Category: Arts & Culture

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…

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.

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…

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,…

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.

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.

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…

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.

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…

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.

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.

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,…

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…

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.

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 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,…

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…

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.

Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece Rashomon, released on DVD as part of the esteemed Criterion Collection, remains one of Japan’s most influential and visually stimulating films. Kurosawa worked closely with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa in creating a stunning display of light, shadows and virtuoso camerawork.

James Bond is number three on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest movie heroes of all time. For many filmgoers he is the epitome of sleek, badass, male, danger on a path to destroy evil and willing to take out time to bed the ladies. After Sean Connery’s iconic portrayal as author Ian…

When I arrived in Robie-Andrews and scurried into Burnham Lounge for the monthly coffee house, a crowd of 40 or so were gathered around Kurt Perry, singing “If I Didn’t Believe in You” from the musical The Last Five Years. It was a solo act; he was focusing on the vocals.

The open field across the street from our farm invites the northwest winds to invigorate the yard, sometimes saving us hours of raking or shoveling. Such was the wind that howled during the full moon last week. Its invisible force blew the tied cornstalks away from the craggy granite signpost on the front lawn.

For lovers of local music in Southern Maine, the phrase ‘Clash of the Titans’ no longer refers to a film pairing super hero against super hero, rather, it means a competition of super-bands, by local band members. Beginning in 2006, local musicians began collaborating to perform evenings of cover songs by super-bands, pitting The Red…

Cassette tape sightings are at an all-time low, Laserdiscs are just technological folklore, and unless you’re rooting around in your grandparent’s basement, you might never lay eyes on an 8-track tape. These obsolete recording technologies have graciously made way for a new frontier of digital music, but there is still one medium that refuses to…