After being away for a month, I’ve got to say, Toronto is a great city. Sure, we’ll make fun of it and the rest of the country can hate us but if you came to U of T, you might as well explore this place. It’s rather upsetting to hear from graduating students who aren’t from Toronto that they have never been on the islands or they’ve never really set foot outside of campus during their 4 year residency here. In any case, here’s a list of places and things to do while you’re stuck here:

Buy a CityPASS

If you have tons of time and you want to get into some of the city’s main attractions, the CityPASS is something that can be purchased online or at any of the attractions it offers admission for. (CN Tower, Casa Loma, the ROM, the Ontario Science Centre and the Toronto Zoo) The cost of the City Pass is $57.82 USD but it will give you general admission to all the attractions listed above, which is a rather good deal seeing that adult general admission to the ROM is approximately half that price. However, you have to use up the booklet in 9 days, so plan carefully.

CityPASS Attractions

So, what’s to do at these places? Well, you can be a total tourist and tell your friends and family that you went up what was once the tallest free-standing building in the world. Go complain and rant about the tumour growing out of the side of the Royal Ontario Museum but go in and enjoy the Bat Cave and the mummies inside. Unleash your inner child and spend a day playing with science-related things at the Ontario Science Centre and get soaked while taking a stroll in the rain forest. Get some exercise while walking around the Toronto Zoo (it’s huge) and watch Canadian geese and tigers coexist with one another. While you’re there, make sure you aren’t eaten by Komodo dragons. As for you ghost lovers out there? Go on a safe and legal ghost hunt on a haunted tour of Casa Loma when Halloween rolls around.

Other attractions not included in the pass

The Art Gallery of Ontario has cool specials exhibitions from time to time while the Bata Shoe Museum is worth a stroll. The AGO is free Wednesdays from 6PM to 8:30PM while the admission every Thursday evening between 5 and 8 pm at the Shoe Museum is Pay-what-you-can, with a suggested donation of $5.

St. Lawrence Market

Grab the only thing that might be remotely considered as Canadian or Torontonian food, a peameal bacon sandwich from Carousel Bakery in St. Lawrence Market. (A bagel from St. Urbain’s or an eggplant with chicken breast sandwich are other delicious offerings if peameal bacon isn’t your thing.) I would also suggest that you wake up early on a Saturday to go to the farmer’s market. The taste fresh Ontario concord grapes, peaches and apples in the fall is one of the highlights of the year. If you mistake Sunday for Saturday, fear not, all the farmer’s stalls disappear on Sunday and in their place are antiques for the Sunday antique market.

Toronto Islands

Take pictures of the iconic view of Toronto by going to the Toronto Islands. However, I think the best way to enjoy the Islands is by bike. Bring your own bike or rent one and enjoy mostly vehicle-free paths and gorgeous views. If you’re in Toronto during the summer, be sure to come to the islands and cheer for your fellow U of T students at the Dragon Boat races in June or enjoy multicultural entertainment at the annual Chin Picnic.

Harbourfront

Don’t forget to stop by Harbourfront on your way to the Islands. There’s usually a festival going on during the weekend but if there isn’t, there’s always the artist studio and free galleries (such as the Power Plant) to stroll through. If you’re lucky, there might be a few old men playing around with their remote controlled boats that shoot water at you. However, if you’re there in the winter, the Natrel Pond becomes a skating rink. Bring your own skates or rent them there.

High Park

Speaking of picnics, a lovely spot to set your picnic blanket would be High Park. It’s huge, there’s a zoo and in the spring, we can imitate the Japanese and their hana-mi picnics because the city of Tokyo gave the city of Toronto tons of cherry trees as an act of friendship. The result? Gorgeous cherry blossoms every spring, or more precisely, mid-April to mid-May.

The Beaches

Yes, Vancouverites, I’m sure your beaches are nicer and whatnot but there are cool restaurants and cute boutiques, which are half the fun of The Beaches. However, a stroll on the boardwalk or a game of volleyball is also fun. If you’re daring, go take a dip or a swim in Lake Ontario and pray that you won’t grow an extra leg or finger the next day.

Pacific Mall

Revel in the sketchiness of the biggest Asian mall in North America and bootleg capital of Canada! Enjoy cheaper all you can eat sushi and get your game console modified so you can play cheap bootleg games on it! (Warning: If you want the real copy of the game, you have to ask for it specially.)

The PATH

I’m sure the Eaton Centre won’t need any advertising seeing that it’s the place you’ll head to for clothes and whatnot, but what you might not know is that the Eaton Centre has multiple entry points into the PATH, an underground shopping area! Go get lost in it and find yourself somewhere else downtown when you emerge from it! (Don’t worry, you’re most likely going to end up near a subway stop.)

Kensington Market

Go to Toronto’s hippy central and enjoy organic/vegetarian/vegan food and buy vintage or second-hand clothing. During the late summer and early fall, go during Pedestrian Sunday and enjoy the outdoor poetry readings, performers and music!

The Distillery District

I could talk about how wonderful the Distillery is and what to do there, but I think this article by my fellow blogger, Julia, covers all the essentials and then some.

Queen St. W

The mecca for art, indie culture and goth/lolita/other esoteric genres of fashion. Also the place where horomone-crazed and hysterical teenagers go to scream at Justin Bieber and RPat since the MuchMusic building is there. Again, this fabulous article by Julia explains it all.

City Hall

City Hall isn’t just a place to get your marriage license in Toronto. On Wednesdays, there is a farmer’s market and during the winter, the water fountain in Nathan Philips Square in front of City Hall turns into a public ice skating rink! Bring your own skates or rent them there (you’ll need a piece of government issued I.D. and 10 bucks) but be warned that there aren’t lockers anymore so don’t bring your giant backpack along. That or rent a locker at the Eaton Centre. The Square also hosts one of the biggest New Year’s parties in the city and is host to various events around the year like the outdoor art festival in the summer.

Of course, you have to eat food from all around the world now that you’re in the most multicultural city in the world. There’s also tons annual festivals like the TIFF, Luminato, Summer and Winterlicious and Nuit Blanche to enjoy. This article can go on and on but I or some of my fellow bloggers will probably be offering tons of information on sights and sounds in the city. So stay tuned!

Photos by Jess, Julia or from here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

While many readers will have already passed Freshman year, I’m sure there are those of you who are still a bit nervous about heading off into the direction of academia. For those lucky few, I have prepared the following crash-course on how to spend your first few weeks at UofT.

1.Don’t freak out.

You’ve signed up for your classes. You’ve paid your tuition (hopefully!). You know where you are going to live.  Beyond that,  don’t worry over anything just yet. Just because the anti-calendar says your class is going to suck, doesn’t mean it actually will.  Just because you don’t know anyone in your class, doesn’t mean you can’t make some new friends– or at least meet someone to share notes with.  Don’t listen to people when they tell you to just “turn back while you can!”. You obviously did well enough in High School to get into Uni, so there is no reason you can’t succeed once you get there.

2. Seriously, don’t freak out.

All of those things you are worried about—making friends, tests, term papers, parties, getting lost—they haven’t happened yet.

3. Stock up on free stuff while you can.

For those of you living away from the nest for the first time, please take my advice and hoard away any/all free things from the homestead while you can. So feel free and  scurry away some popcorn, pens, and Pantene shampoo.  Stamps, band-aids, Tylenol: these are things that may magically restock at home, but they will not do so in your residence.  Especially for those who, like me, will not be returning home until December.

4.  Resist relying on the friends you knew from High School.

It doesn’t matter if Billy-Bob from your high school science class is conveniently in your first year English course. Try not to just rely on him for notes, or fun lecture shenanigans. That first class is a great opportunity for you to, you know, meet new people. Crazy!  As in people you have not already met, nor are related to you.  So you can’t count your Mom, even if she is also taking the course with you for whatever reason. Shy? That first class is a great ice-breaker. It is highly likely that the majority of those around you are in the exact same boat—so now’s your chance to impress them with your confidence and introduce yourself. Even if they may not want a “new buddy”, most people wouldn’t turn down someone they could potentially get notes from while they are sick.  So go ahead, interact with those around you.  If they are taking the same course as you, you guys already have something to talk about. Hoorah!

(If you are living away from home, resist calling your friends right away. It will likely make you more homesick, and distract you from potential new friends.  I’m not saying completely cut yourself off, just that you shouldn’t spend your froshie experience Skyping in your rez room or attached to your cell.)

5. You are in Toronto. Take advantage.

You didn’t decide to go to a University in the middle of nowhere, so don’t act like you did. September is TIFF—Toronto International Film Festival– season, so go out and look for your favourite celebrity shopping on Bloor Street, or leaving the Four Seasons hotel. Better yet, go and actually watch a movie at the TIFF. Have a coffee on Queen Street West wearing your favourite indie/hippie scarf and fedora. Take a jog through High Park, or take your camera there and snap some shots while the weather is nice. Need some ideas? BlogUT is here for a reason, and I’m sure if you survey the recent posts you will be hit with an idea that seems interesting. Use the library wi-fi, and search the internet to see what is going on in the city this weekend.  Going to school at U of T means more than just sitting in a lecture hall, doodling on paper. It means that once you are done doodling, you can just go do.

Oh and to those of you who aren’t newbies to the university but still find yourselves lost sometimes? Don’t worry, this is for you too! And to be honest, while we were filming these little snippets, we discovered so many spots we had never been to or even heard of before! It just goes to show that no matter how long you’ve been in one place, you never stop finding new things to do or see!

We’ve got quite a few videos up and ready for viewing, so be sure to check them out on the My City Lives website or just click here. Oh and if you’re wondering who these mysterious “My City Lives” folk are…they’re our friends who have developed an online platform that gives us the chance to capture and share our daily experiences around the city on video. Presented on an interactive map, these web stories show exactly where each video was filmed so you can learn more about the city based on the stories and experiences of your fellow citizens. Pretty cool, huh?

Now our friends at MCL say, “Let’s Magellan our city” and now we’re calling all of you to Magellan our campus!

In the meantime, here’s a sample video where we show you around Hart House…quite literally the “Hart” of U of T, bringing together all of the different colleges and students on campus together to experience life outside of lecture halls, labs, and tutorials!

*If you cannot view this video, please click here.

Don’t you hate trying to find courses to take? Using the timetable and calendar books is bad enough, but the archaic website is even worse! I hate searching for courses, too, so I decided to create a website to make the task easier. Looking for 3rd year psych courses? Just put in “PSY3″ as a course code and hit “Show me!”

Check it out!

Unfortunately, ROSI wasn’t so kind to me this year. I’m in my final year of undergraduate studies and got the late 10 AM enrollment time…leaving me on waitlists for courses that I desperately want to take. But alas, that is the life of a U of T student.

Read what other students are tweeting about course enrollment…some were successful, others, well, not so much!

This year’s Toronto Jazz Festival played host to two legendary groups in two awe-inspiring and sold-out venues: The Dave Brubeck Quartet at Koerner Hall on Tuesday and The Keith Jarrett Trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette at The Four Seasons Opera Centre on Wednesday. The Dave Brubeck Quartet gave a solid performance but one that has become somewhat less of a novelty since it was nearly identical to his concert last year and the year before. The Keith Jarrett Trio, on the other hand, gave a concert of sheer ingenuity and brilliance from start to finish, though I’d expect nothing less from this group of masters.

Dave Brubeck Quartet

On Tuesday, the current rendition of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, with Bobby Millitello on saxophone, Michael Moore on bass, and Randy Jones on drums, took the stage at Koerner Hall for one set of standards and one set of what Brubeck does best: his own pieces in odd time signatures. In the first set, they played, among others, “Gone with the Wind”, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, “On the Sunny Side of the Street”, and a medley of Duke Ellington Songs: “C Jam Blues”, “Mood Indigo” and “Take the A Train”. The interpretations were competent and fun to listen to, but this really isn’t where Brubeck shines and there are other pianists who have better renditions of these pieces. Nevertheless, it was nice to hear a few pieces that weren’t performed in the last couple of years.

But things got going in the second set, with Dave Brubeck’s son Matthew Brubeck on cello, as they dug into Brubeck’s trademark pieces, which are incredibly hard not to get lost in when counting is done by mere mortals. They played “Three to get ready, Four to go”, which has two bars in 3/4 time followed by two bars in 4/4 time, and then improvisation in a totally different time signature altogether and they kept time. When they played “Unsquare Dance”, a real earworm, in 7/4, they encouraged the audience to clap along with the drums: some people tried and many waited way too long to stop their out-of-time embarrassing clapping efforts. The group, however, had no trouble keeping time. “Blue Rondo a la Turk” was a wonderful foot-tapping experience, of which Brubeck said “this is one of the hardest pieces I’ve ever written for myself. I don’t know why I did that to myself. Every time I go to play it I’m always worried I won’t be able to. But Mathew is here to help me out”. They played a couple of pieces in 5/4, one that we didn’t all know, and one that we did (“Take Five”) and “The Sermon on the Mount” which is perfectly suited for having a cello in the ensemble.

When he takes a solo, Dave Brubeck does a lovely job, with great technique and jive. Mathew Brubeck also brings a beautiful edge to the pieces with his cello, adding an unexpected but perfectly agreeable layer of detail. But their bandmates can’t keep up, except in their ability to literally keep time. Michael Moore is a perfectly satisfactory bassist when he’s playing the bassline but he’s not Stanley Clarke or Charlie Haden or Gary Peacock so his solos aren’t that exciting. Randy Jones is your average run-of-the-mill jazz drummer, though he may have a slightly heightened awareness of time, and Bobby Millitello’s playing rubs me the wrong way: he croons too much without enough definition or character. But there’s something perfunctory about the way these folks trade off solos and play in a style from year’s past without the expected modernity of a solo. There’s little interplay between the group to keep the music charged and so while the individual parts, well the Brubeck parts anyway, are a joy to listen to, the rest falls a bit flat.

This year’s Brubeck concert, the fifth year running at the festival (and the third one I’ve been at), was perhaps the best executed concert. The quartet format, with the addition of the cello, is the right format for Brubeck to be playing at and Koerner Hall is a perfect venue for this group. The acoustics and the seating sure beat the hell out of the Nathan Phillips Square tent from last year, and the music itself was at a higher level.

Seeing Dave Brubeck in Toronto is an essential for every jazz fan. He is, after all, a jazz great for good reason, and no one else has replicated what he has done in weird time signatures. “Time Out” and “Time Further Out” sit satisfactorily in every serious jazz lover’s collection. But there are only so many pieces from each of these albums, and Brubeck seems to only like to play a few of those, albeit the better ones, so if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all. Just make sure you go when it’s at an excellent venue.

Keith Jarrett Trio

The Keith Jarrett Trio, on the other hand, is a revelation every time they play. As a soloist, Keith Jarrett would easily sell out the Four Seasons Centre where his trio performed, but there’s an exciting additional dimension when he plays with the best jazz drummer, Jack DeJohnette, and the great bassist Gary Peacock. First of all, there isn’t a single low point to the concert: each moment can only be characterized as fantastic or more fantastic. I might even go so far as to say they reach perfection. In their extremely able hands, the music coruscates and they create an experience of immense beauty.

It is possible to listen to each of these magnificent players independently, focussing in on one in particular, and then rotating. But to do that would be to miss the richness of the texture they provide, the way in which they each carefully support one another yet find their own sound and complexity at the same time. When these masters improvise, they do it collaboratively without ever drowning out anything important. Keith Jarrett on piano, of course, leads the show, takes the melody and leads the improvisation. But listen to how Jack DeJohnette deviates from the norm, the subtle changes he makes, how he mimicks and supports what Jarrett does without copying him. And on bass, Peacock holds down the fort with a supportive but complex baseline that tends towards the melodic. The group played a variety of standards, including “My Funny Valentine”, “God Bless the Child”, and “Bye Bye Blackbird”. When they slow it down, it becomes so beautiful that it almost brought me to tears.

Keith Jarrett is probably the best jazz pianist alive right now and Jack DeJohnette is unquestionably the best living jazz drummer of any fame. So it’s no surprise that when they team up it’s dynamite. DeJohnette finds melody in his drumming and can actually make a beautiful line of the piano sound even more melodious rather than wrecking it with some banging. DeJohnette plays notes, not just rhythm. There is nothing run-of-the-mill about either of these two.

Halfway through the first set, Jarrett stopped in the middle of a piece because a note was out of tune on the piano. He asked the audience if “it sounds OK out there?”, and one clever-mouth chimed in “it sounds great, but our ears might not be as good as yours”. Jarrett proceeded to play the note in question repeatedly, commenting that it “sounded like ‘help!’” and that he owed Steinway a phone call to complain about their piano. He decided to go on but switched keys in order to evade the offensive sound.

At intermission, a brand new Steinway was rolled out on stage and fastidiously tuned: good thing they happened to have an extra Steinway Grand just lying around. This seemed to be to the satisfaction of Jarrett, who, after playing an even more amazing second set wowed the audience with not just one or two encores, but three encores. Thank goodness he liked the new piano and the hall. When he was here three years ago, we were treated to two fabulous encores because Jarrett liked the hall. And what’s not to like? The Four Seasons Opera House is a fantastic venue, a beautiful hall with outstanding acoustics: the perfect venue for these jazz masters. When I saw the trio three years ago, their last performance in Toronto, I wrote that it was the best concert I’d ever seen in my life. Well, I’d say their most recent concert on June 30th was exactly on par with the 2007 show: tied for the best concerts I’ve ever seen.

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Photo: Keith Jarrett performing at Carnegie Hall, September 26, 2005, Photo by Richard Termine, ECM Records

On Monday night, I squeezed into a horribly uncomfortable, plastic seat down at Nathan Phillips Square to enjoy what can only be described as a fabulous evening of jazz music, albeit with lame acoustics. The Dave Young Quartet opened the evening with local jazz piano virtuoso Robi Botos, Botos’s brother Frank on drums, Kevin Turcotte on trumpet, and band leader Dave Young on bass. The group played a solid set which included “Me and the Boys” by Coleman Hawkins, “Mean What You Say”, Cole Porter’s “Dream Dancing”, and a very beautiful Danish folksong. The band was at its best when Dave Young and Robi Botos took centre stage, either with the melody or their melodious solos. These two are very talented Canadian musicians, staples of the Toronto jazz scene and for good reason.

After intermission, the high energy Stanley Clarke Band featuring Hiromi took the stage by storm with Clarke on electric and acoustic bass, Hiromi on a Yamaha grand piano, Ruslan Sirota on keyboards, and Ronald Bruner Jr on drums. Clarke started out the evening with some electric bass, which proves that if he were a less serious musician he could have been a seriously big-time rock star: he’s cool, he’s assured, and he’s incredibly good. Clarke took good advantage of the portability of the electric bass to move around the stage and play some great call and response music with each of his musicians, standing up close to them, one by one, and jamming.

At the end of the first piece, an audience member shouted out “You’re the king, Stanley” and Clarke responded “I’m just a bass player, that’s all”. But he is the king, not because he can be a rock star, but because of his incredible talent and skill on the bass. He is a one-of-a-kind bass player who can take the melody and have it work, who can play at the top and the bottom of the piece, and who can make melodic music with just a few notes. Of course, his mastery is best show-cased on what is thankfully his preferred instrument, the acoustic bass. After the first piece, much to my surprise and glee, Clarke set aside his electric bass in favour of the acoustic bass, and moved us into some middle ground between jazz and jazz fusion, but far enough away from pure fusion that I was happy. It was especially a treat to hear some pieces from the “Jazz in the Garden” album such as Clarke’s “Paradigm Shift (Election Day)”.

The group then went on to play a Return to Forever piece, which was even better than the first piece and featured a truly memorable drum solo by Bruner. When he lost his first drum stick during the solo, Clarke turned to him and said “you lost your drumstick! WOW!”. And then the comedy routine began: in the middle of his solo he starts beating the drum with his foot so that his hands are free to take a drink and wipe his face. Once he’s using both hands again, with a new soon-to-be-lost drumstick, he starts beating the drums in a regular pattern. As the pattern becomes familiar, Bruner encourages the audience to clap along, when he decides to mischeviously skip a beat as though to say to us “hah! got you! didn’t play that note!”.

There were some sound troubles involving painful feedback which deafened the keyboardist and was really annoying Mr Clarke, so we took a break to fix the sound.

When the music got going again it was at its peak. Clarke and Hiromi are the real stars of the band and we really see them shine when they play together and each take their own solos.  These musicians are so in tune with each other that every note fits, every rhythm jives, and every second is musical.

Every time Clarke took a solo it was breathtaking. As I was watching him really slap that bass in a way I’ve never seen anyone play the bass before, I would glance back and forth at his band members and what I saw was sheer joy on Hiromi and Sirota’s face: they were just as blown away by Clarke as the audience was. And their smiles were infectious. Watching these musicians enjoy themselves onstage while they made music just made the already good music that much more engaging.

Stanley Clarke is the master of tension and release which makes it hard to do anything but get engaged and concentrate on the music. His music always melodic, in a way I’ve never heard the bass be melodic, and it’s infused with life and urgency. When I interviewed Joshua Redman, he commented that “jazz has a built in modernity and relevance through improvisation”, and the full meaning of that statement comes to light when watching Clarke solo and do joint solos with his bandmates.

The other star of the concert was Hiromi, an incredibly talented pianist whose well-refined jazz piano has such melodic force: it’s hard to believe she’s only thirty and can only just reach an octave. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen fingers move that quickly on a piano. As Hiromi told me in an interview before the festival “It requires a lot of practicing to be able to play the right notes, but I want to hear the sound and so I work hard to hear the sound.”  Her technique is impeccable but praising that alone would hardly do this musician credit. Hearing Hiromi play is like hearing a young, modern-day Oscar Peterson, but with her own personal and wonderful flare.

Clarke closed the concert by returning to the electric bass, which seemed to be a real audience pleaser. Don’t get me wrong, he’s wonderful on the electric bass, but sometimes the electric bass is about making noise. Clarke can make noise perfectly well but what makes him a standout bassist is his ability to turn the bass-line into melody and into music. When they finished their last piece and left the stage, someone came promptly onto the stage to remove Clarke’s bass, which seemed a clear signal that no encore was to be had. But a well-deserved prolonged standing ovation amazingly coaxed him back on stage for a solid encore. Overall, it was a great concert with enough jazz to please the real jazz fans, and enough rock-like flare to appease the fusion-obsessed.

Nevertheless, I can’t help thinking what a shame it is that these great musicians were put in such a terrible venue. The sound was loud and muddled making it often impossible to make out notes being played on the keyboard or hear Hiromi at all when she wasn’t solo-ing or duet-ing with Clarke. I was wearing drummers ear plugs the  whole time to fend off deafness while those with less tailored ear plugs were feeling their ears ringing. Great music deserves great acoustics. Toronto has so many fabulous venues that it seems a waste not to use them on this group for an already expensive concert ($40-50). But don’t let me being a curmudgeon deter you from seeing the Stanley Clarke Band featuring Hiromi live at the next opportunity, or for checking out “Jazz in the Garden” or the “Stanley Clarke Band”’s new album: the music speaks for itself and it has nothing but wonderful things to say.

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Image from Stanley Clarke’s flickr stream.

That’s the really frustrating thing about the humanities, even more than quantum physics – that so much of what happens in the humanities has small effects, maybe inspiring an article here, a dinner-time discussion there. If even. But every now and then, something earth-shattering comes along, some profound thought that changes the way we view ourselves, what we study, how we live, and what we do. Like the writings of Rousseau, Locke, Neitzsche, T.S. Eliot, that changed the way entire generations, entire centuries viewed themselves, or that changed, like Locke, the layout of the entire world. Celtic studies, Middle Eastern studies, and Eastern European studies are so contentious because people are still using them to define themselves. When Edward Gibbon wrote his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, his work said as much about Victorian England as about late antiquity.

And then there are those works in the humanities that will never shake the earth, but that make that which shakes the earth happen. Every discovery builds on previous thoughts. Robert Butts and Lawrence Cremin’s A History of Education in American Culture is not a groundbreaking work – it is only available in one copy in the entire U of T library system – but it informed the opinion of the court in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education supreme court case, which ended school segregation in the United States.

And then there are those ideas that never really gain a significance outside of their own fields, but that keep the fields going for their own sakes, that make us think about something more than just our taxes while we cook dinner or walk our dogs.

The humanities, far more than the sciences, are unpredictable. There are no set experimental steps that will take you to a set outcome, and the impact of research is nearly impossible to measure. So it’s all too easy to write the humanities off as useless, or a waste of money. The thing is, as important as our gadgets may be, society and social change are what define our lives and the way we live them – and neither of those things can function without the products of work in the humanities. That is why cuts in humanities funding, like King’s College London’s recent decision to scrap the UK’s only Chair in Paleography, are atrocious. That is why we owe it to ourselves to create the best possible environment for study and research in the humanities. That is why the humanities matter.