Arts

Running onward

Shepard’s Fool For Love at USM
Two doomed lovers meet — not for the first and surely not for the last time — in Sam Shepard’s dark romance of love and the American West, Fool For Love.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | October 09, 2008

A shadow world

Lauren Fensterstock’s unsettling installation
The centerpiece of Lauren Fensterstock’s installation at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art is what appears to be a large black pool with giant lily pads.

By: KEN GREENLEAF | October 09, 2008

Scarlet letters

The uptight killjoy in us
Sarah Vowell’s fifth book, The Wordy Shipmates (Riverhead) — released on October 7 — examines New England Puritans with a meticulously researched, critical-yet-comical eye.

By: CAITLIN E. CURRAN | October 09, 2008

A smoker’s tale

Will Self’s The Butt
Somehow one is surprised — if one is a semi-conscious literary journalist like me — by the discovery that Will Self has continued to produce books.

By: JAMES PARKER | October 08, 2008

Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies
India, 1838. The opium business is booming, and drug money fills the British Empire’s coffers, offsetting a trade imbalance created by imports of Chinese tea and silk. But now the emperor wants the drug trade stopped.

By: CHRIS WANGLER | October 08, 2008

New discoveries

What the Impressionists can still teach us
The show presents works by artists that influenced the Impressionists and artists who were, in turn, influenced by this most powerful of artistic movements.

By: KEN GREENLEAF | October 02, 2008

Vast and intimate

Portland Stage’s masterful Caesar
PSC’s sophisticated and devastating interpretation of Julius Caesar reminds us of just how crucial it is that we keep our heads.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | October 02, 2008

Genre bender

Joe Hill’s scary stories reflect our worst fears
At a time when real-life events seem both horrifying and surreal, 20th Century Ghosts raises the question: Who needs monsters, when we have our messed-up minds, to contend with?

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | October 02, 2008

When ordinary is extraordinary

Gil Corral’s questions and answers in Biddeford
Biddeford artist Gil Corral seems to be one of those people whose surreality often seemS detached from everyday matters, but who can at times distill that perspective to simple truth.

By: IAN PAIGE | September 25, 2008

David Foster Wallace — 1962–2008

Overhead baggage
A story called “Forever Overhead” by David Foster Wallace appeared in the 1992 edition of Best American Short Stories .

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 26, 2008

Positively Phil

Roth goes back to college
We all know Philip Roth’s preoccupations.

By: RICHARD BECK | September 16, 2008

Off on a tangent

Jeff Kellar’s latest work is pared to austerity
Over the years Jeff Kellar, whose work is currently on view at Icon Contemporary Art in Brunswick, has been assiduously paring his work down.

By: KEN GREENLEAF | September 17, 2008

Perspectives

The shifts of Michael Kimball’s newest play
Many kinds of flight throw together the doomed characters of Hideaway , five troubled people on an isolated Maine lakeshore.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | September 17, 2008

Portland fall preview

Your arts bible with sneak peeks at the best TV, movies, books, video games, and more

By: PHOENIX STAFF | September 12, 2008

Water portraits

What Jessica Gandolf chooses to show
Despite their small size, Jessica Gandolf’s paintings have always had a large-scale operatic background informing their imagery.

By: KEN GREENLEAF | September 10, 2008

Getting religion right (and left)

Portland author explores Catholic faith and politics
“Religion is seen to be the province of the political right,” Chris Korzen says.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | September 10, 2008

Water wars

Bottlemania puts a local story on the national stage
Elizabeth Royte’s new book, Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It , is a frank reminder of just how ubiquitous bottled water has become.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | September 10, 2008

Reading roundup

Autumn’s authors about town
This fall’s regional literary scene will see abstinence and desire, ghosts and dykes, convicts and Christians, toxic water bottles and yummy food.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | September 10, 2008

Holy roller

Marilynne Robinson’s Home
Marilynne Robinson’s Home is haunted.

By: DANA KLETTER | September 09, 2008

Morality plays

It’s hard to escape politics this fall
The next six weeks of American life will be marked by a theatrical onslaught of ambition, contention, and colorful character development.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | September 10, 2008