NORTH
2019-2020
Cover Art by Erin Wai
A Note from the Editors:
Both ironically and sincerely, we hope this letter finds you well and safe…
We are so proud of the success of North this year. From poetry nights, to soup days, to Humsoween, we have loved the energy everyone has brought to supporting North and the true spirit of the Humanities...until everything came to a standstill with COVID-19.
In light of the halt to the school year and to the production of a physical North journal, we have decided to put it online so everyone can have access to the amazing artwork, photography, and writing that has come out of the last year.
Together, we had the opportunity to share a truly incredible year as North Editors. Teaming up as both third and fourth year students is representative of the strong community we students of the Humanities have built. Through our classics soup days, newfound love of toga parties, and even over the course of COVID, we have had the pleasure of creating North for you this past year.
This (online) journal represents all of the art we have created before we were submerged in a global pandemic. We hope that you look at this art as a reminder of who you were and what you were creating before this great time of stress and uncertainty, as well as a reminder of what you can create coming out of this.
We hope that in viewing this journal, you can look back on the past year with nostalgia for easier times, but also towards the future with hope and a desire to grow and create. Most importantly we hope that it will remind you to focus on all the beauty and fascination that the world sets out for us.
We are so proud of all of you for the incredible art that you have created and shared with us here at North, and we hope that even as we all sit at home and adjust to zoom university, the muses continue to inspire you.
All of the funds raised to fuel the North journal’s publication this past year will be sure to be carried forward into the next, in the hopes that we will be able to publish an incredible physical journal in 2021.
With hopeful sincerity,
Your Co-Editors in Chief
Clare Duncan & Maeve McMahon
2019-2020 North Representatives
First Year
Sadie BadourCurrently Listening to: Ain't Together, King PrincessCurrently Reading: Selected Poems, Margaret AtwoodFavourite North Memory: Valentine's Day Poetry NightSecond Year
Erin WaiCurrently Listening to: Switzerland, The Last BisonCurrently Reading: Percy Jackson, Rick RiordanFavourite North Memory: Scary Story NightKayla StaffordCurrently Listening to: thought of you, the AcesCurrently Reading: Educated, Tara WestoverFavourite North Memory: Toga Party
Third Year
Maeve McMahonCurrently Listening to: Pretty Girl, ClairoCurrently Reading: On Photography, Susan SontagFavourite North Memory: Scary Story NightFourth Year
Clare DuncanCurrently Listening to: Phoebe Bridgers <3Currently Reading: The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca SolnitFavourite North Memory: Humsoween
Really? Wow! Him?
Sam Pomerant
Hey guys, thank you all for coming out to our wedding. I’m married! Wow that sounds weird, never thought I’d say that. Me and my wife are so grateful that you could make it. I know when a lot of you heard I was getting married the initial reaction was “Really? Wow! Him? He found someone? He found a person who can deal with ALL of his bullshit?” And to all of you who said that I’d just like to say, she doesn’t know about ALL of it so shut your damn mouth. I’m kidding, of course I’m pretty sure she knows about all my bullshit. I’ve never been good at hiding it. I’m sure she could tell you a thousand stories about my quote un-quote “bad ideas”. I’m sure she already has. In fact, we could probably spend the rest of the night just listening to her trash my ideas for the wedding.Now I must admit that today has turned out wonderfully, but that’s 100% her fault. I’m sure you all loved the very quaint, very classy ceremony. All these nice decorations, flowers and fully clothed people, but to be clear that was not MY vision. Oh no! I pitched a very elaborate ceremony that included some controlled flames, Drake in some capacity, and me arriving shirtless on horseback. Unfortunately, my horse guy recently left the business, and without the horse the whole thing would have been incomplete. I can’t come in on a goat, I’m not an animal! So, I shut it all down, and you cannot imagine how upset Drake was. It broke his heart.
Of course, today isn’t all about me, it is also about all of you. First off, my best man Ben, hasn’t he been wonderful? I mean so far, he’s only awkwardly flirted with half the bridesmaids, that’s impressive. I thought it would be more, but I guess him getting high as hell just before the reception has slowed him down. He’s really a treasure. I remember in high school we used to hang out in my basement and just talk. Sometimes that talking would, regrettably, turn in to freestyle that I cannot take back. Other times, they just become talks about our future, or the girls we liked, or the girls we hoped would like us in the future. One day, while we were trying to predict our classmate’s futures he looked at me and said, as earnestly as possible, that I was either going to never get married OR be married multiple times. Let’s hope he was wrong. But still, he was always there for me. I told him a week before the wedding I was nervous about this very speech, and his advice was for me to picture you all naked. So, Mum and Dad, it’s Ben’s I haven’t looked over at you.
Speaking of my parents, it’s great to see them so happy. I mean, it’s mostly because of the open bar, but I’m sure they’re at least a little proud of me. Or more so relieved that I’m no longer their responsibility.
They never thought I’d even move out of the house, it’s not like my Humanities degree was a guaranteed path to wealth. They definitely knew that going in, and yet they still supported me. They fed me, housed me, half-listened while I ranted about Kanye. Whenever I needed an ear to hear me, or a shoulder to cry on they where there. The fact that I am not sleeping in the basement, to them, is a miracle and anything else is just a fun, shocking, surprise. Thank you two, for raising me so well, the fact I’m not currently living on the street is all because of you. Looking over at my in-laws it’s clear that they are shocked that there is anything worse than me right now. I remember when I first met her dad, his initial reaction was “Really? Wow! Him?” but I eventually won him over. Right? I did? I’m getting a firm no right now, I guess I’ll have to go golfing at least one more time. But I would like to thank you two for raising my wife to be the wonderful person she is now; I don’t know what I would do if she didn’t exist.And of course, I’d like to thank my wife. For deciding that I was worth it. You are the brightest part of my day every single day.
I can’t believe I’m actually getting married. It’s crazy. You make me such a better person. I mean, who else would have told me that “I’m in Luv with a Stripper” is not an appropriate song for the first dance? Who would still marry me after pitching “I’m in Luv with a Stripper” for our dance? I wouldn’t think that type of person would exist, but here we are. When I was young, I was a bit of a romantic. Type of dude to write poems about girls he saw in coffee shops. Man, I pictured this day a thousand times. It would just replay over and over in my head. My wedding day, the day that my soul becomes eternally bound to another (in the eyes of the Canadian government). In fact, I would even write down groom’s speeches. I know it sounds a bit silly, but I would. Over and over. Hoping one day I’d get to use them. That one day I will get in front of everyone I know and profess my love to this brilliant woman. That I will go on and on about the world we were going to create, the future we have together, all those beautiful things. I write them for that one day.
One day. I hope I use them. I really do.
A Little Bit Faster
Clare Duncan
Days move a little bit faster now.
But I think when you get a little bit older, and when you fall in love, the world starts spinning for a reason and it builds up momentum and everything moves a bit quicker.
Nights move a little bit slower now.
When it’s dark and there’s music playing in the shadows and you have a little bit of time to yourself the universe allows you to cherish the moment until you have to go to sleep.
Then your days speed by again and you start counting the number of hours spent in motion.
You spend a third of your life asleepHow much of life is spent with your eyes closed even when you’re wide awake
How much of life has been missed when you blink? Or cover your eyes? Or kiss?
Do you close your eyes when the world stops?
Sometimes I think the world stops for me when I see something beautiful. The universe allows me to have it for more than just a second before it keeps expanding and before the earth starts turning again
Does the world stop for you when you look at me?
I hope time slows down for you when we’re together.
Days move a little bit faster now but the faster they go the closer I am to you.
The world stops for beautiful things but I hope it doesn’t stop for us.
Amarige
Portrait Study 2
Portrait Study 2
Profile Study
The Presence of Shiva: A Three Generation Poem
Rhea Chopra
Where there is one, There is lull, Where there is two, There is rule, Where there is rule, There is rajya,Where there is rajyathere is raja, Where there is raja, There is war, Where there is war,There is Shiva-My Baba Where there is War,There is destructionWhere there is destruction,There is protectionWhere there is protection,There is KrishnaWhere there is Krishna,There is gita,Where there is gitaThere is yogaWhere there is yogaThere is peaceWhere there is peace,There is silence,Where there is silenceThere is longingWhere there is longing,There is desireWhere there is desire,There is Kalki,Where there is KalkiThere is Vishnu-My Father Where there is Kalki,There is adharma,Where there is adharma,There is disorder,Where there is disorder,There is end,Where there is end, There is beginning,Where there is beginning,There is existence, Where there is existence, There is consciousness,Where there is consciousness,There is atman,Where there is atman, There is one,Where there is one,There is Brahma-Me
Maeve McMahon
Maeve McMahon
Maeve McMahon
Maeve McMahon
Worms Wearing Fishscales
Tyche McPhee Letts
The first thing trait one notices about time (once one makes an effort to experience it) is the emptiness. It’s one thing to seed a linear extrapolative perception of reality, another to live through boredom. The challenge to time-fishing is thus never faltering in the potential of patience. Lying in a sterile pumice valley, lazily admiring the rise and fall of accumulated technological shells atop their vast breathing form, Aaaa needs only the potential of letting their body rest there motionless for eternity, that should be enough. Ignoring patience, only two ingredients are needed for time-fishing: a suitably lifeless unborn planet and a suitably lifeful organism. The former is in great supply this era, the latter very rare. Therefore, the handful of organisms can go just about anywhere and easily engage in a spot of fishing, such is the remarkable privilege of the first lifeforms of history. If the possibility of Aaaa’s eternal rest in this valley is true, then so is that of their decomposition in this exact location, then the inevitable self-cannibalism of their personal bacteria against their rich personal flesh, then the bacteria’s slow colonisation of this planet’s waters, then—containing within themselves some conception of extrapolative time—the inevitable-but-lengthy evolution of these bacteria into a technologically-capable species, then the inevitable development of time travel capabilities, then the inevitable influence of ancestrally-ingrained curiosity that leads this species back to the singular site and moment of their own distant creation, then the meeting of Aaaa with these temporally-flung grandchildren and the resultant erasure of this entire future-past causal chain when the pleased Aaaa no longer decides to die in this valley. The time travellers will have been lured in, no temporal path of escape, and (inevitably) their biomass will join with Aaaa’s, an evolutionary wraparound. And Aaaa will be left with their fishing prize, whatever technology the travellers had, and it will be assimilated into their patchwork of shells. Rinse and repeat. Rinsed and repeated. Such is the remarkable privilege, to swan around the universe becoming mythical progenitors, founding gods, sparks of life without any commitment. Swimming the chaotic currents of space, pollinating-then-unpollinating celestial bodies, amassing collections of paradoxical apotheosi. Aaaa isn’t sure how long this had gone on, but at the very least they know they were one of the first middle children, between Aaa and Aaaaa. Their family had, of course, invented linear time, but the ability to make memories was stolen from one of its uncountable since-erased branches of descendants. Aaaa reasons that the cycle of time-fishing was probably begun by some original time travellers visiting the first lifeform and accidentally overwriting their own history of their own accord, creating a self-perpetuating cycle until A developed consciousness from the intermingling biomass of a confluence of time-travellers amid the wrecks of timeships and took control of the cycle. Perhaps that was how it went, or perhaps things had always been like this. Somewhere along the way they had stolen the concept of “fishing” from the brain-node of a traveller, and it seemed to fit perfectly to what they did. Time-fishing was like casting oneself out into the sea of causality as bait, fishing for the spoils of a good history. Aaaa thought it interesting that they were one of the only truly real beings in space-time, yet they had to act as a worm to things so much smaller in importance. The objects they fished for were considered time machines by the fished, yet for the fishers the objects had value primarily in novelty and aesthetic. In the sterile pumice valley, waiting patiently, Aaaa admires their many shells. There, with a whirling umbrella backboard, a wood platform with brass railings and a bound leather seat—the skin of some forgotten animal. The melted icy edges of a crystal cocoon. A sleek android shaped identically to its creators, which hugged people to take them through history, its twenty tentacles now melded and submerged in Aaaa’s flesh. A set of cracked porcelain concaves. The skeleton of a gigantic irradiated bird. Books in unreadable languages. Sealed mirrored boxes containing within themselves miniature infinite corridors or intelligences made from the stable meeting of light. Ghostly embodiments of since-erased holidays. Stashes of mind-altering drugs. So many gleaming metal cuboids, spheroids, trianguloids, pentagramoids. So many more clocks. And beneath these shells, always vibrating in an airsac just below the surface, a time machine built entirely from sound, surrounded by veins that pulse with chrono-pheromones just to keep the collection complete. Aaaa does this because they always have.And always will?What does “always” mean?Waiting is like “always” contained within a short string of moments.Waiting is a private infinity, and if Aaaa were to scream a solitary “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” it would just sound like a sibling’s name.When last Aaaa saw Aaa, Aaa had been doing something different. In theory, Aaa had more or less communicated, every planet we visit we leave subtle bacterial footprints. Even when we intentionally stop seeding, traces of pollination remain. The threat of overfishing was hanging on the consciousness of Aaa. So Aaa had gone a step down the causal chain, using their gathered time machine shells to go billions of years into the future. There, Aaa would establish multiple points of contact with a single species: building them mighty structures, messing with the molecular structure of rivers, creating columns of impressive elements, breeding with a select few monarchs, stealing livestock. All of this would be in the period shortly before the species’ development of time travel, making Aaa’s contacts one of the very first mysteries all the time travellers were bound to investigate. With such a short causal length, there was some difficulty getting the time travellers’ presence to necessarily erase the future, but Aaa was apparently managing. They preached it as more sustainable. But Aaaa hasn’t done anything like that yet, despite how sick they are of waiting. But even in Aaa’s strategy they were bait. Thinking this metaphor over, Aaaa wonders if being the bait is mutually exclusive with being the fisher. And if they are a worm, who is the fisher? Just as they hold control over all those time-travelling descendants, might something hold control over them? Inevitably some invisible hook will eventually be tugged bringing all Aaaa’s accumulated treasures to someone truly real, operating on some dimension other than time. Perhaps. Nothing has happened yet in the pumice valley. Perhaps Aaaa is a single-celled organism with delusions of grandeur, hallucinating a private infinity of life and death to mask a reality of boredom. But it could be true. The first syllable of history could contain all the rest of history (and all its many possibilities) within itself. They could be lying there waiting to decompose into something lesser-yet-more, one more tiny piece to a growing mass in a great larger emptiness. Let’s wait and see.
The Hedge God
Austina Yu
Contributors
SADIE BADOUR: Sadie Badour is a Humanities student in her first year. When she's not commuting back to the suburbs or doing her readings way too late at night, Sadie enjoys drawing and watercolour painting here and there.
RHEA CHOPRA: Rhea Chopra is a third year Humanities & Philosophy student whose poetry is inspired by the unknowable parts of our world.
CLAIRE FRENCH: Claire French is an amateur photographer who aims to capture images that evoke the sublime. And also images of more mundane things like cats and rail yards.
KATHLEEN GANT: I’m Kathleen Gant. My work is largely inspired by things I’ve seen and works I’ve read, and I like to experiment with different styles and techniques. I’m mainly a digital artist but I was trained with oils and am most comfortable with them. In my digital paintings I like playing with colour and texture to achieve different feelings and looks.
RODAINA IBRAHIM: Hello! My name is Rodaina and I am a first year Journalism and Humanities student. This is the first time I’ve published anything and I occasionally write poems and stories.
TYCHE MCPHEE LETTS: Yep, Tyche McPhee Letts writes silly genre fiction as a hobby. She’s ended up in a few actual books which people actually pay money for, which seems like something a person’s supposed to mention in an author bio.
RHEA LISONDRA: Rhea Lisondra is a fourth year Journalism and Humanities who can art sometimes.
SAM POMERANT: When he’s not tweeting about how much he hates writing, Sam Pomerant can be found writing things that he loves. He is a first-year Humanities student who is very appreciative of the fact that the program has opportunities such as North where students can flex their creative writing skills. In the past Pomerant has done some work as an independent producer of a one-man show at the Ottawa Fringe Festival. He would like to thank Gabby Calugay-Casuga, Brandon Fairbairn, and Hayley Forbes for reading his story before submitting it to North.
KATHERINE SURKAN: Katherine Surkan is a six foot tall houseplant vaguely shaped like a woman. She is in third year Humanities with a minor in Political Science, making her an absolute riot at parties. She hopes one day to publish a novel and tour in her two-member folk-punk band. She fully understands the dwindling popularity and reputation of folk-punk as a genre.
AUSTINA YU: Austina Yu is a first year Journalism and Humanities student who is enthusiastic about crafts, musical instruments, and cute things. You can most often find her at the art gallery, in a museum, or agonizing over an insignificant decision.
TAYLOR SIMARD: Taylor is in second year BioHums and plays for the Carleton Frisbee team, she clearly likes architecture lots but her friend Nandini hates it and so they’re at war.
ERIN WAI: Erin is a second year Journalism and Humanities student who sometimes paints when she is procrastinating assignments.
CLARE DUNCAN: Clare is a fourth year Journalism and Humanities student whose writing aspirations are vague and unclear, but she would like to thank the College of the Humanities for wherever she ends up...
Superlatives
First Year:
Most likely to befriend Confucius if he were in Hums: Brandon
Biggest Achilles-Patrocles energy: Alex and Craig
Most likely to try saving the Ark of the Covenant and get zapped in the process: Gabby
Most likely to flirt using Song of Soloman’s dove and goat metaphors: Gabby
Most likely to quit HUMS to be an Ascetic : Jeremy / Amelia
Most likely to start their own NRM (New Religious Movement): Brandon
Tiamat (most chaotic): Tor
Dionysus (most dramatic): Sam
Favourite Text: Confucius / Gilgamesh
Favourite Prof: Dolansky
Second Year
Most likely to start a bang frenzy/most likely to cut their own bangs in the hums lounge: Alex
Most likely to use qua casually in a conversation: Andrew
Most likely to view themselves as the One. (Plotinus): Ben Skene
Most likely to commission a sculpture of themselves: Maddy
Most likely to write the two extra 2000 essays for fun: Andrew
Most likely to write an entire book to dispute someone else's ideas (Aristotle): Aerock
Most breakdowns (Lady Philosophy): Nandini
Most like meno in an argument: Alice
Most likely to speak in class and not get any heresy points: Erin
Favourite Text: Boethius
Favourite Prof: Stephenson
Third Year
Petrarch (most likely to fall in love with love): Dani
Luther (most likely to accidentally start a war): Claire
Shakespeare (most dramatic): Tijana
Cereta (most likely to roast an entire lineage of men): Zoe / Maeve / Belle
Sidney (most passionate about the Classics): Maeve
Milton (unironically into astrology): Mirianna
Burke (most celebrity-obsessed): Emilie
Wollstonecraft (most wild): Genevieve
Shelley (most likely to have an adult emo phase): Taylor / Zoe / Katherine
Byron (most iconic): Carmen / Mirianna
Blake (most #deep): Nick
Rabelais (class clown): Mirianna
Mozart (actual child prodigy): Jessica
Favourite Text: Frankenstein
Favourite Prof: White
Fourth Year
Hegel (most likely to talk forever, but still make no sense): Newell
Rousseau (most likely to escape society to return to nature): Bryce
Einstein (most likely to understand/enjoy most of HUMS Science): Abby
Arendt (most likely to get into politics or academia): Owen
Taylor (biggest social butterfly): Julia
Gandhi (most likely to start a fight but not finish it): Rhea
Rushdie/Said (most likely to travel the world): Kendall
Foucault (most likely to go to prison and escape): Jake
Favourite Text: The Communist Manifesto / Taylor’s Modern Social Imaginaries, honourable mention: texts that weren't on the 4000 syllabus
Favourite Prof: Farhang Rajaee
Prof Quotes: Honourable Mentions
(Anonymous)
“I am not a merciful god”
“Your degree is useless”
"Many Great Books are boring"
“If you haven't noticed, Augustine is a little wordy and even the best of us find ourselves nodding off”
“Ah! Blessed, blessed chloroform!”
“This is a chug-a-lug choo choo pace”
“So this shit about the world soul... ?!”
On Rousseau: "He was famously paranoid but he was probably right"
On Nietzsche: "He had a varied menu of personal involvements with people"
"This world is a garbage heap"
“With anal play, the child is already becoming a philosopher of the human condition”
“The RCMP found me”
“In 25 minutes I will explain the structure of the soul and from that we can understand material reality”
“How fish sex could be sensual I don’t know, but watching this certainly was”
“There's no philosophy without tears”
“It is a cycle of imbibing the gay truth and excreting the gay matter (the fart)”
“For those of you who don't know fanfic, basically you take the bible....”
“There is a gremlin inside every cat that hits the meow button”
“I found prostitutes in England really quite dreadful. France is a different kind of place!”