This is going to be about God.

I sat in the church, fascinated by the back of the neck belonging to the man in front of me. It turned red every now and then throughout the funeral. We seemed to be sitting in the godless pews: my mother and father and I in one short row, my sister and her husband in the one ahead of us, joined by the man I mentioned and his impossibly thin mother. Everyone else from what I could see knew exactly what they were doing, how to do it, and when. The kneeling, the praying, the call-and-response, when to flip open the bible and read along with the priest, when to shut up and let him go on. We’re not Catholic. I’ve only ever attended one regular Sunday church service in my life, and it was at a United Church last year. I’m not United either.

“This isn’t going to be about Ellen,” my mother whispered to me as we sat down, referring to her best friend of thirty-years, “This is going to be about God. I just want you to be prepared.”

I was, I guess. Maybe.

I say sometimes that I am culturally Catholic, because that is how both my parents were raised. And for the few in my extended family that are religious, Catholicism is the name of the game. My grandmother was pretty staunch, and had twelve children to prove her point. I have a reasonably strong understanding of the dogma and doctrine of the church, at least as much as can be expected for someone whose parents quit the church wholeheartedly as young adults and never went back. I am characteristically awkward and uncomfortable putting this understanding into any sort of practice, however. My mum, on that note, did know when to kneel and amen and our-father-who-art-in-heaven and so forth, which was somewhat settling. Our two pews did not fully stand out as being confused and unaware of expected pomp and circumstance. Everyone stood when the rest of the attendees stood, and sat accordingly. We cried without cue, but I suspect we were not the only ones.

The acting priest at the St. Andrews Catholic Church is apparently an unpopular one. Ellen didn’t like him much, I know that. He spoke some at the service, and I looked up at the rafters. They were designed to look like the ribs of a ship. The church was built by shipbuilders, which makes sense when you know how St. Andrews itself was built. The priest has an accent, and wore an oft-malfunctioning microphone clipped somewhere on his colourful robes. I understand history better than I understood him.

My aforementioned staunchly Catholic grandmother died in the fall of 2004, my first year of university. Her funeral was hilarious in many ways. The entire family entered the church together from the basement, but the priest started the service before all of us were seated. Our brood is so large, I got stuck in the stairwell with various cousins and aunts, and we had to wait for him to stop talking before making our way to the pews. Later, the priest who knew her very little gave a speech about my grandmother, and the only thing that stands out to me about it was when he said “Molly loved religion, and shared that love of religion with all her children” -- some of whom audibly cracked up. When it came time to perform communion, that same awkward priest announced “Anyone who normally does communion, we invite you to come do so now.” Several of my extended family members stood up, looked confused, and sat back down. Our two pews did not make a move this time, when communion began.

My mother was right in her warning. She had in fact been asked to speak, but declined since she was not being asked to say anything personal, rather to read aloud a verse from a tome she doesn’t believe in. Very little was said about Ellen the person at her funeral, in the whole scope of things. There were lots of readings from the good book, and the songs were all hymns and the like, and an inordinate amount of talk about “god’s banquet” simply because she was a chef. But when the old parish priest spoke, he who actually knew this amazing woman, his words were poignant and suited the affair.

Perhaps I am not surprised in the least that such types of funerals exist not to really celebrate the life of the person just lost or to address the grief being experienced, so much as assure those in attendance that life shall go on in heaven and not to worry. I have been unable to truly write about Ellen, a woman who helped raise me, who I call my second-mother, even here, because the prospect is too painful, the wounds of loss too fresh. I have had to shift focus to my own issues with organized religion for safety. So in that regard, my understanding of the Marxist cliché has broadened. Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but there is, after all, a reason we’re given morphine when in great pain.

Marg Craig

Our Game

My grandmother would have preferred my Saturdays spent indoors, book in lap, head in the clouds. In actuality this was often the case, but I was never content being pigeonholed as the brain of the family. I loved hockey -- the game, that is, not the surrounding culture. I loved the game, loved the sound of my blades on the grey ice of my grandmother's pond nestled in the evergreens just beyond the edge of her garden, loved the smell of the snow, the trees and the crisp winter air. We played every Saturday, most Sundays and some weeknights after school, daylight permitting, the same trio each time: my brother, our cousin Francis who lived across the field, and myself. The pond was just the right size for one-on-one plus a neutral goalie; nearly always my brother, who was the youngest. We played hard. Me versus Francis, trying everything to outsmart him and get a decent shot away at my brother, crouched between a pair of boots in his homemade cardboard pads with 'Heaton' scribbled down the sides in permanent marker. We played as though our lives depended on it, as though our loved ones were being held by the hockey gods as the fulcrum in some twisted balance of blood sacrifice and our own sweat.

We played until we could no longer see the puck against the darkness and the choppy ice. Then we would skate over to the boards lying frozen at the edge of the pond, sit, untie our skates and shoot the proverbial shit until the cold was too much to bear then put our boots back on and head across the fallow, snow covered potato mounds to my grandmother's kitchen with its warmth and smell of fried meat. There we would review our day's exploits over hot chocolate while my grandmother smiled at our exaggerated claims.

This was before my brother discovered girls and the internet (but not necessarily in that order), before my cousin convinced himself that the solution to his father could be found at the bottom of a quart of Jameson's and before I discovered radical politics, class-A drugs and the fact that cliche and despair are much harder to outrun than old age, venereal disease and minimum wage. We are all much older now, some wiser than others. I have not strapped on the skates in over ten years and I rarely think much about hockey or what might be happening in the NHL standings.

I loved hockey. But: I did not play hockey at any organized level. I did not pay two hundred dollars for a carbon fibre composite stick. I did not engage in, nor was I the victim of any hazing rituals at the hands of the entitled children of suburbanite lawyers. I did not have to endure the sound of my parents berating teenage referees, my coach or opposing players. I did not idolize Don Cherry, nor think that the only two worthwhile functions for a woman's mouth were giving head and saying 'yes, dear.' For all this, I am thankful.

I am sure my grandmother would be too.

Kirk Williams

John Thompson for Poet Laureate

John Thompson - master of the Persian stanza form known as the 'ghazal,' was a Sackville poet who influenced a whole generation of Canadian writers: notably Michael Ondaatje and his contemporaries. While Thompson's poems are usually not noted as being ones that deal distinctly with the New Brunswick landscape and New Brunswick culture (and therefore often more overlooked within New Brunswick literary circles than the works of authors like Alden Nowlan and David Adams Richards), his poems are among the best and the most internationally anthologized of Canadian poetry. Thompson's works, emerging from the burgeoning postmodern context of the 60's and 70's, should be read always by students of Canadian Lit alongside novels such as Beautiful Losers, and the early poems of Ondaatje, Atwood, and Purdy. Thompson's lyrical voice, with so many divergent cross-cultural influences, along with his interesting and tragic history should make him a Canadian (and of course New Brunswickan) historical literary figure of infinite interest... and I nominate him for naked east's New Brunswick Poet Laureate!

Submitted by Cameron MacLean.

Please note: naked east is compiling, alongside current nominations, a list of posthumous PL's.
Nominate accordingly!

Poet Laureate

A community that understands itself improves.

The reflexive community establishes goals. It looks into itself, the heart of its obstacles, assess and confronts them. This reflexivity clarifies for it the roles held within it; the roles of government and the judiciary; the roles of citizens; the roles of artists. In a sense that is not clinically anthropological, the reflexive community is a community. It is a unified being.

One of the best senses of this comes from the the institutions created to promote self-identification with cultural and community values. The institution of the Poet Laureate, a public figure appointed by government who in investiture agrees to provide literature for public ceremonies and promote cultural dialogue within communities, enables a defense against the erosion of culture as fundamental value in communities, demographics, provinces and states.

It is no surprise, then, that New Brunswick lacks a Poet Laureate.

The necessity of cultural institutions is linked to the necessity of identity; for too long this relationship has been overlooked by stewards of our province.

Beginning next month, naked east will begin to lobby the government of New Brunswick to establish a provincial Poet Laureate to sustain the cultural literacy and identity of our province.
We will advise that the term be no less than ten years. We will submit, among other such things, suggestions.

Send your nominees for the Poet Laureate of New Brunswick to naked.east.the@gmail.com or submit a comment below.

The Next Day

The next day the news had died down. What then was 'now' was now 'then' and had somehow become irrelevant in the eyes of the general populous. For a brief time the comet's long and graceful ponytail enraptured, guided, and mystified the hopeful stargazers as they set their dreams on this brilliant beam of dust, and waited.
The pinkish evening boded well for the light show. Those who wanted to witness the new traveller were ready with lawn chairs, blankets, cameras, binoculars and telescopes, as well as plenty of food, drinks, and card games to tally the hours more quickly. A few added ripples to the atmosphere by bringing along stereos and glowworm-like toys that cast an alien green on the grass and encircled darkened wrists and necks. As if trying to communicate with the stars, the audience sported their own borrowed light: a beautiful sight from afar; we are like you, they seemed to wish to say. Various insects hummed, providing a background music below the subtly violent harmonies that issued from the human and electronic babel. The skies, however, were the focus, and the scenery became the source of action in a complex theatrical spectacle.
The pink faded into a whitish blue that, when one followed it closely, disappeared into the midnight blue that precedes midnight. A small light came into view and drew the millions of eyes towards itself: a mass staring at a distant mass through an arras of colour and optical distortion. The comet was a visual monologue-- a soliloquy for those romantic sorts who dreamt of interpreting its message in a more personal manner. Self-conscious or completely unaware, it bore a certain sprezzatura in its travels through the colours of the sky---a single apparition comet that had flown into view of the earth, pulled and driven, but beautiful as though the violence of gravity were rather a comfortable motion meant to be carried out with finesse, dignity, delicacy, composure (despite its resplendent display of disintegration). The illuminated tail reflected in the eyes of the watchers, but the mystery held a deeper sway than even the pull of gravity: the dark centre remained hidden behind the light of the dust.

But the effect fades at the end.

The party departed at the break of day. The comet granted few, if any wishes. Shadows, grey and imperceptible at first, grew sharper along the earth as the sun rose and the gazers hid their heads under pillows--those who had the leisure to do so.
A few, still awake, pointed to the small stratus clouds developing in the north.

And you stood before me and I saw the comet still in your eyes.

Marlo Burks

Naked East Radio

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Woodlot: Court Appearance and Opposition Deadline

On Monday morning, activist Mark D'arcy appeared in the Fredericton provincial courthouse filing private charges against RAR Properties for allegedly filling a regent street wetland, located on the UNB woodlot.

The case was delayed until March 23 because, according to reports, the lawyer for RAR properties argued that documents filed stated that the alleged events took place in Fredericton, but not Fredericton, New Brunswick. Patrick Hurley, RAR's representative, effectively objected on grounds that the charges stemmed from allegations that may have taken place in another Fredericton. Or, by extension, the other Fredericton: a rural Prince Edward Island community.

--The deadline for public objection to the encroachment of a gas bar on the Corbett Brook marsh looms at February 26. Contact Jaques Whitford at mary.murdoch@jaqueswhitford.com.

--The deadline for public objection to the development of a Costco on the UNB woodlot approaches at March 9. Send objections to cityclerk@fredericton.ca

Two conversations about Miller Brittain

(1912 – 1968)

Art, when relevant, takes cues. It is adaptable, and forward-looking, yet its relevance is judged by the extent of agreement with contemporary values. Relevance is not an artistic value, but remains an ingredient of success. Context and demand press upon oeuvre in greater ways than the independent drive to create and the vision it spawns. It's been said that there can be no creation, no vision a priori: just innovation.
There was a time when Canadian painting was dominated by landscape, in a post-impressionist manner, which recognized the vitality of the land we live on and its inexorable marks on our character and consciousness. Our artists recognized the distinctiveness of our surroundings and how the western tradition could interpret them. And what a thing it must have been, alone on Algonquin lake, early in the twentieth century, holding on the tip of a paintbrush the image of an infant nation. Painting the land was what they did, and they did it well, soon there was demand, and that demand remains. And Miller Brittain's relative obscurity in the annals of Canadian art still pivots on his decision to paint the people that walked the streets of his hometown; streets that even then were old. Because his vision was social he bucked a significant trend, and his success during his life was moderate, I gather. Eventually, when the second world war broke out, he joined the RCAF hoping to become a pilot but was made a bomb dropper. A decade after the war his wife died of breast cancer. His work became troubled, biblically-charged, frantically rendered. His draftsmanship faltered as what was left of him succumbed to alcohol. The two galleries that housed his work during Millar Brittain: When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears, which I worked in throughout the summer, were divergent such that they could have been the works of different artists. In many ways they were. The show was a testament to the work of one man inasmuch as to the weight a person bears when he has been iconoclast, when he has lost in love, and when he has seen and made death.
Miller Brittain was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He trained in Saint John and New York City before enlisting in the Canadian Forces. He died in his hometown of a stroke at age 56. When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears was the biggest retrospective of his work ever assembled, and tonight will be packed up and divided and dispersed, all a little better known than before. His work impacted me and I will miss it.

Some people old enough to remember him shared their stories with me while I processed their admissions or purchases. Here are two I liked. They are both fairly irreverent, but far better than nothing.

-----

I knew him actually.

Really. What was he like?

Well, he was quite a character.

You must have been very young.

Well, let me see. At the time I was a medical student so it would have been in my early twenties, I suppose. Once he brought me and another man, a doctor, around to his house. And he was wearing a large gold pin and an ascot and a pair of white shorts. And he was very flightly, almost bouncing, showing us around. His studio was in the attic, and the artworks on the walls leading up to it on the stairs were the very schizophrenic ones, all pastels. It was all in disarray, and he had a few dogs that would pee all over his drawings. Many of them were salvaged though by Thom Cerack and his wife Celia for a show in Montreal, the paintings and drawings. Yes, he was an interesting man. I remember there were beers bottles lined up along the walls of his house, sort of in the wall

In the wall itself?

Not exactly, lined up with it. He drank quite a bit, you see. We have a Miller Brittain as it happens. My husband and I, we bought it for our paper anniversary, after our first year of marriage. It's an image of a pot of flowers, and behind it a figure of a very emaciated woman. He told me that he believed that when his wife died she would become the flowers, or that her soul would enter them. He believed things to be connected that way.

----------

We used to go down to the Legion with Miller, he was quite a drunk. Often people would drive out to his house and get him drunk and then steal his paintings. Anyway at the time I had an old convertible, and the interior was all white except for the seats, which were all red leather. One night we agreed to give Millar a drive home, and when we got to the car he stopped and looked in. And he looked up at me and said, Virgin's Curse?

September 19,2007

UNB Woodlot: Developments

'On Monday, February 16th at 9:30 AM, a concerned Fredericton citizen will be continuing his private prosecution in Fredericton Provincial Court against RAR Properties Inc. for the infilling of Regent Street Bog last summer. A total of four (4) charges are expected to be read by Judge Graydon Nicholas to RAR Properties Inc.

Mark D'Arcy of Fredericton, New Brunswick, says that he had no option but to go to Provincial Court.

"After considerable media attention last summer, and after personal pleas to Attorney General T.J. Burke of New Brunswick, and Environment Minister Roland Haché to intervene and enforce the Order in Council and our environmental legislation that protect this wetland, the infilling of Regent Street Bog went unchallenged by the Province of New Brunswick."

"Too many groups and government departments have worked to protect and preserve this beautiful ecosystem", says Mark D'Arcy. "The special legal protection afforded this Provincially Significant Wetland was the result of numerous studies by botany and wildlife scientists and organizations, Environment Canada, NB Department of Environment, and NB Department of Natural Resources."

Wetlands comprise only 4% of the land coverage in New Brunswick. They are very critical pieces of our environment, our wildlife habitat, and our flood control. The Regent Street Bog is the headwater to the large Corbett Brook Marsh, part of Fredericton's watershed that covers the huge forested wetlands of the UNB Woodlot Forest.

"All homeowners in downtown valley of southside Fredericton should be very concerned what happens to these wetlands at the top of the hill," says D'Arcy. "These wetlands are our insurance policy against the severe rain events and increased winter runoff due to climate change. Without forested wetlands working as natural sponges, rainwater capture and run-off control will be seriously compromised. Taxpayers should not have to pay for any attempt to replace the natural function of these wetlands with manmade pipe and retention pond infrastructure. And since an acre of forested wetland can absorb a million to a million-and-a-half gallons of rainwater, no amount of tax dollars can replace what nature is now doing for free."

"If we lose Regent Street Bog, officially designated a Provincially Significant Wetland, the other wetlands in the UNB Woodlot Forest don't stand a chance.", concludes D'Arcy.'

Courtesy of Woodlot Watch

Occupation

Old monuments line

the roadway

to our meeting place

where often I have

traveled, spurred on

by designs

of our own making,

to where the tremors

of first steps were laid

together, and fingers

pronounce their findings

on the once foreign

territory of neck

and shoulders, which

move beside me as

bodies breathe

in asymmetry

and we remain our own

but caught within this

occupation of the night.

Matt Abbot for UNB Student Union President

Because if you haven't heard, a group calling itself 'United for Change' is running a slate of candidates in UNB Student Union elections, to be held between February 22 and 27. Read more about the candidates on their website and vote if you're able to. Matt Abbot!

tune in

to those (slightly decrepit) radio waves
CHSR 97.9 / chsrfm.ca
tonight,
well
just slightly more than an hour from now

for a dose of Beirut (New Mexico, not Lebanon)
Bonnie 'Prince'
CocoRosie
Man Man
and a variety of spectacular "hits"

plus the meaning of acorns,
and words on the weathered why.

Tantramar Revisted: week in review.

Our week begins and ends with the last post from naked east radio at 1:00AM Atlantic, CHSR FM.
Our week in review, therefore, begins Friday.

And Friday began with a bit of news and commentary. A wonderful reflexive piece by Maggie went up Sunday about the lives lived by her cat, terse and semi-fictionalized. Monday night Chuck came over and we walked through Westmount. I thought of trying to explain my feelings about living away from home but decided we'd already seen that conversation through. Instead we walked silently to the St-Marc lookout and stared across the south island.
Tuesday Mike allowed us use of his fantastic photo essay on a day in the life of Fredericton minor celebrity and blogger Charles Leblanc. Charles appreciated it and so did we. We registered 87 hits and 132 page views Tuesday alone.
Then, on Wednesday, a great piece from Marg, a Fredericton writer from St. Andrews, which proved to be, if I may say so, without inundating you completely with commas, a chilling reflection of the development of small-town homicidals and the plenitude of unacknowledged warnings. I once heard that Gregory Allen Despres spent hours locked in the bathroom talking to himself in the mirror in the years before he decapitated an elderly Minto couple.
I spent this afternoon laid out by the window on the second floor of the Atwater library. I read for the first time Charles G.D. Roberts' Tantramar Revisted and was stunned. Because so much of what naked east hopes to do is foster a literary voice for New Brunswick, it is incredible to find antecedent works of striking beauty and depth. It was sobering to realize I was encountering this poem for the first time.

Keep watch for a radio preview. Or just tune in tonight at 11:00PM on CHSR. Bye for now.

Mrs. Henderson’s Magnificent Dinosaur Collection

A week or two ago I received an e-mail from my mother. Subject: Is anyone surprised? I don’t know that I wasn’t, when in the message she told my siblings and I that a man from home and his teenage girlfriend had been arrested under suspicion of infanticide. Regardless of who is involved, such things tend to be surprising.

Charlotte County, New Brunswick is hardly a densely populated area. Crime happens though, as it does everywhere. Usually it is quite run-of-the-mill: drugs, impaired driving, bar fights, domestic abuse -- there’s even an idiomatic flair for vigilantism, and the occasional rich St. Andrews townie getting caught up in embezzlement schemes -- nothing remarkable. But then there are the remains of two unrelated newborns found near St. Stephen in as many years.

I’m in no position to speak on the specifics of these events. What I know of the subject can be read by anyone with Google or a copy of The St. Croix Courier or Telegraph Journal at hand. It is all very easy to find because, well, things like this just don’t happen in small communities (except that they do) and we like to talk about them.

A woman I am friends with on Facebook but whom I’ve never met in real life to my knowledge (she’s years older than me but grew up in the same town, population two-thousand), invited both my sister and I to a Group called “A Child is a Child (petition is located in the discussion board)” which we at first thought to-our-discomfort was a Pro-Life group, but turned out to be about the most recent infanticide. Neither of us joined because as far as we have been able to tell, the petition mentioned in the name of the group is to be sent to Southeast NB’s MP Greg Thompson with the object of… well, stopping the murder of newborn babies. The implication presented by the group is that a) if you don’t sign, you support baby killing and b) this is a productive use of your time because certainly were someone thinking of ending their child’s life, seeing that 199 people had signed a petition online saying it's a bad idea would demonstrate the error of their ways.

That isn’t how the world works.

It just isn’t.

The man who has been arrested and charged with First Degree Murder in the death of a baby went to school with my brother. I know who he is, and have a few hazy memories of being a very small child and actively wanting to avoid his ilk on the playground before school (they were much older bullies, and this was the only time “big kids” and “little kids” were mixed in a social setting). I recall years later hearing that he was dating a girl a grade below mine, and knowing this was not a bright idea. He is, however, predominately just a Name to me, as there are so many just Names even in a small town. Names you hear in passing or anecdotally (So-in-so broke into a house and stole underwear), but frankly nice-girls wouldn’t actually know the person.

I responded to my mother’s email with “Yikes. Psycho.” because my instinctual reactions to things are always politically correct and considered. This is what she replied: “We met him when the boys were six. He’s the little boy who terrorized the elementary school with an almost theatrical intensity. No one was safe, and little girls were frequently and viciously targeted. Driven mad, teachers were unable to cope or discipline. In third grade, he brought a knife to school and murdered Mrs. Henderson’s magnificent dinosaur collection, slicing them to ribbons and shards. Everyone knew how disturbed he was and is. No one successfully intervened and I wish that I believed that someone tried to help him in some small way .”

Charlie & me

Picture-taker Michael Woodside documents a day with Fredericton BLOGGER and ADHD activist Charles LeBlanc.

I have a very good memory. I can remember things that happened to me I should have been too young to remember now. I remember my first step (I made it to the stairs, and I fell down them). I remember the moment I knew I did not want to drink from a bottle any more (I found the sensation of the rubber in my mouth stomach-turning. My Mom says I could not have been older than 2).

I remember my father's huge veiny hand holding a tabby kitten under a hot water tap to de-louse his fur – we were too poor to take animals to the vet, or to buy treatments. I would have been about two and a half. I don't remember the story of how he came to our house, but my father has told me.

We were driving up the Nor'west Road, almost in Sevogle. Dad looked into Buzzy's yard, and knew he had to stop.

Buzzy was about 5'2, wiry, with a big red beard and purple skin from whiskey. People called him Yosemite Sam, and this was just as much for his temper as it was for his look. Buzzy was holding a shot gun at his side. His son, Dale, 9, was holding a wooden box. Dale tossed the box into the air, somewhat miraculously without having it fall back down on his small body. Buzzy aimed and shot at the box. This looked to be the last of several attempts.

Buzzy's old cat had given birth again, and this was his inspired, drunken scheme to get rid of them. My Dad opened the box, to find one bug-eyed kitten amongst mangled and bloodied fur. He came home with us. I named him Buzzy. I remember that part, but I didn't remember why and I can't explain why. My sense of irony was simply not that well honed at age 2.

Buzzy the cat died last Spring. He'd been blind for some time, for years when you picked him up, his body had lacked that fluid, flexed sensation that most cats have, and he had stopped grooming himself or even standing when he had to void his bladder. His legs made cracking noises. He spent all his time against a heater. Brown sludge began to accumulate in the corners of his mouth, like seeping death.

I pleaded with my parents through a Southeast Asian calling card to put him out of his misery. My father was despondent, angry. We'd had that cat for almost as long as we had been a family, and to him we were desperate to kill him off.

Buzzy the cat had cheated death until he was 23. It is only appropriate that he was finally shot. Dad did it

Good News For a Change

The good news is, this probably didn't cost one million dollars.

The bad news is it probably cost more than $15000.
That, and it's a poor substitute for effective health policy.

In spite of its warnings, aimed at children, of a critical state of "wellness", the site is nevertheless predicated on the notion of elective health. This initiative is equally frivolous and insulting.

So once again, the New Brunswick ladies who brought you Vivacious Curves. In the words of Cendrars, here's to our true ambassadors.
Photo www.vivaciouscurves.com

Radio Naked East Preview 02-05-09.

Remember to tune in, as always, and spend some time with Zach on CHSR 97.9 FM. The show starts at 11pm EST. We're holding out for a preview playist, but you never know.

--

If you're listening, you're hearing Johann Johannsson's Fordlandia in entirety, as well as your friend Zach, and your friend Micah too. And Moldy Max, the Agony of Leaves.

The Aquinian: was's and wasn'ts

In the Fall of 2005 the Fredericton student media received an unexpected jolt.

The St. Thomas Aquinian, coming off a banner year (2004-05) under Editor Miriam Christensen, had undergone pivotal changes in format and direction, faced threats and made national headlines.

It had taken off under past sub-editor Justin Sadler in what was very likely its best year of production, ever. The Aquinian was sound but provocative, stern yet comic. It seemed to believe in journalistic standards and the agenda particular to student newspapers. It came under fire and made questionable decisions, but people read it.

It was in under these circumstances that a weblog, written anonymously,began to cause a stir. The Aquinian: is's and isn'ts, hosted byblogger and penned by STUdissiDENT, attacked the Aquinian, its staff and writers in a pejorative, vulgar, weekly salvo throughout the eight-month school year. The blog was discussed between students, in classes and in the Aquinian, but mostly in the blog's comments section, a forum visited upon by a diverse sample of the student body. The Aquinian rounded out the year having received more attention from the student body on a consistent basis than it ever had. The blog had something to do with it; "It's dialogue, and that's awesome," Sadler once said. But he knew that the interest in the blog, and the reasons why the blog existed, had more to do with the quality of the newspaper and the attention it was getting. It was doing what a student newspaper was supposed to do.

The irony of the blog and its timing wasn't lost on those who remembered it the following year. Under editor Kate Wright, the paper aspired to take what one editor called "a more serious approach," an attempt to be "more like a real newspaper."
Rather than staking out the fox hole from which the agenda of a progressive and daring publication had been pushed, the Aquinian of 2006-07 retreated into reliable and safe formulas. In the following two years the paper was reverted from a highly stylized tabloid to a poorly considered broadsheet with a quiet logo and photo covers that gave scant indication of contents. The editorial board swelled from 5 editors in 2005 to 9 in 2009 (including, inexplicably, an "International Editor"), but the paper remains stuck between the conflicting agendas of its predecessors. And, as one St. Thomas student recently observed, "No one reads it."


Newspaper is a verb, a mutable construction whose face changes with the faces that occupy it. The direction of ownership and editors inflect the direction of a newspaper and what it thinks and speaks. But a rotation of values is not a change of
purpose; the pivotal, definitive character of a newspaper that draws the like-minded to it. And for this reason, the failure of the Aquinian in recent years to uphold a previously achieved standard has little to do with its recent editors. A student paper is, after all, a playground for budding journalists, a place for
them to explore within the fenceposts of niche media. But if, in the process, they abandon what made the paper great, albeit controversial, the question becomes 'why'? Why change what works for the sake of change alone?

For whatever reason successful editors have been unable to hand-down a legacy. In every category, the only consistent thing about the paper is that it will be revamped every September. And the best explanation for this is that editors are inevitably hiring editors that resent the direction their forebearers steered their inheritance. If Kate Wright is to Justin Sadler as Rex Murphy is to Naomi Klein, why did he offer her his post and subsequently betray his vision? Rather than seeking successors who were drawn to the Aquinian because they liked it, the editors offered it up to qualified candidates who objected to the way it had been managed before. The proceeding generations, swept up in the tension of competing visions, knew that the paper would be ripe for plucking in the approaching term. Now new editors don't aspire to match a standard of quality; they desire to implement their vision.

I'm told the Aquinian sits untouched and swept around on the tables of James Dunn Hall and the George Martin Cafeteria at St. Thomas, as visually as it is spiritually amorphous. Students glance it over and dismiss it. They complain about advertising, but they don't think far past them. Dark ages precede renaissances, and romantic nostalgia follows salad days. Without doubt, one roll of the dice some September will cast the protean St. Thomas paper into form. And perhaps, if editors keep the student body in heart and mind, they'll know enough to ensure it stays the way they fought to make it.

Sight to behold

Officer's Square, Queen st. Monday, February 02, 2009, 12:37:50 PM

The City of Fredericton webcams. Mere moments in time, but familiar and comforting.

"Caribou Hunting in New Brunswick -- 'In at the Death,'" Anonymous, 1863. Published in the Illustrated London News, January 18, 1863.

Last Thursday night the Fredericton city council held and irregular meeting to correct elements of a bylaw debuted one week ago. It would allow parts of the UNB woodlot to be rezoned for development.

The reason for the emergency meeting was clear: there were errors on the woodlot map that required correction. The revised version, however, made some notable omissions.

According to an observer, the revised map does not include the Corbett brook area of the woodlot marsh that may be staked for development. Additionally a second wetland along Regent street is now coloured in. The map makes no allusion to buffer zones that would prevent the sedimentation and poisoning of these ecosystems.

Conservation efforts remain what they are, attempts to reverse the corrosion of natural spaces and their destruction for the sake of profit. A greater struggle, however, is against those that before signing the papers and turning the keys in bulldozer ignitions, cease to believe that these places exist.

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