By: Michael Nisiak

Family Guy recently had an episode that crossed over with The Simpsons, resulting in a witty commentary on creativity and artistic influences, and more than a few crude jokes.

At the start of the episode, the Griffins are watching a Modern Family and All in the Family crossover and Chris says, “a crossover always brings out the best in each show. It certainly doesn’t smack of desperation. The priorities are always creative and not driven by marketing.”

This is sneaky. How can one complain about the crossover episode if the show itself already made fun of the idea?

But my intention isn’t to bash the idea of a crossover episode. I took the episode as an opportunity to see what happens when the characters from two different worlds come together.

The first point of interest is the relationship between Stewie and Bart, which most highlights the differences between the shows. At one point, Bart shows Stewie how to prank call and Stewie “pranks” Moe with an inappropriate rape joke. It is interesting to see how Bart will respond to this kind of joke that he isn’t typically exposed to in his world. His silence was an appropriate response as it showed that he was just as shocked as the viewers.

The episode also poked fun at each of the shows, most notably being a legal battle in which the beer in Family Guy, Pawtucket Patriot Ale, is accused of being a rip-off of the beer in Simpsons, Duff. This legal battle echoes the accusations that Family Guy is a rip-off of Simpsons, and even emphasizes the similarities by having each Family Guy character sitting with their Simpsons counterpart during the court hearing. Quagmire sat with Lenny, Cleveland sat with Karl, Mayor Quimby sat with Mayor Adam West, etc.

In the end, the verdict came from Fred Flintstone, who commented that both beers were a rip-off of his favourite beer, Bud Rock. In other words, sure, Family Guy might be a rip-off of Simpsons, but Simpsons is a rip-off of another show, which is a rip-off of another show. The way the episode comments on how the two shows interact with each other is by far the most intriguing aspect of the crossover.

Unfortunately, if one were to watch the episode for the story, they’d likely be met with disappointment. The plot was paper-thin, with no direction or purpose. It seemed to mainly be used as a device for bringing the characters together and forcing them to interact. As for the jokes in the episode, let’s just say that for my taste, they’re a bit too Family Guy-ish.

Alvvays' show at the Casbah on Oct. 5 was a flash in the pan. I stepped in from the cold five minutes before their set started and barely had time to break a sweat before lead singer Molly Rankin was announcing that they were about to play their last song of the night.

My experience wasn’t any different from the one I have when listening to the Toronto jangle-pop band’s infectious debut record — I didn’t want it to end and was left a bit put out when it did.

Like any show happening in the cozy venue just off Main Street, it was an intimate affair. Standing only a few feet from the eager crowd, Rankin thanked everyone for attending and asked if the sole three people who attended their last Hamilton show were in the audience. The blonde songstress was greeted with peals of laughter at such a suggestion but adamantly insisted that it had really happened. The rest of the band — Kerri MacLellan, Alec O’Hanley, Brian Murphy, and Phil MacIsaac — seemed equally happy to be past that “real dark shit” (in Rankin’s words) and in a phase of their career where they would draw a capacity crowd on a Sunday.

While their debut was dropped in the summer and shares certain elements with fellow female-led surf-rock outfit, Best Coast, Alvvays’ material is imbued with a much more emotional depth. The self-titled album’s strength lies in Rankin’s exquisite lyrics that marry well with the simple song structure created by the band and made rougher around the edges by producer Chad VaanGaalen.

The set was a tight one, running only ten songs and leaving everyone pining for more as the characters in Alvvays’ songs so often are. Rankin was comfortable on stage (which might have something to do with her lineage) and her radiant smile seemed to be meant for everyone. Much of the stage banter was left to her and she made sure to inquire if all the short people could see and implored everyone to help them out. Being 6’3 myself, I always feel a healthy amount of guilt for being #bornthisway, but I encountered no derision from the dwarves around me.

The odd time that guitarist Alec O’Hanley interjected with his own witticism, I get the feeling he wished he hadn’t. O’Hanley went to thank opening act Heat for “heating things up” but immediately regretted his pun and apologized for not being able to concoct something more elegant on the spot.

Not willing to leave one of their own out to dry, the rest of the band launched into album standout “Party Police”. I must confess that tears were shed on my part as Rankin’s angelic voice pierced through the air and stabbed repeatedly at my heart, which felt like it was under attack by a dull kitchen knife for the song’s entire four-minute duration. The band closed their all too brief show as I dried off my face with ‘”Archie, Marry Me”, another banger that had the audience packed around the stage both bobbing their heads and shouting out the lyrics. While Alvvays might not be back in Hamilton for a while, they’ll always be in our hearts.

By: Anthony Manrique

I was sitting in my Urban Planning class when our teacher asked us what we thought about Hamilton and its reputation as the Steel City. A classmate responded sarcastically with a rhetorical question, “Hamilton sucks?” At first, I shrugged, feeling indifferent to his statement, but I began to realize that he might have been too harsh on Hamilton.

I’ve visited different parts of the city and my experiences within it have been both saddening and uplifting. I remember walking from Confederation Park to Barton Street on the East End, passing by countless warehouses and factories and seeing rugged semi-trailers along the run-down road ongoing constant renovation. There I felt the rough, blue-collar, industrial feel of the Hammer.

This is how most people think of Hamilton, but that is just a small part of its identity. The year before, I decided to volunteer for the Hamilton Fringe Festival that was hosted in various theatres in downtown Hamilton, with most of the performances at night. Getting involved in the event gave me exposure to the arts and culture that this city has to offer, through the playful performances and poetic sense of humour of the local artists.

There’s also the recent Supercrawl, the first one I’ve ever been to, and it was even bigger and louder. Seeing Charles Bradley sing to a lively audience, local artists showcasing their art pieces in tents, and the massive crowds lining up along the food trucks was like a glimpse of what the colorful nightlife in this city looks like.

The juxtaposition of the cheerful, festive atmosphere of events such as the Fringe and Supercrawl against the derelict, run-down ambience of the Hammer almost feels like a surrealist painting. Through it all, the city manages to give a bit of wonder to the life and times of the people living in it. Most people would probably never notice it, but there it is, the real beauty of the city.

It’s strange that somehow, most of the people I know who don’t like the city are also the ones who always find ways to enjoy it. Often, I’m invited by my friends to come to Bayfront for some relaxation, or go skating at Hamilton Waterfront Trust, see a movie in Jackson Square, or just go for a walk at Lime Ridge. By the end of the day, we go home and talk about the experiences we had, and we’ll laugh about it in the days to come, and all of that happened here in this very city. Somehow, we managed to have a bit of fun despite how “boring” they say Hamilton is.

So, no, Hamilton does not “suck”. Hamilton is a beautiful city to live in and the number of people who are paying attention to all it has to offer is always growing. People are finally finding ways to enjoy Hamilton and are seeing the real beauty of living in the Steel City.

By: Nicole Vasarevic

They say that your first will always hold a special place in your heart. Supercrawl 2014 now sits beside my first bike and my first kiss.

People. Poutine. Power outages. That would pretty much sum up my first Supercrawl experience. As I arrived with a group of friends the first thing I thought was, “take a deep breath Nicole, you won’t be able to breathe in that crowd.” I soon realized that being pressed up against strangers was more of a blessing then a curse seeing as I did not dress for the frigid weather. My anxiety of crowds was quickly swallowed by the smell of poutine, and my mission soon turned from surviving to devouring. A greasy poutine from the Texas Tornado food truck was calling my name. However, by the time I came to the front of the line, my initial craving was still lost in the sea of people.

While aimlessly walking around, having second thoughts about that poutine line, I stumbled onto a few galleries and marveled at the artists’ work while silently scorning myself for giving more priority to the food than the art. We stopped by the Baltimore House for some local music and caught the end of the set of Toronto band, Greys. After grabbing a beer, we headed out back into the droves of revelers for the The Arkells.

Losing about 90% of my friends was a given when you go to such a big event, but I can’t say I was expecting the steady flow of drunken people who continuously climbed the traffic light only to be pulled down by the police minutes after. The Arkells toughed it out through some power outage hiccups and played a nostalgic set that had me singing at an inappropriate volume.  Before I knew it, my first Supercrawl experience had come to an end. I’ve got to admit I was a little bit bummed that I didn’t have more time to really explore all that Supercrawl had to offer, but there is always next year.

My first Supercrawl experience was just like the HSR buses at the end of the night, full of people and passing by me in the blink of an eye.

By: Alexandra Florescu

Your thin fall jacket is no match for the whipping wind, the crowd is a tide of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder and your head has started to ache from the pounding music.

For those who attended Hamilton’s annual festival called Supercrawl, the previous description might have applied to you. At the very least, it applied to me. I had gone on a mission over to James Street North with a couple of friends on Sept. 12 to enjoy the live music, art and food vendors. However, after a few hours of admiring the attractions, we decided to pick an indoor art exhibit at random and explore it away from the cold and bustle of the street.

We happened upon an exhibit named Art Forms Youth Art Studio. After walking through a brick-walled corridor, we came upon a cavernous room whose white walls were covered with art. Initially, there was nothing that quite caught my eye. The wall to the left had an array of hanging photographs, in the back there was a video projection and in the center of the room there was a geometric art installation. Walking around the dimly lit room, I happened to stop in front of an informational poster on the exhibit.

As it turns out, we had unknowingly walked into an exhibit put on by Art Forms, a youth arts organization that provides free weekly visual arts sessions, acting classes and dance programs to 16 to 25-year- olds of the Hamilton community, specifically targeting at-risk youth. What I had previously believed to be just another Supercrawl art exhibit turned out to be unlike all the rest in one key factor – this exhibit was created with the artists, not the audience, in mind. With a renewed understanding, I turned back to the pieces I had already seen in order to truly acknowledge them for what they were.

To the left was a wall adorned with photographs of the youth that had participated in the program and poems or stories they had written. While the poems painted a dark image of what life for these troubled teens looked like, the photographs were what struck me. Some featured people laughing, others had people singing, and in some they were playing musical instruments. Moreover, their smiles bore no traces of a difficult life, their demeanor light and jubilant. Through something as simple as a photograph, it was clear to see that Art Forms had given them the chance at life without addiction, or homelessness, or illness.

To the right of the wall, in the center of the room, there was an art installation made of a wood frame draped in a tapestry of bright, mismatched cloth. The shape and size of a small tent, it was impossible to miss. The wooden frame supported what seemed to be a shelter; its duality was apparent in its role as both an art piece and a comment on homelessness. Despite all this, the installation seemed hopeful. Strings of lights within the tent caused it to glow from the inside, the warm-yellow light filtering through the cloth as if it were a giant lantern. At points throughout the structure, the cloth was not secured to the wooden posts. Rather, it was left to trail out as if it were billowing in the wind. In other parts, cloth was interjected with pieces of paper scribed in black writing.

As I studied the vibrant reds and purples of the cloth, I noticed a crowd growing towards the back corner of the exhibit. The object of their fixation was, what I discovered to be, not quite an art piece. On the wall there was a long piece of white paper with only the outline of a large, sideways triangle and the title “Tell Me a Story… (True or False)” displayed across the top.

Underneath the poster was a box of coloured crayons that people could use contribute whatever they wished to the piece. Some lines people chose to write were inspirational, others comedic, and others confessional. What was clear, however, was that every person that walked by took the time to read the wall before making his or her own contribution. Starting at first with a few lines like “A life without reflections is not worth living” to “It all happened because I went in the labyrinth,” the mural soon became cluttered with each person’s distinct scrawl. Incredibly imaginative and well executed, the wall got a plethora of praises for its ingenuity and interactive nature. Yet this mural was not the only piece to which the public could contribute.

A table bearing the sign “Create Your Own Hamilton” had been located outside the venue all night, but as the night drew to a close, it was brought inside. The piece consisted of a metal wire frame draped in long rectangular pieces of fabric. As they had walked by, people had been beckoned to write one thing that would improve the city of Hamilton on his or her own piece of fabric. Upon completion, their piece of fabric would be added to the collage already building on top of the metal frame. The finished product resembled a pile of trash, but the vibrant colours of the fabric draped over the structure symbolized the hope for a better Hamilton and the hope for at risk youth to rise out of the rubble into a better future.

Unfortunately, having been so wrapped up in the exhibit, I noticed too late that the crowd had left and the doors were being locked. My visit cut shorter than I wished, I left Art Forms with an inexplicable feeling of having discovered a gem underneath the rubble and I vowed to return.