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Out of This World: Why Space is So Fucking Cool

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By Chris Apps

Do you remember playing the “why” game with the grown- ups of your life? Why is the sky blue? Why can’t I have a purple kitty? Why is uncle putting a “rug” on his head? Odds are, you are no longer this child-like inquisitor. But, in having assumed your new “all-knowing” role, you have likely learned an important lesson: sometimes you just don’t know, and sometimes the best answer is simply “Because that’s the way it is.”

This is especially true of space, which has recently been in the news quite a bit: astronaut Chris Hadfield is now aboard the International Space Station (ISS), and will soon be the first Canadian to assume command; the first Canadian in space, former astronaut Marc Garneau, is running for leadership of the Liberals; feasibility studies for asteroid mining are popping up with greater frequency; and just last week, SpaceX ’s privately operated Dragon Spacecraft completed its fifth payload delivery to ISS. As a space enthusiast, I’m losing my shit. But a big part of my appreciation for all this doesn’t come from our interactions with space, but rather space itself. What follows is my attempt to explain a few of the cooler mysteries and some bits of physics that make everything out of this world so incredible.

The Beginning: The Big Thing?

While scientists have been smart enough to avoid esoteric philosophical questions concerning why we and everything we know exists, nothing has stopped them from seeking out how. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or confined to some weird religious compound, you’ve heard of the dominant theory: the Big Bang.

Prior to this cataclysmic event — about 15 billion years ago — there was not a whole lot going on in our universe. As far as we know, literally nothing existed. No chemicals, no minerals, no gas clouds, nada. Suddenly, the energy of a fiery explosion became the first thing to come into being. From this heat, space erupted, and from the explosion, everything was created.

The conditions for energy, matter, and even time itself had become tangible from a state of nothingness. If it’s difficult to wrap your mind around the notion that the forces and dimensions governing physics at one time were not there, you are not alone. In fact, if you can wrap your mind around that shit, you might be one of a kind. The creation of these forces, particularly gravity, led to the accumulation of atoms, which formed very dense clouds of gas called nebulae. These gave birth to stars, stars to planets, and so on.

Descriptions of this supposed explosion are vague, mainly because it’s all an assumption: we don’t know for sure there was nothing before the big bang, and it’s pretty hard to explain what exactly it was that became hot and dense enough to explode in the first place.

This has lead to a great deal of argument and a bunch of other theories including the possibility of another universe existing prior to ours. But I could argue that our existence can be chalked up to a unicorn fart, and no one could really prove otherwise.

There actually is some pretty solid evidence supporting the big bang theory. Through observing the light emitted from distant galaxies and quasars, Edwin Hubble found that their wavelengths were shifting to the red end of the light spectrum — “redshifting” — indicating they are receding from the Earth.

This would suggest the universe is continually expanding. A good analogy then, is to think of the universe as an ever-inflating balloon, with us inside. This would suggest a point of origin, and thus a theoretical location for a big bang to have occurred. Light and microwave emissions as well as the distribution of galaxies have also been found to provide corroborating evidence.

Even if you don’t want to dwell on the past, you might question the future. How far can it all expand, and how long will we be able to enjoy the ride? A more ridiculous and equally legitimate question is whether there is a threshold to our existence, and whether or not there is going to be anything beyond it. Maybe there are a thousand more universes with a thousand more yous and mes wondering the same questions.

Going the Distance: Space Time
I’m not brazen enough to assume I can explain or even understand all the intricacies of space-time, but I can certainly attempt to paint the picture. One may recall how Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy describes the cosmos: “Space . . . is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.” With space being so big, how do we measure it? Mere kilometres are not enough; rather, we use the light year — the distance traveled by light in one year.

Alpha Centauri, one of Earth’s closest stars, is super far away. Like, over 40 trillion kilometres far away. So, traveling at a con- stant speed of 1079 million km/h, it takes that light 4.37 years to hit our eyeballs from when it is originally emitted. That’s the closest one! Even using the most advanced technology available, it would still take us five million years to get there.

Space is big, to the point that there is no real frame of reference. If you can fit four earths into the storm on Jupiter, there is no point in using planetary units to describe size on this scale. Light takes up to 100,000 years to travel across our galaxy; this is a spectacularly huge neighbourhood, and what’s more incredible is that there are billions and billions of galaxies.

I am not pretending to be some sort of expert here. I’m just a dude who is really stoked on space. It’s pretty damned cool, after all. I have often heard from people that thinking about this stuff makes them feel depressed or even a little scared.

While this might stem from the realization that we are less than fly shit on a star map, I have personally found deep comfort in this insignificance. When the universe is that big, the difference between your B+ and your A- seems pretty petty.

The next time you look up at night, think about how many years that bright blue dot has been traveling to reach you. Then consider this: since that light is a constant and was emitted sometime a hundred thousand years ago, you are effectively looking back through fucking time.

Our Home: The Planets
Sure, space is neat-o, but one could just as easily write about how simply awesome humanity is. We have grown up here, we have evolved here, and our recourse has been to spread about in hopes of finding enough room for all of us. But — and this is a pretty sizable “but” — this development didn’t start with some monkey, or even some ugly-ass fish that crawled out of a bubbling swamp. It started with our very platform, our growth medium: the planet.

Ever wondered how planets form? So have scientists, and those crazy bastards have come up with something called the nebular hypothesis. The process starts with a star being born. This happens in a nebulous cloud, which is pretty much a huge clump of hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases.

The matter in the cloud slowly combines into clumps, getting heavier and heavier. It gets so heavy that it begins to collapse, heating the hydrogen through the increase in pressure, and igniting the star. There is a boom, and the new star is left with a “proto-planetary disc” around it, which are essentially super-hot bands of water and hydrogen compounds. Up to this point, the process has taken
100 million years.

As they spin around the star, elements and minerals start to glob together, forming grains of dust that get bigger and bigger. Eventually, they become moon or mars-sized proto-planets. It is actually quite quick to reach this stage, only 100,000 to 300,000 years.

As the collisions continue, the velocities of the remaining objects become more equal. This equality ensures that further collisions are far less destructive, so when they get close to one another, they stick rather than smash together. This accretion process continues, and as their mass increases, their gravity forces them to be roughly spherical.

So when you get a surface, what happens next? How does life grow upon this platform? You think I have all day? Go watch Planet Earth. I’ll say this much, though: if you factor in the sheer size of space, the possible chemical concoctions that can occur in planetary formation, the distance from their parent star, and the fact that there is a nebulous cloud of gas way back in humanity’s family tree, you’ll find that we are not a virus.

While I hesitate to use the word at the risk of a religious connotation, there is no word more apt for describing what our planet and the development of humanity actually is: a miracle.

The Third Kind: Aliens
Sometimes facing up to the truth is just too much. The thing is, when it’s all on the line it’s easiest to block out our least favourite portions of reality in the hopes of creating some parochial hallucination we would like to think is a few steps from utopia.
But to be honest, before I started reading and learning about our universe, it was all too much to think about, and far easier to
scoff at those who tilted their heads towards the skies and chose to question everything.

You think you’ve got the argu- ments for ET on lockdown. I mean, Area 51 right? They have all those UFO sightings and crazy-intricate crop circles. Some German broad lived in the Peruvian desert studying the fuckin’ Nazca lines for over 30 years, thinking aliens had something to do with it; the Mayans had pyramids, the Egyptians had pyramids. Coincidence? Had to be aliens! What about all the
abductees?

There are mountains of details associated with those and other arguments, and many of them have enormous followings. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves; these arguments are not the cause for my change of heart — the odds are.

Modern telescopes can see 50 billion galaxies or so, but the uni- verse is way bigger than that so we’ll call it a moderate 100 billion. Each of those galaxies has at least 100 billion stars. So there at the very least are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars kickin’ about. Even if we say that the chances of one planet or biting one of these stars is one in a million — and in fact, the odds are better than that — we can assume there are 10,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe. Call it a one in a million chance that those planets can support life: 10 billion planets with life.

The Drake equation was created with legitimate math and science to estimate the number of intelligent, communicating species in the galaxy, and the best values come in at around 10,000!

I doubt alien life will be in the form of a little green man. Right now my money is on bacteria, which isn’t so impressive. All those arguments about contact — the abductions, crop circles, and Mayan stuff — I just don’t see it as possible. The universe is simply too big.
So while I know that there are intelligent beings on some far off planet, I lament the fact that our planet will probably fizzle out and die before we get to meet them. Maybe we are more advanced than they are. Maybe they are viscous pulsating orbs of goo and humanity ended up being the best tail to be pinned on the cosmic donkey. We don’t know, but there is certainly life beyond Earth.

The Galactic Mystery Spot: Black Holes

Everyone has heard of black holes, whether as part of a sexual innuendo, or more appropriately as a bottomless pit that takes you somewhere else in space. But what are they, really? The fact is that we can only postulate. No one really knows, and it is fundamentally impossible to ascertain the truth. Astrophysicists can now, at least, agree that they’re real, but observable evidence has been harder to come by than the last cupcake at a fat-kid convention.

So, here’s the theoretical deal:

Think of space-time as a sheet being stretched out by you and three friends, a la the parachute game in elementary school, flat and tight like Jane Fonda’s abs in the 80s.

Now, toss a baseball on there and think of it as a planet. It sits in space-time, only slightly distorting the fabric. If you threw a golf ball on the blanket just so, it would roll around the conical indent created by the heavier mass. If you remove friction from the equation, it can basically revolve around the base- ball forever. This is what’s happen- ing with the Earth and its moon.

Throughout this scenario, light — our steady and unwavering pal – passes by with no problem. Paltry planets don’t exert a strong enough gravitational pull to distort its path. But now imagine placing a sewing needle in the sheet with an aircraft carrier tied to it underneath; imagine all that mass and ability to distort the fabric, concentrated on such a tiny point. That’s a black hole and it’s a big enough deal to keep even light from escaping.

There are a few ways black holes come to be, but for brevity’s sake I’ll give a shout out to gravitational collapse alone. As it goes in Hollywood, so it goes in space: all stars eventually burn out and die. They start out young, dimly flickering in the distance, barely noticeable to us. After they do their thing for a while, the explosive nuclear heat they generate keeps them burning. But all good things must come to an end, and like Courtney Cox, eventually there just isn’t enough fuel left to keep the fires burning bright.

The temperature drops and the star collapses under its own weight. When this happens to an enormous star a Courtney Cox- sized mega-giant — the collapse is particularly devastating; it cannot find equilibrium between the force supporting it and the gravity it creates, and it implodes. It falls inward, and all that is left behind is a singularity; the center of a black hole, where the regular laws of physics seem not to apply and Cougar Town is renewed for a second season.

A black hole then is an area in space that is so heavy and dense, that it can eventually pull everything into it. Since even light could not escape their grasp, they were dubbed black holes. They are iden- tified not by their emissions, but by the absence of light.
Don’t worry, though. Earth isn’t destined to be sucked into obliv- ion. We are outside the SZ, the Spaghettification Zone, scientifically known as the Schwarzschild Radius. So we’re good. The edge of that radius is the point of no return, named after an awesome Laurence Fishburne movie: it’s called the event horizon, and it has some cool properties.

There is a lot more to this that still needs explanation. If I’ve done my job right, you’ve been left with more questions than answers.

Time dilation: it’s fucked up

By
EIC
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peak time dilation

No, it’s not just how much longer an hour feels while you’re in tutorial

By Daryn Wright and Ben Buckley

If you’ve never heard of time dilation before — or you have but have never thought on it long enough to want to hide under a table — prepare to experience a confusing amount of feelings, ranging from awe to terror to existentialism.

Wikipedia defines time dilation, according to the theory of relativity, as an actual difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by ob- servers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravitational masses. If this jargon confuses you, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Essentially, what we hold true on Earth for the relative experience of time differs due to differences in velocity and gravity in outerspace. So the farther away you are from the gravitational pull of the giant mass that is Earth, the more time becomes a relative term.

In order to fully understand what exactly is going on here, we must first separate the effects of velocity and gravity on time. Both of these fall under the category of relativity, with special relativity pertaining to the effects of speed/velocity on time and general relativity referring to the effects of gravity on time.

With special relativity, the effect of a hypothetical astronaut’s velocity (a measure of speed in a particular direction) as s/he approaches the speed of light relative to an observer, is that less time passes for the astronaut than for the observer. Technology limits the effects of velocity on astronauts though, so the difference it creates is minuscule; as their velocity approaches the speed of light, the difference would be higher, but as it stands, the astronaut crew has only aged about 0.007 seconds less than those on earth.

Not that you could travel at the speed of light, though. The speed of light in a vacuum is constant, and stays the same no matter who’s measuring it. Whether you’re the twin on Earth or the twin in space traveling near light speed, no matter how fast you’re going, you will always measure the speed of any light in a vacuum as being exactly 299,792,458 metres per second.

For example, if you’re in a train going 40 meters per second, and you run at five meters per second towards the front of the train, an observer standing still by the tracks will measure your speed as 45 meters per second. But if you shine a flashlight towards the front of the moving train and measure the speed of the light, both you and the observer will measure the light as being exactly the same speed.

General relativity works like this: the further away from Earth this hypothetical astronaut travels, the force of gravity decreases, thus increasing the amount of time that has passed. The effect of being far away from a gravitational force, though, is different. It will appear as if the clock is moving faster than if it were close to the source of the gravitational force, aka on Earth. The experience of time feels the same to both parties (those on Earth and those in space), despite the effects of time dilation, but the person in space has experienced less time than the person on earth. This is also exaggerated as more time elapses.

Think of it this way: an astronaut with a non-astronaut twin spending ten years in space would come back to Earth, where 50 years have passed. These twins are traveling at different speeds (one on Earth, one in the rocket) but they measure the speed of light in a vacuum to be the same. This sounds crazy, but it adds up because time is also passing differently for each of them. That’s why the twin in the rocket has aged more than the twin on Earth.

The part that makes me squeamish is the larger implications of all of this. Time travel isn’t some fictitious tale involving morlocks; it’s not just possible, it’s already happening.

If this doesn’t make you marvel at the wonders of the universe, I don’t know what will. It certainly makes everything seem rather slippery and intangible though, and I feel a tiny bit like a shivering doe in headlights, wondering what it is that’s inside that Cadillac hurtling towards me at 100 mph.

BRB, gotta go curl up in a blanket in a dark room now.

Close encounters of the film kind

By
EIC
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0

WEB-Matthew cimone-Mark Burnham

By Ljudmila Petrovic
Photos by Mark Burnham

At an early age, Matthew wanted to become an astronaut, but his eyesight wasn’t good enough. Growing up in northwestern Ontario, Matthew Cimone would spend many starry nights with his grandfather’s telescope, looking up at space. Matthew’s grandfather was the one that in- stilled his early love for space. “One of the things he wanted to convey was just how vast the universe is,” says Matthew of his grandfather.

Another thing that his grandfather had taught him was the value of humanity, and so Mat- thew studied international development instead. Upon gradu- ation, however, he realized that he still had a lingering hunger to explore space.

“At some point, a couple years ago, I started recognizing that maybe where my training was in school and my interest in space were not as dichotomous as I thought they were,” he explains. And so, Matthew and his childhood friend Paul Muzzin, a film school graduate, embarked on their own mission: making the documentary Chasing Atlan- tis. Muzzin has his own production company, through which the friends started on the film project.

In July 2011, after 30 years and 135 missions, the space shuttle Atlantis was launched for the last time, marking the end of the space shuttle era.

This inspired the duo to film an independent documentary, in honour of the transition between “old space,” a more government-led approach, and “new space,” which is charac- terized by a rise in entrepreneurial companies indepen- dently going into space. “It’s basically a film about people’s love for space and science fiction against the backdrop of the retirement of the space shuttle program,” explains Matthew.

Certainly, there’s the obvious risk that astronauts take, but Matthew also talks about this risk in other facets: in art, in chang- ing careers, and in his own expe- rience with the project. “It’s looking at space as a metaphor for risk-taking in life,” he sums up. A political scientist by training, Matthew finds ways to draw certain parallels between the two sciences. The most striking is the link with a conflict diamond (also known as a blood diamond) — that is, a diamond mined in the midst of a war and sold for nefarious purposes, usually to a warlord.

Having worked in Sierra Leone, a country infamous for blood diamonds, Matthew is quick to put things into perspective by using space. In the context of the universe, diamonds aren’t really that rare on other planets. “The diamond of the universe is life, that’s the rarest thing out there,” he adds. “When we forget these perspectives, we’re willing to trade the most precious thing, life, for the far less precious.”

Space is vast, and learning about it is relevant and acces- sible to everybody. “One of the neat things about astronomy is that it’s a field of science that’s accessible to almost everyone,” concludes Matthew. “The three lessons from the universe: it’s way older than us, it’s way bigger than us, and it’s crazy, amazingly beautiful.”

It is projected that the documentary will hit film festivals in the fall.

The Peak chatted with Matthew for podcast #6! Listen here

Portside drops anchor in Gastown

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EIC
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By Sarah Bohuch

 

Newly opened bar offers beers and buns

Beer aficionados rejoice, for a new hall of drunken adulation has been built for the discerning taster and the novice undergraduate. Portside Pub is one of Gastown’s latest offerings, located a few blocks east of the Waterfront Skytrain station at 7 Alexander St.

When you first walk through the glass doors of the trim brick building, you’re immediately confronted with a choice of going up or down. Being chased inside by the wind and the rain of Vancouver’s winter weather, the warm glow coming from the downstairs drew me into its warm depths.

What can be found here is something more akin to the hold of a wooden ship then a bar on dry land. Exposed wooden beams and cozy tables are lit by candlelight and old midcentury harbour lights, and guests, once seated, are greeted by an impressive menu of beer. For a bar with such a good amount of square footage (this venue boasts three levels, with staff on each), the handsome tables offer surprising intimacy with no yelling required in order to have a conversation. Knowing next to nothing about beer, the wait staff were a godsend. They patiently explained what each of the varieties of beer were, why they were good, and what sort of taste they promised. There was no judgement of my lack of knowledge, but an eager willingness to spread the knowledge (and the love) of the brew.

Of the extensive varieties, I sampled three, as well as one cider: the Driftwood Farmhand Saison, the Hefeweisen Apricot Ale, the Phillips Analogue Kolsch, and the Lonetree Dry Apple Cider (for the beer haters). The cider was amazing: something you’d drink on a front porch swing, swaying in the breeze and watching the sun go down. It was summery and sweet.

The Saison was on the lighter side of beer, with a nice hops taste. Another member of the party described it as “disgustingly bland,” so to each their own.

The Apricot Ale lived up to its name and actually had a refreshing apricot taste. It was light but not sweet, with a crispy finish. The Kolcsh was the perfect beer for those not interested in hops, as it was mild, easy to drink, and quite smooth.

The food is offered in concession stand style, as items are purchased with tickets bought before hand. Each ticket costs $2, with each food item costing between one and four tickets. Painted on the front of the concession stand are three separate booths, boasting “all that dim sum,” “pulled sandwiches,” and “hot, fresh hot dogs.”

The menu includes items such as crisp pork rinds with lime and hot sauce, bao buns supplied by New Town Bakery in Chinatown, a pulled-chicken sandwich with kimchi, and classic hot dogs. Sandwiches range from pulled-beef to chicken to pork, and hot dogs can be enjoyed the old-fashioned way, or experimentally, with an apple and sage sausage heaped with sauerkraut.

They have a limited menu of food, but part of the fun is the novelty of the concession stand format, and if you’re into pulled meat, it’s definitely worth it.

The drinks more than lived up to their reputations and the unique concept was worth the visit. Portside receives a rousing recommendation for anyone looking for a good place to enjoy a hearty drink with a good group of people, or to wolf down a pulled-pork sandwich or two.

Music videos that are out of this world

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EIC
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By Rachel Braeuer

 

Or maybe the people who made them are just out of their minds

1. “E.T.” – Katy Perry
I’m still confused by this one. At face value, it’s fairly simple. Katy Perry is an alien searching the universe for her lost love, who is of a different species. After tumbling through space while shrieking along to music, she finds space boy in a pile of space rubble, bringing him to life like he’s her sleeping beauty with bi-special love’s kiss.

Combined with the lyrics, though, shit gets weird in this video. Kanye West offers an intro and an interlude, and under her love interest’s silver paint job, he’s black. I don’t know about you, but a white chick singing “They say be afraid/ You’re not like the others… Different DNA/ They don’t understand you,” to two black dudes makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

And then there’s “Infect me with your love/ Fill me with your poison.” Look, ladies, I dislike male genitalia as much as the next lesbian, but male singers don’t go around singing about your battle axe wound gobbling their meat rapier in a War of the Roses themed video, so lay off the misandry. As for the alien allegory for race? It’s the 21st century – fuck right off.

2. “Lollipop” (Candyman) – Aqua
Ah, the 90s. A simpler time, when everyone was high on MDMA/ ecstasy. If you don’t believe me, watch this video. I think this might be my favourite worst video just because of the honesty. There’s no allegory for some “issue”, it’s just people singing about drugs and wanting to fuck other people while on those drugs.

Why is it set in space? Because that’s how fucking high they were. The premise is — I honestly don’t know. They were looking for “lollipops” in space? There’s a giant iguana, and then some aliens that look like the shitty drawings in your local blacklight bowling alley show up and enslave the band until their robot dealer gets them high with his rainbow laser, and then they’re all friends.

If you made it out of the 90s without a drug problem, give yourself a pat on the back.

3. “Space Man” – Bif Naked
For further proof that everyone was high on goofballs in the 90s one need look no further than this video. It’s just Bif running around a fake space station while singing. And she has a magic mirror that changes the colour of her lipstick when you kiss it. That’s it.

After listening to the song now, in my adulthood, I’m questioning the collective sanity of Gen-X. I’m pretty sure Naked is singing about wanting to be abducted. I used all of my English major skills and I can’t find a double meaning. Kanye should make a cameo at the end of this one, ‘cause this shit crazy.

4. “We are all made of stars” – Moby
This one actually made sense, despite the fact that it’s just Moby hanging out in a genuine NASA space suit with a bunch of then- washed up stars (seriously, Verne Troyer and Dave Navarro, Thora Birch and Tommy Lee — remember them?) in and around Hollywood Boulevard. Maybe it just makes more sense than the last one.

The song itself is just Moby doing what he does best: singing a hippie ballad to some synth pop music. The only real connection to stars or outer space is the fact that he says “we are all made of stars” in the chorus. Then there are stars in the video, and he’s wearing an as- tronaut suit. Ok, so it doesn’t make sense, but who doesn’t love a good montage video?

5. “Born This Way” – Lady Gaga
I admit, I had a vested interest in this song. I heard it and thought to myself “Pride 2011 anthem,” and so I liked it on that basis alone. I have no problem with the lyrics, and parts of the video are all right (I have an affinity for line dancing, paint orgies, skull make-up, and ladies in pant suits). The rest can go to hell. Or space, whichever.

I’m assuming the video’s intro is done under the pre- tense of Gaga as “mother mon- ster,” giving birth to all the gay freaks and weirdos that suckle at her musical teat. Gaga: we aren’t “your” gays; you didn’t invent us (but you are an in- spiration to drag performers everywhere).

That space-vagina birth scene is almost as terrifying as actual birth videos, but in the song’s context, it is patronizing and a signifier of Gaga’s delusions of gay grand poobah grandeur. Get a grip and come back down to earth.

Letter to the Editor – March 11, 2013

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EIC
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By Joseph Lievdal

Letter to the Editor in response to “iIf wishes were horses, beggars would ride to McGill”

Here’s some math for you, David: what’s more likely, that thousands of Quebecois students from all disciplines can’t do math, or that you don’t know what you’re talking about? It’s pretty apparent that the student strike was about more than just a tuition hike.

While at first it was a fight against tuition increases, it became a critique of access to education in a capitalist economy, as well as austerity measures in general. But you probably missed that part while you were being all smart and stuff.

Furthermore, your statement that “someone else’s budget has to be slashed instead, or the province increases its debt” shows a surprising lack of critical analysis, especially coming from a student of political science. Your fantastical thinking about the motives and operations of the state displays ignorance about how the real world works.

In 2007, the Quebec government cut over a billion dollars in taxes, which primarily benefitted those with a higher income. Is it fair that those with a high income are allowed to make even more money while those with a lower income face an increasing barrier to affordable education? When taxes are cut, public spending goes down, and every time tuition goes up, a larger percentage of the population is unable to access affordable education, often affecting minorities and women the most.

Your claim that there is a correlation between the student movement and program cuts misses the point of a critical evaluation of a neoliberal trend within the education system in Canada, as well as the reality that the state clearly serves economic interests as opposed to the interests of the people.

Nothing illustrates the interests of the state better than Bill 78, which was criticized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as a restriction of the rights of freedom of association and peaceful assembly. Rather than address the problems being brought to the table by hundreds of thousands of citizens, the government sought to repress dissent.

And before jumping to the ‘restoration of peace’ argument, do not forget that many of the rights enjoyed by people today were won with confrontational, even violent street protests. Perhaps you will be less quick to criticize once the $41 million budget cut to higher education in BC starts to affect our university experience. Your article, very unfortunately, does not take into account a historical socio-political context.

Also, some advice: before calling students ignorant, you should perhaps remember your audience.

Sincerely,

Joseph Lievdal
SFU student

The sun rises on a new Bowie

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EIC
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0

By Max Hill

 

The Next Day is reminiscent of David Bowie’s golden days

The successful rock and roll comeback is a rare and serendipitous thing — after 10 years of absence from the music scene, and 20 years previous making middle-of-the-road art rock, many had considered Bowie’s career to be over, and had begun to consider his suc- cesses and failures in the past tense. That The Next Day exists at all, recorded in secret and announced only two months before its release, is astound- ing; that it manages to rise to the level of Bowie’s best work from the 70s is a revelation.

But this it accomplishes: The Next Day is dark, terse, and at times inaccessible, but it also features some of Bowie’s most challenging, creative and ulti- mately rewarding work, as well as some of his most infectious and involving. The David Bowie we hear on The Next Day has weathered the storm and has come out both stronger and stranger for the experience.

Still as chameleonic and charmingly contradictory as he’s always been, Bowie experi- ments with a wide variety of influences throughout the album’s 14 tracks: from the claustrophobic, Joy Division post-punk of album opener “The Next Day”, to the Smiths-inspired anti- war balladry of “I’d Rather Be High”, to the dancehall beat of “Dancing Out in Space”, Bowie gleefully dips his toes in a wide variety of genres and styles, and yet manages to make this musical collage into something dis- tinctly his own.

His vocals are just as varied: on tracks like “Where Are We Now?” and “Heat”, each of Bow- ie’s 66 years come through in his low, fragile warble, while the youthful chirp heard in “Valentine’s Day” and the sultry snarl of “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” sound as though they could’ve been recorded during Bowie’s golden years.

The Next Day is not without its flaws, of course: the al- bum’s musical diversity robs it of the singularity and oneness that defined Ziggy Stardust and Low, and the album’s opening and closing sections under- whelm compared to its spectac- ular middle section.

However, the album has a certain quality that Bowie has never fully perfected until now. Whereas the greatness of albums like Ziggy Stardust and Station to Station come from Bowie’s remarkable talent for performance and character, and his Berlin period is most notable for Bowie’s openness and artistic honesty, The Next Day manages to balance Bowie’s dichotomized selves — the mask and the man behind it — better than any of his previous works.

This isn’t to say that the album relies too heavily on self- reflection: given the cover, which is identical to Bowie’s 1977 effort Heroes save for a large white box in the middle which obscures his face, it’s easy to see why many anticipated an album in which Bowie would try to summarize his career and find some form of closure. The Next Day isn’t the album we were expecting: it’s almost defiantly difficult to pin down, and like Bowie’s best work, it leaves its listeners confused, exhilarated, and intrigued.

So many “comebacks” find washed-up artists desperately trying to recycle the chemical formula which once made them great. On The Next Day, Bowie always has something new to say, and it comes through in the album’s charismatic performances and unwillingness to re-tread familiar ground. Whether Bowie will make an- other LP is difficult to say — though long-time collaborator and album producer Tony Visconti has hinted at studio dates later this year, nothing seems set in stone — but with The Next Day, Bowie has solidified his relevance for many years to come, and reassured his fans and casual listeners alike that his talent for reinvention and seemingly boundless creativity has not weakened with age.

Five double features from beyond the stars

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Cosmic journeys through classic cinema

By Will Ross

Movies set in the wild black yonder of space are a rare thing. Good ones are even rarer. But the sci-fi sub-genre’s traditional association with grindhouse cin- emas and multi-part epic franchises makes marathons a rewarding prospect.

So here are five space opera pairings to satisfy anyone’s starry eyes. Some of them are franchise pairings, some are unrelated but fitting companion films, but whichever you watch, expect luscious visuals, cosmic sound- scapes, and oodles of bewon- dered faces.

1. Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986)
A space-mining crew bring a newly-discovered alien onto their ship. Soon it grows into a murder machine, and hunts and kills off the crew one by one. What makes Alien really scary (besides the extremely dark and moody atmosphere) is that the crew are far from the derring- do adventurers of space operas gone by; they’re little more than menial workers who have to im- provise to kill their hunter.

Aliens takes an almost-identical plot structure and punches it up with guns, a little girl to protect, and a hell of a lot more aliens. It’s still a gruelling ride, but a satisfying one, and its de- piction of marines in space has been copied by just about every military sci-fi ever since.

2. Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
This one’s a given, but watch- ing these back-to-back reaffirms both their amazing scope and emotional vice grip. Star Wars was a pastiche-terpiece extravaganza that at once felt gritty and lived-in (the Millennium Falcon really is a hunk of junk) and spiritual, and the good humour and surge of the editing still make it fly by like no other epic.

Though Empire dropped the original’s escalation of B-movie nobilities, it more than made up for it by asking harder ques- tions and drawing from an even deeper (and darker) reservoir of feelings and character drama. And the music is still the crown jewel of John Williams’s career. Find the original versions if you can; they’re floating around on the internet.

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Solaris (1972)
Still rightly hailed by critics as the greatest sci-fi film ever made,
2001’s tale of man’s journey from prehistoric apes to technology- dependent colonizers to — er, something else — is still as brac- ing as ever. HAL, the ship’s com- puter gone inexplicably homicidal, is a chilling villain, all the more so because he is more sym- pathetic than the flesh and blood protagonists, and Stanley Ku- brick’s groundbreaking special effects imagery still drops jaws.

Though Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris was billed as the Russian answer to 2001, Tarkovsky was unimpressed with its icey view of human nature, and his is much more concerned with metaphysical suffering. Pyschologist and widower Kris Kelvin investigates a space station whose scientists are being driven mad by visions of loved ones long deceased, ap- parently animated by the nearby planet Solaris — which then res- urrects his dead wife, to his great anguish.

4. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
No prior experience necessary here: Star Trek had never been and would never again be so bold and intelligent as these two films. The Motion Picture’s lengthy docking sequences and tribulations over the mysteries of the universe and ever-humanizing technology owes a clearer debt to Kubrick than the original series, as it slowly unfolds a plot concerning an almost-ab- stract threat to Earth with self- conscious beauty. And for my money, Jerry Goldsmith’s score is the greatest in movie history.

Khan is a fleeter palate cleanser with plenty more pew- pew kapow. An aging, disillusioned Kirk and his crew are hunted by an old nemesis, and face a no-win scenario that ends in a heartbreaking loss. Nonethe- less, the ending is not depressing, but life-affirming, crystallized by a performance of enormous emo- tional depth and nuance by — get this — William Shatner.

5. Forbidden Planet (1956) and Duck Dodgers in the 24½th century (1953)
Forbidden Planet, the first major feature set entirely on another planet, is a sort of interstellar ver- sion of Shakespeare’s Tempest.

Twenty years after an expedition to planet Altair IV disappears, a United Planets cruiser visits to find only two survivors, Dr. Mor- bius and his attractive daughter Altaira. The crew’s suspicions of Dr. Morbius (and sexual tensions with Altaira) mount until the ex- pedition’s fate is explained in the nervy climax: a monstrous, com- puter-enabled (and accidental) physical manifestation of the doctor’s own id.

And the second feature is okay, Duck Dodgers is far from a “feature,” but besides exploding the psychology of the sci-fi hero just as thoroughly as Forbidden Planet, these seven minutes of Daffy Duck’s spacefaring alter ego are packed with as many laughs and ideas as you’re likely to see in anything. The backgrounds are as fresh and inventive now as they were in 1953, and its satire of cold war posturing and technological redundancy (e.g. Dodgers using a teleporter to go to the airport) is as smart and funny as cartoons get.

Peak Week – March 11, 2013

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EIC
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By Daryn Wright

Eats
Pay a visit to Mountain Equipment Co-op and grab some dehydrated food, which is the closest you’re going to get to space food. Bring it home, quickly assemble a cardboard space ship, bring some stuffed animals inside and play out your inner child’s dream of being an astronaut. It probably won’t taste very good, and your mouth will probably quickly start watering for a thick angus steak, but at least you’ll feel better about never going to space camp and studying drama instead of following your 10-year old self’s dream.

Beats
Spaced Out Bach by Joseph Paine (I and II) are records from the 60s that sounds like something that would be playing in a bar in A Clockwork Orange. These records are basically Bach on synthesizers, or what people in the 60s thought we’d be listening to in space. The album cover is enough to merit a listen: volume I features a man in a space suit, floating around with Earth behind him, and volume II depicts a bust of Bach wearing the powdered wig and wearing an astronaut’s helmet. It may be hard to track down, but if you can, you’re in for a treat.

Theats
This week, why not take a moment to look at the stars. I know it’s still winter, and you’re probably going to be a bit chilly outside in the evening, but bundle up with a woolen scarf, bring along a thermos of hot chocolate and a friend, and find a spot where you can star-gaze uninterrupted. Maybe wander into Stanley Park, or find a spot along the beach where you can get a good view of the night sky. This is particularly good if you live somewhere rural, or have a car to drive somewhere without city lights.

Elites
Starry Nights at SFU hosts free evening star parties and events, which are open to the public. During these nights, guests are shown various celestial objects visible to the naked eye, and are invited to use telescopes to view distant star clusters and nebulae. Occasionally, there
are also themed events, including lectures on astronomical advances and movie nights. These events generally occur once a month, and are tentatively scheduled on clear days. Email [email protected] for more information.

Treats
Instead of suggesting you go out and buy stick-on stars for the ceiling of your bedroom (which are pretty awesome), I’m going to suggest you spend a
few dollars on the double bill at the Cinematheque, titled Russian Space Opera and featuring showings of To the Stars By Hard Ways and First on the Moon. The first is about the Starship Pushkin, which finds an abandoned vessel in space full of decaying bodies of humanoids, and the second is an ironic doc, mixing real and staged archival footage to uncover how Russia beat America to the moon. Both To the Stars and First on the Moon are showing on March 11, and To the Stars will have a followup screening on March 12.

Clan wins final regular season game

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EIC
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WEB-m hockey-Vaikunthe banerjee

SFU rockets past the WolfPack heading into the playoffs

By Andrew Jow
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee

Simon Fraser University and Thompson Rivers University are going to see a lot of each other over the coming week. The Clan’s regular season finale pitted them against the WolfPack on March 2 at Bill Copeland Arena. The two teams will also meet in the first round of the playoffs, so this game was key to gaining momen- tum heading into the postseason.

For the first time in a few weeks, Clan head coach Mark Coletta had a full compliment of players at his disposable.
The home team shot out of the gate, skating up and down the ice in continuous action for the first three-and-a-half minutes. The quick start resulted in a beautiful goal by Brenden Silvester as he corralled the loose puck off the side wall, skated into the slot and fired a Crosby-esque backhand over TRU goaltender Adrien Her- villard’s shoulder.

The Clan’s advantage in speed also led to their second goal when Ben Van Lare streaked down the left hand side and fed team MVP Christopher Hoe at the doorstep, and he made no mistake.

SFU’s feisty period carried over into the second. Joey Pavone brought SFU’s lead to three while on the penalty kill. The third-year center did all the work himself, stealing the puck in the TRU’s zone and driving hard to the net, even- tually tapping in his own rebound.

The three goal lead may have made SFU overconfident, be- cause TRU got their first of the night as they caught all five SFU players down low in the Wolf- Pack’s zone, resulting in a TRU two-on-zero where Alessio To- massetti finished off the tic-tac- toe passing play.

Thompson Rivers contin- ued their comeback late in the period, when Anthony Delong picked up a loose puck along the sidewall and rifled it past SFU netminder Evan Kurylo. SFU defenseman Mike Ball scored the biggest goal of the night 50 seconds later as his point shot found its way into the back of the net. Ball’s effort restored the two-goal lead and gave the home team the momentum heading into the third.

Although the momentum was on SFU’s side, Thompson Rivers got within one goal five minutes into the third. SFU got caught scrambling in their own zone and TRU defenseman Joshua Macdonald’s point shot was deflected in by Tomassetti. Nick Sandor responded by scor- ing SFU’s first power play goal in two games, a result of Mike Ball’s great end-to-end rush.

Coach Jim Camazzola could be heard yelling, “take the ice!” all night, and the defenseman heeded his message. The defense had been active all game, jump- ing in on offensive chances when able, causing mismatches in TRU’s defensive scheme. Silves- ter added his second of the night, sealing the Clan’s 6–4 victory.

Coming in with three straight losses and playing their first round playoff opponent, SFU needed to make a statement and they did just that. The Clan proved they were the bet- ter team, and the WolfPack will need to play three nearly perfect games to beat the Burnaby squad.

The first playoff round began Friday March 8 at Bill Copeland as Simon Fraser looked to finish off a strong season with a cham- pionship. The results will be in the next issue of The Peak.

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024