Peace begins with a gentle smile… Thich Nhat Hahn

exhibit at Buoy to feature Jell-O shot Cosby portrait

When you combine the elements of Jell-O, Bill Cosby, vodka and art, good times are almost certain to ensue. And that’s just what local artist Andrew Salomone has in mind for his upcoming exhibition at Buoy in Kittery, Maine. The exhibit will feature a portrait of Bill Cosby made from approximately 1,000 Jell-O shots.

Salomone will begin crafting the portrait around 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 12. Once it is complete, guests (age 21 and over) are invited to gradually wreck the artwork and themselves by consuming the Jell-O shots, which will contain modest portions of vodka. The audience can enjoy other aspects of the exhibit while casually devouring Cosby’s face. Tentative plans also call for a live Internet broadcast to let other viewers witness the spectacle from home.

Portsmouth is the place to be on June 6

Mark your calendar for Saturday, June 6, because several community events are happening on the same day, all within walking distance of each other in Portsmouth.

• More than 20 Seacoast-area nonprofits will gather in downtown Portsmouth for the fourth annual Seacoast Local Festival from 1 to 4 p.m.
• Historic New England welcomes visitors with a day of free tours at three well-known Portsmouth homes, the Langdon, Rundlet-May and Jackson houses.
• The Piscataqua Waterfront Festival, presented by Moffatt-Ladd House and Garden and The Gundalow Company, also includes a free museum house tour, as well as gundalow tours and sea shanties.
• The N.H. Leisure Expo on the grounds of Strawbery Banke Museum will offer a ride on the schooner “Fame” out of Prescott Park, with a portion of proceeds going to support the museum.
• Also in the park, the 25th annual all-you-can-eat Chowder Festival will feature food from many area restaurants, kicking off the summer-long Prescott Park Arts Festival.

team trivia nights keep brains busy at Seacoast bars

“If you’re caught using a cell phone you will be disqualified,” Phil Kliger announced during team trivia night at Brewery Lane Tavern in Portsmouth. “If you want to see how fast you can google, stay home and play with yourself.”

His words, though delivered with a touch of casual humor, were stern enough to make participants think twice about cheating. Technological advancements have made trivia rules more difficult to enforce, and Kliger has caught competitors accessing the Internet for quick answers.

That’s right, it’s almost RPM time again. Now entering its fourth year, the 2009 RPM Challenge will again inspire hundreds of musicians around the world to set aside the 28 days of February as Record Production Month. Not for a cash prize or a record contract or a gig opening for Coldplay—but just because they can.

For those not familiar with the month-long event, RPM is not a contest. It is, as its title implies, simply a challenge: Write and record 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material during the shortest, darkest, coldest month of the year. Your only reward will be the satisfaction of knowing that you put your entire heart and soul into a tangible, recorded product. It’s a chance to indulge your inner artist, who all too often hides behind the various burdens and conventions of daily life as an excuse to remain artistically idle.

We want to inspire you. We want to say don’t panic. But after talking to local business owners over the past few weeks, it seems pretty clear that Seacoast businesses are hurting in a way that’s going to hurt all of us.

While Wal-Mart is predicting a boom year in 2009, the businesses that actually ensure a diverse supply of goods and services to our community are openly comparing notes as to who will be closing up in the next month or two.
We’re talking about people who have pulled out personal credit cards to cover the cost of holiday inventory, in one last-ditch effort to come out of 2008 alive.

Worried about the economy? The environment? Go green by buying a local Christmas tree, and make a simple but meaningful contribution to local agriculture and local economic activity.

Christmas tree farming is a sustainable agricultural enterprise. Selling Christmas trees isn’t just about chopping them down—it’s also about growing them! Just think of all the carbon dioxide that’s consumed and saved from the atmosphere by tree farms, and think of all the oxygen they give back. And for every tree that’s cut down at a tree farm, up to three seedlings are planted in its place.

In honor of Christmas, which is really all about who’s naughty and who’s nice, The Wire is publishing an excerpt of a ye olde tale set in Portsmouth, “Story of a Bad Boy,” by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. To juice it up, we’re seeking tales of your misspent youth to be published in our Christmas Eve edition on Wednesday, Dec. 24.

Send one or two stories, short and snappy (50-300 words, say). We’re talking about tales of setting fire to public property, urging your kid sister to stick a fork in the electrical socket, bicycle “jousting” with the pointy ends of ski poles ... not that we’ve done anything like that.

Keep it real, put us there, make us laugh and cry... Let’s have fun!

the sun rises on the age of Obama

By the Sunday after the election, my eyes still burned whenever I spoke about the fellowship of that night. I wanted to hang a picture of Barack Obama on my wall to keep that feeling alive and I found that I was gravitating toward the iconic “Hope” image by Shepard Fairey rather than the playful, full-page photograph included with the “New York Post.” Why was that? Why was I more attracted to the symbol than the man?

In other words, I am basically an average young adult. When I turned 18 and became old enough to vote, I was not much into politics and had a complacent attitude toward voting. I didn’t really give it much thought, as the things candidates were talking about didn’t really affect me at the time—or so I thought.

Night of the Living Bread

As an adult, I’m not really much for Christmas. I’m kind of a humbug. As far as I’m concerned, Santa can bite me. I find holidays to be more of an annoyance than anything. I haven’t been interested in them since I was a kid. But this year, for some unknown reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to make a gingerbread house. I don’t know if it’s because the sugarplum fairy injected me with red and green glitter while I slept or, possibly, I have reached an age where I am nostalgic for my childhood. Either way, I recently realized that, as far as the long list of Christmas traditions goes, making a gingerbread house wasn’t something my family ever did. We made sugar cookies, drank eggnog, put ornaments on a tree and hung decorations. Ooh, and of course, we watched the 24-hour “Christmas Story” marathon on TNT each year. But creating a house constructed of confections—that somehow slipped us by.

It’s 3:30 in the morning. This article, about how I’ve become obsessed with the online role-playing game World of Warcraft, is due in a few hours. I pitched the idea a couple of weeks ago, but have not written a word since, because actually writing it ... would cut in on my gaming time. I, a grown woman who has always prided herself on the fact that she reads more than 100 books a year, who has always gone to bed at a reasonable hour, am hooked on a video game. Completely pwned, as the gamers say (translation: the game owns me). I’m so ashamed.

I’m not so grown up that I won’t try to place the blame on someone else, so here I go: It’s all my friends’ fault. They got me the game for Christmas in the hopes that my boyfriend and I would join them in playing online. Gone are the days of huddling around a TV with your friends and your controllers. Groups of friends can now play video games without any of them leaving the comfort of their own homes.

O'Shea's in Las Vegas

Nestled between the Imperial Palace and the Flamingo on the Las Vegas strip, O’Shea’s Casino has something for everyone. Everyone, that is, who likes raucous drinking, irresponsible gambling, obnoxious crowds and neon lights.

or, it’s better not to know why they’re reading your blog

Everyone gets naked. You, me, Bea Arthur. Some people get naked and dance around. A few get paid for it. And a couple of people even get naked and pose for pictures.

Punky Brewster is not one of those people.

two random Scots on the streets of Portsmouth share their thoughts on the N.H. primary

It happens every four years: The waxing and waning of familiar and presidential that is the N.H. primary season, where brushes with greatness lurk around any corner. That redhead at The Red Door your co-worker is hitting on might be Mrs. Kucinich or Maureen Dowd. That tiny grape on the far side of the Brewery could be, close up, Guliani’s courageously uncomb-overed cranium, or Biden’s brain-bulging, hair-plugged forehead. That responsible citizen delivering a baby in line at the post office is, hopefully, Dr. Paul.