Following their Oct. 24 Halloween literature event, The City & The City spotlights some classic and contemporary horror novels
The City & The City, a new and used bookstore located on Ottawa St., hosted a Halloween-themed reading and costume party at the Casbah on Oct. 24. According to Janet Hoy, one of the owners of The City & The City, the event featured a costume contest, DJing by the 45 Selector and horror readings from three Ontario-based writers.
The writers featured at the event were Andrew F. Sullivan, Tony Burgess and Liz Worth.
Andrew F. Sullivan is a Hamilton-based author whose most recent novel, The Handyman Method, was published in August 2023 and co-written with fellow Canadian author Craig Davidson (pen name Nick Cutter). The Handyman Method is a domestic horror novel that depicts a young family moving into a new community and receiving mysterious, ominous suggestions for solving household problems.
The Handyman Method is the second novel that Sullivan has published in 2023, following The Marigold, which was released in April of this year. Another novel with a strong horror element, The Marigold depicts a near-future dystopian version of Toronto. Hoy praised the novel for its creepy tone and its ability to depict the decay of a city.
Hoy also said that Tuesday’s event at the Casbah was initially Sullivan’s idea.
“He was saying, let’s do something for Halloween, because [The Handyman Method] came out just about a month ago. So, we’ve worked with Liz Worth in the past, and he knows Tony Burgess, so he compiled the writers because they’ve written horror novels. And that’s how it came together,” explained Hoy.
Tony Burgess, another one of the writers featured on Tuesday, published his first novel, Pontypool Changes Everything, in 1998. Pontypool Changes Everything is an apocalyptic horror novel that puts a subversive twist on zombie fiction. Burgess also wrote the screenplay for the 2008 film Pontypool, which was adapted from his novel and directed by Bruce McDonald. Burgess has since written numerous other horror novels and screenplays.
Liz Worth, the final author featured at Tuesday’s event, is a novelist, poet and Tarot reader. She published her most recent novel The Mouth is a Coven in October 2022, just in time for last Halloween. Liz Worth is a Hamilton-based writer, and her novel features vampires and other gothic elements.
Beyond the novels featured at Tuesday’s event, Hoy offered even more spooky and autumn-appropriate book recommendations, both classic and contemporary.
Regarding classics, Hoy highlighted House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski, published in 2000, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, published in 1962. House of Leaves is an intricately crafted and formally subversive horror novel that centres around a terrifying house. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a gothic mystery focusing on a dark family secret.
“You can never go wrong with Shirley Jackson! We Have Always Lived in the Castle is one of my favourite books ever,” said Hoy.
Regarding contemporary novels, Hoy explained that women writers and Indigenous writers have been exploring the genre of horror in interesting ways. Hoy specifically recommended Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory and Mariana Enriquez’s Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
Regarding contemporary novels, Hoy explained that women writers and Indigenous writers have been exploring the genre of horror in interesting ways. Hoy specifically recommended Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory and Mariana Enriquez’s Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
For students interested in discovering literary fiction and Ontario-based writers beyond the horror genre, The City & The City regularly hosts readings and other literary events. Coming up on Dec. 7, they plan to host four writers published by Book*hug Press for an in-store reading. For regular updates on literary events hosted by The City & The City, students can follow their Instagram.
By Nisha Gill, Staff Writer
As technology continues to evolve and play an increasingly large role in our everyday lives, taking time away from it has never been more important. However, the temptations of technology are difficult to resist and, as a result, there are very few places where one is able to truly disconnect.
The Printed Word (69 King St. W.), is one of those few places where it is truly possible to disconnect. For owner James McDonald, opening the store was, in part, a reaction against the digital—this was also the inspiration for its name. The store is well-lit and open, perfect for exploring the line-up of floor to ceiling bookshelves, all of which house a carefully curated collection of both fiction and nonfiction works.
“I’ve had a lot of people come, in early days, and first of all, not even recognize that it’s a bookstore, it’s so idiosyncratic. Which is weird, because go back thirty years and this is what just bookstores looked like. They have books in and different subjects and here we are. But because it doesn’t look like Chapters . . . or the traditional chains that we have, it’s ‘What is this place? What do you do here?’” explained McDonald.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdku0Crh1HV/
For McDonald, reading and exploration go hand in hand; reading is an opportunity for a special kind of exploration. But this kind of exploration is becoming increasingly difficult to follow through on in our technology-driven world. Thanks to our devices and social media, we have almost all the information we could ever want at our fingertips. However, the kind of exploration we engage with on our devices, or while scrolling through social media, is often different from what we find in books. What we find in books is a slower, more experimental form of exploration that simply cannot be found in technology.
“Books are slower and imaginative. You enter them in a completely different way . . . What are books really are places of exploration and imagination and quiet wondering and all those great things,” said McDonald.
In particular though, McDonald recognizes the importance of this kind of exploration—and the conversation that it can provoke—for students, who are often the most tied to their technology.
“A lot of people come in and see that you have philosophy or you have university press titles and stuff, [they think we] must get a lot of students, [that] the McMaster community must be a huge supporter of [our] establishment and the fact is, not at all . . . It’s just people, just interested people who like books, reading, thinking, talking . . . The reason to have a bookstore is to explore, find the thing you didn’t know you were looking for, the thing you didn’t know existed and students should really be tapping into some of this. And there are conversations that happen here that are interesting, conversations that students can bring.”
The Printed Word is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
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By: Adriana Skaljin
The name Harry Potter is one familiar to most, given its prevalence in pop culture. The Harry Potter franchise’s beloved sport, Quidditch, has made its way into the Muggle (non-magical) world, having become a semi-professional sport.
On March 23 and 24, Quidditch Canada held their 2019 National Championship at Ron Joyce Stadium and Alumni Field. Fifteen teams from across Canada, coming from Ontario, Montreal, Edmonton and British Columbia, participated in the two-day tournament, bringing the sport to life.
“This is the second time that we’ve held the Nationals in Hamilton,” said Bethan Morgan, events manager for Quidditch Canada. “Last year, we held it at Tim Hortons Field. It is exciting to be back in Hamilton for a second year in a row.”
Morgan has been playing the sport for eight years, and has loved watching the sport grow. She began getting involved with Quidditch due to her love for the fandom and the impact that it had on her life.
“It makes me really happy to see [Quidditch] turn into a competitive sport… [one that] has become international,” explained Morgan. “It has grown a lot in Canada and it is cool seeing people come from all over to play.”
It is amazing to see the ways in which a community of Harry Potter fanatics has turned into a community of athletes. The sport encourages players from all backgrounds and demographics to participate, creating a diverse and welcoming environment.
“There are people that love Harry Potter and then people who have never even watched the movies,” said Morgan. “People from all different backgrounds and genders are welcome. I love how gender-inclusive the sport is, in comparison to others.”
This combination of community and a genuine love for the series and its fictional world is what drives the existence of Quidditch competitions, such as the one just held at McMaster.
“It is a very supporting and welcoming community of people and I think that is what motivated me to stay the sport, and become a better athlete,” said Morgan.
The game is made up of several positions: chasers, who drive the ball and get them through the hoops, beaters who combine tackling with strategy, and seekers. Each position appeals to different strengths, allowing people to excel and specialize in different areas of the sport.
“This is a sport that anyone can play,” said Morgan. “Our athletes train as though it is a professional sport, and I think that a lot of people are surprised when we tackle because it is a very physical game. We are trying to show that we aren’t just a book, we are a real sport with real rules and intense athletes.”
At the 2019 National Championship, the Ottawa Otters and the University of Guelph faced off in the final match. The Otters won the tournament, with a final score of 250^ to 200*. The Vancouver Storm Crows placed third, beating Valhalla Quidditch, a team from Toronto, in the bronze medal match, with a score of 100* to 50.
Ottawa Otters are the 2019 Canadian National Champions! Final score was 250^ - 200* #QCNationals2019 pic.twitter.com/LkHbZJYV40
— Quadball Canada (@QuadballCan) March 25, 2019
The Canadian National Championship is a prime example of the ways in which the combination of passion, community and athleticism can bring magic out from the pages of books and into the lives of fans and athletes.
Quidditch is definitely a sport to watch and one that deserves recognition in the world of international sports. This sport is definitely a ‘keeper’.
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Hamilton singer-songwriter Shanika Maria knows how to make a presence. In a t-shirt from Hamilton-based brand Girls with Guns and shoes that she bought ten years ago and thought she outgrew she describes herself as all over the place but it’s these items, memories and influences that she funnels gracefully into her music.
In the summer of 2017, Maria released her debut EP, Childish Games. The five-song record is soft and acoustic, with Maria’s haunting voice singing lyrics that could be interpreted in a million ways. It’s a snapshot of where her abilities and creativity were at the time.
“Mouth Eaters” is the last track off the EP, it started off as a poem and then became part of her debut project. It was reworked and re-released on Sept. 28, 2018. Maria celebrated the release with a performance at the Mule Spinner the following day.
[spacer height="20px"]The reworked track is more upbeat than the original and includes collaborations from several people in Maria’s musical circle. It introduced new instruments and production that lend the familiar lyrics a brand new meaning. Maria has always supported the idea of her art being read in many different ways.
“I don't think it's…fair for me to tell anybody how to interpret what I've created. I feel like once I created it, I put it out there. It's now for the audience to interpret in whatever way they feel fit. I feel that's art in general…We all have our own lives and that's how we're going to come to art,” Maria said.
The single is the first off her upcoming album, Subtle Uncertainties. Like her EP, it is a picture of where she is in her life right now and describes her outlook on life. Currently in her mid-twenties, she is facing a version of adulthood where not everything is figured out.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoMszE1BYBy/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
[spacer height="20px"]Maria isn’t pursuing music full-time and while she is balancing other work and jobs, she believes that where she stands right now is what’s best for her at this time. She is not yet sure if she’d like to do music full-time but that is something she’ll have to navigate when the opportunity arises.
“As I've become older and as I've navigated everything, things are really uncertain, things are really ambiguous. The things I thought I wanted, I don't know if I want them… Life is very uncertain, and everything is uncertain and I don't think that that's a bad thing,” explained Maria.
Maria meets that uncertainty with the support of good people, from her family and friends to her mentor Kojo Easy Damptey and her label Celestial Voodoo. Damptey took her under his wing and helped to bring about the recording and release of her EP. Maria loves that she is part of an artist-run and collaborative label.
[spacer height="20px"]The good people that she has found in the music industry let her know that her contribution has value. Breaking into music, she faced the challenge of having to interact with people who based her worth as a performer on her ability to bring in audiences.
Genuine connections with artists and listeners helped her to overcome doubts that her work lacked value. These connections are also what she loves about performing in Hamilton.
“I have community here and I feel like people are being pretty receptive to what I've been doing so that's always a nice feeling…And I also just really like performing with other people…Live performance really gives an emotional and intimate look into their creativity,” explained Maria.
Maria’s creativity takes multiple forms. She writes fiction and poetry in addition to creating music. In the same vein, she takes inspiration from several forms of art other than music, from film to poetry to books.
She is looking forward to the newness that comes with putting out a fresh batch of music. She’s tried new things on the guitar and is excited about the new sound and vibe on her new album. Her excitement is accompanied by some fear, however, because life after all is uncertain.
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By: Nimra Khan
It seems that fiction’s intrigue for Scotland can never be quenched. This intrigue lies at the heart of author SJ Garland’s recent Scotland-based Markinch series which includes the books Scotch Rising and Pretender at the Gate.
Garland’s books follow the story of Captain Clyde-Dalton, an English soldier sent to the town of Markinch, Scotland at a time when England and Scotland are to join Great Britain. With his Native American wife recently murdered, Clyde-Dalton arrives in the town ready to finish his post there. But surprising murders and accusations turn up, leading to the unearthing of a Jacobite plan that continues into the second book. While the beginning is a little slow as you get used to the Scottish dialect and history, the story only gets more suspenseful as it unfolds. It’s hard to reveal much about the plot without spoiling everything, but there are plenty of gun-toting, brash men, along with a surprising love interest that ends in the most unexpected of ways.
I’ve yet to visit Scotland, but Garland has actually lived there. When asked what she loved most, she admitted: “The people. Scots are great fun...whether I’m taking in a show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival or having a pint down the pub, there are always friendly Scots around.”
Garland also stressed that she is a historical fiction writer, not a historian.
“The large part of my research happens after I have the major plot lines written. It is important, I think, to add just enough historical detail in order to set the time and place of a historical novel without it becoming a history lesson. Historical fiction should be an escape from the banality of everyday life.”
Speaking of a history lesson, Scotch Rising involves the Captain learning a lot about the Highland’s love for scotch and taking pride in scotch-making.
Garland admitted that it actually took her a few years before she enjoyed scotch. “There are so many different variations of scotch, that it can really symbolize the local culture of each village in Scotland. Some areas use unique distilling techniques.”
The perspective of the Captain in this series is interesting because he isn’t a likeable hero. When asked why her books involved such an abrasive and harsh protagonist, Garland said, “I like a flawed character, one who must look within themselves in order to overcome some sort of obstacle. It is a much more realistic interpretation of the human condition.”
Another major theme of this series is about being an outsider (otherwise known as a Sassenach). While both sides have their own prejudices, Garland explains that, “at the time of the story’s setting, 1707, many people never left their village ... most people would have received their information from the outside world through hearsay and rumours. Once the Captain lived in the village for a few months, [the] inhabitants ... realized most of the rumours about the English were not true.”
Finishing this series, I discovered that it’s the first published work by Garland. Considering the challenges involved in writing books, Garland admitted she had to adjust to many things. “The first was having the confidence to put my manuscript out into the world. The second has been engaging in a marketplace for authors that is changing every day. It is still possible to get book deals with the big five publishers, but ebook readers and print on demand services have also made it possible for authors to get their work out to readers.”
Far from a fresh-faced author now, Garland is busy with future books. Captain Hawk, the first in a series of four books, comes out May 2015. Leaving Scotland this time, Garland explains that it will be set in Singapore between 1822 and 1823 as a port is secured for the East India Company. “The main character, Nathaniel Hawk, finds himself in Singapore battling pirates, the East India Company and his former friends.”
With Garland bringing more spark to history in the coming year, there’s a lot to look forward to. Meanwhile, the Markinch series is a must for lovers of historical fiction, especially when it concerns Scotland or Outlander fans.
Without a doubt, McMaster English majors will have already had the pleasure of taking a class taught by James King and be familiar with his wry sense of humour and wisdom, while those outside of the program looking for a stimulating elective quickly become acquaintances with it.
Having taught at McMaster since 1971, King has become a fixture in the department for his amicable lecturing style and the bevy of influential works he has published. Since obtaining his PhD from Princeton, King has written a slew of well-received biographies on subjects ranging from English poet William Cowper to celebrated Canadian writers like Margaret Laurence and Farley Mowat.
Of late, King has been focussing his creative energy on polishing his prose through the release of five novels between 1999 and 2011. King’s latest work, Old Masters, was published Oct. 2014 and finds him toying with a different method of telling what might seem like a fairly conventional story.
As indicated by its title, the novel is concerned with the artworks of the celebrated Old Masters, European painters who worked before 1800. For those immediately turned off by the prospects of reading a poorly disguised textbook, fear not. The book does not concern itself with critical appraisals of said Masters’ works and shares none of the heft of a stuffy art history course-pack.
Instead, Old Masters boasts a compelling, tightly-wound plot that still leaves room for ample introspection over the span of its 202 pages. The novel’s protagonist — or anti-hero, depending on your own pessimism — is Guy Boyd, a struggling writer who is surprised to find himself appointed to the task of writing a biography, but is nevertheless encouraged by the hefty advance thrown his way.
Ever the cynic, one of the first thoughts that Boyd entertains after coming down from the high of being given a shot at redemption is that he must keep his newfound finances a secret, lest his ex-wife demand more in the ways of child support for their thirteen year-old son Jacob.
In the wake of the death of Gabriel Brown, a famous art dealer who was renowned for his ability to find previously undiscovered work by the Old Masters, Boyd is tasked with writing a slim volume concerned with the man’s life. Not much is expected of Boyd — a hundred pages would suffice given that the book would be accompanied with full-colour reproductions of Brown’s most famous discoveries — but he immediately becomes frustrated by the lack of any apparent juicy personal details that normally grace the pages of biographies.
Fearful of producing a work with nothing to say about Brown that everyone does not already know, Boyd eagerly takes up the offer of Brown’s secretary to move into the late Canadian expat’s London estate. Aside from aiding him in his task of writing the biography, the house also notably succeeds in winning the favour of Boyd’s son Jacob, who begins to look forward to the weekends spent with his father, if only to cavort through the halls with his friends.
While now a different man in the eyes of his son, Boyd is frustrated by the fact that there are no loose ends to follow in his project of fashioning Brown into a more three-dimensional figure. Rendered anxious by the comfortable interviews with Brown’s colleagues that break no new ground and financially bolstered by the generous advance, Boyd revolves to travel to Canada where both he and Brown hail from in the hopes of unearthing new material.
Boyd immediately unearths a thrilling development, whether he welcomes it or not. An unsuccessful probe into the University of Toronto archives leads to a chat with one of Brown’s cousins who drops a bomb on Boyd’s biography; the Gabriel Brown seen in obituary photos is not in fact Gabriel Brown.
Through further research, Boyd learns that the man in the photographs and who built his reputation as one of the world’s foremost dealers is named John Martin, and he was as honest in his dealings as he was about his name.
In his search as to how Martin made such a name for himself, Boyd discovers an unpleasant truth that would shatter the lives of those who thought themselves close to Brown, as well as blow the entire art world into shambles. Equally disgusted with Martin as he is amazed, Boyd now finds himself in a moral quandary: deliver the safe biography his publisher wants, or reveal the truth about Martin’s rise to fame. The struggle to choose becomes an all-consuming one that threatens to break apart Boyd’s carefully forged relationship with his son, and one that highlights the complicated relationship between artist and subject.
No doubt aided in the writing of the novel by his own experience as a biographer, King proves to be up to the task of turning this dual character study into an entrancing page-turner. King’s prose deftly skirts away from being too flowery while still leaving you with no doubts about the extent of his own education. Taking up a familiar topic in the middle-age crisis, King weaves an interesting metanarrative that is well worth picking up in the event that you have any spare time this semester.
When Sarah Olutola isn’t working on her dissertation here at Mac’s English and Cultural Studies graduate program, she can be found on bookshelves across Canada under the pen name Sarah Raughley.
Sarah’s first published book, Feather Bound, is the result of her creative writing efforts done after hours, after being encouraged in some of her English classes.
“Mac gave me encouragement in a roundabout way in that I had this class that we had to share our work and get feedback on it every step of the way. It wasn’t something I was used to as I didn’t usually show my creative writing to others,” said Olutola.
The book, an entry into the young adult fantasy genre, tells the story of a young girl with a secretive past getting swept up into a world of glitz and glamour, but soon finds that same world has disturbing connotations.
“It’s more low-key magical realism which basically means contemporary but with a touch of magic. You know, how sometimes fairy tales are creepier than they let on? It’s like those, but transposed into the modern world.”
Though this is Sarah’s first book published, it is not the first work taht she has tried to get bound and sold. “Just because you may have a debut doesn’t mean it’s the first book you try to get published. There are other works I’ve tried but wasn’t able to. This was an outlier for me, a bit experimental, and that’s how it went.”
She talks of her influences beyond other books, being that she plays a great deal of video games and wants people to take the medium seriously. “I’m sort of a geek and I found when I was a kid I did read, but I played video games more than I read. A lot of people dismiss video games as a way of storytelling. You see a lot of really creative, out-of-the-box storytelling in games.”
To aspiring McMaster authors, she stresses the importance of doing your research and investigating alternative publishing avenues.
“There’s the traditional route, which I did. Getting an agent, writing a manuscript, and e-mailing a query to a bunch of publishers. Nowadays, because of the rise of e-books and e-readers, you don’t really need to go through the traditional route. I’m happy I have an agent and that kind of support, but I’m also open to putting myself out there, for a dollar or two on Kindle,” said Olutola.
“Another big tip would be to read, read, and read a lot in your field, and even outside your field. It helps you build your vocabulary and evolve your writing style.”
She is not ready to put her passion to bed just yet, as she has already taken steps towards another publication. “I just wrote another manuscript, along the lines of big epic fantasies that I like [such as LOTR and ASOIAF] and I am currently sending that to publishers. I’m hoping that becomes my next book. It’s something completely new.”
When asked about the pen name, Olutola responded, “I’m eventually going to have to publish works under my professional name, and I didn’t want to get my academic work mixed up with my fiction writing. Raughley is a nickname for my Nigerian name, just a spelled a little differently.”
“Jack, are you ready?”
“I think so,” replied the thirty-something year old, eyes focused on the road ahead.
“Be cool. You’ve got this. Everything’s gonna go as planned.”
“Mhmm.”
“Jack? Are you listening? Are you nervous, buddy?”
“No, no, I’m fine.”
“You’re not doubting yourself, right? You remember why you’re doing this?”
“Yes, of course, I’ll get it done, don’t worry.” The truth was, Jack had forgotten why he did any of what he did anymore, but he trusted that his orders came from a good place.
He heard the crunch of gravel beneath his car tires and slowed to a halt. He grabbed the cake from the backseat, took his key out of the ignition, and stepped out onto the unfinished driveway. “I’ll be back soon.” He shut the car door behind him.
With every step he took towards the door, he grew nervous, agitated; his neck twitched, and his forehead sweat, but his hands, his hands were very steady, gripping the cake firmly.
Knock. Knock.
The door flung open haphazardly. Before him stood a woman roughly his age, with defined crow’s feet, stains covering her top, and a dishcloth slung over her shoulder. She smelled of feces and cheap perfume but had the audacity to smile at him. He welcomed himself in, ignoring the gibberish she spoke at him. Jack spotted a slender woman seated at the dining table, glaring at him while licking her teeth in his direction. She was a canopy of black clothing, with a thick matching coat of eye shadow covering her lids. Her arms were crossed; signalling that was unapproachable, perhaps dangerous.
He had been warned against paying too much attention to anyone, as it might throw him off. He was to simply walk in and serve the cake. He focused his attention elsewhere, as he sluggishly dragged himself over to the dining table. The home was hardly one at all; vile, filthy, a mountain of unwashed dishes, with mismatched decorations hanging from the walls. Jack reached the dining table, with little notice toward the woman charging at him from the hallway to his left. She was screaming loudly, high-pitched and uncontrolled. He looked forward again but saw from his side eye that she had stopped, and was now engaged in a conversation with the woman who opened the door. They both looked concernedly at Jack.
All the plates were laid out with forks to the right of each. He placed the cake down and uncovered it. All three women sat down, joined by a younger man than Jack. He was small, incredibly small for a man, and sat in a thinner, higher chair than the rest. The small man sat at the head of the table. Jack assumed he was important, and looked ahead again at the cake, refusing to initiate eye contact.
The woman with the crow’s feet penetrated the icing of the cake with a large steel knife and served the small man first, whose eyes Jack felt piercing into his side. Jack sat across from the woman in black who took small bites of the slice she was served, and next to the shorter woman who stuffed large chunks into her mouth.
He turned his attention away from her when he heard a slab of cake land on the plate before him. He picked up his fork and began to play with the icing, piercing in and out of it. He watched the women and the small man devour their cake. And he waited.
---
“Alright Walken what do we have here?” Stanford asked.
“Well, homicide, from the looks of it. Four victims,” his partner responded.
Both officers walked toward three of the victims, each slouched over a dining table. There was a flurry of activity from the forensics team around them, gathering evidence and sweeping the crime scene for any clues. Their assistant director was busy interviewing the neighbour who found them.
“Isn’t there someone missing from this picture?”
“Hell yeah, our main suspect, this, er, what’s his name again…?” Walken flipped through the file he held. “Ahh, Jack Diemer, thirty-eight, father of three, married to none other than Laura Diemer,” he said, pointing to the woman whose face was side planted in some cake.
“No, no, I mean, you said four victims, I see three,”
“Oh yeah, uh there was a small infant boy too, they already covered his body. It was gruesome, let me tell ya that much.”
“Jesus Christ, what kind of sick fuck kills his family like this? His children? His wife?” Stanford replied, in awe.
“I couldn’t tell ya.”
The assistant director walked toward the two officers and wiped his brow.
“This sure is something, boys.”
“What did you get from the neighbour?” asked Walken.
“Well, she said her and Mrs. Diemer were close, and that she’d been worried about her husband these past few months. Said he’d been hearing voices.”
“Voices, huh?” Stanford repeated.
“Yeah, voices.”
The three men stared at the gruesome scene before them. In all their years of facing blood and gore, the aftermath of rage and fear, and the multiple downfalls of seemingly normal individuals, there was something far more chilling about this scene than any of their previous cases.
“Well,” Stanford spoke, breaking the silence, “I suppose when you’re that far gone, something like this has got to be a piece of cake.”
Bahar Orang
Senior ANDY Editor
Should I bake a cake? I have all the ingredients eggs and flour and baking power and vanilla extract and cocoa but maybe I should make it healthy then I’ll need some avocado but who puts avocado inside a cake that makes no sense but then I can eat some except it won’t taste as good so maybe I’ll make it pretty and take a photo and share the picture somewhere then I won’t eat any except for just one lick off my finger oh who am I kidding I’ll eat the whole damn thing and even lick the crumbs off the platter then feel sick and stupid and silly except you know maybe cake isn’t the way to go maybe I should cook something like salmon or asparagus and oysters ew oysters that’s more impressive like all the yelling manly cooks I could be tough like them instead of this frilly apron thing but baking is harder than it looks you have to measure things there’s more math involved and some chemistry you can’t just toss a bunch of randoms in a pan and call it a day except I’m still not sure maybe I should just leave the kitchen and parade a sign outside that says something cool and smart but all I want right now is something sweet and lovely like a cake and how nice that I want to make it and not buy it I’ll spend more time but spend less money or would it make a difference if there was something clever written on the cake or what if I made cupcakes that looked like little cu- also who makes just one cake only for themselves that can’t be good should I make it for my mom or dad or boyfriend but there’s no birthdays coming up so can’t I make one just for fun is that so wrong it’s pleasurable and personal and yes I’ll be the one to decide just for one evening I want to wear this thing with the pink polka dot print and bake a cake and make it baby blue with a few drops of food colouring the batter gosh who knew this question was so hard.
Cooper Long
Assistant ANDY Editor
She looked at him across the crowded bakery kitchen. Through a tangle of pots hanging from the ceiling and several racks of cooling cakes, she could see him standing next to the refrigerator. He was illuminated by the reflections from its stainless steel doors, and seemingly oblivious to her persistent stare.
She thought back to the first time they had met. It had been a frantic day one month ago. A rush order for a six-tiered wedding cake with fondant butterflies had come in, and so white-aproned figures were scrambling all around. Amid this commotion, they two had accidentally collided. They had both worked in the kitchen for a while, but for some reason they had never come into contact until then.
It wasn’t just a superficial bond that they shared in that moment. She could feel that they had a powerful, almost elemental compatibility. They had both bubbled with the giddy excitement of meeting someone you truly connect with.
They eventually returned to their respective stations, and since then they had not interacted once. Somehow they tended to stay on their own sides of the room. During the day, she rarely left her post next to the Hobart industrial dough mixer.
Sometimes she suspected that people in the kitchen were deliberately trying to keep the two separated. She sensed that others thought they were wrong for each other. But no one who had seen them together could deny that they had chemistry.
Suddenly, the little box of baking soda’s reverie was interrupted. A pastry chef removed her from the high shelf next to the Hobart industrial dough mixer, raised her above a bowl of dry ingredients, and shook twice.
As soon as she was returned to her proper place, her gaze immediately returned to the jug of vinegar across the kitchen. Yes, the little box thought, the next time they got together it was going to be explosive. And messy.
Brianna Smrke
The Silhouette
“It’s the dream that makes artists go on.”
With this line from his novel Flashforward, renowned Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer addressed a crowd of faculty, Trekkies, undergraduates and library staff in Faculty Club’s Great Hall on Nov. 25.
Sawyer was recently awarded his twelfth Canadian Science Fiction ‘Aurora’ award for his novel Watch. He is also the only Canadian ever to win all three of the most prestigious awards for science fiction writing – the Hugo, Nebula and Campbell awards.
Yet, he doesn’t even like the term science fiction.
“I actually like to say that I’m writing philosophical fiction,” said Sawyer, adding, to assorted chuckles, that the moniker Phi-Fi doesn’t seem to be catching on.
Describing science fiction as a literature of ideas, Sawyer stressed that his writings and those of his “intellectual grandfathers” Jules Verne and H.G. Wells should not be dismissed as fantasy.
Instead, they are biting social commentaries, distorted by the lens of science and futurism.
Using the 1969 Planet of the Apes movie as an example, he spoke of science fiction’s ability to draw people into considering ideas like colonialism and race relations without preaching or becoming disengaging.
Speaking out against the ease with which the public dismisses science fiction, Sawyer discussed the freedom to grapple with powerful ideas – fate and determinism, the truth of religion and more – that writing science fiction allows.
Part of his love of the genre, he claimed, came from the ease with which one can “ask big questions” and create imaginative, but realistic scenarios to test possible answers.
His book Flashforward, adapted into an ABC television series in 2009, poked at determinism by describing a world where all people momentarily caught a glimpse of themselves twenty years in the future.
Sawyer concluded his lecture with a reading of an excerpt from Flashforward. He described aspiring creative types – artists, writers, actors – who had glimpsed a future in which their dreams for fame were not realized.
Accepting future mediocrity and normality, they gave up their quest to be different. The reading tied together the themes of Sawyer’s lecture.
The “dream” his character refers to, the ideas that keep painters painting and writers writing, match well to the philosophical ideas that science fiction presents and explores, and are meant to provide visions of the future that encourage readers to question their current lives and world.
Sawyer’s own imaginative world will soon take residence at McMaster. His visit to campus was spurred in part by his decision to donate his archives to the University.
“McMaster has a history of collecting the archives of Canada’s great writers – people like Farley Mowat and Pierre Berton,” said Jeffrey Trecziak, McMaster’s University Librarian, when asked why he had approached Sawyer with this request. “It’s only fitting that Canada’s great science fiction writer takes his place among them.”
The archives will be compiled and transported to McMaster in several instalments over the next few months and is expected to be available by March 2012.
