Arts

J.D. Salinger: 1919 - 2010

In Memoriam
J.D. Salinger was 91 when he died in his New Hampshire home on January 27, 45 years after he published his last known story, "Hapworth 16, 1924," in the New Yorker .

By STEVE VINEBERG | February 05, 2010

Irma Vep mocks show biz
The Mystery of Irma Vep . Portland Stage Company's excellent, giddy production, directed by Christopher Grabowski, stars Tom Ford (who portrayed some dozens of characters in PSC's superlative I Am My Own Wife ) and Steven Strafford.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 03, 2010

Ordinary people

Pontine's latest Jewett adaptation
Born and raised in South Berwick, the writer Sarah Orne Jewett spent her life noticing the lives of ordinary Maine people. Her esteemed 1896 The Country of the Pointed Firs is a series of wise, gentle sketches of the aging folks of several small maritime villages.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 03, 2010

Little surprise

American painters cross the pond
At the tag end of a dispiriting day of gallery visiting I happened into the Bowdoin College Museum to see their collection of Warhol Polaroids matched with a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting. That's a sure recipe for ongoing gloom, but it was on my way, so I stopped.

By KEN GREENLEAF | February 03, 2010

Review: Patti Smith's Just Kids

The small prophecies of Patti Smith
How do you get to be the Godmother of Punk? Pure dumb luck, for starters.

By CARRIE BATTAN | February 08, 2010

Power of place

Exploring a New England ghost town in person, and on the page
I'd arranged the trip (Dogtown is about an hour and a half south of Portland) because I was planning to write about Elyssa East's new book, Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town.

By DEIRDRE FULTON | January 29, 2010

Finding her voice

An ex-con, a village, an opera
"There is a balm in Gilead," an old African-American spiritual has it, and sure enough, Percy Talbott (Kelly Caufield) finds that balm.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 27, 2010

Hedonism at its best

Absurdist mirth and wonder in Ubu Roi
In 1888, a 15-year-old French kid and a couple of his buddies wrote a script, modeling its gross and laughable anti-hero on a school teacher whom they had it in for.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 27, 2010

Half-century

Highlights of Colby's collection
The big 50th-anniversary exhibition at the Colby College Museum of Art has only about a month left of its eight-month run, so it seems like a good time to revisit this sprawling and worthwhile show.

By KEN GREENLEAF | January 27, 2010

Site-specificity

37-A Gallery opens with Hannah Barnes
Wharf Street is quickly becoming a hotbed for the esoterically minded. Building on early pioneers such as clothier Rogues Gallery and smart seafood at Street and Company, the original waterfront is being bolstered with the recent opening of Brook There, Brook DeLorme's sustainable-clothing design studio and shop, and 37-A Gallery, opened in a conjoined space.

By ANNIE LARMON | January 20, 2010

Open lines

What if the dead could talk?
In our hyper-connected day and age, a woman laments in Dead Man's Cell Phone , there exist only three sanctuaries from the ringing: the theater, the church, and the toilet — and even these havens are ring-less only in principle.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 20, 2010

Searching for Stephen King

A new biography presents facts but not a full story
In 1983, Doubleday published yet another book from the increasingly renowned Stephen King, whose Carrie and The Shining (to name just two) were already popular books and movies.

By DEIRDRE FULTON | January 13, 2010

The art of horror

A coffee table book that might scare you awake
While Lisa Rogak's Stephen King biography might be labeled "for fans only," it's unclear whether Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King should carry the same marker.

By DEIRDRE FULTON | January 13, 2010

Greater Tuna in the Texas two-step

Greater Tuna parodies the Lone Star State
Our first introductions to Tuna come over the airwaves on the Wheelis Struvis Report , as hosts Wheelis (Barrasso) and Struvis (Donovan) announce the winning student-essay contest entry ("Human Rights: Why Bother?") and weatherman Harold Dean (Donovan) forecasts the weather (rain, dust, and locusts).

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 13, 2010

Walk hard

Joshua Ferris abandons the office and hits The Road
In Joshua Ferris's unsparing second novel, Tim Farnsworth doesn't know why he walks, but nothing but exhaustion can stop him.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | January 13, 2010

What is this place?

Participatory performance art at Whitney Art Works
Bertolt Brecht asks, "In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes," he answers, "there will be singing. About the dark times."

By ANNIE LARMON | January 13, 2010

Photos: Stephen King-inspired artwork

Images from Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King
Artwork from Stephen King's novel covers and more

By CENTIPEDE PRESS | January 14, 2010

Food on stage

Locavores + thespians = understanding
Maine is home to a nationally renowned locavore culinary scene, the oldest organic farming association in the nation (MOFGA), and a plenitude of farms that has increased by nearly 1000 in the past five years — and yet economic pressure to develop acreage remains.

By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 06, 2010

Creating a legend

How Little Round Top made Chamberlain a hero
The soldiers of the 20th Maine Regiment marched quickly into the night, moving west from Hanover toward Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 1, 1863.

By DONALD G. FULTON | January 06, 2010

Cut it out

Collage-making is about the details
"Collage: Piecing it Together" at the Portland Museum of Art is a somewhat rambling look at a process that came into use in the beginning of the 20th century as a cubist process bringing images, colors, and shapes together that were previously used elsewhere.

By KEN GREENLEAF | January 06, 2010