The Swamp

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Q: When you say you’re a sport astrologer, what do you mean by that?
A: Professional athletes are a temperamental bunch. If they lack confidence, they are completely incapable of performing in their chosen sports. That’s where I come in. I build their confidence by helping them visualize how it will all play out. I tell them that their moons are in phase, and how that will affect their stride.

Q: Sports astrology sounds like it’s relatively new. How long has this been around?
A: Sports astrology is far from new. We’ve been around ever since the first Olympians got stage fight about having to take their togas off, or having to run around for two days without stopping for a gyro. But sports astrology has grown in leaps and bounds since the Greek soothsayers read the soles of a marathoner’s feet to determine how long it would take for him to die. Nowadays, a lot of math goes into figuring that out. Athletes will only trust you if you talk about trigonometry; it confuses the hell out of them, and they’ll basically just accept whatever you say. That’s how I convinced Scott Hamilton to wiggle his trouser snake at the judges at the Oslo Olympics.

Q: Describe the Olympic experience. What was it like to hang around with so many famous athletes?
A: During the first few days, everybody’s really tense and stressed. But eventually, after a few days and a few hard-won medals, the nervous tension is replaced by sexual tension. That breaks pretty easily. I can’t immediately call to mind how many orgies I was involved in, but it’s in the double digits, that’s for sure.

Q: What’s your best story about living in the Olympic Village?
A: Oh, that has to be the time I was drunk in the CBC pavilion. I had just come from a wild dungeon party hosted by the Hungarians, and I ended up in a sex sandwich with Ron McLean and Brian Williams. Ron kept asking me if I still had my “Don Cherry.” Brian wouldn’t shut up about Olympic sex trivia. Apparently this was the first time in history that a sports astrologer had been in a threesome with two sports announcers on Day 4 of the Winter Olympics.

Q: It sounds like the only thing happening in the Olympic Village was sex.
A: That’s not true. There were a lot of drugs, too. After they’ve finished their events, the athletes are free to get back on their steroids. A lot of really funny stuff comes out of that. I saw Todd Bertuzzi in a fistfight with Michelle Kwan. She beat the fuck out of him. Talk about ‘roid rage.

Q: So aside from the sex and drugs, was there anything you actually did at the Olympics?
A: It’s all a bit of a haze. I think I told Jarome Iginla he wouldn’t have to worry about the quarter finals. He was so reassured that he did about four more body shots off of Brad Gushue.

Q: Brad Gushue?
A: He won a gold medal in men’s curling. He’s got a cock the size of Vern Troyer. Imagine how impressive that looked with him walking around the Olympic Village with his gold medal as a cock ring. Now that’s Olympic spirit.

Q: What did you think of the official clothing provided to Canada’s Olympic athletes?
A: They were given clothing?

Q: So what did you learn from your Olympic experience?
A: When you’re high on ketamine, you feel like you’re on top of the world. But one thing you should never do is try to run a police barricade with your Austrian lover by your side, a duffel bag full of stolen blood doping equipment and two biathletes in the trunk.

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In a crisis like this, there’s only one thing to do: pick up your cameraphone, and text your best friend.
“Ali,” you’ll multitap furiously, “hlp!!!! ”
“Megs,” the consoling response will come, “dont b .” The words will warm your heart, reminding you that it can only take a handful of letters to transmit a bellyful of feeling.
“U,” she’ll further expound, “shud b totly (^_^)! Bcuz ur free now!!”
“Rly??” you’ll respond. You probably won’t be convinced right away. But your best friend won’t take “Rly??” for an answer.
“Ya!!!!! U shud skweez n2 hot Tru Rlgn jeans! Go 2 Smij! Get SHT FCED!” This’ll be great advice, but sadly, it’ll come too late: “I burnd Tru Rlgns ystrdy .” You tried to wash Ky’s distinctive musk out of them, but it was as hopeless as your fleeting love.
“Dmn grl y u brn them? Y u not giv 2 me?” she’ll plead.
“And hav u smel lik hm? Ur my BST FRND!!!” You’ll take a quick snap of your saddest expression with your cameraphone, send it to her, and cross-post it to your Flickr photoblog with “Ky is a shit-eating bastard” as the tag. You’ll turn to your iPod and slowly tackle the huge task of deleting all the songs with special memories of Ky associated with them, and the Special Memories w/ Ky playlist. Your finger will linger for a moment above the clickwheel when you pass by the Smiths section, but your resolve will overpower your love for the fey lyricism of Morrissey, and with an air of deadening finality you’ll banish “Hatful of Hollow” to the ether.
Suddenly, your compulsive refreshing of his Facebook profile will hammer the final nail into your quixotic coffin. You’ll catch the millisecond that he lists himself as “Looking For: Random Play.” Your stomach will wrench, and you may cry. But your goal will finally be clear.
“Hez a skizbag,” you’ll text to Alison.
“(y),” she’ll reply, “Dmp him b4 he dmps u.”
“Xactli.”

You’re now erasing all the whiny, self-loathing blog posts you wrote about him in the last two days. You’re doing your laundry without thinking about Ky. You’re putting “Hatful of Hollow” back on your iPod and singing along loudly, triumphantly, without embarrassment. You’re sending MSN messages to that guy in your European History seminar, and your ice cream bill is down to $12/month. Ky calls your cell, but you let the machine get it. When you finally call him back, you beat him to the punch. “It’s not me,” you purr. “It’s you.”

You know that conversation a few days after the breakup when you realize your relationship is over? Save that conversation, so the next time you’re sad about a guy, you can always turn to KyBreakupTriumph00495772.xml.

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The women’s washroom in Jackson Hall contains one toilet, one sink, and one operational soap-dispenser. The men’s washroom? It contains a sink, a soap-dispenser, two toilets, and three operational urinals.

This was not an optical illusion. Oh no. This washroom was distinctly larger, distinctly more decadent. Pastel colours and clever lighting can work wonders, but those two design tricks alone could not have resulted in the palatial atmosphere of this washroom. It was much larger, both in square footage and in concept, and far more magnificently furnished.

The percentage of female engineering students has dropped in recent years from 30% to 20%. Could this be the result of a pro-male, pro-male-washroom agenda? When the ratio of women to men was 1:2, on the first floor of Jackson there were three times as many facilities for each male in the engineering faculty as there were facilities for each woman. Are the women of the engineering faculty supposed to board ourselves up, like just another faulty urinal? We cannot take this sitting down.

I demand that Queen’s amend this situation. They’re removing the top two floors of Gordon Hall to “return it to its original architectural splendour,” but they can’t be bothered to rectify this obvious gender discrepancy. It seems like people are more interested in talking about gender issues than they are in resolving them. When are we going to stop holding forum after forum, and actually put our ideas to good use?

Eileen French, Sci ‘08

Dear Editors,

RE: “Men need to give sex toys a chance” (Journal, Feb. 17, 2006).

In the most recent edition of Letters to the Editors, Mr. Davis claimed that the reason for an under-representation of male masturbatory devices in the SHRC was embarrassment and intimidation. I would like to provide an alternate explanation. Mr. Davis referred to sex toys “with potential beyond the palm of their hand,” and this alludes to a definite advantage that males have over females within the masturbatory realm that Mr. Davis didn’t take into consideration. You see, if you’re a man and you want to imitate the physical coupling normally reserved for marriage or the ‘60s, you put your hand in your skivvies and yank. If you’re a woman and you want to do the same, you have to go to a grocery store or the SHRC. Perhaps Mr. Davis has never had a vagina, and therefore does not understand how difficult it is to satisfyingly climax without phallic aide. G-spot stimulators and mechanical bunnies are more popular and sell more than fake blue jelly lips because we’d otherwise have to keep our sex toys in the vegetable crisper or the gun rack. Men keep their sex toys at the end of their forearms.

Ranjeet Kaur, ArtSci ‘07

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I am completely hairless. From top to bottom, not a single follicle extends from my body. This is not a skin condition, but a personal choice. The day I set foot on Queen’s campus was also the day that I shaved every hair from the surface of my body. It was a bit difficult to shave my back, but you’d be surprised what a complex arrangement of levers and pulleys can be designed to accomplish. It’s gotten easier with time, especially since I’ve learned how to pull my shoulder out of its socket. In 2005, I became a world record holder for “Fastest to remove all body hair without reflective or electronic aids.” Still, with all that I have accomplished in the realm of active depilation, I still get weird stares when I go to the movies or the salon.

It makes me angry sometimes, hearing people say that Holly Cole is a wacko for growing out her leg hair and then throwing me a spurning glance for taking their anti-hair exclusionism to a higher, but more broad-minded plane. I take comfort by reminding myself that they’ll understand in a decade or so; by then, humanity will have evolved past skin and everyone will be coated in GORE-TEX. It’s much more aerodynamic, and as a bonus, it’s water-resistant and breathable. More and more people are joining the cause every day. “Going sphynx” is the new livestrong bracelet; some skaters have even started “X-treme Shaving” on their half-pipes. Those Holly Cole-hating hair-fascists can count themselves lucky if everyone’s not completely hairless by the year 2015.

That said, I can understand why people might feel slightly uncomfortable when meeting a follicly-aware person for the first time. It’s possible that so many people are unnerved by the concept of full-body shaving because of how bare and vulnerable they would become. If people would simply give it a chance, they would understand how truly liberating a total shave can be. It only takes an hour or two, and then you’re free to go back to a normal life if you think it’s not for you. When I tried it for the first time, I was surprised by a renewed self-assurance and faith in myself. As Woody Allen said in The Great Hair Emergency, “anyone can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man – there’s your diamond in the rough.”

Every girl I know shaves her legs. I’ve just moved a little further north and shaved behind my ears. Evolutionary scientists have proven that humans no longer have a need for eyebrows or armpit hair. Hair’s only purpose in our modern world is to force Entertainment Tonight to do another feature on Jennifer Aniston.

Canada may consider itself a land of diversity and free speech, where people are proud to admit to masturbation. People feel safe enough in our country to leave their screen doors unlocked, but a country that forces its citizens to grow out their curlies is not free. I always thought that I lived in a liberated society: pot smokers like George Stromboloupolous make television for CBC Newsworld, and my corner store sells anal beads. But the line has now been drawn, and that line is at the edge of a large hair-free patch that ends around our necks.

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The plaque is in honour of Orlando Sampson Strange, MD, one of the leading physicians and surgeons of Kingston. Born on June 13, 1826 to a Scottish merchant family, he studied medicine for two years at Queen’s University, which was then called Queen’s College. Later on, he was part of the group that founded the Queen’s Faculty of Medicine. Strange practised medicine for 30 years in Kingston, and became one of the governors of Kingston General Hospital. He died in 1909, and the aforementioned plaque was dedicated in his honour 37 years later.

1946 was a busy year for Canada, and Kingston especially. World War II had only just ended, and the Cold War was barely starting to lower in temperature. The Queen’s University Observatory was in the midst of being demolished to make way for McLaughlin Hall, and the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve was busily changing its name to the Royal Canadian Navy Reserve. In honour of one of the great men who built the town and enabled so many Kingston boys to be treated by Queen’s alumni overseas, Orlando Sampson Strange’s plaque was hung on the Barrack Street storefront where he had practised medicine decades before. The plaque was moved to the Food Basics on the other side of the street in 1974, when its original address was bulldozed to make way for an LCBO.

For the 60th anniversary of the plaque, the Kingston Historical Society has recently decided to move it to its original location, and to commemorate the move with an additional plaque in honour of the first. This new plaque will follow the history of the 60-year-old plaque, and describe the materials used to construct it. Quotes from the plaque will also be included, as well as historical photos of the plaque’s dedication.

The dedication of the new plaque will be taking place at 2pm on March 1st in the parking lot of the LCBO at 34 Barrack Street. Following the ceremony will be a reception hosted by Kingston Historical Society president Maurice Smith. “We wanted to preserve the plaque, to allow future residents of Kingston to be able to appreciate Kingston heritage,” said Smith in a press release promoting the upcoming ceremony. “We plan to restore the plaque in the summer of 2006, but for now, we’re just happy to return it to its original home.”

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