Arts & Entertainment

Published
December 16, 2012

Book Review: Nature’s comeback proves to be a wild ride

The nature-challenged reader will discover many startling facts in Jim Sterba’s new book. One stands out: Not only are America’s Eastern forests roaring back to life, they’ve been doing so for more than a century. Sterba, a veteran reporter for the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, literally stumbles onto this truth one […]
Published
December 16, 2012

Classical Beat: On tap at the PSO: A playful yet demanding work by Prokofiev

I don’t know whether it was deliberate or not, but the Portland Symphony Orchestra has programmed for its Jan. 27 concert a strange cousin of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” the 100th anniversary of whose tumultuous premiere is being celebrated this concert season. With his marketing antennae fully extended, ballet master Sergei Diaghilev was looking for […]
Published
December 16, 2012

Signings, etc.

CHRIS VAN DUSEN
Published
December 16, 2012

Simple spirituality and quiet complexity in two shows

We have this idea in America that important paintings should be big. Really big. While this is a holdover from Abstract Expressionism, the idea goes much deeper into 19th-century Paris-led culture of giant narrative tableaux. Yet it can be argued that Modernism painting developed as a response to these absurdly affected giant paintings. This came […]
Published
December 16, 2012

TV: ‘Gossip Girl’ offers lesson in TV hype

Over a six-season run that ends Monday (8 p.m., The CW), “Gossip Girl” was a teen drama known for its love triangles, scandalous affairs, OMG moments, and lots of very bad behavior by very rich people. It also became a prime example of how a little show can make a big splash in today’s fragmented […]

Published
December 16, 2012

Portland Symphony Orchestra enters the ‘Magic’ season

Lyn Dillies puts more magic in “Magic of Christmas.” The Massachusetts-based illusionist joins the Portland Symphony Orchestra for this year’s “Magic of Christmas” concerts at Merrill Auditorium, 20 Myrtle St., Portland. Music director Robert Moody has conceived a program that includes the drama of magic, traditional stories from the Bible and festive holiday cheer. In […]
Published
December 16, 2012

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry

In this week’s poem an elderly Maine woman tells such vivid stories about her early life, she transports her listener, poet Elizabeth Tibbetts of Hope, back to the past.
Published
December 9, 2012

A Capitol idea: Wildlife, landscape art exhibit

AUGUSTA — The Maine Arts Commission presents an exhibition of landscape photography and painted bas-reliefs of birds through February in Maine’s Capitol Complex as part of the agency’s Arts in the Capitol program. The works by John and Cynthia Orcutt and Hugh Verrier were previously exhibited at the Schoolhouse Gallery in Kingfield. The art brings […]
Published
December 9, 2012

Calendar

ART “Weatherbeaten: Winslow Homer and Maine,” 35 major oils and watercolors, Portland Museum of Art. portlandmuseum.org. Through Dec. 30. “Between Past and Present: The Homer Studio Photographic Project,” contemporary photography made with historic processes, Portland Museum of Art. portlandmuseum.org. Through Feb. 17. The Portland Society of Art and Winslow Homer’s Legacy in Maine, exploring the […]
Published
December 9, 2012

Book Review: Changes in Maine’s forests vividly described

“The Changing Nature of the Maine Woods” is the sixth book to highlight Maine’s forests that I have reviewed in these pages in as many years. Each investigated some aspect of the North Woods, as (full disclosure) did the chapter on Maine I wrote for a book about conservation in New England. Each author brought […]

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