Joshua M. Bernstein’s passion for craft beers — many from Maine — has provided him with a career based on tasting and writing.

Thomas Merton, the Trappist sage, has written that the Shakers believed their furniture was designed by angels. I note this because I have been rereading his admirable introduction to “Religion in Wood,” the seminal book on the material culture of the Shakers by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews. My excursion into the 50-old book […]

I was happy to hear that the Choral Art Society has programmed R. Murray Schafer’s “Snowforms” for its Christmas in the Cathedral Concerts, Dec. 3 and 4 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.  Schafer, a Canadian composer, writer, musicologist, musical ecologist, calligrapher and all-around Renaissance man, is arguably one of the musical world’s […]

Contemporary art is usually understood as Western art since World War II. It might seem an arbitrary line in the sand, but Western culture was shaken to the core by the war. New York became the new Paris. Abstract Expressionism roared to life. And the faith in Eurocentric cultural historicism was shattered and replaced by myths […]

LEWISTON — Ann Weiss, who discovered at Auschwitz a cache of photographs from the lives of Jewish victims before they arrived at the death camp, speaks at Bates College at 7 p.m. Monday at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave. Confiscated from Jews deported to Auschwitz in 1943, the images reflect the memories […]

Knowing how to ‘Give Smart’ really gets results, author Thomas Tierney tells those gathered for the ‘Inspiring Philanthropy’ event sponsored by Maine Community Center.

We have lots of great theater choices in and around Portland. • At Portland Stage, this is the final week of “God of Carnage.” It’s a Tony Award-winning comedy about two sets of parents who are unable to control their own emotions and act out their uncivil tendencies over the course of a very uncomfortable […]