PORTLAND

Getting ready for the Maine Comics Arts Festival
Bringing the page to life - BY JOSH CHRISTIE

The secret world of USM’s Blade Society

Anything but ‘mundane’
It's a Tuesday night at the University of Southern Maine gym and Rob Tupper is leading a small group of fencing students through an exercise that looks like a cross between a line dance and an army drill.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | May 16, 2012

Amy Allen travels to Neptune

Shooting for the stars
There were a couple directions Amy Allen could have taken to follow up her 2010 pop-lovely debut EP, Honey, released just as she headed off to the big city for college.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 16, 2012

Printmaking continues to matter

Paper, ink, and pressure
Essential to printmaking, and non-digital photography, is the frustrating, annoying time lapse between the creation of the matrix and the final image.

By: BRITTA KONAU | May 16, 2012

Positive change, at last

Balls, Pucks & Monster Trucks
Even when the Sanford School Committee gets it right, its members manage to be wrong.

By: RICK WORMWOOD | May 16, 2012

Reviving the electric car

Transport Revolution
Electric cars — ones that are completely rechargeable and use no gasoline — are now available in Maine, in addition to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and traditional hybrids, both of which boast higher fuel-efficiency than conventional cars.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | May 16, 2012

Review: The Dictator

Surprisingly sweet
Though his PR campaign might suggest otherwise, Sacha Baron Cohen has actually made (with director Larry Charles) a sweet movie, not unlike Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator , if less sentimental.

By: PETER KEOUGH | May 16, 2012

Review: Trials Evolution

On the right track
Trials Evolution is a game about launching dirt bikes off sweet jumps, gunning for record-breaking times, and occasionally doing backflips. It's like a modern-day Excitebike .

By: MITCH KRPATA | May 15, 2012

Zambri | House of Baasa

Kanine Records
For those of us of a certain age who remember when school dances had a strict four-fast-songs-then-one-slow-one policy, the memory of bouncing around to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" with the anticipation of "One More Night" or "Take My Breath Away" still makes our palms sweat with hormonal anxiety.

By: DANIEL BROCKMAN | May 15, 2012

The Figgs | The Day Gravity Stopped

Stomper (2012)
These days Mike Gent, Pete Donnelly, and Pete Hayes are involved in enough extracurricular activities (Graham Parker, NRBQ, countless side/session-men gigs) that you could hardly blame them if they closed their two decades-plus Figgs chapter.

By: ZETH LUNDY | May 15, 2012

The Cult | Choice Of Weapon

Cooking Vinyl
Second acts are hard enough to deliver successfully in the pantheon of hard rock, so it's surprising then that the Cult, now well into their third go-round, still give their audience exactly what they crave.

By: MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER | May 15, 2012

El-P | Cancer For Cure

Fat Possum (2012)
"It's like a fresh start in a new world," El Producto repeats on "Works Every Time," a track on this, his least ambitious record.

By: DAN WEISS | May 15, 2012

Craft Spells | Gallery

Captured Tracks (2012)
Craft Spells certainly live up to their name on this six-song EP, with the charm of its effortless, pixie-light production and the warm, plangent harp sounds of their major-key melodies.

By: JONATHAN DONALDSON | May 15, 2012

Motion Sickness Of Time Travel | Motion Sickness Of Time Travel

Spectrum Spools (2012)
It's long been said that Southerners perceive time differently, that because the industrial clock never crept below the Mason-Dixon Line, time down there is less regimented, more relaxed.

By: JUSTIN F. FARRAR | May 15, 2012

Portland’s lady arm-wrestlers slug it out

Battle of the biceps
There was a moment during Saturday's raucous debut smackdown of the Superhero Lady Armwrestlers of Portland when it looked like the favorite, Voom Voom Valhalla, would certainly lose.

By: SARA ANNE DONNELLY | May 09, 2012

Emily Nelligan inspires at Bowdoin

Seriously committed
My friend the late Sidney Tillim has been much on my mind in recent weeks.

By: KEN GREENLEAF | May 09, 2012

A solo full-length from Ryan Augustus

Give it up to Ghost
If there's one thing rapper Ghost/Ryan Augustus/Ryan Doughty can now safely say, it's this: He's prolific.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 09, 2012

‘30,000 drones’ over America and other stories

Conventionland
"You are now being watched by 30,000 drones," Second District congressional primary candidate Blaine Richardson dramatically told the 3000 people assembled at the Republican State Convention in Augusta on May 5.

By: LANCE TAPLEY | May 09, 2012

Review: Holy Donut

Holy potatoes! Yep, spuds are the not-so-secret ingredient in these doughnuts
All cuisines rely on the experience of regression for their deepest appeal.

By: BRIAN DUFF | May 09, 2012

Play: Beware what lies beneath

Disaster Preparation
The US Bureau of Land Management estimates that 90 percent of existing natural-gas wells in this country use hydraulic fracturing techniques — commonly known as "fracking" — that inject pressurized water and toxic chemicals into the ground.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 09, 2012

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[ 05/16 ] "2012 BFA Thesis Exhibition," mixed media student exhibition @ Maine College of Art

[ 05/16 ] "Printmaking Now," works by Pickwick Independent Press artists @ Rose Contemporary

[ 05/16 ] karaoke with DJ Johnny Red @ Asylum

BLOGS

Brennan touts local development
About Town | May 16, 2012 at 2:56 PM

Fairness at the Portland Farmers’ Market
May 15, 2012 at 11:06 AM

Gay marriage opponent's react to yesterday's big news
May 10, 2012 at 11:43 AM

Maine United for Marriage reacts to President Obama's announcement
May 09, 2012 at 4:22 PM

Still shaking my head about the #menews panel. Here's why.
May 09, 2012 at 10:23 AM