About Town

Update: Dory Waxman on pier issue

Deirdre Fulton — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:34:00 GMT

Newly elected at-large councilor Dory Waxman got back to us today on the pier issue (too late to go in the paper). Basically, she hopes that council finds "a solution to this sooner than later." She thinks that opening up a new request for proposals would be a step backwards after all the work that's been done over the last three years. Should the council move to re-open negotiations with Ocean Properties, the development company for whom Waxman did some community organizing last year, "I don't see myself recusing," from the debate, she said, despite others' wishes to the contrary. Waxman says she's meeting with the city attorney to determine whether or not she has an obligation to remove herself from any OP-related discussions, but at this point, her opinion is that "I have no legal conflict."

What's that president-elect guy's name?

Jeff Inglis — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:29:00 GMT

Even as WGME News 13 anchor Kim Block introduced a story about an anti-Barack Obama sign in Standish on last night's newscast, she blew the president-elect's name.

"A sign encouraging general store customers in Standish to place a bet on when Barack Osama - when Barack Obama, rather - could be assassinated is sending shock waves across the nation," Block said.

Read the story, and link to the full-size video from WGME's Web site.

They Press Dials - and win awards!

Jeff Inglis — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:35:00 GMT

The 2008 WePushButtons Awards ceremony happened over the weekend at SPACE Gallery, honoring members of Maine's electronic, hip-hop, and DJ community.

Spose, it appears, were the big winners, bringing home Best New Artist, Best Hip-Hop Act, and Best New Album honors. Check out the whole list online.

And if you want, check out the nominees, too.

Congratulations to all!

Process, process

Ken Greenleaf — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 01:35:00 GMT

A recent visit to the Center for Maine Contemporary Art left brought up an issue that needs some attention. The Center seems to like to mount shows with lots of artists.
This particular one involves eighty or so, sometimes with many works by each artist.

Population problems aside, the problem here is conceptual,. The idea was to have artists provide preparatory sketches or other materials that they use to make their work. The underlying assumption is that we understand more about the artist by looking at their sketches.

This is, in terms of the direct experience of a work of art, empty calories. It’s true that for a major historical figure their studies might shed some light on their process, but knowing about their process says nothing about the nature and value of their work. We study them because history has proven their worth, not to understand that value any better.

There’s only one rule of art making ( I paraphrase from AJ Liebleing): The way to make art is well, and how you do it is your own business. Knowing anything about how an artist goes about their work is meaningless, in virtually every case. It’s just a way of avoiding thinking about the work in some concrete or meaningful way.

I know an artist whose process is intentionally hidden. You can’t tell whether the pieces are built, cast, made of metal or wood or something else. And yet a respected reviewer spent 500 words or so in a national magazine telling the world how the artist does it, and avoided completely issues of emotional resonance, artistic depth or quality. He did the artist, the work and the readership a disservice.

It gains us nothing to know a landscape artist works, say, from an airplane, or that another artists hikes six hours into a mosquito-laden swamp to get a particular scene. What we need to know is, is it any good, and why? As a reviewer, my commentary needs to elucidate what is going on in the piece, not what went on in the studio or out in the puckerbrush. That’s the artists’ business, not the viewers.

Learning about the process is like finding out if it is oil or acrylic. It’s not information that says anything about the work, and is empty conversation. There were some terrific drawings at CMCA, and some not so great, as might be expected with such a large number of works. It was hard to sort through them but sort of fun to see them, usually. I did see some sketches by artists whose work I know well, but I didn’t learn anything about those artists that I needed to know to appreciate them.

Empire Carnival of Arts: It's on.

Christopher Gray — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:27:00 GMT

A quick update to this week's "8 Days a Week" column. Empire Dine and Dance's second Carnival of Arts is not postponed, and will indeed be happening on Wednesday, November 19. The event - which will be growing and ongoing - features local musicians, filmmakers, poets, artists, and readers. Head here for updates on the Carnival as they arrive.

New Fire on Fire

Deirdre Fulton — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:50:00 GMT

C. Gray alerted me to a new Fire on Fire on Stereogum! The band's new album (consisting of 12 songs recorded before they issued their limited-edition 5-song EP last year), The Orchard, is due out in December.

Pier Update

Deirdre Fulton — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:24:00 GMT

In front of journalists and city officials this morning, city councilor and Community Development Committee (CDC) chair Cheryl Leeman and Olympia Companies CEO Kevin Mahaney announced that The Olympia Companies' negotiations with the city to develop the Maine State Pier are ending.

The primary bone of contention is the title to the sumberged lands under and around the Maine State Pier. The city and the state cannot agree on ownership and leasing rights to said lands, and as a result, Olympia's lawyers have advised the developers to back out -- the potential financial obligations were "not risk that we felt comfortable moving forward with," Mahaney said.

Now, the council has to decide whether to approach (tail between legs, much?) Ocean Properties, the developer that was shunned in favor of Olympia, or to re-open the Request For Proposals process.

The city plans to sue the state to establish ownership of the submerged lands; that process is expected to take approximately 12-18 months. If the state owns the land, the city is limited to entering into 30-year leases. If the city owns it, it could enter into the 75-year lease that Olympia was pushing for. Ocean Properties has said it wouldn't mind a 30-year lease.

Both Leeman and Mahaney said they found out about the most recent stumbling block -- a letter from Attorney General Steve Rowe that restated the state's unwillingness to name Portland as owner of the submerged lands -- within the last week. However, the letter is dated October 14, a few weeks before a certain big day, on which pier considerations were a factor. Strange?

The city council is expected to officially end the negotiations (an action that the CDC recommended last night) at its meeting on Monday. The new councilors will be sworn in on December 1. It's unclear whether or not brand-new councilor Dory Waxman, who was outspoken on the pier issue and formerly worked as a community liason for Ocean Properties, will recuse herself from future OP-related pier decisions.

A hazardous mandate

Jeff Inglis — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:38:00 GMT

Editor's note: Shay Stewart-Bouley wrote this as a possible alternative for her Diverse-City column this week. We ran her first column, but wanted to share this second viewpoint with you as well!

_by Shay Stewart-Bouley

You might be expecting me to gloat over the results of the presidential election. But I'm not going to. Hell, this is a "blue" state; most of y'all voted for Barack Obama just like I did. Besides, I'm not big into gloating anyway. I'm more of a "let's stop slapping each other on the backs and get to work trying to save our country from destruction" kind of gal.

Maybe I'll gloat if things are markedly better in four years and we find that not only has Obama more than proved his mettle but he soundly defeats his next Republican challenger as well.

No, while I'm giddy with joy that we've finally broken the racial brick ceiling in the presidency, I am far from feeling smug about the election results. Because for one thing, it's not like Obama has an overwhelming mandate. Sure, he snagged two-thirds of the electoral college votes, but in the popular vote, he got about 53 percent. A win is a win is a win, of course, but that popular vote reminds me that plenty of people (46 percent of them in fact) still didn't want that black man in the White House, for whatever reason. Whether race, or the fear he will convert the nation into a socialist dictatorship, or that he will hand out abortions on every street corner, or that he will outlaw religion and guns, or that he is a secret terrorist - or for whatever reason - nearly half the nation still wanted John McCain and Sarah "You Betcha" Palin to lead us into the future.

Obama does have a mandate. And he doesn't. He still has to find out how to unite the nation behind the cause of fixing what ails us, socially, economically, and medically.

It should be noted that not only do we have a Democrat back in the White House (well, he'll move in mid-January, anyway), but the Senate and House will both be controlled by the Dems as well.

On the one hand, this looks good to someone like me. Everyone should be pretty much on the same page. Congress won't be trying to block (or impeach) Obama at every turn. Things might actually get done for a change.

Or maybe not. Or worse yet, what if bad things get done?

The rational part of my brain looks at what has become of our country, especially with the recent economic meltdown, and tells me: The Democrats couldn't possibly do any worse than the George W. Bush administration did. But I never would have thought someone could have found a part of the barrel this far down after the Clinton years brought us back to a more solid fiscal foundation, so there's that pessimistic part of me that wonders if we're really scraping the bottom yet - or are anywhere near it.

I fear that now that they don't have any serious opposition, the Democrats may get complacent. Even with all the crises facing us, will they simply wallow in the power they now have and get all giddy with excitement, and forget that they actually need to save all of us from disaster?

It doesn't seem likely, but stranger things have happened, like Dubya getting elected - twice. And Sarah Palin being elevated to the spotlight. And Fox News calling itself "fair and balanced." Not to mention the notion that Paris Hilton has any kind of career.

I'm a big fan of diversity. There still is some diversity in our national legislature, so it's not like the Dems are unchecked, but with majorities in both houses and control of the White House, I am a little worried.

Not simply because the Dems may fumble their opportunity, but because even if they try their damnedest and make the best possible choices, things may still end up going to hell in a handbasket, and then the other side (who got us in this mess to begin with) can say, "See, they can't handle it even when they hold all the cards."

Shay Stewart-Bouley can be reached at diversecity_phoenix@yahoo.com.

Tonight @ SPACE

Deirdre Fulton — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:02:00 GMT

In a couple of hours, The Greening of Southie will screen at SPACE Gallery. The documentary, about tough South Boston construction workers and the green apartment complex they're tasked with building, is the second outing from Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, the stars and producers of King Corn, which we wrote about this spring.

Here's what my esteemed colleague, Chris Gray, said about Southie in September:

The second release by King Corn filmmakers Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis has the same natural charm and levelheaded temperament as its predecessor. Following the construction of the Macallen Building in South Boston from the ground up, the film explains how a building achieves LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, and transforms a stubborn working-class neighborhood. The filmmakers could stand to be more probing interviewers (they mention the shortcomings of the LEED program, but don’t get anyone to ’fess up to them), but their technical skills — cinematography, score, editing — have improved sharply.

Tickets are $7.

Oops!

Jeff Inglis — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:32:00 GMT

We got so carried away in our enthusiasm for the Carolyn Chute excerpt we published in this week's paper that we awarded her a Pulitzer Prize for her first novel, The Beans of Egypt, Maine, that she never received. Our apologies. Pulitzer or not, Chute is still a prize.

What's 5000 veterans among friends?

Jeff Inglis — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:43:00 GMT

In their Veterans Day messages today, Governor John Baldacci and Congresswoman-elect Chellie Pingree appear to disagree on how many veterans there are in Maine.

Baldacci asks Mainers "not to forget the 150,000 veterans" in Maine. But Pingree, for her part, says in a statement that "Congress can do much to improve care and access to care for the 145,000 veterans living in Maine."

How's about somebody figure out a way to count them, and then we can work on what they need?

Demanding Dead Season

Jeff Inglis — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:28:00 GMT

Yes, so we're a little behind in posting this, but better late than never: 5000 people went to a concert on September 13 in Oxford. And they really wanted to see and hear this band called Dead Season:

Portland's big night

Jeff Inglis — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:07:00 GMT

Portland had what we might call a massive night last night, celebrating the election. And the Portland Phoenix was all over town. Here's a slideshow of some of the places we went, and the sights that we saw:

Fireworks across the pond

Jeff Inglis — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:09:00 GMT

As we stagger from our homes, apartments, or doorways where we slumped late last night, after too much alcohol and way too much TV - it's worth noting that across England today, they will be shooting off fireworks, lighting bonfires, and generally partying into the night - no matter what the outcome of the US election.

They'll be commemmorating another way to try to change government - namely, the Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot, a 1605 attempt to kill most of the English government by blowing up barrels of gunpowder in the basement under Parliament. The problem was that King James, who succeeded Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, was not as sympathetic to Catholics as some had hoped. (This was, after all, the man who commissioned the creation of a new Bible because the ones issued by the pope weren't good enough.)

So Fawkes and a few buddies decided to get back at him for this, and stashed some gunpowder under Parliament, with plans to blow it up.

The plot was leaked by a conspirator, and Fawkes was arrested. He was convicted of treason and executed in the way they killed traitors then. It was calling being "hanged, drawn, and quartered," but is much more gruesome even than that suggests.

First, he was tied to a bed of sticks and dragged to the gallows, where he was hanged by his neck until he was nearly dead. Then he was cut down.

His penis and testicles were cut off, and his belly was slashed open, and his intestins were pulled out. His nether parts and his intestines were burned in a fire before his very eyes (it's possible to live for at least a little while without your intestines). And then he was beheaded and either pulled by horses into quarters, or just chopped into four bits by the executioner.

The head was set on a pike near the city's gates. As for the body, there were two options: either its parts were taken to four hills outside London and burned separately, or they would also be displayed on pikes near the head. (It's unclear which happened to Fawkes's body, but as burning the quarters was usually limited to witches, it's more likely they were stuck on pikes and eaten by birds.)

So every year, the English throw a big party to celebrate the discovery of the plot. They re-enact their brutality to Fawkes himself by making effigies of him and burning those.

How civilized.

Voter suppression

Deirdre Fulton — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:38:00 GMT

While we're slightly troubled by the idea that someone would be gullible enough to fall for a trick this transparent, we feel obligated to pass along the alert, sent to us by Katie Diamond of the League of Young Voters:

"For those who don't know, there are text messages and facebook messages and status updates telling people that 'due to heavy turnout, Obama voters (or in some texts/updates, Democrats and Independents) should vote on Wednesday.'

Please activate your networks to push back on these messages. Voting ends today. Stick it out, stay in line, etc."

Did anyone get a txt like this? If so, I'd love to hear about it.