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Martlets, Men's Varsity, Sports

RSEQ cancels fall seasons, athletes and staff wait await news on winter sports

by Sarah Farnand on

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On Sept. 14. the RSEQ announced the cancellation of all university sports in Quebec, adding to the June 8 U SPORTS announcement of the cancellation of all national championships in the Fall 2020 season. No RSEQ-sanctioned competitions will take place until at least Dec. 31. The league was originally scheduled to make an announcement about the potential fall season on Aug. 31, but decided to push it back by two weeks in order to monitor the effects of students returning to Montreal. Stéphane Boudreau, Deputy Director-General of the RSEQ, had previously emphasized the fluidity of the situation. 

“As of today, they’re supposed to be able to play on [Sept.] 14, but everything could change the Friday before,” Boudreau told The Montreal Gazette in an article published on Sept.1.

With many students returning to Montreal from different provinces and countries, the risk of a spike in COVID-19 cases is high. According to CBC News, Montreal has already seen a rise in cases, and on Sept. 11, Quebec reported 244 cases, the highest number of daily cases in over three months. RSEQ decision-makers delayed an announcement in order to evaluate the full effect of students returning to school before making a definite decision on the fate of the Fall 2020 season. 

The Sept. 14 decision explained the reasoning behind the cancellation, as well as the scope.

“After having analyzed all possible scenarios, members of the university sector of the RSEQ announce the cancellation of sanctioned sports programming until December 31, 2020,” the statement said. “This difficult decision made by members of the RSEQ university sector is based primarily on the regional alert system, which may limit the participation of universities, even if said institutions effectively manage health-and-safety best practices.”

The announcement, however, did leave exceptions for lower-risk sports activities.

“To keep student-athletes engaged, members of the RSEQ university sector will permit activities involving at least two different teams in the following sports: Cross-country, golf, and soccer—thus giving universities the flexibility to evolve at their own pace and with their own realities. However, due to universities’ level of risk management, no inter-team activities will be permitted in football and rugby,” the statement said.

Staff and athletes are now waiting for an announcement by the RSEQ regarding the winter sports’ seasons, which is anticipated to be released on Oct. 15.

Third-year track and field sprinter Stephanie Susinski looks forward to returning to practice, but does not want to get her hopes up with so much uncertainty regarding a return date for competition.

“I’m excited for practices to start up again,” Susinski said in an interview with the The McGill Tribune. “I’m trying to take things one step at a time because, as we’ve all been too familiar with recently, plans are subject to change [on] short notice, so nobody can really say how the season will play out.” 

With nearly all fall sports cancelled, spectators and athletes alike will miss out on events such as homecoming and playoff competition. Athletes and coaches will continue to wait out the hiatus and train on their own times to maintain momentum heading into a tentative winter season. If the winter season goes forward, it will be drastically different than prior years, as all teams must continue to follow government health directives and adjust to the continually changing public health situation. As much as athletes want to return to competing, health and safety remains the top priority.

Editorial, Opinion

Zoom University threatens to leave students behind

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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During the last two weeks, students were welcomed back to a McGill that no one had ever seen before. Across time zones throughout Canada and around the world, frantic searching for class locations was replaced with anxious scrambling for Zoom links as students and academic staff struggled to adapt to the realities of remote course delivery. Despite the notable efforts of many professors, teaching assistants, and other instructors to prepare for the online semester, students have experienced issues that should alarm educational staff. Inconsistencies in regulations on course delivery methods have sowed widespread frustration and confusion. From onerous assessment procedures to unusual departures from normal class scheduling, these inconveniences caused by remote delivery are rapidly mutating into an accessibility issue. McGill must act now to address these concerns and work to ensure that its policies are more equitable, responsive, and accessible to students.

Aside from a handful of Zoom town halls, students have been left to make sense of the vague descriptions contained in emails sent via Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Fabrice Labeau’s listserv alone. Assessment policies vary widely at the departmental level, and with different conference and lab facilitation formats, scheduling has become a nightmare for some students who have had to account for these discrepancies in their planning. Moreover, many professors have been uploading lecture recordings outside of scheduled course times, further complicating matters. Some have also exceeded the allotted time for their lectures while others have uploaded lectures as little as half as long as a normal one. 

Such inconsistencies have only added further confusion and stress to the already strained circumstances of remote learning. Some professors have mandated—or structured their courses as to nearly necessitate—attendance in conferences, notwithstanding McGill’s policies designed to accommodate students living in different time zones. Professors are not to blame for these problems, however: They stem from misunderstandings resulting from poor communication between faculty, administrators, and other academic staff. Clear articulation to students and staff alike of the policies currently in effect is evidently necessary.

It is imperative that students no longer be left in the dark, especially as plans for the winter semester are finalized. Whether online or in person, McGill is paid for in great part by student tuition dollars. In fact, considering that McGill has not reduced tuition this year, despite the online format, and that international students’ tuition has actually increased, consulting students and clearly communicating operations ought to be the bare minimum. 

Broader accessibility concerns are even more prohibitive. Students who require accommodations through the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD), for example, are particularly vulnerable to falling behind with coursework. Consequently, services such as those provided by OSD Note Takers are more critical than ever. Students were calling for McGill to compensate note-takers fairly before the pandemic. For McGill to continue to ignore their demands now, when their work is so obviously essential, would be careless and disgraceful. 

Of course, internet inaccessibility and distracting or unstable home environments remain equally formidable barriers to students this semester. Instructors must be cognizant of these obstacles and accommodate students experiencing such difficulties. But the onus is on faculty administrations to responsibly guide their students and staff. And while clear communication of policies and plans is important, it alone is not a solution. Nor is hiring students to help facilitate remote instruction, though this may be helpful, because many of these problems extend beyond technical difficulties. McGill should consider reinstating the Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) option for all courses, as was done at the end of the Winter 2020 semester. Above all, McGill must make an effort to prevent misunderstandings by coordinating departmental guidelines and enforcing scheduling structures.

At the same time, students must recognize professors and staff who are taking measures to combat these problems. McGill’s librarians, for instance, should be commended for using software such as HathiTrust to make print resources available to students around the world. Through mutual compassion and diligent communication, the McGill community can navigate the online semester. A return to any semblance of McGill as we once knew it can only be assured through effective solutions to the problems already apparent from the last two weeks, and the entire McGill community should be united with this goal in mind.

Commentary, Opinion

Quebec’s businesses and linguistic minorities need protection during COVID-19

by Michael Dickinson on

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Since gaining a majority government in the 2018 election, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ)  has advanced a nationalistic agenda for the province, with one of their principal initiatives being the reinforcement of the primacy of the French language. Most recently, a report found that 40 per cent of Quebec businesses prefer employees who are fluent in English, agitating party officials such as French Language Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette. In response, he pledged to implement a series of stringent measures to protect the French language, particularly in Montreal, where the rate of companies that prefer English fluency stands at 63 per cent. Among these proposed measures is Bill 104, a measure that compels government bodies and crown corporations to deliver written communications exclusively in French. However, it is clear that such policies would harm businesses and minority populations, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is difficult to believe that the French language could be under threat in a province where nearly 95 per cent of people speak the language fluently. Jolin-Barrette argued that stronger measures are necessary to maintain French as Quebec’s official language of business, but the statistics that he cited to illustrate this need were misleading. He created a false equivalence between a business requiring a knowledge of English as opposed to merely preferring it. The survey found that only nine per cent of Quebec businesses turned down a candidate because they could not speak English. Although these studies are reminders that bilingualism is an asset for employees in a globalized economy, they are not sufficient evidence to suggest that French is at risk of being replaced as the primary language of business in the province.

The legislation that Jolin-Barrette is suggesting would be detrimental to a provincial economy that has already been devastated by COVID-19. Quebec was hit harder than any other province by the pandemic, causing a record deficit in the provincial government’s budget. With the economic situation still so dire, the CAQ should instead focus its attention on rebuilding businesses, not hampering them with bureaucratic measures such as legislating which languages they communicate or advertise in.

Moreover, the CAQ’s policy of cutting English services to promote the French language could have serious consequences for McGill students. Restricting these services to historic anglophone communities, which Premier François Legault defined as individuals whose parents attended English schools in Quebec, would exclude many members of McGill’s English-speaking community. This could make it difficult for them to understand notices from government agencies such as Hydro-Québec or health services. 

Indeed, the CAQ’s language politics have already had serious consequences during the pandemic. Despite promising that historic anglophone communities could continue to receive English services, certain COVID-19 information pamphlets were distributed exclusively in French throughout the province, putting those who do not have access to online information at risk. 

The policy of denying many English speakers access to English services markedly differs from the treatment of linguistic minority populations in other parts of the country. Consider Ontario’s French Language Services Act, which protects the right of citizens to receive government services in French. The Act applies to counties and districts with francophone populations of at least 10 per cent, as well as any cities with a population of five thousand or more francophones. This means that native francophones in Toronto can receive services in French even though they comprise only 1.3 per cent of the city’s population. By contrast, 13 per cent of Montrealers speak English as a first language, yet not all of them can be counted as part of the historic anglophone community that is to be exempted from the CAQ’s measures.

Bill 101 has already ensured the primacy of the French language in Quebec. Ignoring demographic realities, hampering economic growth, and reducing English services is unfair and dangerous, especially during this current time of crisis. The French language is already protected and the CAQ must shift its priorities to protecting all of its citizens and their livelihoods. 

Science & Technology

The McGill Scientific Writing Initiative introduces students to science writing

by Shafaq Nami on

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There exists a common stereotype that people in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) departments do not like to write. Even though students in STEM fields conduct groundbreaking research, many have no idea how to present their findings in a clear and concise manner, let alone an interesting one. The McGill Scientific Writing Initiative (MSWI) aims to support science students in developing their writing skills. 

MSWI is a new student-run initiative, started in the summer of 2020. It was co-founded and is led by Marina Nysten and Joyce Wu, both U3 Science students. As universities shifted to online classes in April 2020, many science courses replaced multiple choice final exams with end-of-term papers. This was a difficult transition for some science students, many of whom were never required to take writing-intensive courses at McGill and thus lacked experience in scientific writing. Observing these challenges that their peers faced, Wu and Nysten began to brainstorm ideas on how to bridge this knowledge gap.

“Last April, we both noticed a lack of science communication resources at McGill,” Wu and Nysten wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “MSWI’s purpose is to act as a supplementary resource to support students and professors, especially considering the transition to writing-centric assessments this semester.”  

Throughout the upcoming academic year, MSWI will be organizing workshops on a variety of topics, from how to expertly read research articles to presenting scientific material and communicating science to the public. MSWI will also provide comprehensive online resources on its website, including a concise ebook on scientific writing that Nysten and Wu penned over the summer in collaboration with faculty members, TAs, and students.

According to Nysten and Wu, the club’s main goal is to become a “hub” for science communication at McGill. One of the ways they hope to achieve this is by supporting as many students as possible through their partnerships with faculty members and other student organizations. 

Some student clubs and organizations such as the Student Research Initiative and McGill Science Undergraduate Research Journal have missions that broadly align with that of MSWI, creating a cohesive network of writing-centric student support opportunities. Whether as a part of their personal research or as a result of the increased writing requirements in many online classes, Nysten and Wu predict that students from across disciplines will benefit from MSWI’s services. 

“We hope to offer unique services and resources that fill in the gaps that currently exist at McGill,” Nysten and Wu wrote. “An essential factor in this goal is to listen to what students are looking for, which we achieve by conducting surveys and creating online feedback forms.” 

There are plenty of opportunities for students to get involved with MSWI, such as attending monthly workshops, contributing a blog post to the MSWI website, or by helping to create learning resources in a subject they have experience in. 

Their first workshop, entitled “Reading Research Articles,” is on Sept. 24 and will be co-hosted by Tommy Markopoulos, a graduate student in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience.

One of the biggest events that MSWI planned for this year is the first annual MSWI Science “CommunicaScion” Case Competition set to be held in the winter semester. With this competition, Nysten and Wu aim to challenge students to effectively communicate a scientific topic to three different ages and educational backgrounds. This year’s theme remains a secret, but will be revealed in the coming months.

If you are interested in learning more about the MSWI and what they offer, you can stay updated on future events and resources by following their social media and subscribing to their newsletter.

Art, Arts & Entertainment

MMFA’s post-impressionist exhibit leaves mixed impressions

by Pascal Hogue on

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From July 4 to Nov. 15, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is showcasing—in person—its most extensive exhibit on the post-impressionists yet, Paris in the Days of Post-Impressionism: Signac and the Indépendants. The exhibit boasts an impressive, sweeping collection of over 500 works from France’s leading post-impressionists, spanning Paris’ late 19th-century heyday to its final, tense years preceding the First World War. 

The period was an artistic and culturally ripe one for the French capital, and the MMFA displays it unsparingly in all its messy efflorescence: Neo-impressionists, Fauvists, Symbolists, Nabis, Expressionists, Cubists, and just enough Picasso to brag about in the brochures. Most of the exhibit’s focus, however, is on Paul Signac, for both his pointillist paintings and his immense influence on French visual art during la belle époque. In 1884, he founded the Salon des Indépendants, an annual exhibition that catalyzed a generation of creative misfits until 1914, the start of World War I. Many of the paintings on display at the MMFA exhibit had their first glimmer of fame at the Salon.

Aside from Signac’s curatorial genius, his collection of paintings is the exhibit’s low point. Rainbow (Venice) is a decadent mess, melding garish, Candy Land-type colours with an ill-fitting, boxy-like pointillist style that looks eerily like a collection of Minecraft blocks. Here, Venice loses its medieval charm, and its gondolas and spires are transplanted in what looks like the Emerald City of Oz.

Throughout his collection of pastel pink-and-blue fantasies, Signac struggles to recreate the natural effervescence of, say, George Seurat’s pointillist masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Instead, most of his paintings come off as laboured and artificial, even gimmicky. Signac’s pointillist style encumbers, rather than enables, his creative visions.

Following the inconsistent selection of neo-impressionists, the early 20th century print collection is refreshing and distinct. A movement that fully utilized the era’s innovative print technologies and benefitted from the growing consumerist thirst, the Art Nouveau style completely freed itself from the shackles of the impressionist period. The posters’ bold black fonts and vivid primary colours are beautiful, even if they were only trying to sell you the latest dishwasher soap. While many of these prints are instantly recognizable and have been reprinted to near-ubiquity (Théophile Steinlen’s Le Chat Noir probably hangs in your roommate’s bedroom), it is exhilarating to see them in their proper historical context. The revolutionary ways in which these prints redefined the artistic world becomes immediately apparent at the exhibit. 

Among the collection’s other non-oil-on-canvas works, Swiss printmaker Félix Vallotton is a true revelation. His black-and-white woodcuts are caricature-like in style, yet somehow radiate an emotional and energetic purity. In The Brawl, or Café Scene, one of his more detailed woodcuts, four tuxedo-clad men clash over a white table in a posh café as onlookers gawk; although the black of their suits overlap without demarcation lines, the men’s discombobulated shapes lose none of their intensity. Valloton’s austere textures and his characters’ raw emotions are fitting for the exhibit’s latter half: As the late 19th century’s debaucheries subsided, the grim thought of an incoming world conflict haunted artists’ psyches.

The MMFA’s lively post-impressionist exhibit is ill-fitting for these dark, pandemic-burdened times. But there is a joy—however escapist it may be—in physically visiting the museum, and embedding one’s self in the world of a long lost, more playful and innocent past.

Paris in the Days of Post-Impressionism: Signac and the Indépendants is on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts until Nov. 15. For more information and ticket prices, visit their website.

Commentary, Opinion

BIPOC voices will no longer be silenced

by Sepideh Afshar on

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On Aug. 29, protestors toppled a statue of John A. Macdonald in Montreal. Besides serving as Canada’s first prime minister, Macdonald is infamously known as the creator of the residential school system and as someone who starved Indigenous groups to forcibly relocate them. Macdonald’s treatment of Indigenous Peoples was reconsitiuted as cultural genocide by the Canadian government in 2015, due to the work of Indigenous activists. The distress caused by statues of those who contributed to the marginalization of minority groups is not new. On McGill’s campus, there is a growing movement demanding the removal of the statue of James McGill. The calls to remove statues honouring Canada’s colonial legacy is a direct result of the inaction of those in positions of power to denounce the harmful acts of those before them. Silencing minority voices and ignoring their labour to build a more equitable society will no longer be tolerated by BIPOC and their allies.

The conversation surrounding harmful commemoration is not unique to Montreal; rather, it is one being held all over Canada. In 2018, the City Council of Victoria, British Columbia, voted to remove their statue of Macdonald. Those who want statues of racist historical figures to remain often argue that removing them is equivalent to erasing history, insisting that there is no middle ground between commemoration and erasure. This argument fails to acknowledge that many Black and Indigenous people face the harmful legacies of residential schools and slavery in their everyday lives. One cannot celebrate the societal contributions of men like Macdonald and McGill without considering the harm that they have also perpetuated and acknowledging the fact that their success came at the expense of Black and Indigenous peoples.

There may have been alternative solutions to the removal of these statues when concerns first arose, but the government’s reluctance to acknowledge its racist past has led protesters with no other choice than to force change. Montreal activists have been asking for the removal of Macdonald’s iconography through petitions and peaceful demonstrations but they have been ignored by those able to authorize its removal. The tearing down of the Macdonald statue demonstrates a shift: Marginalized voices are tired of inaction and are now taking matters into their own hands. BIPOC are no longer waiting for white men to make the right decisions.

Politicians have been largely ignoring the protestors but have spoken out about the statue’s fall, insisting that it was not their own inaction that led to the toppling of the statue. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the protestors’ actions, arguing that vandalism does not pave the way for progress or addressing injustice in Canada. Previously, Trudeau has apologized to Indigenous groups for Macdonald’s actions but the Prime Minister’s acknowledgement of Macdonald’s legacy as important only highlights his unwillingness to listen to Indigenous groups’ need for justice—the bare minimum of which would be to stop honouring Macdonald’s racist legacy. Both Trudeau and Quebec Premier François Legault argue that removing a part of our history is not productive, but their tactics to ignore marginalized voices demanding change is also stalling progress. The government’s neglect of the needs of BIPOC and their unconcerned attitude while making decisions that harm Indigenous groups, such as approving the Trans Mountain pipeline, emphasizes the performative activism in their response to Black Lives Matter and other such social justice movements. 

McGill’s administration has added a statement acknowledging their namesake’s role in enslaving Black and Indigenous people, but still has yet to mention that they were Black and Indigenous. The university has had more than enough time to listen to BIPOC students’ needs in regards to McGill’s racist legacy but as time passes, students are getting tired of waiting. The administration is blatantly disregarding Black students’ demands for equity. Other than an emailed statement about the Black Lives Matter movement, the university has yet to comment on the statue of James McGill. McGill’s lack of tangible action is reminiscent of the Canadian government making blanket statements and ignoring their active role in perpetuating the marginalization of people of colour. 

McGill students are losing patience. The administration’s inaction is leaving many students of colour uncomfortable with the institution that they attend and questioning the values that it holds. Protesters should not have needed to tear Macdonald down; the government should have listened to the people that his legacy has harmed and cooperated to remove the statue peacefully. It is now time for McGill to take action. Passivity only leads to escalation, and there is nothing to say that the James McGill statue will not be next. 

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

The Royalmount Drive-In offers a nostalgic escape during uncertain times

by Signy Harnad on

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It’s a familiar scene in popular culture: Groups of teenagers and families packed in their cars, radio dials tuned to FM signals, billowing cigarette smoke forming clouds in the projector light. Such was the magic of the drive-in cinema, with its eclectic blend of innocence and rebellion, sociability and privacy. With its rebirth during the COVID-19 pandemic, moviegoers can experience this magic for themselves. The Royalmount Drive-In Event Theatre, Montreal’s first multipurpose drive-in, has succeeded in emulating this beloved past, providing audiences with a safe outlet to enjoy the big screen.

With the fate of cinema and live performance uncertain, the Royalmount Drive-In, which opened on June 21, has come at an opportune time. By its very nature, the drive-in adheres to physical distancing requirements: Viewers can watch films from the comfort of their cars or seated right outside of them, within demarcations that ensure moviegoers remain at safe distances from one another. In addition to movies, the venue hosts comedy shows, charity and fundraising events, and live music.

Drive-in theatres have resonated with audiences since their inception for a variety of reasons. Cultural Studies professor Ned Schantz explained that drive-ins were symptomatic of mid-20th century car culture.

“[People would be] looking for any reason to be in [their] car because it was so important,” Schantz said. “Cars [were] so deeply tied to peoples’ identities. They were essential status symbols, and just loved in all sorts of ways.”  

The drive-in emerged in part because of white flight, the postwar movement during which many white Americans left urban centres that were becoming more ethnically diverse.

“With the new suburb, it [was] cheaper to just throw up a screen [at] a dirt lot at the outskirts of town,” Schantz said. “Largely because of the antitrust legislation of the late ’40s […] there [was] suddenly a lot more money in making cheap B-movies [….] The other thing going [was that] drive-ins thrived wherever there [was] cheap land. The three places with the biggest drive-in cultures are the U.S., Canada, and Australia, countries with more land than people.”

With the resurgence of drive-ins across North America, it’s clear that the enthusiasm for the summertime custom remains undiminished. Those seeking out new avenues for social interaction have increased traffic for drive-ins. Whispers and laughter amongst friends and families, some seated inside their cars with their windows rolled down, others lounging outside on folding chairs, all delighting in a shared movie experience, gives the Royalmount Drive-In a refreshing community atmosphere. 

Further, the drive-in offers a genuine, immersive movie experience, with its 50-foot LED screen and premium sound quality. This gives viewers two ways of approaching the event—either as a means of consuming cinema, contemporary and old alike, or as an authentic and nostalgic social experience. Drive-in staples, such as concessions  delivered right to your car door, and screenings of throwback films, from Casablanca (1942) to Grease (1978), bolster the Royalmount Drive-In’s sentimental spirit, transporting spectators back to simpler times. 

The Royalmount Drive-In Event Theatre brings the golden age of the drive-in cinema to our present, fostering togetherness and connection. In the age of social distancing, the drive-in cinema provides a breath of fresh air, bringing strangers together through a continued tradition of movie-watching.

The Royalmount Drive-In Event Theatre will continue to run films and live events until the end of October. Tickets can be purchased online through driveinmtl.com.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

From The Viewpoint: The Festival of Marionettes

by Noma Mirny on

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No one likes marionettes. In my mind, a marionette is one of three things: A lying rascal named Pinocchio, a demon-possessed puppet that haunts an abandoned Opera House, or, simply, entertainment for children. Marionettes are uncanny—miniature human figures stripped of all bodily autonomy, hanging limply with lifeless eyes. I never thought there was any artistic merit in puppetry, that is, until I saw it performed.

Le Festival Marionnettes Plein La Rue – Édition 9.5 is a multi-week event featuring pop-up performances and scheduled shows on Saturdays and Fridays at the Wellington Promenade in Verdun. The event features not just marionettes—puppets moved strictly by strings—but also other puppets of varying shapes and sizes. Some were propped up on sticks, attached to mouths, laid out flat in 2D, or even put on as costumes by actors. It is a festival that swells with life, showcasing the multitudinous mediums of puppetry.

The first pop-up event on Sep. 11 was a set-up of endearing cardboard homes where onlookers could pop their heads into a cut-out window and view a miniature image inside the boxes. Kids formed lines leading up to the boxes, excited to peek inside the pocket-sized show. 

The second was an interactive street show with two actors miming a performance. One was a short man dressed in a Magritte bowler-hat, while the other was a towering, skeletal Raggedy Ann, balancing on multi-foot stilts, dressed in a flowing 16-foot Victorian dress. Both had white-painted faces, red lips, and black diamond eyes.

The performers had multiple scenelets set to music playing from the actors’ suitcases. The radio crooned “Sous Le Ciel De Paris,” and the clowns became lovers, grasping one another’s hands as the Raggedy Ann stooped down like a giraffe to kiss her partner. Suddenly, the music switched to the rumbling of a storm, and the actors scuttled out of the rain, running with water-sprinkler-topped umbrellas. 

Finally, when the tune changed to a crackly tango, the giantess opened her suitcase, from which a puppet of an elderly man peered out. With a swift grace, the actress, now a puppeteer, manoeuvred the puppet’s body up the suitcase handles as if he was climbing a pole. In response, her scene partner leaned close to watch, and when the puppeteer moved her finger so as to threaten the balance of the old man perched atop the handle, her scene partner gasped, on the brink of tears. As she moved the old man up the shoulders of the bowler-hatted performer, he reacted to the weight, his shoulders jumping and arms shaking.

Soon, it became clear that the actors were both the puppets and puppeteers. Their movements were sudden, slap-sticky, charming, and incredibly precise. I had never before considered the Herculean work of these performers. From the twitch of a pinky finger to the twist of a torso, everything was methodical, exact, and hypnotizing. For the first time, I finally understood the appeal; puppeteering, unlike other artforms, hides nothing. There is no backstage. No crew. Puppeteering does not attempt to convince you that you are watching real life, that the puppets are moving on their own. Instead, it embraces the visibility of the puppeteer’s hands. You see the human moving the puppet, yet you cannot look away because it moves as if it were alive. And the puppeteers know that this is where the magic lies: In our ability to make life out of stillness.

 

Arts & Entertainment, Books

‘You Will Love What You Have Killed’ presents a haunted childhood

by Lowell Wolfe on

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Content warning: Violence, child abuse, and sexual assault

Murder, rape, and infanticide are not usually present in conventional coming-of-age novels. In Québecois author Kevin Lambert’s You Will Love What You Have Killed, however, these themes take center stage. Exploring individuality and childhood, Lambert’s novel is about children who are victims of violent deaths and reincarnated to plot their revenge on the adults of their small town. Published in French in 2017 and translated into English this year by Donald Winkler, the novel won the Prix Découverte du Salon du livre du Saguenay, and was a finalist for the Prix littéraire des collégiens. 

“It’s a fun and funny book,” Lambert said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “The children in the story are very cruel and mean, […] but they are powerful individuals that can […] destroy the adult world. The feeling that this book describes about growing up in a society where you feel there is no consideration for the younger generations, that’s a universal feeling today.”

Lambert drew from his own memories and experiences to weave an emotional story about children growing up in his hometown, Chicoutimi, Quebec. 

“There was hatred that I felt towards Chicoutimi,” Lambert said. “I didn’t feel that I could be gay there, [and I felt that] I had to move to Montréal to do that. I wanted to give the story a sense of vengeance by using that feeling which I had towards my childhood.”

Yet, Lambert’s sense of estrangement did not dissipate once he moved to Montreal. After he participated in Quebec’s 2012 student strikes, he understood that intergenerational conflicts can exist in urban areas just as they had in Chicoutimi.

“I was politically educated during the student strike of 2012,” Lambert said. “This time was important for Quebec society because political leaders [basically] told the younger generation, ‘What you ask for is not important. We do not care about what you want and we do not want to hear about your opinion.’”

Lambert emulated his political and personal life experiences through his troubled and isolated protagonist, Faldistoire. 

“[Faldistoire] at the beginning, has [a] rage that has no purpose or form,” Lambert said. “He does not know what the cause of this anger is, but he feels a great energy. His development in the story is linked to understanding this anger, and to the society in which he grows up.”

Now completing his Ph.D in creative writing at l’Université de Montréal, Lambert wrote the novel in part to explore the misconceptions that urban society often has about rural towns.

“I found the idea of writing about places which are special to me because I grew up in them, but are trite and suburban to others, very interesting,” Lambert said.

You Will Love What You Have Killed tells an unique story that draws its imaginative power through anecdotes. Together, Lambert’s contrasting influences have told an otherworldly story meant to resurrect childhood memories and explore their lasting effects in adulthood. Echoing past authors with similar interests in history’s hold over the present, Lambert shows that the past is never really dead. 

News, SSMU

SSMU holds the first legislative council of the semester

by Kate Addison on

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The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held its first legislative council meeting of the Fall 2020 semester on Sept. 8. As McGill has transitioned to online learning platforms, student organizations such as SSMU have similarly adapted to social distancing restrictions by holding their meetings via recorded Zoom calls. While the meeting lacked the usual energy of in-person SSMU assemblies, the council introduced new standing rules for future legislative council meetings and provided updates from the summer. 

Speaker of the Council Lauren Hill outlined changes to these rules that, when passed, will officially supersede SSMU’s pre-existing parliamentary procedure. Seeking to make council proceedings more efficient, another motion proposed banning late additions to the agenda.

“Up to one motion submitted after the deadline shall be considered as a late motion,” Hill said. “This is new from last year, […] but if you were on council before, you understood the issue with late motions, so we’ve decided that we’re essentially going to ban the practice [altogether].”

SSMU further increased its commitment to decorum within SSMU proceedings by instituting penalties for late or absent council members.

“If [a member of the council is] unexcused twice, [they] are automatically suspended,” Hill said. “If [they] are late, four times excused, [they’re] automatically suspended. All committees and reports must be submitted by the Sunday prior to Legislative Council [….] If [a council member] submits a late report, [it will] be equivalent to half of one absence since failure to submit a report will be equivalent to one absence in total.” 

Closing Tuesday’s meeting were executive reports from SSMU President Jemark Earle and Vice President of University Affairs Brooklyn Frizzle. Earle summarized SSMU’s progress over the summer and addressed issues with the absence of a French translation of the new SSMU constitution.

“This summer, there was a Judicial Board hearing on the validity of the 2020 Constitution that was approved last year [that] went to a referendum because it wasn’t submitted in French,” Earle said. “The results of the case are that the 2020 constitution that was voted on was declared invalid because it wasn’t approved in French. But the judgment won’t come into effect until Nov. 1, giving us enough time to run a special referendum which will be coming soon to approve both the English and French versions.”

Moment of the meeting:

Notable during the SSMU livestream was the upbeat game show-like music that played for a total of over 35 minutes during the three-hour meeting. Played as a lengthy musical interlude to open the proceedings and to punctuate each recess taken by councilors, the whimsical soundtrack truly set a fun tone for the student council meeting. 

Soundbite: 

“There’s a tech drive […] to raise awareness and collect technology for folks who might not have it this year, given that at least the fall semester is going to be conducted remotely. So basically, we’re looking to collect old laptops, or iPads, whatever that people have lying around or are not using. We’re hoping to hire someone who’d be able to fix them up if they’re broken. And then we would be delivering [the electronics] to students or community members in need so that they can study appropriately given the [online] semester.” – Jemark Le Jean

The meetings can be accessed on the SSMU Livestream Youtube channel.

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