Aa RR FIR EE SER The Other Press needs a new arts editor! he Other Press is hiring a new arts editor, and we want you! If you’re an energetic, hard- working individual with a flair for writing and a passion for the arts, then we’d love to hear from you. The successful candidate will be a team player, have strong writing and editing skills, be able to meet solid weekly deadlines and will be expected to produce an average of six arts related articles per issue. Our new arts editor will be in charge of coordinating a team of contributing writers on a regular basis and will be expected to assemble a top-notch arts section each week. The new arts editor will be proficient with Microsoft Word, and will be able to adhere to organizational editing standards. If you’re interested in becoming our new arts editor, please apply to editor.otherpress@ gmail.com as soon as possible. Please include a resume with your application. The cliché at the end of the tunnel ike many, when I started as a | student at Douglas, I felt lost and underwhelmed. I’d bought the books, I’d figured out how to get from classroom A on floor X, to classroom B on floor Y, and I’d even gotten used to the idea of doing homework again. Still, at the beginning, something just didn’t feel right. Where was my complimentary “aha!” moment? There’s something to be said for people who have the direction, or at the very least the motivation, to jump into the “post-secondary experience” immediately coming off of the high of abandoning the shackles of the K-12 system (the same goes for those who maintain that motivation to learn later in life). Though I graduated this past April from the College’s Print Futures: Professional Writing program, and would never undercut the value of my formal education, I find that I’m as directionless as I was when my experience first began those three long years ago. However, as I write this, the clichéd self-help-inspired ditty “life’s a journey, not a destination” sounds less hollow, false, and rehearsed as the words stand-up at attention in the front of my mind. Then again, the devil that it is, the truth has always had its way of carrying the most weight. Like a cheap bottle of wine—as a twenty-something student, this is intended to be a compliment—life at Douglas is best enjoyed with friends and a greasy meal. For you transfer credit students: it’s not a race to finish the bottle. Savour the time that you have here. There’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow if it means allowing for a moment’s pause. Reflect. The idiosyncrasies of life in this post-secondary bubble will float on with or without you on board. As an example, coming from the outgoing arts & entertainment editor, I implore to those of you reading this to take a chance: become involved. The Other Press is great, flawed, ideal, and yes, messy. It’s a sandbox filled with all of the plastic shovels, chaos, and_battered buckets a kid could need; it’s a classroom filled with the tools, ideas, and peers to create something worthwhile. In closing, I leave you with these wise, if asinine, words “... we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!” Your pal, Cody Klyne Tough on the wallet, good for the soul A night at Raw Canvas in Yaletown By Cody Klyne, Arts Editor s an indebted student it should A= as no surprise that Yaletown isn’t exactly on the top of my list of places to go for cheap weekend entertainment. While my recent brush with tapas lounge and paint studio, Raw Canvas on Hamilton, hasn’t changed any of that— in my mind, the streets of Yaletown will remain paved with gold—it has however reminded me of the fact that when it comes to good fun, good friends, and good wine, the price is often worth the payoff. Walking into Raw Canvas, I didn’t quite know what to expect and it was, I think, this lack of expectation that really made the night what it was: fun. Greeted by a packed front of house, with tables ensconced by chairs filled with bodies, to say that it didn’t look promising that our group would get to paint would be underselling it a bit. It was damn near hard to move. Thankfully, as our luck would have it, a majority of the crowd had come to eat, drink, be merry, and listen to the live band (who were pretty fantastic in their own right) and not paint. After being ushered down a ramp what was once a rustic tapas lounge quickly transformed into what Raw Canvas aptly describes as their “paint pit.” Upon descending into the pit, apart from the friendly and helpful staff (and I’m not just shilling here,) guests are met by rows of easels eager to support the upcoming creative process. After buying a blank canvas (running in the $40 and up price range.) and getting the tour, of the paint counter and coat-check-cubby-hole system, the metaphorical ball was pretty much left in our court. For $90, before tax, our group of five scored two canvases as well as the use of a range of brushes, tools and a limitless amount of paint to create with. Looking back, the bottles of wine that followed shortly thereafter, combined with our “diverse” ideas as to how our paintings should come together, was a recipe that could only end up in disaster. While I’ll be the first to admit that my additions to our “works of art” certainly didn’t help as far as reigning in the too- much-paint-on-canvas chaos goes, the night gave some validity to the cliché idea that it’s not the destination but the journey that counts. After a few painting classes, or at least a few lessons in restraint, I’m looking forward to a triumphant return to Raw Canvas in the near future.