Infected Mushroom are Erez Aizen and Amit Duvedevani, a duo from Tel Aviv, Israel, who are perpetrating some of the hottest electronic dance music ever fashioned by human hands. After snapping up their latest album last September, I pestered their manager to grant me an interview for months, which he finally granted when the guys moved to L.
Category: Arts & Culture
What’s not to love?
The first time I ever witnessed the Pete Kilpatrick Supergroup was on a rainy day in 2003. They were opening up for Rocktopus (As Fast As) at a high school in midcoast Maine. I’ve seen them many times since then, and their sound has changed considerably.
Dogs and writers
It starts out the way any of my writing starts out: I’m pacing the apartment, music blaring, talking to myself while my giant, nine-year-old mutt Moonshadow looks on. The big dilemma this time out? What’s a suitable topic for Lifestyle this issue, since your favorite columnist and mine, Miranda, is taking a well-deserved week off?
Lying on her side, sprawled half-on and half-off of her dog bed, Moon watches me pace.
A word or two of local review
Looking for a departure from your usual movie renting experience? Why not check out something more local than New York or L.A.? Videoport has a number of selections from area filmmakers making magic literally in your own backyard. Here are a couple of picks to start you out: HP Lovecraft’s “Nyarlothotep,” by Crawling Chaos Pictures, 2001.
Not your average, ordinary “Goat”
Brad Land’s memoir, “Goat,” published in 2004 by Random House, is a coming-of-age tale made extraordinary not by the fact that it is a story of a young man growing up, but rather by the culture of violence in which growing occurs. Land’s first brush with this violence comes when he is kidnapped and savagely beaten during a college party in his hometown of Florence, South Carolina.
WMPG goes digital
By June, WMPG is expecting to install a new transmitter and to be broadcasting digitally. Unlike existing satellite broadcast radio, such as XFM, WMPG will still be subscription free. The only change for listeners should be a higher quality for those with digital receivers.
Music makes the (college) world go round
and in hand. Whether it’s reggae blaring from speakers set in dorm windows on those first hazy days of spring, a car shaking with an ambitious hip-hop bass line, or Mozart playing on a rehearsal piano late at night, it seems the college experience is always set to a distinct rhythm.
Lifestyle
I am almost 23, and until a few weekends ago, the closest thing to skiing I had ever done was at my friend Elizabeth Taylor’s house in the sixth grade. After bribing me with a Rider Strong poster from Tiger Beat, she convinced me to strap on her parent’s cross-country skis and slide around her “backyard” (read: a hill with a patio).
Calendar of Events
Can-Am Sled Dog Race. The annual Canadian-American Sled Dog Race in Fort Kent. Okay, yes, it’s a haul, in the dead of a never-ending winter. But it’s huskies and they’re sledding-250 miles, people. This is why winter was invented. Plus, there’s no admission for spectators, so if you feel like ditching classes and taking a trek up north, your very own Jack London-worthy adventure awaits.
War is bad. Men are pigs
On Russell Hall’s main stage, there is a Greek palace of sorts, complete with pillars and multiple levels, done in pastel pinks, blues and purples, the curves and strategically centered door a clear metaphor for the female form. An effeminate man with a flowing white beard approaches the audience, introducing himself as Aristophanes, then proceeds to remind us of standard audience protocol-no cell phones, flash photography, note the emergency exits-before cautioning that the following is not a play for the timid.
USM Theatre and Music Departments team up for “The Magic Flute”
A piano plays in the cold March night, while the clear, distant resonance of a soprano carries all the way from Russell Hall to Corthell’s neighboring parking lot. Inside the theatre, one set of double doors leads into a room that generally serves as a workshop for set construction; tonight, however, there is the rhythmic shuffle-thump of rehearsing dancers.
Portland Art Museum hosts renowned photojournalist
The Portland Museum of Art is featuring a selection of Photographer Margaret Bourke-White. The photographs are on display at the Portland Art Museum until March 20. Admission to the museum is free every Friday from 5 to 9 P.M.
Much of Bourke-White’s work revolves around discovering the beauty and art in industrial structures and factories that were built primarily for function and not form.
USM director/playwright in spotlight at regional awards
In a recent competition in Rhode Island, USM’s Theater Department won the Costume and Set Design categories. Corey Anderson, Kate Law and Jerome Wills received the awards. Another student, David Branch, came in third out of over 200 fellow actors in the Irene Ryan Acting Competition.
The Valentine’s Day dance
Valentine’s Day is here. In an attempt to get in the spirit of that hallowed Hallmark holiday, I’ve been doing some research on works of art inspired by the 14th of February. Googling until my fingers nearly bled, my findings were surprisingly slim. There were movies, most notably “Valentine,” “My Bloody Valentine” and two mysterious flicks entitled “My Funny Valentine” (2000) and “Funny Valentine” (2002), neither of which were carried by any of the local video stores.
Welcome to the swamp
When most people think of Mardi Gras, they imagine Bourbon Street: Copious amounts of alcohol, wild music and all the debauchery that results from such a volatile mixture. This past Tuesday, WMPG hosted its 10th annual Fat Tuesday (the English translation of Mardi Gras) celebration in the Woodbury Campus Center.
Punky’s is changing locations
Holy cow, where did Punkys go?
Punkys is undeniably one of the top eateries among USM students. Usually it’s worth the trip to their Forest Avenue location, despite the relative convenience of the Aramark cafeteria in the Woodbury Student Center. But as of last Tuesday, Punkys has served its last customer there, where it opened 10 years ago and will not re-open.
You gonna love it like a pig loves corn! Aiee!
In a couple days prepare to smell something surprising on campus, something rare in Maine: C’est bon Cajun cooking! And where does one find good gumbo on campus? Only at WMPG’s 10th Annual Fat Tuesday Celebration and Cajun Cooking Challenge, cosponsored by Aramark and the Portland Events Board.
LifeStyle
“Honey, look what Apple is coming out with.” My fianc? Matt turned his laptop screen toward me.
“Hmm?” I slowly shifted my Vogue-focused gaze to the image on the screen.
“You know the iPod? Well this is an even smaller version called the Shuffle and they’ll be selling it for only like $100-$140 depending on how much memory you get.
Lifestyle
rling and suede encased feet in the store’s mirror. I hadn’t meant to try them on. I had in fact entered the store in search of my yearly winter boot: black, leather and with a thin heel, the heel and toe shape differing slightly depending on the season. Perhaps not a practical shoe choice for Maine’s snowy winters, but it had worked just fine for the last three years and I didn’t see any reason to change now.
USM poets steal the scene at Geno’s
The first time I went to Geno’s–the basement bar next to Margarita’s, on Brown Street in Portland–it was about a year ago and the place was packed. I’d been around poets before, of course, but I’d never been around this breed of poets. Mad poets. Poets with wild hair and wilder eyes, poets with rhythm, poets with wit, poets with questionable hygiene, poets whose words were inspired by voices the rest of us didn’t hear.
USM Art Gallery Hosts International Basket Exhibit:”Baskets Around The World: Elemental Techniques-Artistic Vision”
An exhibit of baskets from around the world, both utilitarian and art objects, will be on display in USM’s Art Gallery on the Gorham campus from Thursday, January 27, through Saturday, March 12. The exhibit is curated by basket artist, educator, and curator Carol Grant Hart of Salisbury, Conn.
Two USM theater productions to travel to regional festival
This year, USM has not one but count ’em, two shows traveling to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Regional Festival. “The Laramie Project” and “November/December” have been chosen as two out of only six productions to compete in the Region 1 division of the annual festival, which includes colleges from throughout the New England states.
USM to hire a poet
The Department of English is hiring a new poet. To that end, they are bringing to campus two candidates within the next two weeks.
The first was be Brian Henry, editor of “Verse”, author (most recently) of “Astronaut”, and former Director of Creative Writing at the University of Georgia.
Student Directed “Lysistrata” takes the USM Main Stage
It’s Thursday night, about six hours after my deadline for this article. In an overheated classroom in Bailey Hall on the Gorham campus, I’m watching a group of actors find ways to externalize their psyches on cue. This means that at any given moment, said actors may be making like airplanes, elephants, or horny old men.