There were already a few small crowds forming in Ducky’s Pub at around 9 pm on Saturday when Sackville native son/rocker Lucas Hicks and his supporting drummer/Newfoundlander Brendan Allison took to the stage, kicking off a nice evening of East Coast indie rock.

Although the show started a tad late, in typical Sackville fashion nobody noticed and, perhaps ironically, Hicks began his set with “Take it Slow.” Hicks then proceeded to belt out some of his hits from the past year, including “Day Off”, as well as newer songs like “Bad News.” 

Hicks’s local notoriety effected some playfulness from the crowd, such as when a member of the audience roguishly shouted “you’re only nineteen!” in response to Hicks’s suggestion that nostalgia was an prevalent influence on his work.

After a solid set by Hicks, Fredericton band Motherhood took Ducky’s into their warm embrace. The bar felt like an explosion right off the bat, as guitarist and vocalist Brydon Crain and bassist, keyboardist, and vocalist Keylee Stevens both hit it with a shared intensity and passion. Drummer and vocalist Adam Sipema rocked hard, drawing much of the room into the musical orbit of Motherhood. 

Both acts played with a style best suited for George’s Roadhouse, but despite this, it was great to see the local hotspot, which usually does not host shows, sounding tight on an early Saturday evening. 

The Sackville-based Hicks has a history with both the venue and Motherhood. He said, “I’ve played with them a few times, they’re great.”

Hicks said that Ducky’s “is a really interesting place, because it’s closer than George’s, and there’s plenty of cheap booze.” On a cold night, these are important factors to consider in choosing a venue.

Motherhood recently released their third album in June, titled Diamonds + Gold, which is available on Bandcamp. Also available to check out on the venerable music sharing website is the single  “The Coast // Bad News”, the latest offering by Lucas Hicks. Be sure to give them a listen, if you are into that sort of thing. 

Ryan Burnham is the News Director at CHMA.

The aforementioned recipients include Deepa Mehta, Dr. Janet Rossant, Bernard Richard, and James Irving. Deepa Metha is an award-winning director and screenwriter, whose work includes the Elements Trilogy: Fire, Earth, and Water. In particular, Water received tremendous international attention, collecting fourteen honours including a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2007 Academy Awards. More recently, Metha produced a film covering Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnght’s Children, which was released at the Toronto Film Festival last year.

As the chief of research at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, Dr. Janet Rossant’s work deals primarily with developmental and stem cell biology. Rossant helped expand the research programs at Brock University and Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital for almost twenty years, starting in 1985. She is also a Fellow at the Royal Societies of London and Canada, and a Distinguished Investigator of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Rossant has been a dynamic element of the developmental biology field for many years, serving as an editor of the scientific journal Development, President of the Society for Development Biology, and most recently as the Chair of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research working on stem cell research.

Serving as an M.L.A. in New Brunswick from 1991 to 2003, Bernard Richard was more recently appointed as the province’s first Child & Youth Advocate in 2006. He currently chairs the Board of Directors of Plan Canada, and Fondation Nationale de l’Acadie. Plan Canada was formally the Foster Parent Plan, and the Fondation Nationale de l’Acadie an initiative to protect the identity of the Acadian people and their heritage. Richard’s work has largely been in association with the promotion of children’s rights and issues and in 2012 was he named a Trudeau Foundation Mentor.

Finally, James (Jim) Irving, co-CEO of J.D. Irving Ltd. will be receiving an honorary degree from Mount Allison University. J.D. Irving Ltd. is based out of Saint John, operating primarily in the industries of forestry, transportation, shipbuilding, construction, and consumer products. Forbes currently lists James, with his brother and co-CEO Arthur Irving as the fifth wealthiest person in Canada with an estimated 4.5 billion dollars. Irving has served on the Federal Finance Minister’s economic advisory council, and has been active in fund-raising efforts for wild Atlantic salmon research and conservation with the Atlantic Salmon Federation.

A selection committee consisting of the University President, Chancellor, Chair of the Board, VP Academic and Research, four members of the Faculty, two members of the Board of Regents, and one student chooses the recipients of the honorary degrees, to be awarded at spring convocation. Individuals selected to be venerated in this way typically need to be among the very best in their chosen field, and relevant to the Mt. A community.

On the surface, the exercise of shaving and waxing appears a rather modern visual novelty. Just take a gander at pornographic films prior to 1980. It would appear that North Americans have, by and large, found themselves in a fight against follicles as they prioritize smooth bodies over woolly ones. We’ll shave, wax, and even apply lasers to our natural fur coats in hopes of achieving that bald body.

The practice of hair removal is hardly a new one, however. Nearly every human culture has, to some degree, a tradition of human fleecing embedded into it. The popularity of body hair has waned and waxed throughout human history; Alexander the Great apparently had poor facial hair growth, and shaved regularly to hide his boyishly patchy beard. In Ancient India, there was a period of time where it was in vogue to garner a glorious beard, while shaving hair off of the rest of the body.

As early as 3000-4000 BCE, we see evidence to suggest that women were applying creams made from arsenic, lime, and starch to burn away their body hair. Regrettably, as time marched on the methods employed by women hardly improved, as later approaches saw the use of fire to simply burn the hair right off. Around 3000 BCE we begin to see metal shaving implements appearing in areas such as Egypt and India, and while shaving had been in practice prior to this, the invention made the entire process quicker. It is not likely, however, that these early razors made the process cleaner.

There is also a darker side to hair removal; during World War II women who were found to have been involved sexually with the Nazi’s could expect to have their hair removed to shame them for their behaviour. More recently there were arrests in 2011 in connection to assaults on Amish men in Ohio, where their beards were forcibly removed.

Nowadays the most common procedure for hair removal comes in the form of razors, waxes, and creams. Shaving is a quick, and mostly painless approach, as contemporary razors have been refined beyond their ancient predecessors. Though shaved hair grows back more quickly, it is pretty much the only way to go for removing facial hair. Waxing is favoured for removing hair on the chest, legs, and pubic region. It can be messy, and very dangerous if done incorrectly. One must be careful not to apply the wax when it is too hot, or risk burning the skin. Burn or no burn, this technique will still be very painful, as fundamentally you are tearing the hairs right out of your body. Finally, there are the depilatory creams. They vary in terms of ingredients, so it would be wise to investigate your options and determine if you might have an allergy prior to applying any of them to your hair. Essentially, the creams are chemicals that will dissolve your hair. With that in mind you need to make sure you don’t leave the cream on for too long, or you will experience a painful chemical burn.

For those readers over the age of nineteen, and of a mind to drink, having a bottle of wine, beer, or whiskey handy might make the whole process a little easier. You should also have some friends around, as they will certainly enjoy watching you partake in a centuries long tradition of self-inflicted agony for questionable visual appeal.