1. art and entertainment
2. music

Ta b le of Contents
4
Portraits of transition
6
Online counselling changes how we talk about mental health
7
On condos and the Annex’s transformation
10
The trials of finding “the one”
11
In conversation with two emerging Toronto hip-hop artists
14
Successes and failures of music genre mixing
15
Making music magic with the right venue and sound
18
The unique struggles faced by mature students
20
“Safe Memories,” artwork by Emily Scherzinger
22
Melding minds with the Hatchery
23
Breaking down constructs of sexuality
27
Relationships between neighbourhoods in Toronto’s east end
31
Connections between third culture kids
34
Has online media killed print?
36
Chessboxing and joggling: meet hybrid sports
37
Fiction and poetry
39
“#instacollage,” artwork by Shaquilla Singh
THE
VARSITY MAGAZINE
Vol. VIIi No. 1
21 Sussex, Suite 306
Toronto, ON, M5S 1J6
(416) 946–7600
thevarsity.ca
Editor-in-Chief
Danielle Klein
[email protected]
Magazine editor
Samantha Relich
[email protected]
Production manager
Catherine Virelli [email protected]
managing online editor
Shaquilla Singh
[email protected]
DEsign editorS
Mari Zhou
[email protected]
Kawmadie Karunanayake
photo editor
Jennifer Su
[email protected]
Senior Copy EditorS
Lucy Genua
[email protected]
Rose Tornabene
illustrations Editor
Julien Balbontin [email protected]
Video Editor
Jamieson Wang
[email protected]
associate Senior Copy editor
Hunter McGuire
Editorial assistant
Emma Kikulis
Copy Editors & Fact checkers
Karen Chu, Julia Hanbury, Emily Johnpulle,
Emma Kikulis, Jynessa Marczuk, Hunter
McGuire, Malone Mullin, Sean Smith, Maria Sokulsky-Dolnycky, Jonathan Soo, Suhas Srinivasan, Jessica St James, Michaela
Vukas, Elliot Wright, Yi Fan Yin
DEsigners
Saveen Chadhad, Jasjeet Matharu, Janice
Liu, Vanessa Wang, Tiffany Wu, Mari Zhou
Cover
Photo: Nicole Wong
photo & Illustration
Rusaba Alam, Julien Balbontin, Brittany
Gerow, Elena Iourtaeva, Alexandra Scandolo, Emily Scherzinger, Shaquilla Singh,
Catherine Solomon, Vivek Srikanthan,
Jennifer Su, Nicole Wong
Contributors
Reshara Alviarez, Fiza Arshad, John
Cockshutt, Joseph Ianni, Emily Katz,
Emma Kikulis, Nishi Kumar, Jacob Lorinc,
Sofia Luu, Victor Matak, Malone Mullin,
Roberta Natale, James Lee Lord Parker,
Corinne Pryzbyslawski, Ayla
Shiblaq, Emily Scherzinger, Sandy Wang,
Alec Wilson
Special Thanks
Nicole Wong, Sarah Niedoba, Kawmadie
Karunanayake, Emily Scherzinger, soup &
cookies & burgers, office cat, Murphy’s Law
Letter from the editor
Letter from design
Making a magazine boils down to a series
of choices.
Months ago, when we began the process
of producing the pages that you now hold
in your hands, we had a vision. Naively,
we thought it would all turn out according to the blueprint. The final product
reads nothing like those expectations —
just like, if I’m being honest, my life today
bears almost no resemblance to the vision
I had for myself at the start of university
four years ago.
In this magazine, we explore the ways
in which ideas, people, and things interact with, and subsequently impact, one
another. The stories within illustrate how
intersections and interactions create identity and innovation. Writers explore the
overlap between neighbourhoods in Toronto’s east end (27), the relationship between print and digital media (34), and the
deconstruction of labels in sexuality (23).
As students, our lives are in near constant flux, riddled with uncertainty as
we question how our adult lives will take
shape. In the pages that follow, contributors point out the paradoxes of young
adulthood, exploring what it’s like to let go
of memories (20), to put yourself out there
in the dating world (10), and to let go of
childhood memories and expectations (7).
Part of growing up is trying new things
— experimenting with what interests us,
what music we listen to, who we date,
where we work, and more. The end product is rarely according to plan, but is instead the result of the choices we make,
the challenges we overcome, and the
streets that we cross. The only constant
is change ­— the opportunities to discover
yourself at each junction, not following
the path you once imagined, but veering,
curving, and crisscrossing towards where
you’re meant to be.
It sometimes seems that we are always in
transition. In the production of this magazine, that was definitely the case. In the
course of designing these articles, we threw
out countless ideas, tweaked visuals, and
started from scratch more than we had
ever anticipated. Producing this work was
a journey in and of itself.
In many ways the process of designing
this magazine was reflective of the content
inside — always in flux, constantly evolving, and indicative of developing ideas
within. The cover depicts a literal crossroads — the intersection of Queen Street
West and Spadina Street. It represents the
themes of change in the magazine, coming
together at the beginning of production
and serving as an anchor for its design —
for once, the cover was the easy part.
The content of the magazine reflects a diverse range of people, interests, and spaces.
In designing these pages, we tried to mirror
this diversity, individualizing the design to
the text. From the literal intersection of the
cover, we transition into more conceptual
iterations of interaction to inspire our readers to think about the transformation we
continuously find ourselves in.
Transition is not easy, and necessitates
that we let go of the past in order to move
forward. We tried to break our moulds with
this magazine, push ourselves, and create a
design that reflects the potential that comes
with change.
— Samantha Relich
Magazine Editor, 2014–2015
­— Mari Zhou
Design Editor, 2014–2015
Exposures
A R T I C L E A N D PH OT OS By A LEX A N D RA SCANDOLO
Ben
E m ma
third year
second year
“I’ve tried a lot to identify or create moments of clarity
in which I realize — either organically or not — that I'm
finally an adult. I don't think that you truly know when
you've grown up until you stop obsessing about the
milestones in your life. I'm not there yet. My family lives
in five different cities right now, and I'm the only one in
Canada. Being somewhat separated from your family and
not being able to see them more than a few times a year
makes growing up a much more solitary experience.”
4
“I don't really feel fully like an adult. Sometimes I have
adult moments, often in the grocery store when I put down
something like Goldfish for something like whole wheat
bread. I feel stuck in between though — adult enough to
need to pay for hydro and decide my routine but young
enough that it feels like I'm not ready to do either. I think
there's a misconception that being an adult means having it
all under control. Technically, I'm 18, so that means I’m an
adult. I [don’t] buy into that misconception because I would
never classify myself as one. I know people who are 25 that
don't think of themselves as adults. I think it's about having
a modicum of control and responsibility ­­— and maybe not
being as scared as I am.”
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
Ar ika
J a m ayc a
second year
second year
“I don’t even know if I can consider myself an adult yet...
I know I’ve definitely matured over the years but I still do
childish things occasionally. I’m kind… [of] in that stage
where I’m not really a child but not fully an adult yet. I
also don’t think I’m ready to embrace being an adult yet...
Sometimes you just don’t [want to] grow up.
For me, being an adult means that I am ready to take full
responsibility for my actions and live independently (and
happily) on my own. Being an adult also means prioritizing
what is best for myself and understanding that it is necessary to make sacrifices sometimes.”
“I feel as though we put a lot of emphasis on attaining a certain career goal, or we all have individualistic values that are
tied with the meaning of adulthood. You become an adult,
you decide your career, you go to school for it — I feel like
we sort of forget that people aren’t islands.
Everyone is connected... in the context of other people
and in relationships with other people. I think that we
forget that becoming an adult is learning how to live with
other people.
In young adulthood, the emphasis is always on us: taking care of ourselves, going to school for ourselves to get
a career… When we become an ‘adult’ and we start families... suddenly we are expected to care for other people.
There is emphasis on embracing this generosity. We often
forget about that piece.
In my eyes, becoming an adult should emphasize a
sense of community more, and we should use this time to
practice being less selfish.”
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
5
Changing with the times
Online counselling is an accessible and efficient alternative for some students
By SANDY WANG
illustration By
catherine solomon
I
n the act of balancing school, relationships, and other personal obligations,
the average university student is no
stranger to stress.
We all have different ways of coping, but
sometimes the combinations of different
stresses and anxieties can feel unbearable.
Recently, mental health has been subject
to increased attention in our society, but
responses to related issues are still in their
infancy. Although the University of Toronto
has some existing psychological well-being
services, more initiatives are being established for students today in an active effort
to improve mental health services and support on campus.
Many students are familiar with the
Counselling and Psychological Services
(CAPS), which offers short-term, face-toface, individual-based counselling and
psychiatric resources. Although CAPS offers student support on a variety of mental
health–related issues, it is often criticized
for its long wait times and consequent alleged inaccessibility.
However, a recent initiative has emerged
offering a new form of psychological service on campus that may benefit students
en masse — a branch service under CAPS
called Counseline.
The idea of Counseline was developed
based on input and feedback from the
6
Health & Wellness Student Advisory Committee, which aims to provide students
with wellness support across campus.
Counseline was launched by the FactorInwentash Faculty of Social Work in collaboration with the University of Toronto
Sexual and Gender Diversity Office.
Janine Robb, executive director of Health
& Wellness at U of T, says that the program
“provides another option for Faculty of Arts
and Science undergraduate students to access online and/or in-person counselling.”
Similar to traditional CAPS counselling
services, Counseline offers short sessions
via email or live chat to address immediate
issues students are facing. Counseline is
available to students experiencing mental
health issues including interpersonal difficulties, challenging relationships, anxiety,
depression, and issues related to sexuality
and sexual orientation.
“Counsellors are able to provide students with various techniques, tools
and resources to help address students’
counselling goals and to make positive behavioural and emotional changes,” says
Robb. She adds that a goal for Counseline
is “providing broader access to services,
[and] increased options for students wanting counselling.”
Although counselling is traditionally
conducted in-person, it has increasingly
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
developed an online presence. Individuals
may prefer online counselling for various
reasons — for example, many may find
opening up in a face-to-face environment
difficult and may find online interaction
to be more conducive to expressing their
concerns. On the other hand, some students may feel that this removes the human element of support and that it is challenging to develop trust with the invisible
counsellor typing to them.
The main advantage of Counseline is
the shorter wait times, making the service more accessible to a greater number
of people; an online counselling service
works well within the busy schedules of
university students.
The reception of this initiative is not
yet clear. Nonetheless, it does create an
additional option for students looking for
assistance coping with stress.
“Health & Wellness views mental
health as a continuum from health to illness. There are many campus resources
that will assist students in maintaining
mental health wellness, including fitness
and recreational facilities, healthy eating, meditation and student clubs, and
a variety of health promotion programs
and workshops. We encourage students to
adopt a proactive and active approach to
their mental health,” says Robb.
Lost in transition
A glimpse into ongoing changes in the Annex and what they
mean for the community and the city
By jacob lorinc
photos By jennifer su
A
djusting to change is always difficult. After spending your life
interacting with certain places and surrounded by particular
landmarks, it is hard to watch as the layout and demographics
of an area shift.
In March 2014, Honest Ed’s department store held a massive sale,
giving away its extensive collection of signs and posters from as low as
50 cents. As I stood in the grueling eight-hour-long line to purchase
the mementos, I was hit by an overwhelming gust of nostalgia, reminding me of all the times that I was hopelessly lost in the beloved
store that is soon to be shut down.
Instead of seeing the iconic sign that reliably lights up the intersection of Bathurst Street and Bloor Street West every night, Honest
Ed’s is set to be torn down and will very likely be replaced by another
addition to Toronto’s already extensive population of condominiums.
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
7
UNSUSTANAIBLE COSTS
Turnovers in building ownership are hardly limited to major
neighbourhood landmarks like Honest Ed’s — it is a challenge
that the majority of business owners in the Annex are facing,
caused largely by the ever-rising cost of rent.
Tony Merant, manager of Seekers Books — tucked away in
the basement at the corner of Bloor Street West and Borden
Street — has some colourful things to say about renting out
space in the Annex.
“The rent is ridiculous in this area. It’s out to lunch, and it’s not
good at all,” Merant says dolefully. “The rents are so high that we
can’t cater to students without raising the prices, and then we just
scare their business away. Even I’m having trouble, and I don’t pay
the rent like others here.”
As the owner of Seekers Books for the past 27 years, Merant has
seen the changes to the atmosphere and architecture of the Annex
unfold around him. According to his account, in the past decade,
the Annex has gone from a moderately priced neighbourhood to
almost unbearably expensive.
“The bottom line is, taxes are getting too high. I pay $12,000
a year in property tax for this space, and this is just a basement
space. So, what does that mean? It means that I have to sell
$20,000 in books just to cover that tax,” Merant says, adding,
“When I started out 27 years ago, it was about $350 a month. It’s
gone through the roof, and it’s bullshit.”
In the same building as Honest Ed’s, a Bad Boy furniture and
appliance store has set up camp where music icon Sonic Boom
used to reside. The store’s move was not unprecedented; in 2011,
Sonic Boom vacated its original spot beside the Bloor Cinema due
to lease issues — eventually closing its Annex location.
The changes do not stop there. Book City was essentially
run to the ground when the ownership became unable to
afford the cost of renting out the space. Their struggles with
8
rent were heightened by competition with BMV Books, whose
prices are substantially cheaper.
Mike Murray, the manager at the BMV location on Bloor Street
West, had little to say about Book City’s closing, but had a similar
opinion to Merant’s on the Annex’s current financial quandary.
“The rates around here are going up,” Murray admits. “It’s
unfortunate to see places like Honest Ed’s closing. Everything
changes in this neighborhood, and a lot of it has to do with
the rates of square footage.”
A LOSS OF CHARM
The closure of neighbourhood staples is only the beginning of the
Annex’s new reality. As these iconic locations disappear, often
accompanied with the demolition of their buildings, something
new must inevitably take their places.
Neighbourhood transition isn’t always negative, however. Many
Toronto neighbourhoods, including Parkdale, the Junction, and
Regent Park, have undergone or are in the process of transition.
In Parkdale and the Junction, the change has been for the better,
including, among other aspects, the flourishing of a vibrant cultural scene and an increasingly engaged community.
These transitions, however, are in many ways unlike the
transition in progress in the Annex. These neighbourhoods
had a clearer impetus for change — namely to improve the
standard of living in the community.
On the contrary, transition in the Annex has been largely driven
by rising rent prices accompanied by businesses simply not making
money. These changes amount to new architecture coming to an
old neighbourhood and a loss of historic charm.
In just the past few years, condo developers have moved into
the area, planting one oversized condominium after another in
an area that is often recognized for its unassuming shops. These
hip storefronts now exist in the shadows of mega-towers, loom-
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
ing above the neighbourhood’s original
architecture and serving as a reminder of
how unbearably expensive so many areas
of Toronto have become.
Paul Bedford, Toronto’s former planning
chief and guest professor in the urban planning program at the University of Toronto,
explains that these changes disproportionately affect small businesses.
“Perhaps the key challenge is rising rents
for small merchants who do not own their
buildings. There will likely be a continuation of this given market trends if there is
a demand for new and higher-end shops,”
he says.
A COMMON PROBLEM
Bedford also notes that these challenges
are in no way unique to the Annex. “This
is a common problem everywhere [in Toronto],” he adds.
In Merant’s opinion, even if you are
able to afford to live in one of these condos, it would not necessarily be worth
your while.
“I’ve heard from friends who own condos that pay $800 a month in mortgage,
and their condo fees are $700. They ask,
‘What am I getting for these condo fees?’
and the owners say, ‘Well, we clean the
swimming pool once a week.’ ... Who uses
the swimming pool anyways?” he says.
For students, the cost of renting in
the Annex is often unmanageable, and
the possibility of eventually living in a
charming downtown home in the Annex
seems increasingly unlikely as the city
becomes more gentrified and housing
prices skyrocket.
According to Louis Ceriz, the manager
at Suspect Video, “[The Annex is] becoming less of a cultural hub, and more of a
place to go eat and buy clothes, and that’s
it. In terms of any kind of culture significance, it’s lessening, unless what replaces
the stores when they’re displaced are other
interesting establishments. But I can’t see
that happening since usually the rents are
jacked up, so no idiosyncratic store can
open up in this place, and it just ends up
getting homogenized.”
As condos gradually arise not only in the
Annex, but also in the entirety of downtown Toronto, living in niches like the
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
Annex will become much less plausible
and the exodus of residents to the ever expanding urban sprawl of suburbia is likely.
Having grown up on the outskirts of
the Annex, I have a certain attachment
to the buildings that are no longer there,
or that will soon be gone. The image of
Honest Ed’s — from its outlandish signs
to a line of jacketed Annex-dwellers
swathing around the building waiting
for their free Thanksgiving turkeys —
is embedded in the cultural memory of
Toronto. The highly nostalgic landmark
being bulldozed can seem like “a goddamn tragedy,” as one local passerby
dropping into my conversation with
Ceriz poignantly suggests.
But in the natural life of a city, beloved
buildings disappear and are replaced with
new, modern architecture in cycles. In a
burgeoning global hub like Toronto, the
pace of change is remarkable, but somehow, the allure of the city seems to persist — and the Annex, with its streets of
old Victorian houses, short buildings, and
students ambling along the sidewalks, is
weathering its evolution for now.
9
The death of dating
One student’s story of the
trials of meeting the right
one in a world of wrongs
O
n my first day at the University of Toronto, I realized I was only qualified
to take one of the five classes I had
signed up for.
Cursing my mistake, I asked myself how I
would possibly be able to cope with moving
to a new city, living alone, and keeping up
with coursework if I could not even understand ROSI.
I rushed to the registrar’s office at 9:00
am to resolve this academic catastrophe. It
turned out, the office didn’t open until 9:30
am, so I spent half an hour chatting with another student, Jack*. When I emerged from
the registrar’s office, I found Jack waiting
outside to ask for my number. Jack was in a
band, and he wanted me to come see him
play that weekend.
I grew up in a small town with a minuscule dating pool. I’ve known everyone that
I graduated high school with since nursery
school — and there’s nothing that turns
you off a date quite like the memory of your
suitor eating his own boogers.
So when Jack asked me on a date just
days after I had moved to Toronto, I was
sure that I had reached the Promised Land.
I looked forward to going to cool, new locations with cool, new guys every week à la
Sex and the City. I could hardly have been
more delusional.
The Friday after I met Jack, I assembled
four of my newfound friends to accompany
me to watch his set at a popular bar in the
Annex. Upon arrival, we were struck with an
10
By anita penn*
illustration By julien balbontin
unexpected realization: with the exception
of Jack and the wait staff, we were the only
people there under 50. Jack was onstage,
jamming with four geriatric jazz musicians.
“Which one is your date?” quipped one
of my friends.
Although it was not what I had expected,
I still enjoyed myself — I was looking forward to the party Jack had invited us to after
his set. The “house party” ended up being a
housewarming party that consisted of the
new homeowner, his close friends, and us.
As I spent the evening trying to get to
know Jack, the other guests smoked copious amounts of weed and wondered who
had invited five girls fresh out of frosh week.
I count this as one of my most successful
dates since moving to Toronto.
Since meeting Jack, I’ve been on my fair
share of horrible dates. Recently, I went out
with a guy who took me out for a drink
where he works — except it turns out that
he does not work in a bar. Instead, he led me
to his start-up’s office, where he invited me
to sit on a bean bag chair while he poured
Baileys into Solo cups for us — “At least he
has a job,” I thought to myself.
I comfort myself with the fact that I’ve had
no shortage of “original” dates. A potential
suitor once invited me to watch a movie and
share a bottle of wine with him in a residence common room.
I liked the idea of a casual date. I approved
of buying wine ahead of time and in bulk instead of worrying about the dreaded cheque
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
scramble, and I didn’t mind staying in our
college residence for the evening. That was
before I found out that he did not, in fact, live
in residence; needless to say, I didn’t attend
his proposed soirée of getting to know each
other over wine and breaking and entering.
I don’t expect a lot from dates. All I really want is the opportunity to get to know
someone better. But these days it seems
impossible to see a potential suitor face-toface and in public without tediously texting
and Tinder-ing. Even then, dates are reduced
to ambiguous “hangouts” and “meet-ups”
so that either party can pretend they were
never really interested if things go south.
The date, I’m afraid, might just be dead.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of my
personal experience, I remain hopeful. Just
this week a man invited me to join him for
brunch. Not only was he willing to commit
the entire duration of a meal to spending
time with me, but during daylight hours to
boot. We might even stay sober.
I look forward to this date and to any
others I may venture on. I anticipate that I
will continue to encounter some misguided
venue choices, awkward silences, and people
that I am simply not compatible with. But in
dating, as in most things, perseverance is key.
Personally, I will continue to root for
good, old-fashioned courtship and chivalry — minus the chaperones, bustles,
and patriarchy, of course.
*Name changed at author’s request.
Transitioning to the forefront
In conversation with two up-and-coming Toronto hip-hop artists
By corinne przybyslawski
photos By jennifer su
O
f the niches that exist within the music industry, it is hip-hop that
has earned a reputation as a genre whose sonic trademarks are
in a constant state of evolution. With production that is heavily
rooted in sampling, it is no surprise that the criteria to qualify as
part of the genre have become so malleable. Every artist who emerges
at the forefront of this musical niche inevitably becomes a leader for a
new generation to follow, making hip-hop a constantly evolving and
transforming genre. Sitting down in conversation with two emerging
Toronto hip-hop artists illuminates the complexities and challenges of
making it big while retaining individual sound.
Toronto native Devontée is quickly reaching a sophisticated maturity in both verse
and production. He is an alumnus of
the Audio Engineering and Production
program at MetalWorks Institute, but
an education alone is rarely enough to
breed respect in the hip-hop industry,
especially among OVO (October’s Very
Own) members. With support from Boi1da, Devontée has performed as a rapper in Atlanta at A3C, and at producer
showcases in Toronto, demonstrating
why his multifaceted talent holds significant promise for a career in the music
industry.
The Varsity: Who do you keep up with
most in Toronto, and who are some of the
artists that you personally keep up with
and feel have the most influence over your
work, if any?
Devontée: Of course Drake. I like PartyNextDoor. The artists at OVO have great music. To
say what artists I really go out of my way to
keep up with in Toronto, nobody — and it’s
not because I don’t fuck with them. I’m not
trying to make the music they’re making. I
try to find new shit I could bring here. It’s
because I know all of them, [but that’s] not
to say I don’t listen to them. I listen to every
artist. Jazz Cartier, Tory Lanez, Daniel Caesar.
Tory’s big now, he’s out of here.
TV: Have you worked with Tory or any of
the other artists you mentioned?
D: I haven’t worked with Tory, but I was
working with an artist named P. Reign. I
was in the studio with him for a couple of
months, during his album creation. Tory
12
Lanez came to a couple of the sessions, and
they were just making music. He’s a really
cool guy, very talented. He can sing, he can
rap. I don’t ever knock talent. I’m not here
to do that. The one thing that I do not like
about Toronto culture is that everyone feels
like they’re the only ones able to make it and
no one else should or can. It’s not a good
mentality. I don’t think they understand
what we could do if we all came together.
TV: How does Toronto differ from other
hip-hop cities?
D: I don’t think it’s Toronto’s fault, I think
we could change it. I think the only way to
change it is to lead by example. Not even
just music, but Toronto in general. I think
we should smile more.
TV: It’s true, everyone you see on these
streets seems miserable.
D: I don’t think it’s that they’re unhappy, I
personally feel like they think they’re too
cool. I was in Atlanta, and there was a street
where I performed called Edgewood Avenue. There’s a whole bunch of stores, bars,
and venues. All of the hot new artists like
OG Maco, Makonnen, Key! and them, they
all fuck with each other. They just show up
at venues and work together.
TV: Do you see yourself as someone who’s
at the forefront of that sort of mentality?
D: Hell yeah. I’m a nice guy. Very nice guy.
Talkative. I used to get in trouble in school
because I used to talk to everybody.
TV: It’s almost like if you tell people
you’re great, they don’t believe you. So
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
if you’re an emerging artist here, how
do you break past that wall?
D: Just do it. Don’t care about what other
people think about you, don’t try to impress
anybody, don’t try to ‘make’ … If you want
to make music for these kids and for your
friends, then do it, [but] I’m not trying to just
do that. I’m trying to be legendary. I want to
make music for the world.
TV: What does your creative process
look like?
D: I produce all my own music, so I start
with the beat first. I go through random
sounds, and once it starts unfolding, unless I’m driving and have a random idea,
then I’ll try to build something around
that. I don’t try to make a specific record. I
never really organize it like “yo, I’m gonna
go into the studio and make this type of a
record.” Not a lot of artists produce their
own music, or are that good at producing
it. I think I’m pretty good at both.
TV: You’ve earned attention from notable
figures like Boi-1da. As a result, do people
ever try to put you in a box in terms of your
sound, or compare you to Drake?
D: I’ve heard comparisons. Some people
say Kid Cudi, I’ve heard someone even
say Common. I don’t think I sound like
Drake. I’ve gotten Kanye comparisons on
my intro “By Now” in terms of my musical
choices. If I ever get Drake comparisons,
I mean, hey. I just know my flow and my
voice don’t sound like Drake, but if my
sound choices are compared to Drake?
That’s pretty cool. He’s the best out right
there right now.
The term “rapper” has grown in the last
five years to encase far more than simple,
spoken word verses laid over uncomplicated drum loops. The thirst for greater
success has driven artists to expand their
talents into vocals, independent management, and digital production. Raz Fresco
of Brampton has honed this mentality and
become fluent in Reason, a production
software, trademarking his production
with eclectic and strategic sampling across
hallmark decades in every genre. He’s performed as a rapper alongside A$AP Rocky
and Joey Bada$$ across Atlanta, New York,
and Toronto. With the release of his latest
mixtape, Screwface on August 25 of this
year, Raz has proven his ability to modernize the golden eras of the industry into a
contemporary sound, earning him a pedestal at the forefront of the Toronto scene.
The Varsity: Where does your sound fit
in Toronto?
Raz Fresco: The game is on a wave, a huge
turnout wave right now. It needs to refresh
its outlook. I feel that as an artist, I offer a
different outlook, especially with this Bakers Club project. The shit I’m coming out
with is sonically different. Personally, I’m
trying to ride the wave with what’s going
on. Toronto has seen a huge emerging bed
of artists, it’s really bubbling, but I’m trying
to offer a different look.
TV: Is it difficult to break into the Toronto hip-hop scene?
RF: It’s not at all like it’s in the States here.
It’s a bigger industry in America. Lot more
energy, bigger network of things going on.
All the main labels and offices are there.
There’s way more market there and that
makes it easier to break through, because
there are so many lanes. Here it’s a small
city, you’ve gotta put your foot down. The
only way to gain musically here is to export.
TV: How do you export to the States?
RF: Use your resources. Artists out here
know that too, and that makes for even
more competition. We all know the music
business is in the States. You can be popping out here to a degree, but you’re still
not anywhere and that means you need to
go to bigger markets. That’s what makes it
harder to make that crossover and get those
eyes, because everyone’s looking for them.
For Toronto kids specifically, coming up
has been a little easier because we’ve had
a lot more eyes. Definitely with Drake coming off the back heels, Kardinal. We’ve seen
artists represent this city. Every generation
makes it easier for the next generation to
come on. I’m blessed to be part of this situation, because the Drake generation is behind me now, I feel like he’s had his own
generation, and it’s a good thing that it’s
coming off. It’s opportunity.
photo courtesy of RAZ FRESCO
TV: How do you carry over from the past
generation into a new sound and still
stay relevant?
RF: You’ve still got to be able to translate
whatever catches here to over there. I mean,
hip-hop started in the streets. You can’t forget that it started without export. That’s
a certain amount of scene that’s actually
missing in Toronto. If you make it timeless, the era can pass, and only the best will
stand out. It comes down to very unique
personalities and charms at the end of the
day. Stay close to your roots, but at the same
time, don’t go over the heads of your audience. Get down to the understanding of
your audience. Try to pose a formal question instead of preaching.
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
TV: If the scene is missing in Toronto how
do you find you way into it?
RF: Develop your own network, branch
out. It’s never what you know, but who you
know. From the jump, I wanted a larger network. I loved how far reaching it was and
could be. That’s how Bakers Club started.
The Coma, P Black … I mean I’ve been
making music forever, I don’t remember
when I started rapping. [I’ve been writing
raps] since first [or] second grade.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
13
Mixing magic
The successes and failures of music genre mashups
By JOSEPH IANNI
S
ometimes two music genres can come together in an unsuspected merger of minds that results in a novel, exciting
mix sure to delight listeners of both sounds. Other times,
two genres come together and we’d all rather forget that they
did. Here’s a rundown of some artists who made mixed music
magic ­— and others who should probably stick with what
they know.
Hi t s
Ed Sheeran — “I See Fire” (Kygo Remix)
Norwegian musician and remixer Kygo isn’t the first producer
to incorporate tropical tones into electronic music. However,
his experimentation with folk and country songs tips into a
completely different territory. The final products are downtempo and minimal tracks with a pop that makes them a great
fit for a beach setting.
Mi s s e s
Avicii — Hey Brother
While the attempt at combining the highly marketable genres
of indie folk and stadium house is admirable, the track “Wake
Me Up” off Avicii’s album lacks the build-up need for a wowworthy dance track and misses on the opportunity to incorporate the choral vocals or intimacy of indie folk.
Avril Lavigne ft. Lil’ Mama — “Girlfriend (Remix)”
It’s not exactly outside of the box to pair rock music with rap
music. In fact, it’s been done several times quite well. But this
pair’s attempt to meld the genres really fails to keep any of the
redeeming qualities of pop rock and just becomes a generic
pop song for Lil’ Mama to lay some vocals over.
Skrillex and The Doors — “Breakn’ a Sweat”
Post-hardcore and new wave never met in the ’80s, but Future
Islands asks, why not now? The tour de force track on the
band’s latest album Singles reunites two long-lost siblings
separated in the punk movement, juxtaposing distorted guitars and raw vocals with eerie synthesizers and percussion.
Part of a project to pair DJ/producers with musicians of an
older generation, this track just falls flat. It doesn’t stir up any
kind of nostalgia or reminiscent feeling regarding The Doors
or make for a meaningful experiment. A few bells and whistles
circle round a synth line sandwiched with a carnivalesque
guitar riff. It’s a miss — but I would have been intrigued to see
the interaction in the studio on this one.
M83
Nelly ft. Tim McGraw — “Over and Over”
Electronica, shoegaze, and ’80s music are the cornerstones of
M83’s long career. Most known for their mainstream breakthrough album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, the innovators of
synthesizers in shoegaze provide a clear medium between rock
’n’ roll and electronica that is often hard to find.
If you are going to make a valiant effort to bring rap music
closer to country, firstly, good luck, but secondly, good idea to
call Tim McGraw. Unfortunately, I would hardly describe what
Nelly does on this track as rapping. The song might actually
benefit from Nelly just stepping right out of the track altogether, but then it probably wouldn’t count as cross-genre.
Future Islands — “Fall From Grace”
Foreign Beggars — “Contact”
These UK rappers took the dubstep movement to new heights
when they added their bombastic personalities and vocals to
the wobbly basslines of producers like Skrillex and NOISIA.
Foreign Beggars, among others in the UK grime movement,
embraced the opportunity to amplify the volatile elements of
dubstep to greater heights with an added rap vocal.
Joanna Gruesome — Weird Sister
A flurry of different genres from noise to punk rock to indie
pop feature in this musical project. The culmination of this
mixture is often abrasive but not without ear-catching pop
tendencies. Oscillating between these two modes is often a
hard task, but Joanna Gruesome effortlessly wields explosive
punk rock with catchy indie sweetness.
14
Punk Goes Pop
These compilation albums bring post-hardcore and screamo
bands together to cover current and classic pop tracks, but
quite often the result is simply comical and ultimately results
in completely devaluing the efforts of pop rock and pop-punk.
The whole album follows the following format: clean vocal
verses, breakdown, and comical throat vocals choruses.
Spaces and sound
A look at the intricacies of the soundscape
and the science of acoustic ecology
By AYLA SHIBLAQ
PHOTOS By EMILY
SCHERZINGER
I
cried when I got home that night.
When I saw Tim Hecker live, it was
the first time I felt like I had lived a performance, rather than admired it. I had
never imagined that my soul could possibly escape my body — but I swear, it did. I
was willed into the darkness by the music,
and, ecstatically, I followed.
I couldn’t entirely discern what I felt,
what I saw, and, more importantly, how
Hecker had managed to create an out-ofbody experience in a tiny room filled with
festival-goers looking up the location of
the next NXNE after-party.
The creation of a soundscape involves a
complex relationship between music and
its environment — a science known as
acoustic ecology.
The concept of acoustic ecology
emerged from Simon Fraser University
in the 1960s in what was known as the
World Soundscape Project. The study was,
essentially, a bunch of guys with glorious
beards recording around Canadian geographic landmarks.
Though it may seem ludicrous, what
they were doing is known today as the
discipline of acoustic ecology — the study
of the relationship between living things
and their environment through sound.
Acoustic ecology asks how sounds impact
the environment. The science investigates
how the way you hear music is impacted by
whether you are at a concert, in a recording
studio, or running between classes.
16
VIBES AND VENUES
There are some artists that, without
question, you have to see live.
From Flying Lotus, who is well known
for his integration of 3D graphics on his
current You’re Dead tour, to artists like
SBTRKT and Bonobo who accompany
their show with lasers and images on
the screen, many musicians incorporate different elements to create a vibe.
Many audience members relish in the
atmosphere of a concert, never objecting to an artist’s request that they dress
up for a show, like during Arcade Fire’s
Reflektor tour, or to St. Vincent’s insistence that audience members turn off
their phones. The reasoning is intuitive — abiding by these requests allows
you to be more immersed in the performance and to see the music in action.
The way the artist works with the
venue and vice versa also impact the
vibe of a live show. Venues come with
their own host of characteristics and
idiosyncrasies, and sometimes these
dynamics are enough to prompt you to
skip a show or, alternatively, frantically
buy tickets.
The size of the venue, the design, and
the location all play a part — for some,
it would take a certain kind of artist
to entice them to visit the Air Canada
Centre or Sound Academy, whereas an
artist playing at The Great Hall or anyTHE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
where with a capacity smaller than 400
is almost always appealing.
INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES
The experience of soundscapes is, however,
very individual. Helen Geng, Grace Liu, and
Danielle Sum, all musicians and students
at the University of Toronto, agree unanimously on one thing: sound should be the
priority and, if it sound’s good, nothing else
matters as much.
Speaking from her experiences with
classical music, Geng highlighted various
venues specially designed for classical
orchestras including Roy Thomson Hall,
Koerner Hall, and Massey Hall. “If the
venue looks good, sounds good, it will
make you happy,” she said.
Sometimes the venue doesn’t make
up for a bad audience, though. Geng described a talent show she participated in
that was rowdy because the audience was
predominantly drunk — ultimately, she
was not compelled to play at all.
Some musicians go as far as to highlight when the audience vibe just isn’t
right, like Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek
did at his 2011 Lee’s Palace show. Someone decided to call out a prediction for
what song would be played next and
Kozelek retorted, “How the fuck do you
know what I’m going to play? I don’t even
know what I’m going to play.”
Of course, musical performances aren’t
limited to live environments; you also
have screen time. Liu has her own YouTube channel where she performs covers. She finds that the ability to edit her
performances for web viewing gives her
a lot of freedom.
“I feel like everyone wants to express
themselves. It’s not a matter of holding
back or not, it’s a matter of doing what you
want. You’re on there because you want to
perform and be found. There’s a lot less
judgment, too, unless it’s [from] people
you know, but even then there isn’t really
a reason to be judged,” she says.
The recording studio is a different
matter. There is enormous pressure to
get it right and to do so on the first try,
since the cost of recording is astronomical for young artists.
On her experience recording, Sum recalls,
“I found that it dampened my creativity and
execution of the piece. Practicing alone has
so much less pressure, whereas my mistakes
are immortalized on a recording.”
LINER NOTES
Music has a way of not only capturing
your state of mind, but also emphasizing
aspects of your environment — such as
listening to music that seems tailor-made
for the weather.
“When I was a kid, I used to make playlists
for when I was sad or happy. Nowadays, most
of my music is angry and I find that now I just
listen to that consistently,” says Sum.
Liu found that emotions affected her musical choices more as she got older. “If I was
really sad for the day I would play [a sad or
dramatic playlist] and cry myself to sleep,”
she says, continuing, “but if I was happy, I
would play very summery music. For me, I
feel like emotion affects my music choices
more than the environment does. It’s defi-
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
nitely different for everyone.”
For many music lovers, curating music
to your state of mind and surroundings
is a natural choice. I create playlists to fit
the weather and sometimes fit my mood
— whether it’s listening to The National
or jazz when it rains, or calling on Sharon
Van Etten during a typhoon, I carefully
curate the soundtrack to my life.
Whether your personal soundtrack is
based on emotions, environment, or both,
music has a way of meshing to experience
— the right song often seems to serendipitously find its way into your ears in the right
place. I don’t know what the hell Hecker
was feeling that night, but I know it was
dark. That he could create, with sound, a
piercing, tangible environment that I could
lose myself in is the undisputed beauty of
the soundscape.
17
The dilemma of experience
Exploring the unique challenges faced by mature students
By Malone mullin
By Malone mullin
W
hen I started researching this article, I asked a classmate, who is
38 years old and in the first year
of their undergraduate degree, to
share their story about what some might
call an unconventional situation.
“It’ll be a good thing,” I said. “You’ll
let other older students know they
aren’t alone.”
They agreed that talking about their
experiences would probably help other
mature students, some of whom undoubtedly feel a common sense of alienation in a school dominated by young
adults. But they declined to have their
story publicized out of concern that it
would only exacerbate the difficulties of
integration. It was hard enough to make
friends already, they pointed out.
Navigating the trials and intricacies of
university is harrowing as an 18-year-
18
Illustration By julien Balbontin
old, but can be even more difficult for
those in their late twenties and beyond.
Starting university at a later age comes
with a host of unique obstacles.
St u d e n t p o p u l at i o n
gro w i n g yo u n ge r
Generally, the University of Toronto defines a mature stuhdent as anybody over
the age of 25. The Mature Students’ Association (MATSA) extends the definition to include students who have several
years of work experience or took time
away from formal education, or who have
“family responsibilities that the average
undergraduate student doesn’t have.”
In 2012–2013, approximately three
out of four students enrolled at University of Toronto are between the ages of
18 to 24. Yet despite the approximately
13,000 students who are 25 years and
older, the median age of full-time unTHE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
dergraduates is dropping. In 2003, the
median age was 21.2; 10 years later, that
number had dropped to 20.9.
For part-time undergraduates, the
drop in average age is dramatic: students had a median age of 28.1 in 2003,
but a decade later, that number had
plummeted by five years to 23.1.
Dr. Thomas Socknat, academic director
of the Academic Bridging Program — a
program that aims to reintroduce mature
students to formal education — agreed
that students over 25-years-old may find
returning to school daunting due to the
prevalence of younger peers.
“Returning to education when one is
over 25 years of age has its own set of issues,” he says, adding that there’s a “lack
of confidence to compete with younger
students fresh out of an educational environment,” such as high school.
Susan Murray, a mature undergraduate and treasurer of the Association of
in
Part-time Undergraduate Students
(APUS), knows what it’s like to compete with students who are used to being students.
“One of the more challenging aspects
of being a mature student has been to
compensate for the lack of foundational
knowledge that most of my classroom
peers possess,” she says. “This requires
additional prep time for assignments
and tests, along with very intensive
study and reading.”
Uniq ue r esp onsibilities
Another life circumstance that is often
relevant to mature students is a high degree of family responsibility — whether
it involves caring and providing for an
aging parent or young children.
“Students who are parents face many
challenges,” says Dr. Amy Mullin, viceprincipal, academic and dean at UTM.
“One of those challenges is financial,
because we live in a society where it is
typically assumed that parents should
bear the overwhelming majority of the
responsibility for the costs of their children’s care, at least until those children
reach school age,” she adds.
Raising children while on campus is
expensive, and perhaps in many cases,
cost prohibitive. Mullin points out that
there are often waitlists for subsidized,
city-run daycares, while childcare centres run by U of T, such as the Childcare Centre on Charles Street West, can
charge up to $1,989 every month for
infants. And even though the Ontario
Student Assistance Program (OSAP) provides loan funding for childcare, Mullin
says, “the amounts it recognizes are considerably lower than the child care costs
many parents must pay.”
“Changes to OSAP to more fully account for average costs for paid care for
children at different ages would be a
very important way of making it possible for more parents to pursue higher
education,” Mullin adds. While oncampus childcare fees at Early Learning Centres are subsidized by levies on
tuition — lowering the out-of-pocket
cost to $12 per hour for one child under five — Mullin believes that, given
declining per-student provincial funding, “governments are the most appropriate source of funding for student
parents,” not universities.
The issue of devoting time to family
life is also one that is often encountered
by older students. Writing papers requires time and concentration, and as
Mullin acknowledges, “children’s needs
can be unpredictable.” Mullin encourages students to request flexible deadlines
if a dependent becomes ill or requires
other assistance, but warns that this
initiative might be met with resistance.
“Some faculty and students might assume that most of the people taking
classes at the university are young, supported by their parents, and do not have
considerable family care obligations of
their own,” she says.
Since this kind of alienation exists —
which leaves student parents “feeling invisible and alone,” as Mullin states — it
can be a challenge in itself, and Mullin
encourages students to reach out and
share their experiences, especially with
other student parents.
The Family Resource Centre provides
a venue for families at U of T to interact
at no charge, and can be a valuable support network for student parents. Students may also consider part-time studies to accommodate family needs, using
facilities such as APUS to stay connected
with peers.
Ma k i n g t h e mo s t
Even for those mature students who do not
have significant family-based demands,
the age disparity itself can result in feelings of isolation. There are no universityrun centres for mature students, and the
student-run MATSA is not equipped to
provide the resources and infrastructure
skills in the process.”
Murray went back to school at the
same time as her adult son — both are
enrolled at Woodsworth College. She
believes Woodsworth has helped both
of them adjust to student life. Although
her academic experience has been challenging at times, she says, working towards her degree in art history has been
largely rewarding.
“I am fulfilling a significant personal
goal,” she says.
Socknat echoes this sentiment explaining that the reasons that compel a
mature student to return to school are
mostly personal, rather than financial
or social.
“Most mature students embark on a
general arts and science degree because
they want to improve themselves and
feel they have missed out on something
and crave the learning experience,” explains Socknat. “And sometimes they
have their heart set on a specific career
that isn’t accessible with a college diploma and feel ready for that commitment.”
“It is about quality of life and not
quantity of financial reward,” he adds.
For many, returning to school is an
opportunity for personal enhancement
and a chance to build a new set of skills,
perhaps in pursuit of a career change or
“[A degree] is about quality of life and not
quantity of financial reward... In fact, most
mature students would probably agree that the
university experience changed their lives.”
necessary to facilitate a smooth transition
for mature students struggling to make
connections on campus.
A potential age gap should not necessarily deter one from taking advantage of
the 800-odd clubs here at U of T. One of
the best things a mature student can do,
according to Murray, is dive into a variety
of extra-curriculars.
“My academic experience has been
greatly enhanced through volunteer involvement with campus clubs, societies
and as a part-time student representative
on Governing Council,” she says.
Murray elaborates that socializing
outside the classroom is key to avoiding
feelings of alienation. “It is through my
campus life experiences where I have
strengthened relationships with other
mature students and student parents,”
she says. “I have built new invaluable
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
other long-time goals. I asked Socknat
whether he thought a university degree would increase the employability
of older students compared to their
younger peers.
“Yes,” he says, “an undergrad degree
does help mature students achieve their
career goals and perhaps, depending on
the individual and circumstances, they
may be more employable than younger
students because of experience.”
“In fact, most mature students
would probably agree that the university experience changed their lives,”
Socknat adds.
Murray agrees. “I have faced many serious personal challenges in my quest for
a degree,” she says.
Despite the difficulties, she adds,
“there is no other place that I would
rather be at this stage in my life.”
19
“Safe memories“
photo BY Emily Scherzinger
21
20
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
Incubating collaboration
The Hatchery facilitates partnerships amongst students across
diverse academic disciplines
By Emma Kikulus
photo courtesy of William ye
W
ith the largest student body in
Canada — including a staggering
67,128 undergrads and upwards
of 700 undergraduate programs
— the University of Toronto is not the
easiest place to make meaningful connections. Students are further isolated on
several structural levels, including year of
study, faculty, and specialization.
The Hatchery is trying to change this.
Created nearly three years ago, the Hatchery is one of the university’s most innovative
solutions to building bridges across different
faculties. The program is designed for students who think they have a marketable idea
that they are interested in pursuing, but don’t
know where or how to start.
Carmen Choi, a communications manager for the Hatchery, stresses the importance of academic diversity at the heart of
the Hatchery and encourages students from
multiple disciplines to get involved.
“[The Hatchery] allowed me to network
outside my comfort zone and meet people
in more technical fields,” explains Choi. She
has a humanities background and received
a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and
economics at U of T.
IDEA MAR KETS
Networking is an important aspect of the
Hatchery experience, and part of the first
step in the program’s three-tier system:
entrepreneurial evangelism, the Hatchery
22
process, and the startup launch. Phase
one is designed to provide students with
the opportunity to collaborate with one
another outside of the constrictions of
faculties and programs.
“The evangelism section happens
throughout the academic year and feeds into
the application process,” says Choi. She encourages students to attend Hatchery events,
even if they don’t have a solid or coherent
business plan, in order to connect with
other, often equally apprehensive students.
Weekly “Idea Markets” act as informal
mixers, which serve to facilitate networking and collaboration among students in a
neutral, non-academic environment.
“The market is a casual way to bounce
ideas off people and get a sense of what the
public might feel about it,” explains Choi,
who stresses the importance of interaction
at the markets.
BUI L D I N G D I VE RS E T E A MS
The goal of the Idea Markets is to establish relationships towards building
a strong, multidisciplinary team for the
next step in the program: the Hatchery
process and application.
Stage two of the process emphasizes the
importance of inter-faculty and inter-program collaboration, as well as proactively
encourages women to become involved in
potential startup teams.
According to Choi, women are a minority
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
in the program. “Entrepreneurship is tied,
typically, to engineering and computer sciences, where, structurally, there is a deficit
in women,” says Choi.
“The mandate of the Hatchery is to open
up the space,” explains Choi, adding, “We
want to tackle the problem [of female involvement] from a more equalizing space so
it’s not gender[ed] or discriminatory.”
ME N T O RS H I P A N D L A U N C H
The third and final segment of the Hatchery
process is the startup launch. In this phase,
which is only available to groups who are successful throughout the evangelism and application processes, students receive funding
as well as support from influential members
of the Toronto entrepreneurship community.
The mentorship program is essential for
students who plan to pursue their startup
as a full-time career.
“We have mentors who are on the board
of directors,” says Choi, “[They] are entrepreneurial alumni who are interested in helping
younger students ease the transition from
being a student to someone who’s running
their own business.”
“We maintain a relationship with [the
teams] so that they’re not pushed out into
the open and have to fend for themselves —
our doors are always open. We really want to
help them with succeeding,” she adds.
ARTICLE EXTENDED ONLINE at
var.st/hatchery
BY Emily Scherzinger
illustrations By BRITTANY GEROW
Exploring the complex,
individualized spectrum of human sexuality
Deconstructing
discourse
S
exuality is a contested concept. It is
a topic that has long been locked behind bedroom doors, only to be discussed in hushed, sterile conversations. In recent years, sexuality has shifted
outside the confines of private space and
slowly and carefully into mainstream conversation. While gains have been made to
liberate the topic of sexuality, it remains
an enigmatic and untapped field, undiscussed within wider society.
“Sexuality is very broad, and it escapes definition,” admits Veronica*, a
University of Toronto women and gender studies student.
“Sexuality involves all that has to do
with attraction, unattraction, self-attraction, self-knowledge, knowledge of
your sex organs and how they operate,
appreciation or lack thereof of said organs and their functions,” she explains,
adding, “It’s really anything to do with
your reproductive or non-reproductive
actions with another person that you’re
attracted to. There [are] thousands of
definitions of sexuality.”
S E X U A L I T Y T HR O U G H T HE Y E A R S
This may be the contemporary understanding of sexuality from a student
who specializes in the topic, but sexuality was not always as well understood
as it is today.
Michel Foucault, an influential sexuality theorist, explored how sexual24
ity became “rigorously repressed” at
the turn of the seventeenth century
because it was “incompatible with a
general and intensive work imperative” — essentially, everything was being measured in terms of wealth and
productivity, and sexual expression for
pleasure, economically speaking, contradicted the new system of capitalism.
Since then, the topic of sexuality has
found its way into every aspect of human life, including social relations, academic institutions, and political affairs.
Today, however, reactions to expressions of sexuality have taken a dissonant turn. Open expressions of sexuality continue to be condemned in many
circles, while simultaneously appearing
to be desirable within public discourse.
For example, recently, many celebrities nude photos leaked — referred
to as “The Fappening” — resulting in
excessive judgemental Internet backlash against female celebrities’, who
were simply expressing their sexuality
through the act of photographing their
bodies. Many Internet users blamed the
incident on the victims of the leak for taking the photos, rather than pointing to the
hackers who stole them.
At the same time, the media has become paradoxically more sexualized as
a result of targeted marketing, making
the concept of overt sexuality seem desirable. A flip through most commercial
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
magazines or a stroll down a city street
postered with advertisements proves this.
In this way, sexuality is both vilified
and idolized. Physical acts that express
a person’s sexuality, such as sending a
nude photo, are demonized, while the
media continues to send sexualized
messages to sell their products to their
audience. The public, then, struggles to
construct a healthy sexuality amidst a
bombardment of contradictory messages.
IN R E A L I T Y
When sexuality is manifested in public
discourse as a mess of conflicting messages, subverting repression in pursuit of
healthy sexuality becomes a challenge.
It is easier to do so today than ever
before as open sexuality has finally
entered the public discourse — but only
within specific classes of Western society.
“For the upper echelon of society,
I think you’re expected to have a few
experiences with people in college, and
then you… get married, have babies, reproduce heteronormativity,” Veronica
says. “But when it comes to lower classes… there’s more of a push to experience more sexually… [But in] hipster
culture, for example, you’re expected to
have at least five sexual partners by the
time you’re, like, 23 or 24,” she adds.
Some may argue that the “low” culture, which is associated with a new,
youthful generation, is increasingly
more accepting of diverse sexualities,
and, as a result, society will eventually
be fully accepting of these sexualities;
however, this is not necessarily the case.
“[T]hose people, who are of high status, are reproducing other people of
high status, and those people… who
are within the same generation as us
but are within a higher class, still operate within the same status quo as their
parents,” Veronica points out, adding,
“So they’re still expected to get married, to reproduce heteronormativity.
Maybe politically, there will be more
leeway, but that’s just more… space
available for people of different sexualities… [W]hen you think of your average country club… the kids who are
born into that lifestyle… are going to
want to reproduce that lifestyle, because it gave them… power, right? So
it’s all just about power dynamics.”
While there may be more space available within the heteronormative political system for people of diverse sexualities, violence is still experienced at the
hands of people attempting to reinforce
this heteronormative power dynamic.
“When I was a kid, I used to get made
fun of for being gay constantly,” Curtis*,
a third-year student, admits. “[T]here
was always the guys’ team versus the
girls’ team, and I always went to the girls’
team… I never felt like I fit in with the
guys, because they were… generally more
violent. They didn’t really want to talk
about the emotional side of things, and I
always wanted to more,” he adds.
“It was upsetting,” Curtis says, continuing, “I kept on trying to reevaluate
if what I was doing was actually acceptable. I felt pretty okay with what I was
doing, and I don’t think this made me
less of a guy, and I don’t think this
made me less of a person.”
T HE F L U ID I T Y O F S E X U A L I T Y
What is generally missed in the reinforcement of the heteronormative
power dynamic is the fluidity of human sexuality — the fact that an individual’s sexuality cannot be measured,
erased, hidden, or avoided, because it
can subtly or dramatically change from
day to day.
Sexuality is no different from every
other aspect of the human experience
and has been the subject of much measurement and debate. Many theorists
have attempted to create tools to measure a person’s sexuality, including the
controversial Kinsey scale, which attempts to gauge a person’s sexuality at
a given time, using a scale from zero to
six, in which zero is entirely heterosexual and six is exclusively homosexual.
Many theorists argue that the Kinsey
scale is not comprehensive enough to
cover all of a person’s individual sexual
identities; however, it has been accepted in the public consciousness as an
easy way to understand sexuality.
The notion of fluid sexuality, alternatively, is entirely individual, and thereby fundamentally unable to fit into any
measurement constructed by another
person. What one person defines as
their sexuality may have the same label
as another’s, but it will be an entirely
different experience for both.
“I’m more accustomed to the idea of
fluidity,” Curtis admits. “Honestly, if
you talked to me in high school… I was
like, ‘No, it’s necessary… Categorization is great.’ But now… [w]hat does it
even mean?”
“[Labels] provide comfort in times of
uncertainty,” Veronica acknowledges,
“but, for me, it really hasn’t been the
best thing because, whether I identify
as completely heterosexual or completely homosexual or bisexual or
whatever, there’s always something left
out… When I went to [one] end of the
spectrum, it was a total pigeon-hole,
and that didn’t feel right.”
Expecting people to put a label on
their sexuality is a dangerous presumption within societal discourse. While it
25
can be a comfort to some, it can cause trauma for others.
“I think just completely cutting myself off from aspects of myself was a
violence,” Veronica admits when asked about her “coming out” and subsequent movement into visible queerness, adding, “I went way far off the
deep end… I plunged into this idea of what it meant to be queer and to be
a queer woman, just to make myself fit into a different circle of people… I
completely reconfigured my whole identity around an idea that I had about
myself without doing any deep analytical work or self-care.”
Let’s talk about sex
P O P UL A R D I S C O UR S E
Within pop culture discourse, women are visibly objectified and hypersexualized. This is no more obvious than in today’s music videos, featuring celebrity
look-a-likes performing sexual acts for the pleasure of males. The centrality of
female bodies in these images fosters the belief that women are always dilapidated, vulnerable, and entirely submissive to the male gaze.
FKA Twigs, a 26-year-old British artist who defies genre classification, attempts to subvert this through her intense music that explores topics such
as modern sexuality, as well as healthy and unhealthy relationships, open
to all genders and sexualities.
In “Two Weeks,” one of the singles off her debut album, LP1, Twigs speaks
with an aggression unmatched by female artists today, singing, “Feel your
body closing, I can rip it open / Suck me up, I’m healing for the shit you’re
dealing / Smoke on your skin to get those pretty eyes rolling / My thighs
are apart for when you’re ready to breathe in.”
The interplay within these lyrics of violence and submission is a small
example of Twigs’ revolutionary approach to sexuality in music.
Further, Twigs’ use of the word “you” to detail the subject of her songs
allows the listeners to fill in the pronoun with their preferred gender, defying heteronormative classifications.
Twigs’ video for “Papi Pacify” also points to her assertion of more realistic images of sexuality. The video features a man cocking back Twigs’ head,
repeatedly inserting his fingers into her mouth while she attempts to keep
eye contact with the camera. This may seem like an expression of sexual
violence to some viewers, or, to others, a never-ending embrace of rapturous submission.
Though the image may seem completely submissive to some, it can also
be interpreted as Twigs being in complete physical control of the situation
— representing a new way of depicting female sexuality in music videos in
portraying females as willingly aggressive instead of passive and ready to
be dominated.
IND I V ID U A L E X P E R IE N C E S
Even Twigs admits that she finds sexuality entirely individual and confusing,
varying, morphing, and changing from one day to the next.
“... I’m 26, so I haven’t really figured it out yet,” she says in an interview with
The Cut. “Sometimes I feel 15; other times I feel fully grown and mature and
handling all my business. It can waver from day to day, hour to hour.”
Despite the societal tendency towards a binary approach to sexuality, it is
entirely individual. While some experiences borne from social expectations of
sexuality can be construed as universal, sexuality is experienced differently
by different people.
“Why does everything about sexuality have to be so happy?” Veronica questions fiercely. “I don’t want to be happy. I want to drown in my misery and fuck
some… dudes and chicks… Why can’t my personal depression and sadness
and my anxiety go hand-in-hand with sexuality, and why can’t that work together? If I want to have the saddest fucking crying sex, why is that something
to be ashamed of?”
“To me, it doesn’t really matter,” Curtis says triumphantly. “I am who I am.”
An umbrella term for people who reject normative sex/gender identities; the term can be
applicable to queer heterosexuals, as well as
non-queer homosexuals.
F l u id i t y:
The concept that sexuality can subtly or drastically change from day to day, essentially
calling for a breakdown of sexual divisions
and appreciation of each individual’s personal expression.
He t e r o n o r m at i v e :
A term that draws attention to society’s sexuality hierarchy, which places heterosexuality
at the top as the default sexuality, instead of
being one of many possibilities.
H y p e r s e x u a l i z at i o n:
The depiction of bodies (commonly the
bodies of women and girls) as sexual objects
within the media, which filters into society
and alters the way women and girls see themselves and are viewed by others.
S e l f- c a r e :
The pursuit of care for one’s own wellbeing,
both physically and psychologically.
Violence:
*Names changed at students’ request.
26
Q ue e r :
Within the context of sexuality, any harm
inflicted upon an individual that is related
to their sexuality, either psychological,
emotional, and/or physical.
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
By nishi kumar
photos By vivek Srikanthan
City of neighbourhoods
Profiles of intersecting communities in Toronto’s east end
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
27
T
he corner of Homewood Avenue
and Maitland Street is a complicated one. Looking north towards
Wellesley Street, a nearly 40-storey
condominium looms over historic brick
apartment buildings. South towards Carlton Street, the Allan Gardens Conservatory
greenhouse shelters homeless people from
the rain. In the mornings, condo owners
drop by Red Rocket Coffee on their way to
work while young students play tag outside
of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School. At
night, transgendered sex workers meet their
clients along Maitland Street. The view from
my bedroom window shows Toronto — old
and new, wealthy and poor — all coinciding
along one street.
In our city of neighbourhoods, people
often define themselves by where they
live, and for good reason. With unrelenting
condo development, a single city block can
double in property value practically overnight. With more immigrants than almost
any other city in the world, you can hear
several different languages just by crossing the street. The boundaries between
Toronto’s neighbourhoods matter in our
day to day lives.
After several years of living in Toronto, when I finally ventured east of Yonge
Street, I landed at the intersection of three
28
distinct Toronto neighbourhoods: ChurchWellesley Village, St. James Town, and Cabbagetown. These neighbourhoods share
much more than geographical boundaries:
historically, this corner of downtown has
been home to Toronto’s poor and marginalized communities. From those similar beginnings, these three neighbourhoods have
evolved in stark contrast to each other, reinventing themselves to adapt to Toronto’s
ever-changing population.
CABBAGETOWN
In a city where green space can be hard
to come by, Cabbagetown houses boast
beautifully landscaped front gardens. The
streets east of Parliament Street are lined
with mature trees. It’s a quiet, family-oriented community, but it’s also only a quick
ride on the Carlton streetcar to the bustling
downtown core. Riverdale Farm and the
Toronto Necropolis draw a steady stream of
foot traffic to local, independently-owned
businesses. The neighbourhood flag — featuring a bright green cabbage — flies above
many homes along the streets.
Like so many Toronto neighbourhoods,
Cabbagetown began as an ethnic enclave;
the original residents of the area were Irish
immigrants fleeing from famine in the mid1800s. The city’s British majority coined
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
the name as an offensive jab at the newcomers’ makeshift vegetable gardens. Cabbagetown was considered one of Toronto’s
worst slums for decades — until savvy buyers noticed that the location and housing
stock had serious real estate potential.
“This started back in the late ’70s, when
there were a couple of real estate agents
and investors that started to buy properties and started renovating them, and that
basically gentrified the area and changed
its landscape,” says Addy Saeed, real estate
agent and Cabbagetown Residents’ Association board member.
Today, Cabbagetown is one of Toronto’s
most sought-after neighbourhoods, with
home prices to match: in 2012, the average
price for a detached home was $1.3 million.
Since its rebirth about 40 years ago, the
neighbourhood has made a concerted effort to build its reputation as Toronto’s
architectural destination. Thanks to local
activists, much of the area has been designated as a heritage conservation district
by the province, making the neighborhood one of the largest areas of preserved
Victorian homes in North America. The
annual Cabbagetown Tour of Homes lets
apartment-dwellers peek into the renovated interiors of these heritage mansions.
The front doors and fences are adorned by
plaques, telling the stories of the famous
Canadians who once lived and worked in
the neighbourhood.
Other than its quirky name, there aren’t
many reminders of Cabbagetown’s former
identity as an impoverished immigrant
centre. Today, immigrants account for less
than 30 per cent of the neighbourhood’s
population — though still a significant
figure, it is less than average for Toronto.
“Because of the prices being so high [in
Cabbagetown], a lot of the immigrants are
coming in and looking for cheaper shelters… they tend to be moving into apartment buildings,” explains Saeed.
High-density apartments and condo
buildings have never been part of Cabbagetown’s landscape, and because of its heritage designation, that’s unlikely to change
anytime soon. “So that’s where St. James
Town comes into greater importance,”
Saeed adds.
ST. JAM ES T OWN
Moving north on Parliament Street, the
scene shifts dramatically. North of Wellesley Street, the sidewalks become emptier
and the inviting restaurants and shops disappear. Instead, imposing concrete apartment buildings dominate the streetscape.
St. James Town was built on a dizzyingly
large scale, a stark contrast to Cabbagetown’s
charming low-rise storefronts. It feels surprisingly quiet, given that this single square
block is officially home to 18,000 people
— though local estimates suggest that the
actual population is 25,000 — making it
the most densely populated neighbourhood
anywhere in Canada.
While Cabbagetown evokes images of the
Victorian era, St. James Town is a relic of
mid-century urban planning. Rather than
revitalizing the existing buildings north
of Wellesley, entire blocks of dilapidated
Victorian homes were razed in the 1950s
and ’60s to make way for modern “Towers
in the Park” for Toronto’s middle class.
If St. James Town feels isolated from the
rest of the city, it’s because it was designed
that way — the principle at the time was
to keep people, roads, and retail segregated
from each other. Modern high-rise apartments, surrounded by expansive swaths of
green space, were envisioned as a solution
to the problems of over-crowding and pollution that plagued Toronto’s downtown.
It might be invisible to many of us, but
within the collection of concrete towers is one of Canada’s most culturally
diverse communities.
“There’s probably 60 to 70 different
cultures,” says Chris Hallett of Commu-
nity Matters Toronto, a grassroots organization that facilitates employment and
education programs for St. James Town
community members.
St. James Town is home to over 11,000
newcomers to Canada who are looking for
an affordable place to begin their new lives.
This commonality, along with the close living quarters, creates a unique sense of community cohesion in St. James Town.
“Because [constituents of St. James Town]
share a common interest of trying to become established and trying to learn about
Canadian culture and trying to learn about
where they are… there’s participation in
each other’s cultural festivals, there’s an
attempt to learn different languages… But
it’s all done as a group, it’s not done as individual cultures,” says Hallett.
The area is poised for new condo development soon, but it’s unclear how even
greater density will affect the services and
amenities in the community. St. James
Town is a highly educated community, but
the average income is less than half of the
Toronto average.
Hallett says that most residents of the
apartment towers are focused on their immediate financial needs, leaving little time
for the type of civic engagement that has
helped to mitigate the negative impacts of
condo development for other communities.
However, that trend seems to be changing: from advocating for healthier garbage collection policies to organizing
the St. James Town Festival, community
members have recently been joining together to make improvements to their
neighbourhood.
“Before we had a very unorganized group
of small, poorly resourced agencies… that
void was filled by the community itself,”
says Hallett.
This newfound sense of ownership could
help St. James Town adapt to the changes
and challenges that lie ahead.
C HUR C H-W ELLESLEY VILLAGE
A little further west on Wellesley, rainbow flags fly on street signs and in shop
windows. The business activity is more
eclectic, from swanky cocktail lounges to
fast-food chains to independently owned
hardware stores.
The homes are a mixed bag too: there
are a few of the high-rise apartment towers
common to St. James Town, and a handful of heritage buildings more reminiscent
of historic Cabbagetown. At night, there’s
a steady stream of drunken party-goers on
the street; by morning, couples with young
children stop for brunch. Church-Wellesley is
the picture of a neighbourhood in transition.
“The Village” has long been the epicenter
of Toronto’s LGBTQQIP2SAA community. Its
origins trace back to 1826, when the land
was purchased by Alexander Wood, a British merchant and, some suspected, homosexual. The public began to refer to the area
as “Molly Wood’s Bush” (“molly” being a derogatory term for homosexual at the time),
and local lore suggests it has been a meeting
30
place for gay men ever since.
A mural on the northwest corner of
Church and Wellesley depicts a timeline
of milestones from the community’s LGBTQ
activism campaigns. The artwork is a sobering reminder of the political battles that
have taken place in the neighbourhood.
From protests against bathhouse raids to
AIDS activism to present-day Pride Week
celebrations, the community leaders in the
Village have been advocating on behalf of
Toronto’s sexual minorities for decades.
As attitudes towards the LGBTQ community have shifted, the Village’s identity is
less certain.
“Gay people don’t have to go to the one
area of the city to feel safe anymore,” says
Laurence Heath, a resident of the area and
sales associate at Northbound Leather, a
leather shop near the intersection of Yonge
and Wellesley whose products include corsets, harnesses, and bodysuits.
“You could go almost anywhere, especially in Toronto anyways, and feel fine,”
he adds.
The Village is no longer exclusively gay;
same-sex couples are moving out while
straight couples are moving in. Although
this greater acceptance is undoubtedly
a good thing, it does change the face of
Church-Wellesley Village, particularly for
business owners who have historically catered to LGBTQ clientele.
“You can’t just open up a business, put
a rainbow flag out, and have all the gay
men flocking to your store to patronize it.
It just doesn’t work that way anymore,” explains Heath. Northbound Leather hosts a
monthly fetish night and describes itself
on its website as “a proud supporter the
leather, fetish, BDSM, gay, transgender, and
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
alternative communities.”
Alongside this cultural shift, gentrification
of the area is evident. New condo developments are cropping up along Carlton Street
and Wellesley Street, while major retailers
buy out space along the commercial strip.
Heath explained that the independent
businesses are struggling to keep up with
the rising rents along Church Street. It’s a
fate that Cabbagetown seems to have miraculously avoided.
“I see that little stretch of Parliament,
from Wellesley down to Carlton, as being
very similar to the way that Church Street
used to be,” he says.
A N U N E VE N PA T H
Like so much of Toronto, the northeast corner of downtown is a patchwork of disparate communities. These few square blocks
have historically had an important role for
those who were excluded from the rest of
Toronto society, from early working-class
Irish settlers, to LGBTQ activists, to new
waves of immigrants to Canada.
The histories of these communities
play an integral role in their identity,
but, as time passes, the connections to
their origins appear to be weakening.
New infrastructure and demographics
are moving in and replacing neighbourhood characteristics that once defined
the areas’ identities and their place in
Toronto’s patchwork of neighbourhoods.
The view from my bedroom window
shows the overlapping layers of Toronto’s
past and the uncertainty of its future. It’s
an intersection that reflects our city’s haphazard history, the messy divisions that
still remain, and the change that is undoubtedly to come.
On the move
International students share their experiences
of moving across the world and reconnecting
with former peers at U of T
BY Alec Wilson
PHOTOs BY RUSABA ALAM
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
31
A
lexander Marshall, a third-year student at Woodsworth
College, checked his Facebook to find an unexpected message waiting in his inbox. It was from a former classmate
whom he had known years before when the two were attending an international school in Bordeaux, France. Included
with the message was a photo of Marshall as a young boy with
a group of other children.
“She asked me, ‘is this you? I haven’t seen you for about 10 or
11 years!’” he recounts. The message went on to say: “I remember your name. I still have a picture of you.”
Serendipitously, as it turns out, she was once again a classmate of Marshall’s — this time at the Univeristy of Toronto,
hundreds of thousands of miles from where they had first met.
Depictions of reunion in film and television are often dramatic scenes marked by a swelling orchestral score as one character’s eyes meet another’s across a crowd. This particular reunion, despite a lack of a background score, was in many ways
as implausible as something out of a cinema.
Hailing from places as far-flung as Iran or Brazil, or as a familiar as the US, U of T’s international student body — which,
at 10,276 people, makes up 15.3 per cent of the total undergraduate population — represents a broad diversity of experiences. Individuals who grew up in a culture that is not their
parents’ for a signifiant portion of their childhood years are
called “third culture kids.”
The world is undoubtedly expansive and would not seem
to lend itself well to intersecting paths on a mass scale. Yet, if
mapped out across time and space, individual lives cross and
connect with more frequency than could be imagined.
FROM MOVE TO MOVE
Marshall was born in Chicago to a British father and Norwegian
mother, though he only stayed in the US for a matter of months before getting on a plane bound for Holland as a baby. It was the first
in a series of moves tranversing both oceans that would take him to
France, India, Shanghai, England, Hong Kong, and finally, Canada.
The extent to which Marshall seems to find himself stumbling in
and out of relations with former acquaintances is staggering.
Though they were never particularly close, Marshall and Steve
Shi, a third-year Rotman Commerce student, had also met before
32
they ran into one another through a mutual friend on Bloor Street
last year.
Shi, who was born in Vancouver in 1994, is the son of Chinese
civil engineers who had found work in Canada. He left Vancouver quite young for Singapore before continuing on to Hong
Kong and Shanghai.
Like Marshall, whose father is an international commodities
trader, Shi’s father was also the catalyst for transplanting the family over the years. “Every time he found a better opportunity, he
would just go for it. I don’t think he was concerned about moving
too much,” he says.
Shi admits that the pace of travel throughout his childhood impacts his recollection. “It’s kind of hazy, to be honest,” he says of
recounting his childhood years and the many temporary locations.
It was in Shanghai that Shi attended an American international
school while his brother attended the British international school
with Marshall.
T R A N S IE N T H O ME S
Another expat, Jerome Newton, a fourth-year student at Trinity
College, was born in the UK in a small town of less than 100,000
called Southport, about a 40-minute drive from Liverpool. But he
has spent relatively little time in his country of birth — making
“home” a rather challenging concept to articulate.
As a word, “home” bears all kinds of subjective significance,
especially for someone who has spent most of their life in international transit. “I suppose home would always have to be where
my parents lived,” Newton responds after careful consideration.
“Home changes all the time it’s not the UK anymore, and it hasn’t
been for many, many years,” he adds.
Like many of the university’s international students, most of
his younger years were spent travelling, following his family from
place to place, continent to continent. His father’s job has required
constant relocation and meant that, growing up, Newton was only
ever able to spend three to four years in a single country.
Newton explains that the constant movement quickly became a
part of his identity, particularly in his love of travel. “I find it comforting to travel,” he says.
Before arriving in Toronto in the fall of 2011, Newton had spent
short blocks of time in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Sin-
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
gapore, where he graduated from high school at the United World
College of South East Asia.
C O N S TA N T C H A N G E
Ironically, it would be Marshall, now one of Newton’s roommates on campus, who would provide the initial social link
between the displaced Brit and another globetrotting student named Jamieson Wang, also The Varsity’s video editor.
Wang’s family left Tokyo before she was born, returning to
her mother’s native Singapore so that their daughter could
claim citizenship. Like both Newton and Marshall, she spent
little time in her birthplace before moving. Her father works
for Singapore Airlines, which has required him to shuttle between sales offices across Asia during Wang’s childhood.
Change was a constant fixture in her life, even during periods where her family was settled. She described the experience of international school as perpetually in flux. “Having
new kids every year was so common, and having your friends
leave every year was so common,” she says.
“I got used to [moving] very quickly,” she adds, “I kind of
knew that it was what I had to do.”
She attended schools in Japan, Indonesia, South Africa,
Spain, and finally returned to Singapore to graduate from the
Overseas Family School.
Wang and Marshall met during his frosh week in 2012, when
she and Newton — yet to be introduced — were already in their
second years at U of T. Though she would not meet Newton
through Marshall until 2013, the two were separated by only
eight kilometres for a year in 2009 when he was down the
road at United World College.
It was in Japan at the Nagoya International School (NIS) that
Wang crossed paths with third-year student Yukari Kosaka.
Unlike the others, Kosaka stayed at NIS from pre-school as
a toddler through to high school. “It was a tiny, tiny school,
probably around 300 from preschool to high school, and I
graduated in a class of 17 students,” she describes.
Wang was not in that graduating class; nevertheless, the
two recognized one another when, years later, Kosaka enrolled at Woodsworth College. Across continents, this small
group of people has managed to bump into one another time
and again, and inevitably coalesce at U of T — but having
engaged in so many communities, knowing others across
the globe is normal for these students. While this repeated
shifting can be polarizing, for many internationals, the act
of moving has become an important constant in their lives.
Rachel Hillcoat, a political science and international relations
student enrolled at University College and former classmate
of Kosaka and Wang, was born in Canada but moved with her
family to Japan shortly after. She describes experiencing a sense
of disparity between her cultural identities. She hopes to eventually find a career that allows her to move around a lot, ideally
between her two homes in Canada and Japan.
“Probably because of my upbringing, I definitely see myself
moving around a lot in the future,” she says, adding, “I don’t
think I could ever stay in one place my whole life.”
Printing digital
By Sofi a Luu & Emi ly Katz
Adapting to the new industry landscape in publishing
requires an understanding of both print and online
I
t’s challenging to tell a story in 900
words.
Nine hundred words is only about
three pages double-spaced. It’s the
number of words we were assigned for
this piece — which we slightly exceeded,
but will likely be trimmed down to by the
editor. This isn’t a number that’s been
pulled out of thin air — it’s a very informed amount that provides a glimpse
into how print media works. It’s a number dictated by the editor’s plan and what
they have in mind for this particular story and where it stands in relation to the
other stories in this magazine. It’s a number that reflects the resources at the publication’s disposal, design limitations,
and visual specifications. It’s a carefully
chosen figure, one that can make telling
a story in its entirety very hard — but
this is the reality of print.
There are several tropes that plague
discourse around modern media consumption, such as social media addiction, listicles, and the catch-all phrase
that “print is dead.”
In the last few years, a common step for
many longstanding print magazines has
been to stop print production entirely.
These shifts are usually hailed by critics
as proof of a dying industry — but transitions to web may not necessarily be the
death knell they are often perceived as.
AN EVO LV ING INDU STRY
The fact is, print isn’t dead — its impression as such is emblematic of wider evolution in the publishing industry.
The most profitable magazines today
are tabloid weeklies, glossy fashion publications, and lifestyle magazines from
the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Martha
Stewart. Owned by media conglomerates,
publications such as these face fewer financial challenges than smaller-scale,
niche products.
David Rose, a publisher from Lapham’s
Quarterly, differentiates between the
power of strong editorial design versus
business make-up. After almost two decades of publishing experience, he argues
that the opposite of what we may think is
true: a magazine with low-quality content will sell if the business model works.
Despite these challenges, magazines
like Hazlitt are inverting traditional standards with new editorial approaches. Ha-
zlitt was founded on the notion that good
writing can make anything interesting
— even a dense finance story.
Haley Mlotek, editor of The Hairpin, is
inclined to agree.
“I really think that if I chose the writers and the articles I believe in, if I publish articles I really believe people want
to read, then I’ve done my job,” she says.
Mlotek admits that it’s not an exact
science, adding, “My faith, if you want to
call it that, lies primarily with the writing first.”
The publishing giant, Random House
of Canada — now Penguin Random
House — created Hazlitt as their digital
space to showcase good writing on any
and all topics. Random House is straddling the space between print and online, employing its traditional model of
publishing in the web realm.
TH E E L A S T I C I T Y O F D I GI TA L
From a creative perspective, there are no
technical boundaries to what you can
publish online.
The internet comes equipped with
hundreds of different platforms and
tools designed to make using it easier.
Sites such as Wordpress, Tumblr, and
Medium have opened up the act of publishing to pretty much anyone with a
decent WiFi connection and valid email
address. Articles have the potential to
come alive with the addition of multimedia and interactive elements such as
audiovisuals and infographics.
“Online, there are some things I can do
that you can’t do in print, like publish really timely pieces or not worry so much
about things like word count or page layout,” Mlotek explains, adding, “It’s more
flexible to the writing.”
Digital content is also more universally
accessible to readers. Physical magazines
are only available in certain locations to
those who can afford them. When we’re
reading online, we don’t have to purchase
an entire issue of The Atlantic just to read
one feature — and, if we really like that
one article, we can save it to revisit and
share it on social media towards facilitating a conversation about it.
Print publications often cater to a target readership. When you’re a digital
publication, however, you might have a
target readership in mind — but if one
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
article goes viral, your audience can dramatically expand in a matter of hours.
For print, the number of issues being
produced and the amount and value of
advertising space being sold are strong
indicators of a magazine’s health —
but measuring success online is more
challenging.
There are a number of things that an
editor can consider to gauge how well an
article is doing, such as page views or the
number of shares on social media.
Mlotek emphasizes that success in
terms of page views doesn’t necessarily mean a positive public response,
however. “I can think of a lot of articles
published online that are technically successful because people ‘hate read’ them,”
she explains.
“On the other hand, it’s really important to me that I see some reaction… I
want to see what readers think about a
piece, how they feel, what they like or
don’t like,” she adds.
NOT DEAD YET
Rose argues that the reason print magazines fail is not due to poor quality, but
merely lack of publishing expertise.
Looking back to a decade ago, when
the digital sphere was rapidly expanding, print publishing skills were often
entirely cast aside to make way for their
digital counterparts.
It is not uncommon for magazines
to experience success online and then
flounder when looking to expand into
print — which Rose attributes to a lack of
knowledge of the fundamentals of print,
including balancing a budget, marketing
strategically, and management.
Today the digital magazine industry is
showcasing innovative editorial visions
— and while the online model allows for
complete creative freedom, it is the intersection with print that measures the
resilience of these publications. The loss
of each small, independent magazine is
used as fodder for the growing idea in our
minds that print is, in fact, dead. Print
does, however, live on ­— in some cases
with great success. The fork in the road
between print, online, or both presents a
choice for publications. The decision they
make depends on their preparedness in
tackling the medium, not on a flaw in the
medium itself.
35
Chessboxing, anyone?
Hybrid sports bring creativity to athletics
S
ome people stubbornly insist that there’s no
sport out there for them. They’ve tried the
usual suspects, from volleyball to tennis,
to no avail. But beyond typical activities,
there exists a far greater realm of possibilities
than those that the traditional sporting world
offers — one of the best examples being hybrid
sports. The world of hybrid sports may not seem
particularly rich beyond the soccer-baseball days
of middle school gym class — but, in fact, there
are several activities that fuse together sports to
create new niches within the seemingly static
world of sport. Over the past few years, these inovations in sport have been rising in popularity.
From chessboxing to joggling, the possibilities
for bringing creativity to your athletic endeavors
are endless.
FULL ARTICLE ONLINE at var.st/joggling
36
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
By Reshara Alviarez
illustration By
CATHERINE SOLOMON
Interactions/reactions
Fiction and poetry exploring intersections and transformations
E x er cis e in Se t t ing
Iner t i a
John Cockshutt
third-year
Roberta Natale
From the height of a primordial shore, I saw
for miles in every direction. Down below, the
bay was stretched out before me: the bright
blue reflection, the white caps, the chill swells
and the brisk. Gulls careened this way and
that, never beating a wing, carried about on
the powerful arms. The sun was out, but it was
not sunny. Nor was it cloudy. It was a mysterious sort of day, with a sky that beckoned azure
but gave way indiscriminately to a kind of haze
that dampened the light.
The wind carried inland from the bay, sifting
through the now bare woods of late autumn.
On it went, in my direction.
Eventually it met the foundations of the
primordial shore, now the ridge. Nowhere to
go, it ascended. The wind went over the dales
and the brooks and the clear cut valleys of
sweet maple and virulent pine and barbed
firs. It cut through the dripping wet rocks and
over the crunch of the leaf floor that covered
everything. The wind came for me, standing
alone on the edge of that hilltop that had once
been its own shore, countless years before.
What mineral deposits lay under me? What
crustacean fossils were embedded deep within
the igneous shapes? I was buffeted constantly
by the ascending wind, which swept over and
around and through me, howling giddily on
my ears.
My polyester coat rubbed the wind and
chafed it, making all kinds of zipper like noises.
The palms inside my red mittens were sweaty.
I was very Canadian in that moment. There
was not even a shred of dread that I could draw
out of the whole landscape. This was where my
grandfather had spent his last years.
What did he see? Was it what I was seeing?
Was that all? Was it all just sentiment?
I looked out again and the uncertainty cast
itself over the bay. A cloud must have rolled by
overhead, obstructing the day star. The gulls
had gone, down over the shore. The wind had
picked up. Now it was overwhelming. I moved
back onto the path, the satisfying crunch
of leaf bones heralding my every move. The
path was wet pebbles. It was that season —
everything was inexplicably wet. The path
crunched under my feet too, but this sound
was more pleasant, and as I listened to it while
I walked, I fancied that it sounded like the
steps of multiple people in unison.
An army perhaps?
Ahead, two pine trees guarded either side of
the path as it led into the empty woods.
Only a few words spoken and everything is
different.
The seam suddenly separates and the
ground disappears.
Centrifugal force called to action,
Don’t look down.
I am a diver treading the murky waters of a
disturbed ocean floor
With heavy chest and weary wringed lungs.
The golden key is floating within my
reach—like a baited hook.
Stand naked on the other side or stay here,
cloaked in armour;
I simply cannot decide and the moment
passes.
Standing where I was, cracked ground beneath my feet,
The three sisters snicker—how foolish to
think I had a choice.
Roll the rock uphill, again and again.
Imagine what could have been, the neverending game
And play out what I would have done if
Hercules was my name.
R equiem f or T ho se W ho M at t er
James Lee Lord Parker
third-year, humanities
Afraid they’ll talk about him in the news?
It wasn’t at a major intersection.
Here’s to you, oh, Hitler, Stalin,
Gandhi—names we won’t forget.
The ones we’ve chiselled, painted, spoken
of, composed as silhouettes
for future youths to know the moral
dos and don’ts that they should follow—
lessons bigger than the whole or
holes in which the dead must wallow.
Tell me now: If death’s a measure
of the absence of your presence,
what’s the value of some jumper’s
pin-sized crater of importance?
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
37
B at hr o om a nd H a l lway
Victor Matak
fourth-year, history specialist
It’d been about five minutes now, the mirror
light flickering; you could see how it made you
look paler. My breath was fogging the glass, and
everything seemed more vivid. The velvety air
seemed different in this part of the house, and
I effortlessly followed the dipping and turning
of my face as it moved with the mirror. Then I
looked at my upper lip (a metal pipe), nose (falling down the stairs), ears (sporting events), and
eyes (birth). I squatted down, releasing air out
of my knees; you could hear the clap-clap-clap
of water running in the toilet. I could feel everything more than I would have liked to.
Then I turned my back to the mirror.
I guess this is what it feels like, when you suddenly notice you’ve aged.
The prevailing voice in the room, myself,
reminded me that I was brooding. I thought
about the places I had spent the worst nights of
my life: dark nightclubs, bars, movie theatres,
street-events, beaches, people’s faces, homes,
and cars (places I went searching for comfort
and wound up feeling nothing but uncomfortable). That thing, that ghostly wraith that flies
through the world, that thing that had killed
my mother, was in the room with me. I wasn’t
confronting it, I was embracing it. I suspect, in
exceptional cases, self-loathing is healing. It’s a
tough thing to do, being honest with yourself.
I shut the tap; I listened to the puttering of the
sink end.
The hallway looked endless, I wondered if
I would get lost walking down it, if it would
really never end. Then I began to walk towards
the bedroom. Then I went into the washroom,
cleaned my teeth, and splashed some more
water on my face. I measured the length of the
bathroom, some five or six feet long and eight
feet high. Then I went back into the hallway,
turned around, breathing rapidly, a sinking
feeling in my chest, and went back into the
bathroom, back onto the toilet seat, back to
looking at the room’s height and width.
I sat on the toilet seat and looked around.
There wasn’t much, toothbrushes, paper towels,
the absence of a medicine cabinet, some lipsticks
and mascaras dispersed around the sink. Nothing to explain why I hadn’t noticed any of it
before. I ran the bath, I ran the sink, I ran the toilet. Then, I realized, it was too quiet and I began
to look around all over again, thinking, don’t let
yourself slip, don’t, don’t, don’t, let yourself slip.
Somehow I’d missed the photograph of my
family on top of the sink. I took it off the wall
and readjusted towards the bathroom door,
catching the light. I went to lean my hand on
the doorframe but I missed and it landed on the
wall. Then I pleasantly let myself slip down. I
was sitting on the floor now, my back against
the door. I brought the photograph up to my
38
eyes; it’d only take a minute, I thought. I’ll be
back on my feet in exactly one minute. I floated
into that picture, letting myself become numb.
Perhaps, I thought, I could relive the memory
this way.
The Pacific National Exhibition was a place
my family couldn’t tolerate for longer than ten
minutes (this is where the photograph had been
taken). There was an all-day shuttle bus that
ran on West Broadway and you didn’t have to
worry about paying the three dollar fare. The
rides, the music, the food, the golf carts, and
fortune tellers made all of us volatile and impatient. I remembered we stopped going the year
my father read in the morning newspaper that
three people had been gunned down waiting
for the Ferris wheel. I remember feeling lucky,
as if my family had been those three people and
we had disinterred some truancy about life that
hadn’t been available to us before.
It was slipping away from me, the moment.
So I held the photograph higher, I tilted it to the
left and right, until I had memorized the image
of Jack, Devon, dad, mom, and myself wearing
sombreros, eating cotton candy, and looking
happily foolish. Anything that would happen,
hadn’t happened yet; this looked like a naïve
family, in the same way that squirrels look
naïve scrambling down trees. I grasped, I slid
up the wall and accidently turned off the lights.
I groped in the darkness, the sensation was fleeing. Then I knew it was gone, and it wasn’t coming back either. Then I found the light switch.
Memoir s of t he W ind
Fiza Arshad
fourth-year, neuroscience and creative writing
The wind whistles, like the choo-choo of a train
(as a child would tell you)
as steam rolls off into the bottomless blue;
and travels over the tree tops, scraping
its fingernails, slightly, along the branches.
A plethora of voices echoes in the resounding silence
of the different shades of green
greeting the footsteps of the draft,
which bids au revoir to a flash of maroon.
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
THE VARSITY MAGAZINE FALL 2014
39