Mt. A and Me

My Disappearing Reappearing Act

2009-10-31T16:44:00.001-07:00

Knock, knock...is anybody home? Oh well, it's just me! I am sure you thought I was gone for good this time, but alas, Landon never leaves you forever! As a new school year started two months ago, it seemed that this blog was due to end. It seemed to me that my ties to the university with this initiative were dwindling. As such, I slowly let the blog fade away during the summer months. However, it seems I was wrong, and I have been asked now to continue for awhile longer.

It seems hard to know where to begin. There is so much to cover. I will do my best to fit it all in!

When I left you, it was August and summer was beginning to slide away. I spent the summer months in Sackville working on a music composition project (more on this later). At the end of the month, I finally went home to Vancouver. This felt very good since I had not been home since December. I had a chance to see all my family, many friends, and of course eat some great food. As much as I love Sackville, there is only so many dining options in a town of 5000 people, so being able to eat sushi and more daily was a welcome change in Vancouver.

After spending some time in the city, my family and I went to the Hawaiian island of Lanai for a little R&R. Lanai is one of the smallest islands in the chain and very quiet. There is one town and only two major resorts. The great thing about this is that there was no "touristy" distractions. All I did was sit on the beach, read, golf, and eat. Truly wonderful!

Then I returned to Mt. Allison to begin my fourth year! It is always exciting coming back to a new school year. You get to reunite with all of your friends and also meet the adorable newbies who are both excited, and to be frank, scared shitless!

Now that I am in my fourth year, it seems like classes are becoming less a part of my day to day life. This is partially because more of my classes are seminars or self-study projects, which means I am no longer sitting in lecture halls all the time. It is very freeing in positive and negative ways. At the same time, as always, I have little time to think about this since I am so busy (as is MTA tradition!) with many other activities.

On Oct. 21, we held the premiere of my new song collection I composed over the summer with my grant. The collection is called, "7 MONDAYS: A Cabaret." I took poems by different MTA student writers and wrote songs with them. The concert was a great success! We had a great turnout and my group of singers and pianists did an excellent job. If you are interested in hearing my songs, you can hear the live recordings from the concert on my Myspace page: www.myspace.com/landonbraverman

Next on the docket is the Windsor Theatre musical. At the end of November we are performing the incredible musical COMPANY by Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim. I am playing the lead character, Robert ('Bobby') which is an exciting challenge. My character virtually never leaves the stage throughout the show. So I have to be at every rehearsal and learn a lot of lines + songs.

That is sort of it right now. I am continuing to compose new pieces of music. I am also laying the ground work for a new musical that I want to start writing soon!

My apologies for being gone for so long. If you are reading this now, I thank you for sticking with me. For those of you who are new readers, welcome to my blog! I hope that I can shed some insight on what it is like to be a student at Mt. Allison. As always, please email me if you have any questions: lsbraverman@mta.ca

Landon

The Hipsters Have Invaded!

2009-08-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

That's right folks! Bring on the plaid, multi-coloured tight jeans, nerdy glasses, cut-off jeans, and American Apparel, because SAPPYFEST 2009 just hit Sackville.

Starting in 2006, SAPPYFEST is an annual music festival held every summer in Sackville. In its short lifespan, it has become one of the biggest indie rock festivals in the Maritime region. This year was definitely the biggest yet. It started on Friday and went until Sunday evening. In those three days, more than 40 bands played here! More than 600 people migrated to Sackville. I had never seen the town so busy - it was awesome! There were people just everywhere downtown and temporary campsites were being put up left right and centre.

Bridge St. was cordoned off and filled with a huge outdoor tent. This was the mainstage. The Vogue Theatre, Uncle Larry's, United Church, and Sackville Music Hall were also used as music venues. The mainstage was so much fun. In the tented area was the music of course, but also BBQs, merch tables, beer tables, and more. Throughout the weekend, people drew chalk art all over the street. There were random sing alongs busting out as well as craft and record fairs. The overall spirit was just so amazing and infectious. It was so strange to be at a Sackville show and NOT know almost everyone around you - but I loved seeing the town so busy.

The other funny thing about it all was that it turned into an impromptu reunion weekend. In the first few hours on Friday, I ran into dozens of old MTA friends who have graduated but returned for the weekend. It was amazing!

The lineup of bands this year really proved how amazing this festival has become. We had the likes of:
-Destroyer (Dan Bejar from The New Pornographers)
-Eric's Trip
-Julie Doiron
-Ohbijou
-Rock Plaza Central
-Ladyhawk
-Attack in Black
-Wintersleep
-The Burning Hell, and
-Old Man Luedecke

I hung around at all of the stages through the weekend soaking in as much music as I could. Along the way I discovered some great new bands and sounds, and also enjoyed great sets from some of my tested favourites. Here is my list of the top shows I saw:
-100 Dollars
-The Gertrudes
-Jon Rae Fletcher
-Ohbijou
-Ladyhawk
-Timber Timbre
-Calvin Johnson
-Attack in Black, and
-Wintersleep

All of these bands or artists are worth checking out. 100 Dollars is an amazing blend of alternative country with sultry indie rock, led by beautiful female vocals. The Gertrudes were my favourite new discovery: A huge group of around 8 musicians from Ontario who play a beautiful blend of folk and indie music with creative vocals and instrumental arrangements. Jon Rae sounded as great as ever, even without his old backing band The River. Ohbijou are a lovely new band gaining steam. Their female lead singer has one of the most intense and attractive voices I have heard in indie rock in a long time! Ladyhawk made BC proud with an intense set of hard core indie rock with loud vocals and searing guitar solos. Timber Timbre was an interesting discovery. Atmospheric indie music at its best. Calvin Johnson is beyond description; however, I will just say that his dance moves alone are worth the price of admission! Attack in Black are a slick and impressive band pumping out solid blues-infused rock tunes. Last, but certainly not least, is Halifax's own Wintersleep. This was the third time I have seen this band, and thus far they have not failed to impress me. I love their albums and their show is even better. It was loud, intense, layered, and fun! This set was their best yet to be honest. The energy was amazing and their instrumental improvs were so impressive. The drummer absolutely stole the whole show for me. I look forward to seeing them again sometime soon.

Well I think that is enough gushing from me about the joys of SAPPY and indie rock. Things have quieted down again in Sackville, which I guess is nice.

I will be heading back to Vancouver at the end of the week to visit family. It has been a long time since I have been back to the West Coast, so I am excited to return. I am going to see lots of people, hopefully do some shopping, and of course eat as much sushi as I can in the time that I am there!

See you all again soon!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Summer Lovin'

2009-07-19T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hello readers - how are we today? I am doing just fine. The sun is shining and Sackville is quiet. I am just sitting here in my apartment working on music and other things while rocking out to the new Phoenix record.

*SIDEBAR: If you have not yet heard the new Phoenix record, you are missing out. Go start listening now!

Anyway, since Canada Day, which is where we last left off, things have been both busy and slow. My composition projects have been picking up speed, which is always very exciting! In recent weeks I have been creating sheet music for all of the songs from my musical I am writing. Soon I will have the entire score written down, which is really important. It has been a good process too because as I go back into the songs, I have been looking at the piano parts and the lyrics and making some significant improvements. My grant project is also going really well. I have three new songs that have come together in the last two weeks. They are all very different and I am really happy with them. My goal is to write somewhere between 7-10 by the end of the summer, so I think I am on my way to achieving this. Soon I will start sending out finished songs to some of my music student friends to see if they will perform them when classes starts back up again in September.

Even though the weather has been very spotty recently, I have been getting outside as much as I can. I have been playing Ultimate Frisbee twice a week with a group, and that is really fun. I have been getting much better at the game the more I play, and I think I may actually play with the team when the academic year starts. My friend Brandon and I have been going running at least once a week, and I have also been getting out on my bike.

The other night I went golfing with my friend Sean at the Amherst Golf Club. He had heard about this special they do every Wednesday. Basically, you get to start playing at 6:30pm and get as many holes in as you can before 8:30. At that point, you come back to the clubhouse with everyone else where you get a beer and are also entered in a draw for prizes. Now here's the best part: the whole thing costs only $5! The club does it to get more people out onto the course of all experience levels. It was really fun because there were people there who were really good, and others who had never played before. The attitude was really relaxed and fun. The Amherst course is much more complex than the Sackville course, but I actually played better there!

Over the last two weeks, Sackville has been busy with the annual Festival by the Marsh. This arts festival has been running for a few years now, and is a great thing for Sackville. There are many different events, including art shows, concerts, and play productions. The cornerstone of it every year is the Shakespeare play, which they perform outdoors by the Swan Pond. This year they did The Taming of the Shrew. A couple of my theatre friends were involved with the show, so of course I went. I had never seen this one before, so it was interesting for me. They did a really good job with the show. The visual design was incredible actually, and the acting performances were quite solid all around. I am not sure if Shrew is really one of my favourite Shakespeare comedies, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless.

Coming up - not very much! I will just keep working away on these projects and such. I will also probably continue watching West Wing DVD sets, which I am now addicted to - geeky, yes I know. I will be heading back to Vancouver to visit family in August. Even though I do not leave for three weeks, I know it's going to come up really fast.

Also, I am going into Moncton tomorrow with some friends to see the latest Harry Potter movie. I am very excited!!!

I hope your summer is going well. If you have any questions about Mt. Allison, as always, please do not hesistate to ask.

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Oh Canada!

2009-07-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

How's it going everyone? I hope your summer season is off to a good start. We have officially moved into the thick of the summer, with the beginning of July. The weather has unfortunately not been the nicest here in Sackville, but that has not kept us from getting outside and staying active.

At the end of my last post, I mentioned that I was heading to Prince Edward Island. I went there with my friend Corey for 4 days for a little vacation. I had never been to the island before, so I was very excited about this trip. Corey is from the Maritimes, and he has family on the island, so he already knew his way around the island.

Even though we did not have the best weather on the island, it totally lived up to my expectations. There are very few places in the world that actually look like the perfect pictures you see in tourism brochures. PEI is one of these few places. It is nicknamed "The Gentle Island," and with good reason. The minute you hit the island, every worry just seems to go away. The pace of life is very relaxed and easy. The whole place is GREEN! The sandy beaches were just perfect, the red cliffs were gorgeous, and the people were extremely friendly.

On our first day, we crossed the amazing Confederation Bridge and drove to our hotel, which was a golf resort on Lakeside Beach. The place was really nice. We then went into Charlottetown to look around a bit before going to see the Anne of Green Gables Musical, which is officially one of the longest running shows in the world, with over 2500 performances since the 1960s. The next day, Corey and I continued our Anne exploration by going to the original Green Gables house in Cavendish. While all of this Anne stuff was sort of silly and touristy, it was nice to know that I have done it. I actually played the role of Gilbert in the musical when a production of it was done in Vancouver, years ago. So I guess I sort of felt that since I was on the island, I had to take the opportunity to see these things. Nevertheless, it really does get pushed in your face. The minute you hit the island, there are gift shops everywhere with Anne stuff. In Charlottetown, there is a whole Anne store, and an Anne chocolate shop!

After the Anne stuff, the rest of the trip was more relaxed. I played a round at the golf course at our resort. It was a spectacular course! Some of the holes actually take you right alongside the beach. We also had some great meals at our hotel and at some nice B&Bs.

On our last day, we did the Points East Coastal Drive. This drive too us around the entire east coast of the island. It took us both through inland areas and shorelines. Along the way, we saw many amazing communities. We also saw the amazing beach at Basin Head. We saw the Cape Bear lighthouse, which is where the first Titanic distress signal was picked up. We also stopped at the Rossignol Estate Winery, which is the only winery on the island. Eventually we made our way back west through Charlottetown, where we stopped for a lobster dinner. Then we drove to the bridge and headed back to Sackville. Hopefully I will make it back to the island again someday soon, since it is quite amazing. I would love to golf some more and enjoy the beaches some more.

Since then, things have been quiet around here in Sackville. The summer semester at the university has ended, so many students who were around for that have left town. All that is left is us research students and the "townies."

Canada Day was a lot of fun! The park near my place was overrun with people. There was live music, face painting, and much more. I checked it out and ran into a bunch of MASSIE students, who were quite enthralled by their first Canada Day experience. Later on, a couple of my friends came over to my place and we spent the day at my keyboard singing and writing music. It was a lot of fun!

Now I am just starting to get more involved with my work on my research project. I finally feel moved into my new apartment, which helps. I have been composing some new pieces for the musical, and also just finished a new song for my collection I am doing for my grant.

Until next time, please enjoy your summer, and don't forget your suntan lotion!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

I'm Not Dead!

2009-06-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

How's it going everyone? I bet you were wondering where in the world I disappeared to? Well let me assure you that I am perfectly well, and I do truly apologize for being gone for so long. This past month and a half since the academic year ended has been a bit crazy. It has been a huge time of transition. I am staying in Sackville this summer (for my first time) in order to work on a music composition project.

After exams ended at the end of April, I moved out of my house into a new apartment. I am now living in my own place above the post office building. It is a really nice unit. Now, coming from Vancouver (and having lived in residence and then a furnished house), I did not have any furniture. So I had to completely furnish the new place, which was kind of crazy. It took 4 days of trips back and forth between Sackville and Moncton. Then, once everything was ordered, I had to wait for it all to be delivered from the different stores, which took several weeks. Then on top of that, I had a few cases where parts were missing or the wrong piece came from the stores. The place is just finally starting to come together. It has been frustrating, but I guess that's the name of the game.

So inside has been annoying, but outside has actually been amazing. Summer in Sackville is beyond gorgeous! The town looks so great. Also, the town gets really quiet which is nice. There is just a small core of MTA students around, and we hang out a lot. The good weather has allowed me to get on my bike and explore new areas of the Sackville area that I never knew existed. For example, I have been able to spend time out at beautiful Silver Lake. I also biked out along the dikes on the Bay of Fundy, which was really neat.

If you have read my blog regularly, you know I have talked about the MASSIE program. This is where we have around 45 Japanese students come to MTA for first semester. They live in the dorms with us and take English classes. Well we also do a summer session of this. So I have another conversation partner and his name is Kazuki. We have been having a really great time together. We have been going out to restaurants, cooking at my place, playing music, and we even went canoeing with friends on Silver Lake.

Last week I went with my friend Emily to Boston and New York City. I had never been to Boston before, so I found it very interesting. It is a very pretty city. I got to see lots of the sights, toured some potential grad schools, and of course shopped for some New England preppy clothing! We then met up with our MTA friend Francesca in NYC. Although always a hectic place, it was a lot of fun. I got to see a great new Broadway musical called Next to Normal. It just won the Best Music award at the Tonys. It is a very serious and real musical, which was a refreshing break from the typical over the top stuf that is playing in most theatres. The next night, my friends and I went to see Shakespeare's Twelfth Night outside in Central Park. Everyear, the Public Theatre of NY takes over the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park to do a Shakespeare production. This year's production starred Anne Hathaway as Viola and also featured some other famous Broadway actors (Raul Esparza, Audra MacDonald). The production was awesome! The direction was top notch, as the actors had a great hold on the brilliant mix of comedy and drama that exists within that play. We got to meet Anne Hathaway after, which was pretty awesome. We waited by the stage door after and she came out. She was really sweet, which was cool. The next day, I went to the Guggenheim Museum, and then went down to SoHo to do some shopping. Overall, it was a very fun trip and a nice break from the small town of Sackville.

I came back to Sackville and continued to make progress on the songs I am writing on. Basically I am taking a collection of poems written by MTA students and setting them to music. My plan is to have the whole set performed by music students when the new academic year starts.

I am now leaving for PEI where I will be spending a few days. I have never been there before but I have always heard that it's gorgeous, so I am very excited!

See you soon!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Opera Tour (Part 1)

2009-04-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

It has been another busy week around here as I have been tying things up in Sackville, while also traveling around New Brunswick on a tour with some fellow music students.

The first part of the week was sort of quiet. Many were finishing exams, but I was already finished. I kept myself busy with rehearsals for my tour (which I will get into more detail about) and other matters.

Every year, the Opera Workshop does a short tour of schools in the Maritimes. We take a short version of our opera we did and show it to high school students in order to introduce them to the world of opera. This year we are touring some schools throughout New Brunswick, where we are presenting excerpts from Dido and Aeneas (Henry Purcell) as well arias from other operas like The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), The Tender Land (Aaron Copland), and Vanessa (Samuel Barber).

We started our tour on Thursday morning. We left the conservatory in the morning and hit the highway, heading towards Sussex, NB. We performed one show at their high school, and it went pretty well. After, we got back on the road and continued down the highway to Saint John, which is one of the bigger cities in New Brunswick. We drove into downtown and checked into a really nice Hilton Hotel that was right on the water. We then actually had the rest of the day and evening free, which is the advantage of doing school shows! So our group (7 students and our professor Dr. Pridmore) headed downtown where we browsed some stores. We then went to this really neat fusion Indian restaurant, which had some awesome butter chicken and samosas! While I love Sackville, the lack of ethnic food sometimes gets to me, being from Vancouver, so having this meal felt pretty great. Afterwards, we all headed back to the hotel and used their pool, which was fun. To end the night, a bunch of us hung out in the hotel bar drinking gin+tonics. Not a bad day at all!

We got up the next morning and headed over to Saint John High School. We did two shows for two different classes, and they went very well. Sometimes doing shows about opera for high school students can be pretty lacklustre. We always will get the boys rolling their eyes, or the students who just fall asleep or make crude noises. Nevertheless, this group was actually really great. There were a couple of singers in the audience who were very intrigued and had lots of questions for us after. There was one guy in the class who knew my Mozart aria the second I started singing it and he was conducting along with his hand while I was singing! That was pretty funny.

In the afternoon, we left Saint John and headed to Rothesday, which is a very posh suburb of Saint John. We drove to Rothesay Netherwood School, which felt very different from our previous schools we visited since this was a private prep school. We performed for a very nice crowd of kids all dressed up in their unfiorms. They seemed to enjoy the performance. The most interesting thing was how their questions after were much more about university stuff then about singing and the arts. It really reminded me of the kinds of things we all asked at my private high school.

After this show, we drove back to Sackville. Obviosuly we are not doing any shows on the weekend since school is not in session. We will be heading back out on Monday to visit more schools across the province. I will write about this in my next post.

On Friday night the President of Mt. A hosted a party/concert in his house for the release of this year's Conduct Becoming CD. This CD is released every year and features songs written and performed by MTA students. All the funds go to cancer research. I have a track on the CD this year and they asked me perform at this concert. There were three different rooms in the house with three different musical styles. I was in the living room with my piano playing selections from my musical. It was very intimate, which was really fun. It felt like I was just in my bedroom singing them to myself like I do when I am composing.

I am now starting to pack things up around the house. I will be moving into an apartment on May 1st. Otherwise, things are really quiet around here. Pretty much everyone has left for the summer, so the air is different. At the same time, it's nice and sunny, which is great!

Until next time, please take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Finito!

2009-04-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

This boy is finished! That's right boys and girls, I am finished with another academic year at Mt. Allison. Ah, how time flies. On Saturday night I had my last exam and since then I have just been hanging around Sackville working on various projects and tying things up for the end of the year.

My exam week was pretty busy this year, but not as hectic as others have been. I had three exams and my jury spread out over one week, which is pretty decent. Our exam period at MTA runs over two weeks. It started last Monday and will end this Saturday. Many people are already done and have gone home for the summer. Others are still here writing more exams. Your schedule changes from semester to semester. I remember one semester where I had a lot of my exams right at the beginning and then a large break before my last one, which was in the last time slot on the last day! That was kind of was bad, but it goes by so fast anyway.

Lots of people find exams stressful, but I don't think it is too bad. Like I said, it always goes by so fast. The key to success is to stay organized and committed. During exam time, classes are not in session and other clubs etc. are all done for the year. This means you can set your own schedule for studying. I usually sleep in (since I never get to during the rest of the school year), then I get up, make some tea, and study like crazy. At the same time, all the extra time from having no classes allows me to take some good solid breaks. I actually find myself sometimes going out to the bar and for dinners moreso during exams than during the rest of the year. I plan to get my studying done in the day, then I go out and socialize before returning home for maybe a little more studying.

Nevertheless, there are always distractions. For me this time around, it seems to have been my desire to re-watch all the seasons of the TV show Weeds. They are so addictive, especially since each one is only 26 minutes long!

Still, I am really happy with how my exams went. Two of them were pretty easy, and the third was tough, but doable. I also had my jury, which is basically a performance exam that all music students do for their main instrument of study. So for me that meant getting up in front of a small 3-person jury and performing about 20 minutes of singing repertoire I have been working on. It's basically my final exam for my singing classes. Some people find juries really stressful. I think they are kind of annoying, but also fun because it's just another opportunity to perform the material I enjoy so much.

Now that my exams are done (woo hoo!), I have been around the house packing things up into boxes. I will be moving into my own apartment on May 1st. I have also been in the music building a lot rehearsing for a tour with the Opera Workshop. Back in February I posted about performing in a production of the opera Dido and Aeneas. Well now we are taking scenes from that opera and some other famous arias from other operas on tour to schools in New Brunswick. So we have been rehearsing our little program and figuring out a touring script, costumes, logistics etc. We leave Thursday morning - should be fun!

That is it for now. Next week I guess I will post about the opera tour. Until then, take it easy!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Final Stretch

2009-04-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

Last week was busy and quiet at the same time, which is how it always feels during the last week of classes.

The music department had many year-end student recitals last week, which are always enjoyable to attend. It's always fun to see your friends on stage and see all the work they have done come to fruition.

On the last day of classes, my musical theatre history class (MUSC 3211C) put on an afternoon concert. As part of the course, we had the option for our final project to do a performance of a musical theatre piece. In the end, about half of the class did these, and they were all really great. The class voted on their favourites, and we put the top 7 or 8 in this afternoon concert, which the public was invited to. For my project, I performed a song from Jason Robert Brown's off-Broadway musical The Last Five Years. The song is called "A Miracle Would Happen." I was fortunate enough to get voted into the concert, which was cool. It was nice to have the opportunity to perform it again after having put all the work into learning the piece. The concert got a really great turnout, which I was not expecting. Lots of people disappear on the last day of classes. Many head home for the long weekend to be with their families. Nevertheless, we packed a big house and they were very responsive. It was a really thing to have on the last day of classes. My song went off really well. The whole class also performed "Seasons of Love" from RENT as a finale song. Unbeknownst to us, a few of our music student peers snuck into the balcony, and while we sung the song, they blew bubbles into the audience. It was a very fitting addition to the finale, and to a great afternoon.

Easter weekend has been dead quiet. Sackville was dumped with snow yesterday and today. It seems most people are inside studying or still at home.

Exams officially started today. Our exam period lasts 2 weeks. I have all of mine packed into this first week. This is always kind of nice because I get to finish early; however, at the same time it kind of sucks because everything is squeezed into a shorter timeframe. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, right? It will all work out though - it always does. By your third year, you have already written so many exams that it just starts to feel routine. You just sort of do it, and then before you know it, you are out of here!

On that note, I am going to leave you for now, as I should probably get back to studying! Have a good week!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Never a Dull Moment - Part 2

2009-04-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is part 2 in my series that attempts to prove that even though Mt. Allison and Sackville are small, this place is anything but quiet and slow.

If you have been following my blog regularly, you will have heard me talk about the play Blood Relations. The play, written by Canadian playwright Sharon Pollock, is about the notorious Lizzie Borden axe murders that happened in Massachusetts in 1892. The play won the 1981 Governor General's Award for Dramatic Literature. I was the assistant director for the play, which I was actually doing through a course (DRAM 4951).

Last week, after months of work, the show finally opened! We did four performances in the Windsor Theatre, and each of them went very well. We had a pretty good turnout for the opening night on Wednesday, and a little bigger house for Thursday night. Word of mouth spread after this, which is how things seem to work around here. As such, Friday was just about full, and Saturday night we were bursting at the seams, trying to fit everyone into the theatre.

The actual performances were splendid. I could not have asked for a better cast to work with. They all really came into their roles in the last week, and their hard work paid off. Most people said it was one of the best shows they had ever seen in the Windsor Theatre, which was very flattering. We also got a few standing ovations, which is not typical around here.

Jazz at Jennings also happened last week. This annual event is put on by the Jazz Ensemble, which any student can join through an audition - you do NOT have to be a music student. This is always one of my favourite nights of the year. The jazz band takes over the top floor of Jennings Meal Hall. They dim the lights, put tables out with candles, there is a bar, everyone dresses up, and all the dancers from the Swing society come on out to dance to the music. Every year, a few voice students will sing a song or two with the jazz band. I have done this every year since I arrived here, and I always enjoy it. It's such a treat to sing with a big band behind you. This year I sung the jazz standard Sophisticated Lady.

That is it for last week. Stay tuned later this weekend for my post about this week. Classes have just officially ended. This last week of classes was crazy busy - recitals, special events, parties etc. I will of course write about it and also talk a little bit about what exams are like around here.

Until then, please take care. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me.

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Never a Dull Moment - Part 1

2009-04-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

Sackville may be small, and Mt. Allison may be smaller, but I can guarantee you that this place is busier than you could ever imagine. As such, I have been extremely occupied with various activities, which have pulled me away from my blog. As usual though, this means I have LOTS to share. So I am going to post about the past two weeks in two installments. Today is PART 1, which will talk about the first week (two weeks ago), and then in a few days I will post PART 2, which will be about this past week.

On Tuesday April 24, me and the cast of Salad Days (the musical I wrote and recently workshopped) went over to Ron Byrne's house for a reception. Ron is our VP Student Affairs (also known as the Dean of Students). He is a very popular figure around campus, and with good reason. He knows every student by name, and he makes a great effort to get out to many events. He is always around smiling! I invited him to our workshop of Salad Days, and he came. He was so impressed that he decided to invite us all over to his place to recognize celebrate and our work, which was very kind of him. The whole cast came to his place, and we all enjoyed our little reunion. There was lots of nice food and wine, and it was a great time!

On the Friday night, the annual ASCAR Awards ceremony took place in Con Hall. This is an event organized by our student council (the S.A.C.). It is basically an Oscar-style awards show, where awards are given out in various categories. There is stuff like House Party of the Year, Frosh of the Year, and the coveted House/Residence of the Year. All of the residences come out to the show and cheer like crazy for their house, hoping to win.

Salad Days was nominated for Theatre Production of the Year, and I was nominated for Solo Artist of the Year. So I got to perform a song live at the show, which was cool because Con Hall has a beautiful Steinway grand piano. Since Salad Days was nominated, I decided to play a song from Salad Days. I did not win the Solo Artist award, which I was expecting since there were some upperclassmen up for it who have been around longer. However, Salad Days did win the award for Theatre Production of the Year, which was a total shocker! We really did not think we would win since it was just a small workshop of a new musical. When they announced our show, we all looked at each other with bewilderment. Anyway, that was pretty cool.

After the ASCARS, the campus Pub played host to the annual launch party for Conduct Becoming. CB is a project that started about 8 years ago at MTA as a way to raise money for cancer research. Basically, we create a professionally produced CD each year that features songs written and performed by Mt. Allison students and community members. I had a track on the CD this year, so I played it along with a few of my others at the launch party. This is always a huge event! The Pub was packed and noisy, which was hard to perform in. But it was still a lot of fun.

Beyond all of this, I spent that week starting to work on the cast recording of Salad Days. I also spent a lot of time in the Windsor Theatre preparing for Blood Relations, which I will talk about more in my next post.

That is it for PART 1. In a few days I will post PART 2. Stay tuned for stories about the run of Blood Relations at Windsor Theatre, Jazz at Jennings, and more!

Take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Rolling Tundra Revue

2009-03-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

Another week has passed by, and I'm telling you, these days they go by so fast. March is always so hectic around here, in both a good and a bad way. The weeks just seem to disappear. The sense of Spring was starting to finally creep in around town. The sun was out and the afternoons were "relatively" warm. It was all good, and then last night it snowed again! The weather here is kind of crazy, and ever-changing. As we say: "If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes."

Last night, George's Fabulous Roadhouse played host to two great Canadian indie bands: The Constantines, and the Weakerthans. This was a very highly anticipated show and one of the biggest of the year for MTA and Sackville. The two bands are just beginning their cross-country "Rolling Tundra Revue" tour where they will be hitting virtually every city you can imagine.

George's Roadhouse was actually just nominated in the CBC Radio 3 Searchlight competition for the Best Live Music Venue in Canada. We made it onto the Top 10 list, which included music venues of different sizes from around the country. We did not win unfortunately, but it was pretty amazing that we made the top 10. George's is not really a well known place outside of Sackville, of course, but the musicians who play there always remember it. It is very unique, and the crowds are usually interesting.

Anyway, back to the show. Toronto band The Constantines took to the stage first and played a solid set of songs from all their albums. Their hard edged indie rock translated well to the stage. Their drummer was rocking some awesome beats which got everyone's energy up. I don't know their music too well, but I enjoyed what they played. The lead singer however is a bit of a screamer, and I can tell you that if he continues to sing the way he did last night, he will not make it to the end of the tour with his voice intact.

Next up was the pride of Winnipeg, the Weakerthans. Led by the delightful and poetic John K. Sampson, the Weakerthans are a Canadian indie-rock institution. With songs like "I Hate Winnipeg," "Night Windows," and "Tournament of Hearts," this band exudes the Canadian story. The band was in fine form last night. Sampson was one of the calmest rock singers I have ever seen. He played hard, sang beautifully, but always looked so graceful and relaxed. It was a joy to watch and dance around to. The crowd just seemed to eat it all up. The band ended up playing a 4 song encore. In total, their set lasted just under 2 hours!

Over the weekend I started laying down tracks for the cast recording we are doing of the musical I wrote. I have been plugging my keyboard into my laptop at home and recording the piano tracks for the past week. Over the weekend, a few of the singers came in and started putting their vocal tracks over top of the piano. It is sounding really good.

Things are revving up with Blood Relations. We just moved into the theatre and the set is being built around us day by day as we get closer to our opening on April 1st. The actors are doing an amazing job with everything.

Otherwise, there is not much else to report. This week is going to be very busy, yet again. Tomorrow night the whole cast of my musical is going over to Ron Byrne's house for dinner. Ron is the university's VP Student Affairs (also known as the Dean of Students). I invited him to the show, and he was so impressed that he invited us all over to his house for dinner! So that is very exciting. This coming weekend will also see the annual ASCARS Awards show as well as the release party for the Conduct Becoming CD, which I will be on this year. More details to come in my next post!

Have a good week!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Back to Normal

2009-03-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote about the workshop of my musical, Salad Days. It was an amazing process and everything went better than I could have ever imagined. I have just gotten in some more pictures from the show, which I will put in this post for your visual enjoyment.

With the production now out of the way, I spent last week trying to return to my normal life. The past week in general was pretty quiet. I went to classes, "learned" things, and then did homework. March is usually a pretty stressful time around here. All of our essays and final assignments are piling up. At the same time, it's also a really exciting time because there is a lot going on. There are different shows and recitals happening every week. March is the month where you try to get to everything and only make it to half since there are sometimes up to 5 events going on per night. It's pretty amazing, considering the size of the campus and of Sackville.

My evenings last week were usually occupied with rehearsals for Blood Relations. I am acting as the Assistant Director for the show. I am actually doing it as a course, which is pretty sweet. Our director is Linda Moore, who is a visiting theatre professional from Halifax. She is absolutely wonderful! I am learning so much from her. The play itself is coming along really well. We open in just over two weeks, and we are in really good shape. The whole show is already blocked and memorized, so now we are just tweaking bits and pieces. The actors are doing the most amazing job with their characters!

Last week we had a special visitor around the Windsor Theatre. Every year the drama program brings in a graduate of the university who is now working in the biz. He or she comes to visit classes, give a lecture, and meet with students to answer questions about a life in the theatre. This year, we were fortunate to have MTA alum Ross Manson visit. He is the founder of the very successful Volcano Theatre Company, which does experimental theatre projects around the world, and is based in Toronto. I had the chance to have coffee with him, which was very nice. He was extremely kind and helpful in answering some questions about different business things. He also gave a great lecture about his journey from the small town of Sackville to the bustling metropolis of Toronto.

On the weekend, the Vagina Monologues was presented to coincide with Women's Awareness Week. The show played for two nights in the Wu Centre. More than 15 different actresses and directors got together to present the famous collection of monologues. While these have been around for quite some time now, I had never seen them before. I went this past weekend since I knew some of the girls in it. It was a really great show. Every actress did a fantastic job with their material. Some of it was very funny, while other parts were very serious and sometimes a little hard to take. Overall, it was a very poignant evening of theatre.

Looking ahead, I will once again be at the theatre most nights this week working on Blood Relations. I am also working hard on finishing up a composition for my music composition class. I am writing a 5-movement chamber piece for piano, flute, clarinet, and violin. It is called Kubler-Ross. It is based off the famous Kubler-Ross model, "The Five Stages of Grief," which are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Each of the five stages is going to be a seperate short movement. Lastly, I am starting to make preparations for the creation of a cast recording of the musical I have written. The cast and I will be slowly piecing together a recording of the different songs over the next few weeks, which is exciting!

Thus concludes another edition of this blog. If you have any other questions about what I have been writing about, or about other Mt. Allison stuff, please feel free to contact me. I love to hear from you, and I promise to write back!

Bye for now!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Days of Salad

2009-03-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

Well, after more than 14 months of work, my musical has finally made its public premiere! If you have been following this blog at all over the past year, you have probably heard me talk about this project on more than one occasion.

In November of 2007, my friend Jason and I started brainstorming the idea of writing a short musical that would explore various themes associated with the university experience. Jason was going to write the book (the script) and I was going to write the music and lyrics. As we started to develop the characters, we realized we had enough to tell a whole story. So we decided to just go crazy and write a full 2-act musical! Over the months, we have worked and worked and tweaked and tweaked so that we could complete a first formal draft. After all of it, "Salad Days" was ready to continue on.

With that draft done, we decided to organize a workshop reading of the show as a way to get the script off the page, out to the public, and to get some constructive feedback. We thought we might just find 4 or 5 people to read multiple characters and just do it casually. We held auditions, and actually had 12 amazing actors turn out! So we were able to have someone for each part as well as a small chorus, which was just amazing. Better yet, this group was so dedicated to the project. They loved learning brand new music and the idea that they were a part of the creation process. We spent a few weeks getting them familiar with the script and the music, and then last week it was showtime!

In order to use the this time most effectively, we decided to do both an "open" and "closed" reading. The closed reading was just for the music and theatre faculty, while the open ones were for the general public. On Thursday night we did the closed reading for the teachers. It was a strange reading for the actors because the audience did not respond. It was just 10 teachers taking notes, which was kind of intimidating. Nevertheless, they got through the show well. Afterward, we had a round-table discussion in which both Jason and I got some really helpful constructive feedback.

Friday night was our first open reading for the public. We had a solid crowd of about 50 people. They were very vocal and responsive to the cast, which was great. They seemed to be getting the jokes and enjoying the songs. In Act II, when there is a very serious and dramatic turn for one of the characters, we actually had a few people burst out into tears, which was quite amazing. We got some outstanding feedback from audience members afterward, which was very encouraging.

Word of mouth spread after Friday, making Saturday night a little bit of a crazy whirlwhind of an experience. We had to start the show 10 minutes late because more people kept showing up. The theatre was packed! We had people sitting on the floor, in the aisles, and others were just simply turned away. The audience ate the show up! The cast was so amazing in their performances. Every single one of them nailed their characters and the music. At the end of the show, the whole cast hits this gorgeous harmony, I do a crazy piano part, and then the lights come out. After that, the lights came back up and I stood up to lead the cast in a bow. I looked into the crowd and of a sudden saw that we had a full standing ovation! I was not expecting this at all! I just about cried and fell back into my seat. It was just so shocking, but also so flattering. The comments we got from people after in the lobby were so encouraging. It was a real testament to the work everyone put into the readings. It is pretty incredible in my mind that people responded the way they did considering it was just the actors reading the show behind music stands with scripts in their hands.

Overall, it was a pretty interesting week. I learned a lot. We had some great response, and some great feedback on what to change and improve. The next step is to record the music. The actors and I will be doing a rough cast recording over the next few weeks, which is very exciting!

For now, I am just taking this week to settle back into my normal schedule and get back to doing my school work - ha ha!

On the other side of the coin, I hope YOU are doing well! If you have any questions about anything Mt. A, please do not hesitate to email me and ask.

Cheers!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Big Apple

2009-03-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Have you missed me? Sorry for my absence. After the opera, I was out of town for our spring break and this week has been busy with the premiere of my musical. Now things are getting back to normal and I can get back to my regular blogging. I am going to post today about my New York trip and then in a few days I will share some stories about the workshop of my musical. So check back soon for more!

I left for New York on Feb. 22 at 6am from Moncton. There is one direct flight from Moncton to New York, which is awesome, but it leaves really early as you can see. Nevertheless it did allow me to have a whole extra day there essentially.

Anyway, I got into New York and checked into my hotel downtown which was on Lexington Ave. I spent the afternoon just browsing and relaxing. That night I got a ticket for the off-Broadway show Altar Boyz, which has been a big hit for a few years now. It is a musical comedy about a Christian boy band. The music is a mix of Broadway and N'Sync style pop. The five actors sing the songs and do all the stereotypical boy band choreography. It was very hilarious and very entertaining. You should check out the music on their website.

The next day I went to the Guggenheim Museum. I have been to the Met before and the MoMA, but I had never made it to the Guggenheim and I had always wanted to go. It is a really neat gallery. The building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is just as cool as it looks like in the pictures. After this, I crossed the street and wandered through Central Park. The park was pretty quiet because it is still cold in the city, but I always try to at least visit the park for a bit. I can never get over the scope and scale of it. You can get so lost!

On Tuesday I went down to NYU to scope out a graduate school program. NYU has a graduate degree in musical theatre writing/composition - the only one in the world. It was a really neat place to visit. I sat in on a lab class where students played new stuff for everyone. It was so cool to see new musicals being created and critiqued. That night I had tickets for the Met Opera, where I saw Verdi's classic, Il Trovatore. While opera is not for everyone, experiencing it live at the Met is totally different. The place is so grand when you walk in. There are these grand murals and chandeliers. All these people are around you in suits and beautiful dresses, and they are all sipping champagne. I tried to dress the part with a cool jacket and my preppy bow tie. The opera itself was quite incredible. Verdi always promises lots of high drama and high notes, and the singers delivered. International baritone star Dmitri Hvorostovsky was just amazing. The acoustics in the space are unreal - they do not mic anything! It was a great experience and if you can believe it, the 3 and a half hours just flew by.

The next day I hung out in Soho, which is one of my favourite areas. I love all the cool cobblestone sidestreets with the little boutiques. It turned into a big shopping day, and I had many great finds. That night I went back to Times Square and snagged a cheap ticket at TKTS for the play August: Osage County. The play won the Pullitzer Prize last year and many other awards. It was a pretty interesting show. It was 3 acts and over three hours in length, but it just flew by. It took some time to pick up, but once it did, everyone in the audience seemed hooked. It was a very unique blend of comedy and high stakes drama - just like real life!

Thursday was pretty quiet. I just walked around Fifth Ave. and hung out around Rockefeller Center. That night though I got to see an old friend for dinner at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant, Maze. After that, I headed back down to the Broadway district to the Imperial Theatre, where I had tickets for Billy Elliott: The Musical. My parents saw the original cast in London and said it was unreal, so I thought I should go now that it is in America. When it started, I wasn't sure how I felt about the show. The way the music and scenes were integrated was very different than normal and the feel was quite different from the movie. However, as the story picked up and the dancing scenes came in, my feelings changed. Act II was absolutely euphoric and transcendent. Elton John's score is not too memorable, but certainly effective in moving the story along. Most of the credit needs to go to the choreographer. It is a dance heavy musical, and the dance sequences were nothing short of breathtaking. The kid who played Billy (who was only 15 years old!) was on stage for essentially the entire show, and he dances a lot! He basically got a near standing ovation in the middle of Act II. The end was very uplifting. It might not be the tightest musical of our day, but the overall experience is just incredible. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to see it.

The next day was my last day in town. I decided to take the subway over to the West Village. It's not really a touristy area, which was nice. It was quiet and more quaint. There were some really nice little stores and the architecture was cool. I accidentally came across the famous Magnolia Bakery. So of course I went in and bought a cupcake, and yes, it was very good! Later, I headed back to the airport and was on my way back to Sackville.

Overall, it was a really nice trip and certainly a good break from class. In a few days I will post about this first week back. I have lots to tell you about the workshop of my musical.

Until then, take care!

Landon

Dido and Aeneas

2009-02-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

Over the past few weeks, I have been mentioning that I have been working on an opera production. Well this past week, after months of work, the opera was finally put in front of an audience! The Mt. Allison Opera Workshop is an ensemble that puts on a show every year. Both music and non-music students can get involved. Usually, because of our small size, the group just does a show that features scenes from different operas. But this year, we decided to collaborate with the Windsor Theatre and produce a full opera production with full production values.

We performed Henry Purcell's classic Baroque piece, Dido and Aeneas. It is a classic story of love and tragedy in Greek times. Dido (played by my friend Laura) is the queen of Carthage. She has just met the Greek warrior Aeneas (played by yours truly) and the two have fallen in love. However, in the next scene, the Sorceress and her Witches are brewing up a plot to get rid of Dido, whom they hate. To do this, they send the spirit Mercury, who is the messenger of the gods, to summon me. In the next scene, the spirit tells me I must leave Dido to continue on my quest to found Rome. I sing a melodramatic aria and contemplate the age old question of love vs. destiny. In the last scene, I tell Dido I must go, which of course upsets her. In a classic male change of character, I decide that I will defy the gods and stay. At this point though, Dido is so heartbroken that she tells me to go, which I decide to do. As a result, Dido laments about the loss of her true love, and of course dies from the sadness, but does so through a beautfiul aria! So there's the story for you!

The cool thing with the opera is that it incorporates lots of different elements. Firstly, there are all the main characters on stage. We all got really cool costumes, which you can see from the photos here. I got a sweet robe, crown, and lots of shiny things. I also got these boots that laced up my entire leg - they were a pain to put on but looked so cool. Then of course we had full sets and lighting added. On top of this, the opera includes a chorus. To fill these musical numbers, the Elliott Chorale sang them from the balcony of the auditorium. Next there was the baroque orchestra, which consisted of a harpsichord and a full string section! Lastly, the opera also incorporates a few dances. So my friend Hilary and I choreographed these. Since most of the singers are not dancers, we had to keep them simple, but they turned out really well and added a lot to the show.

We did 4 performances over the weekend, and surprisingly had a really good turnout for each one. The response was extremely positive. It certainly was a bigger production than usual, and it really showed.

With the opera now finished, I am moving onto various other projects. I had a long rehearsal last night with my cast for Salad Days, which is the musical I have written. Since it was big rehearsal, I turned it into a potluck. My friend Francesca brought salad-themed cupcakes, and they were amazing! The top was a chocolate bowl filled with green candy stuff that looked like a dressed salad. Underneath was a delicious chocolate cupcake. It was awesome! You can click on the picture to get a better look.

Next week is our reading week, which means no classes! I will be going to NYC for a few days, which is pretty exciting.

If you have any questions about MTA or university stuff, please feel free to email me.

Take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

My Week in Bed

2009-02-09T11:33:00.000-08:00

Cough!

Yup, that's what I was doing all last week. After coming back from Montreal, I was hoping my cold might go away. Unfortunately, with all of the stress of making up for missed classes and such, my sickness did not get better. I started to get rid of the cold, but then I got a stomach flu. Still, I kept trying to push through and stay up to do work. Stupid idea! The sickness just stayed in my system. So by Thursday I put my foot down and decided to put my school life on hold in order to get better. I postponed some things and climbed into bed. By about Saturday afternoon it had completely been worked out of my system. Now I am back on my feet and going full speed ahead!

As you can gather from the above, last week was quiet and less eventful. Nevertheless, there was still some things going on in my life. The main thing of course was the opera production of Dido and Aeneas which I am in. It goes up this coming weekend! This past weekend we started putting all of the elements together. I choreographed a few of the little dances. The choir joined us. The orchestra has also come in. So it's finally starting to feel like a cohesive whole, which is good. Now we are embarking on tech week. We are running the show all week and adding in lights, sets, and costumes. We open on Friday!

Over the weekend, the Windsor Theatre presented two one-act plays, both directed by students. The first was The Lover, by Harold Pinter. It's about a British couple who love each other, but both knowingly engage in unfaithful relationships during the days with other lovers. It's a very awkward play, as is the case with most Pinter. There were lots of painful pauses, and of course more sexual tension than you could ever ask for!

The second show was Crave, which was written by another British playwright, Sarah Kane. If you have never read or experienced a Kane play, you have to do so at least once before you die. They are extremely strange and disturbing but important pieces of theatre. Kane was a very troubled woman, who suffered from various mental breakdowns and eventually committed suicide. Her plays represent her madness - love, death, sex, suicide, anorexia, and lots of swearing, yelling, and violence. Crave is unique because the show is sparse. It's just four actors whose names are just single letters. The script has no stage directions and has little punctuation. The dialogue flows between the four actors in a very poetic way, and it's difficult to decipher any plot or relations. As such, every production is different and unique. This production was very well done. The material is very demanding. The actors had a lot of lines to memorize and they had to dig pretty deep into their souls to get these feelings out. There was a lot of yelling and lots of banging of fists against the wall. While the show made me very angry and upset, I thought it was a great experience and an important voice to express.

Over the weekend I held rehearsals with my cast for the workshop of the musical I have been writing. We learned a few more of the chorus songs and they are sounding so amazing! I am so excited to premiere them in March.

Well I think that is it for now. I am going to be in the theatre all week for the opera. But when I post next time, I will update you on how the show goes and share some pictures of it. Until then, please take care and don't get sick!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

After the Fact

2009-02-03T17:38:00.000-08:00

Well I am back in Sackville after an interesting week in Montreal for the 2009 McGill Model United Nations Conference. I unfortunately caught some form of the flu during the train ride and it stayed in my system during the very busy conference. So now I am trying to get better while trying to catch up on a lot of work. It's pretty stressful, but I am confident I will get through it fine, and it will be over before I know it!

Anyway, the train ride there was pretty awesome. Most of the delegation traveled by train, while the rest drove. Those of us on the train hung out, watched movies, did some school work, and chatted. And of course, we all had dinner in the dining car, which is always a fun experience! It's so romantic to eat gourmet food while the snowy Maritimes roll by.

We arrived in Montreal the next morning and checked in at the conference hotel, the Centre Sheratron on Rene-Levesque. We spent the day wondering around Montreal, which was fun. We then went back to the hotel for the opening ceremonies, where we were thrown in with over 1500 students from universities from around the world.

The next day, the conference sessions began. I was representing the Kingdom of Belgium on the European Council committee. It was a pretty good committee. Most of the delegates were active in the discussion, and our Chair was very nice and encouraging. We spent the first day and a half debating the issue of migration and immigration within Europe. It was a very complicated issue to debate since every nation there has to deal with it, but in different ways. It's also a very broad topic that includes various sub-topics: border control, visas, xenophobia, asylum policy, and more. I worked with a few other nations on a resolution, which I am proud to say passed virtually unanimously!

After this, we moved onto debating our second topic, which was the accession of Turkey into the EU. This was a much more heated issues, since each country has a very firm stance on whether Turkey should be granted full membership or not into the EU. Belgium's policy has been to work with them to grant a full membership as soon as possible. So I had to stand my ground to those who did not want it or were proposing resolutions that only granted certain "priveleged" forms of membership. In the end though, the two (rushed) resolutions that came to the table were amended and good enough for both to pass by the Council.

Overall, it was a pretty good conference. It's always a little crazy because there are so many people and because they are very long days (8am-10pm plus evening party events). On top of this, I was under the weather, which didn't help. The other thing with Model UN is that you get some pretty strange personalities. These conferences always give out awards for the supposed Best Delegates of each committee. As a result, many people treat is as a competition and became assholes. They cut every one off, break the rules, break away from their country's policies, and just add an air of unpleasantness. It's very annoying, but I have played the game for so long now that I am just used to it. Nevertheless, my committee this year did have some very fruitful debate, so it's not all bad.

I also got to see some of my Montreal friends, which was awesome! You may remember from my November posts that I was in Montreal to see a group of theatre and music friends. When I was there last time we hung out and played musical theatre stuff for a whole day! And I also premiered my musical for them, which was so much fun. So I got together with Matt, Chris, and Taylor again for dinner. We hung out and then went back to the hotel where I played them some new stuff on the piano in the hotel conference centre. Chris had just finished working on a production of the musical Cabaret. He had his score with him, so he pulled it out and we played and sung through it, which was awesome!

Now I am back and working hard to catch up. Things are picking up with tests and such. The opera production of Dido and Aeneas goes up next week. At the same time I am working on the workshop of the musical while also running rehearsals for the play Blood Relations. As always, there is no boredom here at MTA!

Take care!

Landon

En Route

2009-01-30T08:24:00.000-08:00

Written on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 – 10pm

Hello everyone! I am currently writing this post while taking the train from Sackville to Montreal. I am traveling with a fantastic group of MTA students to Montreal for a Model United Nations Conference being put on by McGill University. At this very moment I am in the skyliner car with my friend Tristan and we are watching the snowy mountains go by. Somehow I am talking about MTA stuff with Tristan, watching the scenery, and writing this all at the same time – here’s to multitasking.

The past week and a half has been crazy busy! The biggest event was the closing show for the 2009 Stereophonic festival. The show took place at the legendary George’s Roadhouse, which is often seen by many indie rockers as one of the greatest independent venues in Canada. The place was packed – I had never seen so many people in the place. You could barely move. It was quite incredible.

It began with Montreal indie darlings Plants and Animals, who recently snagged a nomination for Canada’s prestigious Polaris Music Prize. The three-piece band hit the stage and started off with a bang, playing a strong set that included many of the great songs from their latest album Parc Avenue. The interesting thing about Plants and Animals is that none of their songs are generic or conventional. Each one has different movements and sections, and run for lengthy amounts of time. Additionally, every song has an incredible amount of different sonic textures that make up a complex web of sounds. I was curious to see how they would be able to recreate the sound and keep the audience engaged. In the end, they succeeded admirably. Their raw energy was electric and it was easy to see live how incredibly skilled they are as musicians. Everything was perfectly calculated. Overall, it was a very enjoyable performance and one worthy of appreciation.

Taking the stage next was the pride of the Maritimes, Halifax’s own Juno award winning band Wintersleep. I was fortunate enough to see the band play at the Pemberton Music Festival this past summer (see past post) where they blew me away. As such, I had high expectations for this performance. Unfortunately, the crammed crowd in George’s and weaker sound system did not benefit the band. Nevertheless, they still gave it their all and played their songs with the same engrossing intensity that I came to love in Pemberton. Even if the vocals weren’t clear, the energy was, and everyone was dancing and having a good time. At the end of it all, meeting them all and getting my album signed was pretty much all I needed to cap off a pretty awesome night, and a perfect close to the 2009 Stereophonic festival.

Since then, I have been incredibly busy with my other projects. As the term begins to get rolling, my academic workload has started to increase. At the same time, I am still working on the opera, a Windsor Theatre show, my radio show, and the workshop reading of my musical that I’m composing. Still, I wouldn’t like it any other way!

I had my first full cast vocal rehearsal on Sunday for my musical, Salad Days. It was AMAZING! We rehearsed the entire opening song sequence. Through this, we created a bunch of new harmonic vocal accompaniment lines. It was a really neat process to give ideas to the cast and hear them sung back and then adapt them. At the same time, the cast also gave me their ideas and we experimented with them. The overall result is a sonic wonder filled with various harmonic layers and textures. I am really proud of the work everyone has done and cannot wait to rehearse more!

For now, I am off to save the world! Just kidding. But I will be debating some very interesting issues in Montreal as I represent the Kingdom of Belgium on the European Council. I will post again with my stories from the conference early next week when I have returned to Sackville.

Until then, take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Skating Through Sackville

2009-01-19T11:55:00.000-08:00

If you have been following the news lately (or have even just looked out your window), you have probably noticed that the weather is pretty wacky out there these days. All of Canada was hit last week with a huge Arctic cold front. Mt. Allison and Sackville was no exception to the trend. It has been freezing here! We have had temperatures as low as -25 degrees Celsius. Nevertheless, we always get through it and before you know it, it has passed. Last night though it snowed again like crazy. I thought it was so beautiful and refreshing. But then it started to rain early this morning and with the cold temperatures, everything is freezing over fast. So basically the whole campus is a big skating rink! It's a fantastic mixture of terror and fun.

Anyway, it has been a pretty insane busy week. Jason and I finished our auditions for the workshop of our musical. In the end we had a great turnout and some fantastic talent. The show has been cast and we have started rehearsals. It is a really great group of students. They are very energetic and genuinelky excited about the project, which is awesome!

Things are also moving ahead with the opera I am in. We are doing Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas. Our director, Paul, came in and has started to do some staging and blocking. I also have started to get my costume fitted and it's really cool. I get this whole Greek/Roman robe thing with a cloak and other fancy features.

All through the week we had the Stereophonic Festival happening at venues around town. This is an annual music festival that serves as a fundraiser for CHMA 106.9 FM, which is Mt. Allison's radio station. We had some really great indie bands come in from the Maritimes to play. There was an evening of local talent at the campus Pub, which I played. The show went really well for everyone involved. We had a great turnout and people were very responsive to the music. The final and biggest show is tomorrow night at George's Roadhouse. The show is Plants and Animals, and Wintersleep. It is going to be amazing! We are very lucky to be getting those two bands coming to Sackville, since they are pretty big now. Nevertheless, Sackville always seems to have a way of getting these groups in.

On the note of the radio station, I have officialy started up my radio show again, which feels great! I do a weekly radio show on CHMA called "In Your Face with Landon Braverman." I do it every Sunday afternoon. It's basically an hour of indie rock music that I pick. With the move into the new Student Centre building last semester, the radio station was not officially on the air, so I haven't done my show since the last academic year, which was back in April 2008! It really did feel nice to get back on the air. Yesterday I had a very special guest, who was none other than Mt. Allison University President, Dr. Robert Campbell. It always surprises people to hear that he is actually an avid rock fan and aficionado, epsecially on the subject of British music. So he comes on my show every few weeks and shares his new music finds. It is always a lot of fun!

Feel free to learn more about the show by joining my Facebook group for it. Just search: In Your Face Radio.

There was lots more that happened last week, including an amazing fundraiser concert that I emceed and performed at. Nevertheless, I am not going to write about it all because I would be typing forever. The point is, even in the second week of classes, there is never a dull moment here at Mt. Allison or in Sackville!

I have recently had high school students email me with questions about MTA, since they are thinking about applying. Thank you very much for sending them. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about anything MTA or university related.

Anyway, I have to walk/skate to my next class - bye for now!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Back At It!

2009-01-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

After an amazing and dynamic vacation, it was finally time to return to Sackville and to Mt. Allison for more university adventures! Last Sunday I flew from Vancouver to Toronto, and then from Toronto to Moncton. I then took a cab from Moncton to Sackville. After a long day of travel, I crashed back onto my Sackville bed and slept.

On Tuesday, classes started for the second semester. I always love the first week of classes - it's very exciting. You get to meet new professors and get excited about learning new material. You also get to meet up with all of your friends and hear all of their amazing holiday stories. The other cool thing about the first week is that everyone is NOT stressed out. The last time we all saw each other was in December, a time when everyone was worried about exams. This week, everyone is relaxed and refreshed. Also, no one really has too much work or reading to do this week, so we can all go out at night for dinner and talk, drink, dance, and have fun.

This is going to be another insanely busy semester for me, but I am looking forward to it. I am doing more studies in music theory and history as well as composition. I am also taking a really cool course in the history of musical theatre taught by the amazing and hilarious Dr. Elizabeth Wells, who is the head of the music department here. For one of my drama credits, I am assistant directing a play called Blood Relations, written by Canadian playwright Sharon Pollock. It explores the infamous life of Lizzie Borden, who in 1892 was on trial for the murder of her parents by the use of sticking an axe in their heads. Although she was eventually acquitted, many still speculate she was actually guilty. This week we started doing some readings with the cast and started to discuss characters. It is already jumping off the page! I am very excited to see where it all goes. The show opens in the first week of April.

Yesterday was my 21st birthday, which was pretty awesome! My dream would have been to go to Vegas, get drunk, and marry a Vegas showgirl; however, that just wasn't in the cards (no pun intended)! Instead, I was at the Windsor Theatre helping run the annual Evening of Monologues, which gives students a chance to get up on stage and perform a monologue for an audience in a casual workshop-like environment. I have been organizing the event with my friend Breanna over the past few months, and last night was the culmination of our work. We had 10 actors, and each one brought an amazing performance! Breanna and I acted as the emcees for the evening, and in our annual tradition, we made up funny intros for each monologue. The theme we took this year was The Lessons We Learn. I brought back my Tintamarre character Max, who is a very curious and innocent five year old boy who wears a red bow tie and has the cutest voice you have ever heard! Breanna played Mrs. Isabel, my teacher. After each monologue, she would ask me what the lesson was and what I learned. I would then make some childish remark that was silly, but often true. From this, she would correct me with a ridiculously false and sometimes offensive answer. It's hard to explain, but suffice it to say it was very cute and funny. More importantly, the evening was a huge success. We ended up getting over 80 people out for a theatre that only holds around 60. We had to put people in the aisles, on the floor, and even some went backstage! We had to turn people away. And the audience we had were amazing - they responded well to all of the actors and our schtick. It was the best birthday present ever!

Things are moving along well with the musical I am writing. Today we held auditions for our workshop reading we are going to do in March. We had 7 people come read and sing for us, which was cool. It was neat to hear our music and dialogue read by other people. We are doing some more auditions tomorrow and then we will cast it all.

So as you can see, there is never a dull moment here at MTA. It's only the first week and already I am crazy busy with exciting work.

Take care everyone!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

An Arizona Adventure

2009-01-03T18:26:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! I trust you all had an amazing Christmas holiday and a very exciting New Years. I am now back in Vancouver after a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona with my family. The internet access there was not very good, so unfortunately I was unable to post. However, I am back and excited to get started again. I have good stories and pictures to share!

In the week leading up to Christmas, Vancouver was hit with record snowfalls, which I talked a little about in my last post. With all of this, the airport was backed up and many people were stuck - it was all over national news. My family and I were leaving for our trip on Christmas morning. Thankfully this was at the tail end of the snowfalls, so we got out of Vancouver with no problem. We arrived in Arizona and drove to our resort, the Westin Kierland. It was a really nice property with a beautiful lobby, many nice restaurants, big rooms, a golf course, spa, pools, and amazing staff. We were there for an annual dentistry convention that my father attends. It changes cities every year, and this time around it was in Scottsdale. The annual convention brings dentists in from around the world, and most bring their families, which is cool because all of us young people hang out in the different cities and hotels each year.

I was very fortunate on the trip to play some golf, which I haven't done since the summer. Sackville has a small course on the outskirts of the town, but it is closed throughout most of the academic year because of snow and harsh winter conditions. I played once with my friend Sean and then played again with my dad when the convention held a tournament. Scottsdale is a really pretty suburb of Phoenix. There are many amazing malls, including the gigantic Fashion Square Mall. My family and I spent a day there enjoying the wide selection and good sale prices. Naturally, I did not leave empty handed!

At the convention, I met a really cool girl from England whose name is Jenny. Her brother is a recently graduated dental student. She really wanted to ride horses Western style while in Arizona, since she had only ridden British style before. She asked if I would like to join, and I said 'yes.' We got driven out into the mountains and desert to this beautiful cowboy ranch with many horses. Jenny rode a horse named Whiskey, which she fell in love with instantly. I rode a big Belgian horse named Kansas. We were led through the desert across a river and around the biggest cacti I have ever seen. One cactus I saw was at least 25 ft. tall and apparently over 200 years old! We were then led to an old Western town where we got to try our hand at some classic Western games. Jenny and I did the lasso, threw axes, and even fired a 6-shooter pistol. It was the first time I have fired an authentic loaded gun. I actually hit a few of the targets on my first try. It was an interesting experience being a very anti-gun liberal/democratic Canadian boy to be submerged in the Southwestern Republic gun-loving culture that these folks inhabit. While Jenny and I both enjoyed firing the pistol and the whole target element of it, we both commented on how scary it was to have so much power with so little effort. Anyway, we then got back on our horses and had one last ride through the desert back to home base. We then got driven back to the resort. It was a great experience to see the raw country and meet some true Arizona cowboys.

Arizona is well-known for being the second home of Frank Lloyd Wright, America's most famous architect. Just a short drive from the resort, up in the desert hills surrounding Scottsdale, is a place called Taliesin West. This was built as Wright's winter retreat camp as well as a school where he would teach his students. Today, it is a tourist attraction that is open for public guided tours. It also still serves as a school and provides both Bachelors and Masters degrees in architecture. I love architecture and have always appreciated his work, so I was very excited to visit the site. It was an amazing experience to see the whole estate because it is very big. Our tour guide was excellent and really helped explain everything. Wright is known for doing organic architecture, which means it is supposed to blend in with the natural surroundings. Taliesin West is no exception. When driving up, you almost miss the place because the desert hides it so well. The many rooms and halls are built into the sand and rock. Every little detail is amazing to see.

The convention itself had many planned events, which kept us all really busy. One night, many of the dental students and people my age went out to a salsa restaurant. We ate some Spanish food and had a salsa dance lesson, which was a lot of fun. There were many dinners, as well as lots of hanging out at the pool and around the hotel's bonfire. The convention is a great way to meet people from all over the world. This year I met Jenny and her brother from England, a really nice family from Australia, and an awesome group of guys from Sweden. The Sweden guys were really fun to hang out with and very unique. They had so much energy and were very funny. We ended up spending a lot of time together. In the end, the whole convention is just a big schmoozing festival for everyone, which is awesome! It culminated in a great New Years party where the band played, the champagne was served, and everyone hung out for one last time. Next year, the convention is actually going to be on a cruise ship, which should be an interesting experience!

So while all of the above sounds awesome, and it is, it's also exhausting. I think the earliest I ever went to bed was 1am - so I am pretty tired. Nevertheless, it won't be stopping because tomorrow morning I am flying back to Sackville. Classes for second semester will be starting up on Tuesday. There is lots to do already, but it is all very exciting.

Again, I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season. With university applications now ongoing, I am sure there are readers with questions about Mt. Allison, Sackville, and university in general. Please feel free to email me your questions and I will get back to you with answers asap.

Bye for now!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

West Coast Love

2008-12-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

In my last post I talked about how I had come home to Vancouver for the holidays and found myself still engulfed in snow. At that time, Vancouver had received a few centimetres of snow, which for us is a lot. I thought this was bad, but nothing I couldn't work with, especially since I live in the Maritimes now for school. However, this could not prepare me for what came next. Three days ago it snowed again, and it kept doing so heavily for 24 hours, resulting in more snow here than I can ever truly remember! I love the snow, and I think it's pretty and fun; however, Vancouver is not a city well equipped for this stuff, and so everyone is now scrambling. The plows never come out (do we even have any?) and the buses run slowly or don't even run at all. Getting around has been quite difficult and frustrating. Also, Vancouver airport is backed up now by three days. CBC reported they had 3,000 people stranded in there the other night. I am supposed to be flying out Christmas morning (more on that later in the post), but now I'm not even sure we will be getting out because it's supposed to snow again! So yes, snow is pretty, but it's also very frustrating in this city because everyone freaks out about it and the city seems to slow or shut down.

Nevertheless, I have been getting out of the house (thank goodness!) and I have stories to share.

First off, I totally forgot to write in my last post about the Olympic Oval that just opened here. As I'm sure you already know, Vancouver will be hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. As such, there is construction everywhere around the city. One of the big projects has been the building of the Richmond Olympic Oval for speed-skating. Last week it was finished and is now open to the public, so I went to go take a peek. I have been driving by the construction of it for a long time, but this was the first time I had driven right up to it and taken a good look. It is way bigger up close than I thought it was. On TV, the speek-skating ovals look just like some skating rink, like for hockey. But they are like three times the size! It is a beautiful building. The whole thing is designed really well and flows nicely with great lighting. There is some neat art installations they have put up around the site. The showpiece of it all is the roof, which is a piece of art in itself. It is layers of thinly cut wood that form a sequential pattern that is repeated across the entire oval. It seems simple, but it's very intricate and done on a huge scale. If you click on my picture, you should be able to see it in better detail. It's amazing to see in person!

Last night I went to go see a really cool concert downtown at the Vogue Theatre. It was the last show of a national tour called Jingle Bell Rock. The first band was Sebastien Grainger and the Mountains, who were pretty good. My friend and I only saw the second half of their set, but it was pretty tight. The next band was The Dears, from Montreal, who are one of my favourites. Their 06/07 album Gang Of Losers is an amazing opus, and something worth checking out. After much arguing between the bandmates resulting in a whole new line-up behind frontman Murray Lightburn, the band has returned with their new album Missiles. It is a strong record - far more bitter than the last, but still intricate and intimate. While not my favourite piece of new music, I still really enjoy it. In terms of their live show, their energy was very good and they seemed tight. The sound mix was a little off, which was too bad as it made it harder to appreciate their dense orchestrations and vocals. Overall, it was a well played set, but could have had more. Next on the bill was Tokyo Police Club, from Newmarket, Ontario. These guys have had quite the whirlwhind year! After their Lesson In Crime EP became a surprise world success, they wrote more and released their first LP, Elephant Shell. With this, they toured North America and Europe. Then they got asked to tour with Weezer, and then they got this Jingle Bell Rock gig. So it has been a pretty cool year for them. I saw them back in the summer at a different venue in town and it was a pretty good show. If you're willing to put your dancing shoes on and just rock out, then they are a fun show. However, they are not much beyond that. When playing live, they play their songs really fast - so fast that they go by too quickly and you cannot hear or appreciate some of their really cool instrumentals and lyrics. They also have very little interaction with the audience. Nevertheless, if you already know the songs and can sing along (like me!), then it's still a fun time.

The headlining band on the set was Metric, led by the always "interesting" Emily Haines. They recently recorded their next album, which will come out in the spring. Today, they released its first single "Help I'm Alive" on iTunes. I have never been a big fan of Metric. They have a few good songs, and many subpar ones. I saw them perform at both the Virgin Music Festival and the Pemberton Festival in the last two years. Both shows, they were extremely boring and strange. With this, I was not expecting much last night. Haines came out with her band clad in what looked like a silver painted (think moonsuit) garbage bag that barely went below her hipline. It was a strange outfit, especially for someone who likes to boogie around the stage a lot and lift her legs. But I guess its part of her mystique, and the guys in the front row seemed to love it as they all stretched out their hands during the whole set. Anyway, Metric was using this tour as a way to play the new album and promote it. I have to say, I was very impressed with the new material. It is a lot more upbeat and catchy and just seems more fun. Haines seemed like she was more with it (i.e. not on drugs possibly) this time around, which made her and the band far more engaging. They had an impressive light show with them and I think seeing them in an intimate theatre was better than the big outdoor venues where I previously had seen them. Overall, it was a really enjoyable set with lots of good audience interaction and some great instrumental solos. Haines voice was nothing special, and it never has been, but she made up for it with her strange lyrics, anecdotes, and kooky dance moves.

Now I am just hanging around at home taking care of some things before I leave town. I am supposed to be heading to Scottsdale, Arizona on Christmas morning. Hopefully that will pan out alright, but we shall see. I have no idea what the internet situation will be like for me when I am there, so I cannot guarantee another post before New Years. Hopefully though it will work out.

Until then, please take care and have an amazing Christmas!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

From Snow to Snow

2008-12-17T22:44:00.000-08:00

At the end of both winter semesters in my first two years, Sackville was unsurprisingly cold and snowy - it's the Maritimes, right! Both those years I also came back home to Vancouver for the holidays. One of the things I always looked forward to was a more balmy climate. So it was strange to come back home again this past Saturday only to get off the plane and see myself still engulfed in snow! Had I even left Sackville? It snowed again all day today. So ladies and gentlemen, both coasts of this country are experiencing a beautiful white holiday season. The difference is that it's normal at Mt. Allison and not so here in Vancouver.

Anyway, yes I am indeed done for the semester. I finished my last exam on Friday and left the next morning from Moncton international airport for Vancouver. In general, my exams went far better than expected.

The Mt. Allison exam period runs about two weeks in length at the end of each semester. It is ending completely this Friday for this semester. Some people get exam schedules that run over the whole two weeks, which I have had in the past. It can be very nice because your exams are spread out, meaning you have more time to study in-between each one. Since mine were all in one week this year, it was naturally a little more stressful. I certainly did not have as much time as I wanted to study for them, but as I said, they all went off well. I had to write music theory, music history, and modern dramatic literature.

Many people I know get scared about university because of the whole exam thing. All I will say is that at the end of the day, they are just tests, and you should not worry about them too much. Are they important? Yes! Are they stressful? Yes! But they go by fast, and the feeling that you get when you're done is the best in the world! Also, they aren't too bad at MTA I think because it's a small school. It's easy to get study groups going and everyone is good about helping each other out to study. Also, our professors are easy to get in touch with if you want some extra help and prep.

Most of the exams are written in our gym, and they range between 2-3 hours in length. It's not the greatest writing environment, but it could be worse. There are professors there to help and because it's a smaller school it doesn't feel as overwhelming. I know that at some bigger universities, they take 3 gyms and make them all open to exams, which I am sure can be very daunting.

At the end of the day, you just have to write them and you move on. For some courses, there are alternatives to exams, which can actually be really interesting. This can include things like essays or creative projects. For my singing class, we all had to perform three pieces for our teacher, which we did in a very fun and encourging mini-recital format. So instead of doing a closed-door formal jury for just the faculty, we all performed for each other. Better yet, Helen, our voice professor, invited our whole studio to her house for dinner after! We ate good food, chatted, and sang carols. Lots of fun!

Now I am back in the city, still covered in snow. I have already done lots of nice things and seen lots of family and friends. I had a nice time downtown yesterday. I went to the art gallery, bought some great CDs, and finally got to see the movie Slumdog Millionaire, which was amazing (i.e. go see it now!).

I hope you are all having a good holiday season, wherever you are. Do something nice for yourself!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

So Close to the End...For Now

2008-12-11T06:53:00.000-08:00

Hi there - come on in! My apologies for the later posting this time around. As you will read about, things have been pretty insane around here with the end of the semester and exams. So I am a few days behind in everything. But there is lots to share, so let us get started!

Last week was our last week of classes for this semester. This is one of the most hectic weeks of the year for all university students. We are all wrapping up term projects, writing big essays, taking tests, and starting to worry about exams. At the same time (at least at MTA), there are always lots of special events, concerts, and parties going on to celebrate the end of a term. So as you can see, it is both an exciting and stressful time here in Sackville.

Last week was indeed very busy for me. I had a crazy big essay due for Music History, which I was a little behind on because of the Tintamarre play (read last week's post). Nevertheless, I got it done on time and it pulled together fairly well. Well, actually it came together very well. I just got it back on Tuesday and got a very favourable mark! I also had a large project due on Monday for my theatre production class. We each had to take a play and basically design it. So we had to do costume design drawings, set ground plans, a painted set model, and much more. We basically were living in the Windsor Theatre all weekend working on it! It was kind of crazy, but in the end it was also a lot of fun. We all brought in CDs, ordered pizza, and just kept working. In the end, the designs turned out very well and I learned a lot about that side of theatre technical design.

Last Wednesday I performed in the music department's weekly Collegium concert. We do these every Wednesday afternoon as an opportunity for music students to get on stage and show what we have been working on with our studio teachers. I performed the famous aria "Non piu andrai" from Mozart's opera, Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). If you're not an opera buff, I can guarantee you that you know this tune because it is very famous in all circles. Just look it up online. Anyway, most people come out on stage in a nice suit or dress and just sing in front of the piano. But for me, that just wasn't going to do with an opera aria that is ultimately a very silly and fun piece of music. The whole aria is Figaro mocking Cherubino about being sent off to the army. So to spice things up, my accompanist Michael and I decided to do the whole thing in period costume. I put on tights, breaches, a period shirt, and we both had these beautfiul lavish coats. On top of this, I staged the whole thing. So I ran around the whole stage acting out all the jokes that are in the Italian lyrics. And to make fun of the conventions of classical music and Collegiun itself, at the end I took a music stand and ran through the audience with it, using it as a rifle! Overall, it went off very well. People were laughing and seemed to get the idea. I think it was a nice way to lift people's spirits up too at the end of the semester.

Last Friday night was the New Music Conert. The music department does this at the end of each semester. It is a night where composition students can have their new works premiered. It's always a really interesting, fun, and eclectic evening of new music. It was a very busy night for me as I had not one, not two, but three pieces on stage! I am in the elementary composition class with Dr. Alasdair MacLean, which has been a really neat class. For it, I composed an 8-minute piece for Alto Sax and Piano called The Dreamer. I got two music students to play it at the concert. It was a really neat experience to have it premiered on stage and to just sit back and hear your sheet music come to life on stage. I also performed a group composition from that class. Me and three other students took a poem and set it to music. I was on piano, one guy was on guitar, and the two girls in the group played flute. Lastly, I came out and performed a few of my songs from my rock musical I am writing. Overall, it was a busy but very exciting evening. There were lots of really intersting new pieces up on stage.

On the weekend we had to start saying goodbye to the MASSIE students, which is always very hard! We get very attached to them, and it's hard to send them off back to Japan while we are still in the middle of studying. Nevertheless, they always go off with a bang! On Saturday night was the annual MASSIE Talent Show, which in my opinion is always one of the best nights of the year. The MASSIES took to the stage and performed many songs and skits that explored both Canadian and Japanese themes and traditions. I performed a song with my MASSIE conversation partner, Hisaki. I played piano for him while he sang a song his friend wrote back in Japan. It was called "Shine" and it is all about reflecting on good times, people, and memories. In the last verse, Hisaki began to tear up! It was an amazing moment, but we both finished the song and the crowd kind of went crazy. I think everyone was feeling the same mix of sorrow and joy. After this, we all said our final goodbyes and on Tuesday morning they left for Japan. Overall, it was another amazing group this year, and I will really miss them all!

This week was the beginning of our exam period, which runs for two weeks. I have written two already and have one more tomorrow. After that I am finished and will be returning to Vancouver. I was going to write about exams and such in this post, but I am running very long now, so I will wait until my next one. I think I will post later this week when I get back to Vancouver!

If any of you reading are also in the middle of exams, I wish you all the best of luck with them! Otherwise, please stay in touch if you have MTA questions, and see you soon!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Tintamarre Madness

2008-11-30T19:44:00.001-08:00

If you have been following this blog regularly, you have probably noticed lately that I have been talking a lot about a thing called Tintamarre. Well, what is this all about Landon? Let me tell you! Tintamarre is a bilingual theatre troupe run by Mt. Allison god (no kidding) Alex Fancy (pictured left with me). Every year a group of students get together and through a collaborative process create a new original play. Last week I wrote about being in the theatre all night for rehearsals. This week was no different, except this time around I was there because it was performance time! Yes, this week was our official run for our show entitled, "Argument." So after all the bits and pieces I have been talking about, the whole thing has come to an end. As sad as this is, it does mean I now have pictures to share - woot!

Our show opened on Wednesday night and through the week until Saturday. In total we did 4 shows. The crowds were very different on each night, but all of them were very strong. Tintamarre is unique because of its bilingual nature. Audience members are treated to actors flipping between the two languages constantly. For some, this is hard to follow. For those though who can follow the French, the rewards are huge. The script is filled with many puns and other plays on the languages. So some nights the French jokes get ridiculous noise, and other nights they get little. Nevertheless, we balance the show with lots of English and physical humour. More importantly, this year's show had a very strong political message about supporting the arts and about dealing with the tough economic times. The script was extremely topical, and was approached with both humour and seriousness combined. The audiences seemed to pick up on this very well, which was very nice to see.

I played a 5 year old in the show whose name is Maximilien (or Max). Max is the youngest in the Fortier-Smith family. Nevertheless, I was taller than basically the whole family! So I did lots of work with body language to make me seem younger. I also spoke with a very cutesy, squeaky voice that had a slight lisp. Best of all though, our resident designer Decima gave me the sweetest costume ever. It helped set-up the character so well. I had dress shorts, a polo shirt, a sweater vest, a blazer, and an awesome red bowtie! As you can see from the pictures, I looked like every mother's favourite little preppy school boy! We also put a lot (and I mean a lot) of blush on my cheeks to accentuate my youth. And oh yeah, I almost, forgot, I shaved me legs - ha ha! I was the prettiest one at the ball!

In general, all of the stuff mentioned above seemed to work. Audience members I talked to after the show seemed to understand that I was the youngest in the family. Many found the character pretty hilarious. Alex Fancy also gave me some pretty amazing dialogue, which certainly helped. A lot of my lines were me asking silly innocent questions or imitating my Mommy, who was played by my friend Francesca (pictured left).

On Saturday night we had our cast party, which was a lot of fun. We watched a big photo slideshow from the play and looked back on all the time spent. It is pretty amazing to think that in just 9 weeks we did what we did. In that short time, we brainstormed a new concept, scripted it, characterized it, staged it, and then performed it.

With the process now over, everyone in the 31 person cast is returning to their normal MTA lives. It's amazing how when you do a show you get totally absorbed by it. The theatre kind of becomes your home for a little period of time and everything else fades into the background. Nevertheless, there is no more time for fading. I have too many papers to write and projects to finish! To be honest, it's just crazy around here right now. Most of my friends are pretty stressed because there is so much to be done in such a short period of time. Nevertheless, as I have learned from my time here, it always gets done somehow. For me, I just make sure I do as much planning ahead of time as I can. You cannot leave everything until the night before at university like you could sort of do in high school. Still, if planning fails, just boil a lot of coffee or tea!

I will say though that I will be happy when the semester is over. This past week I have been firming up some plans for my vacation time and it is looking very exciting!

I have recently had a few people email me with questions about MTA and certain programs. Thank you so much for sending me your inquiries - I am happy to hear that you are thinking about MTA! Please feel free to contact me with any questions you have. I will be happy to help you or to direct you to someone here who can best answer your questions.

Take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Snowed In!

2008-11-22T19:25:00.000-08:00

If you have been reading this blog from week to week, you probably have noticed me making hints towards an approaching Sackville winter. Well this week it is official - Christmas has come early baby! A few days ago we got a pleasant first batch of snow which left Sackville looking white and pretty. Then we got warning that a huge storm was heading our way. Well for once the weather man was really right! I went to bad Friday night with clear skies out my window. I awoke Saturday morning to see nothing but white blowing everywhere! The snow was up to my knees, the sidewalks were not even visible, and the town was virtually shut down. As a result, my rehearsals for my play were canceled today and a concert which I was to perform in was also canceled - too bad!

Nevertheless, a stressed out student can always use a snow day where he can cozy up inside with some tea while listening to some Rhapsody in Blue (George Gershwin). I have been able to get lots of work done for various projects. I also trekked through the snow and was able to run some errands downtown. Lastly, I went to a canceled and then non-canceled potluck at my friend Francesca's apartment. It was supposed to be after the rehearsal today for the play I am in, but with the weather and a canceled rehearsal, not many people from our 31 person cast showed up. Nevertheless, this made it a very cozy and intimate affair, which was relaxing. It ended with a giant snowball fight outside in the parking lot!

Speaking of the show, which by the way is called "Argument," things are coming along pretty well. We open on Wednesday (ay!) in the Windsor Theatre here on campus, and perform through the week until Saturday night - 4 shows in total. We will begin adding props and costumes tomorrow and then on Monday we will add all the lights and other technical stuff. So on top of all the end of terms projects and essays, I have to be in the theatre for long hours everyday now. Still, I wouldn't trade it for anything. In fact, I have learned as a student that being busier can benefit you more than not doing much at all. If you keep yourself busy, you are forced to plan and maximize your time, whereas if you don't get busy, you fill up all that free time with video games and movie watching instead of actually studying.

In other news, Sackville has been a busy place this week. On Wednesday night we had another show in town as part of the annual Performing Arts Series. This series brings national and world class performing acts of all genres to Sackville for students and the community to enjoy. The tickets are really affordable, and first year students even get free tickets to some of the shows! The Wednesday show was a performance of Rossini's classic comedic opera "The Barber of Seville." It was put on by Jeunesse Musicales, a company based in Montreal that helps up and coming classical artists get their start. The singers were very young for professional opera singers (i.e. later 20s, early 30s), but they were all very strong and had great stage presence. Above all, they had a great understanding of the comedic timing set into Rossini's music. "The Barber of Seville" is a classic of the Italian opera repertoire. The overture is famous for many reasons, but mostly today because of Bugs Bunny! Also, this opera has the famous Figaro aria!

On Friday night, Dr. Stephen Runge, who teaches me music history and who is a piano professor in the conservatory, gave a recital in Brunton Auditorium. Dr. Runge is one of the most amazing pianists I have ever seen. He takes on very demanding material and always brings lots of passion and subtle flair to his performances. He joined our department last year and has been a great addition to the place. In his recital, he played some very nice Beethoven and Schumann fantasies. But the show-stealer was his 35 minute playing of Tsontakis' "Ghost Variations." This contemporary piano piece is unique and extremely challenging. The neatest thing about it how it integrates modern atonal qualities with the lush tonality you see in Mozart and Beethoven. At the end of the piece, the player plays the main theme high up in the keyboard and keeps moving right. As he does this, he eventually runs out of keys, so he is instructed to literally knock on the wood at the end of the piano. At the same time, the left hand is playing block chords low in the piano. The effect is beautiful, haunting, and captivating all at once. This was one of the few solo piano recitals I have attended where I truly felt a part of it all. I was actually shaking at the end through the wood tapping section!

Anyway, I really rambled on there about some things, but it's all interesting I think!

Thanks for reading this week. If you have any questions about Mt. Allison life, please feel free to contact me. I am happy to help and answer your questions!

Take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

I Heart Montreal

2008-11-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

Well everyone, I'm back! Sorry for disappearing there last week. We had a 4-day weekend for us Mt. Allison students and I was in Montreal for it without much internet. So that explains my absence. The good news is that I have stories to share.

I left Sackville last Friday from our train station. The ride to Montreal on the train is long, but it's kind of relaxing and it's cheaper than flying. The train leaves Sackville at 4pm and arrives in Montreal the next morning at 8am. I decided to get a sleeper car, which I have never done. I got my own little room, which was so much fun. I was able to just hang out, watch movies on my computer, and even get some work done. I also got to enjoy some great food in the fancy dining car, which is always fun.

I arrived safe and sound Saturday morning in Montreal at the train station located right in the center of downtown. My friend Matt was kind enough to let me stay with him and his family for the weekend. So he came and met me at the station Saturday morning. Now before I go on about my weekend, I have to explain the significance of me staying with Matt. You see, I met Matt through doing this blog! Like some of you, Matt was a prospective MTA student who read this blog last year. He then emailed me with some questions and from there we started communicating back and forth about MTA and other stuff. Then when I was in Montreal last year we met in person and talked more. In the end he chose McGill to stay at home (damn you Matt - just kidding!), but we have been staying in touch ever since, which is awesome!

Anyway, Matt and I went back to his house where his family was kind enough to serve me a hearty Montreal breakfast. This included fresh salmon, cream cheese, and of course the best bagels in the world! While I do love Sackville, believe me, our one major flaw is that we don't have good bagels, which for me is a real shame.

Matt and I then went downtown and browsed through some of the stores before heading over to the McGill campus to see his girlfriend in a student production of the play Closer. You may know this play from the movie adaptation which starred Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, Jude Law, and Julia Roberts. To refresh your memory, Closer (by Patrick Marber) is a play where four London residents basically sleep with each other multiple times and in the process mess each others lives up! It's a marvelous play on stage because the raw emotion is bare and exposed for all to see. The McGill production was very well done. While the pacing was a little slow for Marber's witty and quick dialogue, the acting was overall very well done. It's a challenging work that really is too intense and mature for university students to take on. Nevertheless, I give the cast and crew credit for taking it on fully and doing it justice.

That night I went to a neat little basement coffee house called The Yellow Door to see Matt play. Matt writes and sings his own songs. He recently released a full LP and it's very good. I actually have played him on my radio show before. He does a lot of solo acoustic guitar and voice stuff, but for this show he actually had a band with him. It really energized his set! It was a lot of fun to be there and to meet all of his Montreal friends/posse! If you are interested in checking out his music, go to: www.mattstern.com

I spent Sunday mostly with Matt and two of his friends from the theatre world. Through Matt I met Taylor who is an actor and musical theatre lover. Now through Taylor I met Chris, her friend, who is a McGill student, piano player extraordinaire, and also a musical theatre fan. Following this chain?

Taylor and Chris just opened a little rehearsal space, so we headed over there to sing and hang out. We ended up singing from around 1pm to 10pm. It was crazy fun! Chris can sight-read anything and everything and Taylor sings so great. So we sung through tons of stuff all afternoon. We did almost all of Avenue Q with all the puppet voices. We did Rent, Les Miz, lots of Jason Robert Brown, some Sondheim, and more. I also played for them my rock opera that I am working on. I was nervous to show it to them but it seemed to go very well. They helped read through all the dialogue and made some harmonies with the music, which sounded so amazing! It was neat to see it finally jump off the page and take life!

My Monday was pretty quick. I had lunch with Chris and Matt and then hung out with Taylor for a bit in the afternoon. After that I packed and was then back on the train. I arrived back in Sackville Tuesday morning after a very crazy, spontaneous, and enlightening weekend!

Now I am back into MTA mode. I have so much work to do! Ay! But it will all get done - it always does somehow. I am currently working on a neat essay where I am comparing elements of Samuel Beckett's theatre (Waiting For Godot, Endgame...) to the 2008 Canadian Federal Election. It's kind of a strange topic to do but I really love it. My professor for this English course is really open to this stuff and very approachable, which helps a lot.

I have been very busy with Tintamarre too. Our bilingual play opens in less than two weeks! Last night I found this awesome pink hat in the green room backstage. I was wearing a vintage Mickey Mouse t-shirt, which actually went really well with the hat. The look screams 80s Disneyland tourist - love it!

Well that's it for me this week. Long post, so if you are still reading, thanks for sticking with me, you are the best!

As always, if you have any questions about Mt. Allison or university stuff in general, please feel free to email me. I am happy to help!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Stars Come Out (Take Two)

2008-11-02T07:17:00.001-08:00

If you followed my blog through the summer, you may remember an entry about the STARS concert in Vancouver I attended. Stars is one of my favourite bands out there today and easily one of the best working in Canada's vibrant indie music scene.

At the Vancouver concert, I was lucky enough to get backstage and meet the band. I asked them about why they had never come out to the Maritime provinces in awhile. They explained that they wanted to but that it was difficult to organize with their touring manager. However, they said it might finally happen later in this year.

Well they were right! This past week the band has been touring the East Coast of Canada with their new Sad Robots EP (www.sadrobots.ca). Myself along with a few others here at Mt. Allison were trying to get them to play here in Sackville, but that never panned out. Instead, they played in Moncton, which is main centre of this area. It's only a 30 minute drive from Sackville. So naturally we attended the concert!

Stars are known for their melodramatic and lush pop music. The vocals are shared between the always quirky and over-dramatic Torquil Campbell and the always lovely and subdued Amy Millan. The band took to the stage in full force and played a solid 2 hour set that featured music from all of their records and the new EP. The set was similar to the one in Vancovuer, however the band seemed tighter. Torq was a little less crazy and way more on pitch, which was nice to see. They seemed genuinely excited to finally be playing in the Maritimes. If you have never checked out their music, I really highly recommend that you check them out. They have a lot of different material out there now since they have been around for awhile.

For my music recommendation the week, I am picking Newfoundland band Hey Rosetta! These guys opened for Stars that night and were very impressive. They actually played at MTA twice in the past two months, but this was my favourite set they performed. They just released their first LP, produced by Hawksley Workman. It is a beautiful piece of rock music. Hey Rosetta! is special because they combine classic indie rock with a violin and cello, which gives it that folk/Celtic East Coast twist. Each one of their songs is very unique and does not follow a typical pop song structure. There are always twists and turns, dynamic shifts, and intriguing lyrics that make the listener really dive in. Their live energy is incredible too! Check them out!

Sackville has been pretty quiet these days. As we move into November now, the workload starts getting a little crazy. I have been inside a lot doing work. And while it has been getting very cold, Sackville is actually looking splendid! The sun has been shining and reflecting on all the multicoloured leaves that are falling off the trees. I love this time of the year. It's so peaceful and beautiful.

Next weekend I will be in Montreal for the long weekend vacation. I will try to post while I am there, but I am going to be very busy, so it may be hard to do. Nevertheless, I hope you have a good week and do many exciting things.

Please email me your Mt. Allison questions if you have any. I am happy to answer them!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Work. Play. Repeat.

2008-10-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hello there! Welcome to another week in Landon Land! Woo hoo! It has been a pretty busy one. I have been doing lots of homework, but also finding time to check out some pretty fun events.

The week began pretty quietly. I had lots of classes and rehearsals for various projects. Being both a music and theatre student certainly keeps me busy!

Things picked up Thursday when Hunton House (a MTA residence) had a MASSIE dinner. Basically, all of the MASSIES in the house got together and made Japanese food for the whole house. Hisaki, my Japanese MASSIE conversation partner, invited me to come, which made me very happy. Being from Vancouver, I am quite partial to Japanese food, since we have it everywhere! So I was pretty ecstatic when I walked into Hunton and saw in front of me udon, okonomiyaki, miso soup, and lots of sushi rolls! For a lot of the residents, this was their first time trying sushi. It was very interesting to watch their various reactions. Some loved it, while others thought it was the grossest thing they had seen. I personally can never get enough! As you can see in this picture, Hisaki was clearly enjoying it all too!

Sackville is a pretty busy place for a town of just 5,000 people. There always seems to be more than enough going on to keep me entertained and distracted from doing homework. This year, Sackville was actually named a Cultural Capital of Canada because of our amazing arts community and contributions. With this special title, the Candian government gave us a huge amount of money to add more special cultural events. One such event happened this weekend. It was called Songs On Stage. It featured three nights of amazing concerts. The first was Chantal Kreviazuk and Gordie Sampson. The second night featured Jill Barber and some others in a special Songwriters Circle setting.

While I missed these two shows because of other commitments, I luckily made it to the third and final special show, which was Joel Plaskett and Ron Sexsmith. The show was held in the large Convocation Hall auditorium on campus. It was pretty packed, which was nice to see. Joel Plaskett is pretty much the king of East Coast Canadian indie rock. Plaskett and his band the Emergency have been around for awhile making records and touring. But for this show, Joel played just acoustically on his own with a special guest: his dad! The two were a great pair. It was neat to hear many of his songs in a stripped down form. The songs took on completely different meaning. As usual, Plaskett was a totally humble and gracious performer who took requests, told great anecdotes, cracked many jokes, and was delightful enough to recieve two standing ovations and an encore.

After this, Ron Sexsmith and his band took to the stage. Sexsmith is a real gem to the Canadian music scene. While usually overlooked in mainstream music culture, his tunes are some of the best in the country. His lyrics are raw, sincere, and important. As a performer, Sexsmith was certainly at ease on the stage. His laid back persona was pleasant and fun. After playing for more than 90 minutes, Sexsmith took more requests in an encore and left to a standing ovation. Overall, it was a pretty amazing night of music! It was great that Sackville could get these awesome acts into town!

Besides all that, my weekend has been filled mostly with doing school work. I have been doing some research for various projects. I am also working on a piece of music for my compostion class. I am writing a jazz piece for alto sax and piano. It has been an interesting process because I am not used to writing for the sax and in this style, but I am really enjoying the challenge!

Lastly, this afternoon we began rehearsing scenes for a production coming up that I will be in. Mt. Allison is home to the world famous (I'm serious - Wiki it) theatre troupe Tintamarre. Run by the amazing Alex Fancy, Tintamarre is a bilingual theatre troupe that has been part of the MTA arts scene for over 20 years! Every year, Alex gets students together who want to participate and we create an original show. We spent the last month brainstorming the concept and characters. From there we started writing scenes which Alex then compiled into a full cohesive script. This collaborative creation process is amazing to go through. It's very special! As always, Tintamarre shows feature actors speaking in both French and English! This year's show is entitled, "L'Argument." It's about Ernestine and her journal, which comes to life! I am playing her youngest brother, Maximilien, who is a hilarious inquistive little guy! So now I need to start working on creating Max. I am trying to create a new way of walking and a young voice. I am kind of trying to channel my inner Bobby's World, if you know what I mean! Anyway, the show goes up at the end of November, so I have some time to figure it all out.

That's all I have to say for this week! Next week features more work and more play! It will also feature me in a scarf, toque, and gloves because it's finally getting cold out here!

As always, please email me if you have any questions, thoughts, queries etc.

Take it easy!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Post Election Blues

2008-10-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

Another week has passed, and so has another Canadian general election. I usually find elections very exciting. They are all about show and fake promises, and being a theatre person, I find this entertaining, to say the least. However, this election, if I may be blunt, sucked! It was boring. Even the election coverage on TV was pretty boring (although you can't completely blame them since the politicians had nothing interesting to say). To top it all off, we didn't even end up with a very different government. We spent over 200 million dollars and were given a clean dish of deja vu!

Anyway, that is my political rant for the day - thank you for bearing with me. On the plus side, Mt. Allison got more involved with this election than they have with previous ones. There was a real push to get students out to vote. So they actually put a voting station in our meal hall on campus, which has never been done before.

Since the election, I have been spending the week doing many things, like homework! Luckily I used the long weekend well, so I haven't been scrambling too much. Nevertheless, there is always lots to be done. Please though don't let this scare you. I know some high school students get swayed into thinking university work is so hard and impossible. The truth is, yes there is a lot to do, but it is very manageable if you stay organized and show some effort. Also, at Mt. Allison, because we're a small school, you can get help directly from your professors! Every professor here I know is extremely approachable and willing to help. In fact, they encourage you to come visit, even if it's just to chat about the weather (which I can tell you I have done)!

So I have a little story to tell you now. Yesterday was supposed to be "Bow Tie Day" in the music conservatory. Why, you ask? Well, I will tell you! Last month our clarinet professor, Wesley Ferreira, gave a recital. So there were posters around town with his picture on it. In it, he was wearing a very nice bow tie. So the next week our campus newspaper (The Argosy) made a joke about him as being the only man on campus who could pull off a bow tie. So then it was announced for fun that Friday, Oct. 17th would be Bow Tie Day in the music building. So being the fashion lover I am, I clued in and dug up my bow tie. I put it on yesterday and was looking so sharp! The only problem was no one else remembered to do it! Not even Professor Ferreira! So there I was, the lone bow tie man, looking so sharp but feeling so alone. It was fantastic!

This weekend is looking pretty busy, as always. There is an amazing string of concerts and lectures going on this weekend in the music conservatory as part of a symposium on the French composer Olivier Messiaen. Tonight there is going to be a performance of his very famous work, "The Quartet For The End Of Time," which I have heard is beautiful - so I am looking forward to that.

Speaking of music, this week I am going to bring back a regular thing I did last year on the blog. That is my Music Pick of the Week. As I have written about in the past, I do a weekly radio show here at MTA where I play a lot of indie music from around the world. While the show is currently on hiatus, I still am listening to lots of new music. So to do my part to the indie community, I will try to write about (i.e. promote!) a new band every week here that I think you should be listening to.

This week I am just loving the debut full-length album from Seattle band Fleet Foxes. Their self-titled debut features 11 of the most soothing songs I have heard in a long time. Fleet Foxes sings a mix of folk and indie pop with stripped down instrumentals but huge vocal harmonies. Their sound is hard to describe I admit. It's very complex and simple all at once, which is what makes it appealing. There is a lot going on in these songs. I highly recommend you check them out online.

Well that's it for this week. I am going to continue working on various things. I am also planning a trip to Montreal for the next long weekend, which is very exciting! If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Midterm Season

2008-10-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. I am writing to you from an official temporary ghost town! You see, with the long weekend, most Mt. Allison students have left Sackville and gone home. But not me! I get Sackville all to myself. Well not exactly, but pretty much. It's very quiet around here and peaceful. It's a great time to get work done.

Anyway, the past two weeks have been pretty busy with the emergence of midterms. I have had various projects and tests, but overall it has been going very well. The nice thing is that I have been able to find time to do some other fun things...

Last Wednesday night I had Hisaki and some of the other Japanese MASSIE students over to my house for dinner. We have a little organic and health food store in Sackville called the Cackling Goose, and they try to consistently carry Japanese food ingredients. So I went there and bought all the stuff needed to make sushi. I bought nori, wasabi, ginger, sticky rice, udon noodles, and more.

While I eat sushi all the time when I am in Vancouver, I admit I am not an expert at making it. Of course the MASSIES knew everything, so they led me through the process. It was a lot of fun to make. We ended up with so much sushi filled with everything from crab to cucumber, avocado, and even eggs. We also made a soup with udon noodles that was really tasty. To finish it all off, we boiled some jasmine green tea.

Once all the food was prepared, we went into my living room and naturally watched a Japanese anime film. In the end, everyone picked Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. I have seen this film now more than 20 times probably and it still remains one of my favourites. If you have never seen it, you really need to see it.

On Thursday night we had a band playing at the Pub all the way from Japan, called Sleepyhead. Through a Canadian friend of theirs, they were able to connect with our MASSIE coordinator to organize the concert. I was asked to open for them, which was really exciting. The show went off very well. I played piano and sang for about 30 minutes. It was a lot of fun. Sleepyhead played a really solid (and loud!) set of ambient/atmospheric rock. While all of their lyrics weren't exactly comprehensible to me, they had a very tight sound that was great to listen to. They were really nice guys and it was cool to have them come to our campus.

Now I am just taking the long weekend to myself to catch-up on lots of work while also listening to lots of new music. My radio show is still on hiatus unfortunately because the station is still in the process of changing buildings. Nevertheless, all this free time away from the airwaves has given me the chance to gather a lot of great new indie music from Canadian and international artists. So when I do get back into the studio I will be ready to go at full speed!

With the return of a new academic year, I know that many reading this might be prospective students for Mt. Allison. As I said in my last post, if you have any questions about Mt. Allison or just university life in general, please feel free to contact me either here on the blog or through my MTA email address.

Enjoy the weekend! Enjoy the turkey! Enjoy life!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

And We're Back!

2008-09-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

That's right folks! The dead can come back to life! After more than a month away from this beautiful blog, I am so happy to be back here posting for you on a weekly basis. I apologize for my absence. After my last post, I was out of town on my family vacation (more to come below) and then the summer was over. Then I got back to Mt. Allison and the future of my blog was a little uncertain. Nevertheless, it is now confirmed that I will be able to continue officially posting for the university, which means you have the chance to read about more of my crazy MTA adventures. So let us backtrack a little...

After my little coffee house concert in August which I posted about last time, I took the next few days to pack for my vacation with my parents. A few days later, we hopped in our car and drove five hours to the Okanagan Valley. If you don't know, in recent years the Valley's wine industry has been developing at a rapid pace. My dad is really into BC wines, so we have been trying to actually go there to tour the wineries for a few years. This trip was like 4 years in the making!

Anyway, we drove up and begun in Kelowna, which is the biggest town/city in the Okanagan Valley. Situated on the beautiful and expansive Okanagan Lake, Kelowna felt like a true escape from the city even though it was only 5 hours away from my home in Vancouver. The Valley is caught in a desert and a bunch of other unique microclimates which allow it to be a great place to grow grapes. The scenery was nothing short of breathtaking. Over the entire week of being there I shot more than 250 pictures because everywhere we turned there seemed to be something incredible to see.

Kelowna was home to many of the major Canadian wineries, which of course we all toured. These included the Mission Hill Family Estate, Cedar Creek, and Quail's Gate Estate Winery. Each of them had huge plots of land with rows of grapes going for as long as your eyes could see. Each had the most beautiful buildings too with amazing restaurants and terraces.

We continued our journey by heading south through the valley towards the US border. The next place we hit was the famous Naramata Bench. Although only about 2 hours from Kelowna, it had a totally different feel. The road was just one lane in each direction and winded its way over hills and around cliffs that hugged the lake. The wineries were all stacked on top of each other and across the street from one another. You basically would just go from one to the next for as long as the day lasts. You park, go in, and just sip wine - sometimes completely for free! Of course the idea is to get you to buy some wines you liked. My dad walked away from virtually every winery with at least one bottle. We came home with about 6 cases of wine, which is 12 bottles times 6! But I wasn't complaining of course. I mean why would I when I got to be buzzed by noon everyday and then sit out on a terrace with great food and the most spectacular view!

The last place we hit was the Osoyoos and Oliver section of the Valley. This area is a lot more flat and arid. It certainly felt more like a desert. Because of this warmer climate, the primary grapes grown here are red varietals (Merlot,Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Cab Sauv, Malbec etc.) The area is home to many of BC's best wineries both large and small, like Burrowing Owl, Black Hills, Fairview Cellars, Le Vieux Pin, and Hester Creek.

Overall, there is so much to learn from every winery I visited. Each has their own character and their own approach to winemaking. The people are so passionate about what they do and they all support each other. It was a truly amazing type of vacation. If you have never visited a winery or done a tour of a wine area, you have to try it!

After all of this, we drove back to Vancouver (in the worst traffic block I have ever seen!) and then I packed for my return to Mt. Allison. One day later, I got on a plane and was back here in Sackville, New Brunswick by the nighttime.

It's very nice to be back here on the East Coast among all my friends. I am now living off campus in a great house with 3 friends of mine. It has been a bit of an adjustment, but it's all good. My classes have started to pick up and of course so have all the various extra-curricular activites that MTA has to offer.

While there have been lots of things going on, I cannot take the time to write about them all. But I will mention just a few neat things that have been happening.

First off, if you read my blog last year you will know that I talked a lot about having a MASSIE roommate. Every year MTA welcomes about 50 Japanese students who come here for first semster to live among us and learn English. They become a great part of our community. So last year I had one as a roommate while I lived in residence. Now that I am off-campus, that is no longer an option. Instead, I am now a MASSIE Conversation Partner (or as the MASSIEs pronounce it in English/Japanes, a "Convasaition Patnaire"). So basically I get paired up with one of the MASSIES and then we meet up once a week for an hour or two and chat so they can improve their English. My MASSIE's name is Hisaki and he is awesome! We have been going out for coffee, dinner, and walks around town. He spent a year of high school in Saskatchewan a few years back, so his spoken English is really good. When I met him at first, I wasn't even sure he was really a MASSIE because his English was so fluent and clear. So it has been fun because we can just talk and talk!

The other cool thing around here is how the federal election has been making its impact around here. As you may have heard about on the news lately, Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been doing a cross-country tour by train for her campaign. She started in Vancouver over a week ago. She has been getting off at every stop to do rally speeches or just greet those who are there. So we found out that May's train would be stopping in Sackville yesterday afternoon. A few of us went down to greet her and at around 2:30pm the train came to a stop at the Sackville station. Then this short woman stepped out of the car and with a huge smile ran towards the small crowd yelling "Oh hi there! Thank you so much for coming. Yay Mt. Allison!" It was just a two-minute whistle stop, so she didn't have much time. But she greeted everyone, posed for some pictures, answered a few quick questions, and then jumped back on the train and waved goodbye as it passed. Whether you support the party or not, you have to admit that it is a truly ingenious campaign idea. There is something so nostalgic and exciting about a train tour. The antcipation was there as the train pulled in and it felt so neat to be up close and personal with the campaign and a leader in it.

Otherwise, not much else is going on around here. My radio show is currently suspended as the radio station is changing locations on campus. I have some tests this week for my classes, so that's kind of exciting - HA! There, I got to have my one bit of sarcasm for this post - YES!

Anyway, now that we are back into another school year, I know that there is a chance more prospective students are reading this. Please feel free at anytime to email me with your questions. I am more than happy to let you know about MTA and what it's like to be a student here.

Please take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Food, Clothes, and Coffee

2008-08-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

Well another week has passed by, and quite quickly I must say. It feels like I was just here yesterday. Anyway, it has been a pretty busy week here in Vancouver around my place. Last week started kind of slowly because I was still getting over my wisdom teeth having been taken out. So I was still kind of low on energy and living on my T3s. But by the middle of the week it was pretty much all finished with, which was awesome!

On Tuesday evening my good friend Jacob stopped by my place to join me in some cooking. We had been trying to get together to do some cooking together for over a year and with our schedules (and me being out of town a lot too), it took this long. But it was so worth the wait! Jacob brought over this recipe for a very simple, fresh, and extremely delicious pasta dish. Basically, we made a base for the pasta bowl that included tomatoes, brie cheese, fresh basil, and a lot of garlic. We then cooked noodles and added some other little things before mixing it all together. The fresh basil and garlic made all the difference. The pasta was quite a hit with my whole family. I will definitely be taking the recipe back with me to Mt. Allison!

On Wednesday I had the lucky opportunity to attend a special Trunk Show at the Holt Renfrew store downtown. It was for the Fall/Winter collection from Burberry Prorsum, which is the very exclusive runway collection from Burberry. The designer, Mr. Christopher Bailey, is one of my favourites! Basically, the store brought in the Burnerry reps from NYC with a ton of the stuff from the runway. We were then able to ask questions and try it all on. The clothes were amazing! Although some of it was totally frivolous stuff that you could only wear in Italy on a physical runway, the attention to details and quality was astounding to see up close. I tried on this dark purple overcoat and it was easily the best made and cut coat I have ever tried on. However, with a price tage ringing in at just under $3000, it seemed a little silly for a unviersty student to own something like that.

The rest of the week was spent pretty much at home preparing for a concert I did last night. As I have talked about throughout this blog, I am currently working on writing the lyrics and music for a new orighinal rock musical along with other music. Well most of this has been happening at Mt. Allison, so none of my West Coast friends and family have had the chacnce to hear it. So I thought it might be fun to do a casual and intimate coffee house concert in my house.

The whole thing went off really well! We somehow packed about 25 people in my basement around my piano. We put of lots of food out including fancy cheeses and sushi. We also had some drinks including one of my new favourites, a Kir Royale.

I basically sat at the piano and played through everythiung from the musical I have written thus far. In-between songs I explained the plot of the show and shared other bits of interesting information. In total I squeezed in about 15 songs. My friend Stephanie joined me as well, which was so much fun. She sang some of the female vocal parts from the show. We also performed a pop song we wrote together just a little while ago.

Everyone seemed to have a good time. It certainly was a nice way to share this music with my West Coast family and friends in an intimate and casual way. Hopefully I will get to do something like it again soon!

Well that's it for this week. Later on this week I will be leaving with my family for the Okanagan Valley where we will be touring some wineries. I am not sure what the internet access will be like up there, so I cannot guarantee that I will be able to post. Nevertheless, expect there to be lots of pictures of vineyards on here somewhere in the near future.

Until then, please take care and enjoy the final weeks of summer. Feel free to email me if you have any Mt. A questions.

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Waiting...

2008-08-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

Well it has been another quiet week around here in Vancouver. The body of the week was spent pretty much at home just writing more music and playing around my new tech toys (read last week's post).

I could have gone to see the big Feist concert, but since I have already seen her (and met her too!) I decided to pass. But I made up for it by going out for high tea. There is this great place in Vancouver called The Secret Garden and it has been a Vancouver staple forever. Now while I was one of the only people in the place of the male variety, I have to say that it was a really great experience. If you have never gone with your friends or family for the classic British style afternoon high tea, you have to try it! The Secret Garden had a huge list of teas to choose from. The best part though is the food, which comes on the famous three tiered trays. There was salmon, egg salad wraps, croissants, chocolate banana muffin bread, and the most amazing little desserts to top it all off. In the end, I was stuffed but so relaxed by all the tea.

On Friday though, things began to change. You see, on Friday afternoon I went to see an oral surgeon so that I could all 4 of my wisdom teeth taken out. While the operation was painless (I don't even remember a thing because of the anesthetic), the aftermath has been pretty annoying. I have basically been sitting around all weekend reading or playing piano while eating nothing but soup and yogourt. The pain has been in and out, but thanks to my good friend Mr. Tylenol 3, things have been mostly on the up side. Nevertheless, my energy levels are pretty low these days. And that's really about it!

So now then, another edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. This week I am really missing the Windsor Theatre. The Windsor Theatre is Mt. Allison's official theatre, which all students can be a part of. It's a great little black box space that seats about 70 people. We put on approx. 8-10 shows a year on in there. They range from musicals to comedies, dramas, experimental, and pretty much anything else under the sun. Because Mt. A does not have a conservatory-style drama program, anyone who attends Mt. A can be involved in Windsor Theatre productions. There is no hierarchy based on what courses you take or what year you're in. This allows anyone to have the chance to do some theatre on the side, which is a great way to take a break from studies. You can do pretty much everything: act, stage manage, costumes, lighting etc. All you have to do is ask to be involved and you will be! It's a very special community too because it's small. So everyone knows everyone and hangs out together. I'm helping direct a show in there next year and may act in one or two. I'm excited to get back into the space. It's a great place to hang out.

Well that's all from me for this week. By next week's post the pain should have subsided, so I will be a little more spirited, I promise.

Have a great week!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Relaxing and Experimenting

2008-08-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

After the craziness that was the first annual Pemberton Music Festival (look at last week's post), this past week has been a nice time to relax and experiment. Now just for fun and because I am a silly loser who can't come up with any better idea, I am going to split my entry today into the two main words that are the title. Shall we...?

RELAXING
The truth is that I haven't been doing much this week. I have had my piano tuned, gone to doctors appointments, and eaten out with family. At the same time, I have taken this slower pace to finally get some solid music writing done at the piano. I have made a lot of progress this week with some lyrics for the rock musical I am composing. I had been stuck for a long time trying to write this song for the lead female character called "Trying." It happens in the second act when she is at a point of major tension in her relationship with the male lead character. I don't want to bore with you the details, suffice it to say that I finally had some lyrical inspiration which grew into a nice melody.

EXPERIMENTING
Now while the above makes this past week sound like it was completely unproductive, I have to tell you that it was not. I don't think I have written about it on my blog yet, but two weeks ago I purchased a bunch of cool (and confusing) home recording equipment. This included a bunch of fancy microphones, stands, cables, a sound board, and music editing software (Pro Tools). So now after spending a sizable sum of cash, I am sitting here in my basement with a bunch of interesting but confusing toys. Pro Tools is the industry standard software for recording music and the learning curve on it is steep. Nevertheless, I am up for the challenge. I have started doing some rough home recordings. They aren't great since I have no experience as a recording engineer. Still, it has been a lot of fun to play around with.

I just put up a MySpace Music page in order to share what I have been doing. The MySpace player makes them sound even worse becuase it's bad quality, but it's a start. So if you're interested, feel free to check it out. Here's the link: http://www.myspace.com/landonbraverman

So I believe it's time for another edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. This week I am missing the Jean Coutu drugstore. Located on Main St. right in the heart of downtown Sackville, and only a 5 minute walk from the Mt. Allison campus, Jean Coutu is a paradise for any university student. Why is this you ask? Well, simply because they seem to have everything packed into that little store, and it's all sold at prices you will only find in the Maritime provinces! Jean Coutu is the Shoppers Drug Mart or London Drugs of the Maritimes, so for those who readers who are from that area, you probably think it's strange I am writing about this. But for kooky outsiders like me, I just love the place. It has everything, it's cheap, convenient, and the people who work there are oh so friendly!

And that's all I have to say for this week. As the summer rapidly comes to a close, I hope you are enjoying the time you have. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to email me with them.

Take it easy!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Beat Goes On

2008-07-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

After last week's entry on the expansive Whistler Music Festival (and all of the other music I have been writing about these past few months), you would think I would be burnt out by now and finished. But all of that was really only the build-up to the Pemberton Festival which I attended over this past weekend. With over 40,000 people, it was Canada's newest and easily biggest music festival ever!!! The festival was held in the beautiful town of Pemberton, which is just past Whistler. The site was nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains, including the amazing Mount Currie. While only in its first year, the line-up competed with international festivals like Glastonbury. Before I go into detail about my highlights, here is a sense of the scope we are talking about: Coldplay, Jay-Z, Tragically Hip, My Morning Jacket, Tom Petty, Death Cab For Cutie, The Flaming Lips, Vampire Weekend, Sam Roberts Band, Chromeo, MSTRKRFT, DJ Shadow, Wintersleep, Matisyahu, Wolfmother, Metric and a lot more (seriously).

***Some of this week's photos are better viewed in large format because of the distance and small details. Please click on them in order to enlarge them.

Now this all sounds pretty awesome, and it kind of was. The problem was the town was not ready for this amount of people, especially the highway. I spent hours everyday in my car going to and from the site to the parking lot and to Whistler. The shuttles to and from places were not organized and the crowds were too big for the roads. The site too was dusty, dirty and pretty smelly. The ride back from Whistler to Vancouver yesterday took me about 6 hours! So logistically it was a nightmare and very draining. Nevertheless, when actually at the festival, it was a great party! So let's explore. I have decided to touch on some highlights.

Here were my favourite shows:
1.) Wintersleep
2.) The Flaming Lips
3.) Matisyahu
4.) Serj Tankian
5.) Coldplay (surprisingly!)

Disappointments:
1.) Metric
2.) Interpol
3.) Death Cab For Cutie

Surprise Hits:
1.) Sam Roberts Band
2.) Low Vs. Diamond
3.) Buck 65
4.) Kathleen Edwards

Wintersleep simply kicked ass! They were the best Canadian rock band at the whole thing. Their live energy was just amazing and the crowd was eating it up it seemed. For them, and many bands this weekend, this was the biggest crowd they had ever played for. With 20,000 campers on-site, there was always a built-in crowd. I recommended these guys on my blog awhile back. If you still haven't checked out the Halifax band, do it now so you can claim you found them before they get really big because they probably will.

The Flaming Lips gave the most unique show I have ever seen from a rock band...really! Their UFO show featured dancers in Teletubbie costumes, custom instruments and amps in yellow and orange, and a lot of smoke and confetti. Best of all, the lead singer entered in a giant rubber ball which he crowd surfed in (click on the left photo to see it better)!

Matisyahu just kicked it with his reggae Jewish rap. His attitude and presence was amazing and his band was tight. It was like seeing the Rappin' Rabbis from The Simpsons come to life. Serj Tankian (better know as the guy from System of a Down) gave a politically charged and diverse set. If you like your rock with some guts and pizazz, he's the way to go because he actually cares about entertaining and saying something.

Coldplay was the biggest act at the whole thing, and I wasn't sure what to expect. In the end, they actually gave the crowd a good show. With all the hits and some great variations, there was lots to like from the "biggest band in the world." Chris Martin was in fine form, sharing lots of great jokes along the way. While I am not obsessed with these guys, I must say that they deserve to be where they are and certainly showed that they can do it live for 40,000 people screaming.

Metric, Interpol, and Death Cab were big disappointments for me. They were all boring to be honest. Metric was blah, Interpol had no presence, and Death Cab seemed flat and picked a weird set of songs.

On the flip side, there were some great surprises out there. My friend Sam and I loved a band called Low Vs Diamond who just released their first record this week. They are a pretty basic rock band, but with enough edge and catchy guitar licks that it's never a boring listen or performance. Sam Roberts' new album is pretty "meh" but his show was one of the better straight-up rock shows of the weekend. His energy was electric, as was the crowd. Buck 65, the Halifax rapper and only "one man show" of the weekend entertained with his storytelling variety of rap music. Best of all, to fill the lack of band members around him, he just danced around the stage for an hour with some "wicked and weird" dance moves...(anyone get that reference?)! And while I am not a country music fan, Kathleen Edwards performance was so bittersweet and honest that I couldn't resist her charm The fact that she did the whole thing while admitting she had a mild concussion made it even more impressive.

Overall, the festival was crazy but cool. The site was a mess, the line-ups sucked, the portable toilets and campsites smelled, but in the end, the music ruled and that was all that mattered. Would I go back then? Well, considering the traffic and how much of a bitch the whole process was, not necessarily to be honest. The line-up would have to be really special for me and worth the trip. Nevertheless, I am very happy I went and was a part of this new amazing festival that looks like it will live on for years to come.

With all of that, I leave you for the week. Next week I will return to some writing about Sackville and Mt. Allison, I promised. For now, I am going to stare out the window at the beautiful rain we are getting! It was about time this city went back to its old ways.

Stay dry!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Rockin' In The Alpines

2008-07-21T16:21:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody! How is your summer going? I hope you have been wearing that sunscreen because it has sure been getting warm out there. I felt the full thrill of the outdoors and it's warmth this weekend because I was up in beautiful Whistler! While mostly known around the world as a world-class ski resort, it has actually become quite the amazing place to visit in the summertime. A new reason for this just passed this weekend with the first Whistler Music Festival, which I attended. I have to tell you that besides the cool and eclectic lineup of bands (which I will get to), it was truly the most amazing location I have ever seen to experience live music. You can see what I mean in the photo here. To get to the festival site, you had to take the gondola up the hill and then walk to an area known as Base II, where they had set up the site. So all around the stage was the BC mountain range. Just breathtaking!

The first day had many highlights including a pretty solid set from Canada's own Bedouin Soundclash. Next up were the hip-hop/rap stylings of The Roots. While I am not usually a fan of this genre of music, I have to say that these guys were wicked. With a huge band and great performance skills, The Roots felt more like a rock band that liked to rap rather than some sleazy rapper with his entourage shouting out profanities. If you like your hip-hop served with a dash of good musical skills, I recommend you check them out.

The first day ended with Thievery Corporation, which is really the only reason I was there on the first day. Hailing from Washington DC, TC is basically two DJs who like to mix world beats with anything under the sun. They then give it their own twist that creates the most amazing "chilled out" vibe. It is not uncommon to hear their records being played in hip hotels and restaurants around the world. If you're a student reading this and you like to listen to music while you work or write essays, I strong recommend TC. Their sound is a perfect complement to work because it's not to invasive. I love listening to it while working on stuff at Mt. Allison. All their records are great, especially The Cosmic Game. Anyway, back to the show. Recreating their eclectic sounds live took a large cast, but in having it, they provided the audience with a great time. Their show included them spinning, a full back-up band, many guest vocalists, and even a belly dancer! They played a great set that showcased music from all their records.

Day 2 was another potpourri of styles. It started with the Allen Toussaint Band, who hail from New Orleans. Toussaint (who played the set seated at a full Steinway grand piano!) has written hits for many great pop, jazz, and R&B groups in the past years. But him alone with his band was an altogether amazing experience in its own right. Toussaint is a wiz around the piano, as was everyone else in his band. His saxophonist could solo like no other! The crowd certainly seemed to love the show.

Next up was the band I really cared about that day: Broken Social Scene. Known to most people as "the group that Feist came from," Broken Social Scene are easily Canada's most important indie band of the past 8 years. While Feist was not there this time, most of the main core (including Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning and Andrew Whiteman) were all present for this gig. Nevertheless, I am sorry to report to any BSS fans out there that their set was actually a terrible disappointment. It started off well with good performances of a few solid hits and some great dialogue from the guys. As the show continued, some mic problems forced them to leave the stage for a few minutes. When they came back, all was fixed but they were all being pretty bitter about some minor issues that are typical in live music. After all was said and done (and the time they wasted talking between songs), they only played about 8 or 9 songs. This was pretty bad coming from a band with so much great material. It felt like we hadn't really seen much of a show. Nevertheless, all the indie kids around me in their way too tight American Apparel clothing seemed happy enough just to say that they saw Broken Social Scene.

The evening ended with the always enjoyable Elvis Costello and his band The Imposters. While I don't know his music very well (not really my day, right), he certainly was entertaining. A true entertainer, Costello pulled out all the stops at the show giving the crowd a chance to join in. He seemed very happy to be back home in BC. After a solid 90 minute set and a great encore, Costello waved goodbye to the crowd and the beautiful sunset fading away on Whistler Mountain. It was a beautiful end to a beautiful weekend in the mountains.

Thanks for reading this week. As always, please feel free to email me if you have any comments or questions. This coming weekend I will be going past Whistler to Pemberton for their music festival, which is going to be MASSIVE. So check in next week for my report from that.

Take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Let The Sunshine In

2008-07-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

It seems that summer has finally kicked into full gear here on the West Coast! This past week has been hot and humid. I have been enjoying a beautiful week of being outside. After all the craziness of the wedding, it has been a nice to have a week to get outside, exercise, and try to work off all that food we ate.

I have been spending a lot of my week in Stanley Park. I had the chance this week to run around the whole thing a few times, which is about 9km. The "sea wall" path hugs the ocean and gives you a 360 degree view of the city. I have never run the whole thing before until now. It was a great way to get some exercise, enjoy the weather, and see our city in such a beautiful way. To top it all off, I ended my runs with a little R&R on the Stanley Park beaches. Through this, I have finally been getting my tan on. No longer am I a pale white ghost, no no! I am now a beautifully red burned specimen! Well, kind of.

In the latter part of the week, I had a visit from a friend of mine who actually permanently resides in Sackville, NB. His name is Daniel, and he just graduated from high school there. I know him because he actually was involved in the same choir that I was in at Mt. Allison, the Elliott Chorale. Anyway, he was in Vancouver this week staying with family to see the city before he starts a cross-country bike trip. He had never been to Vancouver before, so I showed him around Stanley Park, Granville Island, downtown, and of course took him for a sushi dinner! Now he is setting out on his bike for approximately two and a half months to travel all the way across Canada and work his way back to Sackville.

Not much else has been happening around here. The weekend was quiet, which was nice. This week things are picking up again though. Over the next two weekends, I will be up in Whistler to go to two different major music festivals. I of course will have full reports on those.

So now it's time I think for another edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. Although Sackville is a very small town (about 5000 people), we do have some pretty awesome food. Now as a university student, it's essential to have good pizza around. Mt. A students are lucky because we have many pizza options. One of my favourites is Joey's Restaurant, located just five minutes away from campus. Joey's is a great restaurant to visit, but they also deliver to residence or your house if you wish. The pizza from Joey's is very good, and I kind of miss it among some of the bland or over-priced pizza we have here in Vancouver. Joey's does all the classics, but they also have some of their own specialties that are pretty awesome. The restaurant did a major renovation this year and now it's better than ever. They have more tables and a new bar area to sit in for drinks.

Thanks for reading this week. Stay tuned for more reports from the sunny West Coast. Keep wearing that sunscreen!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

I LOVE Weddings!!!

2008-07-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

Hello there, thanks for joining me this week. I am sorry that I have taken a little longer to post this time around. I was just a little preoccupied by my brother's wedding. Nevertheless, I am happy to report that the whole event was AMAZING and that I can now share many heartfelt memories along with some fantastic pictures.

Let me just start off here by pronouncing: I LOVE WEDDINGS!!! How could you really ask for anything more? A wedding really just a big festival of love, hope, family, liquor and food!

My older brother, Adam, had been dating his fiance, Erin, for over 6 years, so this wedding was very expected. With family coming in from all over North America, we ensured that we had a celebration to match the incredible crowd. From the Tuesday of last week until the wedding on Sunday, we had at least one major event going on each day. We had dinners, social gatherings, picnics, and lots of food!

Everything throughout the week was pretty awesome. I had a nice chance to catch up with all my family and many friends. Best of all, big occasions like this are usually a chance for me to hang out with all my awesome cousins who I don't get to see very often. You see, a few years back there was an explosion of babies in our family. Now the kids are growing up and I can have full conversations with them. They are all adorable and just lots of fun to be around. So whenever we have big family events like this, I usually (with no questions asked) take on the roll of baby-sitter.

On Sunday we had the actual wedding ceremony and reception. We were very lucky that the Vancouver sun popped out for the whole day, allowing us to celebrate in true beauty. It also helped that the reception was held at a restaurant that looks over Vancouver's beautiful and expansive Van Dusen Botanical Gardens. This allowed for some great photos throughout the park. I also loved the photos we got of Adam and Erin in their vintage wedding car (look above).

Another cool thing about weddings is that it gives you a chance to dress up and look super fancy! I was one of the groomsman for the day, so I had to be a part of the "look" for the wedding party. My brother wanted a very classic look, so we all dressed in classic tuxedos with silver vests. We added personally monogrammed pocket squares and boutonnières. I have to say that it feels good to look that good! I have posted here a photo of myself modeling my wedding tux with my best GQ face - please enjoy!

I think that is all I have to say about the wedding. I hope you have enjoyed reading about it. Now I believe it's time for another edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. This week I am missing Ducky's Bar. Ducky's is a bar that is located in downtown Sackville on Main St. It's a great little pub where lots of students like to hang out to get a drink and chat. It's very quaint, with lots of tables, a tv for sports, and a foozeball table. They just added food service too! Also, they are the only ones in town who serve a blueberry ale. It's a pint of blueberry flavoured beer with blueberries floating in it, and it tastes amazing! With all the partying here in Vancouver, I have been noticing how good we have it out East when it comes to liquor prices. A beer here in Vancouver at a restaurant or a bar is at least 6$. But at Ducky's, it only costs between 3 and 5 dollars. So I am definitely missing Ducky's!

If you are reading this paragraph now, all I can say is "THANKS" for staying with me through this long post - you're very kind. I hope your summer is going well and that you are wearing sunscreen.

Bye for now!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

My Week In Recovery

2008-06-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! After two crazy weeks out at the UBC music school doing intense and long classes for singing, I have returned to my "normal" Vancouver life. It has been a nice slow week of recovery which has included such exciting things as: emails, errands, concerts, and other boring things which I will now entertain you with below. Let's get started!

The week began with some longer periods of sleeping, which was awesome! I then got a hair cut - finally! Things picked up on Thursday with a doctor's appointment - woo hoo! Just kidding. But Thursday night was actually fantastic. I went downtown to the Orpheum Theatre to see Canadian rocker Matthew Good, who is touring with his latest album entitled, Hospital Music. Good has been around the Canadian music scene for a long time, and for good reason. He is a very talented guitaritst, vocalist, and songwriter. His latest album is a deeply personal and highly emotional blend of accoustic and harder rock that details his recent time in hospitals where he was treated for bi-polar disorder. Good, who is from Vancouver, seemed to bask in the glory of being home in front of friends and family. The crowd included old fans from the Matthew Good Band days, and new younger fans who have come across his newer material. Playing a solid 90-minute set, Good and his extremly impressive band played threw a lot of the new album and thrilled the crowd with the old hits from the Matthew Good Band days, like "Hello Time Bomb" and "Load Me Up." The response was overwhelming. Good ended up playing 2 encores, making his overall show about 2 hours in length. While sometimes overlooked by the media, Good proved that he is still a very important presence in Canada's mainstream rock scene. I highly recommend checking out his new album!

The weather here in Vancouver has finally turned around. This past week has been so beautiful. So on Friday I took advantage of it by heading down to the beach for the day, along with everyone else in town it seemed. That night, I headed a club in Gastown to see the CD release party for a local rock band called, A Sheep At The Wheel. Now here's the deal: the lead singer of the band was my grade 10 math teacher! His band has been working on this record for a long time, so it was really exciting to be there to see all their hard work finished. The show was awesome and the record is very impressive. Check out their Myspace!

As I have been mentioning here and there in the past few weeks, my brother is getting married this summer! Well this very important occasion is happening next week, so preparations have begun around here. Part of this of course included the ever-important Bachelor Party!!! So last night we dragged my older brother around town to various shows, bars, and restaurants. The highlight was when we went to a karaoke bar. We rented a private room, turned on the disco ball (seriosuly), brought in some beer, and sang through the hits. My favourite was naturally "Stop" by the Spice Girls, which had the whole room singing along and doing the assoicated dance moves. I'm telling you, that song never gets old! The wedding itself is in one week, so next week you can expect many more details about the exciting occasion.

Now it's time for another edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. This week, I am really missing the fitness centre. Just a few years ago, Mt. Allison built a brand new fitness centre, and it is awesome! All the equipment is new and the room is lined with windows that look out on the football field, so it never feels claustrophobic in there. Since everything at Mt. Allison is close, it's easy to fit a regular gym routine into your life as a student, which is really healthy. I can't wait to get back there!

Well thanks for reading this week. I hope you are enjoying your summer. Contact me if you have any questions.

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Stars Came Out

2008-06-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

Vancouver has been experiencing some rough weather lately. The past two weeks have been off and on. We have had sunny days followed by many cold cloudy days with occasional spots of rainfall. Nevertheless, last night the sky was clear and the stars came out...in more ways than one. That's right folks! After years of waiting, I can finally say I saw my favourite indie rock band ever: STARS! After hearing their 2004 album "Set Yourself On Fire," I was hooked to their brand of emotional melodic indie pop music. After touring for almost a year with their new album, "In Our Bedroom After The War," the band came to Vancouver last night for a one-off gig outside in the beautiful Malkin Bowl amphitheatre inside Stanley Park.

The Bowl was packed with over 1000 people and the stage was set with a lush rose coloured curtain. The band had purchased a ton of fresh roses and other flowers which were tied to all of their amps and mics. It was the perfect complement to a beautiful summer's night in the park. It made for good fun too as the band consistently chucked the flowers into the audience.

Stars, who hail from Montreal and are part of the many Broken Social Scene spinoff bands, were in fine form last night. The band played a solid 90 minute set that included all the hits from their last two records, along with others from their two older records. Lead singer Torquil Campbell was in high spirits, as this show was a homecoming celebration. He also oddly very politically charged. He ranted quite a few times about the terrible shape of both the Canadian and American governments with many swear words included. Conversely, Amy Millan, the other lead vocalist, was relaxed and very "chill" in her speeches.

I went to the concert with my friend Dena, who actually also goes to an east coast university. She goes to Acadia. We were having a great time singing along to EVERY song. But we were disappointed in the crowd who looked so bored and unappreciative. Most of them stared blankly into thin air and occasionally bobbed their heads, but no one was dancing, jumping, or remotely partying. Kind of typical of Vancouver audiences, but a shame nonetheless.

Now I had a mission with this concert: I had to get my albums signed!!! I assumed that it would be like every other show. I would just wait on the side of the stage afterwards, the band would come out, sign a few records, and then leave. Well Dena and I got it better. By luck of a very nice stage-hand, we got pulled backstage to hang out with the band and all their family and friends! So I met all the members, got my records signed, and even had some inspiring chats with a few of them. It was a cool and lucky experience. As you can see from these two photos of our signed end products, Dena and I were both pretty ecstatic!

Anyway, that's enough about that concert. If you have never heard Stars, you do need to check them out...right now!

This past week has been busy again with my commitments at UBC for the classical singing festival I have been doing. The classes have been so amazing. I have been learning so much and meeting the greatest people from around the world. Today is the last day. I will be heading out soon for one more class. Tonight is the Gala Concert, which I will be performing in. Then it will be all over, which is kind of sad, but also good because I will get my life back.

Now it's time for another edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. All that talk about Stars had made me think about my weekly radio show I do for Mt. Allison's radio station, CHMA 106.9FM. I do miss my show and everyone at CHMA a lot! The station is a great place to get involved on campus and just hang out. It's easy to get your own show and really worthwhile. The station also helps organize bands to come through Sackville, which is always great. Overall, CHMA is its own little community and I miss it a lot. It's always fun to come in and chat with everyone about new indie bands and to peruse the extensive CD library for new music. To learn more, go to: www.mta.ca/chma

Thanks for reading this week. I hope you are having a good summer. As always, if you have any questions about anything, please feel free to email me.

Cheers,
Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Coming Up For Air...Briefly

2008-06-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I am sorry that I missed a week there. It has been crazy around here lately. I have been at a workshop all week from 8am-10pm everyday, but more on that later.

Since we last left each other, my concert craziness started to really cool off, which has been incredibly busy. I went to a few things here and there, but nothing major and nothing super exciting that I need to write about. I did keep busy though in that first week. One day I spent south of the border with my mom. Just past the US border, close to Seattle, is this crazy huge outlet mall. So we went down there for the day to do some shopping. It was a lot of fun. I also finally got to try this really hip new restaurant here in Vancouver that I have been dying to try: Boneta. It's kind of one of the "it" places in town right now. I went with a group of friends and it was very impressive.

The past week has been very different. I have been taking part in a two week workshop at the UBC school of music called the Vancouver International Song Institute (VISI). It's a two week intensive for classical singers. I have been going everyday and doing different workshops and lessons that explore singing in many different ways. I have gotten to work with faculty from around the world. It has been an amazing experience thus far and this second week is looking like it will be just as exciting. I could write about this for ages because we have packed so much into each day; nevertheless, I haven't really had a chance to come up for air and digress everything - so another time!

At the same time, another cool thing about VISI is the other young singers I have met. It's always nice to be around a group of people your own age who share the same interests. We have all been having a great time together. Sunday was our day off, and the weather was gorgeous. So a bunch of us took advantage of this by going down to Stanley Park, where we walked around the entire seawall. It was so relaxing and fun. I have spread some pictures around this blog entry from our day there. The scenery that day was breathtaking. You can't really appreciate the many views of Vancouver until you have seen them from the Stanley Park seawall.

My music recommendation this week will be short and sweet: SLOAN has a new album out. I personally think that needs no explanation, but to be fair to everyone, I will make it quick. Sloan's new album, their ninth, is called Parallel Play. It's good. No, it's great. Wait, when have they ever not been great? Sloan is probably Canada's most consistent rock band whose knack for catchy melodies and riffs has kept them going steady for two decades. If you haven't heard them yet, you are missing out.

Now it's time for another edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. This week, I am missing The Argosy newspaper. Sackville and Mt. Allison may be small, but that doesn't mean we don't have things going on that need to be reported. That's where The Argosy comes in! The Arogsy (www.argosy.ca) is Mt. A's official student newspaper. It is completely run, written, and edited by students. For the past two years I have been at MTA I have written for the paper. It has been one of my favourite things to do outside of class. I also just love reading the paper in between classes and during any spare time. The Argosy is a really great organization that is easy to become a part of. Check out the website to see what it's all about. If you search my name you can even find a list of just the articles I have written.

That's all from me for this week. As the sun starts to come out more, I would like to tell you that sunscreen is very important - except if you are swimming near a coral reef (long story!).

Take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Let's Slow It Down

2008-06-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. After two weeks of absolute craziness, things around here have slowed down in many ways. This past week featured far less nights out at loud and crazy concerts. Nevertheless, I have still been getting out of the house to enjoy the city.

Most of my week has been busy working actually. I have been helping organize a conference for an academic society. They had hired me on for the last month to help organize the event. This included booking the venue, filling out set-up sheets, putting together registration kits, and physically running the event itself. All of the prep work paid off yesterday when the conference happened. It was a long day of work (about 14 hours!), but it was all good. It was a nice group of people and they were paying me well, so why complain, right?

On Friday night I got to go out with my family to the Arts Club theatre, which is Vancouver's local major professional theatre company, to see their production of The Producers. If you don't know this musical, or the movie, I suggest you look into it. It is a hilarious musical written by the master of offensive comedy, Mel Brooks. The Broadway version won more Tony Awards than any other Broadway show in history. While the Arts Club's production was not as lavish as the Broadway original, it was actually very impressive for a smaller stage production with a tighter budget. All of the casting was spot-on and the comedic timing was all there. I had high expectations because I've seen the original in New York, and also in Toronto, and I was happy that it was good. While I do love the show, the major reason my whole family went was to support our longtime family friend Josh Epstein, who had one of the two main lead roles in the show. He did a mighty fine job! If you live in Vancouver and have never had the chance to see or hear The Producers, I highly recommend you go. It is one the best new musicals to come out of Broadway in the past decade.

Saturday night brought a return to rock concertness - yes I can make up words if I wish! I went back to the legendary (and fantastic) Commodore Ballroom to see local band Destroyer, led by the one and only Dan Bejar (of the New Pornographers). Destroyer's music is not the most approachable stuff. Musically, it is complex. It's brilliant stuff, but not your run of the mill radio sound. In order for Bejar's meandering lyrics and arrangements to transfer well to the stage, there needs to be some good performance skills and engagement with the audience. Unfortunately, there was none of it in the whole evening. In fact, I think Bejar maybe said about 10 words to the audience over the 90 minutes he was up on stage for. The band played okay, but they just didn't seem to care about the fact there were 700 people there to see them! Too bad I guess.

That was about it for the week. So now I present to you the fourth installment of: The Things I Miss About Sackville. This week, I am missing the legendary George's Roadhouse. Located "far" from the Mount Allison campus (i.e. a 10 minute walk), George's is a bar and concert venue where many students like to hang out. When bands pass through town, George's is usually the venue they will play. It has the best stage and sound in Sackville, and the atmosphere is good for indie rock. The decent beer prices help too! It's always nice to walk down to George's on a Friday or Saturday and run into all your music fan friends there. It's a big social occasion that usually leads to some great dancing and occasionally the odd mishap. For example, Woodhands' performance got so loud and out of hand that they actually broke the roof of the place! It kind of just crumbled in a little section. Bands performing there have included: Two Hours Traffic, Final Fantasy, The Tom Fun Orchestra, and many many more.

Anyway, that is all for this week. Take it easy out there!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Concert Crazy! (Part 2)

2008-05-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

Another week, and another slew of concerts! It has been an impressive week in Vancouver for live music, and while being a lot of fun, it has also been exhausting. Nevertheless, it is definitely a nice break from the academic rigor at Mt. Allison.

It started last week on Wednesday with the City and Colour concert at The Orpheum. While I had a good time, the bad news is that it was kind of a boring show. I think we all know that Dallas Green's music (i.e. City and Colour) is pretty boring in many ways. It's hard to take his accoustic stuff and make it exhilerating on stage. Now I can accept the fact that the music is what it is, and I think he played and sung it well. What I don't like is him not really giving much of a "performance." Green and his band basically came on stage, sang their songs, and then left, with very little interaction with the audience. It was a shame because I think he is an interesting person, based on interviews I have seen with him, and I would have liked to hear more from him that night. On the bright side, I had fun just looking around at the show - let me explain. You see, the show was at the majestic and historic Oprheum Theatre, where the Vancouver Symphony plays regularly. Now take this beautfiul space and throw in a bunch of badly dressed indie rock teenagers. It was this weird dichotomy of a regal building and teenagers in tight jeans hanging off their asses and just looking terribly put together.

Things improved immensely on Friday night when I went out to Deer Lake Park to see the one and only R.E.M., who have reignited their career with their latest record, Accelerate. The Park was a great outdoor venue for the band. Opening for them was the very strong and powerful NY-based band, The National, alongside Modest Mouse. However, the evening was clearly commanded by R.E.M. Leadsinger Michael Stipe was an amazing force on stage, whose genuine singing and hilarious dancing antics were very entertainting. This was the first show of their world tour, and the band was very gracious with the crowd of over 2500 spectators. As the evening continued and the night sky lit up, the set for the show came into full view. The band performed in front of these various screens that projected live footage of them but twisted into anime/manga/Andy Warhol pop art visuals. It was an amazing design and I don't know if R.E.M. has really every sounded or looked better!

Saturday night, I took a gamble on a band I knew virtually nothing about. I went to Richard's on Richards to see a synth-pop band from Paris called M83. They have been getting rave reviews on their new CD entitled Saturdays = Youth. While I could gush for an hour about this show, I will put in plain simple words: You NEED to see this band as soon as you can! I don't care if you have to fly to the nearest concert city in order to see them - you will never have so much fun. While I had heard and enjoyed the record before the concert, I had no idea that live it would turn into a crazy dance rave sound that was more infectious than anything I have ever heard. The whole show felt like we were in Europe partying in a club and that the night would never end. I met the band afterwards and they were very gracious people. It was interesting to hear them speak about North American audiences, albeit in broken English, because it's so different for them. Anyway, check out the two singles on MySpace called "Graveyard Girl" and "Couleurs." I am making these guys my music recommendation for the week. The album is great, and the live show is beyond ridiculous. It was, as I like to say, "Ridonculous!"

Lastly, there is the MIA concert, which was at the PNE Forum on Sunday night. Getting tired yet? This was a weird show, partially because of the venue. I think that if you love her music, then you will love her show. However, you have to really be into it in order to enjoy it because it was an intense show. She performs rough and loud, and the audience was right along with her. While I had fun singing along, the craziness of the floor with all these rowdy high school kids attempting to mosh was just annoying. The other thing was that MIA barely played 10 songs over an hour, which after waiting more than 2 hours for her to come on stage, was a let down.

So that is all from concert land...for now. Thankfully it is slowing down now, but as you well see, Vancouver is abuzz this summer with music.

On a different note, I did get outside this week to enjoy the sunshine as well. My two brothers and I walked up to the local park to play an intense game of bocce! In case you have never played before, it's basically curling on grass. It is simple and a great way to waste an afternoon. As you can see from the photo, my brothers are taking the game very seriously. It doesn't really matter though because we weren't keeping score.

Now it's time for another edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. This week, it is the Sackville Film Society. In downtown Sackville there is one small movie theatre with one screen - it is called The Vogue Cinema. It is an adorable and quaint little cinema where we all like to hang out...provided they show a good movie. Anyway, on Thursday nights the screen is taken over by the Sackville Fim Society, which shows non-commercial or Hollywood indie films. The ticket is around $8 and the films are always really interesting. Plus it's always a meet and greet session because of course you know virtually everyone in the town already! I am really excited to see next year's lineup because they are always really great films.

Thanks for reading this week. Feel free to contact me if you have any Sackville, Mt. Allison, or even Vancouver questions.

Enjoy the sunshine!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Concert Crazy!

2008-05-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Anyone out there like live music? I know I do! This past week has been filled with many great music experiences all over Vancouver. It has been many nights of loud bass, dancing, and little sleep - and I wouldn't ask for much more to be honest!

Wednesday night I saw the British band The Kills downtown at a really cool club called Richard's on Richards. The band is a girl and boy duo who play a mix of rock, punk, electro, and blues. It's a pretty cool blend of stuff - very high energy. While not honestly my favourite band or show, it was an interesting experience simply because the band had such an interesting stage presence, especially the girl who does most of the singing. She was kind of a pretentious bitch on stage to be honest, who seemed to be taking things a little too seriously. She didn't seem to be having a lot of fun and she was all over the place. She had no relationship with the audience; however, maybe that's just her rock n roll thing - or she was just on drugs!

Friday was a great night for music. I went downtown to the Plaza Club to see Canadian indie sensation Tokyo Police Club! My Mt. Allison friend Shannon, who is from New Brunswick, is in Vancouver visiting and she loves music, so she tagged along. We met up and headed over to the club together. For some reason, the band went on really early, so we almost missed their set. Thankfully we just got there in time, only missing the first song. The band was pretty awesome. While not the best performers, their vibe was great. We were all dancing, singing, and clapping along to their hits like "Nature of the Experiment," "Your English is Good," and "Tessellate." Shannon and I waited around a bit after the concert and were lucky enough to meet most of the boys in the band. Like just about every other Canadian musician I have met, they were ridiculously nice guys. So I have another signed CD to add to my growing collection!

Yesterday was a very busy day for me. I got up early in the morning because my whole family was helping my older brother, Adam, move to his new apartment with his fiance. It is hard to believe that he is now out of the house and no longer living with us. We rented a truck for the day and spent the morning packing up everything and getting it into the truck. The afternoon was spent at his new place where we unloaded everything, took it up the elevator, and placed it in the apartment. With the amazing 30 degrees Celsius weather we had, it was a pretty tiring day, but why should I complain when I am given pizza and Stella, right?

After the moving, I met up with a fellow Vancouverite and MTA student, Jackson, at my one of my favourite sushi restaurants called The Eatery. We were both dying to go to this restaurant. You see, as native Vancouverites, we are born with an inherent love of sushi. With no sushi restaurants in or anywhere near Sackville, our desire for the stuff whenever we come back to Vancouver is pretty intense! The Eatery makes it all that much better with its hilarious atmosphere that includes a wacky menu and a DJ on Friday and Saturday nights. It doesn't hurt that the sushi rolls there kick ass too!

In the later evening, I made my way downtown to the legendary Commodore Ballroom to see Canadian R&B sensation Jully Black. While I know some of her music and enjoy it, I had no expectations for the live show. Let me just say that I have not had that much fun at a concert in a long time! Black is a force to be reckoned with and I think she has an impressive career ahead of her. Her energy on stage and commanding vocals were amazing. Everyone was dancing and having a great time. One of the coolest things was that she had a whole band with her: Keyboards, drums, bass, guitar, saxophone, trumpet, and 3 backup singers. The overall sound was so impressive. Black has written some amazing songs and hearing them live was great. Her whole show was well put together with many costumes, instrumental interludes, and lots of great stories shared. It was a class-act that should make all Canadians proud. I am just waiting for her to be released in the US so she can start getting the wider attention she deserves.

Well that's it for concerts this week, but I think that was more than enough for one week. I have another three next week too!

Now for the second edition of The Things I Miss About Sackville. Last week I wrote about late night dining at meal hall. This week I am missing the Waterfowl Park. Sackville is built around the Tantramar Marshes. The Waterfowl Park is basically the marshes with many trails around them. It's a great place to walk or go running. In the fall, the leaves changes colours and the boardwalk through the park is lined with a rainbow of beauty. It's a peaceful escape from academic work. I miss its peace and tranquility and look forward to coming back to it in September!

Thanks for tuning in for another week! I hope all is well in your lives. Please email me if you have any comments about anything, or any questions about Mt. Allison.

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Summer Has Begun

2008-05-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

Well here we are everyone - my summer has officially begun! I have finally settled back into my home in Vancouver and things are off. It has been a pretty slow two weeks, but that is how I like it. I have lots of little stories to share and many pictures, so let us get started!

I have been spending a lot of time just walking around different areas of Vancouver to see people and different things. With the winter Olympics coming in 2010, the city is developping and changing fast. Every time I come home, there are so many new things to see. I have been doing a lot of browsing through the stores downtown for summer clothes and it's amazing how many new stores are here or are coming soon. While this is exciting, the clothes themselves actually aren't very good this season, at least for men. There isn't a lot to buy, which is kind of too bad, but probably a blessing in disguise for me considering I have way too many clothes! To be honest, I had more fun shopping for CDs the other day than I did for clothes just because of the season this year for men's fashion.

On the music note, Vancouver has a ridiculous concert line-up this year, and I have many tickets lined up. There are some weeks where I am going to 3 shows - it's crazy! I can't wait to write about all of them. Here are just some of the band I will be seeing: REM, Modest Mouse, The National, Stars, Jully Black, City and Colour, Matthew Good, Destroyer, and Tokyo Police Club. I am pretty excited for all of this.

I have been taking the time over the past two weeks to catch up with some friends as well. I recently met up with my old friend Jacob, who is a bit of a prodigy when it comes to hairdressing. He is my age and is already a professional hairdresser and Canada's national youth champion for hair styling! Anyway, he came over to my house the other day to visit. He was going to his aunt's for dinner and wanted to bring dessert, so we spent the afternoon making chocolate mousse. Jacob brought along his dog Polo, who is the cutest and nicest dog I know. We took him up later in the day to the park for a little walk, which you can see in these pictures.

Yesterday of course was Mother's Day! I spent most of the day with my family over at my aunt and uncle's place for brunch. It was a really nice and relaxing afternoon. While the brunch was very nice, I have to admit that I was more amused by the awesome Batman scooter lying around! Check it out!

Nevertheless, it was a really nice afternoon. It's very rare for my whole family to be together like this for a whole day since we all seem to get so busy. Here are some photos from the day. First is me with my two brothers. Next is all the mothers in my family - 3 generations. Next is my whole family (my mom, dad, and my two brothers). Lastly, there is my little brother Jared having too much fun with a digital camera.

So this is the first official post of my summer entries for this blog. It's kind of cool to be able to do this even though I am not at Mt. Allison right now, and I am so happy the university has supported this. I feel like I got picked up for a second season of a TV show! I hope the ratings keep up!

Anyway, on this note, I don't want you all to think I am forgetting about Mt. Allison and Sackville altogether. Perish the thought! It is for this reason that I am going to write about one thing I miss every week, in each entry. This week, I'd like to talk about my the late nights at meal hall. Our dining hall at Mt. Allison offers a late night snack on most weeknights. It was the best study break ever! I would just walk over from Windsor Hall, swipe my meal card, and hang out with friends to talk about stuff. There was always coffee, tea, and some sort of food available and lots of other things. I miss the opportunity to just run over and get a little snack and chat with my friends.

Well I think that is enough of me for one week. I hope you are all taking care of yourselves, wherever you are.

Take it easy!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Good News!

2008-05-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

I am writing in today to just announce that I will offficially be carrying through with this blog over the summer! I am very excited to announce this to you. The university has confirmed with me that they would like me to continue with my blog through the summer months, instead of stopping since with the end of our academic year.

So get ready for more entries filled with endless banter, random stories, embarrassing photos (my last post anyone?), and of course, the usual list of music recommendations. Since I am no longer on the East Coast in Sackville, New Brunswick, you will be treated to a blog filled with stories about the West Coast summer lifestyle. I promise to share all of the exciting stuff. I plan to talk about all the music concerts I am going to, and also keep you updated on the progress of my musical I am composing. I will of course also refer back to Sackville and maybe lament on what I miss about it while chillin' here out West!

So don't leave just yet, because the ride isn't over - ha ha!

Until next time, stay awesome, and take care of yourselves!

Landon

The West Coast Return

2008-04-29T10:26:00.000-07:00

I'm back baby! That's right folks, I have returned to the West Coast. My exams are over and summer is here for all of us Mt. Allison students. As you can see from the photos below, I am very happy to be back at my front door in Vancouver!

Anyway, exams finished off pretty well. The last few days got pretty stressful as I was trying to both study and pack. Nevertheless, it all worked out, as it always does.

On Thursday I flew back to Vancouver. It's a pretty long day of flying, but I have gotten used to the routine. The closest airport to Sackville is in Moncton, which is a 30 minutes taxi ride away. I then fly a small jet from Moncton to Toronto. From there, I sat around for a bit and then was on a huge and crowded jet back to Vancouver.

I am slowly settling back into my West Coast lifestyle. The weather here has been just as odd as the East Coast. It was sunny and bright for a few days, and then yesterday it just poored rain like crazy. As I look out my window now, it's sunny and bright again.

Besides unpacking, I haven't done much around here just yet. My summer is going to be pretty low-key for a change. I am working on a lot of music, including the composition of this original musical I am working on with my friend Jason. However, I have of course already made it to my local CD shop where I dropped quite a bundle on lots of new stuff, including: Plants and Animals, Tokyo Police Club, Spoon, and a lot more. You see, we have no record stores in Sackville, so whenever I am in a city, one of my first stops always is a record shop. And I usually go a little crazy in them. My count this time was 13 CDs!

So looking back, it has been another pretty busy but amazing year at Mt. Allison. The last semester was pretty hectic at times and even frustrating, but I still feel like I have learned a lot and gotten to take part in so many amazing experiences. It has been a year filled with diversity.

On this note, I technically should be ending my blog at this point. However, I am still going to post a little bit through the summer with updates and random bits of hilarity, so please do check back. But for now, let me just say thank you to those of you who have been reading. I hope you have enjoyed my random blogging and ranting. I must say that I have quite enjoyed posting every week. Please do feel free to keep emailing me with questions through the summer if you have them. I have had many people throughout the year email me with great questions and I am so happy to help.

I hope you all have a great summer. Get outside and enjoy all that global warming offers!

Bye for now!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Dissonant Beauty

2008-04-19T14:51:00.000-07:00

This morning was the first of my three exams. Isn't that exciting!...Yah, I didn't think so.

Well here we are everyone. We have officially entered the dreaded final exam period at Mt. Allison University (cue the scary music). Peolpe around here are pretty stressed with studying. Don't forget too that we all have to pack everything to be out of here when we are finished. Nevertheless, among all of this pressure, I see a lot of beauty and good in the exam period. Shall we begin...

Exams at Mt. Allison work pretty simply. Everyone has a schedule for their exams which we get a few weeks before the whole thing begins. The whole exam period is about two weeks long. The average student writes anywhere between 3-5 exams. Some courses don't do exams. Some will do final essays or projects, or even nothing at all. It all depends on the professor and the course. The scheduling for exams can be good or bad. Sometimes you end up with all of your exams falling on top of each other, which is tough. Then you can have them really spaced out. Some of my friends like it all together though because they get it over with quicker and get to leave for home sooner.

This semester I have gotten pretty lucky and unlucky. You see, exams started almost a week ago and I only had my first one today. I have my other two on Tuesday and Wednesday, meaning I am flying home to Vancouver on Thursday. So I got almost a whole week to sit around and study...and watch movies. While I don't get to leave for Vancouver until the end of the exam period (which officially ends on Thursday), I have time to study for the exams instead of being thrown into them right after classes ended last week. I don't mind this to be honest because one more week at home wouldn't have made much of a difference.

Most people here tell me they hate writing exams and the whole thing altogether. I agree that exams are stressful and annoying. At the same time, I enjoy the exam period. It is an amazing change of pace. You have no classes or other activities because they are all finished for the semester. This means you get to create your own schedule. So I get up at a reasonalbe hour, like 8 or 9am, and then study, intersperesed with lots of music, movies, and reading. I also find more time than usual to go to the gym and do other things. The key is to find a balance between study and leisure because we are all, as human beings, inherently good procrastinators!

So don't stress out about exams, because you can do it, and do it your own way! Plus, the exams themselves are never that bad. No professor I know here wants to trick you on an exam. They just want to see that you have come to class, done the readings, taken notes, and actually tried to learn the material. All you have to do is study and write it. It will go by faster than you think - I guarantee it!

I think that's enough about exams. Before I leave you for the week, here is my music recommendation:

This week I am recommending Ontario indie rockers Tokyo Police Club. Their original EP, A Lesson In Crime, got so much hype that it allowed them to tour the world for over a year. With songs like "Cheer It On" and "Nature of the Experiment," TPC built up a cult following that is about to expand with the release of their first full LP on Tuesday, entitled Elephant Shell. The album includes the first single, "Tessellate" and the already popular "Your English Is Good." These young kids pack a lot of hard raw energy into their songs. It's a lot of fun and you can dance to it - what more could you want. So check out their MySpace, and grab the album on Tuesday. And look out for TPC because they are touring Canada in the coming months. I already have my ticket!

Well dudes and dudettes, that is all from the land of Landon. Have a great week!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Choir Geeks Unite!

2008-04-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay with this latest post. As I had written about last time, I was out of town last week on tour with the Elliott Chorale. So while I missed my blog, I now have a lot to share with you! It has been a crazy time for me, but very exciting. The storm is beginning to clear, so let us reflect...

Our tour began last Thursday morning at the Music Conservatory building. We all packed into three minivans and hit the road for the South Shore area of Nova Scotia. This trip was a great way get away from Sackville for a few days and to have some fun! I was in a van with our choir director, Dr. Martin, some other Elliott Chorale members, and Dr. Martin's dog Tommy. Having Tommy around was pretty cool since he is very friendly. He just sat quietly in-between the two front seats and we all petted him during the long car rides from town to town.

Our first stop was Windsor, Nova Scotia. We went to the local high school and did an afternoon performance for some music students. That night, we gave a concert in a church in the area. The acoustics were unbelievable. Our songs really carried well through the space and seemed to make everything just sound so much better. Over the two years I have been in the Chorale, I don't think we have ever sounded as good as we did during that performance. The crowd seemed to like it as well and gave us an immediate standing ovation! Also, at the end of one our tribal pieces called "Freedom Come" we sing a series of 'Hallelujahs' that grow and grow. The sound of these carried through the church so well that on the last one, as it faded out, we heard a lady in the audience scream out "Amen!" I guess our Chorale has the power to religiously touch and inspire - cool!

Our concerts consisted of material from many different genres of choral music. Our main focus this year was on Spanish and African tribal music. This was different than a lot of the typical French, Italian, or Latin works a lot of choirs sing. The rhythms are far more complex and the language pronunciation is difficult. They were challenging pieces and took a lot of work to do over the semester, but ultimately they were really rewarding to sing!

Day 2 took us to Shelburne and Barrington, Nova Scotia. We did another school show and had another awesome concert in another beautiful church. During the day we took a little break at a beach. Most of our travels for the trip hugged the coastline, so the scenery was some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. It reminded me of being back in Vancouver on the ocean, but without the buzz of the city behind me. It was really peaceful.

The beach in Shelburne was really nice and had these amazing sand cliffs. We all decided to try and take a photo of the Chorale so as to look like a photo shoot for a rock band. Here is the result.

Who every said choir geeks aren't cool!

Our third day took us to Liverpool, Nova Scotia. We had a really great visit here as well and had another very successful concert. It was the last of tour and for the year, so it was pretty emotional, especially since some of our members are graduating from Mt. Allison this year.

On Sunday, we started to head back to Sackville while winding our way through the beautfiul country. We stopped again at some beaches and also passed through the strikingly gorgeous seaside town of Lunenburg. Eventually we made it back to Sackville safe and sound, ready to get back to all the work we needed to catch up on from being out of town - woot!

Every night of the trip we were split into smaller groups, from the 18 of us and billeted by people in each of the towns. This is honestly my favourite part from both years I have toured with the Chorale. We get to meet the most amazing and kind people who let us into their homes. On this trip for example, when in Shelburne, me and a few others stayed with this couple who run a guest house for tourists. It was basically an entire apartment all to ourselves for the night. It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a nursery upstairs with toys! So we had a tea party there after our concert and then played with toys before eating the cookies they had left for us and then went to bed.

All of this only lightly touches the surface of this trip. There were so many amazing things we did. I could go on and on about the places and the people, but I think the above is a pretty good summary.

Since returning last Sunday, I have been working really hard on tests and papers. Classes just ended on Thursday and exams start on Monday, but I don't have my first exam until next Saturday. I got very lucky!

Last night was the New Music Concert at the music conservatory, which happens once a semester. This show allows music students to premiere their own compositions that they have been working on in composition classes. I played in the show as well. I premiered three songs from the rock musical I am writing with my friend. It was a great chance to get up on stage and finally show some of my work to the public. I was really happy with how it went.

You might remember that in my last post, for my music recommendation, I recommended the Halifax indie rock band Wintersleep. Well guess what? They just won the JUNO award this weekend for Best New Group. So if you haven't checked them out yet, I hope this inspires you now to go check their MySpace.

This week I would like to recommend Montreal band Miracle Fortress, whose debut album "Five Roses" has received huge critical acclaim across North America. Led by Graham van Pelt, Miracle Fortress is a mix of bubblegum pop sprinkled with a lot of indie flavour and Beach Boys tripped out harmonies. iTunes named them the Best New Group of the year in December, and their album was nominated for the prestigious Polaris Music Prize. The album quickly became one of my favourites to listen to and has not worn out its welcome. I play it on my radio show a lot! So check out Miracle Fortress.

That is all from me. I am now entering into exam mode, so things will be quiet here. Lots of people get stressed out about exams, but I kind of like the exam period. You don't have a rigid class schedule because there are none. So you wake up and do some studying, then watch a movie, then study, and then repeat. And occasionally you go write a big exam, but that's about it. Then you get to go home!

Have a great week, and as always, please email me with any questions you have.

Take care,

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

So Much To Do! So Little Time!

2008-03-31T19:42:00.000-07:00

Whew! What a week to be alive everyone! This past week was without a doubt the craziest week of my life here at Mt. Allison. As I have written about before, March is always a busy time. There is lots of school work, and on top of this, many clubs are wrapping up with shows and parties. This past week, especially the weekend, was the pinnacle of this craziness. So let's jump in!!!

The beginning of the week was filled with preparation for the many events to come. I spent my days in class and my evenings in the Windsor Theatre. In the theatre, I was going through the final rehearsal stage for the play I was in called AnimalVegetableMineral (AVM for short as we like to call it). This show was a collage of scene from Shakespeare, Ovid, and new stuff written by our director, the brilliant Dr. Mark Blagrave. The show was also done in the round, meaning the audience was all around us. The main theme of the show was transformation. As such, we all played various parts, having to change roles from scene to scene quite quickly. With this, the costume design was simple. We all wore our "naked" base, which was jeans and a black t-shirt. We then added layers to this for our different parts. One of my fellow actors, Mary (pictured right), was kind enough to take photos of me in my various layers. From left to right, you have me first in my base (I'm naked - ah!), then as a crazy kid in an army vest who wants to shoot people, and then finally as the concerned uncle Marcus from Titus Andronicus who is modeling a hot Mr. Rogers sweater. Since I was "naked" for these shots, I wasn't really comfortable having just anyone take them; nevertheless, Mary and I have a very good working relationship as fellow actors - ha ha! Enjoy!

The show opened on Wednesday. We ran for four nights in the Windsor Theatre. The show all went so well and we were all really sad to end it on Saturday; however, we made up for it by having a kick-ass cast party afterwards.

As the weekend approached, things began to get crazy. Saturday was the most insane day I have ever seen, but in many ways, it was just another fun-filled and diverse day at Mt. Allison.

I began at 10am in the music conservatory with Elliott Chorale. We were having a dress rehearsal for our concert the next night. The Chorale is the university's main choir. We perform classical and modern choral works at performances all year and we are actually going on tour through Nova Scotia later this week! After this rehearsal, I attended a masterclass with visiting opera singer Hugh Russell. He had given a recital the night before, but was nice enough to stay around for the weekend to give a masterclass to me and some other MTA music students. It was an amazing experience! We all learned so much from him and his accompanist, who acted as a hilarious tag team. In the picture you can see me (blue sweater) and the other participants with Hugh Russell (second in from the left).

After the class ended, I then ran to the theatre for the last performance of the play. Now you would think I would take my bow and then go to the cast party, but WAIT, it keeps going!!! After I took my bow, I quickly said hello to my friends, and then ran backstage to throw on my suit. Now looking a little more stylish, I ran over to Jennings Meal Hall where the annual event Jazz at Jennings was happening. This is a big concert for the MTA Jazz Band. Here, they play various instrumental pieces and then allow singers, like me, to join them. I ran over to perform the song Mr. Bojangles with them, which a lot of fun! I got there just in the nick of time. I ran from the theatre and arrived at the jazz concert while the band was playing the song just before mine. I ran up, sang my song, said hello to people, and then had to go back to the theatre to help close the play because it was closing night.

If you think I planned for all of this crazy overlap, I promise you I didn't! It just all sort of fell into place like this. As crazy as it was though, I loved it. While I was exhausted at the end of the night, I felt so high on life! All of these opportunities we have here at MTA are so wonderful and I would much rather take them all on and go crazy for a bit then sit back and not take advantage.

Anyway, that was only Saturday - ha! There still is Sunday.

I forgot to mention that my mom was visiting for the weekend from Vancouver, which was really nice because I hadn't seen her since December. On Sunday morning, she and I went for tea at Dr. Campbell's house, who is the President of the university. We are very lucky at MTA to have a President who is so involved in the community and wants to reach out. He has been emailing back and forth with my mom here and there to talk about the school. So when he found out she was coming, he invited us over to his place for tea! So we came, and then all went over to the radio station for my weekly show, which Dr. Campbell was coming on.

That evening was the Elliott Chorale concert. We had a HUGE turnout. I couldn't believe the response. We did an amazing range of material, including a lot of Spanish and tribal choral music.

I think that's about all for now. As you can see, there is no shortage of things happening here!

I am on tour with the Chorale for the rest of the week, so I may away from blogland for a little bit. Nevertheless, I will be trying to check my email while I am on the road, so as always, if you have questions please do send them.

Before I leave you though, I have to keep up with my new weekly promise, which is to recommend some new music. Have you checked out the Halifax band Wintersleep? Well if you haven't, you're missing out. Their new album, Welcome to the Night Sky, is making waves across Canada and now the world. They recently released from a successful tour in Japan! Their single "Weighty Ghost" is one of the most infectious tunes I have heard in years. I guarantee you it will get stuck in your head - so check them out!

Take it easy!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Long Weekend!

2008-03-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up at 11:30am. This is a big deal! Trust me. You see, I usually have classes every Friday at 8:30am, but today is Good Friday, which means Landon gets to sleep. So it's a big deal. I just love long weekends.

It has been another busy and hectic week, but all is well. As I have written about before, I am currently in a play called AnimalVegetableMineral in the Windsor Theatre on campus. We open next week, so things are getting very busy. I have been in the theatre most nights running through the show with everyone. It's finally taking some shape as we put all the scenes in order and work out transitions. I am looking forward to having an audience and seeing their reactions because it's a very odd and intellectual piece of theatre.

Tuesday and Thursday night were taken up by the annual MTA Dance Society show. Mt. Allison has a dance society that offers fun classes to anyone interested in various types of dance. Then there are other groups like the Swing Society and the Salsa Society. In March every year, all these groups showcase their work in a dance show. This year's show was called "Dance the Night Away." I am in the Salsa Society, so I was performing in that dance with my dance partner Kati. It's a great club to be a part of. Salsa is a fun dance and we had such a good group - many laughs all year. All our work paid off - the two shows went so well and the audience really loved it. Salsa is fun because you get be really sexy on stage and no one can question why - ha ha! The whole show was actually awesome. Both nights were completely sold out and all the dances were really impressive. More than 100 people participated, so dance is very much alive at Mt. Allison.

While I am writing this, I am listening to the 2008 Conduct Becoming CD. This is an annual project at MTA. Basically, a bunch of artists and bands get together and record their music which is compiled onto a CD. One is released ever year in March and the funds raised by its sales go towards cancer research. I auditioned this year with a song I wrote and got on. So I got to record the track. The release date and launch party is next week, but I was given a copy in advance to listen to. The launch party is fun because it raises a lot of money and everyone on the CD plays at it. While the website has not been updated yet for this year, you can check out the general info on it at: www.conductbecoming.ca

Speaking of music, I am going to give another recommendation to you! I think I might just make this a weekly thing anyway. Since I do my radio show, I am always listening to new music and I love to spread it around. This week I am picking the power duo The Raveonettes, from Denmark. Their music is hard to describe. It's sort of a mix of the Phil Spector sound with a lot of the Jesus And Mary Chain thrown in. Lots of boy/girl vocals with lush distorted guitars. On their 3rd album, the newly released Lust, Lust, Lust, the band has really perfected their sound. Check out the single "Dead Sound," or the delectable track "You Want The Candy." Also check out their awesome track "Love In A Trashcan" from their last record. They are a pretty cool change of pace from the mainstream. Enjoy!

Any special plans for the long weekend? I am taking it pretty easy. I have some rehearsals to be at and some essays to write, but otherwise it will be pretty chill. My friend Evan and I are going out tonight and maybe watching some movies. We just can't decide on what to watch. Any suggestions?

Well I think that's enough of me yammering! Have a wicked weekend filled with lots of rest and tasty chocolate easter eggs.

As always, please email me if you have any questions about anything. It can be about MTA, music, or even the meaning of life - I am happy to help, ha ha!

Happy hunting!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

We're Getting Closer!

2008-03-15T04:40:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Another week has passed. Can you believe it? It feels like it was only yesterday I was writing my last post for this blog. It's just crazy! This means that the end of this academic year is coming up really fast. We have only one month left of classes before we enter our exam period. This means that the essays are upon us all - yay!

Anyway, this past week hasn't featured anything completely shocking or out of the ordinary; however, there have been some really cool things going on here.

I am currently in a show in the Windsor Theatre called "AnimalVegetableMineral." We moved into the theatre this week for the rest of our rehearsals before we open in two weeks. It was great to finally get the theatre space because this show is being done in the round. This means the audience is all around us. We had to reconfigure the whole theatre. It looks really great, but acting in the round is an interesting challenge. Nevertheless, the show is progressing really well and it will all be very exciting when it opens!

On Wednesday night, the campus pub played host to one of my favourite West Coast indie rock bands, Immaculate Machine! They gave an awesome concert. If you haven't heard their music, you should check it out. It's really fun catchy stuff. The lead singer and keyboardist (Kathryn Kalder) is also the keyboard player for the now very famous indie band The New Pornographers, which may be more familiar to you. Immaculate Machine is kind of similar, so if you like The New Pornographers, then you'd probably really like Immaculate Machine. It's really great that we can get such great bands to come out to Sackville. They like to come here because the East Coast really loves music and supports it. I guess it's just one big party!

On Thursday night I went to see fellow voice student Laura MacLean give a solo recital at the music conservatory. When you get into your upper years of study here, there are many individual study projects you can do for credit. So in music, many students choose to do recitals where they can show off the development they have been making and the material they have been working on. Laura is in her third year, so she did a half recital. Next year she will be able to do a full recital. It was a great concert filled with some beautiful contemporary arts song and some classic operatic arias.

Yesterday I spent my afternoon at Marshview Middle School here in Sackville. I go there every Friday afternoon with a bunch of fellow drama students to go do drama with the middle school students. While they are a crazy bunch of kids, they are so much fun and they love creating theatre with us. Right now we are helping them write and create original short plays. The plots and characters always work out to be really silly and dumb, but it's so much fun. For example, my group has created a story about an evil doctor who hypnotizes a lion and orders him to eat people in Hawaii so that the doctor can control it. I have to play Boneta, a hula dancing restaurant owner who apparently saves Hawaii from the evil Dr. Blackheart by hula dancing. Intriguing play, eh?

Right now I am trying to plan my radio show for this Sunday. There is so much new music out right now and I don't have enough time to sift through it all. I definitely have to play new stuff from City and Colour and The Raveonettes, but the rest is up in the air right now.

That's all I got for this week. As always, if you have any questions about anything Mt. Allison or whatever, give me an email and I will get back to you right away.

Take it easy!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Come Visit!

2008-03-07T18:25:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone - how are you doing today? Feeling stressed out? I know I am. The school year is coming to an end, which means tests are being taken, essays need to be written, and end of the year events are popping up everywhere. Managing all this is frightening. However, with a policy of little sleep, lots of water, granola bars, and a semi-fake smile on your face, you can get through March without a hitch!

Now that I have you all scared about coming to university, I would like to invite you to come here to visit! That's right folks, it's that time of year when the choice of which university to attend has to be made if you're applying (which I assume is a decent chunk of my readership).

So today I would like to write about university campus tours and the glory of them. Before I do this, please let me assure you that the first paragraph was a complete joke...well sort of. Ha! Yes, March is crazy, but it goes by so fast anyway because of all that stuff I mentioned, so it's not so bad. Overall, I wouldn't trade my university experience away just for one bad month anyway. Also, I will happily admit that I am actually in a very good mood as I am typing this. I am relaxing from a long week with a glass of water, some fine cheese, and the new Rufus Wainwright album playing through my stereo. Water + cheese + Wainwright = subdued happiness! On that note, let me just give a cheap plug for Rufus Wainwright's new album, Release The Stars. What's that, you haven't heard it yet? Shame on you. Go buy it now. Not download. BUY! He is easily Canada's most versatile singer/songwriter and he is a great performer too. Oh yeah, and he dresses really well, which is the cherry on top!

Anyway, now that I have gone more off track than I ever have on this blog, it is time to return to today's topic - campus tours!

While looking at university websites and brochures is good, it's not nearly as good as physically seeing the place. By visiting, you will get a true feel for the place and see if it fits what you want. Being from Vancouver and being interested in East Coast schools, visiting seemed hard to do, but also important. In the end, I convinced my parents to take me out during my grade 12 spring break, and boy was it worth it. It was because I came out here that I ended up here, and I am so happy for it.

This week I hosted a guy from Montreal who read my blog and started emailing me with questions. I told him to come visit, which he did this week. It was great because he was able to stay with me in residence to see what that's like, and then he got to experience Mt. Allison life for 24 hours.

If you organize a tour at Mt. Allison through our campus tours department, you can do so much, and they will do all the organizing for you and your family! You can tour the whole campus, see the town, stay in a residence, sit in on classes you're interested in, and get free meals at our meal hall to see what the food is like here. More importantly, you get to see Mt. A students in action.

Better yet, Mt. Allison even has a deal where you can sometimes get a little bit of money for your travel expenses. Obviously for some people it's far to come here, or to other universities you may be interested in. However, if you can afford the trip and the time, it is invaluable.

I think that's about all I can say about campus tours. No matter where you are interested in attending, it's always good to look. Even if you aren't graduating from high school this year but are interested in knowing in advance about whether this is somewhere you would even want to apply to, it's worth it to come. I hope you will consider the options.

As for me, I am returning to the water, cheese, and Wainwright listening party. I have to also plan my radio show for this Sunday, which is always exciting! So much music to choose from. I am doing a special "Back in Time" episode where I will be playing songs from indie bands' first records from years ago. I also will be having a special visitor - none other than Mt. Allison University President, Dr. Robert Campbell. If you can believe it, he is actually an indie rock expert! He comes on my show every couple of weeks to play his favourite new indie bands. It's so much fun. It's great that we can have that sort of connection with our President here because the university is so small.

So take it easy. Come visit! If you do set-up a tour, let me know if you have any questions. Better yet, let me know if you're coming and maybe we can meet in person!!!

Bye for now!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Vacation Update

2008-03-01T05:08:00.000-08:00

Reading Week (Spring Break) is almost done here, meaning I will be heading back to the land of learning very soon. Once that gets started up, I will be able to write again about all the wonderful action at Mt. Allison. But since the campus is pretty much dead right now, I will have to bore you with my vacation stories - yay!

Since we last left, I have continued my regular habit of sleeping, eating, watching movies, writing music, occasionally doing schoolwork, and then more sleeping. Overall, it has been pretty relaxing and productive at the same time.

I have now settled into my new digs very well and am enjoying the new layout a lot!

My friend Jason and I are currently working on a very large extracurricular project, which I'm not sure if I have ever talked about in this blog. Anyway, we are writing a musical together, and it's about university students! Jason is writing the script and I am writing the musical score for it. It's a modern rock musical. We have gotten an arts grant/internship from the university to work on it actually, which is sweet.

Anyway, Jason and I have been using this week to make some major progress on the project. The first thing we did was try to map the show out in its entirety . Up until now, we had lots of loose ideas with some structure, but not enough to really progress the development of the show. So we spent two whole days at my bulletin board mapping it all out, which you can see in the photos here. All I can say is that I went through a lot of Post-It notes over those days!

On Wednesday, I headed into Halifax with a bunch of theatre friends. Our theatre's Production Manager, Paul, drove us in so that we could get a tour of the Neptune Theatre, which is Halifax's main professional theatre. The tour was great. I then went to check out Halifax's record stores. If you're like me and into music, living in Sackville is tough sometimes because there is no CD store. So whenever I go to Halifax or Moncton, it's the first place I hit up. That night we all went back to the Neptune Theatre to see their production of Samuel Beckett's famous (and very strange) play Happy Days.

While this was all a lot of fun, the best part of the day was the car ride back. I was sitting in the front passenger seat and Paul was driving. In the back was Jason, Katy, and Hannah. Katy for some reason just couldn't get her seatbelt done up as she was having so much trouble locating a spot to stick the buckle into. Her and Hannah fidgeted for almost 10 minutes with it! It was hilarious. Eventually they did figure it out, and as you can see, there was much celebration!

Now I am just doing some reading for classes and enjoying the free time I have left.

That's all to report from this end for now. As the school year's end approaches fast, I know many of you out there reading this are now having to decide upon what university you are going to attend next year. If you are considering Mt. Allison and have any questions, send them my way. I'm happy to help!

Cheers,

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Bring on the Vacation Baby!

2008-02-24T16:04:00.000-08:00

Guess what I got to do today? I got to sleep in! It's a big deal, trust me. I slept over 10 hours. You see folks, I have entered the very special period of the academic year that we like to call Reading Week, aka Spring Break! For one week, I get to have no classes. Instead, I will be sitting around watching movies, listening to music, surfing the web, writing music, and oh yeah, catching up on school work - woot!

While most people have gone home for the week, I have stayed here. Going back to Vancouver would have been too expensive and complicated. This means I am here virtually alone. There are only about 15 people left in Windsor Hall right now. It's kind of eerie in Sackville right now, and Meal Hall is sort of scary-quiet, but at the same time, it's awesome! I feel like I have the whole place to myself and no one is watching or judging.

Before I talk more about the first few days of my vacation however, I must recap on the week that has past since my last post.

Once again I had a few midterm tests to write, but they all went off pretty smoothly.

Each year, the Drama programme hosts a Crake Graduate in Residence. Basically for one week a graduate of Mt. Allison who has "made it" in the theatre world comes back to visit with students and do workshops. It's a great opportunity for students. This year we had Don Hannah, who is a very busy and successful Canadian playwright. He gave a great speech on Wednesday about his career and the world of theatre. I also got the chance to meet with him one on one to discuss with him a playwrighting project I am working on with a friend. The Crake Graduate in Residence program is really special and a great way for us to get exposed to the real theatre world outside of Sackville.

In other news, I finally have a house for next year! Most people at Mt. Allison usually live in residence for two years and then they move out with a bunch of friends to a house or apartment in Sackville. Since this is my second year living in Windsor Hall, I thought it would be good to move out next year. The search for a house was taking awhile, but it was well worth the wait. Me and three other guys found this awesome house right across from campus and it's really nice. We signed the lease for it a few night ago! It's got a full kitchen, hardwood floors, furnishings included, and the location is great. I'm so excited about moving into there in September!

Now back to Reading Week. Since it's only the second day, not much has happened. Nevertheless, two major things have happened.

Number one: I finally rearranged my room. I had been meaning to do it since the semester started in January. Now that Yoji has gone back to Japan, I have a huge double room all to myself. So I figured it would be good to change things up. I took the tops off the desks and moved everything around. I wanted to get a picture of me in the room showing off the new look, but no one was around to take it. So instead I did it myself!

Number two: Tatsuro is back...again! He just can't get enough of Sackville. Tatsuro was one of the Japanese exchange students here last semester as part of the MASSIE program. He came back as a surprise visit in January. Now he is here again! At least this time he warned us he was coming. His roommate from last semester had to go home to see his family, and since I have an extra bed now and I'm here, Tatsuro is staying with me. Tatsuro and our house dons were very close last semester. We all decided to take him out for dinner last night after he got in. It was a merry old time - ha ha! He is here until Wednesday.

Well I am off now to my friend Mary's house to watch the Academy Awards. I haven't seen most of the films this year, so I kind of don't care about it much. All I will say is that JUNO rules! But I don't think it will win Best Picture.

Otherwise, it's going to be a quiet and relaxing week of work, sleep, play, and more sleep.

As always, email me if you have any questions and stay awesome!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

A Scattered Week

2008-02-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

Okay people, let's jump right into it! I have no over-arching theme for today, but many cool stories to tell you about what's happening here in snowy Sackville.

Like I talked about in my last post, the midterm season is upon us here at Mt. A. While the ongoing studying is starting to get frustrating, it will soon be over and it's really not too big a deal at the end of it all.

Nevertheless, there was lots of nice things happening this week around here that kept us distracted from all the pressure of midterms.

On Tuesday night, Sackville was lucky enough to play host to the CBC Radio One show FUSE, hosted by Amanda Putz. The concept is that they bring two Canadian artists together, usually indie and very different, and let them "fuse" their music. They have put together some pretty cool combinations in the past. Most of the tapings are done in Ottawa in their standing studio, but occasionally they go on the road. So we were lucky enough to convince them to come out here to "fuse" some East Coast musical talent. The two artists chosen were Sackville's own Julie Doiron, a folk-rock singer, and Halifax duo The Superfantastics. The Brunton Auditorium on campus was filled with instruments and lots of recording equipment.

The show is done as a live recording and then edited down to a 54 minute show that gets aired on CBC Radio. On Tuesday night, about 200 people packed the Brunton Auditorium in the music conservatory to be a part of the taping. It was such a fun experience and it certainly will give great national exposure to the university and the town of Sackville. Hearing Julie blend her soft folk voice with the indie bubblegum rock of The Superfantastics was a really neat experience. A great time was had by all!

On Wednesday, in the music building, we held the second annual Music as a Cure Auction! Music as a Cure is a society of music students who put on concerts and events to raise money for charity. This year, all the money is going to Doctors Without Borders. In the auction, most of the faculty put themselves up for auction. We, the students, bid on them. The highest bidder gets ownership of them and can make them do any silly thing they request, within reason of course!

Well the auction went quite well. We raised almost $600 in about 20 minutes. Some of the professors went for over $100 each. It was quite a funny time. Dr. Wells, who is a music history professor and a musical theatre expert, offered herself up for auction. Since I am a musical theatre nut, Dr. Wells and I talk a lot about our favourite shows. In her bid to be auctioned, she offered to give the winner the chance to come to her house for wine and an evening of listening through her collection of Broadway musicals CDs. Well this caught my interest right away! I got into a bidding war with Dr. Code, but in the end I won Dr. Wells for $66. It's a lot of money, but it goes to charity and I am so excited to be hanging out with Dr. Wells (and her cat Sha Sha) at her house to listen and talk Broadway.

This week I also spent a lot of time in the Windsor Theatre. I was the lighting designer for two one-act plays that opened tonight. They were "See Bob Run" and "Sideshow of the Damned." Our theatre is really neat because it allows us to try everything. I never knew before coming to Mt. A that I would have the chance to step out of the acting role and try lighting, or sound, or set design, or anything else in the theatresphere. Oh, I like that word I made up. I gotta work that into my daily chatter.

Anyway, I went to the opening night tonight and the shows went so well. The audience responded really well and the lights ended up looking really good. The second show I mentioned was a dark comedy filled with lots of death. So I hung a lot of fancy red spots and other things. It ended up looking very bloody and over-dramatic, and quite fantastic. Having the chance to try other things like this really allows you to appreciate acting a lot more when you come back to it. While Mt. A has a small theatre program, there are many advantages to it because of its looser and more flexible structure. It allows us to explore and become more rounded as artists.

Well I think that wraps it up for this week. I know that around this time of year, if you're in your last year of high school, you are starting to have to make decisions on the university you want to attend. If you have any specific questions about Mt. A, please feel free to email me. I am happy to help. The best advice I can give now is to come tour it. I did that in my grade 12 year and it helped my decision-making immensely. Nevertheless, please send me an email with your questions, concerns, and comments.

Stay cool!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Midterms Have Arrived - Run!

2008-02-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

Well maybe that's a little too dramatic of a title. But it is funny that when February rolls around and the midterm season settles in, everyone just kind of changes. We all throw on semi-fake smiles and sleepwalk around campus. You should see Sackville right now - it's filled with walking student zombies everywhere!

Okay, that line there was too dramatic. To be honest, I don't find the midterms too bad and everyone is doing pretty well except for a lack of sleep. On that note, I would like to write today about university and testing, since I know many students coming in from high school wonder what it's like and sort of fear it.

Let me start by saying that the tests here will not hurt you - I promise! The midterm season is stressful and tiring, and you will sleep less and slink back into bad habits - this is all true. However, on the flip side, if you actually commit to them, you can get through it fairly easily. Very few professors here want to trick you on their tests. They simply want to see that you have been keeping up with the material and understand it. So go to your classes, do the readings when you can, take notes, and memorize them. Then just write about it. Simple, right! Ha ha.

I understand it's not that easy, but here is the key to it all: time management!

Use a planner, agenda, or whatever you like, and set aside study times. You will get better with this as you go, and it's totally cool if you don't get the swing of this in your first year. Remember that everyone else around you is going through the same fears and questioning, even though they might not be saying it out loud to you.

The physical tests aren't too bad here for midterm season. They're not usually much different than a high school one except that the material is a little more advanced. But here is the really great thing, and it's why I love Mt. Allison: the teachers will help you a lot before a test. With small class sizes and a dedicated faculty, you can rest easy knowing that you can go talk to your prof about anything and everything that you are confused about before a test. It's worth it to do so. I can't tell you how many times it helped me last year. Also, if you go to your professor, then they know who you are, and they see that you care about the course. Showing initiative can go a long way when it comes to marking. I know that sounds sort of far fetched, but trust me, it counts. It's a win-win situation. You know the prof, they know you now, and you get to feel far more prepared than every other student in the class when you walk in on test day.

Another positive is that midterms fly by. While this means you have to use time management, our buzz word for today, it also means that the pain, agony, sorrow, and all the other horrible emotions that you could use to write a great poem with, will pass by before you can say "I hate studying!" Then you get reading week, which is basically like Spring Break. It's a whole week to do nothing - YES!

Anyway, I think I have rambled enough on this great topic. Overall, I just want you to know that you don't need to fear university tests. They aren't much different than what you do in high school, and if you manage your life well, you can do it without breaking a sweat. Also, Mt. Allison's resources will help you get through it.

If you have any detailed questions about what tests and midterms are like at the university level, please feel free to send me an email. I would be more than happy to share more detailed experiences.

Take care!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Back in Sackville - Let Us Recap!

2008-02-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

Hello digital and blog maniacs!

After a one week absence, I returned to Sackville NB with a vengeance Monday afternoon. As I had mentioned in previous entries, I was in Montreal last week with a few other Mt. Allison students at the McGill Model United Nations Conference. I have much to share, so let us get started!

For those of you reading who might not know, Model UN conferences happen all over the world at both the high school and university level. At them, students from everywhere gather and represent a country on a certain existing UN committee and debate world issues using actual UN procedures. Essentially, it's a bunch of kids in suits running around a hotel for a few days thinking they are going to change the world - and doesn't that just make us feel so good inside!

My friend Erik and I were the Head Delegates this year for the Mt. Allison delegation. This meant that we just organized the group, which was nice and small this year, with just 9 people. I love traveling with small groups. It's an awesome way to get to know people better. All of us were on different committees, with the majority representing the Kingdom of Norway.

We left for Montreal by train on Wednesday afternoon. This was the first time many of us had travelled overnight on train. The ride from Sackville to Montreal was over 15 hours! Nevertheless, we had so much fun together. We all hung out in our coach, we went to the sky car with its glas top, and we even had dinner in the "fancy" dining car. Best of all, they actually give you blankets and pillows on trains, and you have leg room - so unlike planes these days, you can actually sleep on the train, and sleep I did! Overall, the train was actually a highlight of the trip.

We got in Thursday morning to Montreal and headed to the hotel where the conference was, and where we were staying: Le Centre Sheraton on Rene-Levesque Blvd. We put our bags away and did the inevitable - shopping!!! If you have never shopped in Montreal, you have to try it. Even the guys can find cool stuff. Later that night, before the conference was to begin, we all went out to a great French restaurant in old Montreal called Bonaparte. It was an amazing time.

That night the conference began with the Opening Ceremonies. From then on, most of our days were filled with debate. I was on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) committee. It was a great group of students from all over North America. We debated some very heavy issues, including tertiary education and AIDS discrimination. It appeared that I was the only music and drama student in the whole room, or maybe even at the whole conference! Most people were International Relations or Political Science students at their respective universities.

While the days were filled with debate, the evening were full of partying. On Friday night we went on a pub crawl, which was awesome. The next night was a big party at a club downtown. I also got time to meet up with a lot of my Montreal friends, which was sweet. I even met up with a prospective Mt. A student who has been reading this blog and emailing me questions. We met for coffee and I used all the hypnosis techniques I know to convince him to come to Mt. Allison! Just kidding.

At the end of it all, the trip was extremely successful. There are so many little stories and great memories, but it would take too long to go through. Nevertheless, the important thing is that there was much bonding between all of us and we have many future "reunion" plans.

The cool things was that our delegation also did very well at the conference itself. Our own Peter ("the baby") Wills won Best Delegate on his committee. You can see the baby face in the picture! (Sorry Peter)

Erik also got a commendation for his work on his committee. So we were all pretty ecstatic.

Before we left, we had a few hours to spare in Montreal before our train left. While I was packing, shopping, and at a spa, Alex and Sasha randomly stumbled in on a kids art class at an art museum. As you can see, they are very proud of their productivity!

On the train ride back, we were all pretty exhausted, except for Erik, who was having too much fun listening to Daft Punk. Take a look!

Now I am back in Sackville and trying to catch up. It's crazy how far you can fall behind from missing a few classes. However, I still thought the trip was worth it and will definitely do it again next year!

This week I got to professionally record a song for Conduct Becoming. This CD is released annually and features original songs by Mt. Allison artists. The money raised goes to cancer treatment. I have only been playing and writing songs for about a year, so the fact that I got onto the CD this year was pretty exciting. The recording went really well and was so much fun.

I think that's enough writing for now, since my fingers are aching. Hopefully yo enjoyed all of that and the pictures. It is very nice to be back at Mt. A and back on this blog.

Peace out dudes and stay cool!

-Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Surprise, Surprise!

2008-01-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

SURPRISE!

That is what this past week has been filled with. It has been another busy week here in Sackville, but more importantly, it has been a week filled with the unexpected.

The week started like any week, with classes going on and such. Already my work is piling up for the semester!

It got weird on Thursday when I came back to my residence, Windsor Hall, and someone says to me, "Landon, go up to fourth floor right now. Tatsuro is here." I thought this girl was joking. Tatsuro was one of the Japanese students we had at Mt. Allison over first semester as part of the MASSIE program, which I have talked about a lot in this blog. Anyway, they all went back home to Japan at the end of last semester, so I really thought this girl was just joking, but she said she was serious.

So I ran up the stairs and found myself staring at Tatsuro! It was so freaky. What was he doing here? He explained that he saved up money to come visit us all for a few days because he missed us so much. But he didn't tell anyone! And I mean anyone! He didn't tell any of the MASSIE organizers, or any of us, or Alex who was his roommate in first semester. He literally just showed up at the door with one suitcase.

Naturally we were all pretty excited. His birthday was last week, so we decided to celebrate with him now. The Windsor Hall dons, Jeff and Heather, and a bunch of us gathered in their apartment (which is in Windsor Hall) and watched one of Tatsuro's favourite movies: Back to the Future. This is also one my favourites, and it was funny watching it with him because he knew every line, and he kept reciting them throughout the film with his Japanese-English accent. Awesome!

We then had cake and hung out. We also bugged Jeff about how he looks like many celebrities, especially Simon Cowell. He doesn't think he does, but I will let you be the judge.

Can you tell the difference? What do you think? Post your comments and I will pass them onto him!

Friday and Saturday were busy nights in Sackville this week because of the annual Stereophonic festival. This is our radio station's annual fundraiser. This is the fifth year CHMA has done this and it has been getting better every year. Since I am on the Board of Directors for the station and do a radio show too, I of course went to the show to support the station and to enjoy the impressive line-up of bands.

Now last night was the big final concert at George's Roadhouse. My friend Evan and I were planning to go together and meet up with some people there. Before that though, we went out to dinner at The Olive Branch restaurant, which had just moved to a new and bigger location downtown. We then came back to my place for drinks, and when I opened the door there were 10 people in my room shouting "SURPRISE!"

You see I turned 20 last week (yay I'm old!) and my friend Hilary kept insisting that we have a party for me. Unfortunately there was no time last week for everyone and so I let it go and told her not to worry. Nevertheless, being the awesome friend that she is, she went ahead and did it anyway. I came into my room and there were balloons, banners, and an awesome cake. Evan was in on all of this the whole time! This whole thing was without a doubt the coolest and nicest thing anyone has ever done for my birthday.

After the little party died down, a bunch of us headed down to George's. The place was packed! I have never seen it so busy. The show had an amazing line-up, which included some of the biggest indie rock bands on the East Coast: The Stance, Tom Fun Orchestra, and Two Hours Traffic.

I think that is about all I have to report this week from here. Only other news is that it is snowing nonstop! So my word of advice to you this week is that if you come to Mt. A and don't own any boots, invest in some good ones because you will use them well.

On Wednesday I leave for Montreal to go the McGill Model United Nations Conference, which is pretty exciting. I don't know what my internet access will be like there, so I will do my best to get in another entry, but no promises unfortunately.

Nevertheless, have an awesome week. I hope it is filled with glorious surprises and lots of colourful candy!

Thank to everyone who has been sending me questions. It's great to see people doing this, and I encourage you to contact me if you have any about Mt. Allison.

Cheers,
Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Back At It

2008-01-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

So here we go again folks! We are all officially "back at it!" It's time to hit the books and get our tuition money's worth.

Last time we spoke I was back in Vancouver doing pretty much nothing. Ah the beauty of vacation! Well after that I headed up to Whistler for New Years. It was CRAZY up there. I have never seen it so busy in the many years I have been going up there. The hotels were apparently running at around 94% occupancy. It wasn't too bad though. The snow was incredible, so I got some good skiing in. Some of my family was in from Toronto and it was great to see them. My adorable little cousins were there and we hung out a lot. I went snow tubing for the first time with them, which is so much fun - you have to try it. We also saw the movie "Enchanted" together, which was actually very entertaining.

Although I was at home, I never really lost my connection to Mt. Allison. By this I mean I was checking the website constantly to find out what my marks were for the semester. It was taking such a long time for them to come up, but then we were told that there was a problem with the internet server in Sackville, which is why it was delayed. Anyway, I did get them eventually just after Jan. 1 and I am happy to say that my marks turned out okay. I guess my exams went pretty well, which is nice to know and nice to be able to put away. It was annoying having it in the back of my mind during the whole vacation.

Overall the vacation time was really nice though. The decision to not do much except for sleep, eat, movie, play piano, and repeat, was very smart.

I must say that since it is Oscar season (writers strike willing), I have to give a shout out for my favourite films of the season.

Number one on my list: JUNO!!! This indie comedy is so sharp and real. The movie is essentially a walking testament to the word 'awkward.' The cooler thing is that it was filmed around my house in Vancouver and at the end of the movie the character Juno bikes down my street and past my house. If you haven't seen this film yet, stop reading my blog right NOW and go see it - I won't be offended I promise.

Number two would be Charlie Wilson's War. Tom Hanks is great, of course. Philip Seymour Hoffman is perfect, of course. Aaron Sorkin's writing is better than ever, of course. Mike Nichols' direction is smart and sharp, of course. So basically it is a film with a stellar crew that delivers another great and entertaining Oscar-worth punch, OF COURSE!

Number three is Atonement, starring James MacAvoy and Keira Knightley. The film, based on Ian McEwan's novel, is one of the most romantic and beautiful stories I have seen on the screen in years. The ending will pull at your heartstrings and the visuals are incredible. A very engaging story mixed with great acting makes for a stellar product worth seeing on the big screen.

Anyway, enough with the movies. Back to Mt. A!

I flew back one week ago and have settled back into my room in Windsor Hall. It is very quiet without Yoji around anymore, now that he is back in Japan. But it is nice to have all this space to myself too.

Classes started on Monday and already I can see that I have my work cut out for me. Nevertheless the courses are great. I am doing an English course in Canadian Literature with Dr. Cristyl Verduyn, and it is awesome. She loves Can Lit so much and brings great energy to the classroom, so I am really excited about this course. She has picked some really cool books.

My radio show starts up again this Sunday. I will be airing an interview I did with Halifax artist Rich Aucoin who played a concert here on Sunday night. Next week is the annual Stereophonic Festival, which is a week long concert festival with great bands from around Canada. The funds raised go to help CHMA, our radio station. I will be interviewing some of the bands and airing those on my show next week. These include The Stance and Chris Eaton (a Sackville native) of the band Rock Plaza Central.

This semester I am starting a really exciting project with a friend of mine here. We are writing a musical together. He is writing the script and I am writing the musical score for it. Better yet, we applied for arts internships and got them, which means we are being given money and faculty support simply to do the work we already wanted to do. This is what I love about Mt. A. There is money and support out there for so many creative projects, and as long as you clue into them and apply, you can get so much support.

Not much else to report here. I am working on stuff for classes, this musical project, and doing research for my trip to Montreal in a few weeks for the McGill Model United Nations conference.

As always, if you have any questions about anything Mt. A, please do not hesitate to email me. I am happy to help.

Peace!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The Holidays Are Here - Let Us Recap

2007-12-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

Hello fellow holiday lovers!

After surviving a snow storm, saying goodbye to the MASSIEs, writing exams, and travelling back home to Vancouver, I am happy to say to that I am indeed alive and well. The holidays are here, which means it is time for a bit of R&R and some "me time."

Nevertheless, let us have a look back at the past two and a half weeks for which I have been away from "Blogland."

When December 1st hit, exam mode began. Although this bothers a lot of students and also stresses them out, I try to not let it get to me. I'm not saying that exams aren't stressful or annoying, but I think if one stays positive and looks at the good side of it, one can make it a far less painful experience (and by pain I mean sleepless).

You see, when exams start there are no classes. This means you have the entire day to yourself. So you get up and study, then you watch The Simpson's on your computer, then you study, then you go for lunch, then you study, then you get into a big snowball fight in the quad, then you study, and then if you're lucky you get to watch more Simpson's DVDs on your computer. Not too bad, right? I mean if you actually commit to sitting down and studying and giving yourself breaks, then you can get a lot done because there are no classes and no extra-curricular activities. Better yet, sometimes you have upwards to 5 days between two exams.

I know some people don't write a lot of exams in their high schools and so when they get to university the exam period is a shock. This is totally understandable. I went to a high school where exams were drilled into me, so I am used to it. But overall, it is really all about planning ahead, which is easy to do - you just have to actually know to do it. Make sure to take steady notes throughout the semester and don't fall too behind, because you want study time to be study time, not catch-up time.

The exams themselves are never too bad either. Since Mt. A is small, you don't have to sit in a HUGE hall with something like 2,000 other exam writers. You sit in our gym with your own desk and it's not too daunting actually. Also, since Mt. A is small, the professors are really nice about helping with exams. In the time leading up to one, most will set-up numerous review and help sessions. My advice is to go to all of them - you will often find out what will be on the test and know more than everyone else in the class about this. It's only an hour out of your day and it goes a long way.

Once the exams are done, you'll be surprised how fast the time went by. Then you get to go home!

In the middle of my exams this year, all the MASSIE students left to go back to Japan. We all had to get up at 5am to get them on a bus to the airport. It was terrible timing and really emotional, but it had to be done I guess. I still don't know exactly why we get so attached to them, but I feel really lucky to have had the chance to have been a part of the program. Everyone was crying that morning at the bus (including me!) and it showed how much this program affects people. We all plan to stay in touch and some of us are discussing ways to get over to Japan next year to visit them all again. It certainly was quiet in the room without Yoji afterwards, which was saddening and creepy at the same time.

Now I am back in Vancouver. It's rainy and gray, but that's Vancouver in December I guess. Luckily I got out of Sackville two days before the huge snowstorm.

I have been sitting around just reading, catching up with friends, going to indie rock shows, and of course shopping! I have also been hanging out at the piano a bit, which is extremely relaxing. No matter what you do though, just being able to sleep in and then not having to think about a test or project is very comforting.

I have been renting a lot of movies too - some good, some terrible. I went to see "Charlie Wilson's War" yesterday as well. Great movie! If you like history and politics and a bit of satire, you will be very entertained. And who doesn't love Tom Hanks, come on! I mean, he was in Toy Story!!!

After Christmas I am heading up to Whistler to ski and hang out for New Year's. I may not have internet access up there, so it could be a little while until I return to this page. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and get the present from Santa you always wanted.

In the past few weeks I have had more students emailing me with questions - this is great! So please keep them coming if you have them. I am more than happy to help.

Happy holidays!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

The End Is Near...Well, For Now

2007-12-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

I woke up the other morning, cleared the blinds, and was greeted by a white Sackville! Yes folks, snow has come to Sackville, and with it comes a whole new wardrobe: winter jackets, gloves, toques, scarves, and yes, long underwear!!! The truth is that it is friggin' freezing here, but I guess you could argue that it's sort of refreshing.

Anyway, this means the end of the semester is coming and with this comes a lot of work and much sadness.

On Friday night, the MASSIE students had their graduation ceremony. On December 10, they will be flying back to Japan. It saddens me to think that I will come back in January, open my door to my room in Windsor Hall, and not find Yoji there. AWWWW!!!!!

Nevertheless, Friday night was the MASSIE banquet, which allowed us to dress up and share some memories of our semester together. The event was so much fun and very emotional. It began with an amazing Japanese dinner. The program flew in Japanese ingredients from Vancouver and had our kitchen follow recipes to prepare many tasty treats including: sushi rolls, yakisoba, and miso soup. For me, with my Vancouver sushi fix, this was just the remedy I needed. The MASSIES were so happy to be eating sushi again. You could tell by the look on their faces. I have to say that I was very impressed by the food too. So impressed in fact that I ate far too much for my stomach to handle. But what I can do when I have sushi thrown in front of me in large amount, honestly!

After the meal, there were some very heartfelt speeches. Following this was a video presentation, which a few of the MASSIES put together. It was so well done. They took pictures from throughout the semester and pieced them together into different segments with music. They asked all of us roommates then to write little farewell messages to our roommates. They took these and put them with a photo of the person with their MASSIE roommate. It was such a nice way to end the video. When the lights came up afterwards, people were in tears. Seeing all the memories on screen, I was amazed at just how much we had done with this amazing group of people in just three months.

Overall, I just feel so lucky to have been a part of the program. It is one of the hidden gems at Mt. Allison. The MASSIE students become a part of our life, even if you're not a roommate, and they are going to be missed. There is so much to learn from them. Even though sometimes it can be frustrating talking to Yoji because of the language barrier, in the end I have learned to be more appreciative and patient. I also have learned a little bit of Japanese!

In other news, today was my last radio show for the semester, and it was awesome! I decided to shake things up and change the format a bit for this week. I called the episode, "The Song That Changed My Life." Over the past few weeks, I had people write in with a song that had changed their life in someway, and then had them attach an explanation.

The results were amazing. The songs were all great to listen to and the stories that accompanied them ranged from insightful, to funny, and even to heart wrenching. I spread these selections throughout the hour combined with some of my own selections for songs that changed my life. Some of the artists I chose included:

-Stars
-Queen
-Imogen Heap
-Jamie Cullum

Overall, it was an amazing episode. It flowed really well and it was so neat to play and talk about songs that have affected other people in amazing ways. To me, it was a true testament to the power of music! It was a great way to end off the semester.

Now I am gearing for exam season - woot! I guess it's not too bad. You just do it and then it's finished before you know it.

Not much else to report from here in Sackville. Just stay warm and stay awesome!

As always, feel free to email me with any questions about the university, or anything else. I am more than happy to help. I have already had some people email me with questions, and that's wicked!

Cheers,

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Here Comes the Cold!

2007-11-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

Coming from Vancouver to the East Coast has naturally been quite the change. One of the coolest things about Sackville and the East Coast is the wicked and wacky weather we get. Last night on my way back to my room in Windsor Hall, I saw small snowflakes start to fall. This morning, I was going downtown to buy some food at the Sackville farmer's market, and my hands were starting to feel like they were going numb. WINTER IS NOW TRULY UPON US!

I'm not complaining about it though. The snow will be here in full soon and that means only one thing: toboganning by the swan pond! It was so much fun last year, and I can't wait to do it again.

But as the weather is getting "uglier" I have started to miss the beautiful fall we had here. Another thing about the East Coast I love, and always miss back in BC, is the amazing foliage. The colours of the leaves here are spectacular. It may seem normal to many Mt. A students, but to me it's pretty awesome. The way the sun hits the swan pond and then reflects onto the surrounding yellow-leaved trees is just breathtaking. People like to make fun of "little Sackville" but I think it's one of the most beautfiul towns in the country.

For Yoji, my MASSIE roommate (Japanese exchange program), this weather and the leaves are also very new. One sunny day a few weeks ago, I took Yoji, Sota and Yuya to the Swan Pond. We took a blanket and some chips and relaxed. It was such an amazing afternoon and I wanted to share some pictures because they are just hilarious!

Their fascination with the leaves that were piling up around the lake was so funny to watch. So I hope you find them amusing, but I also hope they show you how nice it is here in our town.

So what you see is me with Yuya (left) and Yoji (right). Then you have Yoji chillin' in a pile of leaves, showcasing the classic peace sign (which you will find in 99% of any pictures with a Japanese student in it!). Next is the Swan Pond itself with its fountain perched in the middle. Finally, we have the MASSIE boys having a little too much with the leaves.

It saddens me to think that these guys will not be here next semester. Next weekend is the MASSIE graduation ceremony, and then we have the banquest with them, for which the school will be flying in sushi from Vancouver! This is something I am very excited about, because any Vancouverite will tell you that going a few months without sushi is a very painful experience. Basically, when I go back to Vancouver in Decemeber, I will be runnig to Hirashai Sushi and spending a fortune.

Anyway, in other news, Mt. A is keeping me as busy as ever. Tonight is the closing night for "Trocshop" by Tintremarre, which I am performing in. Tintremarre is a bilingual theatre troupe led by the amazing Alex Fancy. Every year, we create a show together based off improvisational excercises and other things. We then take the show and stage it. This year's is called "Trocshop" which is the French word for a used-clothing store. The difference is that ours is magical. When people go in, they come out as someone different, depending on the item they have taken in with them. We have a really whimsical and colourful set with a round changing room that actually spins - it's really cool.

The play is about 70% French and 30% English, although most people in the audience don't speak French and they always understand the show. I am playing two roles for the show this year. My first is Bob LeBlanc, who is a cocky radio host and quite silly. I get to wear a slick suit and a fake smile - lots of fun! My second role is Flute, who works alongside Sparkling. We are the domestic servants for Princesse Magali, who was a normal girl until she put on a princess dress in the changing room. So she become a spoiled 14th Century princess with servants. The funny thing is that we are urchin like servants with odd accents. We pronounce everything with "g" (for example, the word 'enfant' becomes 'enfang'). To top it off, the two of us are wearing ugly grey medieval-looking cloth, and ripped up tights. Not the most flattering of outfits, but it's so hysterical. The show is just filled with kooky characters and costumes.

The show is doing really well too! We sold out the last two nights and turned away about 20 people last night because there was no room left in the Windsor Theatre. Tonight is our last night, which I am really sad about. Since we all create the show together, we all have invested so much in it and have become a tight group. Needless to say, the cast party tonight will be filled with lots of emotion.

I think that's about all for now. I have my second-to-last radio show tomorrow for the semester. The President of the university, Dr. Robert Campbell, will be coming onto my show to play some of his favourite indie rock tracks. Not many people know that our President is actually quite the indie rock nut. We talk about music all the time and his taste is very impressive.

As always, if you are interested in learning more about anything I ever mention, like the radio or Windsor Theatre, feel free to email me with your questions. I am happy to help.

Stay warm!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

New York, New York, It's a Hell of a Town - Seriously!

2007-11-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Every two years the Mt. A music department embarks on a huge trip to New York City for the Remembrance Day long weekend. It’s an awesome opportunity to get away for a bit, to experience some amazing culture, and to get to know your fellow music students better.

40 of us from the program went this year. The music department planned an amazing and dense itinerary. The best part about it all was that because we were traveling as a huge group, the trip didn’t cost too much. Our transportation, hotel, and show tickets cost altogether just 300 bucks! I can’t complain with that opportunity.

I have been to NYC a few times and know my way around fairly well. For others, this was their first trip down there, or even into the United States. It was really exciting for them and seeing their reactions to the big city (and their interaction with the NY subway system) were quite funny.

* * *

We all left the conservatory on our bus on Friday evening. We drove overnight to New York. It was a long bus trip, clocking in at over 12 hours. Thankfully, we had movies and munchies on the bus, which kept us going. I hate having to sleep on a bus, but I did manage to squeeze in about five hours of sleep. By 11am on Saturday, we had arrived.

We drove into Manhattan and headed towards the Chelsea district where we checked into our hostel, the Chelsea International Hostel. For those of you who know NYC, we were on 20th St. between 6th and 7th Avenue.

We had some time to waste before any activities, so a bunch of us walked around Chelsea staring at all the nice clothes we wanted to buy. Nevertheless, I was very good and didn’t tempt myself into buying anything, which for me is quite the achievement! We also found Murray’s Bagels, which became our regular morning stop. The bagels were huge and they had all these amazing different varieties of cream cheeses. Addictive!

In the afternoon, we were given tickets to the Empire State Building observatory. I had already done this before and decided to go off on my own to meet a friend of mine from Vancouver who now is studying musical theatre in New York. We went into Times Square and had dinner. Her friend Sara joined us. She is studying musical theatre management at Ithaca College. She had done an internship with one of the big agencies in New York and had all these cool stories about the shows she had seen and the actors she had worked with. Me being a Broadway attic, I ate this up! It was a lot of fun to listen to.

I then grabbed the subway and headed uptown to the famous Lincoln Centre for the Arts. We had tickets to see the world famous NY Philharmonic. We walked into Avery Fisher Hall and grabbed our seats. The concert was amazing. The acoustic sound of the orchestra was so crisp and the conducting was so intense. They premiered a new work by a Chinese/American composer. It was very bombastic, dense, and enthralling. It was so cool to hear the premiere of a new piece. The orchestra then played the entire of Beethoven Symphony No. 7. Although it’s not my favourite of his, they played it quite excellently. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Later that evening, we heard the news that Broadway had gone on strike. My first thought was OH SHIT!!!!! No kidding. The union of the stagehands went on strike, closing more than 20 theatres in the Broadway district. For me, this was really annoying and disappointing. At the same time, it was so ironic because it was the second time I had been in NYC during a Broadway strike. Four years ago I was in NY on another trip and the musicians went on strike.

Anyway, we had tickets for Sunday to see the Drowsy Chaperone, which is the first musical from Canada to make it big on Broadway. Bob Saget was starring in it, and we were all so excited to go, but the strike killed it.

We spent the morning in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I honestly hate the museum because it is too big for it’s own good. Nevertheless, their collection is so impressive. My friends and I fell in love with their collection of old instruments, including a harpsichord made of solid gold with amazing sculptures attached to it.

In the afternoon, I went down to Broadway to see if there were any shows still offered that would be worth seeing, but nothing was good. I talked to a bunch of the strikers and learned a lot about the dirty politics in Broadway theatre. The strike is killing the theatre district because the shows cannot afford to be closed this long. They told me that if it keeps going like it is, shows like Rent and Chicago, which have been running for a long time, will have to close. The theatres and the surrounding businesses are losing millions by the day.

I understand why the stagehands are on strike. It’s too complicated to explain, but nevertheless I will say that they are fairly right in their accusations against the producers. Still, it was so disappointing to not be able to go the shows I wanted to see so badly. When I went up to a lady striking, I asked her, “Why does Broadway have to go on strike whenever I come to NYC?” She asked, “What do you mean?” I explained how I was here when the musicians strike happened too, to which she replied, “Oh my god dear, I am so sorry.” It was a very funny moment.

I spent the later afternoon in my favourite New York store: The Drama Bookshop. It’s just two floors of every play and musical libretto every written. I took advantage of the place and bought so many scripts I had been searching for. I also had some awesome chats with some customers. One of the guys works on Broadway and we had some interesting discussion on the strike.

That night I met up with a family friend who lives just outside of NYC. We had tickets to Spring Awakening, which I was SO excited about, but of course those were cancelled. So instead we hung out at the famous Carnegie Deli and ate some awesome corned beef.

On Monday, we all met at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). This is one my favourite museums in the world. The building was redone a few years ago and is a work of art in itself. Their collection includes the Andy Warhol soup cans, Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night, and Monet’s lily pads. I was so happy to be back at the MoMA and it was another great visit.
In the afternoon, we went back to Lincoln Centre and had a private tour the world famous Metropolitan Opera House. The 3800 seat theatre is one the most lavish things I have ever seen! Everything there is so grand. Every seat has its own box in front that shows the subtitles, the roof is made of solid gold, and the lobby features two gigantic murals by Marc Chagall. Our tour guide took through the whole building. We went downstairs and peeked in on a rehearsal. A gentleman walked out of the room and accidentally knocked into one of my friends. He apologized and walked on. Our tour guide then said, “Oh, there goes Placido Domingo!” When my friend realized the most famous tenor on earth just brushed her, she started to cry! It was hilarious and awesome!

That night we returned to the opera house to see their performance of Bellini’s “Norma.” Although the opera is not the best, the voices were incredible. They do not amplify anything at the Met and yet everything mixes so well. It was a great experience.

Our Tuesday morning was free, so I went down to Soho to look at the boutiques. We then all met up in the afternoon at Radio City Music Hall for their Christmas Spectacular featuring the Rockettes. Radio City is my favourite theatre in the world. It is so glamorous. The lobby is like nothing else and the aura of old 1930s Hollywood is magical. The show itself was pretty cheesy but a lot of fun. It was really geared for young kids and families. Still, we all had a lot of fun laughing at the Disney-like dialogue. The Rockettes were amazing though with their perfect kick-lines.

After the show, we headed back to Chelsea, packed up the bus, and headed back to Sackville. It was another overnight bus trip, which was unfortunate, but not too bad.

We arrived on Wednesday morning safe and sound.

Now I am back into the grind. It was so nice to have a break. The trip was great fun and it’s nice that the music conservatory offers it to us. I got to see some great shows and I got to know my peers a lot better.

Next week I am in a play at the Windsor Theatre and the end of classes is creeping up fast, so it’s time to leave the vacation world and return to work. Woo-hoo!

Let's Play "Catch-Up"

2007-10-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have a confession to make: I am too busy! You see, at Mt. Allison, there are so many amazing opportunities that I can just never say “no.” So I get really involved and have a great time doing so. But then the middle of October hits and your professor says to you, “Oh don’t forget about the midterm next Monday.”

Ooops!

Yes my fellow internet friends, the midterm season is upon us here in Sackville and we are all making the best of it – insert sarcastic laugh here!

Nevertheless, a few weeks back I was out of town for two consecutive weekends and have had different tests and projects as well. This is why I have been absent from the blogging world. For those of you who were depending on this blog to get through your day, (which I imagine is everyone reading this right now, right?), I apologize for my disappearance. And I apologize for the melodramatic side comment you just had to read. Nevertheless, I am back in full bloggacious force! And yes, I like to make up new words as a hobby too!
So now let’s play my favourite game: “Catch-up”

***

We start with the Thanksgiving long weekend. I had one of the BEST weekends EVER!!! Let me give you the essential background.

I live in Windsor Hall, which is the biggest residence on campus, with over 200 residents. My roommate is Yoji Okada. He is one of the MASSIE students. MASSIE is a special program unique to Mt. Allison. It stands for: Mt. Allison Sophomore Semester In English. Every year, for first semester, we have about 40 Japanese students from Kwansei Gakuin University (Osaka) come to live here in Sackville. They take English classes, get immersed in Canadian culture, and become our friends. Now they obviously need roommates, which is part of the learning experience. This is where I come in. I had so much fun hanging out with last year’s MASSIE students that I decided I wanted to get involved this year by having one as a roommate. So I did the application and now for first semester my roommate is Yoji, who is an amazing guy. We are having a great time together and it’s rewarding to help him with English and watch his improvement. I also get to learn a lot about Japanese culture through him, which is something I have always been fascinated by. If you want to learn more about MASSIE, check out their website: www.mta.ca/massie/index.html

Anyway, Yoji has become friendly with a bunch of the other MASSIE boys. They are an awesome group of guys and they do everything together! Before the long weekend was coming, I asked Yoji if he wanted to go to Halifax to hang out .He liked the idea. Then I discovered that all the other guys had no plans, so we invited them. All of a sudden I was taking 5 MASSIES (and my friend to Lucas) to Halifax, where none of them had ever been.

So on Friday night we headed up to the highway with our suitcases to the bus station and then were on our way to Halifax! We arrived pretty late, but we were all really energized. The MASSIES were excited to see a city. We walked to our hotel and immediately started running into other Mt. A people. Then we checked in at our hotel, which was in the middle of downtown. By this time it was already about 1 AM. We hiked up to the top of the famous Citadel Hill, where we were treated to an amazing view of the whole city. The MASSIES were in awe! We then rolled down the hill, which was hilarious. We ended up lying there stargazing for awhile. It was pretty chill. Then we ran back up and rolled down again. I then got up, felt my pocket, and said, “Oh crap! Where’s my camera!!!???” I had lost my camera amongst all the fun we were having. It was pretty funny because everyone was trying to find it in the dark of night, but it was impossible. We decided to give it up until morning.

The next morning I woke up and the MASSIE boys were sitting there with my camera! They got up really early and found it for me. They are the nicest and coolest guys ever.

Anyway, after that little incident, Halifax was ready to be taken over by us. We went to the famous Halifax Farmer’s Market where we ate and ate and ate! We then walked along the harbour, which was where I got to relive my childhood by seeing Theodore Tugboat in the flesh!

Later in the day, Lucas and I took advantage of being in a city by going to Halifax’s various CD shops and going nuts! We’re both music nerds, and we had a lot of CDs on our lists. As we all walked out of the HMV shop on Spring Garden Rd., their speakers on the street started playing 80s dance music, which called for only one thing: DANCE PARTY IN THE STREETS!!!

As darkness settled in on us, the need for food increased. We decided that we wanted to have sushi, which I miss quite a bit. There is a lot of sushi in Vancouver, and I eat it a lot. However, there is no sushi in Sackville, NB. The MASSIE boys got really excited over the prospect of sushi. So I called the restaurant and asked if they had room for our large group, to which they replied “no.” So instead we did the next best thing. We ordered it to our hotel room! So we had a huge $200 bill we split and fell into sushi heaven while chillin’ in our room. Lucas had never tried sushi, so that was really cool to watch as he stared awkwardly at every piece of raw fish thrown at him. Overall, it was a pretty awesome time.

The next morning we hung out at the Halifax Public Gardens. The MASSIES were in love with the trees and ducks. They don’t have a lot of this in Japan so they were snapping pictures like crazy and shouting “Oah!” and “Ah!” Then Lucas and I managed to get most of them to climb this amazing tree we found.

We then headed to the famous Economy Shoe Shop restaurant for lunch. The restaurant is a Halifax legend and has the coolest interior ever!!! The portions were gigantic and the food was scrumptious – oh, I love that word.

Then we headed down to the bus terminal and were then on our way back to Sackville. Overall, it was one of the most amazing, fun-filled, random, and special weekends I have ever had. Hanging out with the MASSIES is a unique experience, I feel really lucky that we have the program at Mt. A.

***

So there you have it boys and girls! That is my story about how the MASSIES and me took over Halifax. I hope this shows you that even though Mt. Allison is in a small town, we are able to get to the big city and enjoy it. But even so, Sackville is busier than you might think, which you will hear me allude to a lot in the future.

As I said at the beginning, I am playing a major game of “catch-up.” I will be posting more in the next week with a lot of highlights from my recent excursions.

As always, if you have questions about anything, please do email me and ask. I have had a few students do so already, which is awesome, and I am happy to help you out.

Until next time!

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca

Hi there! I didn't see you come in

2007-09-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

So let me start by welcoming you to my very first entry for this “MyMTA” blog. I have never done a blog before but I am really excited to be starting.

Before I go into any details, I think it’s only fair you know who I actually am. My full name is Landon Braverman, but you can call me “Lando,” “Lando Commando,” “Lando Bravo,” or anything else that comes into your head that you find funny and quirky. I am from the cosmopolitan city known as Vancouver, BC – go West Coast! I am in my second year at Mt. Allison. I am a Bachelor of Arts (BA) student studying Drama, as well as a Bachelor of Music (BMus) student studying voice. It’s a really exciting combination and it’s so cool that Mt. Allison allows its students to do two degrees in different programs. I live in Windsor Hall, which is the biggest and BEST house on campus! Windsor is on the North side of the campus, which has awesome spirit, and we’re right next door to Jennings Meal Hall, which is really convenient (especially on those cold winter days)! This year I have a Japanese roommate who is here in Sackville to learn English and study Canadian culture. It’s a really cool learning and living experience.

What else can I tell you now? Well, I am really involved around campus in many different clubs and societies. I am a staff writer this year for our student newspaper, The Argosy. Check us out at www.argosy.ca!!! I am also doing a weekly indie rock radio show called “In Your Face!” which I do on our campus’ station, CHMA 106.9 FM. I am also in the Elliott Chorale, which is an amazing choir. We do shows all throughout the year and last year we released a CD and toured New Brunswick, which was one of the best weeks of the year. I am also involved in many theatre productions through the Windsor Theatre. Last year we did the musical “Cabaret” which I had a role in. This year I am helping organize a trip to Montreal for a Model United Nations conference, which I am really excited about. There are lots of other activities I am involved in around campus, which I’m sure I can talk more about in upcoming posts. So even though Sackville may be a small town, it definitely isn’t small when it comes to having things to do. It’s a really energetic and busy place with the most friendly and welcoming people I have ever met!

So through this blog, I hope to show you what life is like for a student at Mount Allison. I will share my different experiences about everything from academics to the social scene on campus. I will try to share as much detail as I can and include things like photos too.

I know that choosing a university is tough. It’s one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. Deciding to come all the way from a big city on the West Coast to a tiny town in an area of the country I knew nothing about was a difficult decision. So basically what I am trying to say is that I understand how important and hard this decision is. So I hope this blog helps, but also please feel free to email me and ask questions. I promise to help you in any way I can. I love Mount Allison and really want to help you guys discover how awesome it is to come study and live here, so please ask.

So check back in a week and I’ll be back to share my latest exciting experiences!

Cheers,

Landon

lsbraverman@mta.ca