Wildlife

Latest Articles

Days of future past

'SF-1970' at the Harvard Film Archive
Science-fiction films have been with us since Edison’s 1910 version of Frankenstein , but they bloomed in the ’Nam era, nourished by a volatile cocktail of cultural ingredients.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON | June 26, 2010

Review: Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo

Pallid documentary on Japan's insect obsession
The cheeky title conjures up belovedly tacky 1950s Japanese sci-fi films, but Jessica Oreck’s actual effort is a pallid, thinly poetic documentary essay about Japan’s obsession with insects.
By GERALD PEARY | June 01, 2010

Physics lesson for Diamon

Letters to the Portland editor, May 21, 2010
Newton’s laws of gravity and motion are universally understood laws, not subject to anyone’s opinion.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | May 20, 2010

Warning buzz

Going Green
Right now there are millions of bees pollinating blueberries in Maine.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | May 12, 2010

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Nature studies

New works by Catherine Hamilton and Susan Twaddell
“A bird feeder,” Hamilton writes in her artist statement, “creates an intensified microcosm of the trials and hardships of avian existence.”
By GREG COOK | May 05, 2010

Lady of Leisure’s Prison Memoir

Crook Book Dept.
In prison, Piper Kerman had to get used to, among other trials, a bathroom infested with insects.
By VALERIE VANDE PANNE | May 05, 2010

Island ventures

USM show uncovers Peaks
Living on an island can be like living in your parents’ basement.
By NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | March 24, 2010

Beautiful garbage

‘Trash’ — and more — at AS220 and Project Space
"Trash" at AS220's Project Space (93 Mathewson Street, Providence, through January 29) focuses on our love-hate relationship with garbage
By GREG COOK | January 20, 2010

Of Doctor Tremendanus and the giant furry jellyfish

Monsters, Inc.
It was New Year’s Eve and in the belly of the Roxy nightclub, away from the teeming Bright Night crowds, there were monsters on the loose: creatures with protruding noses, googly eyes, and spindly legs.
By ABIGAIL CROCKER | January 06, 2010

Group hug

The crooked folk of Cuddle Magic
Things aren’t always what they’re called — we know that flying fish don’t fly and starfish aren’t even fish.
By JONATHAN DONALDSON | December 15, 2009

Séance

Rachel Berwick conjures ghost birds in Zugunruhe
Rachel Berwick's art is concerned with conjuring ghosts — in particular the spirits of creatures or peoples near extinction or already died out.
By GREG COOK | December 09, 2009

Over the coals

Letters to the Boston editor, December 4, 2009
Not so fast, Mike!
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | December 02, 2009

Review: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Knight of the Iguana: Nicolas Cage at his best
Nicolas Cage is at his best in Bad Lieutenant
By PETER KEOUGH | November 24, 2009

We're killing the oceans

Is it too late to save the seas that sustain us?
I meet world-renowned undersea photojournalist Brian Skerry at Legal Seafoods, across from the New England Aquarium, where he's the explorer in residence. He orders a chicken Caesar salad.
By MIKE MILIARD | November 18, 2009

Boston rat rampage

Thanks to the global economic collapse, which has stalled initiated construction projects, Boston’s rat population is surging
Residents say that if you jam a leaf blower in the earth virtually anywhere in Allston, furry bottom feeders will be blown out of every crack and hole in sight and rain down like unsavory screeching meatballs. North Enders joke that something similar would happen if you detonate a Parmesan wheel in an alleyway off Hanover Street.
By CHRIS FARAONE | November 09, 2009

Interview: Lars von Trier of Antichrist

The director on the redeeming qualities of Antichrist
Maybe it’s the blurring effect of the Skype technology through which I’m interviewing him as he sits worried and Buddha-like in his headquarters in Denmark (he has a phobia about airplanes, among other things), but Lars von Trier seems like an okay guy.
By PETER KEOUGH | November 02, 2009

Monkey Business

Boston's an academic city, even for capuchins who attend Brighton's Monkey College, where they're trained to be lifesavers for the disabled
Craig Cook remembers when friends tried to draw him out of a deep depression — by offering to get him a monkey.
By MIKE MILIARD | October 21, 2009

Hootenanny!!

AS220’s ‘Do It! Show It! Sing It! Work It!,’ and Holly Ewald
It's not quite right to call "Do It! Show It! Sing It! Work It!" the AS220 biennial.
By GREG COOK | October 21, 2009

Killer plants, ‘without remorse’

Beautiful but Deadly
On display behind a glass enclosure at the New England Carnivorous Plant Society's seventh annual show was a rare book, not a plant.
By RICHARD ASINOF | September 30, 2009

No new age

Earthsound is for real
Yes, this Boston jazz trio incorporates the sounds of seals, tree frogs, and crickets. Yes, one of them is a working ecologist. Here's why you shouldn't hold that against them.
By JON GARELICK | September 25, 2009

Holy landscape!

Ken Burns worships America's spiritual resource
At its core, Ken Burns's PBS 12-hour epic The National Parks: America's Best Idea (nightly on WGBH Channel 2 at 8 pm, from September 27 through October 2) is a selective, initiative by initiative, advocate by advocate, chronicle of the evolution of the National Parks system and the changing roles protected lands have played in American culture since Congress validated Yosemite in 1864.
By CLIF GARBODEN | September 24, 2009

The queen of Cambodian cooking

Her friends call her 'So Peep'
Makara Meng, co-owner of Mittapheap World Market, welcomed me to her relative's suburban house in South Portland for an authentic Cambodian dinner.
By LINDSAY STERLING | September 23, 2009

Hey, hey, we're the Monkees

Politics and other mistakes
The law of averages says if you put 100 monkeys in a room with 100 computers, they'll eventually write a workable national health-care bill. Apparently, that rule doesn't apply to 100 US senators.
By AL DIAMON | September 02, 2009

Review: The Cove

Secret dolphin slaughter revealed
There's something at stake here, and it's not just the conscience of Ric O'Barry, who as the former dolphin trainer for the 1960s television show Flipper feels responsible for the planet's porpoise fetish.
By CHRIS FARAONE | August 04, 2009

Close encounters

Keep your eye on this Bird
Laura Jacobs, who was the dance critic here at the Phoenix in the mid 1980s, is the author of Landscape with Moving Figures, a collection of writing from the New Criterion that's as polemic as it is poetic. But she's also a novelist. Like Women About Town (2002), The Bird Catcher focuses on a young woman finding her way in 21st-century Manhattan.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | August 05, 2009

Every Friday there's an art walk

Portland’s creativity is on display any time you care to look
This Friday, as the first Friday of every month, Portland art-lovers will wander the streets, checking out the latest and greatest our galleries, museums, and shops have to offer. Nearby communities have their own versions, too.
By ANNA PEROCCHI | August 05, 2009

Review: In the Loop

Armando Iannucci wags the war
Six years ago, Armando Iannucci's slick and merciless political satire might have drawn more blood, but even now it blows away the recent satiric competition with its sharp, sardonic screenplay and uncompromising cynicism.
By PETER KEOUGH | July 23, 2009

Quake and Shake

Company One meshes Murakami; Orfeo compacts the Bard
A tenderhearted yarn spinner tells an anxious little girl a story about a talking bear hawking honey. A nerdy young debt collector comes home to find a six-foot amphibian bent on recruiting him to save Tokyo from a natural disaster. Both scenarios emanate from the brain of award-winning Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
By CAROLYN CLAY | July 22, 2009

Review: The End of the Line

Doomsday from under the sea
Eating fish is great for you — but it's a different story for the poor fish.
By GERALD PEARY | July 22, 2009

Ronnarong

A small-plates concept elevates a veteran Thai place above the pedestrian
For more than 10 years, the Great Thai Chef held forth in Somerville's Union Square.
By MC SLIM JB | July 15, 2009