Category: Arts & Culture

Local independent record label Eternal Otter hosted their vinyl release party at Space Gallery on Friday night. The event was held to promote the release of the label’s three new series of 7-inch singles, titled “Death, Rebirth and Transformation.

With a vibrant local music scene, untold numbers of bars, and art galleries every 15 feet, Portland is the cultural nexus of Maine. With bars, clubs, and cafe’s all vying for your attendance with a variety of events, offering “nights” for everyone from the bar-stool academic (see RiRa’s trivia night) to the the sweaty retro buff (80’s nights galore!), it can be difficult to sort through the melange.

Congress Streets non-profit arts and music venue SPACE Gallery kicked off their unjurried show of local artwork last Friday, providing a few USM art students and employees with their first opportunity to show in a gallery outside of campus.

The show, titled “Free For All 2” is the second unjurried show that SPACE has hosted.

As a college student in Portland, it can be hard to find a restaurant that fits your budget. With books to buy and student loans to pay off, who has the money? If you’re looking for affordability, good service and great food, Silly’s Restaurant, at 40 Washington Ave.

“Sherlock Holmes” is a film of both wit and action, with a plot line that is gripping right up to the credits, and one-liners you’ll be quoting for days. Holmes, played by Robert Downing Jr. “Iron Man, The Soloist”, reopens a case, as the sorcerer Lord Blackwood, played by Mark Strong “Body of Lies”, appears to have come back to life to destroy England after Dr.

An adult-themed hypnotist performed some shockingly lewd mind games on a group of student volunteers in the Brooks Student Center last Thursday. The show, which was attended by a rather large audience, was last week’s installment of the Gorham Events Board’s weekly event series, Thirsty Thursday.

Portland resident Ben Bishop is living out every 12-year-old boy’s dream – drawing comic books, designing action figures and making his living doing it.

Bishop celebrated the reissue of his first graphic novel, “Nathan the Caveman,” at Coast City Comics during last week’s First Friday Art Walk.

Medeski, Martin & Wood, a jazz-fusion trio from Brooklyn, brought some hot funk jams to the Port City Music Hall on the first snowy evening of the year, last Saturday, Dec. 5. The band played without an opener, grooving almost nonstop for three hours with only a twenty minute break in between their two sets.

Memo to humanity: the world is not going to end.? Do not be alarmed by the hype that has surrounded the new action-pack from Roland Emmerich, the man that brought us such explosive blockbusters as “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”? Please calmly remain seated and remember, this is not a documentary.

The majestic pine trees and graceful waterways of the forests of Maine have inspired and captivated American writers and artists for centuries. The exhibit currently on display in the Woodbury Campus Center in Portland traces that captivation back through the last two centuries, bringing together work from four different moments throughout the last 145 years.

If the over-crowded, Christmas song infused Mall scene is too much for you this season, but you still want some trendy clothing to compliment your winter wardrobe, there is still hope. Here are three shops in downtown Portland that can meet your vintage style clothing needs without making you take out another loan.

Everybody knows John Mayer’s 2001 bubblegum sex-pop ditty, “Your Body is a Wonderland” and its endearing combination of quiet guitar strumming and sweetly graphic lyrics.

Somewhat less well-known is that Mayer may be one of the best guitarists alive today. He’s won every major music award (including 13 Grammys) and jammed with blues and jazz giants like Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Herbie Hancock, B.B. King and John Scofield. He was even named one of the “New Guitar Gods” by Rolling Stone in 2007, placing him alongside Derek Trucks of the Allman Brothers and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

His fourth solo album “Battle Studies,” which came out two weeks ago, isn’t as good as some of his earlier work, but it still delivers 45 great minutes of music. Personally, I hadn’t been so excited to pick up a record since Dave Matthews Band released Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King this past summer. After practically running out of Bull Moose with “Battle Studies” in my hand, I immediately threw it in my car’s CD player and began my listen.

For years now, Yosaku, that Japanese place on Danforth St. near Brian Boru, has been my favorite place in town to go for sushi. But I’m starting to reconsider. After two delicious meals last week at Shima, the new French / Japanese fusion restaurant that just opened on Fore St. across the street from Rosie’s, I think my loyalties are beginning to shift.

To begin with, Shima has a menu vast enough that I may never become familiar with it all as well as a constantly shifting set of specials. I opted for a special – the tempura-fried, fish-wrapped spinach – since it didn’t sound like anything I’d ever had before, and I figured it’d be wonderful to try. Indeed, it was. Served on a plate full of a sauce which tasted distinctly French, it was a flavorful dish far surpassing my simplistic prior experiences with sushi.

The MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot is the size of 10 stacked credit cards, and it works wonders. Simply turn it on wherever you are and BANG! You have a wi-fi network that you can connect to on your laptop or other device to surf the Web.

During one afternoon drive between Lewiston and Brunswick, my fiance was able to stream video from her Web cam and browse the Web at the same time – all at a relatively fast speed. As I write this review, I am using the MiFi card to connect to the Internet where I normally wouldn’t be able to – in Rumford, Maine at my grandparents’ house.

Almost everyone has heard the story of Amelia Earhart. She attempts to fly around the world and goes missing somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Don’t be alarmed by the overdone subject matter, however, this film is nothing like that paper you wrote on her in sixth grade.

It was another rainy afternoon on Congress Street in Portland. From behind a large first-floor window, an eight foot tall model of Bigfoot watched the traffic roll by from behind a plastic shrub, trying to make sense of his new home – the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland’s Parkside neighborhood.

My sister sent me a text this morning that read “You hanging with the golden girls?” I could see why – we were in West Palm Beach, Florida, a retirement town. It’s the last place you’d expect to find a punk show. We all half expected to roll up on a town of all senior citizens, complete with wheelchair ramps on every storefront.

Of course, that wasn’t the case. Even on the beach, which was our first stop, there were plenty of young people out and about. As I reported in my last dispatch, the water was anything but refreshing. The floating trash and jellyfish warning signs didn’t help anything. But the beach was still a nice stop before the show. As far as the show was concerned, we didn’t know what to expect. Would it be full of oldtimers hobbling around the mosh pit?

Reality shows all claim to present ordinary people in unscripted situations. But how real are they really? Does it matter?

To begin with, unscripted television is not that novel an idea.

Game shows have been around since before the United States entered the Second World War. But the current “reality show” idiom in which contestants are eliminated by their peers instead of by a system appeared nine years ago when “Survivor” contestants began getting “voted off the island.”

Much of what makes these shows exciting is that nobody knows what’s going to happen. It’s riveting to watch people double-cross each other as they compete in the wide variety of competitions throughout the season. If it were orchestrated, it’d lack suspense and just be boring. That’s what’s so upsetting about the longstanding allegations that “Survivor” may actually stage some of its events and possibly even, gasp, not take place in the wilderness that they portray. If the drama of the show was created by an off-screen writer, then the appeal is written off as well.

Yamato – The Drummers of Japan provided the people of Portland with a unique opportunity to feel the beat of authentic Japanese culture at their show in Merrill Auditorium last Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The group performed an intense combination of masterful drumming and synchronized dance. They swung the drums – which were almost as big as they were – around the stage and gracefully performed marshal arts moves without ever missing a beat. Throughout the entire show, the performers had massive smiles strewn across their faces, encouraging each other and radiating positive energy out into the audience.

I never thought I could be disappointed in a movie featuring George Clooney. “The Men Who Stare At Goats” has proven otherwise. It presents the dullest, most random series of disjointed events imaginable. It’s as boring as watching two people cross an endless desert. Scratch that: the film is actually about two guys walking across a desert.

The film follows and is narrated by Bob Wilton( Ewan Mcgregor), a reporter looking for a story amid the disasters of the Iraq War. He thinks he hit a gold mine when he meets Lyn Cassady ( George Clooney), a former member of a paranormal battalion from the Vietnam War. What ensues is a great plotless heap that leads the viewer into their own boring, endless desert of annoyance.

If you have ever been to a normal karaoke night at a bar, you know what it generally entails: awkward, drunk people singing off key to pre-recorded versions of the pop songs you hear everywhere. But a new Wednesday night concert series at Empire Dine and Dance in Portland offers a new contribution to this tired type of entertainment: highly skilled, live musicians.

Pizza and beer go together like ocean and sand, pumpkin and pie, bamboo and?zen! You get the “pitcher.” There are a few spots downtown that?showcase this comforting combination perfectly in a way that only Portland?can, but two places specifically come to mind: Joe’s Slice Bar on Fore?Street and Portland Pie Company on York Street.

Dozens of local artists displayed paintings, jewelry, handmade bags and even carved wooden pickle forks at the third annual Gorham Art Fair on Sunday. The event was held in the Shaw Gym in the back of the municipal center on South St. and lasted all day, running from 9a.

“Tea and Sympathy,” the Theatre Department’s latest production, opened in Russell Hall in Gorham last Thursday.

Originally written as a loose autobiography of the playwright Robert Anderson, the play presents the story of Tom, a student in a boy’s school in the 1950s who is suspected of being a homosexual.