Announcer: Roll out the red carpet and break out the champagne, it’s the evening of evenings, the soiree of soirees, the night the stars come out to shine! It’s the first annual Academy of Varsity Arts & Sciences Achievement Awards, where Arts writers will be competing for a coveted Golden VArt! Yes, this will surely be a night to remember, so let’s head into the Kodak Theatre where the ceremony is about to take place!
[Cut to inside the theatre, where the band launches into a rousing rendition of “Hooray for Hollywood.”The stage is bookended by 20-foot statues of the handsome VArt trophies, one of which tips over, wounding Jack Nicholson. After a delay, the hosts arrive onstage]
Emily: Hello, good evening, and welcome to the first-annual VArts. My name is Emily Kellogg…
Will: …and I’m Will Sloan…
Emily: …and we’re excited to be your hosts this year.
Will: Say Emily, you look so fetching in your dress. Is it Oscar de la Renta?
Emily: Yes, Will, how did you know?
Will: [Nudging Emily in the ribs; winking at the camera] Because you de la Renta-ed a place right in my heart!
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: Oh Will, you’re such a rascal. Y’know Will, at The Varsity this year, there were plenty of new faces.
Will: Yeah, especially on the old faces!
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Will: Because they had plastic surgery, is what I’m implying.
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: The first award of the evening is Best Arts’ Arts Poem. For those of you who aren’t in the know, with our Arts’ Arts section we wanted to create an outlet for the creative types on campus to publish their poetry, prose, visual art and photography.
Will: And the VArt goes to… Mitchell Gauvin for “Vowels” (22 November), a creative use of form wherein he spatially constructs the letters A E I O and U out of words using those same vowels. Congratulations, Mitch! The next category is Most Dickish Interview Subject, and the winner is Gen-X icon and cultural supernova Douglas Coupland, whose quick and cursory email interview with Brigit Katz (25 October) included at least one ironic smiley-face emoticon. Mr. Coupland was too busy being the voice of a generation tonight to attend tonight, so Brigit will accept on his behalf.
Emily: In the category of Best Trial by Fire, Assunta Alegiani’s first major contribution to The Varsity was an interview with Toronto film legend/noted eccentric Reg Hartt. Assunta remained unfazed even when Mr. Hartt insisted that she be in the picture with him, and later claimed that he had no particular affinity towards movies.
Will: Say Em, perhaps you’d like to go to the movies with me? Eh? Eh? [Nudging in the ribs]
Emily: [Shrugs shoulders and looks at camera in a wackily exasperated way.]
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: Sometimes Will and I make mistakes. We’re only human – even if we look superhuman!
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: In these outfits, I mean. [Winks]
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: And so, the award for Best Photography We Miscredited goes to Remi Carreiro, whose beautiful series of photos of Toronto street art for Assunta Alegiani’s article “The Anti-Nuit Blanche” (22 November) was credited to David Pike.
Will: And now comes my favourite part of every VArts award show: the handing-out of the Ignatieff/Rae Award for Lifetime Achievement. This year, going above and beyond the call of duty with approximately five thousand excellent interviews with respected authors, was former Editor-in-Chief Jade Colbert. Helping us pay tribute to Jade’s legacy is our special guest, Celine Dion.
Celine Dion: [Singing] For all those times you stood by me… For all the truth you made me see…
[Celine continues for four minutes; by the end, there is not a dry eye in the house]
Emily: Wow. I guess you can say that when it comes to Celine Dion, my heart will always go on.
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: For her music, specifically, that is.
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Will: Y’know, on Varsity production nights, things can get hectic. From checking flats, ordering sushi, and endlessly professing my love to Emily…
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Will: …Things can sure get chaotic. Therefore, the real measure of an editor is his grace under pressure. Which is why I’m presenting the award for Best Photo Caption to myself – for the caption “O, livier – my livier!” under our interview with director Olivier Assayas (18 October 2010). See, it’s clever, because it’s a reference to “O Captain, my captain,” and Olivier Assayas’ name starts with “O.”
Emily: This year we introduced “The Varsity Interview,” a column devoted to longer, more in-depth interview with interesting arts figures. The award for Best Varsity Interview goes to our associate Ariel Lewis for her discussion with Kid in the Hall Scott Thompson (6 December).
Will: This was one of many fine articles Ariel wrote this year, including our winner for Best Article Written In the Style of Jane Austen, her thrilling Living Arts piece on attending a Jane Austen-themed ball (28 February). This category was especially competitive this year.
Emily: Also competitive was the category of Best Public Humiliation in the Name of Journalism. Brigit Katz, who, on top of always being up for reviewing a questionable campus play at the last minute, also courageously volunteered to attend a Speed Dating event for our Love & Sex issue (14 February). This was one of our favourite contributions to our Living Arts column, in which Varsity staffers tried something new and occasionally suffered the consequences for the entertainment of anonymous readers!
Will: Great job, Brigit!
Emily: The award for Most Admirable Patience with Us Even Though We Constantly Misspelled Her Name goes to Lily Tarba, who was more than polite about being credited as “Lily Talba” and “Lily Talb” on two separate online articles.
Will: In a category close to my heart, the award for Best Article Written in “Navajo English” goes to Alan Jones for his review of Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialisme, written in the same oblique, impenetrable style as the pidgin-English subtitles Mr. Godard released his film with.
Emily: But y’know Will, as we celebrate the achievements of our current crop of Varsiteens, it’s important to remember the contributions of Varsity Arts columns that passed away this year.
Will: Yes, while columns such as “The Varsity Interview” and that wily rapscallion “The Ten-Dollar Wine Snob” thrived and prospered, others met icy deaths, of both the abrupt and the slowly-withering-away variety. Join us in a moment of remembrance…
Celine Dion: [Singing] “Smile, though your heart is aching… Smile, even though it’s breaking…”
On the Monitor: “Freshly Pressed” CD Review Column, 2007-2010… “VarCity” Events Column, 2010-2011… “Review Haiku” Music Column, 2010-2010…
Audience: [Weeping, applause]
Emily: Well, on a lighter note, the category of Best Varsity Wine Columnist was an extremely competitive one this year, but after much consideration, the judges have selected a candidate. The winner is… The Ten-Dollar Wine Snob! Come on up!
Ten-Dollar Wine Snob: Thank you, thank you, this is such an honour. And please remember, folks: the only way to overthrow the government is to join your local militia. Thank you!
Will: Ah, well, a very political speech from Mr. Wine Snob. Anyway, sometimes in Varsity Arts, we have to review school plays. It comes with the territory. The award for Best Campus Stage Review goes to the lovely Brendan Hobin for his verbose analysis of UC Follies’ The Threepenny Opera.
Emily: The award for Best Music Writers goes to Sean MacKay and Navi Lamba for Singled Out, their excellent weekly online review of the best new, interesting, and vaguely hipsterish music that all the cool, post-hipster kids are into these days.
Will: But I ask you, Emily, what award show would be complete without the hilarious wit of comedy legend and American patriot, Billy Crystal? Come on out, Billy!
Audience: [Ten-minute standing ovation]
Billy Crystal: Thank you, thank you, it’s great to be here. [Proceeds to sing a humorous music medley in which titles of popular Varsity articles are sung to the tune of famous songs of yore.]
Emily: Oh, that Billy. Give him another hand!
Audience: [Twenty-minute standing ovation]
Will: Y’know Emmy, in our business, sometimes plagiarism is the highest form of flattery, and the head-and-shoulders winner of Best Idea Stolen from a Past Arts Editor was “A Nuitmare on Queen Street” (4 October), a minute-by-minute rundown of Nuit Blanche which we gleefully stole from past Arts Editor Rob Duffy.
Emily: But plagiarism cuts both ways. The winner of Best Headline Stolen by Another Campus Paper also goes to “A Nuitmare on Queen Street,” a genius headline penned by none other than Mister Will Sloan…
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: …that was stolen and used as a front-cover throw on the 7 October issue of The Strand. Hey, The Strand – what gives?
Audience: [Booing, hissing]
Will: “A Nuitmare on Queen” also wins the award for Best Layout. This gorgeous two-page spread, featuring photos by James Bradford, Remi Carreiro, David Pike, and Alex Nursall, was a testament to the genius of Varsity layout legend Rogelio Briseño, who put up with our indecisiveness many times throughout the year.
Audience: [Applause]
Emily: Will and I ascended to Arts Editorship on the vow that we could write good headlines. Unfortunately, this has not always been an easy vow to keep. The award for Most Desperate Headline is one close to both our hearts.
Will: But Emmy, you told me your heart was locked in vault!
Emily: [Withering stare]
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Will: Why ya gotta hate, Em?
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: I have always despised you, Will.
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
[Camera cuts briefly to Celine Dion, who has tears in her eyes and is nodding her head]
Emily: The nominees for Most Desperate Headline are… “The long(board) and winding road”… “The littlest hobo (with a shotgun)”… “All that glitters is not (Oscar) gold”… “War. What is it good for? (Good filmmaking?)”… “Go EFUT yourself!”… and “Angry? Actually, we’re content,” for our review of 12 Angry Men.
Will: And the VArt goes to… “War. What is it good for? (Good filmmaking?),” for Alan Jones’ interview with the director of Oliver Sherman.
Emily: This was a collaborative effort between Will and I. Will wrote, “War. What is it good for?” and then, sensing that the headline needed a bit more oomph, I added, “Good filmmaking?” but then put it in brackets, in the hope of being ironic and self-aware.
Audience: [Applause]
Emily: And now it’s time to present the last award of the evening…
[Will arrives on stage in a dress, lipstick, and blonde wig. Audience laughs and applauds.]
Emily: Good heavens, Will, what are you doing?
Will: See, it’s funny, because I’m a man, but I’m dressed up as a woman.
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Emily: And now it’s time for the biggest award of the evening, Best All-Arts Magazine. Ever. This year, Will and I collaborated with EIC Luke Savage and Features Editor Sean MacKay on the fourth annual All-Arts Issue, and we’re going to go ahead and give this award to ourselves. Because we’re the best.
Will: Take that, Levack!
Audience: [Laughter, applause]
Will: Well, we hope you enjoyed this year in Varsity Arts & Entertainment. It was a time of sadness and joy, laughter and tears, learning and unlearning, and occasional bouts of late-night drunkenness.
Emily: We considered creating an award for Best Audience and presenting it to you, the reader, but c’mon, that’d just be silly.
Will: Emily and I have loved our time as editors, and we feel honoured to have been able to work with a group of talented and hardworking individuals.
Emily: On that note, we would like to dedicate this awards ceremony to every single contributor at The Varsity. Thank you to the illustrators, the design team, the photographers, the copy-editors, the fact-checkers, and the writers. We couldn’t have done any of this without you.
