Fleeting Form Studio is a workshop series formed by McGill students Ava Williams, Saskia Morgan, and Hannah Marder-MacPherson. The founders first met each other in FSCI 198 – a class on the climate crisis and climate action – where they formulated the idea for this project. The goal of the workshop series is to provoke discussions about changing the way McGill students think of climate activism, and to nurture the community around the visual arts at McGill. I went to the first workshop hoping to learn more about textiles from the featured artist, Tina Marais, and came out with so much more. One week later, I met with the founders of Fleeting Form Studio to talk more about their process and the series as a whole.

This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.

Evelyn Logan for The McGill Daily (MD): When did you begin to draw parallels between climate action and art? Was that always a part of your project or did it come later?

Saskia Morgan (SM): We came up with this project – which was absolutely guided by our professors and TAs – where we would invite artists who were all already working at this interesting nexus between climate action and art. [These artists] could come and speak about what they’re doing and how their art is transformative – and how it should be seen as more than just beautiful. We also made this to address both the lack of fine arts at McGill, and the lack of emotive ways of learning about the climate crisis.

Ava Williams (AW): I’ve always heard of climate change deemed as a wicked problem. The solution is hard to find because it’s a convergence of larger issues that have been created over a long time. Some include colonialism and extractivism and [other] really deep-seated, systemic problems. And if you’re just learning [about this problem] intellectually and technically, it’s solely information and facts. Which is harder to internalize and make sense of the scale of the problem. How can we make sense of it in a way that makes sense to us as people? Art. Art is a very human thing. And so I think for me, it’s a lot about making sense of it.

Hannah Marder-MacPherson (HMM): With all of us being environment students, we’re learning about climate action from a particular lens. Something that dominates our focus is that we learn a lot about our own destruction, and it’s very negative. Then, the corresponding response to that is often limitation, which is not tangible and is also still very negative and directionless. We find there’s never any action [in response to the climate crisis] that’s centered around creation. So that’s where the art comes in, because it’s very much about creation, and it’s very positive, inspiring, and unifying.

MD: Why did you choose Tina Marais as the first artist in your series? What stood out to you about her work?

SM: Just by going down a rabbit hole I stumbled upon Tina, and I found the piece that she explored the most in this workshop: The Entangled Materiality of Water. I was absolutely struck by this work because it was not just about climate change, which so often is too broad [of a topic] to really get a sense of, but instead, specifically about water and how much water is within the fabrics that make our second skin. It also [raises the questions] how many hands touch the clothes that are on us now? How do we take for granted something that we paid $15 for?

AW: [Mirais] said one thing in an interview that I wanted to repeat: everything is made of the same molecules, but in different arrangements. How it just so happens that we as humans have a lot of power over the other arrangements. And she talks a lot about non-human and human interactions, which is going to be a huge thing in the series.

MD: Can you speak a little bit about the lack of fine arts programming at McGill? How has it affected you? How do you feel like your workshop is…

[The group breaks out into laughter]

SM: You’re preaching to the choir.

HHM: I was just going to say, I feel like the arts in general draw upon a different type of knowledge and a different type of thinking. Now, I don’t think this is unique to just McGill, but I feel like a lot of institutions that are more prestigious tend to fall into that pit of promoting science and engineering. There isn’t a recognition that these other types of thinking and creating are just as valuable and are actually very compatible with more scientific pursuits, and they shouldn’t be separated. A large part of our project is working towards interdisciplinary thinking.

SM: Another thing that we’re trying to do with this workshop is not only bring something that a lot of people here may just be missing but also to make art more accessible. We’re so lucky that the Sustainable Projects Fund has helped us basically provide free materials for every participant. We’re limited to the amount of people who can come, but the act of being able to touch materials that you may not be able to otherwise is so important.

The next Fleeting Form Studio workshop will be centered around photography and will take place on October 4. To stay up to date with the workshop series, follow the project on Instagram at @fleeting_form_studio.

The post On Fleeting Form Studio’s First Workshop appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Prior to the interview, I held the belief that McGill didn’t care so much for the visual arts. While there was room for this critique, I left it outside the door when I walked into Gwendolyn’s office for the interview. My first interaction with her was one day prior when she gave a talk in my class which introduced the Visual Arts Collection and the opportunities that they had for undergraduate students. I was enamored with her passion and sought to know more about the collection. Before her talk, I never knew that McGill had a Visual Arts Collection; nor that it was so expansive, including more than 3,500 works of art. Something that happens to most students in their first year also happened to me. I was so inundated with information about McGill when first arriving that once I was able to fall into a routine here, I never took the time to do any more searching about opportunities or organizations that this institution might have. So I was completely unaware of most things occurring at McGill that pertained to the fine arts.  

This idea, that McGill didn’t promote the visual arts, is the very first thing that Gwendolyn and I discussed. 

Interview has been edited for clarity.

GO: One of the interesting things is there are a lot of arts activities going on, but how you figure out about them is one of the challenges. There’s an art show right now at the Redpath Museum. But how would you know? Also, during the pandemic, we started something called De-Stress and Sketch. So every week, we put out on our Instagram (@mcgill_vac) something from the collection and tell people to sketch it. We found that they were enjoying it a lot, and then they started sending us their pictures. So the next week, we would post their pictures and send them a different work to sketch. We ended up with a thousand followers on Instagram. So all this to say there’s stuff happening, but we’re not great as a community about letting everybody know about things.

Evelyn Logan for The McGill Daily (MD): Well, that was what I had hoped, because last year was my first year here and coming into McGill, I had so much being thrown at me, but I wasn’t receiving the information about the arts. It led me to believe that maybe there wasn’t that much programming, or that there wasn’t a community of students, or that the school wasn’t trying to cultivate that at McGill. I think it’s much better now knowing that it’s out there, but people just don’t know. 

GO: Do you know that an artist is doing a performance all day outside tomorrow?

MD: No, I haven’t heard.

GO: See? So this year’s Indigenous Artist in Residence [Soleil Launière] is doing a performance on the East field [September 12]. 

Last fall, for three convocations in a row, the person getting an honorary degree was an artist, a visual artist. François Solven got it for [Winter] 2023, and then in the fall, someone named Robert Fuhl, who’s an amazing Indigenous artist, got it. Last spring, Edward Bertinski, who’s a photographer, got it. So that’s a thing that’s happening. I can take some credit for François Solven. The other two, I have nothing to do with.

Those kinds of things are all happening, almost under the radar. From my perspective, we need to figure out a way that people can know about these things. 

MD: Circling back to the McGill community, I read on the website that you’ve been here for 10 years. Can you talk about your experience, what it was like when you first joined, and what it’s like now?

GO: What’s interesting with this collection is that it was run by a committee before it was run by me and my professional team, and they were doing their best, but they were a committee. I’ve done research about university collections, and they get organized and become official collections when there is a crisis or an opportunity. So we’re not unique. We can’t wag our finger at McGill. This is the progress that happens with a university collection, as opposed to an art museum, which is often started by artists, and then becomes a place where people donate their art. The business of McGill is education, first and foremost. So the emphasis is rightly on that.

MD: Yeah, that’s very interesting. I feel like when I’m considering the history of McGill, and I don’t even necessarily think of the arts. I’m thinking more about the sciences and math.

GO: I think that’s fair in that the art collection was a sideline. The fun thing I found out was, in 1948, they decided that they were going to have a Bachelor of Fine Arts program. And it went on for a couple of years. Their target audience were veterans coming back from World War II. That’s not who they got as students. They got women. 

Then, there was a change of dean. I think we didn’t really understand what a fine arts program was about, so it ended up morphing into the Art History Department, which used to teach more studio art, but now doesn’t. Also to say, what happened here is not unique either. I’ve seen it in other places. 

MD: I was never considering visual arts programming at McGill. What’s the balance between the studio class and the rest of my curriculum? And I was critiquing the fact that McGill doesn’t have studio classes more widely available, but not necessarily thinking of who the class’s audience could be.

GO: Exactly. What’s the role of a studio class if you are not going to be an artist? I mean, that’s one of those questions. The structure for what you need [compared to] the role [for] artists is a little different, which was part of what happened in the ’50s. When the dean changed, the next dean didn’t know how to find artists to teach. It’s one of these things where I kept looking for a really bad guy in the story of what happened to this program, and I couldn’t really find it. It was just that people didn’t really understand.

MD: I feel like that’s a very common theme when it comes to art and how it is considered by larger society. 

GO: Yeah. I do pottery now at the Visual Arts Center in Westmount, just for fun. There are students in some of the classes who do things there because it’s an art school. I’ve been talking to people and finding out that actually they’re studying something at McGill, and this is what they’re doing with their spare time. I didn’t notice that they’re McGill students, and they did four classes in a row.

*** 

MD: Which accomplishment are you most proud of?

GO: My staff get tired of hearing me say this, I’ve looked at this as the glass that’s half full, and we’re filling it. So, okay, 20 years ago, they were having trouble keeping track of things, and the list we had wasn’t up to date. Our list is up to date now. Awesome. We’re filling that glass. We’re keeping track of things. We’re doing programming. And I’m really proud of the internship program.

At this point, Gwendolyn’s second in command, Michelle Macleod, the Assistant Curator of the Visual Arts Collection, entered her office and showed me a “Gwendolyn original,” a small piece of pottery beautifully glazed in the abstract style. 

MD: What do you see for the future of the visual arts collection?

GO: The library is going to be renovated. There’s going to be Fiat Lux, and I want to make sure that we have great opportunities to show the collection. There’s lots of talking that I’m doing to people about what we need to do to make that happen. In an art museum, everything is in climate-controlled space and all of that. We show art in all kinds of spaces [at McGill]. It’s a risk, but it’s a risk that I think we want to take.

One of the things that we’ve worked very hard to do is make this collection reflective of our community. Basically, it began as Canadian portraits, Canadian landscapes. And now it’s got lots of different works. That’s Maori, [Owens points to the work on her wall], it’s about to be in an exhibition in the [McLennan] lobby here. So come back next week in the lobby, and you will see an exhibition that Michelle [Macleod] has curated.

[The goal] is to get all the art out of storage. 

Follow the Visual Arts Collection on Instagram at @mcgill_vac.

The post Under the Radar appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Marked by Mandeville’s characteristic frankness, “Basic HTML Competency Is the New Punk Folk Explosion!” discusses the nostalgic internet of his hazy childhood memories. He makes a point to differentiate the internet from social media, terms which have become nearly synonymous, and tries to steer the reader in a new direction. He characterizes the internet as a counterbalance for social media: where social media has turned into a breeding ground for social comparison, algorithms, and rumination, he finds that building your own website can allow for more creativity and self-expression without the watchful eyes on big platforms. In this sense, HTML websites function like zines, a medium which has long been popular due to its simplicity and accessibility to artists, writers, and activists alike, and which also gives creatives an avenue to put their work directly into the world without having to brave the publishing industry.

After reading the article, I had a conversation with Zach about all things social media and the internet.

Interview edited for clarity and content.

Evelyn Logan for the McGill Daily: So I read “Basic HTML Competency Is the New Punk Folk Explosion!” and I realized it was posted in 2016. Is this a project that you started working on back then, or if not, where did the project begin for you?

ZM: Yeah, it started in 2016. I was doing comedy in New York and then working for this startup company, and I was on this trip with a friend and he was bringing up brutalist websites and how he had been getting into them. I was trying to move through this web-flow site so I could have an artist page while going through the beginning of a pretty heavy creative burnout.

So I was feeling fed up with the way that tech was influencing my artistic creation, especially anything that you’re going to try to put out, you’re supposed to put them out in certain formats at a certain rate to develop your brand. And I was trying to go hard into that and then just feeling awful all the time. So I made an extremely simple website as an experiment and loved it to such a heavy degree and it just grew from there. So there’s been so many different stages of that site and it’s gotten far more obsessive or mystical or something. There are times when I get embarrassed by the site and then it just keeps returning good stuff to me, and I get “big picture” thinking.

It is essentially a home, a little digital home on the web. And when it’s entirely your own words, even if the words are just HTML, but it’s entirely language, you know what I mean? It is just your text. Nothing is stopping it from existing forever, which is also a crazy way to think about making stuff where there is no timeline… And so realizing that it’s going to be a site that my grandkids will know me from, you know what I mean? The 80-year-old website — there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be. And with that sort of thing in mind, it just becomes far more of a comforting, familiar thing instead of a work to produce.

MD: Going back to your article, you mentioned how HTML and those websites are going to supersede paper and other kinds of physical media. For me, as a print artist and someone who writes for a newspaper, is super threatening. How deep does that belief go for you?

ZM: I love both. I really love physical things. I get really excited about the magical side, I guess, of the digital stuff, but it’s really easy to get burnt out. I feel like seeing tech as the answer is never actually the case. It’s an illusion. And yeah, there’s something really enrapturing about it that you want it to be the answer to everything. And that’s not true. I guess [the] differences [between] 2016 and now, I was probably more gung ho than I am now. A lot of the site you see is made to exist simultaneously as paper zines. And so I have paper zine versions of a lot of those pages or whatever, and I’m trying to figure out the balance of that.

I think we’re at a really interesting spot in which there’s a notion of oral culture and then there’s some form of writing that gets introduced and your brain shifts over, and you’re now just in a written mode or there’s the distinction of culture in oral traditions versus a written tradition. However, with the digital, we’re in some sort of thing that is media instead of oral or written. And our newer tradition seems to be closer to oral culture to me, which is bizarre. It is all written, but it’s not meant to be archived. It’s coming as a stream all the time and even within the stream, so much of it is how well you can remember or be able to access and recall a thing, but that thing might be a video or a picture or some mix of that. And often the written thing that you’re sharing isn’t even what it represents. It doesn’t make sense out of context.

And that’s true of all things. For example, a book kind of exists as its own object. But if you were to share a meme completely out of context, it wouldn’t make sense. You need to have the context; including the before and after and the thread it came out of and the replies to it, all of that is necessary. And you sort of see that people repeat the same things because you think it’s going to be lost, and so you try to bring it back into the focus or whatever. So there is this bizarre making peace with things being lost, along with this idea that you need to preserve them through repetition of patterns. But then simultaneously, we’re still in a world in which we could archive everything… And so they see people who are desperately trying to do that by saying, I’m going to record every book I’ve ever written or every book I’ve ever read (think of platforms like Goodreads or Letterboxd), and that wasn’t as big of a deal to people in the previous generations… There’s this notion of having to record every possible thing, but we’re so inundated that it’s impossible to actually do that. And so you’re constantly tense about that, if that makes sense.

MD: It almost feels feverish the way that some people want to hang on to not just things that they’ve seen or done, but also a sense of identity. The idea of: this is who I am, this is who I want to be, this is how I want to be perceived, which doesn’t allow for any fluidity or elasticity in their idea of self. When looking at your project, I felt like there is room for evolution. Websites built with HTML can be changed and edited, but on social media where there’s such a big audience and you feel like you’re being perceived by everybody, it’s almost this Panopticon prison kind of illusion where it can cause users to feel like they have to be the image of the person that they’ve created and they can’t deviate from that constructed digital self for fear of harsh judgement.

ZM: Absolutely. Yeah. And then you’re also managing multiple “masks” and accounts — there’s a weird political aspect where it’s just a given that you’re going to have four to five accounts for these different “roles”. For example, a separate account in which you want to “ironically” follow things that if people thought you were following seriously would ruin the image you’ve created of your real identity. So you have your alternate account, and a personal account, and a business account. I’ve seen my nephews and niece do that… Teenagers are already juggling multiple identities. And definitely I think if you were to look back three generations ago, that would not be the case. You are allowed to have your ages. I’ve entered this age, I’ve entered this age, I’ve entered this era. And it’s harder to do that now.

MD: Going back to the idea of youth and what things were like before, what was it like for you growing up when you were a teen? How did you interact and behave with others on the internet?

ZM: So I am 38 now, and the internet did not exist when I was a kid-kid. Until there was a certain moment where it got added to the house or whatever. When I was a teen, I was in the strong “Web 2.0 era” where every band had its own website and each website had its own forum. I remember I was really excited by the web zines and especially this one British music web zine in which I was able to discover British artists that my friends hadn’t heard about. And so you’re learning music recommendations and film recommendations and language built around this interest, but at the same time the structure of the site is influencing the conversation topics in the rooms that you could go to… Unfortunately, now it’s all kind of the same. You have one feed, you follow different people’s accounts, but the structure of the accounts isn’t different.

And then I remember probably the most teenage thing being that we all had Live Journals or Diary Land, and so we were all keeping our own blogs that were read by 13 people because it was your friend group that also doubled as a diary circle and then you would navigate through all of them… And I think one other big aspect of [those platforms] is that everything had an HTML editor in this era…There was self-expression and just full focus on the self.

MD: Exactly. I think that idea of community draws a stark contrast with what we’re seeing on social media. There isn’t that much of an emphasis on social connection, instead it seems like most platforms are geared towards generating monetary growth. How do you feel about that?

ZM: Real bad? I think it’s just extremely weird in a way that we will understand in another generation. I think it’s hurting us in ways that are obvious to us and in ways that won’t be obvious to us. In the same sort of way where we can now objectively look back at the baby boomers and say, because you had this experience, this is why you act that way. That’s probably going to happen with our generation like, oh, yeah, this is what this did to us.

MD: What has working on this project taught you?

ZM: HTML. [laughs] Yeah, to be honest, I started out just making the little webpage and then that got me super into the structure of the text and CSS. And then I met a friend who taught me how to access a server and push my stuff up. And now 10 years later, I still work with her through these weird roundabout things. So the site, that little bit of HTML, taught me how to manage a server, how to manage domain names, how to do CSS, and all that sort of stuff which led to incredible things. I live in New Zealand now, and it introduced me to friends in New Zealand and helped me get to New Zealand.

[The website] is like this charmed object that is also still my home. It’s a room I visit. It’s not a blog in which I’m producing stuff. It’s a space I inhabit for a while that will develop furniture that I am fond of, and every now and then move around or whatever, but that continually brings new knowledge and opportunities.

The post Are Basic HTML Websites the New Zine? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Recently, I saw a TikTok from Christian Divyne (@xiandivyne) discussing his experience with the death of the “Black nerd” trope on television. When he was younger, his bullies constantly called him Urkel because he wore big wire-trimmed glasses and liked video games more than sports. A bonafide derogatory name, Urkel refers to Jaleel White’s character on the sitcom Family Matters Steve Urkel, a nerdy kid always dressed in his trademark suspenders, who always seemed to be making himself look like a fool. Divyne said that he hated this nickname growing up, and has been forced to confront it once again after receiving recent comments on his posts calling him “whitewashed” and the “whitest Black man.” He explains how people perceive his alternative, nerdy Blackness as whiteness, and that this perception stems from the fact that outside of Steve Urkel in the 90s, there is a lack of representation of the “Black nerd” trope in the media.

While this kind of representation hasn’t died out completely, it has decreased to the point where most Black people portrayed in TV shows and movies are rarely characterized beyond stereotypes. This change in perception has caused a multitude of problems that are not only limited to the Black community. When people outside of the Black community only see Black people in roles like the sassy best friend, angry Black woman, or the “on the come up” genre, their ideas of how Black people are in real life will reflect those harmful stereotypes.

Coinciding with the death of the sitcom, the multiplicity of ways Black people are portrayed in TV and film has decreased rapidly. During the 90s, there were so many sitcoms like The Bernie Mac Show, Girlfriends, Family Matters, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Martin, where Black people were shown in so many different ways. Within these shows, Black characters could be suburban, rich, poor, spoiled, nerdy, sporty, or any combination of nuances you would find in the real world. Unfortunately, as these sitcoms disappeared, so did the nuanced representation of their Black characters.

Fortunately, some Black creatives within Hollywood have since taken matters into their own hands, establishing production studios with the intention of reimagining the Black sitcom and telling stories that feature fully-realized Black characters.

Some famous producers like Kenya Barris have tried to reimagine the Black sitcom genre with shows like Blackish, which despite its headline-dominating controversies, didn’t have the same lasting cultural impact as the Black sitcoms of the 90s. While it was on air, Blackish tackled many divisive issues like colourism and police brutality in America. In part, these episodes served as education for its wider audience, as Kenya Barris sought to bring the Black sitcom into the homes of Black people and beyond. This intention was slightly different from the approach of Black sitcoms in the 90s, which were almost exclusively aimed towards a Black audience.

Nowadays, the future of Black representation in television is constantly being reimagined. Producers like Shonda Rhimes, Issa Rae, and Marsai Martin, are changing the game. Shonda Rhimes, specifically, has tackled the issue of diversity in TV in a distinct fashion. In all of her shows, Rhimes includes people of all different races, because she wants her shows to reflect how she sees the world in real life. To her, having a diverse cast isn’t a chore, it’s a given. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rhimes elaborated a little more on her process of picking actors for her hit show Grey’s Anatomy: “We read every color actor for every single part. My goal was simply to cast the best actors. I was lucky because the network said, “Go for it.” If they had hesitated, I don’t know if I would have wanted to do the show.” Some of her most popular shows like How To Get Away With Murder and Scandal feature Black women in positions of power surrounded by a supporting cast of actors of all races. In an unprecedented deal earning her millions, Rhimes recently decided to move all the series produced by her company, Shondaland, to Netflix.

Black representation in television and media has been a long, hard battle for many Black creatives in Hollywood. This battle isn’t just about getting a Black actor in a role – which it has been made out to be for a long time. It’s important that in addition to getting roles, Black actors are playing characters that are reflective of real, dynamic people, rather than just being the butt of others’ jokes. When I was 10 years old, the Disney Channel came out with their hit show, K.C. Undercover. Zendaya played the starring role, portraying a character from a family of spies who fought evil in the world. Her character had a nerdy younger brother named Ernie, played by Kamil McFadden, who wore wire rimmed glasses and was a bonafide snitch. Her father was played by Kadeem Hardison, who had a major role in the Black sitcom, A Different World. In a further homage to the classic Black sitcoms of the 90s, Tammy Townsend, who featured in Family Matters, was cast as Zendaya’s mother. My family and I used to look forward to every Friday night when K.C. Undercover aired. In a way, that show was our sitcom.

Urkel might’ve died in the 90s, but his legacy survives in the reprisal of the “Black nerd” trope found in Ernie. I find myself wondering, who’s going to be next?

***

I’ve compiled a list below of some of my favourite shows and movies that showcase Black people in all different walks of life and in ways that shatter stereotypes. Happy Black History Month!

If you’re in the mood for some tunes and heartbreak: High Fidelity on Hulu.

If you want to relive the magic of teen novels: Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney Plus .

For all sci-fi lovers: The Foundation on Apple TV.

Something about life: Insecure on Netflix.

If you want something light and relatable: The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max.

If you want a creepy, head-spinning mystery: They Cloned Tyrone on Netflix.

Something for the girls and gays: Bottoms on Prime Video.

If you’re feeling hungry: Bones and All on Prime Video

For those who want to see Michael B. Jordan: Raising Dion on Netflix.

The post The Death of Urkel appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I first learned about CKUT in the summer leading up to my first year at McGill during one of my many fraught social media searches for clubs. I came across their Instagram account, @ckutmusic, and was undoubtedly intrigued – but also slightly intimidated. Madeline recalls feeling similarly when she first got exposed to the radio programs in her hometown of Calgary. “Radio is intimidating from the outside, but once you get in there you find that they’re all a bunch of sweeties,” Madeline said. She would later go on to participate in radio while in university,  finding it to be a place for her to experiment live on air while offering a reprieve from the strenuous and often restricting nature of journalism school. At CKUT, Madeline works mostly behind the scenes, where she can make the most of the program’s experimental side. During our interview, she emphasized how much the station values giving everyone who wants an outlet to share their truth, especially those belonging to marginalized communities. 

When I asked about CKUT’s history of engaging in anti-oppressive movements, Madeline remarked how proud she was to be working for a station that was always “ahead of the curve.” She told me about shows like Dykes on Mikes, which has been platforming the voices of  lesbians since 1987, and Gay Day: a 24-hour show dedicated to queer issues and news. Gay Day has a history of openly addressing “taboo” topics, like the HIV/AIDs crisis, long before other news and media outlets acknowledged them. 

Madeline also informed me that many members of the Afro-Caribbean community have poured their hearts into CKUT and its programming, with decades-running shows like West Indian Rhythms and Bhum Bhum Tyme. “It feels really special to be a part of that,” Madeline replied when I asked what CKUT’s rich inclusionary history meant to her. “We’ve been a place where you can come and share your story and connect to your community before the age of social media.”  

CKUT began as the McGill Radio Club in the 1930s. What CKUT is today was built by McGill students in “the basement of what is now the SSMU building,” Madeline recalled. This long history of McGill student involvement is part of what makes CKUT so special – generations and generations have built and fought for CKUT. Their biggest fight to date was in 1987 for their spot on the FM dial, which they won over Concordia’s radio station. Although CKUT has slightly splintered off from McGill and become its own entity, they’ve never lost sight of their roots. If you want to learn more about CKUT’s past, head over to ckut.ca and check out their digital archives. 

Like all of us, CKUT struggled during the pandemic. They were quickly able to adapt by giving programmers equipment to record radio shows from home, but the loss of in-person presence around the station was the biggest change. However, Madeline told the Daily that things are  finally starting to feel normal again: “it’s been a slow trickle […] every day that I come into the station it feels more and more alive.” 

For McGill students, as well as members of the greater Montreal community, CKUT has long served as a “third place.” Ray Oldenburg, an urban sociologist and the originator of the term, describes a third place as somewhere time can be spent besides home, school, or work. Recently, there has been a great deal of discourse on TikTok about the role of third places in today’s society and what we can gain from them. This conversation isn’t entirely new. A few years back, The Atlantic and CBC published articles on third places. Both articles stressed the importance of having a place to go that wasn’t work or school: a place where you can relax, be creative, and meet people. This is why CKUT means so much to many McGill students. 

With the comfy couches and inviting atmosphere, many other volunteers can be found hanging around the station. As a third place, CKUT not only offers an outlet for people who want to be creative on the air, but also a place to get involved with countless other interests. “To McGill students who aren’t super passionate about music or creative things, there’s a place for you here too!” Madeline promised. 

Emily Halpen-Buie started out volunteering at CKUT to find her footing at McGill and meet new people. Since then, she’s started working on Radio is Dead, a show that allows her to “learn and create tasty sounds.” Some students, like Mia Duddy-Hayashibara, spend time at CKUT even when they aren’t working on a show. Mia devotes a lot of her time at CKUT to the music library or learning how to use the soundboards. She said of the music library, “There are so many gems! It’s a treasure box!”  

Yet Madeline also warned that “sometimes we take for granted that places like this exist until they’re gone.” The latest SSMU referendum saw CKUT lose their appeal to raise their fee. “We haven’t raised the student fee in 12 years. The costs have risen, but the student fees haven’t risen at all.” Madeline reminded me that it isn’t just CKUT: “all of journalism is facing this issue.” Madeline stressed that you can help non-profit organizations like CKUT in many different ways: “listening, volunteering, or donating.” For CKUT, it’s not about making money; it’s about supporting the community. 

At some point in the interview, I mentioned that I felt like CKUT was McGill’s best-kept secret. Nodding, Madeline replied, “Yes, but we don’t want to be. We want every student to know about us […] CKUT is a good tool to get into Montreal culture outside of the McGill bubble.” CKUT’s ambiance of rickety, worn-out floors, posters on every inch of the walls, old Christmas lights still hanging, and shelves upon shelves of music equipment, screams home. Its winding hallways and gently sunlit rooms sit quietly, almost waiting for you to speak, especially if you don’t know what you want to say. Even if you aren’t tuning in to the radio, CKUT can still provide a listening ear and place of acceptance for students, and everyone in the Montreal community. 

CKUT’s annual funding drive will take place starting March 16. You can keep an eye out for upcoming details on their Instagram, @ckutmusic. If you’d like to get involved at CKUT, you can send an email to volunteering@ckut.ca, or head to their website ckut.ca for more information. 

The post Tuning in to CKUT appeared first on The McGill Daily.

One of the highlights of Saltburn is its complex characters. Oliver (Barry Keoghan), the main character, is initially presented as an earnest university student that is very bright but has few friends. Every single character in the movie plays a supporting role in Oliver’s story, and through his lens they are exposed for who they truly are. However, this lens also blinds us as to who Oliver truly is. The only character to see Oliver’s true self is his first friend at university, Michael (Ewan Mitchell). Michael’s presence in the film is extremely fleeting, but his final word to Oliver, “boot-licker,” is the first accurate characterization of Oliver that the audience receives. Through their brief friendship, the two seemingly bond over their status as social pariahs, and although it is later revealed that Michael’s negative opinion of Oliver was correct, because the audience sees everything through Oliver’s point of view, Michael initially comes across as bitter and petty.

The first member of the wealthy Catton family that Oliver encounters is Farleigh (Archie Madekwe). Even his name seems like he’s overcompensating for the grand lifestyle that he longs to be a part of. Farleigh enters the film late, unprepared, and with stray glitter on his cheeks to the tutorial that he shares with Oliver. This scene sets up everything you need to know about his character: he has a flippant attitude towards life, parties regularly, and faces no consequences at school because of his mother’s social status. The professor blatantly favors Farleigh solely because of who he is connected to, and not due to his actual work (which he fails to do). To put it bluntly, Farleigh’s status does all the work for him so he doesn’t have to.

Oliver’s next Catton family interaction is with Felix (Jacob Elordi). Felix is also shown to be someone who doesn’t care about academics, largely due to his obscene wealth. In one scene, Felix both literally and metaphorically uses Oliver to get to where he needs to go. He takes Oliver’s bicycle, and assumes that Oliver will go the extra mile to help him further, even after Oliver has already offered his only means of transportation. Although Felix doesn’t seem to take advantage of Oliver overtly, he does establish a hierarchy between the two of them. This introductory scene begs the question: does Felix know the effect that he has on people?

I think one of the most well-concealed parts of Saltburn is Felix and Farleigh’s similarities. Throughout the film it is clear that they are set up to foil one another, as Farleigh wields his privilege as a weapon and Felix’s belief that his wealth “didn’t matter” ending up to be the greatest blunder of them all.

Felix desperately wanted to be a hero and save Oliver. For example, he never tells Oliver that he needs a suit for dinners at Saltburn, just so he can swoop in and help. Felix’s dangling of the carrot of wealth in front of Oliver’s face for the summer was just as selfish and rude as Farleigh’s treatment of Oliver. With all of his wealth and status, Felix could do something meaningful in the lives of the friends that he invites over to his sprawling mansion. Instead he gives them a taste, sends them on their way, and is able to feel better about his obscene wealth.

Even in his death, Felix is made out to be this beautiful, tragic martyr. Felix is masqueraded around the entire movie as a faultless victim, an angel in fact, while he does things like meddle with Oliver’s life and condescendingly “help” him. In comparison, Farleigh does similarly meddlesome things, such as snooping on Oliver and Venetia (Alison Oliver)’s rendezvous. But because he is depicted in the movie as a devious and petty guy he doesn’t get the same benefit of the doubt that Felix does. What makes Farleigh’s behavior so deplorable to the audience is that instead of embracing Oliver, as he understands what it’s like not to fully belong with the family, he’s the most rude to him. Unfortunately, his act does not get him anywhere with the family.

Saltburn doesn’t only rely on characterization to tell its complex story. The film is riddled with symbolism that begins to reveal the nature of Oliver’s plot long before the movie itself gives him away. In fact, the very first shot of the film suggests that Oliver is perpetrating something sinister at the Saltburn estate. The film opens on a shot of a family crest. The camera captures the crest on a cigarette holder then pans to Oliver’s hand holding a cigarette. This is a glaring example of foreshadowing that I completely missed on my first watch.

Later in the film, it is revealed that in Felix’s family, when someone dies they write their name on a stone and throw that stone into the water. As the boys get closer, Felix decides to do this for Oliver’s dad. However when thrown, the stone never hits the water. In fact, the camera reveals that it fell among a pile of trash and vomit. This is not only overt symbolism that Oliver is full of lies, but also that Oliver’s dad is not actually dead.

In the very first scene inside the Saltburn estate, on the chandelier hangs a strip of fly paper riddled with dead bugs. This figuratively displays that behind such a rich and opulent facade, the family is not so much better off than the rest of us. The fly paper serves to cheapen the scene, but also represents the presence of death. Once Felix dies, the shots in the movie are asymmetrical. It seems as though with his death, the family is placed into a disjointed state of overwhelming grief. While talking about his death is initially largely forbidden, all characters are extremely affected by it.

Saltburn’s story is one that is ridiculously complex; it can’t even be fully understood with even two watches. This film covers the intersection of the wealthy and privileged with the rest of the population. Saltburn’s release seems to coincide with increasing discourse on the wealth gap as billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos seem to operate in a different stratosphere than the rest of us. In a sense, Saltburn is allowing all of us to exact our revenge on the people who are born into unfair advantages. Right before the final credits roll, as Oliver dances around the house, sans clothes and full of abandon, do we dance along with him for the successful toppling of the undeserving rich, or do we hum “Murder on the Dancefloor” to ourselves?

The post What You Missed In Saltburn appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Looming on the horizon just out of reach is the holiday break— which, for many, means a trip back home to family and a joyful return to all of the holiday traditions. But what are we supposed to do in the meantime? 

This period of limbo can feel incredibly isolating especially as it coincides with the holiday season. Whether you were born and raised a few minutes away from campus or you are an international student far away from home, there’s often a collective sense of struggle during the holiday season. More than any other time of year, it is almost required to appear happy, even if you’re on your last leg because of finals season. This, combined with the 4 pm sunsets, can make anyone want to scorn all holidays and become a Scrooge.

Regardless, ever since Mariah Carey defrosted the day after Halloween, there has been an element of holiday cheer in the air. For some, Christmas starts as early as the day after Remembrance Day and for others, the holiday festivities cannot begin until they taste their mother’s cookies. Given the vastly diverse student experiences of the holiday season at McGill, the Daily spoke with a few different students about the differences between their experiences with the holiday season at home and at McGill, in hopes that we can find community in our similar experiences. 

One of the most beautiful things about spending the holidays with your family is being able to repeat traditions that have gone on year after year. Max, a U0 student in the management faculty, discussed how he celebrates Hanukkah with his dad and Christmas with his mom. For Max, Hanukkah isn’t complete without all the “traditional foods” and “ceremonial traditions” and his family all together in a huge night of celebration and “gift giving.” Where Hanukkah might be a bit more lowkey, Christmas celebrations make up for it as Max’s family “goes all out.” For Max, Christmas morning goes a little something like this: “Once everyone is up, we open stockings. Then we eat a huge breakfast with homemade cinnamon buns made by my grandma and brother. After breakfast we start with gifts, opening them one by one, going from oldest to youngest.” These traditions and spending time with family is Max’s favorite part about the holidays, even if he feels like as he’s gotten older “some of the magic has waned.” Regardless, Max points out that “seeing family and eating great food is always so fulfilling.”

For many international students, this break will be the first time they see their family since August. Because of this, this makes them even more eager to spend the holidays with family and finally be able to see everyone again. Mary Lou, an international student from Switzerland, expressed her excitement for the holiday season since she will finally be able to return home. Most of all, she is most excited to spend time with her family on Christmas Day when she goes to see her entire family in France, which she remarked is “super fun… exchanging presents and seeing everyone.” 

Anna, a first year Toronto native, expressed her difficulty with the holiday season, “The winter is a very hard time for me, but I am happy and grateful there is something I get to look forward to — spending time with the people I love (family, friends), feelings of wholesomeness, community, joy, winter activities, etc.” More than anything, Anna emphasized the potential for McGill to become a community that makes the holiday season more enjoyable. She says, “However, fostering a broader sense of community, like at McGill, gives us the opportunity to redefine what holidays mean to us all. So, I am excited to use my opportunity as a first-year student at McGill during the holidays and make it one full of love while prioritizing my mental health.” 

Carys, an out-of-province student from Newfoundland, expressed similar thoughts. Though she feels like she hasn’t exactly found a huge community at McGill during the holidays, she shares that she celebrates the holidays “in a very personal sense and doesn’t really require other people to celebrate. If anything, I do miss some Newfoundland traditions that happen at Christmas but even that hasn’t bothered me very much.” Even though being away from home can make for a terrible holiday season, Carys doesn’t allow it to prevent her from enjoying all the festivities. When talking about how the holidays make her feel in one word, Carys said “excited”. She described the emotion as “a type of excitement that I feel so rarely as I get older, Christmas makes me feel like I can experience the world as vividly as I did as a child.”

Even though most students are returning home for this break, if you need ideas on how to feel the holiday spirit while still in Montreal, there are so many different things you can do. Even if you’ve done it every year, a Christmas or winter market is always a great option. There are several different markets all around the city, so you can hit them all, or enjoy one. They all pretty much have the same things: hot chocolate, excellent food, gifts and trinkets, and holiday cheer. Another great way to build community is to have a gift exchange or white elephant party with your friends. Not only would you get a great gift out of it, but you would also be directly investing in your friendships. Lastly, and my favorite way to celebrate the season, is to do winter activities like ice skating, sledding in fresh snow, and making snow angels.  

I think that the holiday season is as complicated as any other season of our lives. In this sense, we are navigating the most difficult part of the school year while being away from family, and all the while we’re supposed to be having a good time— and the thing is, we do! The holiday season is meant to be a beautiful bow tied at the very end of the year. It’s important to come together as a McGill family and experience the joy of the season while being cognizant of how heavy this season is for many. The holiday season is a time to celebrate all that we have accomplished, be thankful for all that we have, and be hopeful for an even better year next year. 

Happy Holidays! 

The post Home Away From Home appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Although the blurb for You Exist Too Much tells of our main character’s eventual “love addiction,” I did not expect love to feature so prominently. But don’t be mistaken, this book is a love story: a story of self-love, growth, learning how to love others, and flourishing in the face of familial and cultural pressures. 

Throughout the entire book, Arafat takes the main character on a journey of intense self-discovery. It’s as if she’s unpacking her trauma in real time and we’re all being made to watch. It’s brutal, but the honesty is refreshing. For example, while the protagonist is in therapy for her “love addiction” she has this thought: “I stared at the clock as the minute hand eclipsed the hour hand for the third time and decided that only a white man would feel comfortable taking up so much space.” The book covers extremely sensitive topics (be sure to consult content warnings before reading), yet Arafat treats these issues with poise and delicacy, using them to further the story rather than just letting them settle within the plot. Every decision within the book feels intentional, meaningful, and necessary to further the protagonist’s characterization and storyline. At one point, the protagonist aims to explain the cultural implications of being a queer woman in Palestine: “To be a woman who desired other women seemed even worse, especially shameful and shocking in its lack of reverence for the male-centric culture. Why would you want to exclude men, the stronger, better gender, from the equation?”

The highlight of Arafat’s novel is that it provides a safe space for cultural learning without any stigma. Though it’s important not to treat this novel like a history textbook, Arafat doesn’t shy away from mentioning historical and cultural elements relevant to Palestine and the main character’s life. The reader is able to indulge in the main character’s perspective of Palestine and Jordan through the eyes of a child. To do this, Arafat traces the main character’s growth through a series of flashbacks within each chapter. She crafts such vivid depictions of the main character’s hometowns, Aman and Nablus, and paints a picture of deep familial bonds that serve to demarcate the main character’s summers in Palestine from the rest of her time in the United States. 

Additionally, Arafat manages to articulately convey the significance of race, nationality, and sexuality, and how they affect the main character in her journey towards self-discovery. The protagonist’s experiences as a queer, Palestinian woman are full and complete –– Arafat doesn’t aim to separate her love story from her intersectionality. Throughout the book, Arafat adeptly weaves in references to the main character’s Palestinian heritage and not only displays it in a brilliant light, but also shows how it influences her daily life. At one point, the main character compares her parents’ relationship to the conflict in Israel and Palestine. This comparison serves to illustrate her mother’s frustration “at being stifled” and her father’s refusal “to meet her most basic needs”. By no means does this book aim to explain or justify the political conflicts that have occurred and are occurring currently in Palestine; instead, it shows how these events have molded the identities of the main character and the people in her family. 

Although Arafat’s protagonist is never named, the reader is able to form a deep bond with her from the very first page. It is difficult to create an informed opinion on the main character in the  beginning of the book, as her life experiences, reasonings for her actions, and thought processes are only explained through successive flashbacks in each chapter. As the reader becomes more informed of her past and more invested in her future, we watch a hopeless, scared young girl transform into a resilient, witty young woman. This book is remarkable in the sense that the reader is able to go on a journey of growth and discovery along with the protagonist. 

Arafat doesn’t shy away from expressing the more difficult aspects of her journey. Often, Arafat uses such vivid, poetic language to convey the simplest emotions – especially when it comes to descriptions of self-love. One passage begins: “We stepped outside the café, and I felt overwhelmed as we walked off in different directions. I wanted her, I wanted her life, I wanted to live inside her life while still living inside my own. I wanted, above all, for her to like me.” In another scene Arafat explores another side of the protagonist’s desperation for love: “Besides, I didn’t need a partner to feel loved: I was a DJ! I was loved from a distance, the safest way to be loved.” These passages transport the reader into the emotional state of the main character, fostering empathy for and understanding of the protagonist’s complex character.  

Each chapter follows a clear formula that provides the reader with both a sense of familiarity, and a beautiful rhythm to fall into. Arafat will begin with a canonical, almost anecdotal, situation which furthers the ‘present’ narrative of the story. This anecdote then opens up a window into the main character’s past, which Arafat uses to expand upon one of the main character’s past loves and relationships. The joys, but most often the follies within the relationship create a passageway through which Arafat inserts a story about the main character’s childhood, relationship with her mother, or something related to her Palestinian heritage. Finally, Arafat circles back to the initial anecdote that opened up the chapter to close out the mini narrative that she created. As such, each chapter constructs a holistic view of the main character by unifying her past, present, and cultural background. This unique format provides a kind of unified and informed characterization that is rarely seen in many coming-of-age stories. This method prevents the reader from jumping to hasty conclusions about the protagonist, as they are forced to see the full picture of who she is.   

In an interview with Electric Literature, Zaina Arafat gave her final thoughts on the main character: “She may never fully overcome her traumas and her demons, but she can identify that by choosing healthy love, she is also choosing to love herself.” This perfectly sums up the feeling the reader is left with upon finishing the book. Even though the ending leaves the reader slightly in the dark about the future of the protagonist, there is no doubt that the protagonist grew throughout the narrative. This book is such a must-read because it displays the beauty and pain of a life well lived: one filled with love, mistakes, and growth. What else could you ask for? 

The post You Exist Too Much: A Queer, Palestinian Story of Self-Love appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The media is currently riding a “girlhood” wave. In the film industry, the resurgence of female-led cult-classics  like The Virgin Suicides (1999) and the release of stories like The Barbie Movie (2023) and Bottoms (2023), have catapulted the girl experience to the forefront of everyone’s mind. And with the rise of trends on TikTok like “girl dinner” and “girl math,” it seems like girls are having their moment in the spotlight. 

Before the height of this girlhood craze, Olivia Rodrigo emerged with SOUR, a perfect album with all the right words that nailed how it feels to be a girl being absolutely dragged by life. Pain, heartbreak, and jealousy – all themes central to Rodrigo’s first album – are intrinsic aspects of girlhood. With SOUR, Olivia Rodrigo completely aligned her artistic identity with the girl experience. Not only was “Drivers License” incredibly popular commercially – it became a staple in many girls’ lives by so accurately defining the era that they grew up in. 

“I wanna key his car, I wanna make him lunch / I wanna break his heart, stitch it right back up” – Olivia Rodrigo, “get him back!” GUTS

GUTS has been adored by Rodrigo’s loyal fanbase, and it has had similar success as SOUR. In her first album, Olivia Rodrigo established herself as the kind of singer who voiced our most secret emotions (think Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me”). She honed in on feelings we’ve all felt when we were younger, stupider, and more susceptible to fall for the kinds of guys that play Billy Joel. SOUR validated us. It gave our most raw, yearning emotions a place to call home. GUTS is different; not in the sense that it doesn’t concern very similar feelings, but it approaches them with less delicacy. In SOUR, Rodrigo (and us too) were the victims. Things were happening to us, and we had no control. In GUTS, Rodrigo steps out as a perpetrator. She isn’t just affected by things that happen to her; she’s the cause. 

“Seeing you tonight / it’s a bad idea, right?… I only see him as a friend / the biggest lie I ever said… I just tripped and fell into his bed”  –– Olivia Rodrigo, “bad idea right?” GUTS

Songs like “bad idea right?” are so electric because Rodrigo firmly plants herself as someone who’s doing the wrong thing, and for the wrong reasons. In this song, her lyrics speak so clearly about the battle between delusion and reality – a struggle so many young people face. Even though she knows it’s a bad idea she goes for it anyway. “Bad idea right?”  plays with the idea of having two conflicting selves, a theme that runs rampant throughout the rest of GUTS. 

One of the most distinctive aspects of an Olivia Rodrigo song is the contrasting elements of punk rock and very calm acoustic guitar. This kind of dichotomy was present in SOUR, mainly serving to illustrate Rodrigo’s escalating emotions about a particular situation. However, in GUTS this kind of musical contrast also occurs when Rodrigo is showing a different side of herself. Typically, Rodrigo employs her rock style to signal her frustration, while the acoustic guitar signifies her vulnerable moments. This sort of switch-up usually slowly emerges from something that was previously hidden in the slower, more emotion-ridden parts of the song. The first song of GUTS, “all-american bitch” is a perfect example. The entire song alternates between acoustic and Paramore-esque rock guitar, but at the very end it resolves to an unplugged, acoustic sound that’s even smoother than the beginning. 

“I don’t get angry when I’m pissed / I’m the eternal optimist / I scream inside to deal with it like, ‘ah!’”  – Olivia Rodrigo, “all-american b*tch” GUTS

Here, Olivia Rodrigo claims her identity as an “all-american b*tch,” but acknowledges that sometimes it’s stifling. In the acoustic sections, she sings about the sweeter, frillier parts of girlhood, but reveals some of her frustration with the label when the tempo changes. In a viral trend on TikTok, people would twitch their eyes or show aggression at the lyric “grateful” in “all-american b*tch” to show the effort required for girls to always be saving face. Rodrigo perfectly encapsulates the stress of being forced into the box of the “eternal optimist,” regardless of how she really feels. 

“I’m grateful all the time (all the f*cking time) / I’m sexy and I’m kind / I’m pretty when I cry” – Olivia Rodrigo, “all-american b*tch” GUTS

GUTS shows the parts of girlhood that aren’t just about innocent heartbreak. Rodrigo presents herself as a confused, mistake-prone young adult. She’s still able to tap into certain aspects of SOUR when she discusses her insecurities and anxieties in songs like “lacy” or “ballad of a homeschooled girl”, but by embracing more obscure sides of herself, Rodrigo shows her growth as an artist. She can be the innocent girl to whom terrible things happen, but she can also be the girl who does things that she knows are bad for her. She can enjoy the simple pleasures of girlhood, but also experience complex emotions including, and even especially, rage. 

With GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo pushes the idea of duality within girlhood by showing how it really feels to grow up as a young woman amid conflicting mindsets. With girlhood’s potency in the media right now, it’s very easy for people to simplify such an experience, when in fact it’s anything but. Rodrigo discusses her lived experiences  in a way that reminds us all that girlhood is complex – it isn’t a monolith, and there’s no single right way to be a girl.

The post I Hate His GUTS and I Want to Get Him Back appeared first on The McGill Daily.