Story Archives of 'Arts'

The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough awards resident fellowships to artists – providing them with the time, space, quiet and community to do their work. Poet Ralph Sneeden of Exeter spent two winter weeks writing there.

Thirty years ago, three guys from Englewood, New Jersey took the instrumental track from Chic’s disco hit “Good Times,” added some rhymes and before you could say, “You don’t stop,” The Sugarhill Gang was climbing the charts with “Rapper’s Delight.”

It was the song that introduced hip-hop to America’s pop music charts. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five followed days later with “Superrappin” and street corner hip-hop was on its way to becoming a Top 40 mainstay. The late eighties brought NWA and gangsta rap from big names like Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and later Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent.

The golden age of hip-hop is fading, or that’s the read from The New Yorker’s pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones. He says that the electronic sounds of techno and club music are replacing the bluesy swing that once fueled the genre. Don’t ditch your gold chains just yet. Sasha has an artist or two up his sleeve that he says are bringing back the old school sound.

The New Yorker: Wrapping Up

indieWIRE: Is hip-hop really dead? Or just resting?

(Photo by id-iom via Flickr/Creative Commons)

The first ever Boston Book Festival kicks off on Saturday. It’s a star-studded affair, with a keynote address by Orhan Pamuk. Authors Richard Russo, Anita Diamant and Dennis Lehane are among the literary world attractions. As is, inexplicably, Hollywood actress Alicia Silverstone. Venues are all near Copley Square and they are all free.

One panel caught our eye. It’s called And Now for Something Completely Different, and it’s running a little under the radar.

One of the speakers is cartoonist R. Sikoryak, and he’s the only comic artist on the bill. His new collection Masterpiece Comics delivers adaptations of literary classics, such as Crime and Punishment rendered in Bob Kane-era Batman style, or Charlie Brown as a cockroach in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. R. Sikoryak joins us with more on Masterpiece Comics.

And if you’re interested in comics history, there’s an exhibit opening Saturday at Keene State College that’ll catch your eye. It’s called "Out of Sequence: Underrepresented Voices in American Comics" and it’s showing at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery. The works range from early newspaper strips to digital internet comics, and feature work by minority and women artists.

A recount is underway in Keene.

It's got nothing to do with an election though.

It seems there may be a miscount in the number of pumpkins that people brought to the 19th annual Keene Pumpkin Festival over the weekend.

The event drew over 70,000 people Saturday and organizers belive they broke a city record of more than 29,000 jack-o’-lanterns.

But as The Keene Sentinel’s Donna Moxley reports, that success doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a 20th Pumpkin Festival.