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a, Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Uproarious and lavish, cast shines in The Drowsy Chaperone

by Chris Liu on

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“The spit takes are lame and the monkey motif is laboured.” That’s not to be taken as a particularly aggressive start to this review, rather, it’s the judgment of a character in The Drowsy Chaperone—about the show itself. The self-deprecation is just one of the many charming aspects of this year’s Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS) production—one that, in the words of Artistic Director Fiona Ross, allows the audience to “both revel in and critique the constructs that define musical theatre.” As noted already, it even comes with its own theatre critic. That leaves yours truly in an awkward position indeed.  You, dear reader, don’t need me. You just need to see this show.

The Drowsy Chaperone may even be a bit too hard on itself. Both spit takes and monkey motif—running the gauntlet of humour extremes from slapstick to plain weird—were downright hilarious, much like the show is. The story of The Drowsy Chaperone takes place in the imagination of the Woman-in-Chair (Jami Price), the occasional interruption for commentary or by power outage notwithstanding.  This setup not only excuses, but essentially demands an all-guns-blazing approach to the performances, and AUTS’ cast and crew delivers. The result is an uproarious spoof on musical theatre tropes, the logic of Broadway taken ad absurdium (though not ad nauseam).

The show-within-a-show centres on starlet Janet Van der Graaff (Colby Koecher) and her impending marriage to oil tycoon Robert Martin (Natalie Aspinall). The maelstrom of aggrandized personalities that make up the wedding guests include a malevolent producer (Kimberley Drapack), a  dutiful butler (Cara Krisman), a ridiculous Don Juan (Chelsea Wellman), and of course, the titular chaperone herself (Vanessa Hutinec)—for whom ‘drowsy’ is really just  a synonym for drunk.

Koecher’s Janet possesses all the instruments with which a starlet works her magic. Radiant and poised, Koecher also works hard to bring performance range to a book that emphasizes the stereotypicality of its characters.

Aspinall, in addition to being one of the show’s strongest vocalists, delightfully captures Robert’s physicality, whether teetering on roller skates or delightfully tapping away his cold feet.

While most of the cast display well-tuned senses of comedic timing, Hutinec as the Chaperone is nothing less than a master of the craft. With well-developed characterizations and outlandish-yet-controlled physicality, Hutinec singlehandedly elevates “As We Stumble Along”—a “rousing anthem” to that almighty patron deity of McGill: alcohol—to be the best number of this production.

No less hilarious is Chelsea Wellman’s Aldolpho, the ‘can’t-quite-place-his-accent’ womanizer who swoops in to sweep the Chaperone—and the audience—off their feet. Wellman’s earnest and charming delivery transforms what otherwise could be a morally-discomforting character into one of the most memorable aspects of the show.

The Wes Anderson-inspired set design by Fiona Ross—commendably working overtime—fits well with the demands of book and stage, while also holding a trick or two up its sleeves. Sound difficulties, including microphone cues and volume issues vis-à-vis the orchestra, persisted throughout the performance, but with further ironing out, this shouldn’t trouble future runs.

A stickier issue may lie in what is also one of the defining characteristics of the show: the frequent interventions from ‘the real world.’ Some of these moments work well, such as the spit take sequence. Most have had an unfortunately lethal effect to the show’s momentum, and the potential humour of these situations is not fully developed. Further adjustments to pacing and delivery may be warranted.

Despite these difficulties, The Drowsy Chaperone remains a show not to be missed. Never before have I been paralyzed by laughter induced by—of all things—a torrent of food puns. Nor has the soft “ting!” of a character, now dressed as a cymbal-banging monkey, been more unexpected and more hilarious. A vivid and feverish celebration of the best and worst excesses of musical theatre, The Drowsy Chaperone is simply pure, unadulterated fun.

The Drowsy Chaperone starts at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 at Moyse Hall. Student tickets are $15.

a, Martlets, Men's Varsity, Sports

Sharp axes and cold loggers

by Ben Carter-Whitney on

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For the McGill Woodsmen, the preparations began weeks ago. A tremendous amount of wood has been chopped, stripped, and measured—every piece conforming to its event’s particular specifications. Equipment has been meticulously inspected, ensuring that the saws’ teeth are perfectly straight and the axes are sharp enough to shave with. When the morning of Jan. 25 finally arrives, everything is in order. Two U-Haul trucks packed with wood are unloaded onto Watson Field at McGill’s Macdonald campus. Visiting teams spill out of buses, and spectators begin to pull into the parking lot. At 8:45 a.m., the ceremonial first cut is made and with that, the 54th Annual Macdonald Campus Woodsmen Competition officially begins.

The Woodsmen are McGill’s least heralded varsity team, yet historically its most successful. The only McGill squad based on Macdonald campus, they compete in the Canadian Intercollegiate Lumberjacking Association (CILA), and have collected over 100 titles in various meets and competitions since their inception in 1959. In 1961, Macdonald campus held its first Woodsmen Competition, a tradition that has been upheld ever since. Today, McGill fields two men’s teams and one women’s team, all of which are extremely competitive within CILA.

However, it is with slightly less confidence than usual that all three host teams begin the competition. The past week has seen frigid weather in Montreal, often remaining below -30°C when the Woodsmen hold their 6:00 a.m. outdoor practices. At such temperatures, practice is impossible.

(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)
(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)

“[The cold]’s not good because [the equipment] shatters, and it’s very expensive,” explains Jessica Logan, a bioresources engineering student and member of the McGill women’s team. “It’s more dangerous for us because we don’t feel our extremities, and a lot more accidents happen when it’s really cold.”

Fortunately, the weather is more forgiving today, and with temperatures hovering around -9°C amidst a light snowfall, athletes are ready to begin their events. The Macdonald tournament is unique in that, due to a shortage of equipment, only one team can compete at a time in each event. There is no real schedule—teams may take on events when and in the order that they please so long as all is finished by 3:00 p.m. This results in a fairly relaxed atmosphere; spectators move from area to area as teams take their turn at different events.

“I like it this way; you’re not so stressed,” comments Jesse Rogantini-Gamble, captain of the Men’s 2 team. “[Although] it’s [also] nice the other way with the racing, because it’s more competitive—you can kind of tell if you’ve won or not. If you’re the first one cheering you know you’ve won.”

Competitive lumberjacking has its roots in logging camps, where lumberjacks would hold challenges to see who was the best at any given aspect of their trade: chopping, sawing, climbing, log rolling, and more. As with all sports, what started out as recreation eventually evolved into formal competition. Lumberjacking meets today—aside from the addition of a chainsaw event—have hardly deviated from their origins. There are events using axes and various sorts of saws in which the objective is to cut all the way through a log; the pulp throw involves accurately tossing logs back and forth; log decking is a relay in which two team members at a time roll a log down and back up a slope to a platform 45 inches high.

Some of the most compelling, however, are the singles events. The axe throw is much what it sounds like, with a target about half the size of those used for archery. The pole climb, in which a competitor fitted with foot spurs must ring a bell 28 feet up a telephone pole, often takes as few as five seconds to complete. In the water boil, one must bring to a boil a tin of water, using only three matches, a hatchet, and a block of cedar.

(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)
(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)

Logan is tasked with the latter of these for the McGill women’s team’s final event of the day. As she has done so many times in training, she chops her cedar into several smaller pieces, and with the blade of her hatchet begins to scrape the inside of one of these. Collecting these shavings into a pile, she strikes first one match, and then a second, to no avail—the wind is working against her today. Huddling a little closer, she finally ignites the shavings with her third and final match and turns her attention back to the wood, chopping it into smaller pieces and arranging them into a surface over her fire upon which she rests the can. As the fire begins to grow, she buttresses her can with what remains of the wood, and lies down on her side to blow on the fire.

With her lungs acting as a bellows, the fire soon reaches a healthy roar. Logan continues to blow at it, urging it to burn a little hotter. With each gasp for air, she turns her head away to avoid inhaling smoke from the blaze. As this continues, the excitement in the crowd grows until finally the soapy water boils over dramatically. She scrambles to her feet, her breath ragged, and releases an adrenaline-fueled shout. The fire has melted twin holes in her pants, right above the knees, but she just beams as her teammates surround her.

It is easy to dismiss the Woodsmen as a mere oddity—a welcome glimpse into a bygone era of Canadiana. For those who spent the day watching them pour themselves into their sport, however, the Woodsmen are clearly much more than that. In their mental and physical strength, the level of technical skill they bring to each event, and the commitment that they show to their team, they are athletes through and through.

(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)
(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)

As the competition draws to a close, it is clear to the McGill teams that their interrupted practice schedule has impacted their results today. Although the offset format of the Macdonald competition makes it almost impossible to properly track one’s progress throughout the day, the Woodsmen still have a sense of their performance.

“Average day,” Rogantini-Gamble predicts. “I don’t think that we’re first for too many events, but we’re definitely not last.”

Logan is slightly less optimistic.

“We had a rough day today,” she says. “A lot of things went wrong; we have a lot of pressure right now. We don’t know who wins right now—and it probably won’t be as bad as we think—but it was a rough day today.”

In the end both the men’s 1 and women’s teams finish fourth in their respective divisions—not an ideal result, but certainly not a catastrophe. All they can do now is look to their next competition, to be held at Dalhousie in Nova Scotia in only two weeks time. Colin Murphy, captain of the Men’s 1 team, is already contemplating improvements they can make.

“The biggest thing for a team is communication,” Murphy says. “On a lot of team events, you have to know how your team works.”

Before returning to life, school, and 6:00 a.m. practices, however, there is one final lumberjacking tradition to be upheld. The post-competition celebrations, to be held in the Macdonald campus’ Ceilidh bar, are just as much a part of the sport as the axes and saws. For the victors, it is a chance to celebrate; for the rest, an opportunity to put a day of frustrations behind them. As she walks off the field, Logan is ready to do the latter.

“We’re done now—time to party,” she laughs.

— With additional reporting from Mayaz Alam and Remi Lu

 

PLUS

Listen to our podcast with Jessica Logan and Meaghan Dustin to hear more about their experiences on the Woodsmen team.

 

(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)
(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)
(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)
(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)
(Remi Lu / McGill Tribune)
a, McGill, News

Delving deeper: McGill’s research partnerships with corporations

by Shrinkhala Dawadi on

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Last November, a report by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) criticized McGill’s collaboration with Bombardier Inc., a publicly traded aerospace corporation, and eight other partners. The report warned that a lack of protections for academic freedom in collaborative research agreements between universities and industries could affect universities’ integrity. This week, the McGill Tribune takes an in-depth look at McGill’s relationship with the corporation.

The CAUT is an organization that represents 68,000 university teachers, researchers, and general staff throughout Canada. According to Paul Jones, CAUT research and education officer, agreements that do not protect universities’ interests could increase the commercialization of research.

“[Industries are] putting pressure on universities to crank out more commercializable products,” he said. “It means universities turn away from curiosity and vision-driven research [….] Universities can play, or should play, the unique role in society as independent protectors or purveyors of information for the public interest.”

McGill’s involvement with Bombardier comes from their membership in the Consortium for Research and Innovation in Aerospace in Quebec (CRIAQ), which is a collaborative organization of 14 universities, nine research centres, and 52 companies. The consortium was founded in 2002 as a non-profit organization with the goal of increasing competitiveness within the aerospace industry.

“[CRIAQ aims] to develop international collaborative research projects by partnering with Canadian, U.S., European and other programs,” the CRIAQ website reads.

Other members of CRIAQ include Concordia, Université de Sherbrooke, and companies such as GE Aviation and Bell Helicopter.

As of 2012, CRIAQ had enabled 142 research projects, which received $124 million in funding. According to CAUT’s report, 25 per cent of project funding is a grant from CRIAQ, 25 per cent is from corporate participants in the project, and 50 per cent is from the Natural Sciences Engineering and Research Council of Canada (NSERC), a federal agency.

Clement Fortin, president and CEO of CRIAQ, said project collaborations with industries give students a unique opportunity to gain practical experience working in the field.

“Collaborative research of this type allows students, researchers, and professors to get experience with the real thing, so the students can find better jobs, and it can be faster for them to enter the workforce,” he said. “Collaborative research also supports a greater number of research students.”

CRIAQ has supported 700 graduate students since its conception in 2012. The projects result in approximately 250 publications per year. In 2013, 253 graduate students were involved in CRIAQ projects.

In their report, CAUT specifically critiqued the collaborative agreement for CRIAQ’s PLM-2 project, which McGill manages with Bombardier Inc. The PLM-2 project is researching ways to improve information-sharing and information management for a product throughout its life-cycle.

“The agreement compromises the university’s institutional autonomy by allowing the industrial partner to compel the university to patent university-owned intellectual property,” the CAUT report read on the collaboration.

Jones said patents can have a negative effect on academic research.

“The point [of academic tradition] is to make the world a better place by developing new knowledge and insuring that it’s disseminated as widely as possible,” Jones said. “The problem is when there is pressure, either implicit or explicit, indirect or direct, for faculties to turn their knowledge into patents.”

McGill’s Associate Director of Research Contracts and Agreements Nathan Currier stressed that, for instances where research is patented, the university can still own the intellectual property.

“It’s infrequent that [McGill] develops something which belongs to us by the nature of the agreement, and we decide not to pursue it, so we give it to the [industry],” Currier said. “We can give [industries] the option to try and acquire the intellectual property we’ve developed if we’re not interested in using it [….] In our agreements, we insist that researchers and students will always have the right to utilize intellectual property for academic and research purposes.”

The report reviewed 12 collaborations between universities and industries throughout Canada. Seven out of the 12 agreements reviewed did not include specific protections for academic freedom; 10 out of the 12 agreements did not explicitly stipulate against university participants having a financial interest in the collaboration; and none of the agreements included a framework for the creation of a publicly accessible review of the collaboration.

The principles that the report outlined for improving the quality of the collaborative agreements included protecting academic freedom and institutional autonomy regarding teaching, research, hiring practices, and the publication of information; having protections against conflicts of interest; and encouraging transparency.

Jones added that increased public funding of universities by the provinces is key to protecting academic freedoms.

“I think that universities have to be refunded, that the cutbacks have to be ended and proper funding restored,” he said. “There has to be instead a focus on basic research—the kind of fundamental research that results in long term breakthroughs.”

a, News, SSMU

Council votes against taking stance on Leacock restructuring

by Jessica Fu on

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Members of the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) legislative Council voted against taking a stance on the People, Processes & Partnerships (PPP) plan last Thursday.

Introduced in November 2012, the PPP plans to consolidate the administrative staff of departments within the Faculty of Arts into six hubs, which would consist of many departments under shared staff. The plan was developed as a response to staff reduction through the voluntary retirement program.

“There is a worrying lack of evidence presented to stakeholders to suggest the viability of this plan, whether in terms of documented cost-savings, demonstrable efficiencies, or student, staff, and faculty satisfaction with such arrangements at universities comparable to McGill,” the motion reads.

The motion faced criticism from both councillors and non-councillors. Justin Fletcher, president of the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS), argued that the PPP is an Arts-related matter, and therefore not a suitable subject for SSMU to discuss.

“This is a motion that is very specific to the Faculty of Arts, and I believe that the AUS is the most representative body to discuss such an issue,” Fletcher said. “So I do not believe that this really is SSMU’s place to take a stance [….] I ask that representatives of the SSMU legislative Council respect the AUS’s autonomy in making decisions specific to policies in our faculty.”

However, Medicine councillor David Benrimoh argued all students of the AUS are still represented by SSMU.

“Arts students are SSMU members, as well,” he said. “We have a responsibility to advocate for their interests [….] I think we do have a place to speak about it.”

Arts councillor Ben Reedijk responded that despite such arguments, many councillors of SSMU were not acquainted enough with the PPP to take a sound stance on it.

“The PPP has been drastically changed since last year,” Reedijk said. “If you had been to one of the many student consultations that have happened since, you would probably know that [….] So I think it’s really depressing that we’re going to be passing a motion on an issue, but not actually show up to the consultation for it.”

The motion failed.

Council endorses creation of Family Resources Coordinator

Council endorsed an application submitted by the Senate Subcommittee on Women that, if approved, would create a Family Resources Coordinator position funded by $88,000 over two years by the Sustainability Projects Fund (SPF).

The fund application, made up of fees from students and matched by the administration, will be reviewed by a working group in the Office of Sustainability.

The project would aim to connect student parents with resources available to them and to advocate for greater support for student families.

Sara Deslisle spoke on the development and necessity of the project.

“At the moment, there is no dedicated resource for either students, faculty, or staff dealing with family-care issues,” she said. “What we’re basically looking at for the first year of the pilot project is to look at childcare issues in particular. At the moment, there is a shortage of childcare resources on campus. For instance, the McGill Childcare Centre currently has a 740-persons waiting list for 106 subsidized spots.”

Reedijk expressed concern regarding the usage of the fund to create a project, as opposed to funding more daycare spots.

“How many actual additional daycare spots can we create in lieu of hiring a coordinator revolving around the issue of daycare spots?” Reedijk said. “Why not actually just go directly to the source and fund more daycare spots for our students?”

Deslisle emphasized the importance of evaluating the situation before allotting funding.

“At the moment, there is no assessment as to what is needed,” Deslisle said. We’re doing a needs assessment, first of all, trying to figure out who needs [things and] what’s needed.”

The motion passed.

a, News

Faculty voice concerns about administrative restructuring at AUS Town Hall

by Paniz Khosroshahy on

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Last Wednesday, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) hosted a Town Hall for faculty members to voice concerns about the plan to restructure the administrative staff within the Faculty of Arts.

Called People, Processes, and Partnerships (PPP), the plan was initiated by Dean of Arts Christopher Manfredi in Nov. 2012 in response to staff reductions and financial constraints. Since then, the plan has undergone numerous changes in response to criticism by staff, students, and faculty, the latest of which was presented at AUS Council on Nov. 13, 2013.

According to AUS Vice-President Academic Jacob Greenspon, other meetings about the PPP have mainly addressed its impact on Arts students.

“It seems like there is [already] some discussion on that, but this [Town Hall] was more about how [the PPP] is going to affect the staff and not the students,” he said.

Currently, each department in the Faculty of Arts has its own specialized administrative staff. At some times in the year, several of these administrative units are served by as few as two people. The PPP will bring all the staff together to create six support units that will each cater to several of the faculty’s 16 departments.

“The idea since September has been to think whether we can consolidate [our administrative staff] into a set of larger groupings that would mitigate some of the risks of having academic units only served by only one or two or three administrative or support staff,” Manfredi said. “As well, it would allow us to equalize the workload.”

However, some faculty members were critical of the outcomes of the PPP. Philosophy Professor Alison Laywine expressed concern about the potential loss of administrative expertise.

“We have people who have specialized knowledge about the culture and life and administration of our departments,” Laywine said. “I’m guessing that this specialized knowledge is going to get lost and lead to a situation of chaos.”

Manfredi said he would provide training for staff to prevent this problem.

“I actually think [our staff] are quite capable of transmitting to each other their specialized knowledge of their departments,” he said.

The implementation of the PPP will create a single administrative hub for the departments of art history and communication studies, French language and literature, English, and the French Language Center. The PPP will also group the departments of political science, economics, and philosophy together on the fourth floor of Leacock Building. The Anthropology, Sociology, History, Classical Studies, and Jewish Studies departments will be located on the seventh floor. This new structure frees rooms for use as student space.

These groupings were determined on the basis of the number of faculty members in each department, the number of students in each department, and the number of students in classes offered by each department.

Manfredi added that there will be an academic benefit to this restructuring, noting that interdisciplinary programs similar to the philosophy, politics, and economics grouping are already offered in many universities.

“Now that these three departments are going to be sharing administrative services, [they] are going to have to know enough about the other programs that perhaps allow [them] to develop some relationship between [department staff] to allow for some interesting intellectual collaboration,” Manfredi said. “When people work together, they’ll find interesting ways of taking advantage of that.”

Professor Darin Barney from the department of art history and communication studies said he doubted the effects of relocating administrative staff.

“[This restructuring] can seriously alter the experience of students and faculty and staff members that have been built up around the integrity of departmental culture and autonomy,” he said. “I find it a concern that such a move is being undertaken without reference to models where similar types of clustering have been successful, that we would then contemplate stepping into this unknown territory.”

The PPP relocation process is scheduled to be complete by Summer 2014.

“It’s also a good idea for us to go back once [the PPP] has been going for a term and ask the students what their experience has been and how they’ve been impacted,” Manfredi said.

a, Arts & Entertainment, Music

Against Me!—Transgender Dysphoria Blues

by Morgan Alexander on

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The Florida-based punk rock band Against Me! formed in 1997 and firmly established itself in the punk world with the release of five albums between 2002 and 2012. In 2012, lead singer of the band, Laura Jane Grace—formerly Tom Gabel—announced that she was a transgender woman. Following this admission, the band began work on their sixth album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, a concept album following the life of a transgender prostitute.

Transgender Dysphoria Blues has already set itself up to be one of this year’s most iconic albums in the punk rock scene. Intensely personal, heartfelt, and relentlessly unapologetic, this album incorporates classic punk concepts with a new type of awareness not typically associated with a genre that has been largely limited to white, heterosexual males.

The album is musically and lyrically well rounded; from the anti-authoritarian “Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ,” to the longing lone-song “Two Coffins,” to the metaphor-filled upbeat anthem “Paralytic States.”

While Grace’s personal anguish fuels the lyrical fire of this album, the compilaion is made even more stirring by the fact that—having just begun her transition—Grace still has a very deep voice, the same one that’s defined her career from the beginning. The impact is particularly felt in the title track when Grace belts out “You want them to see you/ like they see any other girl/ they just see a faggot.”

Laden in punk beats, lyrically heavy, and overwhelmingly inspiring, Transgender Dysphoria Blues is an incredible album with an even more incredible message.

 

a, Student Life

Gone fishing

by Marlee Vinegar on

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What I expected to be a boring afternoon, freezing in a claustrophobic hut, turned out to be an anomalous but pleasant way to spend four hours on a Sunday.

The possibility of going ice fishing first came to my attention when I stumbled upon the organization Pêche Blanche, located in the Old Port. The notion of doing an activity I associated with a bunch of plaid-clad men and pristine lakes surrounded by snow-covered white pines, in the midst of bustling downtown Montreal caught me off guard. When a friend proposed the idea, there was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity.

The fishing village is located off the docks of the Montreal Yacht Club. The setup was comfortable and convenient; the basic wood structure could easily seat about eight people and was equipped with two space heaters to keep us warm all afternoon. Openings cut into the floor exposed the holes in the ice below. The rods were placed so that we only had to check them occasionally.

An employee instructed us on how to fish—from attaching bait to reeling in—only to be interrupted by the jerking of one of the rods. We were giddy and eager to reel in the fish, but were more shocked that there were fish actually biting at our rods. Up until that moment, we had doubts that it would be possible to catch anything so close to home. The fish didn’t hook, but we were stricken with high hopes of an action-packed afternoon.

Within five minutes of settling in, we were questioning why we hadn’t brought a deck of cards, or at least downloaded the app Heads Up on one of our iPhones. We passed the time naming the minnows in our bait bucket, snacking, and talking about television. We waited impatiently like children on Christmas morning. Over the course of the afternoon, there was only a handful of nibbles; each time we immediately fell silent until the fish inevitably swam away.

Finally, after three and and half hours, a fish finally caught on the hook. As we reeled in, the fish became visible in the hole; its bulging eyes and gaping mouth emerged from the water. In a true reflection of our generation’s attachment to social media, five of us whipped out our phones and huddled around the hole snapping photos of the floundering fish below. We may have been more excited to capture the perfect Kodak moment than to have caught the fish.

The line snagged and we couldn’t pull the fish any further. In a panic we reached for whatever long pole was available in the hut and tried to release whatever was caught. Like a fish out of water we were hopeless and required expert assistance; a deft employee unhooked the fish within the hole and then freed the hook from the ice.

His enthusiasm for our fish—a Sauger, the largest catch of the day—and for amateur photography matched our own; we were taken outside for a photo shoot with our fish, which was promptly uploaded to Pêche Blanche’s Facebook page.

Despite concerns about the contaminants in the fish from the shores of a polluted urban metropolis, the most surreal part of the experience was finally eating our catch. With live fish in hand, we hopped in a cab back home and used YouTube to guide the gutting process. As far as local food goes, this was about as local as it could get; it’s rare to know where your food comes from, nevermind being the one to actually catch it.

With the whole afternoon costing around $40 each for fishing licenses and rental fees, it was the freshest and most expensive fish I’ve ever eaten. The once-in-a-lifetime, oddly commercialized, back-to-nature experience was nonetheless priceless.

a, Science & Technology

Science from science fiction: invisibility cloaks

by Alexander Messina on

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Whether it’s used as a plot device or simply as a cool effect to amuse spectators, invisibility is and has been part of science fiction for almost as long as the genre has existed. One early example is H.G.Wells’ The Invisible Man—a novella about a former medical student who invents a serum to render himself invisible. Today, scientists all around the world have been developing different experimental techniques in attempt to make objects invisible.

H.G. Wells’ idea of achieving invisibility was to change the body’s refractive index to that of air so that you would become invisible to the naked eye. The refractive index is the property of a substance that determines how light is bent when entering a material. While this index can be modified for a substance given the right conditions, altering the index of the human body directly is a much bigger project involving more challenges.

Most research in this area focuses on different materials that bend light away in a manner that could then be used to cover a body, similar to the invisibility cloak from Harry Potter. These materials range from carbon nanotubes, which simulate mirages, to optical camouflage, which—in simple terms—consists of projecting what’s behind you to create the impression that nothing is there.

The mirage effect is the same that causes shimmering on roads on hot sunny days. The temperature difference in between the asphalt and air causes the light to bend, or refract, away from the road. Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas NanoTech Institute took advantage of this phenomenon through the use of carbon nanotube rig in 2011.

Carbon nanotubes are, as their name suggests, sheets of carbon wrapped up into cylindrical tubes. They are extremely strong and have many other interesting qualities, one of which is an extraordinary capacity to conduct heat. This makes them excellent producers of mirages. To achieve this, sheets of the tubes were submerged in a petri dish of water and electrically heated. This method has its limitations, as a large-scale model is difficult to reproduce and the great discharge of heat would make for a poor invisibility cloak.

The optical camouflage is a simple enough idea that is relatively hard to produce. It involves using technology to create a garment that will adapt to  the wearer’s surroundings, turning him or her invisible. Yet, in 2012, Susumu Tachi, the principal investigator of the research team at the University of Tokyo’s Tachi Lab, managed to do just that. Essentially, a computer scans background imagery and projects the picture onto a cloak made of very reflective material, similar to what’s used for stop signs.

The most recent attempt at invisibility is an interesting approach pioneered by professor George Eleftheriades and PhD candidate Michael Selvanayagam from the University of Toronto. Their idea is to surround an object with antennas that would cancel outgoing radiation from an object, rendering it invisible to whichever light spectrum is being targeted.

Light is not simply constrained to what we can see—it has a wide variety of spectrums including microwaves, radio, infrared, and ultraviolet. Our visible spectrum is a minute fraction to the possible wavelengths of light. When light strikes an object, it reflects back and our eyes capture that outgoing wave. It is these types of light spectrums that the antennas would target.

The antennas covering an object can emit their own electromagnetic fields—another word for light. Therefore, when these antennas are attached to an object, the fields emitted cancel out the light that is usually reflected from the object. As a result, there is no light bouncing off of the object for our eyes to perceive—rendering it invisible.

The theory is that this method could cloak an object from the visible spectrum; however, doing this would require antennas tens of hundreds of nanometres in size. Eleftheriades’ and Selvanayagam’s method only works for microwave and radiowave detectors so far.

Although actual cloaking has yet to be perfected, this new development shows great potential for additional research on the topic. Further efforts may, in the future, result in the development of an active invisibility cloak.

a, McGill, News

Food for thought: exploring the limitations of your meal plan

by Natalie Wong on

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Many McGill students are all too familiar with having their meal plan cards turned down at certain vendors on campus.

While accepting meal plans may seem like an obvious choice to the student, the system behind the service is much more complicated. This week, the McGill Tribune takes a look at the meal plan program and the factors that determine where you can use it on campus.

The meal plan program is managed by McGill Food and Dining Services (MFDS)—a subunit of Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS). Students can use the meal plan to purchase food at both in-residence dining halls, as well as various other food vendors on campus, including Subway, Sinfully Asian, and Presse Café on the downtown campus, as well as Faberge Café and Vihn’s Café on Macdonald campus.

The main food service provider for McGill is Aramark, which manages numerous food service locations on campus on the behalf of MFDS, including two residential dining halls—Carrefour Sherbrooke and New Residence Hall, McConnell Engineering Caf, and Redpath Caf.

Monique Lauzon, MFDS marketing and nutritional advisor, said different providers enter into different contractual agreements with the meal plan program.

“Aramark was selected as McGill’s main food service provider following a public bid process four years ago […] against major companies like Compass and Sodexo,” Lauzon said.

The process is different for third-party vendors, such as Subway, Second Cup, and Sinfully Asian.

“[The companies] approach us and we look at how we could incorporate them into the meal plan, so that is more on a one-to-one basis,” Lauzon said. “[Then] a contractual agreement is negotiated [….] Costs are based on different criteria—[such as] your location and what you’re offering.”

Although vendors accepting the meal plan can be found around campus, some students express frustration with the lack of such vendors in the SSMU Building.

“I’ve worked in SSMU before as an executive and it’s one of the top comments that vendors get,” Josh Redel, manager of the Student-Run Café Le Nest in SSMU, said. “It’s the number one thing people ask for.”

Jonathan Taylor, a Liquid Nutrition franchisee and a tenant of the SSMU Building, said accepting meal plan at his business is “not feasible” because it is too expensive.

“The meal plan costs $10,000 to have a new point-of-sales device, so we had to run two separate inventories, two separate cash systems, two separate everything for the people who don’t use meal plans,” he said. “McGill also holds your funds for a month before giving back to you and as a small business, they can’t withhold a month worth of my sales.”

SHHS Senior Director Mathieu Laperle said that, since MFDS is a self-funded unit, the university does not subsidize its costs, which makes the meal plan costly to implement.

“We do have to generate a revenue to pay all the different costs,” he said.

According to Lauzon, these costs arise from a variety of factors.

“We pay our employees, facility fees, rent, we have to be able to self-finance our operations,” Lauzon said. “If we didn’t charge vendors to accept the meal plan, we would have to assume the costs of operating [at] the location, which includes IT support and administrative support that we provide to run the [meal plan].”

Laperle said the choice to join the meal plan is ultimately the decision of the tenants.

“Being a part of the meal plan is not mandatory, but of course, we believe it’s a potential of revenue—there are over 8,000 students on the meal plan,” Laperle said. “Should a vendor approach us and express interest in joining the meal plan, we certainly welcome that. However, it is a contractual agreement and has to work for both parties.”

a, Martlets, Sports

Hockey: Martlets stand up to aggressive Gee-Gees

by Zikomo Smith on

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With nine minutes left in the second period, McGill forward Pamela Psihogios lost her balance with the puck at hand. Undeterred, she passed to an open teammate and then sprung to her feet to support her fellow Martlets as the aggressive Ottawa Gee-Gees initiated a small scuffle. Despite the combative nature of their opponents, the Martlets managed to win against Ottawa 2-0 on Friday evening, maintaining their composure in the face of the Gee-Gees’ aggressive play.

“At Ottawa it’s always a tough game; they play a very physical kind of game,” Head Coach Peter Smith said. “I wouldn’t say that we are the most physical team but they play a physical game, and I thought we did a really good job.”

Shortly after the scuffle, senior forward Katia Clement-Heydra converted Chelsea Saunder’s assist to finally break the deadlock. The Martlets were clearly the dominant team thanks to a disciplined defence and an excellent shutout performance from netminder Andrea Weckman. Third-year chemical engineering major Stefanie Pohlod topped off the Martlets’ play in the third period with McGill’s second goal of the night.

The Martlets’ ability to dictate the pace and generate pressure against a physically larger opponent is a true testament to their adaptability and excellence over the course of the season. The lopsided shot count of 35-22 was further indicative of their control of the rink. Smith voiced his pleasure with his team’s execution over the course of the season and the game.

“I think that we’ve done a good job,” Smith said. “We spend a lot of time doing what we do, practicing hard and a big part of what we do is focusing on our game and not worrying about our opponent.”

Clement-Heydra, who had three of her shots hit the post, echoed this sentiment.

“We did well; we had a good shooting mentality; we were opportunistic,” she said. “You know, sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn’t, and today it didn’t want to go in as much as we wanted it to, but we managed to get the win.”

This victory showed the confidence the Martlets had in their game plans and their ability to execute.

“I think our fitness is a high point of our team,” Clement-Heydra explained. “Our practices are high tempo, and we work a lot on cardio so we are able to have a good forecheck and then back check.”

There are now six games remaining before the playoffs and the Martlets are both physically and mentally prepared for the challenges ahead. They have enjoyed their position at the top of the RSEQ standings, and will be looking to take this momentum into the post-season.

“We are confident, but after last year and losing in the finals, we are really hungry and looking for redemption,” Clement-Heydra said. “[We] are looking to go all the way, but we don’t want to be too confident.”

The Martlets will face off against Ottawa once more this Sunday, Feb. 2 at McConnell Arena at 3:00 p.m., where they will play the Gee-Gees for the fifth time this season.

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