Around campus

AROUND CAMPUS

Fear and black clothing in the Shatner Building

With Halloween season upon us, doctors of the occult are recommending that you have your bones chilled, spine tingled and heart stopped at least once in the next couple of weeks. Luckily you can get the full treatment for eight bucks or less, simply by attending a McGill Players' Theatre performance of The Woman in Black, a modern ghost play that the student theatre group will stage from Oct. 26-29. Adapted for the stage by Stephen Mallatratt from Susan Hill's 1983 novel, The Woman in Black tells the tale of Arthur Kipps, a middle-aged lawyer who enlists the help of a professional actor to help him grapple with a dark and terrifying memory: many years before, while settling an estate in the English marshlands, Kipps encountered a mysterious black-clad woman who would plunge him into a dark sea of unfathomable horror. Needless to say, she wasn't a female Johnny Cash impersonator. Waah ah ah!

Thursday to Saturday, Oct. 26-28, 8pm, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2pm; Player's Theatre (3480 McTavish 3rd floor); admission $8 for adults, $6 for students/seniors. Tickets available at 514-398-6813.

Holy physics lecture, Batman!

In what promises to be a powerful summoning of the inner nerd in us all, McGill's Physics Department invites us to attend Professor James Kakalios's Nov. 9 talk on the physics of an unlikely phenomenon: comic book superheroes. A professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, Kakalios is the author of The Physics of Superheroes, in which he marries his expertise in hard science with his passion for pulp comic book fiction, drawing examples from the annals of such classic series as Spiderman, Superman, and X-Men to illustrate scientific concepts like Newtonian physics and thermal dynamics. Who knows? Maybe Kakalios will let us in on his scientific theory of why no one notices that uncanny resemblance between Superman and Clark Kent.

Thursday, Nov. 9, 6 pm; Macdonald-Harrington Building (815 Sherbrooke St. W.), Rm G10; admission free. For more info: Elizabeth Shearon, 514-398-6490.

Haunted House
Thomson House

ISTOCKPHOTO

Everyone knows that McGill graduate students can go through books the way Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger go through dissipated teenagers. But can they carve a pumpkin? Can they cut a rug? Thomson House is inviting McGill Post-Graduate Students' Society members and their guests to a good old-fashioned pumpkin carving on Friday, Oct. 27 and a harrowing Halloween costume party on Saturday, Oct. 28. The jack o' lantern that takes first prize on Friday will earn its sculptor two free tickets to Saturday's ball, at which the carved orange fruits of everyone's labour will serve as decoration. And if you were planning on waiting ‘til the last minute only to resign yourself to lamely repeating "I'm dressed as myself" for yet another year, you might want to think again: top-costumed revelers will vie for $500 worth of prizes.

Pumpkin carving contest, Fri., Oct. 27, 6pm, free, Thomson House Restaurant (3650 McTavish); Halloween Party, Sat., Oct. 28, 9 pm, $5 (max. 2 per ID, all proceeds to breast cancer research, tickets on sale at Thomson House, Rm 401).

Osler hits the big 3-0

Anyone familiar with the recent history of Britain's health care system will recognize the name of McGill's 30th annual Osler Lecturer. Sir Donald Irvine, who presided over the UK medical profession at a time of unprecedented turbulence as President of the General Medical Council (GMC) from 1995-2002, will bring the Osler Lecture into its thirties on Thursday, Nov. 9 with a talk called "Everyone Is Entitled to a Good Doctor." The first family doctor to hold the presidency of the GMC, the now semi-retired Irvine is known to use speak-by-invitation opportunities such as this one to road test thought-provoking new policy ideas.

Thirtieth Annual Osler Lecture. Wednesday, Nov. 1, 6pm; Charles F. Martin Amphitheatre, McIntyre Medical Sciences Building (3655 Promenade Sir William Osler), Rm 504. For more information, contact Heike Faerber, 514-398-6033.

Mercury rising

The 2006 McGill Centraide Campaign is under way, calling on all generous campus-goers to give a little for a big cause.

"If every McGill employee were to donate $2.00 of their pay, we could raise $500,000 for Centraide," says Catherine Stace, Student Service Chair for the 2006 Campaign.

Last year, thanks to gifts from McGillians, Centraide raised $280,000 for those in need. The money supported over 350 agencies and projects across Montreal.

So far this year, the Centraide thermometre has reached $61,386.92.

For information on how to donate, visit www.centraide-mtl.org.