There is something about the onset of winter and the desire for a morning bowl of oatmeal: the real deal kind, not the quick-cooking variety or the multi-flavored sugary rip-offs in little brown packets that barely serve a finicky kid. The oatmeal I thrive on is plain old rolled oats that are tossed into twice as much boiling water and left to plump up and play nicely with surrounding oats.
Category: Arts & Culture
Brew review
After last week’s foray with stouts, my taste-buds needed a reawakening. To me that means one thing: hops – and lots of them. That’s why this week I’ve chosen an array of beers all of which are centered more on their use of hops than on their delicate use of specialty grains.
DVD Battle: Stand-up edition
Carlin vs. Rock
The Razzies, the other side of Hollywood
The Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies, were created in 1980 with the sole purpose of balancing out the Academy Awards. However, you never want to receive or become nominated for this anti-prestigious statue. It dishonors, (or honors, depending on personal taste) the worst acting, screenwriting, songwriting, directing, and most importantly filmmaking that the industry produces every year.
The unfortunate passings of the year
This year brought cinema-goers some of the most unique and entertaining movies since, well, perhaps last year depending on who you talk to. But with this great time also came great losses to the entertainment world. A great deal of these were shocking, emotional, unexpected, and also reminded us that life is only temporary, as depressing and obvious as that sounds.
Five albums to get snowed in with
Bon Iver
For Emma, Forever Ago
After breakups with his band and girlfriend and a bout with a liver ailment, Justin Vernon sojourned in a tiny cabin in northern Wisconsin during the winter and created this minimalist masterpiece. Catharsis at its core, Vernon’s falsetto and mellow guitar strums portray the fragility of beauty with a sound too delicate for words.
Building something out of nothing
504 Congress Street has been home to a lot of business in the past two decades, and unfortunately for a string of entrepreneurs, it hasn’t been any one of them for very long.
Rob Evon is the latest to take an active interest in this prime piece of downtown real estate, smack in the middle of Portland’s arts district, just around the corner from Monument Square.
Featured artist
Free Press: What is your major and concentration?
Nick Downing: My Major is Art and Entrepreneurial Studies with a concentration in sculpture. I also have a minor in art history.
FP: What year/class are you?
ND: I am a senior, but I am anticipating being back for another semester in the spring.
Animated films remain afterthought at Academy Awards
The 2009 Academy Award Nominations were announced last Thursday with a sound no louder than a “thud.” The lackluster Oscar push of this year’s nominations left much to be desired from last years onslaught of intellectual and intriguing titles. “Slumdog Millionaire” seems to be this year’s favorite for best picture, already taking home the Golden Globe’s Best Picture award (Drama) along with many other accolades from contests around the world.
Epicurean Epics
Rosey and I have been friends since we met at UMO in the late seventies. Last weekend, her sisters and I met in South Thomaston, as Lynda’s husband Joe had flown to Florida to play some baseball. Lynda and Joe live in a house on Patten Point that is warm with pine, rich with art, and has generous windows that frame the sea and islands.
Brew Review
Stouts are one of craft brewing’s biggest mysteries. For those who don’t frequent the aisles of specialty shops, stouts often become synonymous with Guinness. But beyond the macro-brewed, oily-black goodness of a Guinness Draught, there’s a whole new world of stouts waiting to test your palate.
The notorious gentlemen of Mint Films
It was approaching midnight on Ferry Point Beach as the Mint Films team pushed to finish filming their 2008 short film, a scene in “This We Have Now” called “Jess & Andy.” After several hours of shooting, the tide came in and stranded Jeff Griecci’s Jeep on an island of sand in the distance.
Into the great wide open: part II
11/15 – Ottawa, ON – Café Dekcuf
Ah, waking up with your drummer’s arms wrapped around you.how comforting. Well, we were at a Comfort Inn after all; Adam must have been having quite the dream. North Bay looked different in the morning light, or maybe I should say in the sunlight, because it wasn’t exactly morning anymore.
Epicurean Epics
Maine’s hardworking fishermen began netting and trapping in the North Atlantic’s icy waters for sweet and succulent shrimp last week. This years season, the longest season since 1991, has been extended by 28 days. ending May 29, thanks to a projected abundance of the tasty shellfish, a taste of the sea in every one.
Jake Cowan on:
I will never be able to suck the milk out of a cow’s udder. I will never be able to share the same ice cream cone with my significant other. I will never be able to eat string cheese; I will only be able to mercilessly whip someone in the face with it. Why am I destined to suffer this fate? Because I am lactarded.
Winter Movie Preview
Australia
Currently in theaters
Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman
A mash up on multiple genres, “Australia” is a throwback to the era of classic epic romance films. Nicole Kidman plays an uptight English aristocrat who travels to the outback only to fall for a ruggedly handsome cattle driver played by Hugh Jackman.
Brew review
While most people think of robust beers during the winter, there is a wonderfully spicy alternative: Belgian witbiers (White Ales). And even though witbiers are often characterized as a spring/summer offering, their complex flavorings and spiciness make them the ideal counterpart to winter warmers.
Life after USM
For many students, the looming transition from college to real world is daunting: the need to support oneself, establish a career, pay back student loans and simply stay afloat without the raft that is college frightens. Upon receiving a degree, the excuse of being in college will no longer validate excessive and random drinking, sleeping, eating, or movie-watching.
Into the great wide open
We had been in my 2001 Ford Focus since 9am. It was now 6pm. Usually our 1996 GMC Savanna chauffeurs us to our next destination but without the burden of equipment, the much more economical car let us keep some money in our pockets. After crossing through Buffalo and the great Niagara Falls, the border came quickly, but not without our plan of attack.
Epicurean Epics
Pork tenderloin en croute is an impressive entrée to adorn a holiday table as well as an overall excellent meal to savor in the fall when mushrooms are in abundance. Simply, this recipe consists of pork tenderloin that has been seared, cooled, and wrapped in puff pastry that has been covered in duxelles.
Bigger than the Beatles
The Monks documentary will show for first time in America beyond New York City or Chicago this Friday at USM. For more than thirty years this band of American GI’s were not able to talk about their strange experience as a rock band in cold war Germany. In the film they recount their story for the first time.
Finding the perfect niche: Ferdinand
The interior of the blue trimmed shop features oddly precious prints, vintage shoes for a few dollars, and a bowl of ceramic peach pits. The wallpapered dressing room is lit as friendly as the little studio that is visible in the back of the shop. This shop, Ferdinand, is the quirky child of Diane Toepfer, who made her home in Portland as she shaped the shop-that-could.
Winter brew showdown
With Thanksgiving gone and the commercial blitz in full force, it’s a good time to grab some good beers and get away from it all. Unless, of course, you are Sebago Brewing Company by the mall, in which case, well, drink more.
Craft breweries around the country are introducing their winter selections, which come from two basic schools: the malty and the hoppy.
The Man Who Came to Dinner
A large cast. A highly referential, period-specific text. A cavalcade of outsized, eccentric characters. A run time of nearly three hours, with two intermissions.
Moss Hart and George S Kaufman’s 1939 play, “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” is a dramaturgical minefield.