If you are an aspiring writer, poet or artist and are looking to have your work published then check out Creations, Dawson College’s literary magazine, which is back again this year.
This magazine is a literary journal where students can get their poems, essays, short stories and drawings published. Although Creations magazine was not running last year due to a lack of interest Kathleen Carter, a second year literature student has decided to run it this time.
“Creations was introduced to me during the welcome day for the literature program. I thought that someone would continue the project during my first year, but when I heard nothing about it, I decided to try to start it back up the next year,” said Carter.
With the help of Paul Serralheiro, Kris Woofter and Anne Lambert, Carter has done just that.
“They’ve all been incredibly resourceful and encouraging; without their help, Creations wouldn't be at all possible,” said Carter.
In the past Creations has focused mostly on short fiction and poetry but this year Carter wants to expand Creations horizons a bit “by including more artwork, photographs and creative essays.”
“I found that although the journal was a wonderful expression for some, I think that by including those new categories for entries we would receive a lot more incredibly creative works,” said Carter.
Creations usually coincides with the Creative Arts festival, which is typically held in April. This means that the magazine should be ready to print a few weeks before then. In order to meet this deadline Carter and her team which consists of Amanda Triassi, Tara Gurudata, Claudia Alexander and Brian Lolly are still looking for people to be on staff.
“As a team, we're looking for people who are serious about literature and other artistic pursuits to be editors and to help us judge the works we receive to decide whether or not they're fit for publication.”
Carter has decided that there will be no specific positions and everyone on staff is considered equal.
“Right now, all our positions are kind of loose. I think the best thing to do to avoid any conflict would be if the group were all treated as equals, and allotted with the same responsibilities as judges, editors, typists, representatives, fundraisers, etc,” said Carter.
Of course another way to be part of Creations is to submit your works to DawsonCreations@hotmail.com, or writing to the same address to set up an appointment with Kathleen Carter.
“Should anyone be interested we still need a front and back cover as well.”
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Plant: Live N Dirty
The lights are low, the music’s loud and the smell of sweat, beer and cigarettes is in the air. Welcome to LiveNDirty’s battle of the bands finals, hosted at Plaza Theater on St Hubert Street. After playing three rounds the final seven bands battle it out for a chance to record at Piccolo Studios.
Each of the seven bands had a unique sound which made this show all the more interesting.
“Our sound is some kind of Blues with lots of rock. The main name is rock and boom,” said David, Alex and Frank, the members of the band The In and Outs.
“We’d describe ourselves as rock mixed with punk with some pop aspects, a bit of everything,” said Brendan Lucas the lead singer of Wake Up Call.
Plaza Theater can hold 400 people according to their website. There were probably only about 150 people there which is usually the case with these type of shows.
The crowd was mostly people between the ages of 25-50 who are friends and family members of the band.
“I’m here because my boyfriend is playing in the band Back On Earth,” said Sandra.
“Mark is my boy,” said Mitch Brown referring to the bassist in Wake Up Call.
It’s nice to see so much support from family and friends however this kind of audience is the kind that rather sit on a stool and sip their beer then start a mosh pit and dance like crazy.
This makes for a relaxing environment but one that can get some what boring for the younger members of the audience. However the saving grace here is the talent was unbelievable.
Some shows that involve young up and coming bands leave you wondering if the singers ever sung before and if the band even knows what there doing.
But at this show every band nailed it and they know it.
“As a musician you know when you do a good show and we feel like we nailed it,” said Dre Barone the drummer for the band Juliette.
Its no wonder that tonight’s show proves to be one of the best.
“Obviously this show was great because of the venue,” said David of The In and Outs.
“This [show] right here, this one was amazing. Our best so far,” said Nick Gervasi, the guitarist of Juliette.
Even the audience seems to agree.
“This is definitely one of the best shows I’ve seen. The sound quality was really good,” said Jesse Monette.
Alex, one of the organizers has been with LiveNDirty for two years.
“I’ve organized about 50-60 shows,” said Alex.
“The one piece of advice I’d give to up coming bands is it’s about the image.”
Although each band has a great reason for why they deserve to win only one band can reign supreme
“We’re the youngest band in this competition so it would be a great underdog story,” said Mark Chung from Wake Up Call.
“We deserve to win because we’ve got soul, we’re a small band with big soul,” said Gervasi.
At around 1:30am the last band was finished and the three organizers were about to announce the winner.
Even though the crowd had thinned by then everyone who was there cheered as loud as they could for the band they wanted to win.
The energy in the room was really intense and after thanking everyone who participated and making a few jokes, the three organizers announced that Back on Earth is the winner of this years LiveNDirty competition.
It’s not hard to tell why. They’re rock/metal music was performed flawlessly and the singers deep voice compliments this kind of sound. They put on a great show and they have a lot of fans.
After the band collected the prize and gets off the stage many of the audience members swarmed the band congratulating them with cheers and hugs.
“It feels very good to win,” said Mathieu Lalande, the drummer.
It’s unbelievable it’s happening too fast I didn’t expect to be here. It’s a dream come true, a little dream but still,” said Yan Laramé the lead singer.
For more information on LiveNDirty shows visit http://www.myspace.com/livendirty
Each of the seven bands had a unique sound which made this show all the more interesting.
“Our sound is some kind of Blues with lots of rock. The main name is rock and boom,” said David, Alex and Frank, the members of the band The In and Outs.
“We’d describe ourselves as rock mixed with punk with some pop aspects, a bit of everything,” said Brendan Lucas the lead singer of Wake Up Call.
Plaza Theater can hold 400 people according to their website. There were probably only about 150 people there which is usually the case with these type of shows.
The crowd was mostly people between the ages of 25-50 who are friends and family members of the band.
“I’m here because my boyfriend is playing in the band Back On Earth,” said Sandra.
“Mark is my boy,” said Mitch Brown referring to the bassist in Wake Up Call.
It’s nice to see so much support from family and friends however this kind of audience is the kind that rather sit on a stool and sip their beer then start a mosh pit and dance like crazy.
This makes for a relaxing environment but one that can get some what boring for the younger members of the audience. However the saving grace here is the talent was unbelievable.
Some shows that involve young up and coming bands leave you wondering if the singers ever sung before and if the band even knows what there doing.
But at this show every band nailed it and they know it.
“As a musician you know when you do a good show and we feel like we nailed it,” said Dre Barone the drummer for the band Juliette.
Its no wonder that tonight’s show proves to be one of the best.
“Obviously this show was great because of the venue,” said David of The In and Outs.
“This [show] right here, this one was amazing. Our best so far,” said Nick Gervasi, the guitarist of Juliette.
Even the audience seems to agree.
“This is definitely one of the best shows I’ve seen. The sound quality was really good,” said Jesse Monette.
Alex, one of the organizers has been with LiveNDirty for two years.
“I’ve organized about 50-60 shows,” said Alex.
“The one piece of advice I’d give to up coming bands is it’s about the image.”
Although each band has a great reason for why they deserve to win only one band can reign supreme
“We’re the youngest band in this competition so it would be a great underdog story,” said Mark Chung from Wake Up Call.
“We deserve to win because we’ve got soul, we’re a small band with big soul,” said Gervasi.
At around 1:30am the last band was finished and the three organizers were about to announce the winner.
Even though the crowd had thinned by then everyone who was there cheered as loud as they could for the band they wanted to win.
The energy in the room was really intense and after thanking everyone who participated and making a few jokes, the three organizers announced that Back on Earth is the winner of this years LiveNDirty competition.
It’s not hard to tell why. They’re rock/metal music was performed flawlessly and the singers deep voice compliments this kind of sound. They put on a great show and they have a lot of fans.
After the band collected the prize and gets off the stage many of the audience members swarmed the band congratulating them with cheers and hugs.
“It feels very good to win,” said Mathieu Lalande, the drummer.
It’s unbelievable it’s happening too fast I didn’t expect to be here. It’s a dream come true, a little dream but still,” said Yan Laramé the lead singer.
For more information on LiveNDirty shows visit http://www.myspace.com/livendirty
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Opus is here
The STM released the new Opus transit cards in August. These cards are now replacing the old bus/metro/train passes and claim to be more efficient due to the fact that it reduces waste because the card is good for 2 years and because you can “charge [the] card with various transit fares, according to [your] needs. For example, [one] could charge it with six STM tickets, eight STL bus tickets and an AMT zone 3 TRAM pass.”
However just getting the basic information about this card is practically impossible. Even though The STM website has a fact sheet about this new card it’s very confusing and hard to find what it is exactly you want to know.
After clicking on the large opus icon in the middle of the STM homepage a page with a bunch of headers pops up. Under the students’ link it says that if “You are between 18 and 25 years old (STM and RTL only) and are a Montréal island resident or an RTL client; Are over the age of 17 and under the age of 26 at October 31 of current year” you qualify for reduced fare. If you are between 18 and 21 years old and study full-time at an institution recognized by the MELS; are over the age of 17 and under the age of 22 at October 31 of current year you qualify for STL and AMT intermediate fares.”
With the change of cards there has also been a change in fares. All fares have gone up in price. For example student Zone 2 train pass costs 72.00 a month. That’s up from 54.00. Also for anyone over 18 six tickets cost 15.00 instead of 12.00 and one bus ticket is now 3.25. That’s a one dollar and fifty cent increase.
The STM has also changed the wording of everything. Now TRAM 2 is what we call the old ZONE 2 and a transfer is now called a "Support Conforme."
Some other problems were encountered when people tried to add fares onto their Opus cards. Teenaged kids who work at pharmacies and depaneurs don’t know how to load the card because there just teenaged kids not technical support people.
Here are some testimonies from people who have purchased the new opus card (or, well, tired too)
“I got a lot of problems today with [the opus card] and it cost me 2 x 3,50$ = 7$ because the card that they sell me was virgin (uninitialized) so wait a few month until those bugs are fixed before buying the Opus Card.”
“First attempt to re-load my opus with a July monthly RTL pass was a failure. The owner of the depanneur was apparently given the terminal with a French only set up manual, and had set it up incorrectly (The dep was in an area of Brossard where the population is mainly Hong Kong diaspora)... I gave up and left after he waited 10 minutes for technical support to answer . Bilingual manuals would have been a really good thought.”
-Mike
“It is not a language barrier, it a knowledge barrier! I have also got problem within depanneur, pharmacies and other type of convenient store and they speaks French, so trust me it is not a matter of language its a matter of proper training of the cashiers that makes the system so unreliable.”
”The Opus card works great with bus and metro reader. But the recharge system is a pain in the a%&. I think is worst when you try to buy them outside of a transit company like RTL, STL-Laval, STM or AMT.”
To read more testimonies and facts about OPUS:
http://www.cptdb.ca/index.php?showtopic=3637&st=280
www.stcum.qc.ca
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