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.
Category: Arts & Culture
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.
Rashomon
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.
Quantum of Solace
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 Flemming’s fictional MI-6 spy character, audience enthusiasm dropped.
Eccentricity, laughter and song in
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.
“Raven” about corn: everything to crow about
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.
Clash of the Titans
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 Hot Chilli Peppers v.
The vinyl experience
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 accept its analog mortality.
Trent Austin:
With a list of prestigious awards and a performance resume with people such as Natalie Cole, Joe Williams, and Tony Bennett, USM is hosting a very special faculty recital. The very talented trumpeter, Trent Austin, will be performing in Gorham’s Corthell Hall on Friday, November 14th at 8:00.
Into the great wide open
It seems like almost a yearly tradition now.
Tour the States in the spring and summer, and once it starts to get cold.go where it could only be colder: Canada.
This year, I will make that annual trip with the band I call my own, The Leftovers, on the weekend of November 13th-16th and it promises to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
“Last Light” captures ‘while you were dying’
Jocelyn Lee’s photography exhibit, “Last Light,” documents the death of her mother, whom she calls a collaborator in the work. The Italian-born photographer also holds a degree in philosophy from Yale, a 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, has taught at MECA, and now teaches at Princeton.
Epicurean Epics
The “Recipes from Home” program created by Keith Brady, USM’s Director of Dining Services, and promoted by Janet Etzel, USM’s Coordinator of Early Student Involvement and Family Relations, was recently featured in the Portland Press Herald by feature writer Meredith Goad.
Jake Cowan on: Lucky the Leprechaun
eprechaun. He doesn’t seem like a normal leprechaun. On first glance, one can immediately tell he’s not right – he must have some internal emotional problems. He protects a bowl of cereal from children for starters, and he’s not even good at it. He is in fact terrible.
Payne-ful to Watch
Usually Mark Whalberg can do no wrong in selecting movie roles that showcase his acting skills and tough-guy persona (look to The Departed or We Own the Night). Max Payne proves there is a first time for everything.
Max Payne is based off the ultra-violent and hip videogame of the same name; and the creators of the movie try damn hard to follow the plotline of this game and transfer a sense of it onscreen.
A sound stage in South Portland?
Not too many people look to Maine for film-making opportunities, but that may all change if Cape Elizabeth resident Eric Matheson’s big idea can come to life.
Matheson wants to transform South Portland’s former National Guard Armory into a fully equipped sound stage for independent and major film studios.
USM Wind Ensemble performs Nov 9
“We get to have fun and get credit for it. It’s part of our curriculum. But don’t tell anybody!” Dr. Peter Martin, the conductor of the USM wind ensemble, stands poised on the podium, baton in hand, awaiting and expecting the pristine first notes of the work.
Creating Cat Dancer
Thirty years ago, the man who calls himself Cat Dancer was a young, self-described introvert enthralled with computers and math, walking quietly through his family’s five acres of woods in North Monmouth, Maine. He rode his bike through the town’s empty streets past the smoky, brick expanse of Tex-Tech Industries-the world’s leading producer of tennis ball felt; a place where workers are liable to lose a few fingers in the machines.
With a bang: A New Brain
You may not have heard, but there is a musical theatre major at USM, and it is producing spectacular work. The community was privy to this work over the weekend as fourteen student vocalists took to the Corthell Concert Hall stage. They transformed it into the mind of Gordon Schwinn–and a restaurant, a sidewalk, an apartment, a sailboat, and a hospital room: all without techincal scenery other than the actors themselves, a few props, and pianos.
Caleigh and the chicken
Just last week I heard on the radio that during Whole Foods Fall Madness Sale whole chickens were going for .99/lb. accompanied by .39/lb. butternut squash (sale ends November 4th, but the store is open until 10 p.m.). I heard value either way, as you can get a lot of mileage out of a chicken.
Jake Cowan on: Being the President
August 30th, 2004 was the day I turned 18. Everyone and their mothers asked me if I was going to vote in the upcoming election. I told them, “No. One vote can’t change anything.” I was kidding when I said this and had every intention in the world to vote, but whether I voted or not didn’t really matter.
Sexualized schizo-pop:
Not even the previos album, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? could have prepared us for the newly released trashy-pop funk-fest better known as Skeletal Lamping. Beyond Of Montreal’s usual tendency to evolve their genre, album-to-album, leadman Kevin Barnes pushes the envelope with hypersexuality, hyperactivity, and a very short attention span.
Broken Social Scene pounces Bowdoin College
The Canadian collective Broken Social Scene put on a fantastic and unique show this week in our backyard. While some bands might get lost in the number of members, (more than 10!) Broken Social Scene does it right with eclectic compositions and an amazing stage presence.