Why fuck is one of the best words in the English language

By

-

March 3, 2014

You’ve probably said it today — I know I have. Most of you will have used it as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, interjection, and conjunction by the end of the week. Some of you will use it to describe pain, others pleasure, and others still to add emphasis to a given sentence. By the end of this article, you might even whisper it to yourself, just to hear it out loud. The word, of course, is the one mom told you never to use: fuck.

As it turns out, the story behind the F-bomb is more interesting than you might expect.

A brief fucking history

Unlike most of its vulgar counterparts — shit, turd, and arse, to name a few — fuck doesn’t have its roots in Old English. Some have suggested that the word originated as an acronym for Fornication Under the King or For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (the second having been borrowed by Van Halen for the title of a 1991 album), although there’s little evidence to support these claims.

It’s much more likely that fuck developed out of several Germanic terms for stroking, rubbing, and having sex. Its first recorded usage is in a coded poem from 1475, wherein the poet accused Carmelite friars of breaking their celibacy vows. In 1503, William Dunbar used the variation fukkit in his poem “Brash of Wowing.” Its next appearance was in a 1598 Italian-English dictionary, where it was paired with other vulgar terms of the time, such as jape, sard, and occupy.

Fuck has been a choice word of artists, politicians, and musicians for centuries.

Though the word continued to be used to describe sexual intercourse in certain circles, it didn’t find its way into our cultural lexicon until the late 19th century, where it gained popularity among working class Britons during the industrial revolution. Its status as an insult and an expletive qualified it as a swear word, and one that was not to be repeated aloud in Victorian Era Britain.

Some fucking grammar

Though fuck still literally refers to sexual intercourse, it’s more commonly used today in the figurative sense: it can be an action verb (I really give a fuck) or a passive verb (I really don’t give a fuck), a transitive verb (she fucked him) or an intransitive one (he was fucked by her). It can be an intensifier or a simple expletive. It can also take the place of almost every word in a sentence, as exemplified by Paul Fussell in his book Wartime: “Fuck, the fucking fucker’s fucked.”

Fuck also finds its way into several acronyms, most likely because of its vulgarity. Some common examples are WTF (what the fuck), FML (fuck my life), STFU (shut the fuck up), and FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition) — the latter gaining popularity due to its use by soldiers during World War II.

Fuck can even be used as a tmesis, where it’s inserted into the middle a previously existing word: the terms in-fucking-credible and abso-fucking-lutely sound perfectly normal to us, even though few other words in the English language can be used this way. Ultimately, fuck can be taken out of almost any sentence it’s in without affecting its syntactical meaning, making it as elusive as it is omnipresent.

Who the fuck uses it?

Fuck has been a choice word of artists, politicians, and musicians for centuries. Shakespeare famously alluded to the word in Henry V, when Pistol threatens to firk a soldier. D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover attracted controversy for its repeated use of the word, as did authors such as James Joyce, Henry Miller, and J.D. Salinger. Comedians tend to use fuck more than any other performers, most notably Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin.

The word is also common in popular music — especially hip hop — although it’s usually censored on radio. TV shows also censor the term, and the US Supreme Court can fine stations up to $325,000 for an accidental “fuck.” Politicians seem to love the term, and we have recorded evidence to prove that Lyndon B. Johnson, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and our very own Pierre Trudeau had a particular affinity for it. (Fuddle duddle? Not a chance.)

Few words in our ever-expanding language are as flexible or versatile.

As for The Peak, we follow the Canadian Press style guide, which included fuck in its list of terms for the first time in 2005, due to its increasingly tolerated usage in other print media and in the public sphere. The Canadian Press encourages journalists not to censor the word, although it advises newspapers only to print the word if it is essential to the story. In that case, I think I’m safe.

In fucking conclusion

Fuck has had a long and storied history, and it’s arguably more popular today than ever. Unlike its more offensive cousin, which I am hesitant to print here (it rhymes with punt), fuck is used liberally in almost all English-speaking cultures, classes, and creeds. It’s not hard to see why: few words in our ever-expanding language are as flexible or versatile. It can describe annoyance, sadness, anger, elation, confusion, lust, boredom, panic, or disgust — sometimes all at once.

So if anyone tells you to watch your language: fuck ‘em!

5 Things I Wish I’d Known at 5

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

0

Written by Ella, Age 10

1. Golden Stars are not everything

There’s a lot more to life than just getting gold stars. Don’t spend too much energy obsessing over being the first in line or sitting the straightest, in the long run it won’t get you anywhere. In fact, it turns out these stars don’t do anything at all. In fourth grade we don’t even use them anymore, we have happy face stickers. Those are what really matter.

2. It’s okay if you pee your pants

In five years, no one’s going to remember who did and didn’t pee their pants in kindergarten. All they’ll remember is that someone did and it was really, really funny. Seriously, even if you know it was you, you can just lie and say it was some other kid. There’s no way to prove it, just ask my uncle, he’s a lawyer and told me so.

3. You are not a poopyhead

Really. That’s not even a good insult, I know the s-word now.

4. If they don’t want to pick you as goose, they aren’t worth it

If somebody isn’t going to take the time to make you the goose even once, forget them. Wait for someone who is willing to see you as more than just another duck. They’re out there, I promise.

5. How to count to 5

It’s really cool and helped me make this list. It’s a little tricky though, takes a while to remember that four comes before five.

Perogies, sauerkraut, and borscht, oh my!

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

0

Confession time: I have no idea how to spell perogy. Pierogi? Pirogi? Whatever the spelling, smother it in fried onions and sour cream and it’s guaranteed to be delicious, which is why I was so excited to hear about the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Friday Night Supper. They offer perogies, cabbage rolls, Ukrainian sausage and borscht the first Friday of every month, and it is so worth the wait.

The church looks like something off of a postcard, all blue and white domes, except for the signs outside directing people to a specific entrance for ‘Eat In’ or ‘Take Out.’ The line up outside is usually comprised of people waiting for takeout, so go ahead and jump the queue if you have time to stay and enjoy this unique dining experience.

The inside of the church looks a lot like an elementary school gym, full of crowded tables and cheerful conversation as people from all over Vancouver get to know each other over trays of delicious food.

Friday night suppers are a great way to enjoy Ukrainian culture and meet new people.

Friday night suppers are a great way to enjoy Ukrainian culture and meet new people — when you enter you’re given a placemat and told to find an empty seat at a table full of strangers — if you’re a big group it can be hard to find enough free spaces at a table to sit together.

The menu ranges from the mini dinner (four perogies, a cabbage roll, Ukrainian sausage and a salad for $8) to the Super Dinner (10 perogies, three cabbage rolls, Ukrainian sausage and your choice of sauerkraut or salad for $15), with a vegetarian option, borscht, drinks and dessert also offered.

Everything is homemade and served by the most adorable old Ukrainian women. To order, fill out the menu card at your table, then wait in line to pay and collect your food. I had the regular dinner (six perogies, two cabbage rolls and a Ukrainian sausage) and I could barely walk back to the bus stop.

It’s a fairly straightforward 40-minute commute from SFU’s Burnaby campus, and you’ll definitely be glad you made the trip. The food is exactly what you’d expect from your Ukrainian grandma — whether you actually have one or just wish you did. It’s hearty, traditional and eaten in the company of smiling faces.

The Friday night suppers are perfect if you’re looking for a unique cultural experience, a way to meet new people, or just really great food. Sometimes a meal can be about so much more than the food on your plate.

The next dinner will take place on March 7. I’m already counting down the days.

Satellite Signals

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

0

Woodward’s

Howard Sapers, an SFU alumni, spoke to the challenges of managing mental illness in federal penitentiaries last week at Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. Sapers explained the need for more preventative methods, rather than relying on prisons to manage offenders with mental health and addiction issues.

Correctional investigator of Canada and recipient of the 2013 Simon Fraser University Outstanding Alumni Award for Public Service, Sapers serves as the federal ombudsman for offenders in Canada, working to “support the rights and fair treatment of those under the care of Canada’s correctional system.”

Surrey

A day-long workshop held at SFU Surrey last Saturday encouraged dialogue about regional issues between urban professionals, students, and interested members of the public. The discussions focused on pinpointing solutions the key regional challenges of BC’s south coast metropolitan region.

“The past and recent successes of governing in the Vancouver city-region have largely been a product of locals thinking about how best to resolve the challenges facing the region — from sewerage and drainage to water to transportation,” says Patrick Smith, SFU political science professor.

The goal of the day was to create ideas and “action priorities” for the region’s future.

Vancouver

Thirteen years after 9/11, Islamophobia persists throughout North American society. Nevertheless, change seems more likely to come from within Islam than from external forces.

Last Thursday, SFU’s Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures and partners presented a lecture about the purposes of Islamic law. Ebrahim Moosa from Duke University spoke to the challenges of recovering the “ethical” in Islamic law.

Moosa, along with other contemporary Muslim thinkers, is engaged in efforts to give Islam a more goal-oriented and big-picture framework. Are the purposes of Islamic law ethical or instrumental? A worthy pursuit, or a fool’s errand?

SFU student cookbook is a raw vegan knockout

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

1

SFU student Emily Von Euw, creator of the popular weblog, This Rawsome Vegan Life, has created a vegan dessert cookbook for the ages. Rawsome Vegan Baking: An Un-Cookbook will be in stores March 4 through Macmillan Publishers.

The book moves away from the spiral-bound word-art cookbooks of the early raw vegan movement, instead opting for a pro-matte finish.

Von Euw is a proponent of raw veganism, which combines veganism’s avoidance of animal by-products with a focus on foods never heated above 120°F. Many foods, when heated above this temperature, lose valuable enzymes and vitamins.

In her desserts, Von Euw uses only raw ingredients: dried fruit, nuts, purported superfoods such as coconut oil and cacao powder, etc. The recipes created out of these building blocks play on consistency and are open to infinite variation.

In recreating one of her cheesecake recipes, I added a cup and a half of rainier cherries on a whim — it turned out fantastic. Rawsome Vegan Baking takes raw desserts to a new level while remaining accessible to curious newcomers.

The photography, shot by Von Euw herself, is beautiful. Her blog, which receives over one million monthly page-views, has provided great practice for the gorgeous full colour photographs included with every recipe. The recipes and their accompanying photographs are regular features on the covers of vegan magazines.

I met with Von Euw at Golden Aura, a recently opened raw vegan café located on a particularly yoga-centric block of West Broadway. The food was good, but lacked the knockout flavour present in many of Von Euw’s recipes. We talked about her vegan destiny, convincing skeptics, and eating healthy on campus.

The Peak: What made you want to become a vegetarian or vegan in the first place?

Emily Von Euw: I don’t have an amazing answer because I don’t really remember much, but I remember reading Fit for Life, which is a book that was written in the 80s. It’s not even 100 per cent accurate, but it asks very rational things like “Why are we drinking the milk of another species when we’re full grown adults.” It is a little bit weird guys! So I remember reading that and thinking, “Why am I drinking milk? Why am I eating meat? This doesn’t make sense!” Then the next thing I remember is that I decided to go vegan for 30 days. A day or two into it I thought, “This is what my fate is, this is the lifestyle for me,” and I pretty much never went back.

P: Your transition to a vegan diet was quick! Were there any factors in place that made that possible?

Von Euw: A little bit before I went vegan, my uncle got leukemia and passed away. It was pretty intense and tragic for everybody involved because we were all really tight. That was a tough time. I was into healthy eating at that point and I remember being in the hospital with him and they gave him pudding in a cup and I thought, “This is so messed up, this can’t be right!” He should have been getting like fresh juices and healthy food! It didn’t make sense.

P: Can you explain your connection to the raw philosophy?

Von Euw: When I first heard about raw food I was like, [Sir Mix-a-Lot voice] “Oh my gosh, raw diet!” and I saw it as very 100 per cent or nothing, almost from a militant perspective.

I’ve since learned that’s not the way I should look at it. It isn’t about eating only raw food, it’s just about the fact that raw food is usually more nutritious than cooked food. No matter what, it is going to be in its whole form so it has a higher water content and it makes you feel fuller. It is also just easier for your body to digest most of the time, right?

Having said that, cooked foods are great for you, too. Quinoa, steamed veggies, etc., they’re all amazing for you and I eat those as well. I just try to eat the majority of my diet raw because that’s how I feel best. I think that how much raw food people should eat varies based on what will make them feel best, you know? Have an open mind about it. It’s not an all or nothing thing.

P: Do you have any tips for eating raw on campus?

Von Euw: For people who are trying to eat raw or eat vegan, or just trying to eat healthier, I recommend bringing tons of fruit, tons of nuts, and, honestly, recipes from my book because they’re all great energy snacks. I call them desserts, but really they’re the ingredients that you have in a granola bar, so they’re great for keeping you full. Nuts have really high calories and so does dried fruit.

Another thing I tell people, if they want to save money, is to buy rice and beans in bulk, cook them in large quantities, freeze them into little servings, and then have veggies, sauces, and soups in your fridge. Then all you have to do is steam some veggies, take out your rice, beans, or whatever, and mix that with a sauce or soup, and you’ve got a great meal. It isn’t raw but it’s super good for you, super cheap, and super vegan.

P: I actually made one of your recipes once. I made a cheesecake and it was really awesome. There was definitely lots of room to be creative with it. Everybody who tried it really loved it, and I don’t think they even knew it was vegan.

Von Euw: I was catering a friend’s play the other day and this woman and her friend came up to the table and were like “What’s in this? Is it a cheesecake?” I told her I call it a ‘creamcake,’ and that it’s cashew-based and has coconut oil and lemon and lavender, and all this great delicious stuff, and that it’s good for you — and dairy free.

Then she was like, “Oh, dairy free…” and she literally stuck up her nose and turned away. We were all trying to convince her to try it, because it was really good. So she had a piece and was like “OMG, this is so good! This is really interesting!” That was a big compliment for me. It’s more meaningful when a skeptic is wowed than a vegan raw-foodie because I have more to prove, there’s more at stake in it.

P: I’ve heard you will be creating a juice and smoothie book next? Can you give us a sneak peek as to what that will be like?

Von Euw: It’s going to be about 100 recipes. There will be sweet smoothies like the classic fruit smoothie, and there will be savoury smoothies which are going to have garlic and such. “Savoury smoothie” sounds kind of weird to me, so I tell people to think of them as raw soup. Put it in a bowl if that makes you feel better! There’s also going to be sweet and savoury juices as well as some energy bars and raw and healthy snacks. It should be out in December of this year.

P: Lastly, what’s your favourite recipe from Rawsome Vegan Baking?

Von Euw: Honestly, I’m going to have to go with my super indulgent side. There is a recipe in the book that I think is called vanilla chocolate chunk cheesecake. It’s in-freaking-sane. It’s just so decadent! You can use peanut butter, or raw peanut butter, or tahini, or cashew butter. There is chocolate and delicious vanilla layers. It’s super creamy and super dense. I could probably eat the whole cake!

Album reviews: St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, and Phantogram

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

0

Artist: St. Vincent

Album: St. Vincent

If there’s a trend in Annie Clark’s recording career as St. Vincent, it’s an attempt to better articulate herself. Instead of broadening her scope, Clark narrows the margins, tosses the inessential and keeps the bare essentials.

This is what made Strange Mercy a better record than Actor — the former felt like the finished product to the latter’s rough draft. It’s also what made Love This Giant, Clark’s collaboration with Talking Heads’ David Byrne, such a bore. Their relentlessly rigid songs, like miniature structures unto themselves, left no room to breathe.

Though St. Vincent is an improvement, it suffers from similar problems: Clark has stripped down her sound so fundamentally, there’s barely anything left. A claustrophobic sort of modernity haunts the album’s 11 songs — the brassy rattle and hum of “Digital Witness,” the rotary phone dial of “Bring Me Your Loves” — and there’s very little in the way of release that doesn’t feel humourless or static.

What made Clark’s two previous records so good was that her porcelain doll poise was always paired with a wink and a nod. St. Vincent, on the other hand, is sealed so tight it becomes suffocating. One begins to grasp for the instances when Clark sounds like a real person — the crack in her voice during closer “Several Crossed Fingers,” for example, or the airy high notes she doesn’t quite hit in “Regret.”

Even the elegiac “I Prefer Your Love,” written for Clark’s mother during an illness, is unblemished and aerodynamic; each note is measured and micromanaged for potential effect. Unfortunately for Clark, albums aren’t equations to be solved, or numbers to be crunched.

The record is pitch-perfect alternapop, just like its predecessors, but it’s missing the self-awareness and spontaneity that made those records sound so natural, so authentic. With St. Vincent, we’re no longer in on the joke, no matter how funny it is.

Artist: Angel Olsen

Album: Burn Your Fire For No Witness

When I first shared Angel Olsen’s latest album with my friend, his immediate reactions, accounted for via Facebook chat, were: “Well this is beautiful,” “And kind of sad,” and finally “Ok, really sad. But really quite beautiful.” It sounds like a loaded spectrum, but an appropriate one. I mean, the opening track is called “Unfucktheworld.”

After the emotional opener — a simple guitar-led song with vocals reminiscent of a more folkish singer — Olsen immediately swaps melancholy for angst, channeling all her frustrations into the heavy, beat-ridden “Forgiven/Forgotten.” And we’re only on the album’s second track.

The rest of Burn Your Fire follows a similar trend of “mellow song” followed by a feisty one, but never grows wearisome. While the lower production quality on the album can be distracting, it adds an organic layer to Olsen’s music that might otherwise be lost. The album may peak early with “Forgive/Forgotten,” but the tracks that follow after are still worth your attention.

For reasons I can’t isolate, “Dance Slow Decades” also stands out as an album highlight. The name suggests a slower track, which the song delivers on, but it’s the pacing throughout that makes it rewarding. It’s hardly the longest track on the album but it feels just as sprawling as songs nearly two minutes longer.

I’ve always admired Olsen’s ability to combine folk with upbeat sounds and country with rock. Often these genres come at a cost, one for the other, but Burn Your Fire shows that you can have your folk and rock it too. Already Olsen’s third full-length, I couldn’t recommend this album more.

Artist: Phantogram

Album: Voices

It’s not that I always expected Phantogram to dissolve into indie pop obscurity, I just always assumed that the Greenwich-based duo would gradually drift into the background, destined for a rotating spot on the Old Navy corporate playlist. It’s changeroom music that occasionally ends up on your iPod.

However, I’m more than happy to report that any doubt I may have had about the group has been sonically drop-kicked out of me after the first listening of Voices.

Phantogram’s sophomore effort straddles the fine line between fuzz rock and ambient pop without committing to either, to an effective degree. From the glitchy opening of “Nothing But Trouble” to the album’s lingering finale, Voices boasts a diversity I found missing from Phantogram’s previous releases.

While the change of pace makes for an engaging format, the album shines brightest on the more upbeat tracks, such as “Black Out Days” and “The Day You Died,” both of which seem ripe for single-hood in the near future.

As is often the case with Phantogram’s genre, the album suffers during the middle tracks from a few meandering songs — “Bad Dreams” stands out as noticeably unremarkable, but Voices jumps back immediately after.

While the name implies wackiness, “Bill Murray,” encompasses the album’s emotional core; it’s a sombre ballad that demonstrates just how much Phantogram have matured as a band.

For the 11th and final track, all the electronica and droning accumulates in proper send-off fashion with “My Only Friend,” a melodramatic stadium-rock anthem that spends over a minute echoing the lyrics, “You’re all I have / My only friend” before getting in the last word with “All the stars with you.”

Manhattan and Monopoly: Sleeper, Stuart Hall, and the downtown eastside

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

0

“I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.”

One of Woody Allen’s silliest films, Sleeper (1973), delivers 87 minutes of comical genius through slapstick humour and politicized romance.

Sleeper is set 200 years in the future: America has evolved to a hedonistically ignorant society where independent thought is effectively removed and everyone is a different variation of the same person. Amidst the slapstick humour and bizarre plot twists lies a sly political commentary on the effects of government surveillance on society.

Surveillance is not only a useful tool to the rulers in Woody Allen’s fictional dystopia, but has a long history as a government tool in social control.

On Feb. 10, the world lost one of the 20th century’s most brilliant academics. Stuart Hall was an eloquent left-wing theorist, and one of the founding fathers of modern cultural studies. His work rejects visions of fixed regional cultures in favour of a fluid cultural identity, ever changing and moving towards new possibilities, but incessantly reminiscing about a past that cannot be changed.

This era advanced free markets through privatization and deregulation, laying the structural framework for the radically commodified cultural industries that exist today.

Hall recorded the role of police presence as a government tool of social management. His work visits the scene of marginalized communities of Great Britain during the neoliberal Thatcher era in the 1970s, which inspired his take on the social construction of culture.

This era advanced free markets through privatization and deregulation, laying the structural framework for the radically commodified cultural industries that exist today.

Hall saw cultural industries as a critical site of social interaction where power relations are both established and unsettled. The media reaps lucrative benefits from sensationalizing lurid aspects of current events, and manipulates these events for economic and political purposes — this creates moral panic, fabricating public support to “police the crisis.” Therein lies the social constructs of marginalized communities.

Maria Wallstam and Nathan Crompton of The Mainlander bring Hall’s ideas to life in a recent illustration of Vancouver’s downtown eastside. An area now trivially characterized by poverty and crime, the city of Vancouver continues to increase funding for police presence in the downtown eastside, despite recent reduction in crime. The city uses police surveillance as a means of social control over the low-income residents of the DTES, marginalizing them in the eyes of Vancouverites.

Commodified cultural industries lay the historical context for racial, ethnic, and class conflict. In Sleeper, Woody Allen parallels Hall’s ideas on surveillance as a tool for social control — but what makes Hall stand out from Allen and other cultural theorists is that Hall was an optimist. He believed we will always carry a part of the past, but through our independent thought we have the opportunity to change the future.

Stuart Hall once wrote: “The way to go back is to go forward. That is going to take a lot of hard thought, not just sentimentality.”

SFU places seventh at Coyote Classic

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

0

The Simon Fraser University men’s golf team had a strong finish to the CSU-San Bernardino Coyote Classic nabbing seventh place at the event.

After two rounds of golf on Monday, the Clan were in 10th position, but climbed back up the leaderboard during Tuesday’s third round.

Chico State University’s Lee Gearhart took the tournament’s individual title with a three round total of 209, but Clan senior Mike Belle led the way for SFU with a final round of 71, and a tournament total of 214, putting him in a tie for fourth place, just five strokes back from first.

Sophomore Jon Mlikotic wasn’t far behind, shooting 219 at the event with scores of 74, 70, and 75 over the three rounds, but was only tied for 20th at the end of Tuesday.

Meanwhile, freshman Kevin Vigna saved his best round for last, shooting 73 on Tuesday after scores of 77 and 81 in the first two rounds. If his game can grow as it did between rounds two and three, the Clan could be in good hands when Belle — who has been the Clan’s best for a few years now — moves on.

Just behind Vigna’s 231 was sophomore Bret Thompson, who shot 232, and senior TJ McColl, who finished with a three-round total of 234.

SFU’s team score of 889 was well behind leader, Chico State, who, led by Gearhart’s impressive outing, finished at 855.

The Clan will get a shot at improving that number when they return to the links on March 10 and 11 in Belmont, CA at the Notre Dame de Namur Argonaut Invitational.

Leave the nest

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

0

To the increasing number of post-secondary students choosing to live at home: if you’re on the fence about moving out, I suggest you give it a try.

The fact that you’re considering it is probably a sign that you want to take on more responsibility in general. I lived at home for most of my post-secondary experience, and have never felt more satisfied than after leaving the proverbial nest in December, when my parents moved to Alberta.

I should preface this article by saying that I recognize how very privileged I was to be able to live at home for as long as I did. My parents’ support made my post-secondary experience virtually debt-free, and I can’t overlook what a serious hurdle debt is to those wanting to pursue higher education.

For me, though, moving out has given me a measure of responsibility necessary — I feel — for living life after school.

Where else but home is cushiness so well-facilitated?

Perhaps the most prominent of the lessons I learned was the new-found drive to further my career. I realized in a tangible way what it means to need money to eat, to buy books for school, to have soap, etc. — to buy necessities, not superfluities.

Needing money and needing a job became, in the fullest extent of the word, a realization. Pursuing a career that I will enjoy is now a drive, more than a vague notion of what should be done, as it was when I had a nearby family home to fall back on.

With this encouragement to work, I am forced to manage my time better, balancing work and other necessities that arise from single living — who knew sweeping and dishes were a never-ending void?

I can’t blame being messy on anyone but myself, now. Also, as a host, it means more to give friends hospitality that comes straight from my pocket.

This situation also removes lifesavers: irresponsible planning can result in both superficial and serious ramifications. One late Saturday night downtown, I missed the last SkyTrain, and it sucked to wait in the dark, take several night buses, and walk from Port Moody to Coquitlam; it was worse pulling myself out of bed to do work the next morning after three hours of sleep.

The fact that these lessons of responsibility were revelations to me might suggest that I lived a pretty cushy life in the home. No question, I did. But where else is cushiness so well-facilitated? Parents are both easy to blame and natural to rely upon.

Only by moving out was I forced to experience this hands-on adult education, something which school alone can accomplish only to a limited extent.

It warrants repeating that student loans are ridiculous, and I’m not arguing that getting into a silly amount of debt to escape your parents is a good idea. It’s really not.

But if you’re starting to feel like an adult-child, moving out might give you the responsibility you desire. You might be a bit more in debt, you might sleep less, you might discover that you’re not compatible living with certain types of people. But there’s no better way to prepare for life after graduation than jumping straight into responsibility.

Cult sensation Geekenders present The Wizard of Bras

By

EIC

-

March 3, 2014

0

This past week the Geekenders theatre troupe took to the Rio stage with their first nerdlesque production since the wildly popular Star Wars: A Nude Hope. Given past successes and their “cult sensation” status, the pressure was on for Geekenders to deliver a unique creation.

In a bold move, they took on The Wizard of Oz, providing the audience with a sexually charged musical parody of the original 1939 film.

This Geekenders production, aptly named The Wizard of Bras, offered a vibrant blend of theatre and burlesque, breathing new life into the beloved fantasy. The storyline and characters were reincarnated with a modern carnal twist, and the musical score was adapted to include everything from Disney to Gwen Stefani.

The show opened with IZ’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as eight scantily-clad dancers emerged from behind sheer sheets, forming a nearly nude rainbow. This juxtaposition between wholesome melody and bare bosoms was anything but discreet, setting an overtly cheeky tone for the evening.

Nerdlesque show inspired by The Wizard of Oz musical fills Rio Theatre.

The performance continued in this fashion, introducing the Kansas personalities with a Geekenders twist. This included a racy number between Dorothy and her male companions, as well as a creative representation of the tornado scene that takes Dorothy to Oz. This last number, set to Ke$ha’s “Blow,” combined an exciting light show with the chaotic twirling of the ensemble cast dancing circles around Dorothy.

Having landed in Oz, Dorothy and Toto — reincarnated as a life-sized bondage dog (Steven Price) — begin to explore their new surroundings. One of their first encounters is Gilda the Good, portrayed by burlesque performer and Geekenders artistic director, Trixie Hobbitses.

For this role, Trixie adopted a slightly condescending and entirely unhelpful persona, highlighting some of the more frustrating aspects of Glinda’s character with wonderful comedic timing.

The remainder of the first act followed Dorothy on her yellow brick road adventures, which included a neat performance by the ensemble cast who formed the “cups” rhythm section for Anna Kendrick’s “When I’m Gone.”

Finally, we are introduced to the scarecrow (Graeme Thompson), the Tin Man (Draco Muff-Boi) and the Cowardly Lion (Stephen Blakley). Of these, a highlight was Thompson’s boylesque number, performed with amusing panache.

Having made it past the lusty apple trees and stripping poppies, Dorothy and her entourage are tasked by the Wizard (Nathan Fillyouin) with stealing the Wicked Witch’s bra, bringing the first act to a close.

The second act was shorter in length, with the high point being the destruction of the voluptuous Wicked Witch (Vicky Valkyrie) and the violent yet sexually charged brawl that ensued between flying monkeys and “good guys.” The play wrapped up nicely with the Wizard’s pantless gifting, the return home to Kansas, and Dorothy’s first and (almost) last striptease of the show.

The production was met with a standing ovation from its audience. While the cast comprised a range of abilities, the amount of energy and effort that each member put into this show was astounding.

Nerdlesque performer Dezi Desire in particular stood out in the ensemble case owing to her fantastic facial expressions and ability to hit every movement. The lighting design was done fairly well, and the make-up for the Tin Man and Wicked Witch in particular was impressive. I also appreciated the creative choice of props and inspired collection of pasties which made an appearance.

Not only did The Wizard of Bras provide a rousing burlesque show, but through the use of innuendo, satire, and social commentary, Geekenders delivered a unique performance that appeals to a range of audiences.

Unfortunately the show only had a two-day run, which seems a bit short considering how much work must have gone into the production. For those who missed it, however, rumour has it that Geekenders will be back come May in a debaucherous sequel to their Star Wars tribute.