Newsbites (Page 2)

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ALUMNI QUARTERLY - winter 2008
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Home > McGill News > 2002 > Winter 2002-2003 > Newsbites > Newsbites (Page 2)

Newsbites (Page 2)

Lovely in Lederhosen

Krista Muir, BA'97, has always had a thing for Germans. That's why she snapped up a pair of suede lederhosen a few years back when she spotted them in Toronto's Kensington Market. That's also why she signed up for a German language course at McGill while pursuing her degree in cultural studies.

The lederhosen and the language lessons are both serving Muir well these days. Armed with an outlandish wardrobe, her electric keyboard and a cartoonish German accent, Muir (shown at left) takes to the stage as Lederhosen Lucil and her alter ego is developing a cult following.

Lucil recently appeared on the Radio Canada TV show, Bandepart and performed on CBC Radio's Radiosonic. Her first CD, Housemusik, earned effusive praise from The Globe and Mail.

"When was the last time you heard a great pop song about the phone company, or about a pore-cleansing beauty product," posited critic Robert Everett-Green. "That's the funniest thing about Housemusik, funnier than Lucil's fake braids and cheesy keyboards: so many of these songs about life's trivialities are solid-silver pop."

The Montreal Gazette's T'cha Dunlevy agrees. "The joke would have a limited shelf life if there wasn't real talent behind the music."

"Something magical happens" when she dresses up as Lucil, says Muir. "As Lucil, I don't get too nervous when I go up on stage. I just take on the characteristics of this other person." Lucil's eccentric look captures the audience's attention "and then they sit back and listen to my music."

Francophone fans in particular have taken a shine to Lucil. "They seem to be more open to cabaret and weird performance art."

Muir likes to surround herself with similarly colourful characters -- a popular street fair she organized last year in Montreal involved not only Lucil, but a robot DJ, a pop band dressed up as bunnies and an anarchist bake sale. She hopes to record another CD soon, one that would hopefully be put together with more than the shoestring budget she had for Housemusik. "I would really rather be able to pay people next time."

New Publications Aim to Beat the Odds

Launching a magazine is a risky venture -- about 70% die within three years of their first issue. So Toby Heaps, BA'00, Paul Fengler, BA'98, and Derek Webster, DipEd'94, are all brave souls. The three are responsible for the creation of two new national quarterlies that aim to be both high-minded and playful. They also intend to survive well beyond the three-year mark.

Heaps is editor-in-chief and Fengler is managing editor for Corporate Knights, a magazine that challenges the business world to adopt an ethical approach to making money. Webster is editor of Maisonneuve. He sees his publication developing into a New Yorker or a Harper's of the north -- a high-end general interest magazine.

"In these post-Enron times, there are plenty of people who think corporate responsibility is an oxymoron," acknowledges Heaps from Corporate Knights. Still, he says, "there are some pioneers out there," companies that don't believe that socially responsible behaviour is at odds with profitability.

"That is why Shell is preparing for a world that has moved beyond fossil fuels. By 2050, Shell says 50% of their energy will come from renewable energy. Corporate Knights is the only mainstream magazine in Canada that is focused on this area, so we are a good fit for companies that have a good story to tell and want to tell it."

And it's a story that Canadians want to hear, says Heaps. "85% of Canadians want to know more about the socially responsible things that companies are doing," according to a recent poll by Environics. Upcoming issues will probe the ethics of ethical mutual funds, examine what it's like to do business in war-torn countries, and shine a spotlight on the 50 best corporate citizens in Canada.

For his part, Maisonneuve's Webster, son of former Globe and Mail and Gazette editor Norman Webster, put together his publication "because talented younger writers have a Huguenot's chance in hell of getting onto the pages of the best magazines. There's room for an intelligent, general interest magazine produced by a younger generation.

"I also started the magazine because Canada has no national political/cultural magazine," adds Webster, arguing there are precious few venues where Canadians can "have a serious national conversation longer than 800 words."

Canadian publications often have difficulty competing against the slick-looking, big-budget magazines that flood our newsstands from south of the border. "If we want to compete at home, we have to produce a better magazine than our American counterparts, one that attracts readers both here and abroad. The only defence now is a good offence," says Webster. So Maisonneuve will also be distributed in the U.S., through bookstore chains Barnes & Noble and Borders.

The last issue featured one woman's bittersweet reflections on her relationship with her breasts and a chilling look at some of the phrases and terms that were widely used in Nazi Germany. The next issue, in March, focuses on Montreal and features an interview with Booker Prize-winning author Yann Martel. "Our 'Terrorism and Tourism' June issue asks 'Is George Bush Really a Moron?'"

Corporate Knights is available on newsstands throughout the country and is also included in The Globe and Mail to some of that paper's subscribers. Maisonneuve is sold at over 1,000 retail stores in both Canada and the U.S. Both magazines accept subscriptions (as well as tax-deductible donations, in the case of Maisonneuve). For more information, check out their respective web sites: www.corporateknights.ca and www.maisonneuve.org.

Enduring Art

PHOTO: Owen Egan

Laurie Usypchuk, BSc'89, visited Montreal last spring and took the opportunity to stroll around the downtown campus. She was so surprised by what she found in the Otto Maass Chemistry Building that she wrote to Dean of Science Alan Shaver.

In 1988, as a freshly elected member of the Chemistry Undergraduates Society executive, Usypchuk and her CUS colleagues decided to renovate the Holmes Room, used by students to meet, hang out and study. The original plans had to be scaled down, however. As Usypchuk wrote in her letter to the Dean: "With the limited budget we had, all that we could manage to do was give the Holmes Room a fresh coat of paint. Having no additional funds for pictures or other decorations, I volunteered to paint a mural on the back wall to give the room some life."

The budding artist chose symbols which represented the various disciplines of chemistry and put in about four weeks of pleasurable painting time. "I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it," she recalled and professed herself "quite shocked and pleasantly surprised" to discover 14 years later that her mural looked as fresh as when she painted it.

"All students believe that when you leave university∑you go out into the world to make your mark. Little did I know that one of the most cherished marks that I would make in my life would be left on the wall of the Holmes Room."

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