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Mad Max Provino deems new n In the literary arts world of PSU, there is one who has carved himself a niche in the collective memory of the uni­ versity: that person is Maxamilian Provino, a creative soul who has managed to have a hand in many avenues of expres­ sion in the arts that PSU has to offer. "I've been here for three and a half years, and I think that the institution itself has been somewhat a balance be­ tween formal conditioning and bureaucratic adjustment, ex­ plains Max. "I've been part of student organizations since 1 988 — I worked for the Vanguard, and 1 went into becoming a coordinator; 1 did the Portland Review, that was exciting. After an extremely successful year with the Review, a PSU publication. Max helped to create a new literary journal at PSU, The Portlander. The future of literary arts at PSU is multicultural, according to Max. The Portlander will feature visual art, poetry, reviews, short fiction and photographs with that theme. "It's not at first obvious that you can empower your­ self through the university," notes Max. As to the question of whether his new journal would steal thunder from the Re­ view, Max compares it to family bickering. "What people have to keep in mind is, how do we appear to other universities? We discover that really, no one gives a shit about that little bit of competition." Max says some universities already have multiple publications out of the English Department. "Even if we had 10 Reviews, or 10 Vanguards, the university would be better for it," he says, noting that the "real world," outside of the university, is far more confining. The Portlander has been given a permit for only this year, and Max is not sure what will happen with the journal after that time. He has many plans to keep him busy, howev- er. "I'm involved in real estate. I'm involved in publish­ ing, I'm involved in getting my degree. I plan to continue editing, and I plan to go to Greece for a while to paint. I work in oils." A philosophy major. Max admires the existentialist Camus' analysis of the ancient Greek Sisyphus, "because he laughed all the way to work." (Sisyphus was sentenced to an eternity of rolling a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again.) —Suzanne Levinson 62