“Outdoor ice-skating kind of reminds me of a very traditional Canadian winter,” Alexander Arnon, a U3 Economics student, said while skating on Parc La Fontaine in a tuxedo. Unphased by the weather he remarked that, “Skating outdoors is rather pleasant!”

For those brave enough to face the elements, popular ice rinks include the frozen lake in Parc La Fontaine and Beaver Lake on  top of Mont-Royal both free of charge, and offering ice skate rentals for $8. Surrounded by trees and a tamed wilderness – both Parc La Fontaine and Mont-Royal offer Montreal’s urbanites an opportunity to enjoy a rustic skate in the comfort of their own backyard. Both are lit during opening hours, with Parc La Fontaine adding a classical soundtrack to enhance your skate.

For the cosmopolitans of the city there is also the option of skating in the Old Port at the Bonsecours Basin, with an admissions fee of $4 for students and skate rentals at $8.  Over half a kilometre of open ice, beautifully illuminated at night with great views of both the St. Lawrence and de la Commune, Bonsecours Basin is a great place for a romantic city skate.

McGill recently joined in on the winter fun by opening a rink in the lower field. With no admissions fee and a convenient location, McGill’s rink is a great way to get in a skate between classes if you’ve got your own blades. The availability of hot chocolate at the nearby Snax is an added perk.

But while Montreal has a plethora of outdoor skating rinks available, away from the ice, residents and visitors often have a marked indifference to going outdoors in the winter.

U2 Sociology major Aylish Cotter remarked while looking out at group of students playing hockey on lower field, “The one problem with skating outdoors is that it is just so cold outside!”

Despite this freezing temperature induced scepticism, outdoor skating remains an important Canadian winter pastime enjoyed by many. For Outremont resident, Waseem Haja, “There is no beating a late night skate in Parc Saint-Viateur.” He explained in an interview with The Daily, “It’s pretty and quiet and on a clear night the moon hangs beautifully over the rooftops. It’s a great place to do some thinking. And if you get cold you can always warm up at the 5 Saisons beside the park.”

Parc Saint-Viateur is located on Bernard, west of Parc,  and charges no admissions fee, but does not offer rental skates. A picturesque and quiet park, this rink offers a suitable alternative for those wanting to enjoy a skate without the crowds of larger rinks.

Jay Watts III, a project manager at JK Communications and Montreal resident, noted an added bonus from outdoor skating: “It is pretty enjoyable, all in all, [although] I don’t go often enough, actually I didn’t go at all this winter. But, if you want to endear yourself to a girl, it’s an inexpensive and easy way.”

A winter cannot be truly Canadian without the essentials – cold weather, snow, warm clothes, and outdoor skating. Montreal offers more than enough possibilities for an outdoor skating excursion. And if the bitter weather and lack of companionship is stopping you from going, pick an old compatriot that will always keep you warm: Canadian Club.

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Land describes her music as “orchestral-art-folk,” and draws inspiration from time spent in England and Germany, as well as from the many musicians she has worked with over the course of her career. Lang’s music conveys a romantic and dreamy, though not utopic, view of life and relationships. Her songs are carried by strong, whimsical melodies, an almost light-hearted approach to her lyrics’ heavier topics.

“While my music tends to be dark in subject matter, I try to draw [the listener in] with a mood that, doesn’t necessarily reflect the songs lyrics, allowing the listener to interpret the songs for themselves,” Lang explains.

Lang attributes her dreamy point of view to her childhood, which she describes as a “fantasy-world.” While her musician father wasn’t a huge influence on her work, she does attribute her love and understanding of music to him.

After early experiments with the trumpet, she joined a friend’s band as the bassist at 13. While she considered pursuing further education in theatre, Lang ultimately decided to continue with music. “It hadn’t occurred to me to be a musician,” Lang explains, “even though my dad was a musician, [but] when [the band] formed that year, it was really what I wanted to do.”

While her friend’s band didn’t last, Lang continued to play bass in other bands based around Toronto, before moving to England where she recorded her first demos. There, she was increasingly influenced by the European music scene and its “electronic sound.” Later, she recorded an album in Germany, a country that, according to Lang, “also has a good indie-electronic music scene.”

Lang returned home to Canada, eventually coming to Montreal. With the new environment and a new band, she once again finds different inspiration. In particular, she has drawn elements of her live show from St. Vincent, whose music has been an important recent discovery for Lang. The Foundlings, her current band, is comprised of Pat Latreille on upright bass, John Corban on violin, Mona Varichon on French horn, and Dan Pencer on clarinet. She finds working with the band to be a more collective effort than the work she’s done in the past.

Since her return, Lang states that she has begun to see her music moving away from a “folk-tronic” sound, to a more “orchestral-art-folk.” Lang attributes this shift in sound to The Foundlings and the different instruments they work with. “When I know who I am working with it affects the [song] writing, knowing there is going to be a certain sound to incorporate into the piece,” she explained.

Lang says that her live shows are “a place to get carried away in thought, with a dreamy view of love and reality…a chance to reflect and escape a little into another world, or [a place to give] yourself a way of seeing your world differently.” Which is quite like the way she sees life itself.

Erin Lang, Sweet Mother Logic, and Hooded Fang are playing March 26 at the Green Room (5326 St. Laurent).

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Schools in the U.S. have experimented with integrating hip hop into the curriculum. High School for Recording Arts (HSRA) started out in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1996 and has spread to both New York City and Los Angeles with another school about to open in Portland, Oregon. These schools centre their programs around musical production, with reward systems in place that prevent the students from using the studios unless they show good behaviour and complete their work.

While these recording arts high schools offer an alternative to many who have not been finding success in a traditional high school, educators question their unconventional approaches and their poor standardized test results. While still in their infancy, these schools have neither surpassed state averages nor those of neighbouring high schools with students in similar socio-economic standing. The question remains open about the benefits of bringing cultural practice into the classroom that students might be able to relate to, and whether its greatest use is inside or outside the classroom.  
In Montreal, an after-school program known as W.O.R.D. (Writing Our Rhymes Down) uses hip hop as part of a literacy initiative to supplement traditional classroom learning. They write on their web site: “We believe that the best way to engage marginalized youth is by allowing them to speak…. We promote positive hip hop culture via our dialogical approach; thus, we address negative media messages and the ways in which they may or may not inform and/or reflect the lives of our participants.”

Members of W.O.R.D. weren’t available for comment before press time.

For more information, visit writingourrhymesdown.org.

—Thomas Kim

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In 2007, two fractures in a tunnel beneath Maisonneuve caused the City to close both the road and the Metro. Mayor Gerald Tremblay subsequently requested safety reports on 63 of the city’s buildings, but to date only 16 have complied.

The death of Léa Guilbeault, who was killed by a slab of falling concrete at the Marriott Hotel on Peel last July, has given a sense of urgency to the City’s commitment to safeguard the downtown’s infrastructure.

“Structures deteriorate,” said McGill Professor Saeed Mirza, who formally served as president of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering. “But the inspections normally don’t get carried out. It’s ‘design, build and forget.’”

He added that buildings not properly maintained pose a serious risk to society.

“There are large costs, not only economic, but social and environmental costs associated with neglect,” Mirza said.

When contacted by The Daily, management at the Sun Life building denied ever receiving an inspection request from the City.

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Patrons of the sex shops, insta-checks, and fast food joints may not be able to recognize the area after an eco-friendly mega-complex of socially responsible retail and art moves in.

A non-profit, eco-friendly development company called Technopôle Angus proposed the $110-million plan to renovate the strip.

Technopôle Angus demolished the abandoned building at 222 Ste. Catherine Est, once an erotic video theatre, and has bought several other buildings – notably the nightclub Katacombes and the building that housed the hot dog shop Frites Dorées.

Some occupants are concerned about the impact of gentrification on the historic neighbourhood.

Johnny Zoumboulakis, the owner of Café Cleopatra – who resisted an Angus buy-out – worried how his business, a strip club that stages transvestite shows on its second floor, would fit in with the new neighbourhood.

“Restoration shouldn’t change the look or mentality of the [area],” he said.

While Zoumboulakis was uneasy about the developers’ plan, he recognized that the neighbourhood could benefit from a fresh coat of paint.

“Run-down and boarded-up buildings [need to be] restored,” he said, stressing the importance of “restoration not demolition.”

Jacques-Alain Lavalle, spokesperson for the Ville-Marie borough, said that while the borough supports redevelopment, it values the preservation of Montreal’s history in urban design. His support for the demolition of 222 Ste. Catherine was in accordance with a February 2008 press release from Mayor Tremblay’s office, which deemed the building unsafe and insecure according to an outside engineering consulting firm.

“The building that was torn down at 222 [Ste. Catherine Est] had little value,” Lavalle said.

For its part, Angus has remained tight-lipped on the details of their plan: Ville Marie has only seen preliminary sketches of the project. Susan Methot, press liaison for Technopole Angus, said plans for the redevelopment of the neighbourhood would be revealed in a public assembly at the end of April.

Edson Teixeira, whose family owns the soon-to-be-evicted Frites Dorées, knew few details of Angus’s plan except that, “[the developers] don’t want [any] chain stores or hot dog joints.”

The City’s plans to redevelop the neighbourhood, a project coined Quartier des Spectacles, dates back to the eighties. The project focuses on the square kilometre bounded by City Councillors Street, Berri Street, Sherbrooke Street, and René-Lévesque Boulevard.

The City hopes the Quartier des Spectacles can “enhance existing heritage buildings that are next to modern buildings, while restoring commercial continuity,” according to the development objectives stated on their web site.

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Dr. Paul Wiseman, an associate professor in the department of chemistry, was introduced to Facebook in 2004 by one of his students.

“An undergraduate research student and later a graduate student in my lab added me to Facebook, and told me that it was a Harvard study to examine degrees of separation,” Wiseman wrote in an email to The Daily. “I had no idea what it was morphing into, as far as a social network site.”

Wiseman, who commonly teaches over 1,000 undergraduates per year, and has a Facebook network of over 1,300 friends, says that he accepts almost anyone who adds him – assuming that they’re former students.

“What is interesting is that now almost all of my requests come from high school or university friends, which shows how ubiquitous Facebook has become, and how it has changed,” Wiseman added.

In five years, Facebook has undergone a rapid evolution, with the middle-aged its largest growing age demographic. From its initial start as a social network available only to Ivy League college students, it is now accessible to everyone with Internet access, and hosts over 175 million active users.

Wiseman said Facebook could be used for academic purposes as well as social ones, explaining that a Nigerian science writer who volunteers in a malaria clinic added him after Wiseman’s lab developed a new way to detect malaria infection in blood cells.

When asked about using the limited profile function when accepting students’ “friend” requests, Dr. Jim Kanaris, a professor from the Faculty of Religious Studies, was unconcerned about what his students learned through his profile.

“There really isn’t anything on Facebook that students wouldn’t discover by spending time with me during office hours,” explained Kanaris, a self-described social bug. “Students like to know their professors are more than they seem: automata.”

Kanaris added that he often “friends” students from his smaller classes, and communicates with them via Gchat over Gmail.

Students don’t seem to have a problem with their professor’s Facebooking.

U2 International Development Studies student Olivia Perdana said she didn’t mind political science professor Rex Brynen being privy to her personal information, having had him from a first-year class in Leacock 132.

“I don’t think I ever checked his profile and I doubt he’d be interested in checking mine…. Even if he did, it wouldn’t really matter since I doubt he’d know who I was anyway,” Perdana said.

U3 Physiology student Dan Beamer had no problem having Dr. Paul Wiseman as a friend on Facebook.

“He was [my] chemistry professor in first year. Good guy, one of the best teachers I’ve had here. I’ve run into him at hockey games [both] at the Bell Centre and McGill.”

While both Kanaris and Wiseman continue to use more standardized forums like WebCT to communicate information to their students, they expressed that Facebook is just another means of communication.

“I’m always on the look out for new technology,” Kanaris said. “Call me crazy, but I consider it a valuable medium of communication.”

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A joint effort between McGill’s Association of North American Born Asians (Manaba) and McGill Taiwanese Student’s Association as well as Concordia’s Canadian-Asian Society, SynesthASIA strives to be more than just the stereotypical cultural fashion show, moving away from simply showcasing traditional Asian clothes and music.

While you’re enjoying yourself at SynesthASIA, you’re also benefitting orphans in India. Proceeds from the night will go to the Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC), a charity that aims to provide homes for street kids as well as education and health outreach programs in Pune, India. The timing of the event couldn’t be better because the AIC is currently attempting to raise enough money for a permanent building to house orphans.

As Sylvia Kim, one of the event organizers, explained, “The name SynesthASIA is derived from synethaesia, a neurological [condition] in which senses become interconnected, and one sees colours from sound. Artists used this [idea] to express their art in a very abstract, fantastical movement.”

The intersection of Eastern and Western cultures, and the traditional with the contemporary is how SynesthASIA lives up to its name. At once, SynesthASIA will open your eyes to the contemporary world of fashion and design, and your ears to traditional Asian sounds. The next moment your ears will be drawn to techno music and your eyes fixed to intricately embroidered Indian dresses from Toronto designers Dulhan.

The diverse ethnic backgrounds of the show’s male and female models further exemplify the idea of synaesthesia. The event also looks to both the traditional and modern-day elements of Asian culture. In one scene, aspects of classical Japanese culture are mixed with the futuristic, gothic trends of Tokyo’s Harajuku fashion district.

SynesthASIA puts an array of up-and-coming Montreal designers and boutiques on centre stage. One designer that is sure to impress is Travis Taddeo, whose recent line offers a futuristic interpretation of Ancient Greek and Roman fashions. Anomal Couture will display their beautiful evening wear in an assortments of both couture gowns and cocktail dresses, tapered to reveal stunning silhouettes, accentuated with strong necklines and cuts. JUDY and Yasmin Wasfy of Lustre Boutique will also present their designs.

This is a show that transcends fashion in many regards, placing emphasis on the theatrical components of the show. The Montreal Wushu Institute is expected to amaze the audience with their martial arts tricks, seeing as one of their members was a stunt double for Jet Li. The dance crews promise to wow the audience with their choreographed movement. These theatrical components really make SynesthASIA a fashion show.

Following the event, the catwalk will turn into a club, with music provided by Tokyo Nightclub regulars DJ DeLeon, DJ Jemz, DJ Yao, and an up-and-coming group, MTLiens. They will be sure to keep you dancing until the early morning. The bar will stay open all night, and more importantly, the models and dancers will be there.

SynesthASIA is scheduled for January 31 at Metropolis, 59 Ste. Catherine E. Tickets can only be purchased this week in Bronfman and on Monday January 26 in McConnell Engineering. Check out the Facebook group and event SynesthASIA for more information.

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