Valentines + Sexy Crimes.

I know, it's been a while. But only because I'm about to give you a lot of sexy pictures, and I'm a douchebag who needs extra time to manage to have her camera and her USB cable and her computer in the same room, not to mention the extended periods of head-scratching and failed attempting that go with trying to remember my photobucket username and password.

Anyhow. I've just come back from a rather pleasant Tuesday evening on campus: I left the house for my acting class at 3:45, and managed to not quite entirely die of failure during our first of two guest lessons by fourth-year student Justin Collette (who is for some reason this crazy funny improv guru guy). Then, as I generally do on Tuesdays, I lolloped across the street (well, okay, I shuffled cautiously over the ice, fearing for my very life) to my friend Katie's house to prepare for Catalyst.

Tonight's Catalyst meeting was a little more laid back than most. We didn't have any particular business that needed attending to, so the central reason for the meeting was to hang out and eat candy and make valentines. And that we did indeed!

Look!

Candy! (Those spiral things on the pink plates are made out of potatoes and peanut butter. I don't understand either, but they were delicious.) And what's that in the middle of the table?

Omigosh, it's a super sexy valentine by Matthew! Awesome.


This is one my friend Johnathon made for me. It's a graph! A graph of affection! Nice!


Johnathon also experimented with expressing his emotions in the third dimension.


And here are Corey's hands working on a cute valentine for somebody. I'm not sure who...but also pictured is the valentine I made for him. I couldn't think of what noun best described his essence as a sexy individual, so it became a mad lib. I think we can all agree that that's pretty haat, no?

After cleaning up from the Catalyst valentine session, I and several other members migrated on over to the conveniently timed biweekly meeting of the Creative Writing Society.

Now, ordinarily I might be inclined to share a snippet of what I wrote there, but the thing is, tonight happened to be "the umpteenth annual erotic writing night", and I feel as though I might find my position on the blogging team under serious review if I were to take it in that direction. So I'll just say that there was some hot lesbian kitchen sex, and post this fantastical thing Claire created on the tabletop using the foil from the chocolates we consumed as we were writing and leave it at that.

Isn't that lovely?

Yes. It is. In fact, one might almost say it's too lovely.

I mean, my god, what is this blog becoming? I've just posted about a bunch of nice kids getting together in a church basement to make wholesome construction paper cards to validate each other's self-worth, and then having some good clean fun with the English language.

And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, What is she trying to hide? Surely the Shire of Sack cannot be as idyllic as she claims. It must hold some dark secrets, some vile underbelly the admissions people don't want us to know.

And you're right. And the interesting thing about my job is that even though I technically work for the people who want everybody everywhere to aspire to an academic career at Mt.A., I'm allowed to say whatever the crap I want. I'm allowed to expose this place for what it truly is.

Yeah, Sackville may look sweet and sunny on the surface. You may be tricked into thinking this is some kind of maritime utopia. But you would be wrong. Dearest pudding, do not tremble; do not fear; be bold, and do not look away, although what I am about to tell and show you may frighten you to your very marrow.

Sackville has CRIME.

I'm going to call upon the late playwright Joe Orton to introduce this next selection of photos:


Thanks Joe. Although one slight editing suggestion: you could perhaps scratch the word "PASSION" and replace it with "BOREDOM". It's up to you, but I feel that might be a more appropriate adjective in this case.

What are these crimes, you ask? I'll tell you!

GRAFFITI!

You're shocked. I know. However, I would urge you not to entirely rule out Mount Allison as a potential location for your higher education on the basis of this criminal element alone.

In fact, it may be safe to say that it was an encounter with the graffiti of the Mount Allison campus and surrounding village that confirmed for me my desire to attend this particular institution. In the late summer of whatever the heck year it was when I came on an exploratory visit to the Mt.A. campus, somebody somewhere in Sackville decided they didn't like somebody named Trevor, and they got themselves a can of black spray paint and proceeded to broadcast really nasty, predominantly homophobic things about this Trevor person upon many of the concrete surfaces in the shire. That part didn't make me happy! The part that did make me happy was that somebody else had come along with a great quantity of white chalk and written much nicer messages in much nicer penmanship next to all the nasty, homophobic ones. Where the spray paint said "TREVOR SUCKS", the chalk said "I THINK HE'S COOL"; where the spray paint said "TREVOR IS GAY," the chalk said "PEOPLE SHOULD BE NICER TO TREVOR"; where the spray paint said "TREVOR LIKES DICK," the chalk had amended the message to "TREVOR LIKES DILL PICKLES ON HIS SANDWICHES AND THAT'S PRETTY NORMAL" -- and so on and so forth. I was sincerely touched by the effort to which somebody had gone to counteract all the Trevor-bashing, and I decided that a town containing such a somebody was a town I'd like to get to know better.

So now you may be wondering, "Have your hopes for this town been satisfied? Have you seen further works by this or other good-natured imps in the shire?"

I would like to answer those questions with the following photograph:

I do not know who is responsible for the above sign alteration. I do not know their gender, age, sexual orientation, or level of physical attractiveness. But I do know that I would probably make out with this person if they identified themselves to me. Or I could not make out with them, if that's what they're into. Whatever. Know that I love you if you are reading this, mystery sign vandal.

This is perhaps my favourite exhibit of mischeif marking in the shire, but there are others of note!

I am choosing not to identify the locations of the following pictures, so that you can seek them for yourselves when you come to visit or live here.

Can your heart stand the shocking facts?

If not, too bad. THEY ARE COMING TO GET YOU.






















Gee, I sure am glad somebody took the effort to highlight the mortar between the bricks that make up that wall. I might have missed it otherwise, and goodness knows what horrors that could breed!

So you see, it's not all paper hearts and sapphic skillets here in the shire. It's also ICY DRIVEWAYS and MILDLY ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES THAT MAKE THE BORING EXTERIORS OF BUILDINGS LESS BORING!

But wait! Sackville graffitiists are not always content to leave their criminality in the out-of-doors! On occasion, they bring their scandalous intentions indoors, into our libraries and our public washrooms and our residence bulletin boards. Stay tuned for further enticing installments of CRIMES OF BOREDOM!

More Life,
Emmet

P.S. - Funnily enough, the front page story in the Argosy this week actually is about vandalism on campus. When I first saw it I kind of freaked out, because I thought perhaps some harm had come to the Alex Colville mural which is the pride and joy of Tweedie Hall, and kind of a big deal about the university in general...while I wouldn't have wanted anything like that to happen, I was frankly a little bit disappointed to discover, upon reading the article, that the only thing that was harmed was apparently a light fixture or something. Not that I want things to be harmed, but seriously, a light fixture? Only at Mt.A. is the need to replace a bulb front page news.

P.P.S. - My dad is one of those hip grown ups who knows about the internet, so he has a livejournal, and it just so happens that he recently posted an entry there in defense of the marvelous fun that can be had in the province of New Brunswick. It includes some very shiny pictures taken under less wintery conditions than those above. Check it out!

P.P.P.S. - WHY ARE YOU STILL AWAKE? Oh yeah, it's because you need to watch this totally gay video about how it's not cool to force people to be divorced just 'cause their genders match:

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
More info here, loves. Personally, I think this video is really well-done (excellent use of an excellent song), and although it's too bad we didn't get this kind of honest display of queer families in the media (even from the anti-prop-8 side) leading up to the election, I still think it could do a lot of good to spread this around now. So go forth and spread the gospel of Regina!

PARTYWANKERY TO THE MAX.

Oh pudding,

I’m exhausted.

There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t told you. That’s the ironic thing about blogging. When you’re busy doing the kind of things that would make really interesting blog posts, you don’t have time to blog.

I didn’t tell you about the English Society Wine and Cheese (where we all tried to be subtle about perusing Dr. Brown’s record collection and Dr. Lapp read selections from A Christmas Carol and everybody smiled like little kids on a postage stamp and I convinced Katie to get tipsy with me and then I left my cake pan there and we went to somebody else’s house and spooned under a Boy Scout blanket watching Fight Club and The Tudors).

I didn’t tell you about regaining broadcasting powers at CHMA (which I’ve used the past two Tuesday nights to spew out my little radio show Skeleton Food, which you can learn more about here).

I didn’t tell you about submitting some of my poetry to our pretty little literary journal, 7 Mondays (which required an hour or so of fretful consultation with three trusted friends to decide which of my names to submit them under, and why).

I didn’t tell you about the in-class presentation of the Shakespeare in the Schools project (which will be revisited and performed in a more polished form a the high school in January).

I didn’t tell you about the Lessons and Carols service at the chapel featuring Elliot Chorale (which was beautiful).

I didn’t tell you about how incredibly amazing the Guy Davis Trio turned out to be (which was a superfantasticallymuch, and also Guy Davis totally hit on me because I poured his tea for him…which was equal parts extremely embarrassing and totally awesome).

I didn’t tell you about going to see Cloud Nine at Windsor Theatre in October (which broke my mind in a much-needed way).

…and no doubt a lot of other stuff too. It’s been a busy semester. Oh well. You know what I’m going to tell you about now? My tea party. You know why? Because it was a good tea party. I haven’t felt proud of very many things lately, but damn…my tea party hosting skills are nothing if not epic. (Photo credit for all pictures below unless indicated otherwise goes to Talisa Tims. I live with her!)


My flat-mate decided to document the progression of the cleaning of the flat photographically, perhaps under the (entirely realistic) assumption that we will never see our common areas this clean again. It took three friggin’ days, pudding. This is one of the pictures where you don’t see a bag of garbage perched on any of our furniture. (And yeah, that one wall is painted a completely different colour than the rest of the walls visible in the picture. That is only the beginning of the many paint-related anomalies in this apartment. Perhaps I will gve you a photograhic tour of them some day...because they are legion, and I kind of love them.)


CHMA radio personality and all-around nifty guy Grant Hurley described this table setting as “romantic”, and who am I to disagree? (Er, ignoring the plastic spice bags lurking behind the candy dishes.)


Later, as people arrived with baked goods and supplementary teacups it got perhaps a little less romantic-looking and a little more…how you say…AWESOME. (That loaf. That loaf is the loaf-love of my life. Made by the multi-talented Sara Williamson.)


My friends Katie and Roland are salsa dancing machines. Sometimes you stop paying attention to them for a second and when you turn around they’re doing salsa moves in your living room. It’s cute.


I made a huge pot of chai tea! I’ve been wanting to do this for ages. A friend of mine’s house used to constantly smell of chai tea, because his mother made it so often that the smell kind of seeped into the walls. His mother has since moved away to the country (close to where my parents live, in fact), and the smell has faded as a cluster of delightful but non-chai-obsessed students have taken up residence in the place. The point is, I’m a fan of home-made chai, and it turns out it’s not as difficult to make as I thought it would be, and it seemed to go over well with my guests.


Of course, this whole thing is really just an excuse to play with fire.


In a display of extreme awesomeness, Dr. Lapp, of reading-stuff-so-you-get-shivery-in-the-spine fame made an appearance at our little tea shindig (he is the bearded fellow pictured above). That was rather nice, as I used to like inviting a favourite teacher to advent tea at my parents' house, and I've been hosted for dinner at the Lap-Petlock residence a number of times over the past year and a half (mostly in conjunction with Catalyst events, as Dr. Lapp's partner, Melody Petock, is our staff advisor). It was quite sweet to be able to say that I'd put together a homey environment close enough to a real house to continue traditions from my childhood, and for invitations to go two ways with real grown ups.


Later, the aforementioned Grant Hurley tried to break the newly instated "No Leaving Without Hugging" rule. I was not impressed. Or at least that’s what this picture looks like to me. This may be revisionist history. We may not have even written said rule until some time after Grant’s departure. WHATEVER. (Note the cute number 7 on Grant’s shirt. That’s the 7 Mondays logo! Grant has somethingorother to do with 7 Mondays. That possibly means he’ll end up reading my poems even if they’re not deemed publishable. That’s a little embarrassing, because Grant is definitely a better writer than I am. But that’s okay. I am slowly trying to convince myself that a big part of being a writer is being embarrassed when your work is seen by people who are much better writers than you. This is, I suppose, incrementally less true for people who are better writers than I am, but shush. That part does not aid my personal mythology.)

That’s all I have to say about my tea party. It was nifty, though.

Today I wrote two exams: Lit. Periods to 1800 and Women’s Studies. Hence the exhaustion.

Strangely, I feel pretty good about the essay portion of the first one, aside from the fact that I could have used more time. I’m kind of in limerence with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight lately. And Beowulf, a bit. My essay was about how poets are in charge of ripping holes in you and your ideas about the world (or rather, widening the holes you leave open in your carelessness), and both of those poems are very good examples of that. And that, in itself, is a very good example of how I feel about my major. I’m impressed by the daring work that good writers do, and I’m drawn to studying it, but it’s also really, really uncomfortable, and sometimes I wish I had something even remotely approaching the idea of "ability" in a less emotionally/spiritually probing field. But no, I'm here with my English major and my Drama and Religious Studies minors, driving myself crazy by choice. Excellent.

Then you get a three hour break before geting depressed all over again blaming everything on patriarchy. (Oh Women's Studies...we've had some good times together, but I think this may be the end for you and I. It just Was Not Meant To Be. Although perhaps I shouldn't say such things.)

So yeah. I’m tired. And now it’s time to get to studying for my Hebrew Bible exam—wheee, more patriarchy!

I hope all is well with you, pudding. Make sure you’re drinking too much tea.

More Life,
Emmet

P.S. - Oh geez, I can't not share this with you.

If any of you are this brilliant at coming up with satirical protest ideas, please come to Mount Allison. We're pretty cool, but we need more rabble-rousing of this caliber.

Holy Crap It's Winter, Mes Amis (+ Sometimes I Write Papers + A Somber Occasion)

Hey pudding,

My goodness! I leave this blog alone for a week and all of a sudden there’s a seasonal transition to be talked about.

Maybe “transition” isn’t quite the right word. Transition implies something gradual—something for which one can be prepared. That may well be an accurate description for winter as you’ve come to know it in wherever-the-heck-you-are-from-if-you-are-from-somewhere-with-winter-at-all, but we don’t mess around with those little, teasing autumn snows that look pretty in the air but melt as they hit the pavement and don’t really interrupt the grand scheme of things in the slightest here in the shire. Oh no, not us. We jump headlong into epic, undeniable, event-cancelling, library-closing snows.

As the season began to take over earlier in the week, I was a big grumpypants about it because I didn’t want to cease my daily shared experience with ma bicyclette just yet, but this morning I woke up and made (as they were retroactively dubbed by somebody I’m about to mention) “Go Go Gadget Vegan Muffins”, put some of them in a handy dandy Tupperware container, and trudged off through the snow to meet my friend Eric (the somebody you were waiting for me to mention) in his room at Hunton House, where we spent several hours eating muffins, talking about things that are TOO SECRET FOR BLOGGING (gasp, whatever could she mean?! ...use your imaginations, dudes and ladies), and recording things on garage band featuring his room-mate’s sparkly blue ukulele. Er, mostly Eric did the playing/recording...but I looked up chord charts and accidentally contributed the possible title Metronomes Are For Chumps.

So yeah. Winter and me are cool now. I think winter kind of works on the same principles as a baby. It makes everything so much more difficult and the things it likes to do make no sense whatsoever, but it’s friggin’ cute and it transmits contact cuteness to everybody who touches it, or sees it through a proective glass sheild. Examples noted on my journeys to and from Hunton this morning:
· A girl telling another girl about something ridiculous involving her brother and a wall of snow from when they were little kids.
· A girl saying to her friend, “I’ve lost my mittens / you naughty kittens / and you shall have no pie”.
· A faux-orgy in snowsuits on the football field.

Friggin' adorable.

Okay. Speaking of sudden non-transitions to completely different topics, somewhere in the midst of writing my most challenging paper of the semester, this came out:

I shirked house initiation when I was a frosh. I usually feel sort of weird about intentional group bonding activities in general: pep rallies; trust exercises; supposedly empowering retreat assignments that inadvertently end up just underlining the crushing, insurmountable loneliness of the high school student...these things are not really my bag — not least because they usually seem to be scheduled for just shortly after I experience a more organic bond-forming moment with some or all members of the group in question. Doing something artificially devised to make me feel close to the same people tends to feel at best silly, and at worst like it reverses the whole process so I have to start all over again. Thus, having consulted with the dons and a few of my particular house friends to make sure it wouldn’t be too big a slight to any of them, I hid away in my room with my radio and my notebook while my housemates got covered in condiments and oatmeal and tested on the anatomy of the average goat (Bennett’s mascot, don’cha know). The whole affair lasted maybe twenty minutes, and when my recently made friends had been given their congratulatory blue plastic beer steins and the opportunity to shower, we reunited and moved on to our premeditated evening activities (which to the best of my recollection involved slight inebriation of one kind or another and that movie with the stop motion gorilla and everybody’s favourite screaming Canadian). It’s entirely possible there was some kind of magic I missed out on by not participating in ye olde ritual humiliation, but I think I felt about as at home in my residence as somebody as socially inept as me could be expected to feel — in fact, quite a bit more so than I expected from the outset.

I will say that I am in some ways jealous of people who are able to accept these things at face value and grasp their intended qualities instead of getting wrapped up in their own minute little feelings about everything that happens to them moment-to-moment and coming up with a really depressing interpretation of the situation, but hey—I’m a compulsive-writer-turned-English-major, so did I ever really have a chance at joyful under-analysis? I’m thinking not. I mean sure, I’ve tried to let myself get away with it before, but I always end up feeling grumpy and incomplete and dashing off into a corner somewhere under the hood of my sweater to produce some questionable prosetry (read: that which is not good enough at being poetry or prose to legitimately qualify as either) about my inability to function like a regular human being. All in all, it seems a better move to just not get involved at the beginning, and write on a subject I’ve exhausted a little less thoroughly.

I mention this right now, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a paper, because it has suddenly come to my attention that I’m being initiated: not into my current domestic situation (which is shared with a charming young woman who I’m pleased to report is as much of a nerd as I am), but into my chosen academic discipline.

I suppose I should have seen this coming when, on the first day of my Lit. Periods to 1800 course, I was bade welcome to “English Boot Camp”, but I took that to be a light-hearted jibe about having to be in class at an obscenely early hour and respond to surprise quizzes before the caffeine had kicked in. Here in the middle of a puddle of open books, incomprehensible notes, and used teacups however, I’m beginning to believe it’s a little more apt an analogy than that. I don’t think I’m allowed to explain it in any more detail than that to anybody who hasn’t been through it yet (i.e.- the assumed readership of this blog), but trust me...it’s one of the most excellent feelings you’ll ever have on not enough sleep and way too much caffeine.

Oh, and in case you ever wanted to know what fancy university scholars sound like when they’re distracting themselves with MSN conversations...

emmet says: you know what's weird?
Eric says: what?
emmet says: being a writer who's been dead for years and years and years and having people write great big books about what you were probaby getting at.
Eric says: that is a bit odd....
emmet says: i mean, if you're alive it's probably weird if somebody writes something about something you wrote and interprets it in way you're not necessariy aligned/comfortable with...but then you can just be like "um dudes no", but if you're dead you can't say nohin', so it's like EVERYBODY'S RIGHT.
or at least that what's i'm going to tell myself so i don't feel like a big jerky jerk for trying to definitively make up my mind in one night about what chaucer was tryna say about women-folk.
Eric says: but I mean, there has to be a set sort of idea that people have, I mean people aren't that stupid i guess
emmet says: it's just odd because there are certain points that everybody hits and pretty much agrees upon, and then there are these radically different interpretations of what those points actually meeeeeaaaan. and the dude is uber-dead, which is most unhelpful of him. anyhow. back to essay.

That’s me in all my unedited, non-capitalised, typotastic glory, chillens.

At 8:32 on the night before the paper is due, I am suddenly stricken with an irrational fear that I am mistaken not only in my thesis, but somehow in the subject of my research altogether. A good 25% of my mind is paralysed with the conviction that I must have remembered incorrectly which text’s name I drew, or that I somehow failed to read the right thing in the first place. The better part of my brain assures me that I took most careful note of it at the time, and that it’s pretty unlikely for a second-year English major to read The General Prologue off of a piece of paper that actually says Sir Gawain or Beowulf or something, but I do this around this time with pretty much every major assignment ever. You know, the point at which I’ve officially put a whole lot of work into it and am entirely unprepared to turn around and change anything major about it. The thing is that I can never quite calm myself down about it entirely, because the whole oops-wrong-topic thing actually did happen to me on an assignment in grade 10 English. It was a really major assignment, and I ended up failing the course. (So yeah — if there’s some kind of myth out there that you only get into Mount Allison if you were an impeccable student in high school: BUSTED.)

Weird. I actually hadn’t put it together until just now, but yeah — since then I have at least one moment like this in every significant project, in which I am convinced I’m going to find out I’m OBSCENELY WRONG about what to do as soon as I walk into the classroom all set to hand it in. It’s probably a good sign, really. Means I’ve got something I feel is in some way valuable provided I am writing about the right thing, right? Right?

Hilarious retroactive addendum to this anecdote: when I arrived in class to turn in this paper (having completed it, I kid you not, less than twenty minutes before leaving the house), I was told to partner up with a particular fellow student. I wasn’t sure what the partnering was about, but I was pleased with the person I’d been partnered with on account of she’s really smart and friendly—but then she plunked herself next to me and asked, “So, I guess you did The Wife’s Lament too?” A vast desire to bash my head into the desk until one or the other was reduced to some form of pulp ensued…but was promptly assuaged when Dr. Rogers explained that, as a reward for none of us sending her any stupid questions by email at the last minute, we were all being given the opportunity to have our papers proofread by a peer chosen for complementary skills, not identical paper topics, take their suggestions home with us, and submit the edited versions on Thursday morning. I don’t know if it’s possible or likely for somebody to pee their pants with relief, but I’m pretty sure I almost did (although that may have had something to do with the massive quantities of tea I’d consumed throughout the night).

That brings us to Thursday, which brings me to an important Catalyst event that evening: the annualTransgender Day of Remembrance vigil.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day set aside to commemorate people whose lives have been truncated violently by other people who somewhere got the fucked up idea that people who don’t fit the standard male-female gender/sex dichotomy are not entitled to the same basic respect for their corporeal persons as those who jive easily with the system. We had intended to hold this vigil outside the library, as we did last year, but due to the aforementioned weather issues, we switched locations and gathered inside the chapel instead. Names of this year’s fallen and a few representative body shapes were chalked on the stone floor at the front of the chapel; candles were lit; Katie spoke very movingly on the importance of remembering these people whose deaths are too often overlooked in the media; Reverend Perkin led us in prayer; the list was passed and read aloud by the community, a moment of silence was observed, more candles lit; folks were thanked for showing their support, and copious embraces and handshakes were exchanged among friends and strangers as we began to disperse.

Katie and I were then drawn aside by a representative of the Argosy who wanted to interview us as Catalyst Executive members (President and Activism Chair respectively) on our reasons for organizing the event, and what we hoped people would come away from it with. These weren’t very difficult questions to answer (essentially: a. people are being murdered and that’s not okay by us, and b. we need to be putting more energy into loving and caring for each other, and less into setting up rigid, unrealistic, unfun social structures that leave out so many valuable, beautiful, fallible, loving, real people), but it is in some ways strange to suddenly be one of the people to whom people automatically turn for the official story on these things. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t considered that being Activism Chair would involve so much media interaction (sure it’s small scale, but everything is here) when I put my name forward for the position in September. It’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing — just something that’s surprised me. I’m pretty sure I’ve managed not to say anything too stupid in a public capacity so far (knock on particle board).

Oy, this has been a long entry. You want some kind of shiny reward at the end for your faithful display of literacy in reading this, don’t you? Fine.

^ Nothing to do with Mount Allison (she lives way over on the opposite coast, and one nation to the south), but I spent a good chunk of this afternoon learning to play this song, as the little lady who wrote it was nice enough to send me the chords to her original material. Her name is Molly and her birthday is tomorrow.

Oh! Before we part, the hobo demonstration I mentioned last post made front page of the Argosy, pudding. Er, the picture in the actual print version is much more exciting, in that it’s big. I’m not in either of them, because photos were taken at 1:30 whilst I was in class. A point is made in that article that the hobo aspect of the protest may have been somewhat offensive. This is…not entirely untrue. That said, I think the linking of hobos and education kinda strikes a chord for me. I may or may not elaborate on this later. Now it is most definitely time for this entry to be over.

More Life,
Emmet

Obscenely long post! Are you ready for this?

Hey pudding,


(I’ve decided to refer to the readers of my blog collectively as “pudding”. Maybe just for today, maybe indefinitely. You’ll simply have to stay tuned to find out!)

This post is going to come at you in two parts, vlogbrothers style.

First part: catching up on some cool things that I’ve experienced as a Mt.A. student so far this year.
Second part: Remembrance Day observances at Mt.A.


Part One:


Whee, there’s a lot to sum up here, and I’m sure I’ll miss a lot of stuff, but I’ll try and pick out some highlights.

I’m actually going to begin before the start of the school year. One of the things it’s easy to stop noticing sometimes when we get wrapped up in our bubble of studenthood is that New Brunswick is friggin’ gorgeous. It was really nice to have my family visiting the area with me as I moved back at the end of the summer, because it meant going out and appreciating said gorgeousness in a more conscious way. One evening we ended up on a beach in Shediac (just a little ways down the road), and my dad managed to capture the sunset quite impressively on his little green cell phone.

The silhouettes there are me and my brother. I feel almost embarrassed about how much this resembles a tourist shop postcard, but damn. Gorgeous, no?

You’d hardly guess that, probably as this picture was taken, the two of us were bantering about our desire to see as many of the posted beach rules (No Pets, Fire, or Nudity) broken as possible. Later, a man passed by with a little dog. The dog, being a dog, wasn’t wearing any clothes, so...2/3? If only any of us were smokers, we could have whipped out a lighter and made it an even 3, but no such luck. Alas.

Then I chased my brother down the beach trying to put sand in his hair. You have to understand that when you move away from your sibling(s), you have to compensate for the lack of shared daily experience by being extra-annoying to each other when you reunite. I think I did a pretty good job that day, if I do say so myself.

Jumping forward a couple weeks...

One of the groups I’m quite active in on campus is Catalyst, Mount Allison’s Queer-Straight Alliance. (In fact, I’m so active that they elected me as the Activism Chair this year.) We’re fortunate that, while most Pride parades/events take place during the summer, Moncton for some reason has theirs in September, meaning that students are back in Sackville, and our group can pile into a vehicle or two for a jolly gay outing.

(Photo Credit: Brittany Snow. She's pretty fab.)

This year we inadvertently ended up at the front of the parade, as we arrived and discovered that people were needed to carry the maritime provincial flags, and there were just enough of us to do the job. Now we’re famous! Or something.

Funnily enough, the day after the parade was the SACtivities fair, when clubs and societies set up tables in the student centre, and first-year students have the opportunity to speak with the people who run them and sign up for any mailing lists that interest them. Catalyst has always (to my knowledge) been a pretty modest-sized group, so we were expecting maybe between three and five new names on our mailing list that afternoon. We were hugely, awesomely wrong. By the end of the day, our President was holding a list of forty-odd new email addresses to type into her computer. Now, not everyone who is on the mailing list attends meetings regularly, but even so, our meetings have grown from gatherings of about five students each week to twenty or more. Good thing we moved into a bigger room this year! (We’re now meeting in the basement of the chapel. Many people seem to find this comical, but Rev. Perkin is actually one of our greatest allies on campus, and our group is centrally concerned with supporting each other’s wellbeing and with social justice activism—both very Christian principles, although the group itself is comprised of people of many different faith backgrounds, as well as atheists and agnostics, like me.)



Anyhow. With such a large and enthusiastic group, we were able to really expand our Coming Out Day activities this year. In fact, we didn’t just have a day, we had a whole coming out week, beginning on October 14th, as students returned from their Thanksgiving adventures. There was a screening of the clever Canadian coming out comedy (if you think I can fit more c-words into that phrase, let me know) Mambo Italiano, following which we went around campus and chalked a selection of queer-positive quotations on the sidewalks, and a huge Kinsey Scale in front of the Student Centre.

This picture is actually from last year’s “chalk the town gay” night, but I still love Tony Kushner, and I did put another quote from him on the sidewalk this year as well, but it was not photographed, whereas this one was, by then-Vice-President (now President) Katie “Gaypants” Saulnier.

In the middle of the delicious gay sandwich that was Coming Out Week, we had a very special treat: a lecture by our own wonderful Dr. Lapp, about queer theory as applies to his discipline, which is English. I had the privilege of introducing him on this occasion, which was kind of special, as I believe Dr. Lapp is a large part of the reason I decided to major in English. He’s well-known in the shire for his dramatic poetry readings, and a particular highlight of this evening for me was when he read W.H. Auden’s Lullabye. I have to admit that poetry is not my principal area of interest in literature, but I do have a soft spot for Auden, and Dr. Lapp has a way of bringing all the really juicy stuff to the surface when he reads. Not only that, but he frequently gets so excited by his subject matter that he giggles, and you can’t help but giggle in response. Basically, a class with Dr. Lapp is the ultimate combination of education and adorableness. Have I said “Dr. Lapp” enough in this paragraph? Dr. Lapp Dr. Lapp Dr Lapp! He even has a facebook group in his honour.

The following evening, we had our Positive Space event. Positive Space is something we put together a few times a year, and it’s proved quite popular. Essentially, it’s an open invitation to members of the community to come and learn a bit about queer issues. Attendees get a basic primer in terminology and concepts such as heterosexual privilege, tips on how to support somebody who is coming out, personal stories from members of Catalyst who volunteer to be brave and share their experiences, an opportunity to ask questions about Catalyst/queer issues generally, and they leave with a pretty little rainbow flying A sticker with the words “positive space” on it that they can display to show others that they are a queer ally. (You’ll see the stickers in lots of different places around campus if you visit or attend Mt.A. I’m typing this up on a laptop with the symbol proudly stuck over the computer company logo, and across the room, there’s another one on my mandolin case. So if you want to come out to my mandolin, you know it’ll be a total sweetheart about it.)


To finish off our week, we held an event known as “Live Homosexual Acts”, which I like to think of as kind of the guerrilla version of Positive Space. We set up a table outside the library with some Hot Gay Chocolate (which is much like regular hot chocolate, only less hetero-normative), and invited people to come learn a little bit about the history of queer rights in Canada (October is gay history month, don’cha know), and hear some poetry/monologues by queer authors and about queer issues. It got really exciting when a guy from CHMA showed up and started interviewing us, and recorded some of our readings for the campus radio station (which is currently essentially on hiatus, but I’ll be ranting about that in a future entry, no doubt). Then some students from the commerce society came by with a survey meant to gauge our enthusiasm for a campus sausage stand, and we fulfilled stereotypes by responding, “But I’m a vegetarian...” in droves. So I guess it’s true...tofu makes you gay. Or alternatively, maybe being gay makes you crave tofu? Whatever. I still love this button:

Whee, has this blog been gay enough for you so far? We better make sure.

All right now; I’m gonna go ahead and jump forward a bit. Not that nothing exciting happened between October 17th and last Thursday, but honestly, his post is already pretty epic-sized. That means if you’ve made it this far, you are the elite! You may reward yourself with a cookie if you like. I’ll be waiting right here for you when you get back.







Back now? Did you bring one for me? No? You suck. Kidding, kidding; I’ll get over it some day. In the meantime: why last Thursday was fun!


Actually, every Thursday is pretty fun in Sackville...almost too fun, you might say. Last year, I was a big fan of the film society nights at the Vogue Cinema. I’ve only been to one of those this year (The Edge of Heaven, which I highly recommend, by the by). In fact, many of the movies have appealed to me, but I am being wooed by another lover. This lover lives just across the street from the Vogue, and it is known as the Bridge Street Cafe Open Mic Night. Technically, the two are not mutually exclusive, as the movie is usually done not too long after 9:00, and the Open Mic goes until 10:00, but on the one occasion I tried to two-time them, it was bad news bears. Maybe you’re more awesome than I am, but I couldn’t transition so easily from movie-watching mode to playing-music-in-front-of-people mode, and the result was a lot of really embarrassing mistakes. So mostly, Open Mic on its own has been my standard Thursday night activity. There’s a nice regular crowd mainly of older musicians that I really like hanging out with. I grew up going to jam sessions with my dad, and spent last summer singing with his band, so it’s pretty nice to have stumbled upon a community of real grown-up music makers here in Sackville that don’t mind my hanging around.



This Thursday, however, was a little bit different. This time around, Open Mic night was hosted by B.O.D.I.E.S., and there was a special focus on music and readings that dealt with violence awareness. I played two songs. The first was this:

As I said to the audience at the cafe that night, “This song is about relationship violence, but you’re allowed to laugh, because it has a werewolf in it.” Then I asked them if they would sing along on the chorus, and they promised me they would, and then they really did! I’ve always been too shy to try to elicit that level of audience participation before, but it was pretty thrilling, so I think I’ll definitely be doing it more in future. Following that song, I played one I had never shared with anyone before, a fact that only really occurred to me as I was introducing it. It seemed appropriate for the evening in question, though, as it was something I wrote in high school in response to being harassed by strangers when I would walk through the park hand-in-hand with a female friend or sweetheart (something that I’m pleased to say I have not experienced since coming to Mount Allison—the harassment, that is; I’ve held plenty of girl-hands here). I got really flustered and messed up the lyrics at one point while playing, and I don’t really think the song is good enough to become part of my regular performance repertoire, but I’m glad I took the opportunity to play it for such a supportive crowd, nonetheless. I felt so much fondness for the Mt.A. community that night, overall. It was just a really warm and fuzzy feeling I got—but at the same time, not the kind of feeling you get from just ignoring the fact that there are problems that need to be confronted. It was a warm fuzzy feeling of knowing I was one in a room full of people who were into actually confronting said problems, rather than passively putting up with the bullshit. Good times.

Okay, moving on to...

Part Two:



Remembrance Day has always been a kind of iffy holiday for me. I can appreciate that it is definitely (at least usually) more oriented towards peace rather than the glorification of war, but I still find that some of the patriotism/militarism connected with the day makes the semi-Quaker hippy child inside of me just a tad uncomfortable.


That said, there is at least one part of the observance of Remembrance Day that I find very moving: the moment of silence. National anthems and military insignia may not be very Quaker-kosher, but silence sure is. Anyone who’s met me knows that I have a sometimes aggravating tendency to scurry to fill up the blanks in conversation, and as my flat-mate can attest, I’m not very good at functioning without my constant soundtrack—but I do value silence, particularly when it’s shared with others.


Last year, I was in my pyjamas, reading a book in bed at about 5 minutes to 11 when a boy from down the hall knocked on my residence room door and asked if I’d like to join a group of people meeting in his room to observe the moment of silence. I had actually somewhat forgotten the reason why wasn’t required to be in class that day, but being reminded, I cast off my covers, followed the boy back to his room, and stood in the door-frame while his room-mate clicked “play” on a laptop screen, causing “The Last Post” to be broadcast through tinny computer speakers. Then silence. It wasn’t a very formal affair (I was not the only one wearing the clothes I’d slept in), but it was very poignant.


This year, Remembrance Day would probably have slipped by me entirely, but last night I received a call from my friend Katie (a.k.a. President Gaypants), asking her if I would accompany her to the ceremony on campus this morning. I agreed, and although I might have preferred to sleep a little longer when my alarm clock squawked at me this morning (I was dream-skiing with Michelle Obama and suddenly becoming aware that she had a remarkable number of classy, discreet facial piercings that had somehow completely escaped media attention throughout her partner’s campaign), I hauled myself out of bed and put on the most suitable clothes my ramshackle wardrobe could provide (hoping nobody would notice the occasional paint stain), hopped on my bike and pedalled off to met Katie at her house.


It was a good move. The first part of the ceremony was at Convocation Hall: prayers, readings, addresses, wreaths, and lots of people in uniform. Following that, the group split. The majority (including all the people in uniform) proceeded downtown, while Katie and I and a handful of others went to the Student Centre to observe a special ceremony specifically in honour of those Mount Allison students lost in battle, dating from the South African War to the Korean War—with the majority of the names falling under the First and Second World War. Then the Last Post, played by a trumpeter standing on the stairs between the two atriums. I realised something I’d never had occasion to be aware of before, which is that our new Student Centre has incredible acoustics. It seems like an odd thing to be true of a building not particularly designed for musical events (mostly we go there to check mail, buy textbooks, and create more work for the various good kind people who have offices there), but I hope today isn’t the last time I get to hear it put to such good use. I might be tempted to sing out loud as I lollop down those stairs to check my mail from now on.


Anyhow. The silence.


I think one of the really powerful things about silence is that it opens up a space in which we all become very aware of our own bodies. I don’t know about you, but when I’m asked to be silent, the first thing that happens is I have to swallow. It’s not a very noisy action, not a terribly disruptive one, but in the face of silence it becomes a noticeable one, at least to the person doing it. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, particularly not when the silence in question is meant to commemorate the sacrifice of those killed in warfare—the sacrifice of their bodies under violent, horrific circumstances.


A few weeks ago, I took myself out on a movie date to see Passendaele, Paul Gross’ much-anticipated great Canadian war epic. I definitely wouldn’t give the film a perfect review (there were several aspects of it that made me pretty uncomfortable, and not in a directorial intent kind of way) but one thing I do think it dealt with very effectively was the bodily experience of trench warfare—both among those soldiers who came home and those whose bodies never left the battlefield. Watching the terrible abuses of the human form in that film, I found I couldn’t just dissociate, dismiss it as a fictional representation fabricated out of corn syrup and camera tricks and sit easily in my chair watching it happen. I became very wrapped up not just in the fact that historically, such things did happen, and do happen to the bodies of others, but also in the sacredness of the body, which is what makes those facts so appalling.


Love your body. Take care of it. Don’t let anybody else tell you what to do with it. It’s yours. Remember that, please.


I’m gonna let Buffy Sainte-Marie play us out here with a song a beloved old hippy teacher sang to our theatre class one sleepy 11/11 morning.

More Life,

Emmet