Five seconds is all it takes to recognize a Hans Zimmer score. You hear the droning bass and the strings section all playing one note. The score is just as boring as his last one, albeit with a little more colour than usual. Coincidentally, this is exactly what you could say about Interstellar.
By now, everyone should recognize Christopher Nolan. After sling-shotting himself to fame with the reverse-plot thriller, Memento (2000), Nolan went on to direct the Christian Bale Batman trilogy and the excellent mind-bender, Inception (2010). Nolan is rigorously technical with his ...
Forget about what you think you know about experimental music. Imagine layered saxophone melodies and unexpected bass licks entangled in pre-recorded loops and minimalistic synthesizers—all influenced by Frank Zappa, free jazz, gnawa and african music, Miles Davis, saxophonist Joe Henderson among many others. Add inconspicuous presence on stage, a wall of baffling ironic humour behind the scenes, and unique visual taste in music videos and album covers. That’s it. Do you see the massless?
Navigator: The first time I ever saw you play was Valentine’s Day at the Vault. What do ...
By contributor Shaleeta Harper
With cracked and polished concrete floors, and live-edge honey maple slabs for tables, The Buzz Coffee House is a unique space with warm industrial design. Exposed pipes hang local art- work and act as room dividers. Tucked away in the back, an elevated section with a bookshelf, fireplace, piano, and grandfather clock creates the feeling of a tiny rustic home for anyone looking to curl up and read. Rust and honey orange walls are hung with decorative wool rugs in reds and creams while burlap coffee sacks hang sparingly, their blue and green hues ...
By contributor Lorin Medley
“The dead aren’t so different from us,” claims a writer in the well-placed, award-winning final story of this quirky and superbly crafted first collection from Vancouver Island writer Matt Rader. It’s a telling comment given that “All This Was a Long Time Ago” features a writer in conversation with James Joyce in the window of a BC Ferry.
Rader, who lives in Cumberland, BC and works in the Department of Creative Studies at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, is no stranger to the Canadian literary scene. He is the author of three books ...
By contributor Jennifer Cox
It takes a village to raise a child, and the 2015 Portal magazine publishing class is a close-knit village that works collaboratively to create a full-colour 98-page literary magazine showcasing the writing, photography, art, and graphic design of talented VIU students.
A large part of the early planning stage involves fundraising; money is a driving force to carry our literary and artistic creations through the production process.
Fundraising is also a great team-building exercise. The class has baked and sold cupcakes and cookies, hosted a ...
By contributor Becca Macdonald
This November marks the 160th anniversary of the arrival of the Princess Royal settlers in Nanaimo. The Nanaimo Museum is hosting the annual Princess Royal ceremony at the Bastion on Thursday, November 27 at 11 am. The public is welcome to attend the ceremony and hear the names of people who arrived on the Princess Royal in 1854.
The Princess Royal ceremony started in 1954. “This event is a long-standing tradition in the community,” says Debbie Trueman, General Manager of the Nanaimo Museum. “We are pleased to be a part of the event.” The ceremony ...
Campus life is steeped in tradition: the Freshman 15; first campout in the bookstore lineup (then, “Never again!”); the sacred vow never to hand in a late assignment, ever (usually blown first semester); and for many, spending the holidays away from home. With Remembrance Day in the rearview mirror, our attention is hauled into the Christmas season whether we like it or not.
Sometimes home isn’t all that far away, but the price tag on a ferry ride and a four-hour drive is hard to fit in the student budget (not to mention the terror of navigating the Coquihalla on bald summer tires). ...
At some point during my run at the Nav, this was going to have to be said. For the past couple years, I’ve been fortunate enough to only be in healthy, happy relationships. But before that, I remember talking with a friend and mentioning how I’d never been two-timed before, and I guess I forgot to knock on wood, because it happened shortly after that conversation.
I never used to be, but I’m sensitive to the topic now. I can sympathize fully with girlfriends who need a shoulder to cry on because they can’t believe they were “so stupid not to know” or that they were left “for some ...
As far as rights for people with disabilities have come, there’s still a long way to go. Full equality and inclusion are becoming closer to reality in 2014; wheelchair-accessibility has become a given, and businesses are starting to embrace this incredibly capable, but formerly un-tapped, workforce.
This wasn’t the case in 1976 when the United Nations (UN) General Assembly recognized the need to assist people with disabilities to enjoy equality and fully participate in society. They proclaimed 1981 The International Year of Disabled Persons, setting a mandate to develop action plans ...
The VIU Mariners’ women’s basketball team picked up their most lopsided victory of the season, with a 58-37 victory over the visiting Capilano Blues on November 15. The victory moved the Mariners above .500 on the season, improving their record to 3-2.
The Mariners got off to a hot start and put the game out of reach early. VIU led 23-10 after the first quarter. The Mariners kept the pressure on the Blues and continued to expand their lead. At halftime the Mariners led by 26 points. The score at the half was 42-16.
The Mariners’ offense cooled down in the second half, as the ...
By contributor by Shari Bishop Bowes
Yellowed with age and hidden in the bottom of a drawer for more than 50 years, a bundle of 43 let- ters, tied with a ribbon, depicts a World War I love story that began in Stratford, Ontario. The story of Private W. Murray Dennis and his young love, Margaret Munro, was memorialized in a choral commission that premiered at the World War One Remembrance in Strat- ford on November 15.
Creating a new choral work to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WWI was a goal for Toronto composer Chris Meyer, who has been working with the ...
The Mariners’ men’s volleyball team has opened the 2014-2015 PacWest season on a roll. The Mariners split a weekend series against the College of the Rockies Avalanche November 14 and 15 in Cranbrook to move their record to 6-2 on the season.
The Mariners dropped their first match of the weekend series against the Avalanche in straight sets, losing 25-23, 25-19, 25-21 on Friday, November 14. VIU responded well the next day as they picked up the straight set victory in the second game between the two teams.
The loss against the Avalanche snapped a four-game winning streak for the ...
It wasn’t the ending to the season they had hoped for, as the Mariners’ women’s soccer team ended the season with a sixth place finish at the CCAA National Championships, which were held in Medicine Hat November 5-8.
The Mariners opened the tournament on a positive note, picking up a victory in their first game of the tournament against the host Medicine Hat Rattlers. VIU came out firing, and led 3-0 after the first half on goals by Madeline Dawson, Bronte Fitzsimmons, and Zoe Grace. Samantha Rogers scored the lone goal of the second half, giving the Mariners a 4-0 win to open the ...
The Mariners’ men’s soccer team fell short in its quest for a nation- al championship, falling in the national final 5-4 to the host Sher-idan Bruins in a penalty shootout on November 8 in Oakville, Ontario.
The game was a back and forth affair, with both teams leading at some point in the match. Victor Blasco opened the scoring for the Mariners just seven minutes into the match. The Bruins evened the score at 32 minutes with a goal by Chris Di Vizio-Mendez. The Mariners took the lead back at 41 minutes, but the Bruins replied with a goal of their own just a minute later, tying the ...
By contributor Drew McLachlan
VIU will be hosting its first-ever Business Plan Competition, culminating in a “Dragon’s Den-style” competition which coordinator Ken Hammer hopes will light the flame for Nanaimo’s entrepreneur community.
The final event will see 10 teams of student entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of five judges, competing for the grand prize of $2k to help kick-start their businesses, with runner-up prizes ranging from $500 to $1250, donated by community organizations. The entrepreneurs will be divided into two categories: one for students taking ...
The Mariners’ women’s volleyball team played a weekend series against the College of the Rockies Avalanche on Friday, November 14 and Saturday, November 15. The team picked up a split in their weekend series.
The first game of the weekend was a battle, going right down to the wire. The Rockies took the first set of the match 25-22. The Mariners battled back in the second set, picking up the victory and tying the match 1-1. After the Rockies took the lead back with a victory in the third set, the Mariners once again responded, this time winning the fourth set to force a fifth set. In ...
It’s early in the PacWest basketball season, but the VIU Mariners are proving that they are a team to be reckoned with. The Mariners picked up two big victories November 14 and 15 at the VIU gym.
On Friday, November 14, the Mariners took on the visiting Quest Kermodes. The game was a battle of the top two teams in the league as both sides came into the contest undefeated. The Mariners came out strong in front of the home crowd and took a 26-15 lead after the first quarter. VIU continued their strong play in the second quarter, stretching their lead to 13 points at halftime.
...
The first weekend of November was a weird one for the Nanaimo Clippers. Friday, October 31 the team lost 3-1 to the Powell River Kings. The next night the two teams played again. This time, Powell River was victorious by a 3-0 score. Those games marked the first time since the opening weekend of the season that the Clippers had lost back-to-back games. Those two games against Powell River are also the only two games this season the Clippers have scored less than three goals.
Since that weekend in Powell River, the Clippers have gotten their game on track winning all three games the ...
The Nanaimo Buccaneers have made a couple big trades in order to secure the team’s position in the VIJHL’s North Division.
The Buccaneers acquired forward Dalton Dubetz from the Creston Thunder Cats and defenseman Wyatt Meiers from the Oceanside Generals. Both players were acquired in exchange for future considerations.
Dubetz comes to the Buccaneers having scored two goals and adding three assists in 11 games for the Thunder Cats. Meiers comes to the Buccaneers having scored seven points in 17 games with the Oceanside Generals. Meiers was also the captain of Oceanside at the ...
By contributor Chantelle Spicer
It’s all about balance. How many times have you heard someone say this recently? Whether it’s school versus personal life, a salad versus a bag of chips for lunch, or any other balancing acts that life throws at us, it can feel impossible to find harmony sometimes.
The City of Nanaimo holds a key that may help its citizens find some balance in the search for sustainability in their lives: driving a car.
We know cars are one of the major producers of CO2. Multiply that by over a billion cars on the road today, and it can be hard to justify a trip ...
A new website has launched which encourages dialogue as a way to increase BC’s low voter turnout.
Patrick Lee founded 'Promote the Vote,' a non-partisan, non-profit, volunteer-run campaign in an attempt to get an increase in voter turnout for the upcoming municipal elections.
Lee said he started Promote the Vote because of his concern in the low voter turnout. “The average turnout for municipal elections is 30 percent,” said Lee. “I believe in the importance of voting; it’s something I grew up with.”
Lee said this campaign is different than others because it doesn’t directly ...
By contributor Drew McLachlan
VIU students are invited to take a trip around the world this week through World VIU Days, a week of events celebrating international education held on the Nanaimo campus.
Formerly known as International Education Week, World VIU Days is celebrating its fifth year of festivities, running from November 3 to 7.
“We want to show VIU students that the whole world is on our campus,” organizer Mackenzie Sillem said. “You don’t need an expensive plane ticket to meet people from all over the globe—you can just step into a classroom.”
Events range ...
By contributor Shaleeta Harper
The Vault Café stands out as the bohemian hub of Nanaimo.
It’s easily spotted where Victoria Cres., Wallace St., and Albert St. intersect downtown, with outdoor patio seating made up of cozy armchairs and vintage ashtrays. In dry weather, the atmosphere is lively outside with animated conversations and the occasional acoustic guitar.
The interior is eclectic—rustic urban meets shabby-chic. Grand arched windows frame the avocado green walls, which are covered in local artwork and oddities like many pairs of antlers. A painted piano is available ...
