Thursday, July 10, 2014
The South End Arts and Business Association has unveiled its new, jazzed-up branding — complete with a new logo depicting a funky industrial building and a neon-green speech bubble that says "art."
Adam Brooks, SEABA's executive director, calls the new logo "a great visual that more accurately represents what we do in the South End."
SEABA's mission is to "enhance the economic vitality and eclectic mix of Burlington’s arts and business community in the area south of Main Street." Its previous logo was designed in 2002 and featured alternating blue and green paint strokes.
"The logo ... has been part of what we do for the last 12 years, but over those 12 years things have changed, things have grown," says Brooks. "Our old logo didn’t really identify us with the South End in any way, or with what we do to fuse art and industry."
The new graphic, created by board member Chris Webster of Select Design, was based on a survey of key words that SEABA members felt represented the nonprofit's focus and influence (see below). Brooks also credits Amey Radcliffe of Gotham City Graphics and Dennis Healy of Burton Snowboards for spearheading the rebranding process.
Tags: south end arts district , seaba , branding , art , burlington , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
An annual moviegoing tradition in Brandon continues this month, on July 12, with a screening of one of the greatest of all movie comedies: Buster Keaton’s 1924 masterpiece The Navigator. Brandon Town Hall will show the film as Buster meant it to be seen: with live musical accompaniment.
Professional accompanist Jeff Rapsis, of Bedford, N.H., will use a digital synthesizer to improvise a musical score that approximates the sounds of a full orchestra. Rapsis has been accompanying Bradford’s annual silent film series since 2010.
Regarded as one of Keaton’s finest achievements as both an actor and a director, The Navigator concerns a wealthy idiot whose antics endanger an entire ocean liner and land him on an island of hungry cannibals. Preceding the feature will be screenings of two of Keaton’s short comedies, The Boat (1921) and The Love Nest (1923).
For a small town with no actual movie theater of its own, Brandon’s cinematic ambitions are large. The Navigator is but one offering in a monthly silent film series. Still to come are the 1928 Marion Davies pic Show People on August 16, a series of shorts by the great silent comedian Harry Langdon on September 13, and a Lon Chaney double feature on October 18.
Jeff Rapsis provides live musical accompaniment to a screening of Buster Keaton’s The Navigator, Saturday, July 12, at 7 p.m., Brandon Town Hall. Free. brandontownhall.org
Tags: film , movies , buster keaton , the navigator , jeff rapsis , silent film , accompaniment , Image , Web Only
Elementary school music classes instruct youngsters on the fine art of making musical instruments out of rubber bands and cans of beans. Woodturning artist Michael Brolly has taken that same impulse much, much further. He’s made an instrument out of a seagoing vessel.
Sephira is the name of his creation, and it’s described as “half boat and half musical instrument.” Built by students and staff at Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, Penn., where Brolly is a woodworking instructor, Sephira is a 22-foot-long St. Ayles-style skiff into which has been built a fully functioning Aeolian harp. And not just any Aeolian harp — an instrument whose tones are generated by the wind — but one that has been strung and tuned to produce sounds that resonate with the frequency of whale song.
Not since prehistoric times have whales frolicked in Lake Champlain, but that hasn’t stopped Vergennes’ Lake Champlain Maritime Museum from inviting Brolly and Sephira to take part in their St. Ayles Skiff/Challenge Race this weekend. On Saturday afternoon, July 12, visitors can watch as Brolly strings the harp, and can take their turn making their own boat music.
Tags: lake champlain maritime museum , boat , harp , music , instrument , race , skiff , Image , Web Only
Saturday, July 5, 2014
A confession: The title of this column has, in recent weeks, not always been accurate. Though I've genuinely been writing about the movies that I've been watching, I've been spending more time watching "Community" than anything else. I'm pretty convinced, having now seen its whole run, that this is one of the greatest shows ever broadcast on network television.
I didn't watch the fifth and most recent season as it aired. Instead, my wife, Laura, and I watched it online, finishing it up just a few nights ago. In an odd coincidence, we learned, just hours after we watched the final episode, of the show's semi-unexpected, online-only renewal.
Tags: tv , television , what i'm watching , community , netflix , yahoo , internet , comedy , sitcom , Image , Web Only
Friday, July 4, 2014
This week in movies you missed: Last Thanksgiving saw the release of a film directed by Spike Lee and starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen and Samuel L. Jackson. Almost nobody saw it. I find out why.
To be honest, I already knew why this movie wasn't a good fit for a post-turkey family trip to the movies. And if you saw the original Oldboy (2003), a cult film from Korean director Chan-wook Park, so do you. The question is, is Lee's Oldboy really as bad a film as its dual status as unnecessary remake and box-office bomb might suggest?
What You Missed
Joe Doucett (Brolin) is an asshole. Everybody hates him, from his boss to his business clients to his ex-wife, who can't believe he doesn't care enough to show up for his daughter's third birthday. On this day, somebody does something about it.
Joe passes out drunk and wakes in a hotel room with a locked door and barred windows. Each day his invisible captors feed him vodka and Chinese dumplings. The television informs him that his ex-wife has been brutally murdered and he is the prime suspect.
Why You Missed It
Oldboy reached 583 U.S. theaters — none in Vermont — and ended up grossing about $4.9 million worldwide. Its production budget was $30 million. The property had originally been optioned by Steven Spielberg, and Will Smith had expressed interest in playing the lead role.
Oldboy is now on Netflix and Amazon Instant.
Tags: oldboy , spike lee , chan-wook park , josh brolin , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Take it away, Aram.
Tags: The Star-Spangled Banner , Vermont Lake Monsters , Aram Bedrosian , Centennial Field , Burlington , Image , Video , Web Only
Few bands rock, or have ever rocked, quite so hard as the mighty Melvins, the Washington-based godfathers of latter-day metal, grunge, punk, drone and every other loud-ass musical genre you can name. Melvins' particular brand of intelligent and noisy rock has been blasting eardrums and inspiring young musicians for 30 years, and their live shows are legendary. I saw them once, back in about 2006 at New Haven's venerable Toad's Place, and barely lived to tell the tale. Mercy me, they're a powerful force onstage.
Melvins main man Buzz Osborne (best known to fans as King Buzzo) now shows that, with his new solo album, some musical boundaries can still be broken. This Machine Kills Artists, the collaboration-prone Buzzo's first truly solo record, is, somewhat incredibly, an all-acoustic venture. It's just Buzzo's acidic-as-ever voice and the darkest, most distorted acoustic guitar you've ever heard.
The music isn't just "Melvins unplugged"; it's a whole new thing, with equally complex melodies mapped atop a whole different musical landscape. The noise quotient is lower, but the results are no less intense. Dip your eardrums into the album's leadoff song, "Dark Brown Teeth," via the Soundcloud link, below.
Tags: music , melvins , rock , king buzzo , acoustic , woody guthrie , punk , hardcore , Image , Web Only