The fashion of the Regency era, during which Jane Austen wrote her novels, is emblematic of radical changes in British society, changes largely prompted by the French Revolution. “You have this society being torn apart, and all of the ancient hierarchies were just ripped inside out,” explains Karen Millyard, founder, dance teacher, and organizer of Jane Austen Dancing. “It changed everybody’s notions of what was normal and what was possible… You had a new sense of freedom.”

Notions of the individual and of individual freedom began to creep into British society during the early ninteenth century. These new ideas had a profound influence on the fashion of the day. “These clothes [of the Regency period] are much less artificial than the ones of the previous period,” Millyard notes. “You get this shift from the highly artificial and structured, to the much less structured, much more reflective of the natural body.”

Regency fashion was not only influenced by contemporary events and innovation ideas of the self. “Western Europe was obsessed with the classical world … and many new excavations were taking place at this time,” Millyard explains. “[T]he imagination of educated people was very much influenced by this. So the clothing and hair — particularly the women’s but also, more subtly, the men’s — took on the more natural lines of … the ancient world’s draperies and tunics.”

Historical facts aside, you are sure to attract your own Miss Bennet or Mr. Darcy if you follow these guidelines to Regency fashion.

Ladies wear 

Gowns: Ladies could wear either day gowns or evening gowns, both of which are floor-length. A slim silhouette that hugs the body is key, avoiding full skirts or any kind of bunching in favour of a straight skirt, with a high waistline. Sleeves are often short, but elbow- and long sleeves are also fashionable, avoiding puffiness except for possibly a slight emphasis at the shoulders. Evening gowns, however, will typically have short sleeves.

Color: Film adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels typically feature white and pastel dresses, which were indeed popular for evening events. Yet the fashion of the Regency era incorporated much more colour than we might realize. Jackets, coats, and day dresses were often brightly coloured.

Footwear: By the end of Jane Austen’s lifetime, heels were completely out of style and flat shoes, similar to today’s ballet slippers, were all the rage. These shoes were often pointed and accessorized with shoe-roses, a piece of ribbon that was fashioned into a flower and placed at the tip of the shoe. While many shoes were quite dainty and subdued, there are examples of over-the-top styles that incorporated color, patterns, pom-poms, fringe, jewels, and lace.

Hair: Hair styling and hair accessories were critical to a lady’s evening look. Decorations included beads, jewels, and ribbons, as well as bonnets and hats on occasion. Married women would always cover their hair, but often chose to forgo caps in favour of wrapping their hair in fabric turbans with feathers and jewels. Although long hair was ideal for braiding and twisting, cropped hair was also quite trendy, as was a short, very curly hairstyle. Makeup was generally considered promiscuous and associated with prostitutes; in the Regency period, naturalness was emphasized. Some upper class women at the height of the fashion pyramid were able to get away with wearing makeup, but those who did were usually considered “fast.”

Men’s wear

Bottoms: Men during the Regency era had a choice between trousers, which began to come into fashion at the end of the period, or breeches. Yet Millyard notes that for the most authentic look, it would be best to “go for the breeches.” Complete your outfit with stockings, a white shirt, and a jacket.

Hats: Men wore hats outdoors, but removed them once inside. There were many different styles of hats, such as the top hat, which was curvy at the time with a flare at the top, and taller than previous styles.

Manner: There is a certain je ne sais quoi required to complete the Regency man’s appearance, a courteous manner, characterized by courtliness, gentlemanlike behaviour, and of course, excellent posture.

For more information about Jane Austen-related events, visit http://danceweavers.ca/janeausten.html

“Dry Creek” from Alpine Sequences by OK Ikumi — helaudio.bandcamp.com/album/alpine-sequences

As Northfrop Frye wrote in 1969, “Hart House represented the university as a society; it dramatized the kind of life that the university encourages one to live: a life in which imagination and intelligence have a central and continuous function.”

But it was not until 1972 that women were first allowed to be full members, meaning this romanticized society wholly excluded them.

The change was partially made possible by the passing of one-time Governor General Vincent Massey in 1968. Massey, who in his lifetime still exerted some control over Hart House’s direction, once remarked, “It’s a pleasure to be in a country where women cannot mix everywhere.”

On March 8, International Women’s Day, Hart House, in collaboration with the University of Toronto Multi-Faith Centre, played host to the  Breaking New Ground conference in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the extension of full membership rights to women at Hart House. Panelists began by discussing the difficult history of Hart House, reflecting on its exclusivity, and  on injustice towards women in the university at large.

Hart House warden Bruce Kidd BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

“Not about the letting in, but the getting in”

Although today Hart House is a remarkably inclusive space and is mandated to continually bolster its accessibility, it was once a site of bitter oppression for women.

Until 1972, women were granted limited access to the building, and were denied any form of casual entry into the facility. They were allowed in for special events such as dances, or during certain hours accompanied by a man.

Panelist Michele Landsberg, an award-winning author and journalist, described her experience of being banned from Hart House, having begun studying at U of T in 1958, already an eager feminist.

“I was shocked to realize that I was barred from the facility. I lived in the suburbs and had a long hike down to the university. Whenever I wanted to stay for the evening, there was nowhere on campus for me to wait. There was only the library.

“At Hart House, the windows were glowing and the men inside were gathered around the fireplace and women were absolutely not allowed. It was enraging, it was insulting. I was disgusted. It was exactly the same to me as segregation… It was obvious to people that women were second-class.”

Landsberg recalls an “insulting, degrading notice” on the door of the Arbor Room, stating that ladies could be admitted after 3 pm, only if “in the company of a gentleman,” which prompted her to complain to the Dean of Women.

“It was sickening and so condescending… I went to complain very bitterly about this Hart House situation. She looked at me as though I were mentally deranged. She said: “we’re going to build a women’s athletics building in the near future. I said, ‘I don’t care. There should not be a facility on the campus that bars women.’ She couldn’t understand that.”

Although the Massey Foundation set aside $125,000 in 1919 to fund a female recreational building to open alongside Hart House, the plan never materialized due to constant roadblocks, including concerns over the ‘indecency’ of women exercising outdoors. After decades of controversy, the Benson Building was constructed in 1959 at Harbord and Huron Streets, but it was a poor compromise, serving solely as an athletic building, rather than as a multipurpose space. In A Path Not Strewn with Roses, a history of women at the University of Toronto, author Anne Rochon Ford writes: “The forty-year struggle on the part of women students and faculty to get that building is one of the saddest untold stories of women’s history at the University of Toronto.”

Landsberg admits that she continues to harbour bitter feelings towards the building and the university in general. “The sexism of the campus at that time affected me in every way. I was prevented from going on to graduate school although I did score very high… It was that kind of sexism that barred so many women from so many paths.”

Although Landsberg felt isolated and without a feminist community to support her at U of T courageous women had been pushing for female inclusion at Hart House prior to her arrival at the university. Before the opening of the building, women were already attempting to garner support for a similar facility for women. Ford notes that as early as 1911 a motion was passed to distribute a petition to the colleges, which stipulated the inclusion of a women’s gymnasium in the plans for Hart House. Although this effort was unsuccessful, discourse about the need for a women’s athletic space had begun.

The October 17, 1919 issue of The Varsity, published the same year the doors of Hart House first opened, included an article titled “A Co-Educational Social Centre.” The piece highlighted the need for female inclusion at Hart House, stating, “It is with longing eyes that the women of the University gaze on the towering grandeur of Hart House, and sigh in vain for an ‘Open Sesame’ to those sacred portals which guard their fabulous treasures from the feminine view.”

Current Hart House warden Bruce Kidd, a noteworthy champion of equity, remarks, “The activism of women against the male-only character of Hart House has a long history. There were stories from the ’20s and ’30s of women who broke in… There was certainly a lot of activism in the ’50s. The Varsity was a leading proponent of the admission of women to Hart House. One of the outstanding editors of The Varsity in the 1950s, Wendy Michener, wrote a number of brilliant editorials arguing for the inclusion of women.”

Breaking New Ground panelist Dr. Meg Luxton, professor and director of the graduate program of Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University, participated in these efforts, which she described at the conference as “a fairly noisy, disruptive political movement.”

Luxton recalls standing up with her female classmates in unison and yelling out questions when a professor wouldn’t take questions from women, and occupying two buildings in different protests. “We learned to work together.”

The feminist movement at U of T produced some famous legends of female resistance. One such anecdote is relayed to me by several different people in slightly inconsistent versions. A debate on US foreign policy between John F. Kennedy and Stephen Lewis was held at Hart House in 1957. The story goes that in the rain outside the debate, women held a demonstration. Some attempted to sneak in, but were allegedly caught when one woman’s manicured hand was noticed by a security guard. Kidd describes this incident as a “watershed.”

Another story is that of Olympic track and field athlete Abby Hoffman. In the 1960s, Hoffman was training as a runner, and snuck into the indoor track at Hart House to escape practicing in the bitter winters, disguising herself as a man by wearing a hood. Her teammates, including Kidd, helped her in through the back door. In 1966, fed up with these circumstances, she presented herself three times to train, and each time she was “unceremoniously thrown out into the snow.” Kidd explains that Hoffman’s case became a “cause-celebre” and was an important pressure point for allowing women into Hart House.

Opposition to the inclusion of women at Hart House came from the Massey family, as well as from the administration, faculty, and some U of T students. Many, however, were progressive, and a diversity of opinions existed. “It was a complex landscape,” Kidd notes, “It wasn’t polarized in terms of advocates and opponents.”

Event organizer and head of the Hart House Social Justice Committee Carly Stasko points out during the opening remarks at the Breaking New Ground conference that “it’s not about the letting in, but the getting in,” emphasizing that co-ed access to the building was not simply granted from above, but obtained by the impressive efforts of a unified group of women.

Participants at the Making Inclusion Happen workshop YI ZHAO/THE VARSITY

“Only a matter of time”

Kidd notes that, in retrospect, inclusion of women at Hart House was “only a matter of time” by 1970.

“By 1970, women had made the issue of admission one of the highest priorities of activism on campus… Women were pounding on the door in all kinds of ways — sitting in on debates; [female] Varsity reporters were showing up at special lectures. There were more and more men who were encouraging women to sneak in.”

By then, the Benson Building was available to female athletes, but many women continued to bemoan the inadequacy of this solution, asserting that their inability to enter Hart House was sexist and unfair. In 1971, an Advisory Committee was established to consider the access of women to Hart House. After a change of deed was successfully sought from the Massey family, the Board of Stewards voted in favour of female admittance in January of 1972. By July that year, women were granted full membership to Hart House.

“It’s a bittersweet victory,” Landsberg reflects. “A lot of harm was done over the years… When I finally started attending events at Hart House, I entered with a mixture of loathing and unsatisfied indignation. I still feel that way. There’s certain harms that you don’t get over.”

Panelist Dr. Keren Brathwaite, co-founder of the Transitional Year Program, echoes Landsberg’s sentiments at the conference. “I want to remember how disenfranchised we were. I want to remember the struggle that brought us to this day.”

Kidd remembers his male colleagues complaining that they had to swim in bathing suits following the change-over, rather than the previous custom of using the pool naked. He also notes that it was very difficult for women to use the pool and gym facilities, as there were initially no provisions for female locker rooms to be built. It was only in the early 1990s that the large men’s dressing room was divided into two equal change rooms.

Panelist Dr. Kathryn Morgan, a U of T philosophy professor, adds, in correspondence with The Varsity, “There was a lot of bullying of women when Hart House was sex-integrated, particularly in the swimming pool… Some of it was verbal, some of it was leering.”

Misogyny didn’t cease to exist at Hart House in 1972, nor did the efforts of feminists come to a halt. It took time for the institution to adapt to the change.

Expanding Accessibility

Evelyn Smith-Romero and Abtin Parnia of the Hart House Social Justice Committee. BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

In contrast to this dark history, Hart House possesses a counter-history of progressiveness, moving away from its Christian foundations to embrace different religions, increasing wheelchair accessibility, and serving as a lgbt-friendly environment. Major efforts are currently being made to ensure the inclusivity of the facility to women and all minorities. Although one facet of the Breaking New Ground conference was reflecting on the hurdles faced by women, the major emphasis was on the current moment in feminism and moving forward to further expand accessibility at Hart House.

In terms of ongoing barriers to accessibility, Kidd cites having only one accessibility entrance for people with disabilities.

The building is an historic site, rendering physical alterations difficult, so efforts to increase inclusivity have focused on publicity and events. Kidd invites any student who feels unwelcome to visit his office and let him know why they feel that way in order to mitigate their concerns. “We want every U of T student to feel welcome here, that this is your house,” he says.

In addition to a panel and a keynote speech by highly active feminist Judy Rebick, the Breaking New Ground conference included workshops about gender, sexuality, racism, and well-being. The goals of the workshops, Stasko explains, were both to celebrate women and reclaim the space of Hart House, as well as to discuss the legacy of the facility.

“The initial idea came out of saying, ‘so it’s been forty years since women were welcome to Hart House — who’s not welcome now? What kind of exclusion is normalized still?’”

The Hart House Social Justice Committee facilitated one such workshop, titled Making Inclusion Happen, addressing precisely these questions.

Speaking to The Varsity, Evelyn Smith-Romero, Committee Co-Secretary, points to the question of men’s right groups as a potential challenge to inclusion.

Communications executive Abtin Parnia comments, “Any sort of stigmatized groups, they all fall under the same umbrella of inclusivity, because you have to consider all these groups when you want to organize an event… We want to look critically at the whole process of inclusion, how it happened, and whether there are still barriers for any groups to get engaged in Hart House.”

Participants in the workshop and the conference were encouraged to voice or write down their concerns over inclusivity, which will later be compiled in a report with a view towards implementing change and continuing the momentum of increasing accessibility.

At the conference, in a room filled with influential women, it was clear that Hart House has seen massive changes since its opening. In the 40 years in which women have been members at the facility, it has evolved into a decidedly inclusive, space, which ardently strives to give even more students access.

Kidd encourages students to explore the building and recognize their hard-earned ownership of it.  “Come in to Hart House and treat yourself to an hour of discovery… Just spend an hour wandering around this place, so that you’ve got time to discover and reflect. Just spend an hour thinking, ‘this all belongs to me and all these opportunities are available to me.’”

In my explorations of Hart House, I’ve discovered rooms surrounded by portraits of men, the stone monkeys overlooking the main entrance, the matchstick strikers on the walls. Despite the trappings of the building’s male-oriented past, women are visible at the gym, on committees, running events; the voices of women past and present resonate in the halls, claiming the building as their own. In his office, the warden eagerly shows off a plaque featuring an image of Hoffmann that commemorates 40 years of women in Hart House, and recalls a quote by Robin Morgan: “Only she who attempts the absurd will achieve the impossible.”

Cupcakes is the newest franchise of Cupcakes by Heather and Lori, otherwise known as the “Cupcake Girls” from the W Network television series. The Toronto store is the first of its kind outside British Columbia. Cupcakes are prepared fresh on-site using the original recipes of the Cupcake Girls on a rotating basis. The Toronto manifestation of the store is distinguished in featuring roasted marshmallow ice cream from Greg’s, one of the city’s staple ice cream shops, although this treat was not yet available upon my visit to the shop.

I left the store with a box of 12 mini cupcakes, featuring an array of the different available flavours. In a neighbouring coffee shop, I plunged into the selection, along with Varsity photo editor Bernarda Gospic, and my friend and discerning foodie (read: person who likes cupcakes very much), Cam.

The cupcakes are undoubtedly adorable, particularly in their miniature form, although microscopic might be a more fitting term to describe these treats, which seemed to get smaller and smaller with each one we unwrapped. The chocolate cupcakes were more substantial than the vanilla ones; in a feat of gravity, these cakes didn’t even reach the bottom of the cupcake liner.

Our first taste was of the confetti cupcake, a simple vanilla cake with a vanilla buttercream icing and festive sprinkles. Immediately, I found the taste nostalgic, reminiscent of the kosher, non-dairy birthday cakes of my childhood, which always left something to be desired (specifically, taste).

Bernarda Gospic/THE VARSITY

Opting next for a sure-fire hit, we tried the red velvet, which an employee had earlier informed me was the bestselling cupcake in the store. The classic did not disappoint, with a flavourful light cream cheese icing.

In general, we concluded that the fruit-flavoured cupcakes were far superior to the array of chocolate and vanilla options, due to the attention paid to executing both a delicious cake and a delicious icing. The “Raspberry Beret,” a lemon cake with a raspberry filling, iced with lemon buttercream and a raspberry jam, had a powerful flavour. The surprise hit of the dozen, this cupcake was the best we tried, with the jam providing unexpected sweetness and a nice tang to the cake.

The “Lemon Drop” was also delectable, covered in a rich, tart buttercream. The “Koo Koo,” a coconut cake topped with cream cheese frosting and doused in coconut shavings, was delectable, if not the most aesthetically appealing of all the cupcakes. Less appealing of the fruit flavours was the “Feelin’ Razzy,” a superfluous second raspberry option that had the group feeling more disappointed than razzy.

The chocolate and vanilla cupcakes often fell flat because they relied on unsophisticated buttercreams to provide flavour to bland cake. I had high hopes for the “Caramella,” a chocolate cake filled with caramel, and iced with caramel buttercream. The group, however, was struck silent by the cupcake, which was largely tasteless, except for a vague, perplexing hint of mint. Other chocolate and vanilla selections included the “Sweet 16” (a vanilla cake with pink vanilla buttercream), the aptly titled “Chocolate” (a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream), and the “Diva” (a chocolate cake with pink vanilla buttercream), which were all basically the same formula in different combinations, and all tasted subpar. The best of this group was the “Mint Condition”, which was redeemed by flavourful mint icing and a chocolate chip topping.

Generally, we felt that Cupcakes could use more unique flavours and more concern for the flavour of both the cakes and the icing. The store and its merchandise are adorable, and there are some gems in the cupcake offerings, but Cupcakes suffers from the too often pervasive blandness of the franchise.

“[It’s] a strange meditation to write the word ‘love’ thousands of times,” she says. “Sort of wonderful, sort of bizarre.”

Zier-Vogel is a Toronto-based writer and artist. She’s written a novel, The Opposite of Drowning, for which she is seeking a publisher, and has been published in several literary magazines. Zier-Vogel also founded Puddle Press, a book-art publishing house. Her art books are displayed at the National Library and Archives Canada.

Zier-Vogel created The Love Lettering Project in 2004, while studying English at U of T. Like many students, she was blissfully unaware of breadth requirements and program restrictions. “I was taking the most inspiring courses,” she says. “I didn’t know that you were supposed to take certain requirements, so I was just taking Canadian poetry and Canadian fiction… It was so fulfilling. I studied with Lynn Crosbie, a journalist at the Globe and poet extraordinaire. She taught modern Canadian poetry, and every week she would invite in one of her poet friends… It made writing and that world so alive.”

While Zier-Vogel doesn’t connect her inspiration for the project directly to her background in English, she notes that Crosbie had a significant influence on what would one day become The Love Lettering Project. “For Valentine’s Day week, [students of Crosbie’s class] were encouraged to write some sort of love poetry, and think about what it is to write love poetry.”

The Love Lettering Project began rather spontaneously, while Zier-Vogel was engaging in another project that she started during her undergraduate degree.

“I was sitting in the park with a friend of mine,” she says. “We started this weekly writing group and our task that week was to write love poems, and so we were exchanging what we worked on… We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if we just left them in the park for people to find?’ So we just whipped them into these little art pieces and we left them. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t organized, it was just this thing that we did one afternoon.

“The next time that I did it was in grad school… It felt very dismal to be spending a lot of time at Robarts. Every time I was in the stacks, I was not feeling inspired. I thought ‘the last time I did this project, it was so much fun, maybe I’ll just do that here since I’m spending so much time here anyways.’

“I got people to send me books that they loved, or books that they thought needed love… I put love letters in all these books and some still might be there.”

Zier-Vogel never envisioned that the letters would grow into a wide-scale community engagement project. She continued to carry out the project by herself while working on an ma in Creative Writing under the auspices of author Anne Michaels. Zier-Vogel’s thesis on Dora Mavor Moore — a renowned pioneer of Canadian theatre — inspired her to cover a tree in Trinity Bellwoods Park in letters. In 2008, she tied letters to bikes, and another year she took them to places where people had their first kisses.

Then, in 2011, the project began to grow momentously, when, during an interview with Taddle Creek Magazine, Zier-Vogel spontaneously pledged to increase her annual output of 100 letters to 500. She asked people to send her messages about what they love about the city and enlisted the help of friends to distribute the Toronto-themed letters.

“I would always have a bunch in my bag, and wherever I was with friends, I would have them help me out,” she explains. “I realized [that] people had so much fun taking them out into the world. The possibility or potential of leaving this little note for someone and not knowing what’s going to happen ­— that’s quite thrilling.”

Her friends’ reaction to distributing the letters inspired Zier-Vogel to expand her project by collaborating with the Awesome Foundation, an organization that gives $1,000 grants to urban community engagement projects.

“I decided that I wanted to give people the experience of that hiding component and connecting to their community. I partnered with 14 different events and I outsourced the entire project. I got people to write their own letters… They would tuck them into envelopes, and they would take them out into the world.”

The Love Lettering Project has now become community engagement-focused. Zier-Vogel admits that her love letters are often addressed to objects, places, or abstract ideas. For those writing love letters to a special someone this Valentine’s Day, however, Zier-Vogel offers this advice: “It’s easy to feel shy and it’s easy to feel like it’s not necessary, but it’s really special… Gifts are wonderful, but a handwritten letter is amazing. It doesn’t have to be on beautiful crafted paper. It can be on a page from your notebook or a receipt. That part isn’t as important as just sitting down and doing it.”

That said, Zier-Vogel is not a fan of Valentine’s Day. “[It’s] this … constructed day where we have to confess our love with teddy bears and chocolate,” she says. “It just seems contrived. I think that being able to communicate about love is important on any day… I think that [Valentine’s Day] can feel really lonely if you’re not in a partnership, which is ridiculous because it’s a day that’s full of awkward dinners and holding weird flowers. I think it’s so easy to romanticize it as a single person.”

Zier-Vogel believes that being single shouldn’t stop you from writing a love letter on February 14. Sending letters to objects or friends, Zier-Vogel suggests, is “a way of engaging with this day of love without it having to be this romantic, exclusive way of loving. Every Valentine’s day, I send Valentines to all my friends because I think that it doesn’t have to be this couples’ day.

“Reflecting on love is something I think we can always do more of.”

“It’s been a very rewarding experience past the point of what I thought was just a part-time job. It’s actually helped lead me to achieve others goal in my life.”

A seasoned bartender, Jasmine’s demeanour is simultaneously personable and edgy. Though she chose not to disclose her last name, Jasmine’s quickly apparent charm and magnetism makes our conversation feel like a warm chat between friends, indicative of the reason for her prolonged success in the bartending business. She laughs while recalling anecdotes about her experiences, coloured with intriguing customers and glimpses of the brief melodramas of their lives.

“Working at a bar is like witnessing a soap opera. It’s very entertaining.”

She describes the diverse crowd of people who she has met in the workplace. “Many people may think that working in a bar is just about serving customers, or you’re always just making small talk with people, or these are just one-time contacts, but I’ve met people from politicians, to business owners, to musicians. Part of the job of being a bartender is really communicating with the patrons that come in.

“A lot of the time, if you’re someone that’s very curious about other peoples’ lives, you can learn a lot about people’s successes, not just their day-to-day lives, but how their companies run… That was something that really interested me and that was why I stayed in that atmosphere, because I was learning so many different things about so many different people.”

As a bartender, Jasmine explains, much of the job consists of socializing and filling different roles for the different people who come in. In particular, people seem inclined to reveal personal information about themselves in an environment that they perceive as safe; as a result, Jasmine finds she often plays the part of a therapist at work.

“You do find people that just need someone to share their lives with,” she admits. “It’s funny because when you’re walking down the street you don’t know anything about the people you see around you… In a bar atmosphere, you learn so much about people’s lives and they open up so much… It’s like you’re the bearer of secrets, and you’re there to listen and you hear all this gossip.”

Jasmine tells me that politicians and musicians may come into the bar and divulge details  not disclosed to the public. People typically, however, come in to discuss regular conversational topics like “sports, relationships, and people that are pissing them off.”

“A lot of people come in and talk about their own relationships, or want advice from a younger person or just from an outsider. A lot of times, you can give that advice. I’ve rarely had a situation where it was a risk to give advice. It comes with common sense — you know when it’s the time to bring in help, but a lot of the time they have the answers and they need someone to just listen because there just isn’t anyone to hear them, and sometimes just someone to lift up their spirits. Sometimes, we’re the jester.”

With regulars who come in a few times a day, Jasmine says her role involves more than acting as a therapist or a random person to chat with. “In bars where I’ve been able to converse with regulars, you become more than a bartender; you become a friend for some people.”

Jasmine chooses to limit that relationship, however. “A lot of other bartenders and servers make good friends with regulars and maybe share drinks or go out with them. I’ve always left work at work, but that’s my own comfort zone. There’s been maybe one or two exceptions to that, but I do find a lot of instances where regulars cross that line. It’s best to just be friends in the moment.”

Regulars don’t always, however, establish relationships with staff. “There are no rules with regulars; sometimes they come in and just always keep to themselves.”

While Jasmine often finds that she is able to get a complete picture of the lives of customers, at other times, her interaction with them is more discrete. She simply asssists them in a small episode of their lives, be it a first date, or a minor conflict. She sometimes acts as Cupid, providing couples a with discounted dessert, or a secluded corner of the bar in which to sit.

Jasmine’s cordial relationships with customers have been known to shift over the course of an evening at work, sometimes negatively, when situations have escalated as patrons became disruptive, agitated, or excessively inebriated. “The worst kind of customer is one that doesn’t have any regard for the people around them, so that puts me in the position that I have to take care of the problem myself. If I have someone being too loud, I have to tell them to keep it down. Five minutes ago, we were friends. We were chatting and laughing… Now I have to take that authoritative position and tell them that they’re going to have to leave.

“Sometimes if you’re a woman or young, it may not work in your favour, which is when I have to contact management or kitchen staff or maybe even regulars, or in extreme cases even the police.”

Jasmine does not want to be a bartender forever, but she has found the experience inspirational, and it has impacted her future plans. “This is just a part-time job since I’m still a student at the University of Toronto, and I hope to be graduating at the end of the semester. This is a great job to do in between careers, or if you need fast cash, or if you want to go traveling.

“I don’t see it as a career because I have a degree and I want to do something with my studies, but I have thought about, with all my experience, that I have a chance at opening my own restaurant, or my own bar, or something of that nature.”

It’s the conversations that she engages in at work that truly breathe life into the job, Jasmine emphasizes. “I think, no matter who you talk to, you can learn something. That’s something I really like about bartending. You can get advice, or hear cool stories. There’s always something you can learn, and there’s always something you can give back. I think the more exchanges you can have with more different kinds of people, the more you can grow from it.

“I feel like I thrive the most with a varied group of people and that keeps me coming back. I love to hear what people have gone through and what they experience with their life.”

BERNARDA GOSPIC / THE VARSITY

I do not possess the most sophisticated culinary palette. My skills as a foodie are limited to sometimes correctly identifying the difference between Coke and Pepsi. When it comes to chocolate, my connoisseurship is restricted to my ability to make it miraculously vanish by eating all of it, really fast. Accompanied by a history of kitchen mishaps ranging from burning every bag of popcorn I’ve ever made to using salt instead of sugar to bake cookies, I embarked upon the task of learning to make chocolate.

The Chocolate Tales Workshop is a hands-on introduction to chocolate making. My session was led by “Cocoa” (a.k.a. Kelly Maxfield), who began by providing a brief overview of the history of chocolate. As a history minor, this, I knew, was the one moment in this workshop where I would excel. I took careful notes, clinging to the hopeful delusion that we might be quizzed on the information later, and I would be able to prove my personal merit in light of the inevitable failure of my foray into the art of chocolate making.

BERNARDA GOSPIC / THE VARSITY

The first use of chocolate occurred in Mexico approximately 2000 years ago by the Mayans, who ground cocoa beans into a fine powder and then placed them in boiling water. The result was essentially a bitter hot chocolate. Without milk or sugar to sweeten the drink, the Mayans instead added sweet corn or hot pepper to the beverage to add flavour. Chocolate was enjoyed almost exclusively by royalty, and only occasionally indulged in at celebrations of the common people. A king after my own heart consumed over fifty cups of this chocolate beverage per day. Chocolate was also given to Mayan prisoners subject to the death sentence immediately before their punishment, due to chocolate’s comforting qualities. Chocolate releases serotonin in the brain, which in turn makes us happy, or as Kelly put it, produces that “oolala-we-love-chocolate-feeling.”

BERNARDA GOSPIC / THE VARSITY

The secret of producing this chocolate drink was brought to Europe by a Spanish explorer. In Spain, sugar was added to the beverage for the first time, after which chocolate began to spread throughout Europe. Chocolate was first produced in solid form in the 1800s, and it was the Swiss who began adding dried milk to chocolate, producing the creatively titled “milk chocolate.”

Chocolate is grown on cacao trees, which form pods that resemble footballs. Once ready, farmers open the harvested pods with machetes to reveal the white cocoa beans, which roast in the sun and achieve the familiar brown colour of chocolate. In a factory, the cocoa bean is processed in order to separate the cocoa powder and the cocoa butter.

Now sufficiently educated to open up our own cacao tree farms and chocolate factories, the group proceeded to get our hands on some chocolate. The workshop began with an exercise in developing our palettes, and we were each given three ganache tasters with different flavour profiles. The ganache was made from a high-grade chocolate with a high content of cocoa butter, mixed with whipping cream, causing it to be velvety and glossy.

A mild shot of ganache was spiced with cinnamon, a medium shot with ground ginger, and a bold shot with cajan pepper. I was certain that old reliable cinnamon would be my preference of the three. Much to my surprise, I found the cajan pepper ganache the most delicious due to its intense flavour. Side note: chocolate shooters should definitely be an alternative option at all bars.

We were then given tempered chocolate in which to dip marshmallows and ganache, along with different toppings for decorating our creations. Kelly explained how to shape our chocolates and create moulds to fill with milk chocolate, which I promptly failed to do, producing instead poorly decorated marshmallows, a bunch of triangular shaped chocolates, and lots of truffles because rolling chocolate into a ball was the only option within my creative capacity.’

BERNARDA GOSPIC / THE VARSITY

Around the table, participants focused intensely on their decorating. Some even made an attempt at drawing swirling designs on their chocolates, while others glumly surveyed their sad clumps of white chocolate and coconut shavings.

Our final chocolate-making task was to employ our decidedly professional skills while garnishing miniature chocolate lava cakes with milk chocolate and cocoa powder. I enlisted the help of photo editor Bernarda Gospic in creating a checkerboard of milk chocolate, over which I delicately sprinkled cocoa powder. Miraculously, it didn’t look terrible, and I felt far more accomplished than I should have for finally producing something half-decent looking.

We wrapped up our chocolate creations in little plastic bags and tied ribbons around them. My stomach was aching from all the bits and pieces here and there I’d nibbled on over the course of the workshop, and the pages of my notebook were stained with chocolate fingerprints. I had overdosed on ganache.

BERNARDA GOSPIC / THE VARSITY

I later brought the chocolates to a few friends to get their opinions, and the general consensus was that my work was, in fact, not bad at all. Given that review, and in light of my reputation as a disastrous chef, I consider my brief stint as a chocolatier-to-be, in modest terms, a downright triumph.

“The bookstore was founded in 1973, and it grew out of a need for women’s voices, books written by women, for women, and about women,” explains Victoria Moreno, the store’s owner.

“There was a great need for this at the time and initially it did really well. At first, it was just one shelf of reference books, and the women who started it realized there was a significant need and started a bookstore. [The store has] always had its struggles, up and downs … even survived fires.”

Moreno took over the store in August 2010, but has a long history of involvement with the bookshop, having worked there on and off since she was 19.

Since it’s founding, the Toronto Women’s Bookstore has expanded its repertoire of content. “It’s considered a community bookstore with [an] emphasis on anti-oppression: social justice, women’s rights movements, children and parent family books, queer fiction, non-fiction,” Moreno says. “It’s a broad base, but it’s a left-leaning bookstore, so it’s not something you can necessarily find on the shelves at Indigo.”

In Moreno’s time at the store, she’s observed a declining connection to the surrounding community. Although the shop is right on campus at Harbord and Spadina, Moreno doesn’t feel that the Women’s Bookstore is particularly connected to U of T, with only a few course orders each year from professors who want to support the store.

“The bookstore has had a lot of people who have supported it in the past, but in the past two and a half years, not many people have come through the door,” she notes. “I’m not blaming anyone for it. It’s obviously a sign of the times and how people are perhaps buying differently, reading differently, and [it’s also a sign of] a change in the way we socialize.

“So, there have been obviously the few who come in regularly who have been supportive, but it’s a reality of independent bookstores that it’s hard to sustain [a business].”

A popularly cited reason for the plight of independent bookstores is the introduction of e-books, which are cheap and eliminate the need to physically walk into a store at all. Moreno also points to large bookstores and online shopping as factors that are contributing to the decline of independent bookshops.

“It’s not just e-books; it’s Amazon, it’s Indigo. With such big box stores, you can find almost anything online, and when you’re in an economy such as we are, it’s really a challenge to compete with them, even if we were online.

“Student’s don’t have the money, so when they’re opting to buy, if something is retail $20.00 and online you can find it used or half-priced, that’s the route they’re going to choose. I think it’s a combination of all those things [that is] affecting the independent bookstore industry, and even the publishing industry. It’s all been affected by technology, not just bookstores but also art and music.”

To revitalize the independent bookstore industry, Moreno believes there needs to be an effort made from both consumers and store owners.

“I think it’s really important for everybody to continue to support independents,” she says. “Independent bookstores definitely have to move with the times and get online and do all that as well.”

Moreno explains that the Toronto Women’s Bookstore has not opened an online shop due to the cost involved. With the remaining stock, she plans to have a sale, return whatever is returnable (unfortunately only a nominal amount) and possibly establish a reference section in a local community centre with any books that are left over.

Moreno is currently working on a documentary about the Toronto Women’s Bookstore, which will look at both the store’s history and its final month on Harbord. The film is tentatively titled The Final Chapter. Yet when it comes to her own future, Moreno is uncertain as to what lies in the years ahead.

“I’m sort of overwhelmed with what’s involved in dismantling this 39 year operation, so it’s been an emotional roller coaster and it’s been heart-wrenching,” she says. “I will definitely rest and I’m not certain what I’ll do next, but I’m open to job offers!”

Moreno’s lease on the store goes until August 2014, so she is also currently seeking a sublease on the property.

Although in recent years traffic through the door has been slow, Moreno maintains that the Toronto Women’s Bookstore has made a significant contribution to the community.

“It’s provided a voice and an empowerment and a safe, comfortable space to be who we are and to challenge the norms and to challenge the politics. That’s what it’s meant for. It’s been a community hub in its time.”

In his office, surrounded by relics of the rich heritage of University College — old photographs, pieces of the burnt rubble from the famous fire of 1890, the purported skull of Ivan Reznikoff — Ainslie expounds his plan for UC’s future interior.

Donald Ainslee stands in a to-be-renovated section of UC BERNARDA GOSPIC/THE VARSITY

“One of the things I discovered in my first year as principal was that we had far too much empty and underutilized space. I started to think about what we could do to make sure that students get the most out of what University College has to offer,” he says. Ainslie became principal of the college in July 2011, having previously served as chair of U of T’s philosophy department.

The UC building, a designated Canadian national historic site, opened in 1859 and was last renovated in the 1980s.

“It’s an institution that’s welcoming, that’s respectful of our longstanding, non-sectarian history and our history of openness, taking students no matter what their religious or ethnic background. This helped to focus a discussion of the space: how do we make the building embody that which UC is about?”

Ainslie explains that the project is guided by four principles, decided upon through consultation with faculty and students: “To embody the college’s commitment to education and research; to make sure this commitment focuses on undergraduates; respect for historical heritage; and accessibility.”

Students and faculty have been supportive throughout the process. “Students have been involved throughout and I’ve heard pretty much only supportive words,” Ainslie said.

The University College Literary and Athletic Society (UCLit) has enthusiastically supported the proposed renovations.

“It’s a beautiful building that we all love and I don’t see anything negative about trying to maximize its use,” says Ben Dionne, president of the UCLit. “The biggest concern has been that it’s going to happen when people are graduated. Overall, people are very enthusiastic about the project.”

A key project in the proposed restoration will be relocating the Laidlaw Library. The 33,000-work collection will be moved to East Hall to become the new University College Library, and Laidlaw’s current space will serve as a large classroom or event space.

Although a few fans of Laidlaw are disappointed with this plan, the library goes largely unused, regularly sitting empty.

“This idea came partly because of a fortuitous circumstance. East Hall was originally the library of the university with a mezzanine that housed about 33,000 works,” Ainslie explains. “Why not solve the problem that East Hall sits empty and solve the problem that the library isn’t working for our students by returning to the original purpose of East Hall, being inspired by this history and reconstructing a twenty-first century library in a historic space?”

The architecture and design of the library will invoke the original space, reconstructing the mezzanine over the stacks, and using columnar lighting inspired by the kerosene lamps originally used throughout the college, one of which caused the devastating 1890 fire that burned the College to the ground.

Other proposed renovations include converting West Hall to a multi-purpose space, revamping and modernizing UC classrooms, and adding a café to the third floor, likely in partnership with beloved UC institution Diabolos.

While Ainslie intends to fix floors and desks and bring in new technology as part of his plan to modernize the lecture halls, he also wants to uncover hidden historic features to reveal and highlight the heritage of the building.

Accessibility, one of Ainslie’s central tenets for the restoration, is a critical issue in the college as it stands.

“We pride ourselves on being the open college … and yet if you can’t handle stairs, it’s a very difficult building. If there’s a class with any kind of mobility problems, we will move the class. We can’t accommodate the student’s needs and it shows that we failed to meet our sense of ourselves as the welcoming college. We’re trying to build accessibility into all the projects,” Ainslie explains.

Dionne expressed concern about accessibility as well. “To get in the college right now, you need to go all the way around, and take the elevator at Laidlaw Library.”

To address this need, an elevator will be placed in the centre of the building, and a new wheelchair-accessible entrance will be constructed behind Croft Chapter House.

Croft will also undergo a facelift under the proposed plans. The aging space will be renovated into a modern conference room with improved lighting for research events and meetings of the UCLit. It will be linked to the Senior Common Room with additional entryways.

The University College quad will undergo changes, with lighting and outlets to allow for more events to occur in the outdoor space. A new air conditioning system will be introduced to the college, meaning that the large AC unit in the corner of the quad will be removed. In order to increase traffic to the patio surrounding the quad, a slope will be added on the east side to connect the quad on all sides. Renewed vegetation and a water feature will also be added.

The cost of the plan remains unclear. Ainslie intends to fundraise through the ongoing university-wide Boundless campaign. University College fees are determined by students, and therefore are unlikely to be impacted by the restoration, though there is some discussion within the UCLit about asking students to contribute modestly to the campaign.

“There is some talk about trying to pass a referendum to get a project levy,” Dionne explains. “It’s still in discussion, but we are thinking about asking students to throw in a small contribution. This would bring some money, but also show possible investors that the students are behind it.”

Ainslie  believes that the project will reinvigorate the college by bringing activity to the front of the building and bustle to its hallways. “I want the place to be alive. We don’t have a lot of large classrooms, there’s not as many people in the building as I’d like to see,” he says. “I want it to be a centre of activity.”

“I want the college to be alive so when students collect in West Hall and march out of the college at convocation, reenacting the history of the college, they say that this is a place where they spent a lot of time; ‘That is where my life at UC happened.’”

The theme for the 2012 Holocaust Education Week was “Culture of Memory.” The various programs associated with the event explored how the Holocaust can be preserved and remembered as survivors — and the firsthand testimony that they provide — dwindle steadily with the progression of time.

"Portrait of Wally" by Egon Schiele. PHOTO COURTESY BROWN & COHEN COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLIC AFFAIRS INC.

Contemporary recollections of the Holocaust are largely informed by parties who claim a secondhand legacy as their own. The history of the Holocaust is markedly well-documented and well-known, and is itself a thriving field of academia. But the memory of the Holocaust is far more ambiguous, attempting to access emotions and experiences which are quite conceivably unfathomable to anyone but actual witnesses.

Collective memory of the Holocaust is often formed and transmitted through artistic representation. Authors, artists, and filmmakers find an apt forum to explore the experience of the Holocaust in the realm of art. The production of these works is itself a source of debate; many people seek connection and understanding through artistic portrayals of the genocide, but critics suggest that such productions run the risk of minimizing or distorting the scope of the tragedy.

The struggle to properly express tragedy through artistic representation is continually linked to the responsibility to provide a warning against the potential for the repetition of history, a sentiment summarized by the oft-quoted dictum “never again.” The reasons for rendering the Holocaust in art are manifold, including the complex desire to connect to a grievous past.

The Centre for Jewish Studies at U of T recently hosted a panel titled “Anne Frank in the Contemporary Imagination” that featured prominent Jewish author Nathan Englander (whose most recent collection of short stories is titled What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank), Karen Polak, head of education at The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and Andrea Most, associate professor of American Literature and Jewish Studies at U of T.

The topic of their discussion is current and controversial, particularly when it comes to literature that deals with the Holocaust. While the diary of Anne Frank was once endowed with a sacred, untouchable quality, Most noted that it has since become the subject of significant controversy. A Broadway play about Anne Frank has been criticized for presenting a diluted, accessible version of the Holocaust and removing distinctly Jewish aspects from the narrative in order to produce a more universal coming-of-age story.

Many prominent American-Jewish authors have also questioned the place of Anne Frank in contemporary society. In Philip Roth’s novel The Ghost Writer, the main character imagines that he is in a relationship with Anne Frank, who has actually survived the Holocaust but hidden her identity so as not to disturb the symbolism acquired by her name. Cynthia Ozick, in an article that ran in the New Yorker, has suggested that the memory of the Holocaust would have been better served had the diary not been disseminated.

Englander, for his part, was proud to declare during the panel that in spite of the title of his latest book, he has not actually read the diary of Anne Frank. Instead, he based his fiction upon his own anxiety about the possibility of a second Holocaust, an anxiety that stems from his childhood. His stories are nuanced, reflecting upon the memory of the Holocaust and the cultural inheritance of suspicion and guilt.

The issue of Holocaust remembrance has also been explored by a multitude of visual artists. During Holocaust Education Week, the AGO displayed “Memory Loops,” an audio-based installation by artist Michaela Melián. The installation features the spoken testimony of Holocaust survivors, allowing Melián to reflect upon history through the medium of art. She provides viewers with an access point to primary sources through the secondary lens of her artistic point of view.

The Holocaust has, of course, also acted as the backdrop for a plethora of films, from Schindler’s List to Inglorious Basterds. More specifically related to art was the documentary Portrait of Wally, which was recently screened at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as part of Holocaust Education Week. The film details the history of a painting by Egon Schiele and the legal battle that erupted between the Leopold Museum in Vienna and the Jewish family who owned the painting prior to its seizure by Nazis in 1939. The case brought to the fore the issue of Nazi art looting, prompting museums across Europe and America to purge stolen property from their collections.

While contending with the Holocaust requires artists to tread on delicate territory, artistic attempts to articulate the emotional experience of the Holocaust contribute to the construction of collective memory of this dark period in human history. As the shadow of the Holocaust draws further into the past, art preserves and constructs the tragedy of the Holocaust with heightening urgency and innovative perspective.

“The service started around 1992,” says Sam D’Angelo, the coordinator of WalkSmart. “Back then, there were a few occurrences at other campuses. It was thought that the only thing we were lacking here was a walk home service, which was very popular at Western and other places. So the university decided to adopt it and it’s been in effect ever since.”

Walk home programs were first developed in the United States. Western was the first Canadian university to institute such a program, during a period of increased crime rates. U of T initially had few night classes, meaning a lower demand for a similar initiative. But evening classes became more common, and with increased activity on campus at night, the program was installed.

Anyone can WalkSmart, including visitors to campus who are not enrolled at the university. The only criteria is that you must be moving between campus buildings or to a nearby subway station.

“The objective of WalkSmart is safety in numbers,” D’Angelo explains. “We get the employees to pick up a student from an academic building, and drop them off at another academic building or a nearby subway station. It’s not designed to be a downtown campus walk home service.

“I don’t want my employees to drop people off at a bar; I don’t want them going to Bathurst and Bloor, because it’s not designed for that. We are strictly a campus service. If the university owns and operates a building, we will escort a student to and from there.”

When you call WalkSmart, the dispatch sends out one male and one female escort to meet you for the time you request. WalkSmart employees have jackets and ID cards so they are easily identifiable to callers, due to incidents in the past where impersonators have compromised the safety of people who call in. “We’ve learned that if we leave an opening, deviants might take over,” D’Angelo reflects.

Most program employees are students. “Our objective is to hire students. We’ve had challenges in the past where students couldn’t work, around exam time for example,” D’Angelo recalls. “WalkSmart is designed so that two people respond to an escort. If one WalkSmart books off, that team is now gone. So, at exam periods and on Friday nights, it is challenging to get students to fulfill the role. We have hired students as WalkSmarts that have graduated and come back [for] a part-time job.”

In order to accommodate the schedules of students employed by the program, after midnight U of T Campus Police building patrols take over the service. “The WalkSmart people aren’t on duty but my building patrols then do their part. They’re students, so you have to appreciate that. At one time, we had them working at two in the morning and it was challenging because a lot of them have class in the morning.

“So what I’ve done is that from midnight to six am, you have campus police dispatched to pick up clients and take them from point A to point B in the absence of WalkSmart.”

D’Angelo looks for more than just enrollment at U of T when evaluating prospective employees. “We test to see why you want to be a WalkSmart person. We want to make sure that you’re here for the right reasons — so why you want this job, what are your objectives. And more importantly, we check out their background, to make sure that they’re not a safety risk to the community.

We ask for police record checks on people because they are escorting people that could be vulnerable. We make sure their intentions are honourable. We do all the necessary due-diligence tests.”

Students going into police work do not have a particular advantage in the hiring process. In fact, D’Angelo notes, the opposite is often true. “The majority of [WalkSmart employees] are doing it for sense of community. Some become social workers.

“Those that want to do police work tend not to be good candidates because they get the wrong perception of what it is. They’re not security. They’re simply there as a comfort zone for safety in numbers for that individual.”

More than counseling, WalkSmart escorts frequently serve as a source of information about campus to students who use the service. The program tends to be used most by first-year students in their first six months on campus before they develop friendships, and they often seek basic information from the employees during the walk, such as locations of different buildings, or names of good restaurants in the area.

Usage takes a dip around this time of year, as more students have friends to walk with when it gets dark out. “It stays fairly regular,” Sam notes, “If there’s an occurrence on campus that’s been in the media a lot, we find there’s a spike in usage.”

D’Angelo believes that the presence of the WalkSmart program successfully deters nighttime crimes. “At nighttime around here, it’s actually very safe. You have a better chance of getting your laptop stolen at Robart’s than of getting attacked. Outside of the soft boundaries of the campus, I can’t speak to, but if you look inside the campus, crimes against persons [are] very low.”

Employees of the program declined to provide testimonies for this article.