“Who needs arts and culture in Toronto?” was the topic of the final lecture in the Toronto In Question series hosted by the U of T Cities Centre on Tuesday. The event’s two speakers, au-thor John Ralston Saul and U of T Professor of Philosophy Mark

Kingwell, pointed out that the answer to this question is obvi-ous: “everyone.” But what is cul-ture and what part does it play in our lives?

Both Saul and Kingwell ar-gued that our understanding of culture has taken on an eco-nomic dimension—a change that has been for the worse.

They suggested that we should reconsider our view of culture and its place in society.

Saul said that culture is mis-conceived as a luxury reserved for “sissies and entertainment.” It is seen as an attraction for tourists or as the preserve of the wealthy. For Kingwell, the popular understanding of cul-

ture has been reduced to an economic calculation- what he referred to as “use-value.” As a result, culture in Toronto, even when there is a revival of inter-est in the arts, has been seriously devalued.

Both speakers also touched on the relation between culture and location. Ralston Saul in

particular argued for the impor-tance of place, or how the physi-cal design of the city shapes our interactions and ability to make use of it. “Toronto is a northern city and we need to build things accordingly,” he said.

The fact that the City of To-ronto has not done so has led to

Ontario ruling gives green light to brothels

On Monday, the Ontario Court of Appeal held that the prohibi-tion of bawdy houses is uncon-stitutional in that it infringes on individuals’ rights to liberty and security, protected under section seven of the Charter. The court reasoned that the current provision forces prostitutes to work alone, which makes them vulnerable to violent clients, or

risk imprisonment for up to two years. “These laws—the bawdy house laws—hurt the very peo-ple they’re intended to protect,” said U of T Law Professor Brenda Cossman.

The court’s ruling takes effect next year and allows prostitutes to conduct services at fixed lo-cations, such as commercial brothels or their private homes, which was prohibited by a pro-vision added to Canada’s Crimi-

nal Code in 1985.“When people use the word

‘brothel,’ they’re thinking about some big, garish mansion with a million cars driving in and out,” said Cossman, describing what she saw as a distended public re-sponse to Ontario’s latest ruling on bawdy houses. While Can-ada v Bedford has been hailed a “landmark case,” Cossman is not alone in her view that the court

On safety of sex workers, U of T professors say court’s decision didn’t go all the way

see page 3

Cara Sabatini

Who needs art and culture anyway?

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Made in China: a look into the pastpage 4

Inside this issue

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Failed methods to Ford’s madness. Page 3˚Chinese Propaganda posters: A thing of beauty. Page 4 ˚Shooting the breeze with Montreal psych band. Page 5

Aberdeen Berry ^̂The University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly Since 1978 VOL XXXIV Issue 25 • March 29, 2012the newspaper

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Prof of philosophy Mark Kingwell and writer John Ralston Saul discuss the importance of culture as part of the Toronto In Question lecture series

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Professor Mark Kingwell and writer John Ralston Saul believe hand gesturing is the best way to get your point across.

THE NEWS2 March 29, 2012

the newspaper

the newspaper1 Spadina Crescent Suite 245Toronto, ON M5S 1A1

Editorial: 416-593-1552

thenewspaper@gmail.comwww.thenewspaper.ca

the newspaper is published by Planet Publications Inc., a non-profit corporation.

All U of T community members, including students, staff and faculty, are encouraged to contribute to the newspaper.

Editor-in-ChiefCara Sabatini

News EditorGeoff Vendeville

Associate News EditorYukon Damov

Features EditorTalia Gordon

Arts EditorVanessa Purdy

Photo EditorBodi Bold

Web EditorAndrew Walt

Design EditorSamantha Chiusolo

Illustrations EditorNick Ragetli

ContributorsSuzanna Balabuch, Aberdeen Berry, Bodi Bold, Samantha Chiusolo, Dan Christensen, Alan Jones, Vanessa Purdy, Nick Ragetli, Cara Sabatini, David Stokes, Geoff Vendev-ille, Andrew Walt.

Board of Directors:ChairmanSuzanna Balabuch

TreasurerHelene Goderis

the newspaper is the University of Toronto’s independent weekly paper, published since

1978.VOL XXXIV No. 25

basic problems for quality of life, he said. “If you go to Oslo,” Saul explained, “any public building will have a large, well-ordered cloak room and a place to put your boots.” Our goal should be a well-conceived version of To-ronto accepting the specificity of our culture, rather than one of a number of undifferentiated “world class cities.”

Citing the ways in which cul-ture and place reinforce each other, Kingwell also emphasized the need not only to optimize public space for public utility, but also to expand our idea of public space. “Every citizen has a right to the city,” he said. How-ever public space is often con-structed to shape and limit its use. Seemingly minor decisions, such as adding armrests to park benches to prevent people from sleeping on them, limit how we consider and occupy public space. “What’s actually wrong with sleeping on a bench?” in-quired Kingwell.

At the root of this tendency towards seeing culture in eco-nomic terms and structuring our cities in accordance with this view is a decline in what Kingwell called the “shared idea of citizenship.” Beyond the mat-ter of poor design and planning causing inconvenience, without public space we cannot develop public values. Only by reconsid-ering how we theorize culture and by developing our cities based on their capacity to serve and nurture a coherent public – and not just by increasing fund-ing for the arts – can we solve this problem.

from ‘art and culture’

www.thenewspaper.ca 3 THE NEWS

Toronto mayor ought to have built consensus rather than burned bridges for transit plans

Perhaps the most bizarre thing to happen during last week’s City Hall debate over transit on Sheppard Avenue East was the motion put forward by Rob Ford’s Budget Chief Mike Del Grande (a staunchly right-wing councillor from Scarborough) to implement a commercial parking levy to help pay for Rob Ford’s “planned” extension of the S h e p -pard

subway line. It was then, bi-zarrely, up to the city’s left-wing councillors to explain to the me-dia that constituents should be consulted before new taxes and user fees are introduced.

This sort of ideologically back-wards policy debate is partly the result of Mayor Ford’s extremely poor grasp on important things like budgets and policies, but it also reveals how many of these debates, no matter how bitterly

parti-

san, can be driven less by ideol-ogy than by whichever regional pork barrel councillors wish to fill with tax dollars. In this case, the pork barrel belongs to “Ford Nation” voters in Scarborough, who claim they are second-class citizens without a subway, de-spite the fact that the current subway in Scarborough loses money on a daily basis.

However, Rob Ford’s plan for delivering an out-sized infra-structure project to the suburbs failed. By a vote of 24-19, Toron-

to’s council voted in favour of a

l i g h t rail tran-

sit (LRT) line along

Sheppard Avenue East at street level.

The Council made the right decision. The decision to put LRT

along Sheppard--in addition to the Eglinton and Finch West lines that were voted for last month--means more suburban commuters will be provided

rapid transit, and more commut-ers will be encouraged to ride it. There is also the oft-mentioned fact that all three LRT lines, un-like Ford’s subway “plan,” are fully funded by a promised $8.4 billion from the Province.

But regardless of the finan-cial issue, there have been sug-gestions, made by former TTC general manager Gary Webster (who was promptly fired by Ford’s allies on the TTC Com-mission), as well as the Council-mandated panel led by urban planning expert Eric J. Miller, that even if the funds were avail-able, LRT would be preferable to subways on Sheppard.

Projections from a TTC report that was buried by Ford last year suggest that ridership will not grow substantially, and in fact will top out at around 10 thou-sand riders during peak hours, which is well below the mini-mum 15 thousand usually need-ed to justify a subway.

There are two great ironies in Ford’s inability to force his will on City Council last week. The first is, that despite campaign-ing on a private sector financed subway extension for Sheppard in 2010, Ford had made little movement towards that goal. The only move he made was commissioning a report on the feasibility of a subway from for-mer councillor Gordon Chong, which concluded that the pri-vate sector could not substan-tively fund the line and a num-

ber of revenue tools, in the form of taxes and user fees, would be needed. Ford instead hedged his bets with the completely un-derground LRT along Eglinton, which he and Dalton McGuinty agreed upon in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed.

The second great irony of Ford’s failure to implement his will is that if he had put the MOU before Council last year, when he still had the power to bully centrist councillors into voting in his favour, he easily could have avoided embarrass-ment.

In 2010, Rob Ford loudly cam-paigned on changing the way city hall runs. His blustering anti-intellectual persona turned out to be his greatest campaign tool, bringing disaffected subur-ban voters to his side.

Perhaps a more savvy politi-cian could have succeeded in pushing through some of Ford’s more destructive policy goals, but Ford hasn’t been able to make those changes because, as a strategist, he is an abject fail-ure. Even his supporters at the Toronto Sun have criticized his methods, if not his goals.

Instead of delivering change, Rob Ford proved just how leg-islatively weak the position of Mayor is in Toronto. He proved that any Mayor, whether conser-vative, centrist, or progressive, would do better by building consensus than by bullying.

Alan Jones

could have done more to protect the rights of individuals in the sex trade.

In addition to striking down the bawdy house law, Ontario’s highest court rewrote a related provision that criminalized commercial relationships with prostitutes. “The problem with that law was that it prevented sex workers from hiring people to facilitate their work in safer conditions,” said Cossman. Ef-fective 30 days from the ruling, prostitutes will be able to legally hire drivers, bodyguards and re-ceptionists.

The newest version of the law excludes only relationships that exploit prostitutes, and is subject to the discretion of law enforcement. “Criminologists who study policing will tell you that this leaves the door open for police to imagine all types of exploitation that may or may not be happening,” said U of T Professor of Criminology Mari-ana Valverde. While she admits that the ruling is a step in the right direction to improve the safety of sex workers, Valverde

is concerned that law enforce-ment may abuse their discretion to arrest individuals already on the police’s radar.

Additionally, the condition of exploitation begs the question of whether or not prostitution is exploitive by definition. “The government sees prostitution as inherently degrading and dehumanizing,” said Cossman, explaining that the Supreme Court might find grounds to up-hold the original bawdy house law.

“It’s not as if there’s going to be this sudden explosion of broth-els,” said Cossman in response to the concern that legalizing places of prostitution would produce more prostitutes. “Sex workers have been working all over the place, and are just going to keep working there, but now they’re going to work in ways that are safer.”

To prevent sidewalk solici-tation, the law still prohibits public communication for the purpose of prostitution. “I really think they should have struck down the communication law,” said Cossman. “By not doing that, I feel like they’ve thrown

the most vulnerable of sex workers under the bus.”

Two of the appellate judges found grounds to abolish the communication clause, as it pro-hibits prostitutes from evaluat-ing prospective clients before taking them on, so to speak. For Valverde, the dissenting judges’ opinions indicate that the rul-ing might be overturned in the near future.

Before the case reaches the Su-preme Court in 2013, the Harper government is tasked with de-vising a new law on the legality of brothels in accordance with the constitution. While Coss-man believes the recent ruling will do little to immediately af-fect the conspicuity and safety of sex workers, she agrees with Valverde that Ontario’s decision will set a precedent for other provinces to challenge similar laws regulating prostitution.

In a tone that hardly veiled her cynicism, Valverde added, “It still has to go to the Supreme Court. So you wouldn’t want to invest a lot of money in a broth-el at this point.”

from ‘brothels’̂̂

Ford’s failure to strong-arm support for subwayThe op-ed

SAMANTHA CHIUSOLO

NICK RAGETLI

In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. But U of T Professor Mariana Valverde says bawdy house ruling doesn’t mean

‘anything goes.’

A new exhibit at the Univer-sity of Toronto Art Centre aims to illuminate a dynamic and turbulent period in Chi-nese history. “Workforce: Rep-resenting labour in Chinese propaganda posters”, curated by Elizabeth Parke, a Ph.D. can-didate in art history, shows 16 Chinese propaganda posters, all but one from the time of the Cultural Revolution (1963-67).

“Work was seen as a heroic and necessary part of nation building,” Parke said in an in-terview with the newspaper. The posters depict the Commu-nist Party’s official narrative of revolutionary optimism. They feature triumphant ironwork-ers, teenage girls standing be-side brand new tractors, and dedicated intellectuals learn-ing to do farm work. Parke said

that she deliberately stayed away from images of the icon-ic visage of Mao. Her exhibit focuses instead on the lesser known, beautiful depictions of common people doing manual labour.

Parke explained that the art-ists worked together in paint-ing academies and were tasked with creating visual images that would inspire the masses. The Maoist dream never ma-terialized, but with the later ascent of capitalism in China, these images, saccharine fan-tasy or not, have become some of the most enduring images of their time, especially to those who never lived through the struggles of that period. The rapid path to modernization glorified in the collection of posters has occured, but ironi-cally much of it was under capitalism.

Parke found the posters at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in a collection donat-ed by Mark Gayn, a reporter and expert on China. Gayn, a globe-trotting journalist who held positions at Newsweek, Time Magazine, The Washing-ton Post, and The Toronto Star, was born near the Manchuri-an-Mongolian border, went to public school in China, and is alleged to have had two pri-vate meetings with Mao. His archives of leftist ephemera are so vast that many more exhibits could be culled from their depths.

Although the posters are more than 40 years-old, and were produced for domestic Chinese consumption like most goods produced dur-ing Maoist times—which were not exported but used at home—they clearly have con-

temporary significance. Now, China’s workforce makes our stuff, and China is colloquially referred to as the factory for the world, while the Chinese government avoids publicly promoting idyllic visions of the future.

The attempt to achieve might and prosperity, both in the Maoist era and in contem-porary China, has focused on harnessing the labour of the common worker. The Maoist era forced rural workers to join farming communes, whereas contemporary China allows 100 million rural migrants to work in coastal factory towns without the job security, col-lective education and health care of the Maoist era.

The poster’s depiction of healthy and beautiful bodies performing manual labour in pristine natural settings stands

in contrast to the bleak work-ing conditions of many factory workers in modern China. Even as quality of life has in-creased for many, the nation has gone from being among the most equal in the world—the general equality of citizens is the one thing that the post-ers portray accurately—to being one of the least equal nations in the world in terms of income equality. The work-force is anything but united. But the workers keep on work-ing.

“Workforce: Representing labour in Chinese propaganda posters” will run until April 21 at the Uni-versity of Toronto Arts Centre. The Mark Gayn Papers are avail-ble to U of T students at the Thom-as Fisher Rare Book Library.

THE INSIDE4 March 29, 2012

Glory Days U of T art show presents a nostalgic look back at an impossible dream

David Stokes

A viewer takes in the exhibit at the U of T Art Centre.

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the newspaper: What in-spires you, The Breezes?Matthew: Everything. Just waking up in the morning. Doing dishes. Trying to get through the day. We all fuck-ing love being outside. We all love the sun. We love music. We love films. We love just trying to understand the place that we’re in and try to take as much as we can from every-body we see.tn: How did you guys come together?Dan: We always knew each other, and then it grew. See, Matt, back in the day, was play-ing in this band called The Im-palers, which was like a vam-pire punk thing, and then me and Matt did some stuff . . . The kicking off point was deejay-ing at the Coda Club [in Mon-treal].

When we started deejaying, it really changed the way we heard music and we thought

more about people. Before it was more like, you know, we just did it for us, as a hobby and whatnot. Then deejaying really made us think about people and it changed the way we hear mixes, you know?

Following that, we had a little time off in the summer - this is going back to 2009 when we started – and then what happened was we had been recording music without playing shows, and James sub-mitted a demo to Pop Montre-al. We wouldn’t be anywhere without Pop. They booked our first show just off the strength of our demos.tn: How do you feel about Canadian Music Week. Do you like it?James: It’s like the anti-North by Northeast. It’s fun to be part of both worlds. Last year, we came and we played CMW. We just came and hung out. It was Nikki Sixx last year who was headlining – like last year’s Slash.

tn: Are you going to check out any other bands at Cana-dian Music Week?James: We’re having fun. We always love coming to To-ronto. We wanna see Georgia Anne Muldrow tomorrow.Matthew: I was really upset I missed that band – the guy who did the beats for The Weeknd. I think his name is, like, Zodiac? Anyway, he played last night and apparently it was amaz-ing.tn: If there’s anyone you could collaborate with, who would it be?Dan: Collaboration is natural. You can’t really talk about, oh, ‘I would like to do that.’James: Maybe we can talk about who we’ve been collabo-rating with?tn: -- you don’t want to col-laborate with Slash?Dan: I would like to collabo-rate with Slash, but just to an-swer your question without naming someone that would never happen, I would like to

collaborate with string orches-tras. I would like to collaborate with different instrumental-ists, like a harp player, an ac-cordion player, because what you see now is really just the classic rock’n’roll line up: two guitars, singer, bass, drums, whatever. So, I would like to do stuff with more instruments. But yeah, we could talk about who we collaborated with late-ly.James: We did a beat, and then I finished recording vocals for Cadence Weapon, so our beat’s gonna be on his new record.tn: How do you guys feel about Montreal as a city for indie musicians?James: It’s hard, how do you qualify your home, you know?Matthew: It’s just a really good place to be trying to cre-ate stuff for a number of rea-sons. There’s a lot of beauti-ful people, a lot of beautiful places, a lot of beauty and good stuff.Adam: Not a lot of good shoe

stores...tn: What’s next for The Breezes?James: We’re set to go on a small tour in a few weeks or a month, just of Quebec and some festivals. Our debut full-length should come out in the spring or summer.Dan: You know, man, it’s all gonna change. Our music, I think is gonna get better, deep-er and wider. It’ll kind of sound tighter and faster and slower, not at the same time, but I mean, I wanna do everything, but more. So that’s where we’re gonna go, and I think a little more upbeat . . .Matthew: We’re gonna say yes and no, and go everywhere, but not be there at the same time, is what Danny’s trying to say.

Check out thebreezes.ca for tour dates and to hear “Promethean Eyes,” a track off their upcoming LP.

www.thenewspaper.ca 5 THE INSIDE

the newspaper shoots the breeze with Montreal indie band

Alan Jones

Last week, the corporately sponsored Slash-headlined Canadian Music Week descended upon Toronto. While avoiding the reunion of I Mother Earth that nobody was waiting on, the newspaper caught up with The Breezes, a self-styled “retro-futuristic psychedelic rock’n’roll” band from Montreal. The crew

played two sets on Saturday, one at Wrongbar in the early evening and a DJ set at El Mocambo in the wee hours of the morning.

After their first gig, I got to chat with them in Wrongbar’s not-so-glamorous upstairs room. Over shots of Jagermeister (thanks, guys!), we talked about the differences between the Montreal and Toronto scenes, Canadian Music Week, and their recent collaboration with Edmonton’s poet laureate, indie

rapper Cadence Weapon.

The Breezes from left to right : James Benjamin, Johnny Knowles, Matthew Oppenheimer, Adam Feingold, Dan Leznoff

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THE ARTS6 March 29, 2012

Dancing in the light

Figures swooned, others col-lapsed in mourning, lovers were divided, and everyone present participated in the sheer delight of rhythm. All this was on offer at the 17th an-nual U of T Festival of Dance, billed as Canada’s largest uni-versity dance festival.

A wide variety of dance styles were represented, including Irish, Indian, musical theatre, hip-hop, contemporary, and salsa, for a total of twenty-one acts in a night, from fourteen companies.

Given the University of To-ronto’s reputation as a place where everybody studies too much, the festival proves that we’re also capable of getting high-marks in wild gyrations. The outpouring of talent that’s here seems to be enormous; seemingly ordinary students must live a double life, as stu-dents by day and dancers by nite, to paraphrase the motto of one of the independent troupes.

It’s clear that the performers have been practicing through-

out the winter. The Green-fire Academy of Irish dance were repeat performers and a crowd favourite, doing steps and kicks made all the more perfect by the bobble of wild-ly-curly stage wigs. Shak Haq, probably the closest thing the U of T has to an impresario, continued his project of free-ing the campus of the linger-ing traces of its Victorian past, and his second dance – assisted by two other dancers from the UC Follies Theatre Company – was the most humorous of the night, a documentary of the bodily comedy of a love tri-angle – without any yelling or drunk texts.

The Varsity Blues Pom Team brought their extreme athleti-cism and coordination to the stage, and only got better as the night wore on. Independ-ent dancer Krista Mitchnick, with two extremely physical contemporary dances, dem-onstrated the full vertigo to a soul. The all-male OG Crew, the final dancers of the night, inspired in the audience, both women and men alike, some-thing like a wild cauldron of

lust. My mom, who was in at-tendance, thought their rib-aldry was pitch perfect. I think they were her favourite. And independent dancers Parneeta Singh, who performed a Pun-jabi bhangra, and the later Bol-lywood dance performed by Rugveda Gawade, drew on cen-turies-old styles to great effect.

While the dancers are at different levels of experience, often even within in the same troupe, to this non-dancer it all seemed equally impossible. One of the best parts of the show - and of the art of dance in general - is that so much is understood and yet nothing is spoken.

In dance, emotions whirl by as evocations, visions no soon-er seen and felt than vanishing to a memory of a human pres-ence. The night was a complete inspiration, and haunts me still. I’ve read that the coming of springtime induces organ-isms to commit acts which, in any other season, would be for-eign to them. Suddenly, I too want to dance.

David Stokes

U of T’s Festival of Dance takes centre stage

Canadian film: what’s it all about, eh?Film fest offers up a few answers

With a box office full of re-makes and, more often, regrets, it’s easy to write off the mod-ern movie-going experience as mindless commercialism. The people behind the Canadian Film Fest, however, have big hopes for the big screen. Tradi-tionally, it’s not everyday that a unique Canadian perspective or experience is portrayed in the typical blockbuster. While that is unlikely to ever be the case, the CCF hopes to raise the profile of indie productions, and inspire the nation’s film-makers.

Celebrating its sixth year this weekend, CFF provides a public showcase for Canadian filmmakers, giving them the opportunity to screen their work back to the communities that inspired it. “I love Holly-wood movies, but sometimes I wish I could watch a movie where Toronto plays Toronto! Not New York, or Detroit, or Chicago,” said Bern Euler, the Festival Director in an email

to the newspaper earlier this week.

As almost anyone working in the Canadian film industry will tell you, it doesn’t have the glamour--or support--of the business in the United States. According to Euler, “Our industry is filled with

amazing talent behind and in front of camera, and they are continuously producing in-teresting and excellent films,” but to the average Canadian, it’s access to these outlets that poses a challenge. Even with the past appearances of well-known Canadian actors like

Sarah Polley, and relatively well-known writers like Ken-ny Hotz and Spencer Rice (of Kenny vs. Spenny fame, who both had their feature debut films at CFF), it is a shame that the CFF seems to attract large-ly those already “in the know” about film-making in Canada.

If that is the case, though, it is certainly not intentional. This year’s lineup features everything from full-length zombie features to experimen-tal sci-fi shorts; it’s evident that one of the programming goals is to provide something for everyone. With free panels on topics like the genre-movie scene, CFF also hopes to pro-vide an engaging educational platform for the public and as-piring producers and directors alike.

Part of the appeal of this sort of fest is the inclusion of the public in accessing those be-hind the scenes of the films. Euler is enthused about the special guests and said “...that sense of community and audi-ence interaction is why we are doing all this.” This sort of pas-sion for the community, and supporting the unique voices within it, is almost decidedly Canadian, eh? For more information, visit can-filmfest.ca. CFF takes place at The Royal, 608 College Street.

Vanessa Purdy

Dancer in flight taken by Daniel DiMarco.

A Little Bit Zombie goes a long way at the Canadian Film Fest

The 17th annual U of T Festival of Dance ran from March 23 to March 24. It was directed by Melanie Mastronardi.

www.thenewspaper.ca 7 THE ARTS

Across1. Border

5. Feminine pronoun

8. Mechanical man

13. Court hearing

14. Straw

15. Farm animal feed

16. Wipe out

17. Single

18. Verse variety

19. Negative conjunction

20. Electrical socket

22. Take control of

23. Give it a go

24. Strike

25. Recreation

26. Inquire

29. Be, in the past

30. Pork animal

31. Participated in a foot

race

32. What a polite person pays a speaker

36. Confirm

38. Unique finger impres-sion

39. Behold!

40. Art stand

41. Components

42. Most bizarre

44. Deceive; ___ to

45. Service a table

46. Draw

47. Denouement

48. Humble dessert

49. Male child

50. Duo

53. Prohibit

54. Mumbles melodically

55. The “H” in “W5H”

56. Imperative

59. Morsel of advice

60. Coming together

62. Belt breadth

63. Be, in the present

64. Noblemen

65. Void

66. Each

67. Puts two and two to-gether

Down1. Mistake

2. Personal journal

3. Petrol

4. Animals that never forget

5. Boisterous detergent

6. Put out to dry

7. Ogle

8. Pliny or Plautus

9. Ready for business

10. Wager

11. Raw Mineral

12. Asphalt

13. Camping shelter

21. Grocery shopping re-minder

22. Police photo; ___ shot

25. More civilised, as the things in life

26. Reverted from the po-sition to receive a knight-hood

27. Rescues

28. Was in position to re-ceive a knighthood

29. Departed; ___ away

30. Homer and Hesiod

32. The fruit that famously inspired Sir Isaac Newton

33. Rail vehicle

34. Weary

35. Publication instalment

36. Italy, essentially

37. Wrath

43. Japan suffered two of these bombs

45. Waste receptacle

48. Flaky dessert

49. Mario’s epithet

50. Bronze winning posi-tion

51. Forests

52. Thoroughly defeats

53. Better than better

54. Employ

56. Be in debt

57. Heavy-duty Dodge

58. Chip compliment

59. Dance genre

61. Approve without saying a word

The Crossword

5

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62

461

573

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21

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63

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47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54

58 57 56

55

59 60 61

62 63 64

65 66 67

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15

16 17 18

19 20 21 22

26

30 31

36 37

38 39 40

32 33 34 35

23 27 28

29

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Waiting for the funny parts of ServitudeRestaurant revenge fantasy comes out stale, overcooked

It comes as a surprise, in spite of the reliable cliché about entertainers being forced to spend their days waiting tables to pay the bills, and in spite of the sage advice to “write what you know,” that there is almost nothing of note to accompany Servitude in the canon of films about restaurant service.

2009’s Slammin’ Salmon from the Broken Lizard gang and Waiting… with Ryan Reyn-olds, both feeble competitors, seem like the only candidates that hop to mind. What a great opportunity to move beyond bland, sophomoric comedy styling to become a film that stands as a comedy bastion for those in the food service indus-try!

Sadly, Servitude barely gives us the impression that it at-tempted to accomplish either

goal. While his uptight girl-friend pressures him to go to law school, Josh, our table-waiting hero, discovers that his wild-west restaurant is being taken over by curiously Nazi-like German investors during a visit from their in-spector general , Franz (Enrico Colantoni).

So he rallies his coworkers to finally play out their fantasies and show the cranky custom-ers that they’re, in fact, not al-ways right.

In one sense the film hits the nail on the head: as a for-mer server, I can vouch for the countless aspects of restaurant life that are accurately cap-tured. From the phony cheap tippers to the over-inquisitive menu hounds, the writer in-cludes every server truism available.

Unfortunately their inclu-sion is the best thing that can

be said for these details, or for the film as a whole for that matter. The whole server up-rising, which is the heart of the movie, comes off as matter-of-fact rather than satisfying.

In one case, Josh is ignored by customers at a table cov-ered in appetizer dishes, while holding their burning hot main dishes in his hands. Rather than going the distance and feigning accident while pouring the food on their laps as we might expect, he simply pushes the empty plates aside to make space himself, and re-marks to the diners about how

rude they’re being. What a badass! That’s the

kind of move that’s sure to inspire angry young waiters for years to come. In fact, the whole film gave the impres-sion that the comedy aimed for wasn’t captured in execution, as if the filmmakers learned about humour from a book, perhaps one written in a lan-guage other than their mother tongue.

Luckily, Kids in the Hall vet-eran and general Canadian comedy legend Dave Foley delivers the goods as the des-perate and hapless restaurant

owner, and Franz’s alternative-ly repressed and dictatorial an-tics provide the biggest laughs. Still, there isn’t a character in the film unique or complex enough to move beyond the stereotype that inspires them.

Maybe they thought the polite-and-bland flavour will make it a hit with Canadian audiences. When I discovered that Servitude was a product of public Telefilm funding, my prior feelings were only rein-forced: perhaps the allocation of arts dollars in Canada could use some careful reconsidera-tion.

Dan Christensen

Actors of“Servitude” can dish it out, but can they take it?

ANNE (left) & ANGELA (right) phd environmen-tal Chemistry“Biking to places like kingston or niagara along the Waterfront trail.”

THE END8 March 29, 2012

WearAboutsBodi Bold brings you U of T’s stylish

This week students command the streets with vintage overlayers in wool and plaid, paired with simple jeans and boots.

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who >> Pia, 4th year Cinema studies majorwhat >> Thrifted jacket, bag and bootswhere >> Sid Smith

who >> Lisa, 1st year Women & Gender and Aboriginal studies majorwhat >> Thrifted boots and cardigan, feather earring from Etsywhere >> UC courtyard

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H A N N A H e c o n o m -ics and east asian stud-ies, 2nd year“Riding along lake ontario last sum-mer.”

Dear SuzieFor love or money: How to choose between two completely different jobsDear Suzie,I have two job opportunities that have recently come up: one of them is in the field that I’m interested, but does not pay nearly enough for me to cover my rent. The other one pays about double, but isn’t some-thing that I’m incredibly interested in. I’m already in debt (student loans) so I need to make a decision fast. Should I think practically or go with my passion?

Dear Anonymous, First off, congratulations on getting not one, but two job offers! In this fragile economy, that is quite the achievement. Clearly, the two em-ployers who offered you these jobs saw something in you that would suit both posts very well. I would love to advise you to “follow your heart” or some such bullshit, but I can’t help but shake the feeling that you are a very practical person. Who says you can have only one passion anyway? Take the less exciting, better-paying job. Work really hard at it, even if it’s something that may at first seem boring to you. The harder you work, the better you become, and the more you will start to enjoy something you may have once considered mundane. While this is happening, you will slowly but surely be building a nest egg and a nicely rounded resume, and will have something to catch your fall should you choose to switch careers once your contract is up. Something tells me that you’re going to like it too much to leave.

Sincerely,Suzie

Want to ask Suzie a question? Email Suzie at suzienewsie@gmail.com, or submit (anonymously, of course!) at www.thenewspaper.ca, in the blue box

on the lower left.

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ADRIAN psychology, 2nd year“Biking along the Waterfront and passing oshawa on my way to port hope. also a wine tasting bike trip to niagara that involved a lot of alcohol consumption.”

the campus comment

the newspaper asked: “What is the best adventure you’ve had on a bike?”

ANDRES politicalscience, 4th year“a seven hour trip from Berlin to hamburg, on all the winding roads by the highway.”

MLADEN engineering, 4th year“From my understanding of the research at U of t, i can see 16th, but i hope this rating is not misinterpreted as a level of student satisfaction with the university administration.”

TOBY adult education grad studies“a ten day cycling trip to Manitoulin island with the Univer-sity cycling club. We camped and roasted marshmallows.”