Without enough people to hold a legal meeting, RSU directors try to push through health plan contract

Nora Loreto
News Editor

The meetings of the Ryerson Students’ Union have, somehow, continued to degenerate into a chaos that the organisation has never before seen. Last night, certain aggressive board members dropped to a new low where bullying, shouting and inventing rules became the norm.

I half expected to see a pig’s head on a pike à la Lord of the Flies.

The emergency meeting held on Monday, March 30 was called by Osman Hamid and Dana Houssein primarily to consider an emergency motion to sign a health plan contract before March 31. The motion left the appointment blank, to be amended on the floor of the meeting.

Health Plan contracts are high stakes for students’ unions. For-profit brokers can stand to make millions of dollars off a single contract. For example, when RSU signed the last contract with Gallivan and Associates, they were effectively guaranteeing the company over $800,000 in profit. That’s because the firm built commission rates into their five-year contract and, having once successfully sued the RSU for tens of thousands of dollars, there was little chance that the RSU would break the contract again.

At the RSU Semi-Annual General Meeting in the fall, students passed a motion directing the RSU President, Vice-President of Finance and Services and Executive Director of Operations and Services to conduct a tendering to select a health and dental plan broker for next year. The process is still on-going.

Despite this, however, Hamid and Houssein ignored the motion passed by RSU’s members, subverted the process and called Monday night’s meeting. They even brought a lawyer with them. Flora Poon, called to the bar last year, would not disclose by whom she was retained or why she was there.

Toby Whitfield, Vice-President of Finance and Services, chaired the meeting. He ruled the motion to appoint a health and dental insurance broker was out of order because it violated both the motion passed at the SAGM (a higher decision-making body) and because it would put the organisation at risk of litigation as the process hasn’t yet finished.

His ruling was challenged, but upheld. After two and a half hours directors who felt that the motion was inappropriate, left the meeting in disgust.

In the chaos that ensured, the remaining board members demonstrated either a complete lack of knowledge of proper process or a total disregard for any democratic standards.

This was best illustrated by a motion that was served to totally suspend the rules. Not a specific rule, but all the rules. Not surprisingly, such a manoeuvre is not permitted in Robert’s Rules of Order or the bylaws of the RSU.

Despite this, Hamid, supported by Hussein, Snobar and Sharma, argued that they needed to suspend the rules in order to allow them to re-submit the health and dental plan motion that was already determined to be out of order. When Whitfield ruled that there were no provisions to suspend the rules, Hamid and friends none the less declared all rules to be suspended. Whitfield left 9:28 pm in protest and with him, quorum. Without quorum, the meeting could not officially continue.

Quorum is defined in the bylaws of the RSU as being 50 percent plus one of the directors on the board. This is the minimum number of people who must be present in order to hold a meeting.

Hamid declared that, according to the RSU bylaws, Sid Naidu, Vice-President of Student Life and Events, is the next in-line to chair the meeting (they don’t actually say that). After arguing between each other, Naidu assumed the role of chair.

“Really, what are you guys trying to do?” Naidu asked Hamid and Snobar.

“We’re trying to suspend the rules so we can add something onto the agenda ‘cause we want to add another motion to the agenda so we need to suspend the rules,” was Snobar’s response.

Naidu asked if there was any opposition to suspending the rules. With only their allies remaining, no one was left to oppose it. Naidu was reminded that a proper motion should be moved and seconded. Hamid moved to suspend the rules, Snobar seconded, and the motion was passed unanimously.

So, without rules, without quorum, with some directors doing homework away from the table, and without a competent chairperson, the remaining directors forged forward with their agenda.

The discussion may as well have been in Snobar’s basement.

The dismissed motion was re-added to the agenda with a minor amendment to differentiate it from the previous one that had been ruled out of order. Hamid confessed that it was essentially the same motion.

Naidu read the motion out and asked if everyone was in favour. Everyone raised their hands. Hamid moved and Houssein seconded an amendment to re-appoint Gallivan and Associates as RSU’s health and dental plan broker for next year.

When it was asked if they had quorum, Hamid told the secretary to ensure that all references to quorum be removed from the minutes.

Hamid motivated his preference for Gallivan and Associates. No one asked any questions. Hamid didn’t circulate the plan, the cost or the other bids. He didn’t say whether or not Gallivan was the cheapest, most expensive or in the middle of the group of brokers who bid on the plan. He didn’t mention their profit margin, promises of improvements or even the amount that would be charged to every RSU member for their health and dental plan. He didn’t mention that he had no authority to look at the proposals, let alone make a recommendation.

Hamid lost two elections last year and got elected last-minute to represent Student Groups at a vote of close to 60 people. During the recent RSU election, which he ran for vice-president of finance and services he lost by the largest margin, 664 votes. He’s rumoured to be running again in next week’s Student Group election, despite his recent loss.

Had this decision been the purview of twelve board members, in this case Sid Naidu, Femi Lawson, Waseem Bangash, Aisha Nofal, Chandan Sharma, Abdul Snobar, Dana Houssein, Mohammed Malik, George Phu, Ken Chadha, Mohsin Mehboob and Osman Hamid, a $4-million contract of student money would have been unilaterally re-awarded to Gallivan and Associates.

Because of the litany of procedural irregularities, however, this decision will remain a personal one, and not of the RSU.

Pam Hrick: next National Director of CASA?

Spring must be hiring season in Canada. After a long and cold winter, who doesn’t want to bust out of their rut with a new job, a new desk and maybe even a new computer? RFP is hiring, perhaps you’ve heard, but we’re not the only ones.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) announced on February 24, that they will be hiring the next National Director of the organization. Current National Director, Zach Churchill, is one of the resume receivers, so presumably, he will not be re-running.

The hiring committee will submit a short list for an election at a national on March 26. The successful candidate will follow in the footsteps of former NDs such as Alex Usher.

Ryerson students have never been members of CASA, and so their structure is elusive to many of us who are familiar with democratic structures like CESAR or the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). CASA’s structure is a bizarre hybrid between hiring and democracy, and begs the question, doesn’t CASA trust its member organizations to elect the best candidate on their own, rather than twisting it into a semi-hiring process?

One unlikely candidate for this position is Pam Hrick. Pam is former president of the Student Federation at the University of Ottawa (SFUO), a federal Liberal and the lone woman in the finals for last year’s CBC’s show Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister.

Pam has never been a member of a CASA student union. In 2008 the SFUO voted to join the Canadian Federation of Students.

Interestingly, there are no requirements for potential applicants included in the job description. There are requirements, though, on the home page job announcement. There are no provisions that the National Director be a student: the successful candidate must have a degree or the equivalent combination of education and/or work experience (the jury is out on what amount of work constitutes a degree. According to the government of Ontario and many other provinces, it is a degree only that constitutes a degree).

Pam has never been a member of CASA but she meets all criteria for candidacy: experience “dealing with media,” experience in management, strong Liberal bias…

CASA doesn’t take enough heat in the student press for its version of democracy. While Pam’s candidacy is currently only rumour, it would be a big story if she were to become CASA’s next National Director. If she gets hired, student unions represented by CASA will have a chief lobbyist and official spokesperson who has never been a member and, whose former student union is now a member of the CFS.

Student union drops health insurance broker citing inflated fees and unprofessional behaviour

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) recently announced that it was ending a 12-year relationship with insurance broker Lev Bukhman and his firm, Quebec Student Health Alliance (ASEQ). Instead, they voted to institute a new student-run health plan office.

“It appeared to us that over the last few years our health and dental plan was delivering more value to ASEQ and Sun Life than it was to Concordia students,” said CSU president Keyana Kashfi in a media release citing over payments of over $1.3 million over the last three years.

“Every time Concordia student representatives asked more probing questions about our plan’s performance, Mr. Bukhman’s behaviour became more threatening and erratic,” she added.

CSU representatives also expressed concern at Bukhman’s refusal to solicit quotes from insurance providers other than Sun Life during last year’s renewal. The students’ union points to Mr. Bukhman’s “affinity relationship” with Sun Life, related to the volume of business he generates for the insurer, as a possible motivation for this.

Concerns by the CSU that their insurance interests were not being properly represented were met with a call by Bukhman that the Concordia administration to step in and meddle with the student health plan affairs.

The role of an insurance broker is to represent the student union’s best interests when negotiating with insurance providers. The details of the negotiations should be fully accessible, not just to assess the broker’s competence, but as an important check against the possibility of contracts that benefit the broker at the expense of the client.

Unfortunately, broker-client problems are not limited to the CSU-ASEQ. Representatives at other student unions have cited similar concerns of brokers pulling the wool over their eyes only to discover later on that contracts have disproportionately benefited the broker.

For example, the Ryerson Students’ Union has a long history of troubles with Gallivan and Associates with whom they have been “shackled” into a contract since 2004.

Part-time students at Ryerson are currently without health and dental insurance. While it is important for the CESAR to investigate this needed service for its members, they must learn from the lessons from the CSU and RSU and not duplicate them.

Getting a different taste of the Big Apple

By: Ronak Ghorbani Editorial Assistant

New York City — home to over eight million people and spanning over 790 square kilometres. It’s a big place that can be overwhelming for first-time visitors.

Too much time in Times Square can leave you feeling nauseated and itching to get a real bite of the Big Apple. 

In February, I spent a few days in the charming city and explored away from the typical NYC tourist spots (i.e. the MET, Empire State Building, etc.). 

The real NYC lies in the alleyways of Chinatown, the record stores in Greenwich Village and conversations on the subway. Here’s an alternative guide to New York City.

Travel and accommodations

Being a student means my friends and I have limited resources. So when it comes to travel, airplanes definitely don’t make the list. 

We took a bus to NYC, it was about 10 hours long, but only cost $15 for a return trip. Megabus.com has some sweet deals if you book far enough in advance (we reserved our seats two months earlier). 

Staying in Manhattan can be astronomically pricey, even the hostels are expensive. We faced a 40-minute commute to Brooklyn and stayed at a hostel. For three nights in a private room with four beds, it cost $52 person. The hostel, named Loftsel on Greene Avenue, is minutes away from the G subway line. 

Staff and guests were super friendly — we were invited to a party on our first night! There’s a kitchen on each floor and free access to the internet. Rooms are clean and the décor looks likes it’s been pulled out of an Ikea catalogue. 

To book a room, visit loftstel.com 

Who needs a tour bus when you’ve got the Brooklyn Bridge?

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge gives you a spectacular view of Manhattan and you end up near China Town. It’s a little over 1.8 km long and runs over the East River. You get a stunning view of the skyline and there’s info stops with descriptions of how the bridge was built. Only warning: watch out for bikers, they get pissed when pedestrians walk on their bike path and will yell at you to move. 

Chinatown

NYC’s Chinatown is really different from Toronto’s. It’s full of nooks and corners and feels more like a neighbourhood than a really long street full of stores. People are friendly and it doesn’t have that overly crowded, congested feel Toronto’s Chinatown sometimes does.

Columbus Park Pavilion

This park has been ridiculed by some New Yorkers as run down and dingy, but I got a sense of community from it. Granted, the pavilion could use a paint touch-up, but who cares about aesthetics when you’ve got tables upon tables of Chinese checkers grids? Games take place daily, with crowds of seniors surrounding the game, eagerly looking on and socializing.

When I was there, a man approached another man practising tai-chi and learned some moves himself. The park is great for resting. There are a lot of benches, and it’s a great place to see a community in action. 

Tasty Dumplings – 54 Mulberry St.

The perfect place for a quick, filling, cheap meal. This quaint restaurant is sparsely furnished but serves up the best dumplings (I’ve ever had). The most popular are cabbage and pork fried dumplings (5 for $1.25) and veggie boiled dumplings (8 for $3). Service is fast and efficient, with many customers streaming in and out, taking their food to go. 

Ten Ren Tea Shop – 75 Mott St.

This shop has great deals on tea from China and Thailand. Prices vary based on quality, but the free samples are great for newbies to tea drinking. You can also get small packages of almost every kind of tea for $0.50, which is great if you’re indecisive like me.

SoHo 

This area’s full of shops and trendy boutiques, but it also has a few nifty art galleries. 

Puffin Room – 435 Broome St.

An open space art gallery housing mostly trendy/hip young artists. One curator told me they represent real culture, “New York still has a little edge left,” he said. 

While I was there, their show was Play Ground – transitioning from childhood to adulthood. My favourite piece was an installation by Jillian Leigh Fedorman. It was a daycare cubby — on one side, there were high heels, pills and cigarettes, and on the other was a juice box, little red sparkly shoes and toes. My boyfriend described it as “debauchery.”

Yellow Rat Bastard – 483 Broadway St.

This store is like no other. Bringing the streets indoors, Yellow Rat Bastard’s urban-inspired décor is unique, to say the least. With graffiti on the walls and street signs directing you to the shoe department, YRB’s layout is as unique as the discount deals you’ll find. They sell designer brands like Levis Jeans for $25 and Billabong skinnies for $45. Books about the Brooklyn Kings, heavy metal portraits and deviant desires will keep you entertained if you’re not the shopping type. YRB also has a selection of skateboards for sale, blank boards starting at $35. This store provides a shopping experience much different than Macy’s or JC Penney. Yes, it’s all brand name at YRB, but at least it’s cheap. 

Bowery

We walked through Bowery at nighttime and were envious of all the people walking into the many bars and bistros ($3 beers anyone?). Being one year shy of 21, NYC can be depressing at night, especially in this pub-filled area which reminds me of College St. in Toronto.

Bowery Poetry Club – 308 Bowery St.

This poetry club and café has some cheap coffee ($2 a cup) and diner-style food. Besides regular poetry readings, they also have a reading group and open mic.

Drop by on Monday nights to play some bingo while listening to M.I.A.. For two bucks a card and a bar by your hand, this ain’t your grandma’s bingo night. 

St. Marks

St. Marks reminds me of what Queen West used to be – before all the goth/punk boutiques were bought out by Aritzia and Zara and hipsters took over the streets.  

The Sock Man – 27 St. Mark’s Place

Toe socks, knee socks, ankle socks, plain socks, socks with rainbows, socks with chilli peppers, panty hose, leopard print leggings – you name it, the Sock Man’s got it. This store is just fun to stand in, I never knew there was such a vast quantity of different socks. Prices range from $1-$30. 

Ray’s Pizza Place – 2 Saint Marks Pl.

This eatery has a huge selection in cream cheese (including tofu cream cheese!), pizza galore and heart attack inducing lasagna. I got a spinach, broccoli and black olive slice and for $4, my mouth partied hard. 

St. Mark’s Comics – 11 St. Mark’s Pl.

I’m not one for comic books, but my friend Shawn insisted on going here, and I have to say, I was blown away. The store is small, on the basement floor of a townhouse, and it’s crammed with comics. Besides the typical Spidey and Superman, the store has a section dedicated to graphic novels and toys (err, action figures). With three big bins of 50 cent comics, this store is great for new collectors (like me) or if you’re trying to find an obscure read. I ended up with a treasure: a feminist comic book!

Greenwich Village

Bleeker Bob’s Records - 118 West 3rd Street

Bleeker Bob’s has been around since the 1970s and they’re open late into the night. The place has that dingy record store smell; you can practically sniff out that rare LP find. 

My favourite was the “budget Latin and jazz” with records under $5. They have dozens of boxes of 7 inch records of every genre from 50s pop to punk/hardcore. 

The most expensive album for sale is John Lennon Sings the Great Rock and Roll Hits, priced at $500. The person working told me it was released on a tiny indie label so there are only a few of the albums floating around. 

The coolest hat store in the world

The Village Scandal – 19 E. 7th St.

Have you ever walked into a place and knew right away it was magical? The Village Scandal is one of those, housing hundreds of hats; some are even made in NYC. The shop keeper is friendly and encourages you to try on the fedoras, top hats, knit hats with yarn mohawks, monkey hats, elephant hats, old-lady church looking hats. I felt like a kid in a candy store, except I grabbed flapper hats instead of chocolate bars.  

It all leads back to Times Square

New York City is a city that never sleeps (literally, their subway system is 24 hours). It’s gynormous, yellow taxis swarm the streets, and sometimes all you can hear is honks and curses coming from cars. But there’s a beauty to it. Among the madness and havoc of it, you meet people who are trying to get by, trying to find inspiration in this giant town. 

We met a guy named Mikey Angelo, he’s a rickshaw biker, and he stopped us in the street to ask about my friend’s dread locks. Mikey comes from Florida and told us how disappointed he was in NYC. 

He described an art party he went to, how excited he was to meet other artists and to collaborate only to realize these kids from NYU (New York University) weren’t interested in him because he’s working class.

“There’s a big class divide between the rich and the poor. Now the rich are getting poorer, can’t complain about that,” he said before we walked away.

This mammoth of a city isn’t what TV or the movies make it seem. It’s raw, it’s real and it’s full of passion. A guy staying at the hostel told us that for some reason, whenever you’re in Manhattan you always end up in Times Square. It happened to us and the chaos of tourists rushing past me made me smile. There’s beauty everywhere, you just need to seek it.

Zine culture is booming in teeny tiny little steps

By: Ronak Ghorbani Editorial Assistant

On February 12 and 13, Sheridan College’s student atrium in Oakville was turned into a festival of zines. Folded and stapled papers scattered over tables as zinesters talked to each other about their newest projects. Curious students walked by, picking up zines, studying them carefully. Some dug their pockets for a loonie or two to purchase the mysterious pamphlet-like publications.

A zine is a hand-made publication that can be about anything; whether it’s about your favourite singer, a guide to going vegan, or your adventures in suburbia. They come in all shapes and sizes and can be as basic as paper folded into four pieces or elaborately hand bound.

Sheridan’s Oakville campus has a zine library and with the help of the Sheridan Self Publishers (aka zine team), the two held the fair, Gettazine. Organizer Jennifer Pilles told the Ryerson Free Press why zines should be preserved and why they’re cooler than blogs.

Ryerson Free Press: So Jen, what is Gettazine?

Jennifer Pilles: A zine fair. Okay well, the whole purpose is to show Sheridan students what zine culture is all about by inviting people from the outside world to come in.

They see our zines in the library, but we want to integrate them more, so this is like an awareness thing.

It’s basically to promote zine culture and also to introduce the outside world to Sheridan’s zine culture because it’s thriving and it’s booming in teeny tiny little steps. We want to mesh those two worlds.

RFP: Why is it important to educate people about zine culture?

JP: Well, I think zines are an amazing thing for absolutely everybody in the whole world.

Sheridan specifically has a really creative population. We have a huge art (programme) and there’s the journalism students.

It’s a thing they can actually use for their careers, for themselves. It’s a great outlet.

I think students should make zines and I think it’s a release kind of things because sometimes you feel, “Ahh I’m creative but I have so many of these parameters and outlines and deadlines!” These things that restrict your creativity. But a zine is just for you and you can take all the things you want to be making in school but you can’t because of a project guideline and you put it in your zine…it’s a way more personal thing.

RFP: Since there are blogs and websites, why should people read zines? Why do they matter?

JP: I think that the whole textile thing does matter…I mean, they say print is dead but I don’t think it ever really will be because there’s something really beautiful about a tactile object you can hold in your hand.

Part of the joy of making a zine is that you can use your hands. In a blog, you’re typing and uploading photos, it’s all staring at a screen. But with a zine, you’re cutting and pasting, you’re printing and stapling, and you’re folding and all these things and you’re getting way more involved in it…it’s a lot more human than a blog.

RFP: How did you first get into zines?

JP: I got a zine at the Warped Tour when I was 14 and I was just like, “This is so cool!” And it changed my whole world.

I was always really creative…I made a ton of shitty (zines) in high school and I think I’m kind of refining it. I’m leaning towards illustration now.

RFP: What are your zines about?

JP: It’s mostly personal.

My early ones I had one called “How to start a revolution” and I thought I was really punk rock. I was really into anarchy but I didn’t know I was just young. They were naïve rants, stuff like that. And then I had “Tiki Girl Without a Cause” which was science fiction stories which I thought was so cool but I see them now and I’m so embarrassed. But mostly everything I have on my table now (at Gettazine) is personal.

RFP: Why do you choose to use personal as your theme?

JP: For me, zines are almost like a healing thing.

I wrote one this summer about moving because I was living in nowhere land. I moved out of one house but I had nowhere else to move. I was living with my brand new boyfriend who I didn’t even know if we were going to date for long and I felt really homeless and lost and really sad, you know? So I was like, how can I express this? How can I release this sadness? And I made a zine and I felt so much better.

I have one called “Art School Love Letters” that was actually taken from a love letter I wrote to a long distance friend that I missed so bad; I took that and put it into a zine.

Zines for me are healing, they’re therapy. I’m always journaling and making art so it’s kind of like a natural tendency.

RFP: There isn’t really an outlet or place for zinesters or people interested in zines to get to know each other. So why are zine festivals so important for the community?

JP: I think it’s a good way for us to see each other, all the vendors.

I’ve seen some of these people at zine fairs before and we only ever see each other at zine and craft fairs so it’s kind of that community thing.

But you’re right, zines are like you do it at home, you send it in the mail…Actually we have zine reading parties (the Sheridan Self Publishers). We read zines together.

That’s why we have a club, that’s why I started the club in the library first. I was like, well you can’t have a community without people, people will be reading them (zines) but I want to get people really into this so we made the club and meet on a regular basis now.

RFP: How many zines do you have in the library?

JP: Almost 500.

RFP: Why is it important to preserve zines?

JP: Because they’re so unique.

I only make 20 copies of mine but every time I make one, I put one in the zine library and that’ll exist there forever.

Zines are the kinds of things that get put in the back pocket, broken in, torn up. They’re pretty fragile right? They’re paper; they don’t have hard covers or anything like that.

Man, I wish we had a place for every zine in the world to put in one place because they really are special…I love the idea of zine libraries and that they have a home.

RFP: How can someone get involved with the zine community?

JP: I hate to say it but check the internet (laughs). There’s a great website called We Make Zines (wemakezines.ning.org) it’s kind of like Facebook but only for zinesters. You have a profile page and you can exchange e-mails, update people, have events on there.

We don’t really have a way of meeting each other, other than at zine fairs, so a lot of it is done through online…The coolest way to get involved with zines is make your own and trade with people and write letters to people’s zines you like.

If you read a zine and think, “Oh, this is so nice,” you write a letter (to the zinester) and they write back to you. A lot of my personal zine relationships are with people I’ve never met. We just exchange letters twice a year.

OACT outing leaves something to be desired

An honest and critical look at a night of amateur theatre by Ryerson Free Press reviewer Stephen Carlick

Pointing out the obvious flaws in Lily Allen’s latest album is relatively easy; one can rest assured that Lily will never pick up the Ryerson Free Press, and even if she did, she’d have her critical acclaim and financial success to reassure her that music was the correct path for her to follow (arguable as that may be). The same can’t be said about reviewing the works of one’s undergraduate peers. To engage in such an activity poses a conflict of interest, namely the very real threat of hurting the feelings of people who simply haven’t mastered their craft, and are perhaps still finding their theatrical feet. However, that being said, the very point of criticism is to be honest, even though it may come across as vindictive to some. Certainly, to sugar coat a review and give credit where it is not due cheapens the credit for those to whom it is. Additionally, it would be patronizing to treat these plays as though they are merely the work of students, rather than professionals. And to shrug it off by saying “Well, they’re only kids” does not do our age group justice. Undergrads are no more than four years away from entering the real world, where glaring mistakes mean not making it in the business, and where critics take no prisoners. Thus, the following is an 100 per cent honest and critical look at “Oakham Amateur Campus Theatre presents: Mood Swings,” attended on opening night, February 26.

The night consisted of five short plays — three of which were written by Ryerson students themselves. Short dances were performed by Carol-Ann Bohrn and Lauren Pederson, who provided graceful performances to fill the void between plays while the next was prepared. The fact that it was so difficult to tell which plays were student-written and which ones were professionally done was a good sign, but the overall outcome was relatively disappointing. On the whole, the plays all suffered from the same group of ailments: indecision regarding genre, misjudged length, and general lack of character sympathy and plot belief.

Opening play “The Express” was about the plight of a good-natured, rural-suburban boy for whom life is simply not fair. The boy is forced to care for his mentally unstable single mother who frequents the local railway station, inquiring loudly that her train will come and deliriously wondering whether she has missed it. The boy’s one escape from her is his girlfriend, but he goes insane when the girl’s father informs him that she is most likely his sister. The boy is last shown at the railway station begging, like his mother, to know when his train will finally come. The play’s aspirations were lofty, considering that it had a mere twenty minute timeframe to both endear the main actor to the audience and convince them that the boy was driven as mad as his mother simply because he had accidentally fallen in love with his sister. There was no time for either. And the result was a play that lacked enough back story to answer some very pertinent plot and character questions like: What was it that drove the mother insane? Why does the girl return to embrace the son after she knows they are siblings? Perhaps most importantly omitted was the significance of the train station. The symbolic freedom of the train image is not lost on me, but if the train-related madness is common to both the mother and the son, surely it needs to be explained why the son would end up grieving there, despite his misfortune happening completely independent of the station.

“Firing Francine” was a shorter affair that began brightly, but overstayed its welcome and seemingly lost its course. The play began as a comedy that saw a young man trying desperately to fire a female employee who always has a ready retort. Its initial charm lay in the way that he continually was thwarted, being forced to ask her over and over to leave the room and re-enter (after he had swallowed a pill) in order to start the conversation over again. However, what started as a clever running gag got drawn out too far, rendering the play both annoying and puzzling. What should have been the climax happened the fifth (as far as I can recall) time Francine re-entered the room, as the employer, Iris, fired a pistol squarely at a stunned Francine. Now, had the light gone out as soon as she was hit with the bullet, I’d have called the play a suc cess, but the play continued. Francine re-entered many times more, acting in a way that hardly seemed as though she had been shot mere seconds earlier, and ended with Francine embracing Iris consolingly, who subsequently flops to the floor defeated. At the point of the embrace, both the sense of escalating humour and the momentum of the play is lost — if the play is a comedy like the actors made it out to be, what is it that suddenly turns the goofy character of Francine into a sympathetic friend? The only conceivable reason for her sudden difference in character is that each scene is meant to stand on its own and is detached temporarily from the last scene. However, this would make the hug, which seemingly is an after-effect of the torturously long melee they’ve moments ago experienced, would appear unwarranted. And the fact that I couldn’t tell whether the play ended comically or sadly demands the question of whether the actors performed the play, written by an established playwright, the way the author originally meant it to be performed.

“Ugly on the Inside” was the second of two non-student-written plays of the evening. The play is about Della, a white-trash woman whose best friend Rayanne always finds a way to murder her groom-to-be. When Rayanne accidentally kills number six (or is it seven?), the two engage in a conversation about men and friendship that gets continually interrupted by Charlie, who continually rises from the grave to aggravate the two women despite having a cake knife buried in his stomach. The idea behind the story was simple and comical enough, but the play suffered from a herky-jerky plot that, like “Firing Francine,” didn’t seem to know whether it was a comedy or drama. The comical Tarantino-esque violence of the play was too often interrupted by man-on-woman violence and moments of frank discussion that victimized the female characters who seemed, besides these exceptions, to be pretty self-reliant. The play was a tad too long, but it benefitted both from ending well and from featuring Emily Nixon, who was arguably the best actor of the night.

One of the weaker plays of the night, “The Rain-dance of the Leaves” suffered from what seemed like self-indulgence and lack of any significant or unique meaning. The plot was meandering, and while it was apparently about “two people and their struggle for connection – to each other, to the city, and to themselves,” it seemed to be too much about writer Rodney Barnes. The play featured him dancing, waxing philosophically about life in the city and the nature of love, and generally being melodramatic about concepts and questions that everybody faces in their lifetime. The play admirably sought to find beauty in pain and loneliness, but it’s been done so many times before that it came across as being stereotypical and concerned too heavily with image, rather than substance and meaning. The play could have benefitted from a thematic refinement, perhaps by choosing to focus on love, life in the city, or the construction of identity. In trying to cover all three in just twenty minutes, the play lost the opportunity to explore one of the concepts deeply and meaningfully. Nonetheless, the acting therein was done suitably, and the use of music was effective at conveying the mood of the play.

At this point in the show, I thought I knew what to expect. I had seen four of the five plays, and the last was a student-written play called “Uncle Spam talks Turkey.” I was wrong. The closing play was stunning. It was very post-modern. The plot was non-linear, just a series of vignettes that each addressed a different facet of inequality and corruption in capitalist America and beyond, using a style that mixed spoken word, hip-hop rhyming, and beat poetry to astonishing effect. It was a delicate balancing act, as a play so meticulously written and so dependent on the actors’ delivery was always going to be at risk of losing momentum. A mere forgotten line could destroy the rhyme structure that made the play captivating, or obscure the significance of following lines that made the play meaningful. The play never faltered, and its success can be attributed mainly to the fact that writer Darcy Corbett never put rhyming ahead of coherence, nor stretched the meaning of words just so that they fit the scheme, as is so tempting when trying to rhyme. For the first time that night, the play being performed felt like the work of a professional despite being one of only three student-written plays, for which Corbett deserves all recognition he gets and probably more. His acting was superb, and he surrounded himself with the best actors present, using Emily Nixon and Jamieson Child to great effect. Nixon played the lawyer, effectively using her stage presence to convince the audience of her legal prowess and sharpness-of-tongue, while Child was a phenomenal judge, giving his lines powerful and unsettling emphasis without going over the top. This play single-handedly made the show worth seeing. I regret that this review couldn’t have been printed in time to urge students to attend one of the performances, if only to see why Uncle Spam talking turkey is not at all what it sounds like.

New book shines spotlight on not-so-usual suspects

Barbra Streisand isn’t the only successful North American Jewish woman. And a new book by a North American Jewish woman proves that. Maiya Keidan finds out more about the females featured in its pages.

 

Lisa Kogen’s new book, With Strength and Splendor: Jewish Women as Agents of Social Change aims to celebrate the fabulousness of North American Jewish women — mission accomplished.  

Forty-eight inspirational women are listed for their extraordinary achievements, in a wide range of career paths, such as sports, medicine and law. Highlights include entertainers like Sophie Tucker and Gilda Radner and innovators of the fashion and beauty industry like Donna Karan and Estée Lauder.  

“You find an extraordinary large number of Jewish women who were really in the avant-garde of roles of professional pursuits from which women had been completely prohibited,” said Kogen during an interview with the Ryerson Free Press. 

Kogen, a Jewish woman herself, first recognized a severe underrepresentation of Jewish women through her study of traditional Jewish history at the doctoral level.  

When she began working for the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism, she had an opportunity to steer the movement towards celebrating women. Kogen recounts that it was only her second day at work and they were discussing how to honour the upcoming 350th anniversary of Jews in America already. 

The author remembers listening to all the suggestions being tossed out, one after the other. ‘We’ll talk about the history of synagogues,’ said one co-worker. ‘We’ll talk about prominent Jewish leaders,’ said another. That was when she piped up with the shockingly revolutionary idea of talking about great Jewish women. 

It was remarkable that no one had thought of this idea, despite it being a women’s organization, remembers Kogen. 

“Here was a group of very intelligent women who had internalized the male-centric world,” she said in a disapproving tone of voice.  

Strongly affected by the need to share the many accomplishments of great Jewish women, Kogen turned her idea a visually stunning book. 

When the quest for the women began, Kogen already had a list in her head of the people she might like to profile. However, she wanted to expand her search beyond what she dubbed ‘the usual suspects.’ She means the same four, five, six famous Jewish women who keep being named over and over again, such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice, and Barbra Streisand. Although she believes these women deserve every ounce of credit they are given, Kogen wanted to shine the spotlight where it quite possibly had never been shone before.

And she did this by expanding her hunt for great women beyond New York City, her home branch, using the 25 branches of the association as a starting point. As a result, she collected a list of women that stretched across North America, including three in Canada. One Canadian woman was Torontonian Celia Franca, founder of the National Ballet of Canada. 

Famous women or women associated with the religious community were not the women that Kogen restricted herself to either. She even added Theda Bara, a silent movie star who was famous for her role as a seductress, though she had to defend her inclusion.  

“Some of these older women saw this half-naked woman with the breast plates and said, ‘Ach, what kind of a Jewish woman is that?’” she said. 

Nevertheless, Kogen was dedicated to all the women she picked. So dedicated that it’s nearly impossible for her to pick her favourite. 

“I hate this question!” she exclaimed when asked who her favourite was. She narrows it down to three: Ida Cohen Rosenthal, creator of the brassiere, Gertrude Weil, for her commitment to civil rights, and Ray Frank, the first woman “rabbi.” 

Yet, Kogen added, “I have to say I love them all. Every single one of them was a remarkable woman, every single one.”

It was far easier for her to provide the identity of her real-life female role model. The answer to that question was simple, answered with no hesitation. The answer is her mother, a woman who was left alone at 41 years old, with five children, because of the early death of her husband. The oldest was in university. The youngest was Kogen herself at seven.  

Her mother’s only desire had been to get married, a task which she’d accomplished with the unfortunate consequence of marrying before completing her high school diploma.  

But despite the many hardships, Kogen’s mother didn’t crumble. She took good care of her children and of herself. She went back to school and lived the remainder of her life as a geriatric nurse.

“She was the model for, ‘You got to do it. If you have to do it, you got to do it,’” reminisced Kogen.

From regular Joe to cups of joe

 

Maiya Keidan speaks to a former dog walker turned coffee shop owner. Find out how a boring desk job and a loyalty to learning inspired this coffee drinker to create a career out of coffee-making 

 

It’s 6 a.m. and all seems to be quiet at Bulldog Coffee. For now.

The café, humble contrary to what its name may allude to, is nestled along Granby St., mere metres away from Church St., anticipating the radical rush of java junkies sure to show up shortly. And even though it doesn’t open its doors until 8 a.m., owner 43-year-old Stuart Ross is up early getting those cups in lines and those beans ground to perfection.

As sure as the sunrise, Ross begins his day by battling with his monstrous, gold espresso machine and roaster. Everything has to be perfectly consistent for his customers – ranging from the amount of pressure applied to the ground beans to the steady drip of espresso from the golden device.

Using a roaster, he grinds the coffee. Once the beans have been through the machine, Ross levels them — brushing the ground beans with the same pinky finger every time — preparing for the impact of the espresso machine, at roughly 220 lbs. of pressure, 76 degrees Celsius. Next, he struggles with the machine’s flow, timed to the second. He tries 25 seconds. He tries 24 seconds. His hand stops at 23 seconds. That’s what tastes “perfect” today.

But beginning the day isn’t the only challenge. Depending on the weather, he might have to change the roaster settings as many as three times a day or adjust the amount of pressure applied to the ground beans before they’re fed into the espresso machine. On top of balancing all of these parts, Ross must also ensure the machine is kept clean – a tricky, but doable task considering he’s dealing with such minute coffee grounds.

Ross’s customers appreciate his tireless efforts to achieve that perfect cup. Watching him being interviewed, his regulars are eager to endorse their little hangout.

“Stuart, I must say, one of the things I like about you is when I’m gone for a month, I know what I’m coming home to,” pipes in one lady.

For Caleb Gilgan, a first-year Ryerson student, going to Bulldog is a family tradition. Gilgan has been a weekly fixture there since his brother, a Ryerson veteran, suggested it.

“Yeah, his whole family has been here,” injects Ross.

“It’s a family vacation,” says Gilgan, who occasionally makes trips to the café with as many as three of his five other brothers, as well as his mother.

Accolades for Ross’s efforts don’t just lie in the roast regulars or the steady stream of customers that drift through his café. He is also an award-winning barista.

Ross didn’t always belong to the world of fancy lattés and cappuccinos. Instead, he began his early career with an economics degree from McGill University, thrusting him into the world of stock brokering. Discovering his hatred for the long, grueling hours which glued him to his desk and telephone, he quit. Afterward, he drifted between jobs that varied from serving as a counselor in a dating agency to sporting good sales to dog walker.

It was August 2004, when he’d only been a dog walker for six months, that he spotted a “For Lease” sign that changed the course of his life. He stopped to look at the store, marveling at how neat it was. There were two entrances and glass windows that covered the entire storefront. Though he’d had no particular entrepreneurial stirrings beforehand, he thought to himself, “Wow, wouldn’t this be a great place for a coffee shop?”

And soon after, Ross picked up the phone and dialed the number, beginning the tumultuous journey of birthing his café, equipped with no knowledge of coffee except that he’d been drinking it for eleven years.

Inspired by the dogs he walked, Ross named the café after his favourite breed, the bulldog.

“Do you know what a Bulldog looks like? They’re really mean and ugly looking, right? But if you get to know them, they usually end up being such a great pet,” Ross explains.

Espresso, Ross cautions, can taste horribly acidic or burnt if every step of the process isn’t followed meticulously.

“But…” he says, slowly unveiling each word as if he’s imparting the secret to the universe, “if you run it perfectly, it becomes the most beautiful cup of coffee ever.”

Even the most fanatic anti-coffee drinker can’t help but be riveted by his absolute love of the art of espresso. If you haven’t already tried the coffee at Bulldog, I recommend you head to 89 Granby St. and get your caffeine kick. 

March record reviews

By: Stephen Carlick

Toronto-based group issues nature-inspired, soul-infused debut

If you ask me, there is perhaps too much indie folk going on right now. And with the outrageous amount of hype surrounding last year’s Fleet Foxes, the demand for organic and nature-inspired music seems to be at something of a high.

In the past couple of years, a barrier has always stood between my liking these albums because of something that until now I couldn’t quite put my finger on. A Mountain is a Mouth exposed that barrier. The issue was that while many albums seemed to make a claim that they were inspired by or evocative of nature, their representation thereof was problematic: they were too pretty; they were too refined (see Bon Iver’s For Emma, 2008). Nature can be pretty, of course, but to dwell on beauty, serenity, and calmness neglects a characteristic of nature that is far more easily transferred into powerful song writing and dynamics — sublimity. It’s the genuine feeling of sublimity that makes A Mountain is a Mouth so special. It is the dynamic juxtaposition of walls of thunderous drums with the gentle plucking of banjo strings and the isolated rasp of lead singer Matt Cully’s baritone growl before the band’s choir floods in, that makes Bruce Peninsula’s debut a true evocation of the rawness and grandiosity of nature.

Through repeated listens, you can hear the echo of the voices and instruments in the silence, as if the songs were actually recorded in a rivered valley at the foot of a mountain range, each song being a musical representation of the various elements of the scene. “Steamroller” is a violent gale, the powerful voices of the choir seemingly ripping through the valley until the river that is “2nd 4th World War” is coursing along at a rollicking pace that full-bodied chants like “Satisfied” and “Crabapples” hail back to throughout the album. I won’t be surprised if this album blows up in the coming months. If it doesn’t, we’ll just consider it our little secret. —Stephen Carlick

 

London pop-star delivers second album, earns ludicrous title

I recently heard an ad for Lily Allen’s latest record that called her “the Wordsworth of the Myspace generation” — and it irked me something fierce. Surprisingly, it was not just the obvious implication that our generation is vapid and incapable of handling poetry of Wordsworth’s quality that bothered me, it was the fact that Lily Allen would be offered such a generous amount of acclaim for “poetry” that sounds ripped from the pages of a ninth-grader’s diary (albeit one that talks way too much about cocaine).

The lyrical content of this album is not only juvenile, it’s banal to the point that you can anticipate what a song is about based solely on its title! Is “Back to the Start” about wishing to turn back time in a relationship? Yep. Is “Never Gonna Happen” about a guy that Lily refuses to sleep with? Mm-hmm. Could “Fuck You” possibly be an angry rant about a guy that Lily disapproves of?! At the risk of ruining the surprise, here are two of Lily’s Wordsworth-quality verses from the song itself: “So you say it’s not okay to be gay, well I think you’re just evil, you’re just some racist who can’t tie my laces, your point of view is medieval…You say you think we need to go to war, well you’re already in one, ‘cause it’s people like you that need to get slew, no one wants your opinion.” The only “poetic” thing about her verses is the fact that she has rhymed them (which, in the first place, is hardly a necessity in true poetry), but in-so-doing, she has ignored grammar (he needs to get “slew”?) and lost the resonance her words might possibly have enjoyed otherwise (she probably needn’t have pointed out that the racist “can’t tie [her] laces”). “Fuck You” is a microcosm for the entire album.

Lily Allen experiences the same worldly pains that we all do, but can’t relate her experiences without singing childish, angst-ridden and trite lyrics over musical production that is predominantly comprised of cheesy genre-interpretations (see “Not Fair” for faux country, “22” for faux wedding schmaltz, “Never Gonna Happen” for faux circus pomp, and “He Wasn’t There” for faux 30s jazz, vinyl crackle and all). If this album qualifies Lily Allen as the Wordsworth of our generation, this review makes me the new Shakespeare.  —SC

 

Hip-hop landmark gets re-issue treatment, proves its continued relevance/excellence

God, I was hesitant to review this album. I’ve long been an extremely casual Beastie Boys fan, (I have most of their singles on my iPod), but I had never listened to one of their records all the way through. Plus, the clout surrounding the now-legendary Paul’s Boutique was such that I was intimidated both by the thought of reviewing it and adding my own spin to the already-extensive library of music journalism written thereon. Additionally, I didn’t want to let the record’s legendary status affect the way I approached the album — I wanted to be totally unbiased, as any review should be.

So here’s my verdict, both fresh and unbiased: Paul’s Boutique remains an amazing album to this day, even completely removed from its cultural context in the arguable golden age of hip hop, in which sampling without permission was not yet against the law. It was that kind of artistic freedom that allowed the Beastie Boys to construct what David Handelman (Rolling Stone) called a “rap opera,” a record that incorporates so many different samples that each song is like an orchestral movement, flowing seamlessly into the next sample. Like De La Soul’s influential Three Feet High and Rising released the same year, the album demonstrates the true artistry behind sampling, using sources from genres as diverse as classic rock (the Eagles, Led Zeppelin), old-school hip-hop (Afrika Bambaataa, Boogie Down Productions), and various soundtracks and spoken word pieces (the Jaws soundtrack) to create a sound that is masterful and impressively unified.

Paul’s Boutique is still, to this day, the perfect rebuttal to anyone who has ever claimed that hip-hop isn’t “music.” Paul’s Boutique is music in its most complete form, not to mention that it’s also fun, masterful, and innovative in a way that is not only no longer practiced, it’s against the law. —SC

Art conservationists fill the bullet holes: Saskatchewan churches bear the cost of art restoration

 

By: Molly Thomas The Carrilon (University of Regina)

REGINA (CUP) – Beautifully detailed oil paintings line several Catholic churches across Saskatchewan – but many of them are not what they once were.

Since most of them were created in the early 1900s, many incredible works have lost their original sparkle. Soot, from the burning of incense and candles during mass, has particularly dirtied these paintings.

But just like the church’s redemptive message, there is hope. Art conservationists across the country devote countless hours to restoring historic, cultural, and artistic objects.

In Canada, Queen’s University is the only program that offers a master’s degree in art conservation.

Brenda Smith, a graduate of this program, now works as a conservator at Saskatchewan’s Mackenzie Art Gallery.

As the only certified conservator of paintings in the city, Smith is busy with both gallery and private projects, which sometimes include church paintings.

But, conservation does not come cheap.

At $55 to $65 an hour, conservation prices are often too high for many Saskatchewan parishes.

Such is the case in Wolseley, small town 61 miles east of Regina, and home to some of the province’s most unique Catholic works.

St. Anne’s Catholic Church houses five oil paintings. Created by former resident priest Father Charles Maillard, the paintings are well over 100 years old.  

Not your everyday priest, Father Maillard grew up in France, where he served in the army and went to theology school. But no matter what he was involved in, he always had an interest in drawing and painting. The constant challenge for Maillard was to swirl both religion and art onto the same canvas.

Maillard’s paintings, though visible, are quite faded from dirt built up over a century. One painting in particular, “The Giving of the Keys,” is in dire need of maintenance. This 82 square-foot painting is not only blurred by dirt but also has two bullet holes from a drunken shooting attempt in the 1970s.

Smith traveled to Wolseley and observed this painting three years ago. She noted that it had white paint secretion, abrasion, and would need consolidation of cracks and filling of bullet holes.

This whole process would take about 60 hours and cost at least $6,000. Stanley Vindevoghel, pastoral assistant at St. Anne’s, hopes the church can afford it.

Vindevoghel saw the dramatic change after the paintings at St. Peter’s Cathedral were recently revitalized. He could not believe it was the same place when they were finished.

“The paintings just came alive and jumped out at you when the cleaning was done,” said Vindevoghel.

But there is more to this cost issue. This particular painting is 82 square feet and mounted on one side of the church altar. Because it is so old, Vindevoghel is worried the painting would rip if removed from the wall. He therefore believes cleaning would have to be done right at the church. This creates added expenses like travel, accommodations, and food for a visiting conservator.

Many parishioners are wondering what funding options are available.

The Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon explains that because there are so many churches, individual parishes must be responsible for their own maintenance and repair. 

The Saskatchewan Arts Board offers various grants. However, it generally awards them to arts organizations and community collaborations.

The Canadian Conservation Institute, based in Ottawa, currently has a treatment service request program. But, it is only free of charge to Canadian public museums. Religious societies such as the Catholic Church must pay $100 an hour for regular staff time, and $125 for any overtime incurred.

The possibilities for funding are not promising.

Despite financial obstacles, Vindevoghel plans to raise the necessary funds. “I know what the cleaning would do and how people would appreciate it,” he said. Vindevoghel plans to organize a restoration committee in the near future. 

But Smith also encourages community effort to get the job done. “Knock them off one by one,” she said.

In her experience, once church members see the difference, they are happy and encouraged and often join in the fundraising effort.

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