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University Briefs

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Photo Courtesy of The Cascade

UFV welding students file complaint over poor ventilation

[ABBOTSFORD] — Students taking welding classes at University of Fraser Valley have complained about poor air quality that came from the school’s new ventilation system.

UFV’s Student Union Society President, Thomas Davies, acknowledged the problem after receiving complaints from students, and issued an alert to their program’s department heads. It was later discovered that the poor air quality resulted from residue that accumulated in the ventilation system. Until the residue is removed, welding students  are required to use respirators for their safety.

With files from The Cascade

 

 

UBC students go anti-nuclear

[VANCOUVER] — Three University of British Columbia students have launched a campaign against nuclear testing.

“The United States [. . . has] tested 1,032 nuclear weapons in the past, most of those being the same or bigger than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” said Hayley Gendron, one of the students.

They presented their Ban the Bomb project at a science and technology conference sponsored by the United Nations last week in Vienna. The aim of the initiative is gain recognition from world leaders for their Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which they hope will be signed, ratified, and eventually implemented.

With files from The Ubyssey

 

 

U of A student is Edmonton’s first youth poet laureate

[EDMONTON] — Poet laureates were traditionally named to record the history of a nation in verse. The title carries a different meaning for Edmontonian and University of Alberta student Charlotte Cranston.

The first youth poet laureate in her city, Cranston will serve as a cultural voice for her community and perform her poetry for various city events.

She hopes to bring poetry to Edmonton youth and to provide them with a platform to share their own creative work: “I really want to celebrate young people’s poetry because it is so honest.”

With files from The Gateway

 

Théâtre la Seizième cleans up at Jessie Awards

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The theatre is all about humanity, and the thank you speeches at this year’s Jessie Awards reflected that. The tone was grateful, reflective, and honoured absent friends and those whom the community lost over the past year.

Théâtre la Seizième’s À toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou deservedly took home six out of the 11 awards in the large theatre category, including Outstanding Production, Craig Holzschuh for Outstanding Direction, and Joey Lespérance and France Perras for their lead roles. Julie Trépanier also won for her supporting role, and Drew Facey for his set design.

The Arts Club Theatre Company and Bard on the Beach usually win a fair number of awards, but this year Arts Club picked up only two for Saint Joan (Dean Paul Gibson’s supporting role and Alessandro Juliani’s Outstanding Sound Design), and Bard on the Beach didn’t take home any. Surprisingly, Carousel Theatre who usually also do well didn’t take home any awards for their five James and the Giant Peach nominations.

I was so glad to see one of my favourite plays of last season, Osimous Theatre’s beautiful production of Our Town, win Outstanding Production of a Play and Significant Artistic Achievement. Another one of my favourite shows of the year, STATIONARY: a recession-era musical by Delinquent Theatre, won Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Sound Design (Mishelle Cuttler).

In between the presentation of the awards, the sobering sentiments of many speakers were contrasted by the fun musical numbers and skits produced by Vancouver Theatresports. The Jessies are always full of these hilarious interludes, but some of this year’s could have been livelier.

For example, the Artistic Directors’ Den segment with Bill Millard of the Arts Club, Christopher Gaze of Bard on the Beach, Carole Higgins of Carousel Theatre for Young People, and Richard Wolfe of Pi Theatre elicited bland reactions from the directors, although the pitches were quite funny.

I personally enjoyed the proposal for a Bard2Go app that would allow audience members to pop in and out of the theatre and only pay for the portion of the show they watch. With this app, you could pop out for a coffee or have a nap and be back in time to see Hamlet stab Polonius to death.

JR and the Thirty-Somethings provided their version of “Shake it Off” rewritten about bad reviews and an “Uptown Funk” where they promised to “Jessie funk you up.” Two opposing video segments describing which summer production was most authentically tragic, King Lear or Les Misérables, perpetuated the longstanding friendly rivalry between Bard on the Beach and the Arts Club.

The night saw an abundance of respect for fellow artists, talk of leaving ego at the stage door, and a desire to work towards more diversity on stage. But the night clearly belonged to Théâtre la Seizième, and they basked in their well-deserved glory.

Additional special awards presented were:

    • Patron of the Arts Award – Stan Hamilton
    • Mary Phillips Prize for Behind-the-Scenes Achievement –  Scott Ashton Swan
    • Sam Payne Award for the Most Promising Newcomer – Sarah Mobberly
    • John Moffat & Larry Lillo Prize – Jill Daum
    • GVPTA Career Achievement Award  – Jerry Wasserman
    • Sydney Risk Prize– Christine Quintana
    • Colin Campbell Award for Excellence in Technical Theatre – Lorraine West
    • Ray Michal Prize for Most Promising New Director – Cameron Mackenzie

For more information and a complete list of winners, visit jessies.ca.

SFU Athletic Director Interview – Milton Richards

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In this addition of The Peak’s Sport Podcast Austin and Nick interview SFU’s previous Athletic Director Milton Richards. News on the Shrum Bowl, best university rivals, and Canadian vs American athletes.

Created by: Paige Smith

Leo Awards nights two and three: documentaries, dramas, and the red carpet

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EIC
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The second night of the Leo Awards were hosted at the Fairmont Hotel on June 13, and included awards for motion pictures, television movies, dramatic series, animation, documentaries, short dramas, and web series given out by British Columbia’s finest on-screen talent.

Hosts Kalyn Miles and Aubrey Arnason had a great camaraderie as they charmed the room with their comic bits. One particularly enjoyable part of the evening was the DIY Showbiz video prepared by Kalyn as she interviewed the nominees about various way of succeeding in the business. From great tips such as “create a show and pitch” to “build good rapport with the producers,” Kalyn made the room laugh with her deadpan humour and the reactions from the nominees who thought they were interviewed by a real journalist.

As the proceedings went on, Grant Baldwin, Jenny Rustemeyer, and Melanie Wood accepted the best feature length documentary award for Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story and the award for best short documentary went to Tricks On The Dead: The Story Of The Chinese Labour Corps In WWI. Both documentaries won two more awards with Best Direction and Best Musical Score for Just Eat It and best Cinematography and Best Picture Editing for Trick on the Dead.

In the animation category, Johnny Darrell, Daniel Deserranno, Johnny Ludgate, Jeff Davis, Fanny Riguidel, Ewan Deane, Dean Giammarco accepted two awards for Slugterra: Return Of The Elementals, which won Best Direction and Best Overall Sound.

The two hosts continued entertaining the guests with a variety of gimmicks. After playing a trivia game that rewarded winners with fruits such as a plum, a lemon, a cantaloupe, and a watermelon, the two hosts quasi-terrified the room with a dinosaur gig that came with a room-shaking Jurassic Park soundtrack. The two hosts hopped off the stage as they closed out the night with The Benny Hill Show theme song.

The Gala awards night on Sunday June 14 was graciously hosted by Twilight’s Christopher Heyerdahl, and featured the following awards:

  • Best Supporting Performance Award – Christopher Heyerdahl in Eadweard
  • Outstanding Achievement Award – Danny Virtue in Neon Rider
  • Best Supporting Female Performer – Gabrielle Rose in Two 4 One
  • Best Dramatic Series, Best Direction, Best Screenwriting, and Best Lead Performance by a Male (Louis Ferreira) – Motive
  • Best Lead Performances in a Motion Picture (Male) – Matthew MacCaull in Black Fly
  • Best Lead Performances in a Motion Picture (Female) – Julia Sarah Stone in Wet Bum
  • Best Television Movie and Best Direction (Peter DeLuise) – Zapped
  • Best Information, Lifestyle or Reality Series, Best Screenwriting, and Best Host – Warrior Games

Violent continued its winning streak in the Motion Picture category, bagging four more trophies for Best Motion Picture, Best Direction, Best Screenwriting, Best Musical Score and Best Casting. This brought its tally to 8 wins out of a total of 9 nominations. Quite impressive for a small independent film debut by We Are The City’s Andrew Huculiak.

The gala had a great concluding performance from Beverley Elliott, who stars in Once Upon A Time, when she sang her heart out to “We Survived,” a comic rendition of “I Will Survive” that salutes the BC show business industry.

For a complete list of winners, visit leoawards.com.

The Italian Film Festival Summer Series ends with a free screening on August 7

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June is Italian Heritage Month, and in Vancouver, that means a magnificent celebration of art, music, cinema, food, and amore, lots of amore. Italian Day on the Drive was hot, delicious, and filled with hundreds of thousands of people, great music (wow, even opera!) and plenty of dancing in the street.

June is the month to celebrate all things Italian. Vancouver sculptor Lorenzo de Francesco’s exhibit The Broken Cross is at Il Museo, and Of Heaven and Earth: 500 Years of Italian Painting from Glasgow Museums is at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Italian Film Festival’s Summer Series at the Rio screened some of Italy’s gorgeous classic cinema. Films like Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris belong on every cinephile’s bucket list.

The Italian Film Festival, which runs in early January, is in its second year. With its year-round programming, it’s a welcome addition to Vancouver — not only for its retrospectives on Italy’s influential avant-garde and post-war neo-realist cinema, but also for the rare chance it offers to catch contemporary Italian films, such as Mine Vaganti, which is screening for free in Beaconsfield Park August 7 as part of Pride Week.

If music’s what you’re after, the Italian Jazz for Barb series runs in conjunction with Vancouver International Jazz Festival. It’s got a tight line up of top-notch Canadian artists, like guitarist Oliver Gannon, saxophonist Eli Bennett, pianist Sharon Minemoto, and the swanky Black Gardenia.

Part of the Italian Film Festival Summer Series, Mine Vaganti (English: Loose Canons) plays at 9 pm August 7 on an outdoor screen at Beaconsfield Park. The Osteria lounge will be open for panini, pizza and beverages. For more information, visit italianculturalcentre.ca.

 

Touring North Vancouver’s booming brewery scene

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Plenty of sun, good friends, and a guided tour to four of North Vancouver’s craft breweries can only make for a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon.

Burnaby Tours and Charters, a new boutique tour company, is now offering brewery tours to suburban locales that don’t seem to receive the same attention as those within Vancouver. The other version of their tour visits four breweries spread throughout Port Moody, Burnaby, and New Westminster. And if by some chance you haven’t had enough beer by the end of the tour, there is also a chance to win a growler from one of the breweries.

Complete with pretzel necklaces, our tour began with a scenic drive from Burnaby over to Black Kettle Brewing. This brewery, nestled in a small industrial park, was opened by two friends in 2014; despite their tight quarters, they’ve managed to squeeze a small bar into their space. We started off with samples of their wheat ale and IPA, and were able to choose a pint of one of those. I’ve never been a fan of IPA, but I enjoyed a glass of the lighter ale.

Our next destination wasn’t far away at Lonsdale Quay. Green Leaf Brewing has been open since 2013, and they have a more polished storefront with long wooden tables and gleaming vats at the front of the shop. We were treated to a flight featuring four of their beers including their Pie Hole Pale Ale, a Bitter Leaf IPA, and the seasonal and aptly named, Les Saisonniers. With earthy décor and a view of the water, our stay at Green Leaf was topped off with a short stroll on the Quay.

Bridge BrewingOriginally named after the Lions Gate, Bridge Brewing is now housed in a warehouse near the Ironworkers Memorial. At this stop we were able to go in the back and see where the magic happens. We sampled a few of their beers including the Hopilano IPA and All Out Stout, and one of the brewers explained how they turn hops, barley, and yeast into beer. There were different varieties of toasted barley to smell, and a glass of condensed hops that we were warned not to sample due to its intense bitterness.

Opened in 2012, Bridge Brewing has seen a lot of growth over the past year and has gone from a couple of employees and hand-bottling all their beer to a sophisticated operation with about 13 employees. Located in a rather industrial area, Bridge has done a nice job of creating an inviting bar space adjoining the brewery.

Our last stop was at Deep Cove Brewers and Distillers, which opened in 2013 (and is unfortunately not in Deep Cove). The bar area was larger and more spacious than our other stops, and I was pleased to see that they are very dog-friendly. If you lived in the area this would be a great destination for a dog walk where you could pause for a beer, and Fido could share a pepperoni stick.

By this point in the tour we were all quite relaxed, so I’m not sure if it was the beer talking or if the atmosphere at Deep Cove was simply calming. Nevertheless, the stacked barrels, wood accents, and gleaming golden vat on display along with the chrome tables gave the space a fresh, bright appearance. They also feature live music and special events on weekends. We sampled their very potent non-alcoholic ginger beer, smooth Trapper John’s Lager, fruity Sun Kissed Tea Saison, and a very delicious Rye IPA Grapefruit Radler.

With craft beer becoming a booming industry in BC, new breweries seem to be popping up all over, and North Vancouver has an impressive lineup of their own. So maybe it’s time to get in on the ground floor and take the Craft Beer and Brewing Essentials Certificate through continuing studies at SFU. Who knows? Maybe someday this tour will be visiting your own backyard brewery.

For more information, visit burnabytours.com. 

Patrick Watson’s newest album is MGMT meets the Beatles

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IslBG

Patrick Watson is a Canadian singer-songwriter born in Lancaster, California and raised in Montreal, Canada. His music style has been described as a mixture of cabaret, classical, and indie rock, and he is often recognized for his melancholy lyrics and melody. He is perhaps best known for the song “The Great Escape” from his 2006 Polaris Prize-winning album Close to Paradise and for his vocals on “To Build a Home” by the Cinematic Orchestra.

patrick_watson_love-songs-for-robots_coverWatson shows significant musical growth on his fifth album, Love Songs for Robots. He transports listeners to another galaxy with his melody and instrumentals. Fans will feel at home with Watson’s voice, lyrics, and melancholy sentiment and will be shown another side of his style with a complex melody composed of psychedelic guitar and drums that are reminiscent of MGMT’s mushroom trip vibes, or The Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus” and “Eleanor Rigby.”

There is tremendous beauty shown by Watson’s ability to deliver love songs of all species. Whether about a former lover mourning a previous companion or a loved one slowly losing their mind, Watson delivers music that is haunting and hits hard to the bone.

“Alone in this World” is especially powerful. It tells the tale of an Alzheimer’s patient from a first person’s point of view. Watson sings: “Ding dong, someone’s at the door / Who could it be? / I hope it’s sweet ol’ buddy / She’s supposed to be here by four / but there’s a stranger knocking at my door.”

He illustrates the tragic reality of losing one’s mind first-hand, inferring that the disease consumes your memory until all you can do is fall unconsciously into a dark abyss, losing the ability to recognize your oldest friend.

Watson’s smart lyrics combined with his powerful psychedelic melodies prove that he is an artist that continues to develop in sound and talent, while remaining true to his original roots. If psychedelic vibes paired with smart lyrics are for you, you’ll want to give a listen to Love Songs for Robots.

Cinephilia: Bigger dinosaur teeth can’t save Jurassic World

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Just like I wouldn’t want to go to a surgeon who knows lots of theory but no practical skills, I didn’t like Jurassic World, which recognizes the reasons that it is so bad while failing to practice what it preaches. Colin Trevorrow’s reboot of the beloved ’90s series is dead on the operating table. Its self-awareness doesn’t amount to rising above clichés and tired conventions, and thus it never manages to create anything novel.

Some time after the disaster at John Hammond’s original theme park, Jurassic World was successfully built and maintained. Like kids who have been to Disneyland too many times, the general public is no longer excited by the sight of live dinosaurs. The fear of these once-terrifying beasts has faded — the theme park features pony rides with dinosaurs, and Sea World-like shows and attractions. The lessons about not playing God or underestimating the power of nature have been forgotten as the owner and coordinators of the park decide to make a “scarier” dinosaur with “more teeth.”

Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), the aunt of two kids who have come to the park while their parents finalize their divorce, is in charge of containing the genetically modified Indominus Rex. After the giant, scary dinosaur gets loose, Owen (Chris Pratt), an ex-navy soldier, and Claire try to contain the monster while searching for her nephews. They might fall in love too!

Essentially what you have here is a film trying to justify its existence through simple pleasures: the chance to hear the iconic John Williams score and the ability to see a bigger newer CGI dinosaur with “more teeth” — a metaphor for the film’s pandering sensibility. The audience at the park is getting diminishing returns out of seeing dinosaurs similar to how the audience of this franchise has already seen the same thing three times.

So how do we get butts in the seats? Do the same thing but bigger! More fanservice. More dinosaurs. Larger-scale action. If all you want is simple nostalgia and action set-pieces, I suppose you’ll get your money’s worth. I expect more value for my coin; however, Jurassic World is not meant to challenge, only to provide exactly what you expect in the safest and most predictable of ways.

Instead of commenting on the issues with modern spectators that it hints at, the film indulges in the same tired clichés it clearly loathes — meaningless action with hollow characters; an angsty teenager, the cocky hunk, and the stiff and professional woman. Trevorrow finds no pathos or depth in any of them. They are archetypes with simple and purposeless backstories pinned to them.

What we’re left with are a series of action sequences that allude to the original. It’s bland, boring, and the same thing you’ve seen before, but with bigger teeth. For a film about scary dinosaurs, Jurassic World couldn’t be any safer. This movie is awful and you can’t argue otherwise (even the film agrees).

Of Monsters and Men lose some of their whimsy

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I have found my summer road trip album.

Beneath the Skin, Of Monsters and Men’s latest release, is the kind of high-energy music that makes you want to roll your windows down and drive off into the sunset. It is the band’s second full-length album, and builds on the sound that was established with My Head is an Animal.

As a whole, this album has a more polished feel, but they still give the sense that commercial success has not changed their writing and production styles. It seems that in the four years since My Head is an Animal was released in the band’s home country of Iceland, they’ve matured to create a sound that stays true to their roots while still progressing musically.

There is, however, a lack of whimsical storytelling on this album in comparison to their previous work. While it’s probably a solid decision in the long run, it could be a shock for someone who enjoyed this element that was present in “Dirty Paws,” for instance. That is not to say that the band has abandoned what made them lyrically brilliant: it is that this has become polished as well.

When whimsical elements do appear, they are integrated in a manner that fits with the overall stylistic choices made throughout the album.

My top five songs from the album are “Crystals,” “Wolves Without Teeth,” “Thousand Eyes,” “I of the Storm,” and “We Sink.” “Crystals” has the most in common with the songs from My Head is an Animal and has a good energy. “Wolves Without Teeth” brings some of the whimsy that was also featured on their previous album, but in a manner that is less of a theatrical story and more based on their word choices — it’s subtle yet equally magical.

“Thousand Eyes” is a beautiful example of mixing the lyrics with the overall structure of a song in which one element does not stand out over the other. “I of the Storm” showcases the vocal talents of Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, — any song doing so is consistently mesmerizing. “We Sink” contains multiple rises and falls in energy, yet is always building in intensity even with the very calm and subdued ending. 

This feels more like a best-of album than a sophomore release. Beneath the Skin is magical, but it left me wanting more.

Comic Connoisseur: The Disappearance of Charley Butters is a captivating page turner

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EIC
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The Disappearance of Charley Butters is not a tale with an abundance of twists and turns. It is a very straightforward mystery — one readers have seen before. It is not a reinvention of the genre or a trailblazing new epic, but an engrossing read driven by well-crafted characters. On those grounds alone, Zach Worton weaves a graphic novel that is nothing short of spellbinding.   

When a trio of friends in a black metal band go out to shoot a music video in the forest, they stumble upon a deserted cabin. While looking around inside, the group discovers a sizeable collection of journals that date back to the 1950s.

These recant the story of an estranged artist named Charley Butters, who left his life one day to find solitude in the forest. One of the members of the band, Travis, becomes enthralled in the story of the elusive painter and begins to investigate him further.

At its core,The Disappearance of Charley Butters is about the transition from youth to adulthood and the pursuit of self-discovery. As Travis delves into the life of the lost artist, parallels begin to manifest between the two time-displaced characters.

He continues to learn more about Charley Butters, and Travis himself begins to change; he slowly adopts a path not dissimilar to the man he strives to know more about.

Travis is a character with whom many readers can identify — he is a young man in his twenties unsure of what he wants to do with his life. He hates his job with a passion, and to make matters even worse, his best friend is a man-child; half the time they spend together is filled with arguing.

As the story progresses, Travis is forced to make bittersweet decisions that risk changing his status quo. These hard decisions will resonate with readers young and old as they reflect on the bitter and truthful realities of growing up.

While Charley Butters is the focal point of this story, his appearances are few and far between. Writer Zach Worton, however, includes the character compellingly in the few times he appears throughout the story. Charley Butters is an endearing character whom audiences cannot help but feel sorrowful towards: he is tortured, with a mind slowly drifting through the throes of madness. Like Travis, readers will surely become captivated by his journey, reading to discover his ultimate fate.

The story can be described as being very mellow; it meanders at a pace of its own. Rather than being a detriment, though, this adds a thoughtful resonance to every panel.The Disappearance of Charley Butters is a story that speaks volumes through its poignant artwork. Zach Worton’s black and white work casts a haunting tone on the story while taking the otherwise simple content and making it chilling and provocative.

The Disappearance of Charley Butters is a strong character centric mystery which hypnotizes readers to keep turning the page. Its only flaw is that it leaves readers with a cliffhanger, and a dismally long wait for the sequel.

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

For advertising inquiries: [email protected]
For promotional inquiries: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society