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Thursday, April 24, 2014
Comics CCS' 'Applied Cartooning' MFA Helps Cartoonists Think Outside the Panel
Posted
By Ethan de Seife
on Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 8:32 AM
The Upper Valley town of White River Junction is a hub for railroads, highways and, in recent years, comics. The founding of the Center for Cartoon Studies there in 2005 marked a step forward in comics' importance in art, scholarship and communications.
The school continues to grow and diversify its programming. The latest addition is an MFA track in Applied Cartooning, which, according to a CCS press release, will explore "how comics can impact such diverse fields as health, business, public policy and education."
The central idea behind the program is that, with the growing popularity of cartoons in all kinds of communications, the future will bring an even broader array of, well, applications. With this new two-year-degree program, the school intends to better prepare its students for the workplace.
The school continues to grow and diversify its programming. The latest addition is an MFA track in Applied Cartooning, which, according to a CCS press release, will explore "how comics can impact such diverse fields as health, business, public policy and education."
The central idea behind the program is that, with the growing popularity of cartoons in all kinds of communications, the future will bring an even broader array of, well, applications. With this new two-year-degree program, the school intends to better prepare its students for the workplace.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Today in Not-News, Burlington's What Ales You Pub Will Grade But Not Report Your Sexual Assault
Posted
By Xian Chiang-Waren
on Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 4:27 PM
I confess: I'd never been to What Ales You, a popular college sports bar at the corner of St. Paul and Main streets in downtown Burlington, until recently. The occasion for my first visit? A tip from a concerned Seven Days reader, who wrote to the editors about a sign he'd spotted near the pub's front entrance.
"With issues about campus safety and date rape, I couldn't believe this sign was right at the door of a college bar," the tipster wrote. "With all the events and programs I see around campus to try to spread awareness about sexual violence, I am stunned to see such a blatant contradiction that encourages harassment in a popular college bar."
Fair point, we thought, and went to investigate.
Tracking the sign back to its source was easy: He was sitting on a barstool when I wandered in. While the ID-checking guy pawed through my bag and checked my driver's license (solid moves, considering the place lost its liquor license for 15 days last year for serving minors and overserving adults, according to a story in the Burlington Free Press), I took a look around.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Comics / Art / Books 'Amulet' Author and 'Harry Potter' Illustrator to Speak at CCS Commencement
Posted
By Xian Chiang-Waren
on Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 1:52 PM
The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction just announced its 2014 commencement speaker: Kazu Kibuishi, who created the best-selling Amulet graphic novel series and illustrated the new covers for the Harry Potter series, created for the 2013 re-release of the series' U.S. editions.
Kibuishi was born in Tokyo but raised in California from childhood. While studying film at the University of California at Santa Barbara, he began drawing comics for the student newspaper. In 2004, he launched a critically acclaimed comics anthology called Flight.
The following year, Kibuishi's debut graphic novel, Daisy Kutter: The Last Train, won a Best Books for Young Adults award from the Young Adult Library Services Association. Amulet was released by Scholastic in 2007.
In an interview with Multiversity Comics, a website run by cartoon enthusiasts, Kibuishi explained that when Scholastic approached him with the Harry Potter project, he'd initially felt surprised:
Kibuishi was born in Tokyo but raised in California from childhood. While studying film at the University of California at Santa Barbara, he began drawing comics for the student newspaper. In 2004, he launched a critically acclaimed comics anthology called Flight.
The following year, Kibuishi's debut graphic novel, Daisy Kutter: The Last Train, won a Best Books for Young Adults award from the Young Adult Library Services Association. Amulet was released by Scholastic in 2007.
In an interview with Multiversity Comics, a website run by cartoon enthusiasts, Kibuishi explained that when Scholastic approached him with the Harry Potter project, he'd initially felt surprised:
"I love the originals and thought they shouldn’t really touch those, but then I began to realize that many of the kids reading my books weren’t old enough to be Harry Potter readers (something I confirmed on recent visits to elementary schools and libraries). They are just beginning to read longer and more complex works of fiction, and what better set of books to introduce than Harry Potter?Kibuishi will speak at CCS' commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17, 11 a.m. at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction.
Art Former Vermont Photojournalist Releases Earth Day Photo Essay of Ecological Struggles for Justice
Posted
By Ken Picard
on Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 1:16 PM
Green Mountain environmentalists, social activists and just folks interested in compelling images of the struggle for justice should check out the new photo essay released Tuesday by former Vermont photojournalist Orin Langelle. Titled "Defending Earth/Stopping Injustice — Struggles for Justice: late 1980s to late 90s," the historical photos trace various ecological and social justice battles waged in North America, including several in Vermont.
Langelle, a former Hinesburg photographer and social activist, was profiled by Seven Days' Mike Ives in a February 20, 2008 story, "Shutterbuggin'." He released the photo essay in honor of Earth Day 2014.
Langelle, 63, got his start in photojournalism in 1972 with an assignment to cover street protests outside the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Fla. Throughout the ’80s, he documented various ecological fights around the world. Then, in 1991, he cofounded the international Native Forest Network (NFN) in Tasmania, Australia, and ran its Eastern North American Resource Center in Burlington.
As Langelle told Ives back in 2008 with his characteristic bluntness, while he can certainly enjoy a well-composed nature photo, "I can also look at a beautiful Ansel Adams photograph and ask, ‘Where the fuck is the beer can?’ Because things usually aren’t that clean anymore.”
Langelle, a former Hinesburg photographer and social activist, was profiled by Seven Days' Mike Ives in a February 20, 2008 story, "Shutterbuggin'." He released the photo essay in honor of Earth Day 2014.
Langelle, 63, got his start in photojournalism in 1972 with an assignment to cover street protests outside the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Fla. Throughout the ’80s, he documented various ecological fights around the world. Then, in 1991, he cofounded the international Native Forest Network (NFN) in Tasmania, Australia, and ran its Eastern North American Resource Center in Burlington.
As Langelle told Ives back in 2008 with his characteristic bluntness, while he can certainly enjoy a well-composed nature photo, "I can also look at a beautiful Ansel Adams photograph and ask, ‘Where the fuck is the beer can?’ Because things usually aren’t that clean anymore.”
Monday, April 21, 2014
Music Celebration of the Life of Wayne Beam, Tonight at Higher Ground
Posted
By Dan Bolles
on Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 8:56 AM
The Burlington community was shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of Wayne Beam last week, following complications from diabetes. Beam, 54, was a fixture at local nightclubs dating back to the 1990s, having worked for 135 Pearl, Club Toast, Lift and, more recently, Higher Ground and the Monkey House.
A memorial service for Beam was held on Friday. But those wishing to pay their respects in a rock-and-roll kind of way can do so this evening, Monday, April 21, at Higher Ground in South Burlington.
The nightclub is hosting a celebration of Beam's life that will feature several performers, including DJs Precious and Llu, rockers Jangover, drag queens Celeste LaRue and Kitty Von Tease and a pair of open-mic sessions. Local DJ Craig Mitchell will handle MC duties.
Rest in peace, Wayne.
A memorial service for Beam was held on Friday. But those wishing to pay their respects in a rock-and-roll kind of way can do so this evening, Monday, April 21, at Higher Ground in South Burlington.
The nightclub is hosting a celebration of Beam's life that will feature several performers, including DJs Precious and Llu, rockers Jangover, drag queens Celeste LaRue and Kitty Von Tease and a pair of open-mic sessions. Local DJ Craig Mitchell will handle MC duties.
Rest in peace, Wayne.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Film / Movies / What I'm Watching What I'm Watching: 'Stage Fright'
Posted
By Ethan de Seife
on Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 9:08 AM
Everybody loves Hitchcock, just as they should. No other director was as good at manipulating the audience into feeling whatever he wanted them to feel. Filmmakers are still learning from him, and probably always will be.
Hitchcock's well-known moniker, the "Master of Suspense,” is accurate. Hitchcock was absolutely brilliant at telling his stories in such a way as to highlight the disparities of knowledge at the root of every kind of suspense. That is, situations in which we, the audience, are given a piece of information that one or more characters do not know. Hitchcock exploits these relative degrees of knowledge — known as a narration’s range — for the purpose of creating suspense. He was very, very good at it.
One of my favorite examples of Hitchcock exploiting a disparity between two levels of knowledge occurs in Marnie, possibly my favorite Hitchcock film. The situation is that the title character, a pathological thief, hides in the bathroom at her office and waits for everyone else to leave. When she’s alone, she breaks into the company safe (she’s learned the combination earlier), steals thousands of dollars and skips town. She gets as far as opening the safe and grabbing the money when Hitchcock starts messing with the narration’s range.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Movies You Missed / Movies / Film Movies You Missed & More: Short Term 12
Posted
By Margot Harrison
on Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 5:10 PM
This week in movies you missed: This drama about a group home for at-risk kids got wide-spread acclaim and Independent Spirit Awards, but no wide theatrical release.
What You Missed
Twentysomething Grace (Brie Larson) works at a residential treatment facility for teens with her boyfriend, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.). Both are veterans of the foster-care system. But, while Mason was raised by a loving family, Grace harbors dark memories that start to emerge when she tries to help a sullen girl from a middle-class home (Kaitlyn Dever) who's been cutting herself.
Meanwhile, all the young employees of the facility struggle with the built-in limits of their jobs: They can't question the decisions of therapists and "experts" who don't interact daily with the kids, and they can't do much to retrieve kids who manage to leave the property. All they can do is provide "safe space" in an unsafe world.
Music Going to See Dan Deacon? Bring Your Phone
Posted
By Dan Bolles
on Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 8:14 AM
If you're going to see Dan Deacon at ArtsRiot in Burlington this Friday, April 18, don't forget to turn your phone … on?
In what is either a stroke of technological evil genius or fallout from the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case of Beat 'Em v. Join 'Em, Deacon has recently been employing a unique smartphone app at his concerts that allows audience members — and their phones — to be part of the show like never before.
As the trailer below explains, the app "turns your phone and all other smartphones in the audience into a dense, coordinated light and sound spectacle." Without using WiFi or data, Deacon's app syncs with music from the show to, "turn your screen into a light show, your speaker into an instrument and your LED into a strobe light."
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Film Flynn Center Executive Director to Speak on 'Queer Crips' at RU12?
Posted
By Xian Chiang-Waren
on Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 8:04 AM
John Killacky, the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts' executive director, used to be a marathon runner and a professional dancer. But in 1996, at the age of 44, a mishap during spinal surgery left him paralyzed from the neck down.
"I still remember the night before surgery, I ran five miles," said Killacky during an interview in his office at the Flynn. "I just wanted to think, OK, well, I’m going to be out for a month. And so, 24 hours later, to be completely paralyzed, it was… an imploded body. And spirit, for sure."
This Friday, April 18, Killacky will speak with the Safe Space disability support groups organized by RU12?, a Burlington-based LGBTQ community center and advocacy nonprofit. He will share his personal story, which inspired him to create and coedit a Lambda-winning anthology of short stories called Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories, which was published in 2004. The event will also feature screenings of films that Killacky created over the years.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Art / History Guerrilla Girl 'Frida Kahlo' to Perform at Middlebury College
Posted
By Kevin J. Kelley
on Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 5:26 PM
Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter who died 60 years ago, will make a rare public appearance on Thursday evening. She'll be speaking and performing at 7 p.m. in the Dance Theater at Middlebury College's Mahaney Center for the Arts.
Even though her self-portraits have become famous worldwide, Kahlo's fans may not recognize her at the Middlebury event. She'll be wearing a gorilla mask and looking ferocious.
Of course, this “Frida Kahlo” isn't that Frida Kahlo. The one taking the stage at the arts center is a member of Guerrilla Girls, a troupe of masked avengers who style themselves the “conscience of the art world.” Each member pays homage to the work of a dead female artist by taking her name and thus preserving the Guerrilla Girls' mystique of anonymity.
“It's a shtik,” the activist known as Frida Kahlo explained in a phone interview on Tuesday. “We dress in full jungle drag. We're photo fodder.”
The tactic has generated a publicity tsunami in the decades since the Guerrilla Girls began plastering Manhattan's SoHo gallery district with posters lambasting institutional sexism in the art world. One of the more memorable images features a side view of a reclining nude woman wearing a gorilla head and asking, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?”
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