Category: Arts & Culture

Spring is in the air. The flowers are in bloom, Back Bay is rife with runners wearing only the bare essentials, and USM is overflowing with students anxiously awaiting that magic moment when term papers are done and finals behind them. For seniors completing their degrees, the wonders of imminent summer are overshadowed by questions common to anyone at the final leg of a long journey: What happens next? Is that perfect job out there, the one that provides not only monetary rewards, but a higher sense of satisfaction, a feeling of fulfillment beyond simply being able to pay the bills and afford beer, pizza and the occasional romantic getaway?

For students graduating in arts-related fields, some of those questions may seem arbitrary at best.

For those students who reside in the Portland area year-round, there will be no shortage of events to keep you busy this summer. Care to check out the Rockwell Kent exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art? No problem! Want to rock ’till you drop with Def Leppard? Rock on! Or maybe you just want to see Portland at its finest during the Old Port Festival.

I am graduating in one week. As you can imagine, it’s been something of a stressful time-scrambling to combat an acute case of senioritis, getting my school work done, trying to find a job, all the while attempting to figure out “what I want to be when I grow up.

When I was a kid, from about ages seven to, say, 12 or 13, I wanted to be a jewel thief. Other girls in my class wanted to be teachers, veterinarians, ballerinas; I had no interest in any of these vocations. I wanted to scale fences, steal golden monkeys, frequent remote locales, invariably pursued by menacing strangers with exotic accents and freakish scars.

Last week’s annual Spring Fling, hosted by the Gorham Events Board and Residential Life, went off without a hitch, providing not only merriment and general ribaldry for all involved, but also raising much-needed cash for Habitat for Humanity. The Spring Fling is held every year in Gorham, with events this time around including a casino night, jamfest featuring Paranoid Social Club, and culminating with a semi-formal dance and drag show.

Words & Images hosted a poetry reading last Tuesday to present the Stephen Dunn Poetry Awards to this year’s winners.

Keith Foster said “The thing I always say about a small audience is that everyone who matters is there.” Foster is a member of Words & Images opened the poetry reading on the seventh floor of Glickman Library.

The sun, she shines. The air is warm, the tide is high, it’s time to get out and paint the town. Here are a few options.

The Passenger Release Party. We touted it last week, we’ll tout it again this issue. Writers, artists, and entrepreneurs from around the globe have put together a quarterly magazine called The Passenger, working with Portland’s Angioplasty Media.

The recent sunny weather prompted me to consider my rather pasty winter complexion. A little color might be nice, I thought. But, as I burn very easily, and have no interest in skin cancer, lying out and tanning booths weren’t options. So I did what any pale girl in need of a tan does: I headed to my neighborhood drug store.

A after a day’s worth of organized (and not-so-organized) activity in downtown Portland, on Monday, April 25, there’s a party at Casco Bay Books. The celebration will herald the first local-release of Passenger Magazine, and is brought to us by Portland’s very own Angioplasty Media.

Neitzche is credited with saying, “I would believe only in a God who knows how to dance.” This weekend at Russell Hall, the wide world of Southern Maine has an opportunity to see firsthand just what inspired such a bold statement, when the USM Theatre Department presents Dance USM!, an annual event showcasing performances by students, faculty, and guest dancers and choreographers.

Last weekend, I had an opportunity to do something I rarely do in my daily life: I relaxed. I hung out. A friend was visiting for the weekend, which meant that, for 72 hours, I put aside my pen. No writing, no editing, no transcription, no thoughts of global domination.

All right, kids, we’re approaching the finish line to another rousing year at USM. Here are a few events to keep you lively through the final stretch.

Words and Images release party. Readings, music, scintillating banter from Maine’s literary elite. What better way to spend your Monday evening? Space, Portland.

The second half of April promises to be a busy time for the music department. In the next couple of weeks there are going to be seven performances, and since April is “New Music Month” there will be a strong emphasis on student and faculty compositions. Check out the listing below to see what upcoming events strike your fancy.

When commenting on her adventures on “Wheel of Fortune,” Mary Sylvain-Leonas said “It was an awesome experience.” Leonas, a USM staff member on the Lewiston-Auburn campus made her national television debut on March 31. After leaving Sony Studios in Burbank, California with $10,000 cash and an all expense paid trip to South Africa, some might say it was a success.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.