C/O Jessica Yang
Holding space for the stories closest to our hearts
One of the first articles I wrote for the Silhouette was for the 2020 Sex and the Steel City issue. As I struggled to come up with an idea, I remember feeling daunted and underqualified to tackle the topics at the heart of the issue. I agonized over that article, rewriting it half a dozen times before I got a draft I was even remotely happy with. But after, I also appreciated the space writing that article offered me to think about the questions of love, intimacy and relationships—and then the space the issue offered to read the stories and thoughts of others as well.
Just like that early article, I’ve agonized over this issue, too. When I started planning it, I felt just as daunted and underqualified as I did before. Sex and the Steel City is a unique special issue, close to the hearts of so many people and I wanted to do justice to that, but I didn’t know what I had to bring to the issue.
And I kept thinking about the space that first article gave me, the spaces I’ve strived to offer interviewees as a reporter and my writers as an editor, and I thought about the unique, wonderful safety inherent in community — in a space where you are free to not only be yourself but also able to even just figure out who you are to begin with, without having to worry about protecting yourself or the expectations of others and knowing you have people in your corner who see you and will support you.
This same sense of safety, of community, is a key part of Sex and the Steel City. It’s what allows this issue to offer the space it does to not only its contributors to share the stories closest to their hearts, but also to its readers to feel seen and heard, to know they are not alone. In this year’s issue, we’ve tried to honour the importance of community, highlight the ones that have built us up as well as those we’ve built through love, intimacy and relationships.
Sex and the Steel City is a community project, a true labour of love. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this issue, who shared their stories and their artwork; it has been a privilege to hear your stories over these past few weeks. Thank you to everyone on staff who wrote for and created and organized this issue. This will be the largest issue of the Silhouette to date and it wouldn’t have been possible without you.
For everyone who reads this issue, though, I hope you feel some of that same sense of community, too. I hope you can see yourself somewhere in these pages, even if it’s just in one image or one story, and know you are not alone.
But if you don’t, because I also know there are stories missing from the pages of this issue, stories still to be told, I hope you know there is still space for you here, just as you are. I like to think that’s why we do this issue every year, so everyone has a chance to tell their story.
C/O Pasha Malla
The Silhouette: Please introduce yourself.
Pasha Malla: My name is Pasha Malla. I’m the 2021-2022 Mabel Pugh Taylor Writer in Residence. I'm also teaching a class in [the arts and science department], a special inquiry class on speculative fiction.
What is your role as the Writer in Residence?
I'm available to the McMaster community and the broader Hamilton community via the Hamilton Public Library for manuscript consultations, which means that people send me excerpts of their work, poetry or prose and I read them and give them some feedback. Then we have a meeting on Zoom and have a little conversation about it. That's part of it. The other half of the program is various workshops and talks. Tonight, I have a workshop on suspense and urgency that I'm posting on Zoom. I'm doing the art of writing workshops through the Hamilton Public Library and business writing workshops through [McMaster University].
How have your meetings been so far?
I've been having the best time. Because the program includes people outside the [McMaster] community, regular old folks from wherever can join as long as they're affiliated with Hamilton in some way. It's been a really nice and diverse group of people and quite a nice variety of kinds of writing that folks are doing. It's been really encouraging and inspiring and kind of fun to read for people and have conversations with folks who are at various stages in their writing. I'm working with some published writers and some new writers. It has been really enjoyable in all kinds of ways.
What inspires you to write?
Lots of different things. Writing has been a nice place to just experience a little bit of joy. I've been working on this project that just makes me laugh and I have fun working on. Each project has its own goals and intentions or whatever else and results.
Lately, writing for me, it's been a nice little diversion and a place that I go for laughs. I make myself laugh, which is kind of weird, but nice when you can make it happen.
Do you mind elaborating on the project?
It's actually a sequel to the last novel I had out which is called Kill The Mall. It's an absurdist story with supernatural elements. This is a sequel to that, it's actually the second book in what I think is probably going to be a trilogy and I'm going to finish it before reading week, probably.
Are there any people or another writer who inspires you in writing?
There are so many writers whose work I read who are just so far beyond what I'm doing. I find that trying to achieve things that other writers are doing is motivating. Most recently, I've been reading a writer from Argentina whose name is Juan José Saer. I'm just blown away by this guy's genius. Reading something like that makes me, as a writer, try to pick it apart and see how he's doing what he's doing. So yeah, I get inspired by reading a lot.
Have you encountered any challenges in your own writing or within the Writers in Residence program?
No, this program has been terrific. That's a testament to how great the people who are sending their work in, who I've been meeting with and [who] have been attending these workshops with [all] are. That's the reason why I did it. If there's any challenge, it's just seeing each piece to try to figure out what the writer is trying to do and then doing my best to help them get there. Giving different suggestions and feedback that will be, I hope, encouraging and motivating but at the same time rigorous constructive criticism.
Is there anything you would like to say to aspiring writers?
Go into engineering school so you can get a job. No, I'm just being facetious. I think there's all kinds of generic advice already. You know, you should read, you should write. For me, I think being a curious person in the world is the most important thing. To ask questions, to speculate, to wonder. To tap into that thing we all had when we were kids where there's so much imagination and possibility is a large part of who you are and how you engage with the world. I think that is more important than figuring out the craft. Really being curious, engaging in curiosity about other people, about places, about experiences, about yourself.
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Firewatch is hands-down one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever encountered. I’d checked it out with zero idea what it would be about and what to expect, but the graphics of the start menu alone was all the convincing I needed to continue on.
Firewatch is categorized under “first person adventure,” and it follows a fire lookout named Henry on his first few days on the job. The story is jump-started by the disappearance of two teenage girls in the forest, and it’s up to the player to deal with the puzzle this leaves to be solved. This is the first game from Campo Santo, a developer founded by the two leads from Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead game series. That alone already says its fair share about the game. The dialogue in the game operates almost the same way as Walking Dead — a character says something, and you, as player, get to choose what to do or say next in response. Except Firewatch takes it a step farther, making for an adventure game that’s startlingly immersive in its take on a first-person perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZX3MgsRb0A
The first-person perspective was chosen primarily to save on the costs that come with having to sync voice actors with their character counterparts, but the decision seems to have ultimately worked out in Firewatch’s favour. Playing as Henry, the game operates in a way that makes it look like you’re seeing through his eyes. When you look down, you see Henry’s hands and feet as if they were your own. The player only catches glimpses of what Henry is supposed to look like, and otherwise, for all intents and purposes, you are Henry, and his character is completely yours to experience the game through. As Henry, the player interacts with fellow lookout Delilah only via walkie-talkies, and while this sounds dull, it’s Henry and Delilah’s interactions that really make the game stand out. It’s one thing for it to look great, but with some of the best dialogue I’ve heard in a game and perfectly cast voice actors, Firewatch sounds great, too. It’s simultaneously funny and poignant, and at times even relatable. The absence of a mental image to match Henry and Delilah’s voice behind the witty banter is a huge plus. This, coupled with the realistic graphics and being able to pick between response choices that range from emotional to dryly hilarious, it’s a game that feels very, very real in all aspects. Importantly so, since Firewatch doesn’t hold back on the tragic backstories, either.
The first ten minutes of the game alone loads up on Henry’s own emotional background. And it’s worth noting that while this is quickly established and explored throughout the game, it does so without being overdramatic. Firewatch maintains its realism through and through, handling its story and its few characters without being too much nor being too little. It comfortably juggles the drama, the clever banter, the unraveling mystery and the action behind the main storyline, and in my book, any game that can pull that off while sticking to its own personal charm is worth playing.
That said, Firewatch’s one flaw, as noted by many players and critics, is its ending. The game builds itself up to be something dark and gritty, and while in some ways, it does reach that point, it only scratches the surface before descending back to what is a criminally anti-climactic ending. It’s not terrible, per se, but it’s the kind of ending that really makes you go: Wait, what? Is that it? Really? And that’s quite unfortunate for a game that never prompts those questions anywhere else.
Firewatch makes for a great experience largely thanks to the environment it immerses the player in — the woods look shockingly realistic no matter which route you take, and the dialogue is brilliant and satisfying to the very last syllable. While the ending leaves much to be desired, it’s a quick little game that’s relaxing and escapist in its own charming right, and for that, it deserves a play.
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Toy Story is a terrible film for children, no matter what the “G” rating would suggest.
When I tell people that watching Toy Story was a traumatic experience for the four-year-old me, they always think it’s ridiculous. If they are feeling particularly sympathetic, they may entertain the idea that Sid and his sadistic manipulation of toys could be a little scary if his victims weren’t still just toys.
But it wasn’t Sid that I had a problem with. I was most disturbed by the idea that toys could come alive at all. I’m not sure why it came as a surprise to me that Toy Story involved living toys. Maybe I had to watch the film to truly grasp the profound implications.
Toy Story made me cry so much that my parents had to take me out of the theatre. With the immediate terror having been dealt with, an insidious paranoia soon replaced it.
When we arrived home, I announced through sobs that every toy that might ever think about eating meat had to be imprisoned in the basement. This dietary discrimination included almost all of my dinosaurs, which I had, up until then, loved dearly.
But I had become wise. I would not be the late-night snack of a miniature raptor. This kind of thinking is both absurd and annoyingly logical in a way that only children can be, but apparently I didn’t stay in the theatre long enough to see that the dinosaur in Toy Story is so sensitive that he actually needs lessons on how to be scary.
The one exception I made was for my grey teddy bear named Tippy. I’d had Tippy since I was born, and we had been through too much together for him to turn on me. We were brothers. I thought I could trust him. But that trust was put through the toughest challenge it would ever face.
I awoke the next morning (assuming I had slept at all, which is questionable) without even a single bite mark. I felt bad for ever doubting him. Slowly I learned to give my trust back to the rest of the meat-eaters.
Scary stories affect us in ways that normal stories just can’t. As we grow older, we know that the images of a horror movie aren’t real, and yet they still have an incredible power to terrify us. Or make us laugh, when an attempt to be taken seriously falls flat. Maybe the appeal of scary stories is that they allow us to feel like children again, where there are big, bad and scary things in this world that we don’t understand but that we allow ourselves to believe in for an hour and a half. Or maybe it’s the exact opposite, and we like to feel that we are mature enough to handle anything.
In honour of all things scary, we present you with ANDY’s annual Halloween issue. We’ve got more stories of people’s first experiences seeing scary movies, what makes a good scary video game and a couple of reviews of new horror films. ANDY is all treat and no trick.
