Visual Arts associate professor and chair Vin Grabill’s latest experimental video Wet has been making the rounds for the past few months, including being show at the 2012 Athens International Film & Video Festival at Ohio University this past April and at the Tenement Street Workshop’s Second Annual Snowballs Film Festival in New York City June 3rd. Describing the piece, Grabill says on the video’s site that, ” I collaborated with computer animator Francisco Olivares to create a waterspout sequence designed to overwhelm a series of abstracted TV scenes. A second animated water sequence depicts the flooding of the physical detritus of our media infrastructure. Additional interludes depicting wetness round out the video’s visual episodes.”

Grabill’s work was also featured in last month’s edition of the online quarterly journal The Light Ekphrastic. Gabrill’s two pieces are another collaboration, this time with Baltimore writer Danielle Ariano, and entitled “Black Friday” and “Dishes.” The concept was to pair writers and poets with visual arts and have them switch off, with Grabill’s “Black Friday” inspiring Ariano’s “Holding,” and the writer’s “Anger” inspiring Grabill’s “Dishes.”

In aJune 5 article entitled “What’s the Buzz? Beehives Burgeon in Baltimore Backyards,” Rachel Wilkinson, adjunct professor of English, recently reported on the local beekeeping community for the website BmoreMedia.

Over the course of the piece, Wilkinson explores a number of facets to the practice and its prevalence within Maryland, noting that there are 1,751 registered beekeepers with about 12,000 colonies in 1800 locations according to the state’s Department of Agriculture, and that “[a]ccording to to state apiarist Jerry Fischer, Baltimore alone was home to about 29 registered beekeepers keeping more than 100 colonies in 45 locations as of February.”

Wilkinson also looks into the personalities and motivations of those who have chosen to pursue the beekeeping in the area. “Beekeepers are part thrill-seekers, part environmentalists. Concerned with ecology and sustainability, gardeners often find beekeeping the obvious next step. Keeping the pollinators results in more fruit, vegetables and flowers in your garden,” she writes.

Buffalo Wild Wings

http://www.buffalowildwings.com/

7000 Arundel Mills Circle, Hanover, MD 21076

(410)379-0333

First Impressions:

Arundel Mills Mall is only a short drive away from UMBC and offers a lot of neat places to eat.  My favorite, by far, is Buffalo Wild Wings.  BWW is popular sports bar chain that specializes in serving a variety of chicken wings.  Located directly across from the Cinemark movie theater, BWW always gets a lot of foot traffic.  The restaurant is always decently crowded, but they do a good job of moving people in and out quickly and efficiently.

The first thing you’ll notice when you walk in are the TVs.  Being a sportsbar, one would expect a lot of flat-screens, but Buffalo Wild Wings takes it to an entirely new level.  Virtually every surface of the restaurant, including the bathrooms, are covered in some form of moving picture.  Though this is certainly distracting, the great food makes up for the somewhat cluttered atmosphere.

So many flavors – so little time

The Food:

BWW totes a vast menu of typical bar food: they have burgers, sandwiches, and of course – wings.  I went on Tuesday, which is 45-cent wing night.  They have almost twenty flavors of wings, including both wet sauces as well as dry rubs.  Wings come in groups of six, I typically have twenty-four.  Some of my favorite flavors include the salt and vinegar dry rub, the spicy garlic, and the old-bay dry rub.  The wings are larger than average, and they are nice and tender.  I’ve gotten a burger before, and it was above average.  If you don’t get wings, typical entrées are mostly under $10.

Nothing’s more satisfying than admiring your work

Would I Go Back?

Absolutely.  Tuesday night wing night is a monthly ritual for my friends and I.  If you go on a Tuesday and utilize the 45-wing night, you can get a large amount of food for a pretty good price.  Despite the chaotic ambience, the wings are delicious.