 She's the author and artist of War of Streets and Houses, a queer comics memoir about her time as an outside agitator during the Montreal Student Strike of 2012. Please welcome Sophie Yano. OK, so I'm going to read the journal comics and then a little bit from the book about the Montreal Student Strike and all that. I just, I think what you're doing, the theory and design is so cool. Man, I find it so hard to relate to a lot of my friends these days. Well, you know, I have different friends. I mean, I talked to my messenger friends about bike stuff and just drink and hang out. And I talked to, I don't know, my other friends about pretty much the same stuff, you know? No, I know. Oh my god, really? So these are just like one-pagers. For some reason, I always thought Joni was from California. No way she has that song about wanting to skate home. Oh, I wish I had a river. Oh, I totally have that album. Yeah. I could skate away on. I wish I had a river so long. What is this self-made lesbian hell? True stories, true tales. When I'm cruising around town dressed like a 16-year-old skater, I sometimes get the impression that middle-aged women are checking me out, wishing they could leave their husbands and join the sisterhood. These all take place in Montreal, where I moved like four years ago. This is a little longer. I'd been pretty sick for a couple of weeks when Nara invited me to a doom metal show. I wasn't going to say no, since the only thing I can bring myself to listen to on the metro lately is sun. Sun sounds like my head feels fuzzy and heavy. Despite the fact that I adore a few doom bands, I could not have described to you the subgenres of most of the bands on the many and varied denim jackets inside the venue. I recently tried to dye a denim jacket black. After two attempts, I only succeeded in getting it to charcoal. Inevitably, the next time I find myself at a riot, mid-vandalism, the cops will single me out for my black-clad friends, grab the one in charcoal gray. If one's soul is only as dark as one's denim jacket, I guess mine is not very dark. Then I saw it. Just let that sink in for a minute. The words, look at that guy's Neil Young patch, had barely left my mouth when he jumped on stage. His creaky vocals swam like bats in the rafters over the drone of held notes. And I wondered, did he make that, Mike Staff himself? I later confirmed he did not. We left after a great set, and yet I was unsettled. I can't get over that back patch. Oh yeah, that guy was a total ass to me on the St. Henry listserv. I was giving away tables, and he had me take two sets of photos before deciding the shit wasn't classy enough. I've heard he's nice. The problem with being in your 20s is that everyone knows anyone who's doing anything, and no one is a mystery anymore. Oh, but he's also a food blogger. I forgot. I want to read his new book. A food blogger? Days later, I was still plagued by the back patch. I mean, I know the jacket was black, but was it dark? Look, it makes total sense that a doom guy would like Neil Young. Neil is all about jamming on one note, get it? Whoa. And I guess the trebly voice over the long, low notes. But still, a food blogger? I checked out his book from the library. Cool. And this was a quote about the difference between margarine and butter. If you can't appreciate that, you best step back, because, brother, life is but an empty coffin and used being a touch too selective about how you feel it. I guess the darkness takes all kinds. So this, I guess not a lot of people are familiar necessarily with the Montreal student strike that took place in 2012. It was in the face of a massive tuition hike. And I had been here in 2009. I was in the UC system and all that jazz, and there was like the 30% tuition hike in 2009. But this was crazy. People just like, I mean, they had all these student unions already set up, and the response was huge. So I was there just kind of toodling around, not a student. But yeah, so here we go. When I was little, there was no Google Maps. It was mountains and trees. But we were close to Google HQ. The maps came pretty quick, giving directions to drive down roads, which we knew to be impassable. As kids, we wandered. We knew every path. If I were to hunker down somewhere, I'd probably have the best advantage in those woods. Considering that the end of the tuition freeze by the government represents an increase of 30% of educational fees and therefore reduces the accessibility of student study. Oh man, this is a big one. Considering that the augmentation of loans and scholarship is insufficient to truly assure accessibility to all, oh, not today. I shouldn't go down there. Considering the position of members of this association regarding the financing of post-secondary education is adopted as follows, quote, against all hikes and tuition and pertaining fees and for a major reinvestment in education from the perspective of free tuition, considering that the strike is a collective tool which can permit us to negotiate with the government, considering that the strike is also a platform to raise consciousness in a method which permits us to make even more actions and in this way increase the pressure on the government. OK, well, see you guys later. Bye-bye. And that this association has adopted a mandate for unlimited general strike, dot, dot, dot, wham. The metro doors are closed behind me. I want to fight, but ruffle. Abstractly, I am afraid of being arrested, toss. Concretely, I am afraid of being hurt. Hey, this is crazy. I was standing with a peace sign. Then they say, bouge, bouge. Move. Bam, matric. What's that called again? A night stick. They got me right in the knee. In the spring, there were 200,000 people in the streets. OK, let's get out of here. Broken windows, street fighting. I was nervous, so I threw some weed and a trashcan back there. Let me just grab it. Night walks in the thousands. Where'd everyone go? It lasted for months, then quietly disappeared. This heat is oppressive. I feel oppressed. Blah. I keep thinking about architecture and control. You should audit that class. That prof was really supportive during the strike. I can't believe class is back, just like that. The first real city I ever lived in was Paris. That certainly feels weird to say. I grew up in a fairly rural place, went to college in a small beach town. You'd always felt I had no choice but to go to a city. Where else can a queer kid go to find people like them to experiment with the possibilities only made real by city life? I spent five months in Paris studying, and I was anxious the entire time. It takes time to learn to live in a city where I'm from I could always go for a walk in the woods when I felt that anxiety. Here I went to open spaces, Grand Boulevard, and the edge of the river. But it's not the same as the woods. Before I came to Montreal, I read an artist's statement from some poster makers, talking about the importance of posturing around town. I thought nothing of it coming from a coastline which knows almost nothing but sprawl, where human scale things are quaint or unimaginable. Here, alleyways blank at the city. You can post your whole neighborhoods by bike and know there will be people out to see your work. When I finally made it to the suburbs, I found it again, sprawl, where human scale things are quaint or unimaginable. When I first arrived, I had no understanding of the geography. The city filled in with every walk. Eventually, I made it downtown. Could be anywhere, calm, empty, as if it hid nothing and had nothing to hide. Class is on the 12th floor of a downtown building. I've been sitting at the back to be out of the way next to the windows. At the break, I stare out, but not for too long. I don't want to get myself away. I've never been up here. Tactical advantage. Thinking about space, abstracting in order to understand might be one way to deal. I am trying to remove myself from the picture, but it is impossible. If the strike is about disruption, we go downtown to disrupt the normal flow of things. So time and again, I drag myself down. That ever-present feeling that in this place, we are up against something bigger. Thanks.