The Bowdoin Orient

Bars in Brunswick come and go, but over the years, only one has remained the go-to taproom for Bowdoin seniors on Tuesday nights: Joshua's Tavern on Maine Street. For seniors, having a beer on Tuesday nights at Joshua's constitutes a seemingly age-old ritual unique to the culminating year of their time at Bowdoin. Like most traditions, these Tuesday night gatherings do not require Digest posts or Facebook events to accrue attendees; they just happen. But the majority of students may not know the history behind what has been one of the staples of the Bowdoin senior experience for almost 20 years.

Between course registration cards, advisor signatures and Phase II, signing up for spring classes will be a time-consuming process for many students this week. But what if registration occurred online and no Phase II was necessary?

Helen Gurley Brown, former long-time editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, claimed that women who live on the edge enjoy long and exciting lives. No one's life is a better example of that philosophy than Brown's own. In one of the first biographies ever written about Brown, "Bad Girls Go Everywhere," released this month, Gender and Women's Studies Professor Jennifer Scanlon explores the stories, philosophies, and achievements of one of the most controversial and influential women in postwar America.

World-renowned violist Roberto Díaz played to a full house in Studzinski Recital Hall on Wednesday night, dazzling the crowd with an eclectic program that included works by Brahms and Bloch. Díaz, a native Chilean, is the president and CEO of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, which is one of the most selective music schools in the world and known for its unique curriculum and talented faculty.

Sex, scandal, corruption, and laughter—Oscar Wilde's comedy "An Ideal Husband" has it all, and Masque and Gown plans on spicing it up this weekend with a modernized version of the 1895 play. The play is directed by Sam Plattus '12, and includes a cast of nearly 20 actors and actresses. "The play is supposed to be set in the 1890s when it was written, but we've set it in the 1920s," Plattus said. "It's a period of time that lends itself to that kind of comedy. I think, in a certain sense, the play is a kind of universal story in that at its core, it's about scandal and private lives leaking into public persona, and I don't think that has changed at all in the 110 years since the play was written."

Anna Hepler carved out the world as she saw it for her latest exhibit, "Woodcuts," at ICON Contemporary Art Gallery in Brunswick. Hepler, a visiting assistant professor of art at Bowdoin, currently has 17 woodcuts hanging at the gallery that depict reductive images of real life objects, a theme prevalent throughout Hepler's work, woodcut and otherwise. "My work looks abstract but is in fact a kind of reductive realism," Hepler said. "That is, the images are based on real things and real observations in the world."

Abelardo Morell '77 is transforming the way people look at the world, one photograph at a time. Though the renowned photographer now travels the world to take pictures and explore new ways to use them, his career as an artist started at Bowdoin.

This week, a mysterious surprise greeted certain Bowdoin students as they opened their Student Union mailboxes. Black and white postcards, with no explanation as to why they were there, had been addressed to the recipients by people they did not know. Who was behind it? Visiting Art Professor Meggan Gould, who had assigned members of her Photography I class the task of photographing their fall break destinations in order to transform their photos into postcards upon their return to campus.

Although "Have a conversation with John Bisbee" is No. 48 on Bowdoin's "50 Things to do Before You Graduate" list, students will be hard pressed to find the living legend of a sculpture teacher on campus anytime soon. They'll be more likely to find him at his studio outside of Fort Andross, which overlooks the Androscoggin River, with his dog, Bonnie, whom he found at a Bonnaroo festival several years ago.

The graffiti that adorns the basement walls of Quinby House isn't the only art that partygoers will encounter this year.

A mural celebrating the cultures of Brunswick, Maine, and Trinidad, Cuba, will be unveiled next Sunday to honor the connection between the sister cities.

Representing, disciplining, performing, shaping. These are some of the actions incorporated in the photographs, drawings, and paintings of the human body in the latest exhibit in the Becker Gallery, "Constructions of the Body."

For some seniors, laboring over honors projects means wading through mountains of books on the sixth floor of Hubbard Hall. For music majors, it means working with choirs, organs, and synthesizers to create original compositions.

Students in the semester's Sculpture I class dug deep to transform the Coleman Burke Gallery in Fort Andross. The space serves as an excavation site for the final class project of the semester which culminates in the show?titled "Quarry" that open? tonight.

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art features renowned art from around the world, and its Becker Gallery allows professors and students to use these resources to add a new dimension to their courses. This gallery in particular provides a crucial link between Bowdoin academics and the art museum.

If a brilliant playwright's characters are denied the chance to tell their story, there will be drama. This scenario unfolds in "Six Characters in Search of an Author," a play by Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello, premiering at Bowdoin next Thursday.

"The premise of the play is that these six characters were imagined by an author but then the author didn't write the play that they appear in," said student director Phil Gates '08. "They're just kind of floating. They know what their story is, but they don't have a medium for expressing it."

The newly renovated Bowdoin College Museum of Art boasts masterpieces that are centuries old, but it appears modern technology has a role there as well.

Award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and novelist Suzan-Lori Parks will visit Bowdoin to speak about her latest achievement: 365 plays that she wrote in 365 days. Various groups, including Bowdoin's theater and dance department, are currently performing them around the world.

Ever wonder what to do downtown once Cote's closes for the season? While its ice cream pleases crowds during the summer, the Brunswick arts and entertainment scene remains active throughout the year with art galleries, movie theaters, and quirky DVD rental and music stores that are easily accessible to Bowdoin students. Below are some of the options available within walking distance of campus

Every Friday or Saturday night for the past three weeks, strains of improvised jazz have floated out of Gibson Hall. Hassan Muhammad '10, a jazz pianist, has started a "weekly jam session" in Gibson 101.

In Lubbock, Texas, when students ask teachers about sex, the teachers must reply, "Abstinence is the only way to prevent STDs and teen pregnancy." The town has the highest percentage of teen pregnancies and acquired STDs per year in Texas and one of the highest in the country. "The Education of Shelby Knox," an award-winning documentary screened last Thursday, chronicles Knox and Lubbock Youth Commission members' efforts to integrate comprehensive sex education into their school's curriculum. The film came to Bowdoin two years ago, but this time Knox and co-director Rose Rosenblatt were here to answer viewers' questions.

Victory, Valentine, Vagina?the V in V-Day has more than one meaning. In 1998, Eve Ensler, an actor, playwright, and activist, started V-Day, a global organization to stop sexual violence against women and girls. V-Day arose out of Ensler's award-winning play "The Vagina Monologues." This year marks the fifth annual Bowdoin performance of the show.

Two of Bowdoin's a cappella groups plan on celebrating Valentine's Day early this year. On February 13, Miscellania and The Longfellows will serenade the campus with love songs from different genres during the second-annual Val Jam.