“It’s a new year/ or about to be/ I wanna forgive/ everything that has harmed me.” These are the opening lyrics of the song “New Year,” by Bitch, formerly half […]
Arts & Minds
Celebrating the creative and sometimes quirky culture of the Outer Cape.
Browse all Arts & Minds stories below or dive into a topic:
EYE FOR AN EAR
Judging Musical Performance on Film
Classical music criticism for the Covid era
As more and more music making goes online — with YouTube videos, pre-recorded concerts, and live-streams — music critics are having to become more like film critics. They are having […]
ARTISTS
Cameron Barker Reveals Sweetness in Anonymous Sex
Depicting places thought to be dirty as tender and loving
“There are far more similarities to human touch than there are differences, regardless of who you love,” says artist Cameron Barker. “Because of the need many people feel to reject […]
LOCAL ICONS
The Town Seals of the Outer Cape
A look at our municipal iconography
This article is the first in a series on town seals. Massachusetts is finally close to changing its state flag and state seal, with its problematic image of a sword […]
BOOK REVIEW
How to Hold Animals Is a Book to Curl Up With
It offers tips for handling furry, slimy, and scaly creatures
The cover of Toshimitsu Matsuhashi’s How to Hold Animals features an adorable sugar glider, a bug-eyed mouse-like creature, gently cupped between two human hands. Readers might therefore expect the book […]
MIXED MEDIA
Siân Robertson Maps Out the Year 2020
A box a day keeps an artist inspired
There’s an obsessiveness to the art of Siân Robertson — multiple objects are organized, following rules and patterns. But an opposite impulse is also manifest — a relentless creativity. It’s […]
VIRTUAL ENTERTAINMENT
Good Morning, Provincetown!
‘It takes a village to make a show about our village’
The idea for Wake Up! In Provincetown, a talk show hosted by Harrison Fish and Bob Keary that streams on YouTube on Fridays at 9 a.m., started as an inside […]
BOOK REVIEW
The Many Faces of Adrienne Rich
Hilary Holladay’s portrait of a complicated artist
Hilary Holladay’s The Power of Adrienne Rich is an accessible biography of the celebrated American poet. Published last month, it is the first comprehensive exploration of both the person and […]
INDIE SCREEN
Give Me Your Outsiders, Your Refugees, Your Rogues
From Vietnam to Dorset to Hollywood in your home theater
It’s a sign of the times that in more and more movies with LGBTQ main characters, their queerness is just one of the things that define them. Monsoon, about a […]
ARTISTS
You Can’t Take the Wellfleet Out of Paul Suggs
His realist acrylic paintings reflect a community he has made his own
The first light of dawn casts shadows on the white walls of an Outer Cape home. At low tide on Wellfleet Bay, shimmering mudflats mirror the image of a moored […]
WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY?
This Is Not an Interview With André Gregory
In This Is Not My Memoir, a provocateur looks back with wit
Preparing for my phone call with actor, playwright, and director André Gregory, I felt a bit like the socially anxious Wallace Shawn at the beginning of My Dinner With André. […]
BOOK REVIEW
Bach to the Drawing Board
In The Way of Bach, Dan Moller makes the missteps of an academic amateur
The concept behind Dan Moller’s recently published The Way of Bach: Three Years With the Man, the Music, and the Piano, is a good one. It tells of the author’s […]
CROSSWORD #15
Notes to Santa
Need some answers? Just ask and we’ll send them.
SEASCAPES
With an Eye on the Surf, Colin McGuire Paints Provincetown
A local artist contemplates the Outer Cape’s past and present
“The ocean is both beautiful and terrifying to me,” says Colin McGuire. An emerging local artist, he finds “limitless inspiration” in the seascapes of the Outer Cape and their “variety […]
TALKS
Lili Taylor on the Craft of Empathy
A star of film and television turns the lens on herself
Provincetown first welcomed critically acclaimed actor Lili Taylor, best known for her work in independent films and on TV in Six Feet Under and American Crime, in the 1990s, when […]
