. Despite its aggressive nature, roller derby gives players a safe place to express themselves.

Inclusivity and safety are paramount to roller derby, and are aspects that ToRD THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

teams are trying to promote.

“We’re still in a period where the sport is getting established and growing, so it still offers the players who get involved a lot of opportuni" to help guide what directions we’re growing in,” explains Paris. “We’ve generally got a lot of traction on making this an extremely inclusive and accepting sporting communi", and are trying to make derby as accessible to as many people as possible,” she adds.

“Many leagues [are] having discussions around gender policies that include trans women and non-binary folk, and how to accommodate skaters/officials with disabilities, like hearing impairment,” Paris concludes.

Zingone refers to the gathering of many individuals who share the same interests and values as an important aspect of the sport, as it provides a safe place for people with alternative tastes. “It’s comforting to know that there are other people out there who are living an alternative lifes"le, and they are happy doing it.”

“Roller derby has really given me an opportuni" to see that everyone lives different lives, and one person’s happiness may not be the same as someone else’s… It’s hard to see that there are other options in life when you’re surrounded by what’s ‘normal,’” Zingone explains.

“Everyone in our communi" is... super open-minded, which makes it very easy to just be yourself and feel accepted, even if you have blue hair and are covered in tattoos,” Zingone says.

Blending sounds Chris De Minico talks sampling and making music in Toronto Article by Corinne Przybyslawski Photos by Jennifer Su

M

usic evolves naturally over time. Its patterns form styles, whose consistencies and discrepancies forge schemas for full-fledged genres. Creating something wholly unique then becomes a challenging task. Sampling serves as an element of production that helps the music industry remember its history. By recycling specific components of a style that definitively communicates a specific time in music history, the genre as a whole is able to transcend time and appeal to a new generation or audience.

Samples often reflect themselves in soundscapes. Sometimes they are intentionally used to contribute to a nostalgic atmosphere if the artist is aiming to pay homage to a specific point in time. However, in cities where the musical scene is not quite defined, such as in Toronto, emerging artists scramble to throw together innovative collages of sound. The intention is to both startle and impress the audience to the point that an artist develops a following based on their unique sound. Notable figures who have embraced this strategy are Last Gang Records artists Ryan Hemsworth and Harrison, who fuse 8-bit flourishes with house-y funk, and sleepy, hiphop ridden electronica, respectively.

More recently though, a 19-year-old DJ has begun creeping out from the shadow-like atmospherics of the west end.

Chris De Minico is emerging as an artist in his own right, performing at coveted venues like The Hoxton, CODA, and the Danforth Music Hall. De Minico’s sets flawlessly incorporate a self-proclaimed “random range of selections” that fuse together everything from old school hip-hop to deep house to contemporary trap.

Locally recognized as Hrmxny, the variety in his creations has become De Minico’s defining trait. His versatility has proven key, and local entertainment powerhouses like Embrace have caught wind of that, landing him his first set opening for Gaslamp Killer in May of last year. Approaching the one-year mark in his pursuit of music as a career, De Minico is beginning to interest the eyes of the industry with his debut EP In Time and his distinct sound.

TV: [In the course of] establishing yourself as a DJ, what moved you into production?

CDM: I DJ’d first, and my manager now, Biz Davis, told me that you have to make music as well, or there’s no longevity in your career. There’s a lot of DJs in Toronto who just DJ, and there’s very few who produce and DJ. TV: When you were designing your EP, who did you borrow most from?

CDM: It was a wide variety music. I hated electronic music until I was 17, so about two years ago. I grew up in Scarborough, so my mom listened to Bruce Springsteen, and my grandpa’s Italian so he was all Andrea Bocelli. I wanted to be like, a gangster, listening to 50 Cent and stuff. It was a wide variety. I heard... “Trials of the Past” by SBTRKT, though, and that changed my outlook on music as a whole. I played with SBTRKT on Halloween actually, so that was the best moment of my life. I got to talk to him for a bit, and it was literally like meeting Jesus, a reincarnation. I listen to a lot of SoundCloud music too… SoundCloud is really its own genre.

be people that do. So I don’t care if there are some people who don’t, you know? If it doesn’t work, I scrap it. I’m very quick with that. I brand myself with my aesthetic. I only wear black, always, but everything I put out, I keep it colourful.

TV: You’re pushing something that’s different. Where do you think our scene is at post-Drake era?

CDM: Very moody, very emotional. You hear any rap music out of Toronto, there’s one specific sound. Dark, ambient, hard-hitting stuff. Even with the producers, it’s more or less the same. Me, I can’t make trap. I could if I tried, and I’d do it just to play at parties but it’s not, like… my music. Everything is like a story to me. From the intro to the outro, everything meshes together. A lot of my music is done in two hours. It’s just me expressing myself; if you like it, you like it. If you know me as a person, it’s separate from me. I’m really hype when I DJ, I wear a bandana on my head and shit — it’s stupid. I jump in the crowd. But when I’m making music at home, it’s calm and mellow. You need to be emotionally there. I can’t make [a] song just to make it. That’s why I can’t do the four-song- a-day thing like some producers. I wait for the inspiration.

TV: What made house the genre you wanted to give a shot?

CDM: No one does it — it’s such a niche market. When I lived in Durham, there’s really nothing to do, besides make hip-hop and try to rap. Hip-hop is the most prominent. There’s a lot of house people in Toronto that are low-key. You have to go through the elders to kind of step foot in this scene. I feel like I had a good backing from the older people first and they were like “here’s this kid, give him a shot.”

TV: How did you get your stuff to stop sounding weird, [with you] fusing together such a variety of sounds?

CDM: My first set, I predetermined it, because it was like a make-or-break moment. It wasn’t a small bar or anything, it was the Hoxton and I was opening for Gaslamp Killer. I had an opening slot from 10–11, and I played straight deep house.

I’d never played before then either, so I had to guess what the crowd might expect. With the EP what I noticed about the blog reviews was that it was more how they felt while listening to it, not the technical aspects. Technical music sounds good, but it’s fake. It does bother me a little, like, I got one dislike on this YouTube video and I was like, I’m gonna find you.

I got premiered on Thump too, and I was on Thump that whole day, and when I saw that one dislike, I was like, what? But I know what I like. I think I have good taste in music, so I make what I would like. If I like it, most people will like it. I’m ignorant when it comes to that.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

TV: You never aimed to cater it to any specific audience?

CDM: Nah, it’s just stuff I like. I literally just sit there and make it in my room. I don’t really make it for other people. I know a lot of people say that, but I can’t. I won’t make a song for a specific crowd. If I like it, then okay, whatever — other people will like it. Not everyone will, but there are going to

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No laughing matter One student’s quest for wit, wisdom, and a decent bit of material

“

Hey, you’re pret! funny! You should do stand-up.”

I hate to toot my own horn here, but if I had a dime for every time I’ve been on the receiving end of this compliment, I’d be able to afford a comedy club — or, at least, to rent one out on a Wednesday evening. Regardless, the notion of performing stand-up has stuck with me like a banal pop melody or a useless bit of movie trivia (Did you know that the cake in Sixteen Candles is made of cardboard?).

Every so often, I come close. I hit upon an odd social observation or I undergo a bizarre experience, and I cultivate that microscopic seed of a joke until, ideally, it blossoms into a delicate flower of comedic material. A stray thought about, say, the un-sexiness of Snuggies, takes me on a roundabout cognitive journey, leaving me with a rough outline for a whimsical bit. Misshapen and half-baked though it may be, it nevertheless feels like my own unique thought, and for an instant, I feel excited — the excitement you feel when you pop bubble wrap or accidentally speak in rhyming couplets.

And then the bubble wrap is gone.

I can never take that next step: I can never gather the courage to climb up on a stage in a dimly lit room and share my comedic content in front of a hopefully inebriated, potentially judgmental audience.

It’s not that I have stage fright, per se — in fact, if I do say so myself, I’m a lovely dancer, and I’ve been told that I “have the grace

and zeal of a young Vanilla Ice.” But, when it comes to finding my comedic voice, I feel a peculiar sense of doubt. “Maybe people won’t see the issue my way,” I think. “Maybe people won’t understand the material.”

“Maybe people won’t think I’m funny.”

With these fears in mind, I turned to David Heti, a stand-up comedian whose hesitant delivery and absurdist material is only overshadowed by the gloriousness of his beard, in the hopes that he would provide insights into the challenges of expressing comedy.

“I suppose,” he says, “there’s something unusually vulnerable about a comic, as not only alone up on stage, but, most often, both the writer and performer, not to mention unscripted. The spaces are also often so intimate, and the audiences, ideally, listen so intently. All this which make it difficult, though, also allow failing on stage more acceptable.”

When asked about the inherent challenges of stand-up comedy, Heti says, “Stand-up comedy is live to a room and a night and an audience in a way which most other kinds of performances are not. Regardless of what has gone on that morning in the news, a play is a play is a play. A comic, however, must respond to the feeling of that particular audience at that particular moment in time.

I think good comics not only have ideas as to where they want to take their audiences, but they’re quick and intelligent and flexible enough to deviate from whatever line they may have envisioned if need be.”

Article by Daniel Konikoff Illustration by Julien Balbontin

Jokes, to Heti, “are nothing more than thoughts,” and their funniness is, he says, “in large part, just what helps you get the message across.”

“There’s a constant trying out of jokes on stage, changing words, delivery, joke order, etc. If something doesn’t go over well initially, I stick with it if I think there’s a good idea there that I simply may not have found the way to communicate.

More often than not it’s just that a single part of a joke is cut. Also, if a joke’s not doing well, you simply stop telling it and you end up forgetting about it. And that’s not a concern if you come up with jokes often,” he says.

But for folks like me, where coming up with jokes and getting up in front of a crowd is a concern, Heti offers this advice: “It helps to go up for the first time anonymously. Don’t tell anyone you’re doing it, as it’s easier to look foolish in front of people you don’t know. Like lots of fears, it’s more likely far more terrible in your head than in reali!.”

“Also, mine every moment of your waking life for material. Never feel anything or live the moment; simply stand back, once-removed, and attempt to see what’s uncomfortable or absurd or awful, in the now,” he advises, and pauses before adding, “You’ll also need a pen and paper.”

So, will you be seeing me at open mics any time soon? Who’s to say — but if you steal my unsexy Snuggie joke, don’t be surprised if I stand-up for myself.

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Makeup, mayhem, and modern-day vaudeville In photos: a taste of Toronto’s drag scene at Crews and Tangos’ “Back End” burlesque show

By Jennifer Su

Backstage, peformers get ready in an almost frantic flurry. Makeup and hair products are strewn about as burlesque dancers reapply bright red lipstick and adjust curls. It’s an average night at Crews and Tangos.

The distinct voice of Daytona Bitch, one of Toronto’s most prominent and sometimes controversial drag queens, echoes above the din.

It’s almost showtime.

Daytona Bitch performing; “To play at this bar, you need hip pads and breasts.”

Backstage: burlesque dancers getting ready.

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Accessories are made and sold at the Toronto School of Burlesque in Kensington Market.

“The most successful drag queens are loud or talented, and I’m both.” — Daytona Bitch

More photos online at var.st/drag THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

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Article by Nadezhda Woinowsky-Kreiger Illustration by Mari Zhou

F

acial expressions are one of the most powerful forces in human non-verbal communication.

Almost all of us are capable of recognizing our most universal emotions of happiness, fear, and surprise. In fact, our abili! to read faces comes so naturally that we rarely fully appreciate how much is going on beneath the surface of our skin. The different parts of our face stretch, wrinkle, and move in many ways that are often quite subtle and complex.

The science behind facial expressions is a fascinating combination of anatomy, behaviour, and neuropsycholo$, all of which come together to deliver us this powerful communication tool that is so important in our socie!.

Here’s

The science behind

DILATED PUPILS Among other instances, pupils dilate when sexually aroused. It’s a reflex, unlike regular or “macro” expressions, so it’s something that can’t be concealed.

SURPRISE Surprise is a facial expression very akin to reflex, as it is often the one that we have the least control over. One of the main contributors to the surprised expression is the muscle in the forehead [frontalis], which is responsible for both the raised eyebrows and the furrows that are created as the muscle draws your scalp forward.

SADNESS Sadness is characterized by every part of the face drooping downward. A key player is a muscle called the levator labii superioris, which draws the angles of the mouth downward. This is one of 11 muscles that help operate all of the many forms and shapes your mouth can make.

FEAR Unlike sadness, when one is scared, every part of the face opens up and widens — a reflex with the purpose of preparing the individual to fight or run from the situation. When in fear, the forehead muscle raises your eyebrows and widens your eyes just like when you’re surprised. Fear is characterized around the jaw by the lowering of your lower lip, or pla!sma, pulling your mouth wide open.

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at

looking

d facial expressions

ANGER

Pursed lips and squin! eyes are what characterize one of our most easily recognized expressions. The same circular muscle around your eye, orbicularis oculi, that allows you to blink your eyes or wink by closing them causes you to close them partially in a squint as well.

A tiny muscle in your nose called the dilator naris causes your nostrils to flare.

Even this subtle component of the expression is rooted in a practical purpose, as widening the nostrils even slightly can still contribute to helping a furious person breathe according to some researchers.

Others believe that the flared nostrils merely give one the appearance of being ready to fight — thus intimidating a potential opponent.

Another round muscle around the mouth, orbicularis oris, makes lips close or purse. This muscle may also be referred to as the “kissing muscle” due to its important alternative purpose.

DISGUST Despite being a somewhat subtle emotion, the elements that characterize disgust are surprisingly unique and recognizable.

The drawing up of the nose produces the wrinkles and widened nostrils of a clearly repulsed face. This look is a combination of laughing eyes but with the slanted brow that you would get while frowning, caused by the corrugator supercili.

you

HAPPINESS Even though scientists are still undecided on its evolutionary origin, the smile is one of the most universally recognized facial expressions we have. The zygomatic major, a muscle that reaches all the way up to the bone right under our eyes, helps pull the corners of our mouths upwards.

Meanwhile, the risorius muscle pulls our lips back to reveal our teeth in a grin.

Our squin! circular muscles around the eyes return to close our eyes partially and give us those little crow’s feet around their corners. This effect is increased by the raising of the cheek and upper lip muscles, levetor anguli superioris, which raise the upper lip again to reveal the teeth, and push the cheeks against the bottom of our eyes.

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What’s language got to do with it?

Four U of T students discuss how we talk to one another and the role of language in multilingual contexts Article by Alex McKeen Photos by Alexandra Scandolo

I

f you spent a day on any one of the Universi! of Toronto’s three campuses, you would hear many — maybe dozens — of languages spoken by students, professors, and staff. The people here communicate with each other every day: in the hallways, in the classroom, in our writing and presenting. But how do our varying linguistic backgrounds impact that communication?

For some of us, this question hasn’t earned much thought over time. Perhaps we are native English speakers who have lived in an English-speaking context for the majori! of our lives. Or maybe we are multilingual ourselves, and are so used to being flexible in how we communicate with others that it happens subconsciously. At either extreme and anywhere in the middle, it merits a pause to think about the veritable array of languages at play around us every day.

The Varsi! spoke to just a sample of students with varying experiences with language. Some have faced completely new languages from scratch; others have gradually learned English through study or submersion. What is striking are the kinds of questions that came out of this conversation: What does your abili! to speak a certain language tell you and others about who you are? How do we break down barriers when we can’t understand each other? And, at the end of the day, does the language we speak matter at all?

ous to linguistic challenges. Last summer, she found herself on a five-week summer abroad trip to Argentina, with no Spanish background at all.

“Their main language is Spanish. When I got there, I thought at least Argentinians would speak English at some level, but then [it] turned out they don’t at all.

Everyone speaks only Spanish. Half the

SONIA “I had to use Google Translate for menus to show them the translated word.”

Languages spoken: Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, English

Sonia is an international student from Hong Kong. During her primary and secondary educations, it was compulsory for her to learn Cantonese, Mandarin, and English at the same time. Her mother, who grew up in Japan, spoke Japanese with her at home. Mastering four languages, however, doesn’t make a person impervi-

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students that went with us had some sort of Spanish background, either their U of T major or Spanish courses. I have no background at all,” she describes.

“I was hoping I could at least ask for a coffee in English, but people were like ‘What are you saying?’ in Spanish back to me. I had the biggest problem there. I remember I had to use Google Translate for

menus and show them the translated word to order a latte,” she adds, Over time, Sonia found that she was able to learn some Spanish.

“Google Translate was really helpful,” she says. “I probably couldn’t have survived without that. It was also near where we were living for the first two weeks, we did some classes in a local universi!. There were a lot of local Argentinian students. From then on, we figured that universi! students are actually bilingual; they were different from the locals. They tend to speak more English compared to other people that live in the area. We talked to them, tried to make friends with them; they taught us some of the words that we could use.”

This experience made Sonia think about how much language really does matter to communication.

“I remember someone robbed [one of our group mates] and I had to come meet her at the police station,” she recalls. “It was so difficult to find the direction[s]. It was out of our neighbourhood, so we had to travel

an hour away to another region, and we were trying to ask for directions. Oftentimes I’ll ask is it left or right and literally show them [the directions with my hands], but they had difficul! understanding us. If we [could] speak a little bit of Spanish then those body languages would be really helpful. But [since we couldn’t] speak at all, then it was hard to even start the conversation.”

TAHA “I am generally very conservative with language. I make a point to speak Urdu when I’m speaking Urdu, without any English adulterations.”

Languages spoken: Urdu, English, some Cantonese, Mandarin, and some regional dialects of Southeast Asia

Like Sonia, Taha is multilingual. He grew up in Pakistan; Urdu is his native tongue.

However, he was also immersed in English from a young age, as it is the “official” language of business in Pakistan. As a result

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of this and of his experience at U of T, he has witnessed firsthand how globalization affects language, and what is at stake when languages are forgotten.

“I grew up being bilingual, so we kind of made a third language out of [Urdu and English] because it was kind of mixed together in that way,” he says. “Even now I don’t know a lot of words in English and/ or Urdu and I mix the two together and get a third language. That’s what I’m used to: generally Urdu grammar with 60 per cent English words.”

“I think I am generally very conservative with language... I make it a point to try to speak Urdu when I’m speaking Urdu, without any English adulterations. And I make a point to speak English when I’m speaking English, without any Urdu adulterations. What I get from a lot of people who understand both languages is I speak like a newscaster when I’m speaking in Urdu.

Because nobody speaks that way anymore, it’s this new hybrid language that people are speaking normally,” he says.

This means that something intrinsic is at risk of being lost, Taha says.

“I think there is value [in languages themselves] and the value lies largely in the historical literature of the language.

The essence of a language is in its poetry and its prose. It tells you about emotions and things around you, the falling of autumn leaves and love and all these beautiful things that can’t be expressed otherwise. And all of these things, there’s a beau!, that essence, that romantic element would all be lost,” Taha describes.

He notices a similar effect on a personal level.

“My sense of humour may be fantastic in Urdu,” he explains. “I get that all the time when I talk to my brother and so on, but in English I’m just not quick-witted enough; my answers don’t flow in the same way.”

“You can have Siri in Indian English now, because you can use that hybrid language. It allows you to do that. You’ve got terms like ‘Hinglish’ that exist. It’s cool in its own way, but it’s also scary for someone like myself,” he adds.

Globalization is a real concern for Taha.

“There’s something I heard recently: South Asia was colonized after the colonizers left. That’s when our hearts and minds were actually colonized. My grandfather went to Cambridge back in the ’30s.

Everyone wanted to be English and act English and start wearing English clothes and talk in a certain way,” he says.

“The definition of becoming cultured was going to Britain,” he adds.

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ALICE “I remember being really embarrassed that I didn’t know what that means and at the same time feeling like I was being bullied just because I didn’t know this language.”

Languages spoken: Mandarin, English

TOM “If I discuss in English, I tend to be a little bit more radical.”

Languages spoken: German, English

Tom is an international student from Germany with a long-standing connection to Canada. His family used to come to Toronto for a few weeks every summer. Tom is now fluent, but learned English fairly recently and intensively. He studied the language since grade six in Germany, and went to Cambridge for nine months before coming to the Universi! of Toronto. Now, he says that, though he is fluent in English, for him it will never be like a native tongue.

“What’s still a little bit of a challenge is to speak in front of the class if it’s a huge lecture,” he explains. “It’s not that easy to make your point because if you hear those other students who are the good students, of course they play with the language in such a sophisticated way; they sound so professional. So because English is not your first language you can’t sound that sophisticated. It’s a lot about sounding smart. It’s not about what you say, it’s how you say it.”

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Tom says that he still picks up on colloquialisms, watches movies in English, and even thinks English grammar is easier than his native language. “I recently read a study where if people talk in a language that is a foreign language, they use their feelings less.

The question of the experiment was whether people were willing to sacrifice someone for some greater good,” he describes. “In their own language, people were less likely to sacrifice that person, but in a foreign language they were more willing to do that. So I think there’s some emotional way that our native language speaks to our feelings and our emotions that apparently other languages cannot do.”

Tom has noticed this at play in his own life.

“I’ve noticed that on myself a little bit, that if I discuss in English, I tend to be a little bit more radical. Just slightly — it’s not that I completely change my point of view.

In German I consider things in a different way. Same with movies. I watch a movie in English, I understand everything by now but I can’t feel them in the same way that I can feel German movies. So even if it’s an American movie I sometimes prefer to watch it in the German version,” he says.

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Alice’s family came to Canada briefly in 1999 and permanently when she was in grade four. Now she says that she has been here long enough that both Mandarin and English feel like first languages to her. She still remembers what it was like to learn a brand new language, and is reminded to this day of the sorts of power dynamics language barriers can create.

“The first thing that comes to mind when I first came to Canada in grade four, is a memory of mine,” she recalls. “I was struggling with English at first. There was this kid — I can remember his face really clearly. He had a basketball in his hand.

It was a pret! sunny day. We were called back in from recess. On my way back I remember him looking at me and he’s like, ‘Why do you look so dumb?’”

“At that time I was like, what does that word mean? I forced myself to remember that word, and then I went back home and I asked my dad what the word dumb meant, and I remember we were both flipping through the English to Mandarin dictionary and looking up the word dumb only to find out... it means dumb. I remember being really embarrassed that I didn’t know what that means and at the same time feeling like I was being bullied just because I didn’t know this language,” she says.

Aside from the occasional grammatical error, Alice says that she rarely thinks about English as a second language anymore. However, on a summer abroad trip to Hong Kong, she noticed again the kind of social repercussions that can result from language differences.

“When I was in [Hong Kong], for example, I didn’t speak Cantonese, and I feel like everywhere I went I was a traveller and a foreigner,” she explains. “It was certainly in the [Hong Kong] culture to act differently toward people that didn’t speak the language. Not to say that they’re deliberately being rude to you, but even so, just because I didn’t understand the culture, and I didn’t speak the language, I felt very excluded to ask anybody anything.”

“I think language certainly signifies a hierarchy of whether or not you know it,” Alice adds. “If you don’t know it, then it’s automatically assumed that you’re a lower status, even though you might not be.”

A new reality

A look at the growing relationship between man and machine inside campus labs

By Malone Mullin Photos by Evan Luke

D

r. Martin Labrecque’s startup, tucked away on the fourth floor of the University of Toronto’s Best Institute, isn’t like one I’ve ever seen. It’s not flashy. There are no haute graphic posters making audacious use of negative space. The furniture isn’t accented in chrome. But for what Labrecque’s company, BreqLabs, lacks in corporate pizzazz, it more than makes up for in its robust vision.

For the past two years, Labrecque has been hard at work bringing to life the ExoGlove. Essentially a wearable mouse, it can be used to interact with laptops, gaming systems, and virtual reality headsets. Given the right applications, it could change the way users manipulate any object that contains a computer chip. Based on current trajectories, that might very well be everything.

TOUCHING THE FUTURE Like the aspirations of his startup, Labrecque’s knowledge is expansive. In our hour-long talk, he brings up everything from retinal projectors to the difficulties of finding a seamstress willing to work with him on the intricacies of his new design.

He shows me various models of the ExoGlove; the earliest is bulky, like a winter garment. A later incarnation is primarily mesh. My favourite model reminds me of the robotic arm in Terminator 2, its spindly fingers designed to creep over the back of the hand. “It has to be fashionable,” he says, or nobody will want it.

But despite its tentative outward appearance, Labrecque says the ExoGlove “does exactly what it’s supposed to.” Gesture-based interfacing is not a new idea, but most technologies, such as Oculus

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Rift, incorporate optical tracking rather than a wearable sensor, meaning that the user’s hands always need to stay where the stationary camera can see them. “We want to make it more immersive by bringing in a greater range of movement,” Labrecque says. “If I have to stick my hands in my face, does it really work well?”

In a possible near future, when computer displays transcend their current glassmonitored prison — think Tom Cruise’s wall-sized, holographic computer screen in Minori! Report — the ExoGlove will reach its full potential. Likewise, if the imminent “Internet of Things” vision pans out, then the ExoGlove could act like a remote control for everything from the front door to the thermostat. A simple flick of the wrist could turn on the lights; a come-hither gesture would summon a robotic assistant.

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Alternately, if Microsoft’s HoloLens gains traction, the ExoGlove could control virtual objects with the extra benefit of allowing us to feel whatever we’re picking up or pushing aside. Wearable interfacing adds a dimension of touch, an extra sensation that augments virtual reali". This “haptic feedback” could allow the user to feel the fur of a digital pet or the weight of a baseball bat. Whatever the specifics, the human environment of the future will be ambiently intelligent, and the ExoGlove is a useful way to access and control that intelligence.

But that future is distant enough to keep Labrecque working in the present, steadfastly building his company and ironing out the kinks. Initially, his idea for the ExoGlove was based on user accessibili": the elderly and differently-abled, he noticed, were left out of the digital realm, unable to

control track pads and computer mice with shaky or paralyzed hands. The ExoGlove would give these users access to devices that most of us take for granted.

Within such a comparatively small market, however, funding is scarce. Labrecque was forced to market the ExoGlove as a suitable controller for gaming systems, particularly those based in virtual reali".

With dual applicabili", he hopes, the ExoGlove will get the financial support it needs to become a tool for every user.

“We have a patient now we’re working with, and he can’t move anything except for a small movement with his hand. So we translate that little movement into something useful,” he says.

Inventing the ExoGlove hasn’t been motivated by a desire for renown or wealth.

Labrecque just seems to want a hand in making a better future. Walking out the doors of BreqLabs, I couldn’t help but be sorry that it’s only 2015. My childhood dreams of being a superhero with telekinetic powers were revived. But since these were the days when Kid Pix was the most exciting computer app in existence, it was difficult to imagine that the near future might let me communicate with distant objects — real and virtual — by slipping on a simple glove.

SOMETHING FROM NOTHING Most students aren’t aware of this, but within its Mordorian ramparts, Robarts contains a high-tech laboratory staffed primarily by excitable PhD students and postdoctoral fellows.

I follow the signs up to the seventh floor, where I’m directed to the Semaphore Research Cluster on Mobile and Pervasive Computing, which sounds sinister enough. Despite the lab’s ominous moniker, however, Dr. Isaac Record, an engineer and philosopher who works in the emerging discipline of Critical Making, gives a warm greeting. He’s tasked with determining how the future will uni( its many disparate technologies, and what problems individual users will use these technologies to solve.

Record leads me into the “fishbowl,” a glass-walled room containing three large additive printers — one of them suspiciously named Hal—and other machines that complement the lab’s “Making” abili".

Their setup is simple and efficient: brainstorm at one table with paper and markers, digitize and model the ideas at the next table on computers, and then send the information to one of the printers.

I’m shown an array of objects the lab has manufactured. Record has a replica of himself austerely reading a book, made with the aid of the human-scale 3D scanner in Semaphore’s lobby. Dan Southwick, one of the lab’s PhD students, shows me a mesh-bodied creature akin to a hippopotamus, inexplicably adorned with orange antlers — I’m told later that it’s actually a bird feeder, strong and lightweight, and the antlers act as perches. It was made through a “fused filament fabrication” machine, a type of 3D printer that works much like a very adroit glue gun.

MORE THAN PRINTING But Semaphore is not just a place for techies to make toys. The U of T–funded research cluster studies how divergent social groups use emergent technolo*. It’s a social sciences approach to the purposes for our ever-smarter machines. As Southwick puts it, “our focus is on the meta.”

One of Semaphore’s mandates includes studying the personalization of design.

Participatory manufacturing allows individuals to express their own needs and desires, like when Record co-designed a tennis ball for the visually impaired with members of the Toronto Blind Tennis Club, or the lab’s foray into printing customized prosthetic limbs.

Any student at U of T can use the lab, and on Friday mornings the fishbowl even welcomes the general public — much to the delight of over-the-shoulder peerers Record and Southwick, perpetually fascinated as they are by human-machine interaction.

Ultimately, additive manufacturing will permit us to express ourselves with-

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in a framework of self-directed fabrication. No longer limited by the expense of small production runs, custom parts can be printed cheaply, allowing engineers — Labrecque included — to invent new technologies without the traditional manufacturing restrictions on time and output.

As for the future of additive printing, I can’t help but ask if it’ll one day become the revolutionary Trekkian fabricator we all hope it will be. Record is skeptical.

“Maybe in the very distant future everybody will have a vat of protons that gets turned into stuff,” he answers. “But that would be such an ener* consumptive process that I’m going to say it’ll happen after fusion.”

The lab has worked around the technolo* for long enough that, despite its paradigm-shifting benefits, they can see its limits. As Southwick mentions, “We just don’t want any more plastic crap in our lives.”

“Do you really need it in your life all the time? That’s a question we’ve dealt with.

We don’t have an answer to it,” he adds.

MOVING FORWARD The field is far from having all the answers. Whether ambient intelligence, wearable devices, and pervasive computing will ultimately change the world for the better remains to be seen.

What is certain is that we have never before been so intimately connected with our tools — after all, it’s difficult to maintain rapport with a wood axe. But, this intimate relationship also impacts our autonomy in a culture defined by invasive corporate interests and powered

by Big Data.

Ensuring that our devices do not become a vehicle for ulterior agendas poses a major challenge to users, one that labs like Semaphore actively work to resolve.

Keeping a critical eye on what the future holds will give us a chance to leverage these tools appropriately, in order to express ourselves in extensive and formidable ways. From what it seems, the possibilities are endless.

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Courtesy of Maarten Hornstra, Markus Spiering, Matt Blaze, Oliver Quinlan, Anirudh Koul, Ged Carroll, Greh Fox, Jenn Calder/ FLICKR BY CC

Takedown shakedown Holding out on copyright reform hurts everyone Article by Natalie Morcos

Y

ou just posted a sweet, sweet remix on YouTube last night and you can’t wait to get home and see how many views it’s racked up. You sit down, log in, and instantly go from hopeful to crestfallen. You’ve received notice that your video contains infringing content and has been taken down. You certainly didn’t mean to infringe upon anyone’s intellectual proper!, but you’re unsure if there’s anything you can do about it now.

Intellectual proper! is a term that’s thrown around pret! loosely these days, a catch-all for the ownership of intangibles, not pointing to any one singular thing. It’s a misleading term, inclining

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one to believe there might actually be some overarching and uni"ing policy behind it. There’s not, and there’s been some controversy around how it seems to paint itself as doing so.

Implicit in the term is a bias. Parker Higgins, director of copyright activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explains: “It does require some, you know, puppet master pulling the strings, but there is reason to think that the people who are pushing for thicker and stronger copyright term benefit from (A) all these things being conflated and (B) them all being called proper!.” There is a stronger sense of ownership, a sense in which when it’s called “proper!,” something as

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intangible as an idea might be perceived of as belonging squarely to one person or one par! and not to another.

Free software activist Richard Stallman corroborates: the term “lumps three different things, with three different sets of laws, into one confusing pot and then corporations get to benefit from the confusion.” When we talk about intellectual proper!, what we’re actually talking about is one of copyright, patent, or trademark, each of which is in effect toward a very different end. It is a mistake to think these generalize into a coherent whole.

Higgins emphasizes that “copyright and patent are very different, but even more so with copyright and trademark — the

purpose of the law is almost opposite.”

Whereas trademark law is designed to protect consumers, to let them know what they are buying and that the instances of branding they run into are genuine, copyright and patent are intended to protect the rights of creators, encouraging them to continue creating by helping them gain recognition for their efforts.

Copyright protects the expression of ideas, often in the form of artistic works.

Patents protect the ideas themselves, encouraging their publication by granting a temporary monopoly over derivative manufacturing.

The three areas aren’t all equally broken. Copyright, says Higgins, is “disproportionately deserving” of our attention.

While the patent policy arena certainly is charged, the major powers are more evenly distributed across the playing fields. Corporations both generate patents and license them, and so there is equal industrial pressure coming from both sides. In copyright, however, on the one side there’s an industry churning out copyrighted content, and on the other there’s just individuals, smaller groups who want to continue creating and who don’t have legal teams, and so, Higgins explains, “the pressure’s always been in one direction. It’s just been a ratchet towards thicker and stronger and more convoluted copyright laws.”

There’s a sense in which the tightening of the copyright law Higgins refers to might not be interpreted as such. Instead, the newer policies might be regarded as maintaining previous levels of severi! but with updated terms to account for the advent of new technologies. Higgins concedes this is one narrative. Fair use and fair dealing, the provisions which govern how and where copyrighted material can be used without infringement in the US and Canada respectively, have gotten stronger, and so, Higgins says, “the course of terms has to have gotten longer to balance that out.”

However, there’s also a sense in which it’s not that simple. What the copyright system is doing now could be likened to what in the past would have been stopping bootleggers with major operations.

Previously, infringement wasn’t possible

without some serious real estate and capital to get you going. It likely involved a factory, a work fleet, and involvement in some supply chain. In the digital age, the bootlegger and his whole operation have been reduced to some guy with an internet connection. The barriers to production are incredibly low.

This shift we’ve observed in the digital era complicates things. “I think there’s something fundamentally different about going after that bootlegger when it’s just somebody with a DVD drive,” Higgins comments, “especially because the way we know how to do that, the way the only laws have been proposed, is to say that anyone who has a DVD drive … is potentially one of these bootlegger who 15 years ago would have had a factory.”

So, the recourse policy makers have taken has been to simply regulate everyone with a computer, and that, says Higgins, “is a really grave problem. It’s not even just regulation, it’s making sure that you know we can surveil anyone and everyone in order to find out if they’re copying, and that kind of thing is a really unprecedented intrusion into the life of people.” The policy backing these kinds of actions is arguably qualitatively different than previous iterations of policy designed to shut down coordinated operations.

Since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) passed in 1998, US service providers must uphold a “Notice and Takedown” regime in order to waive themselves of the legal liabili! associated with their hosted content. Canada has a similar but slightly less stringent “Notice and Notice” policy, first legislated in 2005, and reified in the the Copyright Modernization Act of 2012.

However, with the majority leading Internet services being hosted in the States, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google included, Canadians and other groups increasingly have to be aware of the policies to which our southern neighbours are holding these companies, and they’re not pretty.

In order to uphold the Notice and Takedown regime, service providers are required to have an infrastructure in place which allows people to file notices on

THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

suspicious content. Upon receiving the notice, the provider then has 24 hours to take down the allegedly infringing content, or else bear the full burden of the legal liabili! attached to it.

This system isn’t great. On the one hand, it provides an immediate silencing vector for disgruntled parties. The issuer of the notice isn’t required to provide any proof of copyright infringement to initiate this process. Instead, the onus is on the owner of the content to file a counter notice after the fact if they feel the takedown was in error.

The Chilling Effects clearinghouse, an archive of DMCA takedown notices, shows us that not many individuals actually take this kind of pushback upon themselves, and unsurprisingly, because stepping into the line of fire of copyright litigation is something which, in the US, could wind up costing you up to $150,000, a nontrivial amount by any standards. As a result, this system sees a large number of non-infringing works go down and stay down, limiting the speech of others who were never doing anything wrong.

On the other hand, the Notice and Takedown system, when it is reporting true infringement, effects change that is hopelessly impermanent. Higgins likens it to a whack-a-mole situation, where one infringement is beaten down only to see the same thing pop up in a different spot a few seconds later. He concedes that, “if your goal is to make sure that there’s no infringing content on the internet, then the tools we have now are DMCA takedown notices and you[‘d] have to file literally millions of those a week.” Indeed, Google Search gets around seven million takedown orders per week, not including those issued on any of their secondary assets like YouTube. “You’d need new tools,” Higgins concludes. “The takedown notices that we have just don’t do that job.”

One thing’s for sure: it doesn’t matter which side of the law you’re standing on, the policies in their current instantiation are definitely, definitely broken. At least in the US and the EU and Australia, lawmakers have declared that copyright law is open for revision, but those revisions just can’t get here soon enough.

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“Yes, it’s a cult” Blantantism, esoteric knowledge, and the art-for-profit scheme 30

THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

Article by Alec Wilson Photos by Jennifer Su

V

eronica was running late, though she wasn’t in a hurry.

It was 10 minutes past eight o’clock on a damp and dreary Tuesday in January. She was on her way east, walking leisurely through downtown, to confront a suspicious clutch of people who had recently started showing up to her weekly communi# art events. Escaping the weather, she walked up the short steps to the front door of a townhouse on Queen Street and rang the doorbell.

For the past year or so, Veronica has organized an event series called the Sacred heART Jam at the altar of the Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields on Bellevue Avenue every Thursday. The heART Jam is a self-described “radically” inclusive group of diffuse participants who come to the church to explore “the interdisciplinary study of being” through collaborative painting, theatre games, and discussions of social justice reminiscent of the Occupy movement.

The sound of the doorbell could be heard from within the house as Veronica waited patiently for someone on the other side of the door to greet her. A few weeks before, Mark Harris, the man she was coming to meet, had sent her an email inquiring as to whether or not she would be amenable to having him and some friends come to the heART jam to host meetings of their own. She had initially been open to the idea, but after having Harris and his associates for a few weeks, she had become concerned that they might be trying to coopt her project.

The door opened to reveal a young woman Veronica did not recognize.

The two climbed the narrow stairs to the house’s third floor while eerie elevator music emanated from an unseen speaker. Reaching the top of the stairs, Veronica was directed to sit in a chair across a table strewn with lit tea candles opposite Harris and a second unknown person. The woman who let her in sat behind her next to a wall-mounted television displaying a large red letter “T” stamped within a triangle in a circle.

The bizarre appointment was shortlived. Veronica left visibly disturbed by the strange pomp and circumstance her hosts had generated for the occasion and stayed only long enough to tell them that they would no longer be welcome at the church on Thursdays.

Over the course of the past two years,

conversations in dark and smoky rooms between Harris and a group of eclectic acolytes have given birth to a shadowy organization calling itself the Toronto Group and its undergirding philosophy, Blatantism. Inspired in part by the success of artistic and social movements from the past, as well as a recognition of the pervasive and destructive influence of consumerism in artistic culture, Harris and his Toronto Group have apparently set out to subvert the art world.

Since the falling out with Veronica and the Sacred heART Jam, the Toronto Group has been meeting sporadically, almost never in the same place, to discuss and execute their plans. Each of the handouts that are distributed to those who attend their meetings — a group of eccentric artists, thinkers, and surrealists — include a short paragraph: “The purpose of the meeting is to establish a communi#. The purpose of the communi# is to host meetings. By participating in the communi# we can feel part of something larger than ourselves, and we can create collective will and collective action.”

Meetings of the group are difficult to describe in reasonable terms, but this is decidedly how the group wants it. During a late January event hosted, ironically, at the 8-11 Gallery on Spadina, roughly 15 perplexed and intrigued guests listened as Harris, the de-facto leader of the group, launched into what amounted to a series of answers to frequently asked questions.

Rhetorically, Harris asks whether or not the group is a cult, eliciting wry smiles from those in the know and nervous chuckles from newcomers. He reads a stock definition of cults from his notes and concedes that insofar as Blatantism and the Toronto Group are “a religious or social group with socially deviant or novel beliefs and practices,” then yes, the organization is undoubtedly a cult.

Suppose that movements, such as Dadaism from the early twentieth century, and their resultant cultural ripples, did not occur organically, but were rather the result of a long and meticulously planned conspiracy. This is what Blatantism is at its core.

Despite being shrouded in an impenetrable oddness, a sheet of paper bearing the title “So you want to be a Blatantist…” included in the handouts distributed at every meeting actually does quite a succinct job of explaining the movement’s

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raison d’être.

The directives offered to those looking to participate encourage them to “tell a story that provokes and confuses the general public,” with a view to infiltrating the “‘art world’ under self-composed fanfare.” They are further pushed to “build a communi# around unknown principles that serve as a pedestal and function as a pulpit for those who built the communi#.”

Blatantism is both method and product. It is the performativi# of baseless absurdi# designed to generate a buzz about itself. The bizarre content of its meetings, which have included readings from the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, original poems, and manifestos, as well as the Toronto Group itself, exist only to perpetuate the movement.

Mark and his Toronto Group are creating a cultural phenomenon through a piece of performance art in the form of a pseudo-cult to further the artistic merit of its followers, and thereby increase the value of their work individually. By collecting members, spreading the word, and growing, they pull the accomplishments of others in to the mix to justi( the organizers. In effect and structure, Blatantism is an art pyramid scheme.

Ultimately, however, Blatantism does not exist in reali# despite the fact that it can be interacted with. It is, from a macro perspective, a piece of art itself.

Having seen absurdi# in the way art is created, marketed, appraised, and sold, Harris and the Blatantists are reflecting absurdi# back at the art world in hopes of joining its ranks.

A small pink booklet titled “Sweet Talk Gets Harder: Blatantism for Beginners” — a manifesto presented at the most recent meeting — includes the following explanation: “Blatantism is the true universi# of imagination.

We’re what’s around you, blatantly. We are what you are made of. We will only change the world by changing our images blatantly. We believe that a concept is useless if not followed by an action. An image in the minds is no good if not manifested in the material world thru some medium whether openly or in secret.”

While people are attending and presenting at meetings, striking “culture jamming” committees, and raising money for an art centre in Nepal — the design for which was created by a Mexican architect Harris met on Tinder — Blatantism is working.

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LIVING IN A MATERIAL WORLD

How might your life be better if you owned fewer material posessions?

Article by Sarah Niedoba Photos by Jennifer Su

W

hen I was growing up, my favourite game was one of my own invention titled “Runaway.”

As the name suggests, the game involved me oh-so-stealthily sneaking out of our house and into the great wide world until whoever had the misfortune of caring for me that day came and dragged me haphazardly homewards.

The escape itself, however, was only one aspect of the activi!. The other, more important component was deciding which of my worldly possessions I would take with me on my journey. This was the root of my continual failure — I could never part with any of my things, and so, inevitably, always ended up heaving a comically large suitcase full of beanie babies down my driveway.

It’s been quite a few years since these escapades, and although the possessions I value may have changed from children’s toys to Apple products, the physical objects in my life still manage to hold a great deal of importance.

Our identities are made up of a series of choices — what we do, what we say or don’t say, and who we surround ourselves with all factor into our senses of selves. Often, things end up carrying much of the weight of who we present ourselves to be. We relay our identities through our clothes, the furnishings of our homes, the cars we drive, and the technolo# we surround ourselves with.

But with so many using material possessions as a form of expression, there are some who make the conscious choice to define themselves through the lack thereof.

“There are as many different !pes of minimalism as there are minimalists,” Sara*, a member of a local Toronto group of minimalists, informs me.

Sara, who chooses to remain anonymous due to the complex personal role minimalism plays in her life, goes on to explain that some people prefer the term “simpli%” since it denotes less of a harsh or stark lifes!le.

She is part of a local subsection of a larger minimalist movement. “The Minimalists” is the title given to Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, founders of www.theminimalists.com and authors of books such as Everything That Remains: A Memoir by the Minimalists; Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life; A Day in the Life of a Minimalist; Simplici!: Essays; and Essential Essays — many of which have debuted at number one on Amazon.

The website’s so-called “elevator pitch” for minimalism reads that, while it may seem surprising, Millburn and Nicodemus are “not fans of oversimpli%ing things.”

Trying to condense a complex movement into a single definition is a difficult task, but their attempt reads as such: “Minimalism is a lifes!le that helps

people question what things add value to their lives. By clearing the clutter from life’s path, we can all make room for the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.”

They go on to say that there are “many flavours of minimalism” — a “20-yearold single guy’s” interpretation may be very different from that of a “45-year-old mother.” Regardless of one’s specific approach to the idea, however, the end result will be “a life with more time, more money, and more freedom to live a more meaningful life.”

They end their post with an open-ended question: “How might your life be better if you owned fewer material possesions?”

Millburn and Nicodemus, however well known, represent only one faction of the broad range of people who identi% by the minimalist lifes!le.

“If there’s any group or organization that people have the hardest time with, or consider militant — which they aren’t, but they seem to get the most flak [for] — it’s The Minimalists,” explains Jo Bennett.

Bennett is a life coach and organizer, founder of SOLOMOJO Coaching, as well as the creator of the blog “Minimalist Self.”

Bennett’s blog covers all manner of topics from “mindfulness” to “motivation.” Currently, there are 34 entries under the subheading “minimalism.”

One post, entitled, “Jo’s story,” describes Bennett’s shift towards her own personal minimalist lifes!le.

“It was about fifteen years ago when I felt the first shift toward simpli%ing my life,” reads the post, going on to explain that, after redefining a primary personal relationship, Bennett started prioritizing “quali! over quanti!,” and through having fewer physical objects in her life, could further see what was needed to bring herself greater happiness.

“I use the word minimalism,” says Bennett. “I think they’re all the same; to simpli%, to reduce. I think that people sometimes worry about the word minimalism… it sometimes can be associated with a very stringent militant view of reducing [the possesions in one’s life].”

But for Bennett, the physical is only one element of choosing to identi% as minimalist. She explains: “I use the word minimalism… to me it’s what I use to incorporate the actions of mentally, emotionally, and physically de-cluttering. So for me it’s not just about physical possesions, but it’s about sort of paring down the way we think, the way we process information, our relationships, how we cope, planning, time management — it’s all part of the same thing.”

For the last 15 years, Bennett says she’s been applying the process to her career, finances, health, and relationships — and THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

it’s one that’s ongoing.

She discusses mentally reducing by choosing the activities we do or don’t need in our lives, emotionally reducing by choosing the relationships to prioritize and the ones to let go, before mentioning the physical aspect of things.

“For physical… we literally and figuratively have these desks, in minds and in our home offices… there’s always too much stuff on the go… people who take on too much… what happens is they get stretched thin,” she says.

After giving more examples of how someone might approach a minimalist lifes!le, Bennett explains, “Something I like to emphasize about minimalism, [is that] it’s not just about reducing things — emotionally, mentally or physically — I find that it’s true that when you reduce things it reveals your truth, what’s really going on in your world… The important part about minimalism is what I call ‘the glorious choice of deciding what to put in its place’ — so you can either enjoy the freedom of the space, or you can choose [what to replace what you’ve taken away with].”

For context, she explains, “Some people do enjoy living out of a suitcase… you know, just five shirts or four pairs of jeans… but the idea is that the jeans that they are going to put in there are the ones they’re going to enjoy and get use out of… so the idea is that there’s meaning in what we’re surrounding ourselves with.”

For those questioning whether a minimalist lifes!le would be best for them, Bennett recommends careful personal consideration: “Rather than listening to what other people have to say… I think ideally it would be best that somebody spend a minute being mindful of their life.... take a moment to just notice how you’re feeling. If the pile of papers on your desk and the way your taxes are filed doesn’t bother you, then there’s probably no reason to minimize… but really get to the truth of it — what barriers can [you] take down, what do you have too much of? Really it’s just about taking the time to sit down and just look at yourself.”

She adds, laughingly, “I’m going to take the next hour and just ponder my life… I mean what better homework is [there] than that?”

If anything can be understood from the movement and its many different interpretations, it is that it acts as an agent for expressing oneself.

“A message I glean from the design world is that minimalism is not about reducing expression,” reads a post on Bennett’s blog.

“Rather than just appreciate that a space is emp!, I can also contemplate what beau! has been revealed as a result.” *Name changed at source’s request.

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Speaking in asanas Exploring expression through yoga and meditation Communicating is a limitless art and, in the context of yoga, is one that could even be described as flexible.

Yoga and meditation can be restorative and liberating practices. “Yoga means ‘to join’ or to ‘yolk together,’” says Hetal Patel, studio manager and yoga instructor at Seva Yoga Yorkville. “It’s supposed to be a harmonization between your mind, body, and soul.”

“Our body is a vehicle through which we meet the world,” Colin Matthews, founder and director of Kula Yoga, says, adding, “Part of [the yoga practice] is about influencing your own vehicle or your vessel through what you’re choosing to focus on… choosing an intention about how you want to meet yourself.”

The introspective practice of meditation further contributes to personal growth.

Though it takes time to master, it can be

liberating to narrow the mind’s focus to certain ideas, or even just focus on inhaling and exhaling — leaving worries outside of the studio altogether.

“Meditation is about cultivating a space of listening that’s non-reactive,” Matthews says, explaining that it’s important to consider how we deal with our varying emotional states; if individuals learn to handle difficult situations, they can develop a unique sense of self-awareness and control. “Being able to traverse [different] personal terrains in a non-reactive way is a really important skill to be able to cultivate as a human being,” he says.

According to Patel, individuals who enter the yoga studio often leave with a complete shift in perspective — a “renewed sense of purpose” week-by-week. The connection between that purpose and selfexpression is essential.

Article by Teodora Pasca Illustration by Julien Balbontin

“If you are practiced in organizing your thoughts and maintaining a state of calm, decision-making and expression becomes more authentic,” says Jessica Darzinskas, an instructor at IAM Yoga, adding, “You are communicating from a place that is more connected to your values, goals, and dreams.”

Extended online at var.st/yoga

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THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

What’s the dream?

Student artists offer their takes on following creative pursuits while in university

Article by Linh Nguyen Photos by Jennifer Su

SARAH CRAWLEY — VISUAL ARTIST Sarah Crawley is a fourth-year history major at U of T, minoring in art history and East Asian studies. Crawley is a visual artist who specializes in ink and watercolour illustrations; she is a regular illustrator for Victoria College’s newspaper, The Strand.

The Varsi!: How do you think that your education has played a role in your art?

Sarah Crawley: I was always interested in the history of East Asian studies, and that informs my art. I like a lot of art from East Asia, so being able to learn more about that in context, and gain more insight on the meaning behind visual techniques and why they have changed or been used differently. I love Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and have tried to emulate the line work, colour, and composition in my own art. The best history courses I have taken at U of T have also shown me how much art and other cultural products inherently engage with the political and historical problems of their time — there is an embodying of their context that in some sense cannot be helped. Seeing art as engaged with the world in this way, oftentimes the political through the seemingly apolitical, has been a fascinating thing to start exploring in my own work.

BRIANNE KATZ-GRIFFIN — DANCER Our cover model, Brianne Katz-Griffin, is a full-time political science specialist at U of T. She has been dancing in a varie# of s#les for 18 years, including ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, lyrical, acro, and contemporary. Katz-Griffin is a dancer for the U of T Dance Team.

The Varsi!: What do you think is the most important factor [for] succeeding as a professional artist?

Brianne Katz-Griffin: As cliché as it sounds, to succeed as an artist, you must really love what you do. You have to be diligent and push for what you want. I remember when I was about 12, my studio hired a new ballet teacher. She was the most strict and disciplined woman I had ever encountered. Yet at the same time, she was positive and encouraging. Up until the end of my dance career at the studio, she treated me the same as the first day I met her. She pushed me to become the dancer I wanted to become. In order to succeed, you have to love what you do no matter how much criticism you get.

More profiles online at var.st/artists THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

35

Master of Education Info Night Apply now for fall MEd programs.

Learn more March 3, 2015.

OISE, 252 Bloor St. West, Toronto Information and RSVP: www.uoft.me/oisemed

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THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2014

expressions U of T students share creative writing

Pervigilo to lie awake all night flat and open To appropriate mediocracy for the safe" of being neither here nor there, a responsibili" to confirm nothing.

What happens when you get there?

What happens when they go unanswered?

The closest she ever got to flying without swings was by being tied down to earth. no matter how far up you go, you always come back you alone the self supplying questions and answers the aftermath skids, marks left on charcoal tiles.

So go on, curve.

— Karen Zhou, fourth year, literature and philosophy Editor’s note: Karen Zhou is The Varsi"’s Business Manager.

Some story, somewhere, some time The pavement slapped his clouded mind, reaching back to those memories of woodwork class when you were twelve; watching a cherry tomato in an iron vice squelch under pressure, and the seeds oozing from the punctured red skin.

“Thump”. Dull throbs pulsed from his inactive brain.

Or hyperactive? He thought that only offence could be his number one defence, but only waving those arms and squawking served to reactivate that true figure of weakness from his cold-bitten fingers to his hard calluses.

Stomp, stomp, and stomp again.

Stomp until your ankles creak.

Don’t stop, keep moving until every regret, every foul word, every lost desire, filled his synapses, then disappeared.

Perhaps then this will become only table-talk, when hyperactivi" forms together and vanishes.

— Oliver Thompson, second year, English

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37

It’s Quite Dark in Here They say a child can swim through the veins of a blue whale, because the diameter of the vessels are just right for the thin build of a seven year old.

I stood in front of a funhouse mirror and imagined how nicely I would fit into a marine animal if my limbs were like the silver rods of wind chimes.

I went home and ate papery seaweed for breakfast, and then you cut me open with a kitchen knife that I’d seen them use at a bait house, and I told you to take my hand and swim with me, but all you could say was that my hands were something a pianist prodi! would dream about, that the translucent skin made my veins seem like the calligraphy of an Arab scholar.

I told you to not add anything solid into my diet, and you said that if I kept drinking water I would swivel like a small tornado before going down the drain—you were paraphrasing my grandmother: “the world will swallow you whole.”

And it did.

I entered the veins of the whale when I was a decade and six years old—my limbs still fit perfectly through the narrow shafts, and I imagined you sleeping somewhere nice and warm where the sea green waters did not touch the skin that covered your bones.

— Ureeba Rehan

Jazz Nights I must’ve been fifteen when I realized I hadn’t any "m shoes. It was the first day of high school. Maybe that’s right. And then backwards, backwards. How unreliable our memories are. Jack was there, that I knew. Outside, Mr. Mackin#re was in his office. I saw R. looking over, her mascara dark, slouching. I decided she didn’t want to come; but she was here anyway. Was there Ssettuba with the basketball? Hariette beside him? Little Amsterdam and Ezra fighting over the tennis balls. Alice in her uniform, still smiling at me, a whistle in her mouth. “What? You thought I’d forgotten you?” I saw all the people I’d seen on the drive across the country, on the plane backwards, my old college roommates, and their sal# pubescent lovers. High school friends I no longer cared about. Teachers and professors, too. My first boss at a burger store. They were waving at me; peaceful glazes on their face, shouting something at me, something I couldn’t hear. Juve and Anabelle making out, soulmates lending out fluttery kisses, on the bleachers. Devon jogging in late still in his street clothes.

“Sorry, I’m late.”

Where am I going? Yes, how much clearer now. I took a gulp of air. There, gradually I’d become more focussed, everything less ambiguous; the ambience deteriorating before me. Though I was lost in thought, and I wondered if my imagination was grasping onto a real moment. Almost there now, nearly there. Thinking, are there really so few people in my life? I’ve always thought there’d be more. Wake up, I thought. Wake up. Smell the summer pinecones. Get back to that place. But no, I thought, this is better. Revisiting the past. Memories are like that, little vignettes; half a picture to a beautiful show. I was standing motionless, letting, at last, that lovely sensation lift me up. But, maybe, I thought, I won’t do this anymore. After all, I know how it will end.

Suddenly, here we are. Better late than never. Strangely enough, it’s this episode I’ve chosen. It’s the one where Jack and I stole into the "m locker room, each taking a pair of crus# shoes. Where we walked around the park and threw the shoes into the river. “I’m going to need other shoes.” “You bet. We’ll convince Mom to buy some tomorrow.” How we hopped a fence to get into a crowded bar. The music lullabying. I remember how swea# we were, how uncomely, disaffected. We’d never listened to jazz before. And here we were. Swinging, bluing, flexing, dancing, and dancing. I decided, then, that a great part of me would be in love and that I would never let it expire.

Whatever happened?

Best to leave us there. Thinking, we’ve got all the time in the world. Now swing it, Jack. Come on. Hey, Ambrose. Can’t you hear them whisper? Loving, I remember, loving those two hours, aware that tomorrow would be different, that tomorrow would be the same, that life would never change, that life had to change, aware that we would die. We would always die. Leave us there, where life was about improvement, the upswing. We incurable romantics, we on the upswings, singing, singing, singing, we’ve got all the time in the world.

Can you believe it?

Of course, I said nothing.

It only lasts a second, doesn’t it?

The days we really lived.

— Victor Matak, fifth year, history

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THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

“Artemis” – Brianne Carroll

THE VARSITY MAGAZINE WINTER 2015

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