Category: Arts & Culture

If you scan the latest runways featured in the pages of Vogue, Bazaar, W and the like, you will notice that this season’s trends are decidedly less, well, uniform. This observation does not apply to the ample selection of distinctly feminine shapes of the season, but rather the myriad of styles, colors and takes on what are arguably the most lax struts down the catwalk in recent seasons.

Most every Thursday night on the Gorham campus, the Gorham Events Board offers students a friendly alternative to doing Jell-o shots in Upton-Hastings Hall in the form of “Thirsty Thursday” events. Thirsty Thursdays offer everything from games to give-aways to free music.

The Ant Farm Collective, a group of radical architects, performance artists and video enthusiasts who took the embryonic medium of video and created art with a punishing and hilarious social commentary during the sixties and seventies, recently released a DVD of short films.

Now that you’ve gotten your computer all set up you’re probably wondering where you can go to get wired, or just to find some good java. Well, you’re in luck, Portland has a plethora of joe joints. Each one has its own perks, prices and personality. Are you looking to study during the daylight hours, or have glass of wine or beer at an open mike night? Some local entrepreneur is probably begging to cater to your needs.

You’re not going anywhere! You have homework to do!

You have syllabi to read and binders to organize!

If you need a diversion you should call your mom and ask her advice about college life! Make small talk with your roommate about which posters you’re going to hang over your bunkbeds! Do your laundry!!!

Just kidding.

The photographs of Fran Vita-Taylor are hanging in the Area Gallery at the Woodbury Campus Center. You will notice the colors first. They are lucid concentrations that glow within the print. Vita-Taylor says that she sometimes spends a couple of days in Photoshop, adjusting the hue and saturation of each piece of color.

With a whopping three cents per book in royalties and a national publishing credit under his belt, USM alumnus Michael Connor is riding high. “I’m just sort of floating-in very positive circumstances,” said the Portland artist in an interview Tuesday evening.

Ocean Ocean was busy this summer. He was cutting and folding, peeling, sticking and stacking, post-producing and putting together four new CDs from Ocean & Casas, of whom, he is the Ocean: lead guitar. The Casas is Evan Casas: drummer.

Starting from happy places inspired by joyful moments in their lives, Ocean & Casas have written and recorded hundreds of danceable, sing-alongable songs, which are now available for consumption in the convenient form of the compact disc.

There is a board game called Clue: The Great Museum Caper. It is not new. It was made in the 90’s. In it, players take turns as the thief, remaining invisible as they move around the low relief playing area, snatching miniature Mondrians and Rembrandts. The thief becomes visible if another player wanders into the line of sight.

Ron Jeremy suffers from low-grade narcolepsy and is a dangerous driver. In the documentary ‘The Legend of Ron Jeremy” you actually see the man struggle to stay awake, then fall asleep while driving his car down the highway. Ron Jeremy is nearly a household name when it comes to porn.

Spring arrived tentatively this year and so did my taste for what we what we all think of when somebody says “Maine cuisine.”

It seems like an interesting premise. What would happen if you placed a 13-year-old girl’s mind into the body of a 30-year-old woman? If this idea sounds familiar, that’s because it is. It’s exactly the same premise used in “Big,” starring Tom Hanks, which I remember as a pretty funny movie, although not a great one.

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s new book isn’t a bombshell like some of the other political books coming out this year. In its pages you won’t find zealous accusations about the present administration or revelations about its inner workings. In fact, you won’t even find Bush mentioned by name.

But “The Economics of Innocent Fraud” is an important book at an important time.

Hey kids, take another hit off that bong and tell your mother you love her, because Eldemur Krimm and their new album “Dirigo” is here to kick your fucking ass. Featuring straight up, balls-to-the-wall speed metal and breakneck Iron Maiden-esque guitar riffs, Eldemur Krimm is Portland’s finest hard rock attraction.

In an escapist mood one soggy night last week, I surrendered my credit card to Beale Street Barbeque in South Portland. I wanted a taste of something decidedly not Maine-on-the-eve-of-finals-week.

While I can’t say for sure that their barbecue is anything like the real thing (let’s be honest, my Wisconsin upbringing gives me authority on two things only: cheese and bratwurst), authenticity doesn’t matter when you’re ravenously hungry and staring at a pile of tender, smoky meat.

After seeing “Kill Bill Vol. 1” last fall, I could hardly wait to see its conclusion, “Vol. 2.” When the release date was announced, I started counting down the weeks until it opened. Usually when my anticipation of a new movie gets that high, there is nothing but disappointment in store.

I’ll come out and say it: commercial radio sucks. With such a wide variety of music for the world’s listening pleasure, it’s a shame that most of us only get to hear the narrow spectrum of tunes that are screened through to them. Most people never get to hear great bands like The Damnwells.

A group of American Indians, mostly from Penobscot Nation in Maine, came to USM last week to perform a play reading of Tomson Highway’s “The Rez Sisters.” The reading was part of opening events week for the top floors of Glickman library, and was co-sponsored by USM Multicultural Student Affairs, the Women’s Resource Center, the Center for Sexualities and Gender Diversity and the women’s studies department.

Next time you walk down Congress Street in Portland, stop and look in the window of SPACE Gallery at 538 Congress. The latest urban mural by San Francisco artist Andrew J. Schoultz will be taking shape throughout the month of April at the gallery.

Somewhere between the Pixies and the “New Rock” bands like the Strokes and Jet lies a pleasantly in-your-face band from Sweden called Randy. They know how to craft engaging songs with bountiful energy and meaningful punk lyrics, and their accomplished sound sets them apart from the average rock band.

The Brides of Destruction were formed by Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx and L.A. Guns guitarist Tracii Guns in 2002 under the provisional name Cockstar (which, personally, I think is a brilliant name for this band).

Their debut studio release, “Here Come the Brides,” came out this year, and as a fan of heavy metal and modern rock, I jumped at the chance to review it.

School of Music faculty member Brian L. Diehl led the six members of the USM Trombone Choir in a concert last Thursday evening, with pieces ranging from Bach and Wagner to jazz. Their performance included the premiere of “Passacaglia” by Lauren Bernofsky.

While you may not recognize the names Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel, you may have heard their music before. The duo that makes up the French band Air provided music for the soundtracks of Sophia Coppola’s movies “The Virgin Suicides” and “Lost in Translation.

I picked up a comic book from the stack of magazines at the mechanic’s the other day: “The Hulk.” It was an enjoyable, though unbelievable, story with all the characteristics of a great comic book: good battling evil, a superhero with known superpowers, an easy to follow storyline and a happy ending. The creators of the movie “Hellboy” could have learned a lot from my short wait at the mechanic’s.