Poetry readings conjure the mental image of a dimly lit, smoky room filled with artsy men in berets and dark clothing snapping their fingers in response to deeply inaccessible gibberish. A point filling Station Magazine Managing Editor Derek Beaulieu hopes to make this weekend at the magazine's first poetry BLOW-OUT is that poetry readings don't have to be daunting or inaccessible.

Showing more than 3,600 new University of Calgary students the ins and outs of campus social and academic life, U of C 101 is getting a little more personal and a lot louder this year.

September will see the opening of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary.

This year the faculty will welcome 30 students, putting the province and the U of C on the leading edge of research into areas such as food supply safety and zoonotic diseases like BSE and West Nile that can jump from animals to humans.

I have been asked for proof of age three times in the past week. Twice, I was buying a delicious malted beverage that promised to hammer mercilessly on my inhibitions. The third time, I was purchasing a video game rated "Mature" by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. Slightly taken aback, I produced my driver's license and allowed the clerk to examine it.

It might have been recast as a request for getting things started after Wal-Mart's political correctness took hold, but in 2003 the Black Eyed Peas were asking their fans to get retarded. Don't think about it, don't search for some way to turn it into irony, just bob your head like an epileptic and get your ass on the dance floor.

After listening to the first two songs of this blues sampler, I thought, "If this is the future of the blues, spare me please." The tracks "Memphis" by Taxi Chain and "Sleepless Dream" by David Jacobs-Strain are nothing more than pleasantly melodic, commercially driven folksy MOR drivel that one might accidentally stumble across on an adult contempo radio station. The good news is that it's mostly uphill from there.

Picture yourself walking down an empty street on a cool spring afternoon--the sky above you milky white, a soft breeze tousles your hair. You scrunch your hands into your pockets and stare at the street beneath your feet, looking up periodically to take in the space around you.

In a society revolving around computers, video games and movies, paying attention to anything, let alone the subtleties of music, can be tough. Unfortunately, The Starting Line's sophomore album, Based on a True Story, undeniably falters at every turn, not even giving the listener a chance to get interested.

]Take one of the most underrated Canadian bands of the '90s, add one of the most overrated Canadian bands ever, and you're left with Stripper's Union. Their debut album Local 518 is competently written, impeccably performed, and strangely lacking in charisma. It is, in a word, Canadian.

From his early electronically charged days with pop group Roxy Music in the '70s to the present day, Brian Eno remains a true pioneer of the avant garde.