In 1966, Maine artist Bernard Langlais was commissioned by the Skowhegan Tourist Hospitality Association to craft a monumental sculpture that would serve the dual purpose of honoring the upcoming 150th anniversary of Maine statehood and attracting tourists to visit the Somerset County mill town.

Skowhegan has long played an outsize role in the artistic landscape of Maine as the home of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, which since 1946 has trained and hosted countless artists, including the likes of Robert Indiana, Alex Katz, Berenice Abbott and Ashley Bryan. Langlais - a sculptor and mixed-media artist originally from Old Town and himself an alumnus of the Skowhegan School - was the perfect choice for such an undertaking, with his whimsical, earthy, eye-catching wooden sculptures of people, animals and other figures.

As early as the 1960s, Langlais was already well-known around Maine for his public art, some of which was already displayed at the homestead he and his wife, Helen, maintained along the coast in Cushing, today open to the public as the Langlais Art Preserve. The Langlais estate strengthened its ties to Skowhegan in 2013 when it donated 21 original Langlais sculptures to Main Street Skowhegan, a local arts and business development organization. Those sculptures, including athletes, mermaids and many different animals, are on display throughout the town, and are part of the Langlais Art Trail across the state.

It took Langlais nearly three years to build the commissioned sculpture, constructed in Cushing before being trucked to Skowhegan and erected atop a huge steel-and-concrete base and frame. In 1969, the town unveiled what would become Langlais’ most well-known work: the Skowhegan Indian, a 68-foot-tall wooden depiction of an Abenaki man, dressed in deerskin and holding a fishing net and spear. The plaque for the statue said it was “dedicated to the Maine Indians, the first people to use these lands in peaceful ways.”

At the time, such a dedication seemed appropriate for Skowhegan, which for millennia was home to the Norridgewock tribe of Abenaki, who fished and farmed its waters and fields and had a thriving village on the banks of the Kennebec River until European settlers showed up in the 18th century. The town’s high school sports mascot was an Indian. Back then, hardly anyone in Skowhegan batted an eye.

The broader context

Commissioning and creating such a statue today would be unthinkable. There’s now a much broader mainstream awareness of the historic violence and oppression enacted upon Indigenous people in Maine and across the Americas by people of European descent. Having a white artist create such a work - especially one that depicts a Native person who lived hundreds of years ago - would today be considered offensive. The land that would become Skowhegan was a site of some of that violence in 1724, when white settlers murdered more than 80 Abenaki people and burned down their village in what is now known as the Norridgewock Massacre.

In 2019, the town voted to retire the Skowhegan Indians as its mascot - the last Maine school to remove its Indigenous mascot. The protracted, multi-year public debate leading up to the vote divided the community between those who believed the mascot should stay, and the Wabanaki people, Skowhegan residents and other people statewide who had been arguing for years that the use of an Indigenous person as a sports mascot is fundamentally racist and offensive. That same year, a new state law passed that banned Native American imagery as any part of public school branding or mascots. Though the matter is now settled, the memory of it remains.​​

Despite such a controversial legacy, in 2026, the Skowhegan Indian still stands - a bit worse for wear, as nearly six decades of wild Maine weather and industrious local squirrels have eaten away at the wood. The statue was initially restored by the Skowhegan Chamber of Commerce in 2014, but a planned maintenance schedule was not adhered to, and within a decade, the statue had once again fallen into disrepair.

In 2023, after massive wind storms and floods caused millions of dollars in damage across the state, parts of the statue’s face and hands had fallen off. Faced with another expensive slate of repairs, the chamber opted instead to sell the statue to any individual, business or nonprofit that would agree to take over the maintenance. The cost? $1.

Initially, no one stepped up. The chamber estimated the total cost to completely restore the statue could reach as high as $100,000, which would require some serious fundraising on its behalf. Add to that the complicated history between Wabanaki tribes and the town of Skowhegan on the topic of Indigenous representation in public settings, and it’s likely that getting involved in such a hot button issue would put off interested parties. The chamber said that if they couldn’t eventually find a buyer, they’d likely dismantle the statue.

The offer stood for nearly a year until local business owner Joe Almand decided to take a chance on the Skowhegan Indian. Almand, a former firefighter who now owns Joe’s Flatiron Cafe in Skowhegan, was part of the original restoration team in 2014. He initially approached the chamber about taking them up on the $1 sale in the fall of 2025, but it took nearly eight months - and the formation of a nonprofit - for the deal to go through in May of this year. Almand and a team of volunteers undertook a first round of restorations this summer, but it will likely take several years to fully restore the statue.

‘Something truly transformative’?

Almand understands the statue is controversial. But in his mind, it was more important to make sure it stayed standing than to let it disintegrate or be torn down.

“At the end of the day, I just felt like it would be a huge shame if it ended up falling apart or being torn down,” Almand said. “It’s been an icon of this area for so long, and it would just feel really bad to me if it went away. I know it’s a huge liability. I know I’m taking on a ton of risk. But the alternative just didn’t sit right with me.”

Almand said he would welcome collaboration between Wabanaki artists and organizations in the restoration process or as board members or advisors to the nonprofit, Watching Point, which was founded earlier this year. Currently, the board is composed entirely of Skowhegan locals, and Almand hasn’t yet actively sought to recruit any Indigenous input on the project.

John Bear Mitchell, a Penobscot Nation citizen, artist and media consultant who has served as an advisor on TV shows like “Welcome to Derry” and “The Devil You Know”, sees it a little differently. To him, without working directly with Wabanaki on the restoration progress, the statue will never be more than a stereotypical vision of Native folks through the eyes of white people.

“One of the main things I try to do in my work is focus on the complex, problematic remnants of white settler culture that seek to freeze Wabanaki people in the past, and ignore the fact that we are still here,” Mitchell said. “These types of monuments represent some sort of default standard that ignores our presence and locks us into a time in history when we were considered the ‘noble savage.’ It really just continues a pretty negative narrative, especially when there’s no context given.”

There are some in the Skowhegan community who still believe the mascot should have stayed, and that any related controversy around the statue is totally overblown. And there are many people, Wabanaki or not, who believe that there’s no scenario in which the statue as it looks today can remain standing and not be an offensive stereotype that represents a dark, violent past - and that it can, and must, be removed.

Almand believes it’s a piece of art, and that any public art is meant to inspire conversations - which is why he wants it to remain in the community.

“The thing that I always come back to is this is a piece of art. And art is supposed to make you think, and feel, and have conversations with people,” said Almand. “This [statue] definitely does that. I would rather have it keep doing that, than have it not.”

Bernard Langlais, who died in 1977, understood that by using his preferred medium of wood and then placing his sculptures outside in Maine that his work would necessarily be somewhat ephemeral. The Kohler Foundation, which with the Colby College Museum of Art and the Georges River Land Trust operates the Langlais Preserve in Cushing, has said that it doesn’t expect the sculptures to have “infinite life” - and that in fact it is its relative transience is part of its beauty and personality.

Rather than remove the statue altogether or wait for time and the elements to wear it away to nothing, Mitchell thinks a better option would be to do the work to reimagine it altogether, by pairing Wabanaki and Maine artists and community members in collaboration on something new, that could reflect a complex, difficult history and look toward a better tomorrow.

“The frame that statue sits on is good and solid. To me, that seems like a great base on which to build something that really takes into account the full history of the region, and that would take into consideration both the proud heritage of that city, and whose land they actually are on,” Mitchell said. “It’s already falling apart. Why not make the rebuilding something truly transformative? We could really do something profound.”

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, the Nor’easter that wasn’t (at least for us in Bangor) made for an excellent excuse to stay home for most of the weekend, watching movies and catching up on TV (watch “Slow Horses” on Apple TV+ if you haven’t yet) and making an apple tart with the very sour fruit from the scraggly apple tree in our yard.

• It is my duty to alert you to Maine news stories that you may have missed and which I believe are vitally important to your well being. For example: car(s) hit rock at Dunkin.

• In other extremely Maine news: W.A. Bean is no longer using red #3 dye when it makes red snapper hot dogs, ahead of an FDA ban on the dye beginning in January 2027. Now it’s using carmine extract, a natural dye made from crushed cochineal insects - a substance used in everything from candy to lipstick. But what if I liked the carcinogens in red #3?! Is this just a ploy from Big Hot Dog to disrupt the tube meat market? Do your own research, man.

• RIP Taste of India in downtown Bangor. You were the first place I ever had Indian food.

• The hilarious show “Drunk History” is back on YouTube, and for its first episode in seven years it drunkenly recalls the story of my homegirl Frances Perkins, the mother of the New Deal. In case you weren’t aware, she’s technically a Mainer (sort of) since she lived here in her later years at her family’s beautiful homestead in the town of Newcastle, which has since become a National Historic Monument a few years back. I say we get to claim her.

  The Other Maine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Olsen House in Cushing - famously where in 1948 Andrew Wyeth painted the iconic “Christina’s World” - is today a favorite place for art lovers and tourists to visit on Maine’s coast. It took quite a while for it to become the destination that it is today, however. For 18 years its former owner, Joseph Levine, a major Hollywood producer of films like “The Graduate” and “The Producers” and the mogul who introduced worldwide audiences to Godzilla, bought the house in 1968, with big plans to turn it into a museum and tourist destination. Instead, the house became a bit of a headache for both Levine and nearby residents, with people complaining about the traffic and the behavior of the many visitors, and some neighbors threatening to erect fences and plant trees to obstruct the view of the water. In 1986, after nearly two decades of attempting to turn the property into a Wyeth “shrine,” as the BDN called it, Levine gave up and sold the Olsen House to Carol Sculley and her husband, John, who at the time was the CEO of Apple. In 1991, the couple donated it to the Farnsworth Art Museum.

Music & Dance

Oct. 2: Belfast Flying Shoes contradance feat. Crossover and caller Chrissy Fowler, 6 p.m., American Legion Hall, Belfast

Oct. 2: Songwriter Casey Neill, 7 p.m., Barncastle, Blue Hill

Oct. 3: Belfast Bay Beer Bash feat. Rigometrics and Emmett Lalor and Friends, 4-10 p.m., Marshall Wharf Brewing Company, Belfast

Oct. 3: Zaostock, free musical festival feat. The Crown Vics, Open X, Grass Rug, Acadia Rising, Michael Anderson, DCoop, Lyonsden and Tom Fellens, noon-6 p.m., Franklin Street Parklet, Ellsworth

Oct. 3: Screening of “Downeast Hardcore” and show feat. Free To Think, Fake Smile and Last Embrace, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Oct. 3: Songwriter Geoff Warner, 7 p.m., First Congregational Church, Blue Hill

Oct. 3: The Skyliners Big Band, 7 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer

Oct. 6: Insomniac, Kin and Blood Meridian, 6 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Theater & Comedy

Oct. 1-4: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “On Golden Pond,” nightly at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

Oct. 2: The Focus Group, improv comedy troupe, 7 p.m., Brewer Performing Arts Center, Brewer

Oct. 2-4: Theatre Nouveau presents “The Bribe of Bread: A Tragical Comedy for Frivolous People,” nightly, Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast

Oct. 3: Comedian Bob Marley, 8 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

Oct. 1: Tape art workshop with Michael Townshend and Leah Smith, 3-7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

Oct. 1: Maine Monitor Talks series presents panel discussion on Maine’s housing crisis, 6 p.m., Belfast Free Library, Belfast

Oct. 1: “Oysters, Wine and Storytelling,” reading and oyster tasting with Virginia Shaffer, 5:30 p.m., The Stoop, Blue Hill

Oct. 2: Artist talk with Carl Little and James Linehan, 2 p.m., Lord Hall Galleries, University of Maine, Orono

Oct. 2: First Friday Art Walk, 4-8 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor

Oct. 2-3: “Casablanca,” classic film screening, nightly, Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Oct. 3-4: Maine Craft Weekend, events and programming celebrating Maine’s art and artisan community, events statewide; mainecraftweekend.org

Oct. 3: “Fermentation Expo: Science, Art, Fun, and the Stories In Between,” 9 a.m.-Noon, Stewart Hall, University of Maine, Orono

Oct. 3: Democratic Socialists of America Bangor chapter screens John Carpenter’s “They Live,” 7 p.m., The Emporium Spooky Goods & More, Bangor

Oct. 4: 25th anniversary screening of “Donnie Darko,” 7 p.m., Black Bear Cinemas, Orono

Oct. 6: Book talk with Robert Diamante on Eleanor Morse’s new book, “This Foreign Land,” 7 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

Oct. 6: Book launch for “Between: Ray and Eva, 1938-1939” by Carolyn Locke, 6:30 p.m., Belfast Free Library, Belfast

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

Oct. 2: Sunset paddle, 4:30 p.m., Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, Old Town

Oct. 2-4: Queen City Expo, comic and toy convention, daily at Cross Insurance Center, Bangor

Oct. 3: Hirundo Fall Fest, annual fall festival feat. nature exhibits, food trucks, family activities and more; 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, Old Town

Oct. 3: Bangor Humane Society’s annual Paws on Parade walk, 10 a.m., Bangor Waterfront, Bangor

Oct. 3: Downtown Bangor Sidewalk Arts Festival, 11 a.m.- 4 p.m., Central and Harlow streets, downtown Bangor

Oct. 3: SardineFest, celebration of Maine sardine industry, music, food and family fun, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

Oct. 3: Fogtoberfest, annual beer festival with live music, tasting stations and more; 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Fogtown Brewing Company, Ellsworth

Oct. 3: Center Theatre Harvest Gala, 7 p.m., Central Hall Commons, Dover-Foxcroft

Oct. 3-4: Living History Days, two days of demonstrations and historical fall fun, Maine Logging Museum at Leonard’s Mills, Bradley

Oct. 4: Fall Ritual Market, artisan market, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Waterfront Park, Bangor

The new full-series adaptation of Stephen King’s “Carrie” starts on Oct. 7 on Prime Video. You may think, “Why make another version of something that was definitively adapted in Brian DePalma’s 1976 original?” Surely we don’t need another one, especially after the very bad 2013 version. Hasn’t this iconic story been told enough?

You would be right to think that. When studios keep making multiple versions of the same story from any creator, Stephen King or not, it is generally a law of diminishing returns. But, this particular adaptation of “Carrie” is by Mike Flanagan, renowned for his King films like “Gerald’s Game” and “The Life of Chuck” and also for the incredible horror miniseries “Midnight Mass.” It updates the source material to the present day, opening a whole new world of opportunities to explore the book’s themes, like bullying, mother-daughter dynamics, misogyny and the sociology of high school. I remain skeptical of the reported decision to rethink the relationship between our telekinetic prom queen and her psychologically damaged mother to be something a little less dangerous (violent? messed up?), but I’ll definitely be tuning in to see what Flanagan has done with it.

My other big question is, as always: did they set the damned thing in Maine? I know they didn’t film any of it here, with Canada once again standing in for our state - though I know Mike Flanagan has visited our fine state many times. I personally asked him about it once. The trailer does mention the town of Chamberlain, the fictional small town where Carrie lives, so that’s promising - though the high school depicted in the trailer looks far more affluent than any small interior Maine town I’ve ever seen. That’s almost always the case with Hollywood films and TV set in Maine, however: it ends up looking like California in a Maine costume. Whatever! I’m just glad we’re part of the conversation.

Ed. note: I met Eesha about eight years ago when she moved to Bangor to work at the Bangor Daily News. We became fast friends, because she’s hilarious, whip-smart, multi-talented and fun to be around. She’s also a great writer, which you would know if you read the Maine Morning Star, where she’s a staff writer covering education and politics. I’m so glad she was game to write about her incredible skill at thrift shopping. She’s like a bloodhound when it comes to sniffing out cute outfits and home decor. I’m honestly jealous. - Emily

It started around this time last year, when I needed a Halloween costume. I was strolling through the East End in Portland, having spent far too much money at LB Kitchen on a sandwich and coffee, brainstorming with my friend about our costumes. I live for Halloween, but the bits and bobs it takes to assemble the kind of overly elaborate, incredibly niche costume I aim for start to get expensive fast. You’re left with plastic waste to take care of for years to come.

Last year’s wishlist was pretty specific. My former musical theater kid friend, who was a Halloween agnostic, had agreed to dress up with me as Glinda and Elphaba from “Wicked.” I refused to swallow my pride and order cheap crap for both of us from Bezos’ online wasteland, We were going to have to get creative.

While walking past the cluster of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them little East End shops, a smiling sun flag caught my eye. We were outside a store named Ferdinand, operational at some of the most inconvenient times for working adults, as all the best thrift stores are. The door could barely open, bumping up against the racks of costumes inside. It was a Halloween bounty. A whole basket of witch hats. Capes in every fabric and texture imaginable. All secondhand, in their pre-Instagram-era Halloween glory. Not a single slutty costume interpretation of a female-dominated profession in sight.

Over the next 20 minutes, I found a black vintage silk dress with statement shoulders, a velvet witch hat and sweeping cloak perfect for Elphaba. Sarah found a beaded pink prom gown with a full tulle skirt. We also got face paint, a wig and, for good measure, I bought a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle suit. You never know when you might need it.

The sheer number of people who marveled at the accuracy and intricacy of those costumes on Halloween night convinced me to never again buy a costume new. And then I wondered: How far can this theory stretch? Can I get away with never having to buy anything I want new in Maine?

Let’s clarify before I lose most of you. I’m not talking about the things you need; dish sponges, all purpose cleaner, batteries. Although this year I’ve learned a shocking number of those can also be found unopened at your local thrift store. But for birthday cards to painting supplies, clothes of all kinds to books, candles and frames, I don’t remember the last time I set foot in a big box monstrosity.

Thrifting is particularly fun if you like to experiment with hobbies constantly. I found a new set of Pickleball paddles last year and bought them because they were colorful and only $10. Now I play weekly and I’m in multiple leagues. A few weeks ago, I decided I was going to teach myself to sew to make my own handmade overalls with custom vegetable patches, as one does while attending Maine’s crunchy Olympics; a.k.a., the Common Ground Country Fair. After making a list of everything I’d need, I decided to try to find it all in thrift stores: the actual sewing machine, an iron, an extension cord, a special zipper foot, and, of course, a wide array of fabric and thread.

Over a few weeks, I found all of it at various secondhand stores throughout the state. Not only did I spend a fraction of what I would have if I succumbed to the convenience of Michael’s, I got cotton rather than polyester fabrics and thread, an older, sturdier sewing machine, and endless tutorials from helpful employees at checkout counters around Maine.

It’s not just me. Thrifting is quintessentially Maine. When I first moved to Bangor, I joked that my rental apartment was stuck in the ’70s: no dishwasher, no laundry and no central air, all of which were a given in my previous apartments in cities outside the state. Living in Maine makes you love things that are slightly inconvenient but chock-full of charm. It also makes you get creative about solutions, since everything you want isn’t just sitting on the shelves of a mall nearby.

So when I needed a coffee table for my old apartment with its tin ceilings, I went looking at Goodwill in Bangor. It’s almost a decade later, and the list of my thrift finds over the last 10 years would astound even the most diligent collector.

The secret is simply where I live - and I don’t just mean Southern Maine. From Japanese-patterned plates in Presque Isle to a ceramic lamp with a scalloped shade in Kennebunkport, a Victorian cape in Portland, a handmade mirror from Peru in Brewer, an Italian oil painting in Ellsworth and the coolest pants made in Australia in Belfast, I’ve found gems hidden in plain sight in every corner of the state.

They often come with stories, too — about how the shop owners acquired those pieces or the history behind the store itself. In a world that prioritizes instant gratification, two-day shipping and micro-trends started by teenagers on TikTok, I love finding things that are old, carefully made and unique.

We’ve all read about how Maine is the oldest state in the country. It’s often said in a negative way, but when it comes to thrifting, it absolutely is a positive. At the risk of polluting this piece with a cliche, they truly just don’t make things like they used to.

I know thrifting is not Maine-specific. It’s about patience, knowing what you want, and being OK with leaving without a single item on your list but a basket full of things you never realized you needed. Maine is special when it comes to finding incredible clothes, books and furniture secondhand. It also doesn’t hurt that our stores are filled with vintage L.L.Bean.

I’ve thrifted in pretty much every major city I’ve lived in, and it just does not compare. In New York or Boston, the good thrift stores are often vastly overpriced. In Los Angeles and Miami, I’ve found mostly fast fashion. In D.C., you have to leave the actual city and drive 40 minutes to hit a good store.

But since moving back here, I’m proud to say most of my closet and half of my furniture are from Maine. Very little of it was made here, but most of it was curated, carried through generations and taken care of here. And when I wear a sweater or turn on a lamp with a fun story, it prompts me to think more fondly of this unique gem of a state. And then I go back to the place where I got said sweater or lamp and shop some more. Win-win.

The next time you’re driving through rural Maine and you see a yard sale sign, stop your car. Walk over. You, like me, may find a vintage Remington typewriter in perfect condition that a lovely old couple will let you have for $20 because you’re a journalist.

If I had to trace it all back to one thing - one foundational catalyst that takes me from childhood to adulthood to entering the vaunted halls of Nerd Valhalla, a.k.a. Jeopardy!, a.k.a. the Alex Trebek Stage at Sony Pictures Studios in beautiful Culver City - I think it just might be Eyewitness Books.

Sure, I could point to other things, like the complete edition of the Great Books of the Western World collection, published by Encyclopedia Britannica and purchased by my great-grandfather sometime in the 1950s, which still sits on a bookshelf in my parents’ living room. The stacks of issues of National Geographic magazine, which my grandfather purchased a subscription for Maybe the World Almanac or the Rand McNally road atlas that we always had at hand, or the endless supply of novels for both kids and adults that jammed every corner of our house.

All of that laid the groundwork for someone with enough stuff lodged in her brain that she could make it through three levels of testing and auditions to get on Jeopardy! and not make an ass out of herself. It won’t shock you, however, to learn that an eight-year-old did not read Edward Gibbon’s “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” or Thomas Aquinas. I mostly just liked admiring the solemn-looking spines of the book, assuming that someday I’d access the knowledge locked up in there. Spoiler alert: never read either. But I know who they are and what they wrote, which is enough to get a question right on Jeopardy!

Eyewitness Books - the colorful, accessible, exactingly researched and beautifully photographed series of educational books covering a vast array of topics, published by Dorling Kindersley in the 1990s - now that was my style. And for a certain stripe of millennial who were between the ages of roughly 8 and 12 in the early to mid 1990s - the kind whose teachers didn’t believe them when they said they read all the books for the summer reading challenge - Eyewitness Books were literally the coolest thing ever.

The big, bold title on the cover offered a window into countless worlds. OCEAN. RENAISSANCE. ANCIENT GREECE. REPTILE. ASTRONOMY. HORSE. One sturdy hardback book was the gateway to the riches of human knowledge. The design, which retroactively became classified into the “utopian scholastic” aesthetic, kept the young eye busy with gorgeous photos and graphics as the rest of the brain absorbed the text. Before the internet came and eventually pureed such elegant depictions of scientific and cultural topics into incomprehensible slop, there was a period where content like Eyewitness thrived. Think educational CD-ROMS or games like “Myst,” live action PBS kids shows, “I Spy” books, science museums, whale murals on buildings, the entire vibe of Future World at Epcot. These things make me happy. These things make me feel safe.

So how does this lead to my Jeopardy! appearance? In my estimation, it’s a pretty straight line. As will surprise absolutely no one, I grew up in a Jeopardy! house. My mom is a fierce J! competitor and a massive fan of the show, and even auditioned for it herself in the early 2000s. By the time I was in middle school, I was beginning to hold my own in watching the show with my parents. We looked down on Wheel of Fortune. Jeopardy! was for us.

And though the show has, of course, evolved over the years in many ways, its core identity - celebrating the joy of learning and knowledge through friendly competition - has remained the same, as has its aesthetic. The general set design since the early 1990s has incorporated many of the same design features you might find in my beloved utopian scholastic: strong lines and curves, bold colors, endearingly nerdy intro sequences. These things make me happy. These things make me feel safe.

I can’t recall exactly when I started taking the Anytime Test to try to get on the show, but I’m guessing that it was not long after the show began offering tests online in 2006. I don’t know how many times I’ve taken the test, but I know it’s a lot. I know I always did pretty well - generally, if I answer it, I’m probably right - but I also know I never got a follow up email or call. Until March 31, 2026, that is. It was different that time.

In short order, I attended the group test in early April, followed by the game play audition in May. As you learn at the end of that audition, once you’re in the contestant pool, you could be called at any point in the next two years. They could call you in a week. They could call you in 729 days. Some people don’t get called at all. Superstars like Amy Schneider had to wait years to finally get on the show. Be patient.

I waited. A month after the audition, I got laid off from my job. Internal chaos and barely-controlled depression ensued. I went on unemployment. I began working two shifts a week at my best friend’s new candy and gift shop in downtown Bangor, Oh Grow Up, while I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. Jeopardy! was not on my mind.

It was a soupy, humid afternoon in early July, and I was making small talk with a nice lady buying lemon drops at the candy shop when my phone rang. The caller ID read Sony Pictures Entertainment. I stopped talking to the lemon drop lady and answered the call. By the time I put the phone down, I had been invited to be on Jeopardy!, lemon drop lady had left, and I had no one to scream to but the inflatable dog-shaped pool float hanging from the ceiling.

I spent the next seven weeks watching every episode of J! I could, practicing my buzz-ins with a clicker pen and keeping track of both my correct and incorrect answers. Per the contestant brief, I assembled an array of cute, camera-ready outfits. I worked very hard to not tell anyone besides immediate family and very close friends what I was doing. We managed to go to Los Angeles for nearly a week in late August and not raise too much suspicion.

I don’t want to spoil too much of the game day experience for future J! contestants, but here are my big takeaways from my taping.

1. The buzzer is really hard! It is nothing like a clicker pen. It doesn’t click. It’s more like a video game joystick, and it’s shockingly sensitive despite not moving very much when you buzz in. I found this to be the single hardest part of competing, as you no doubt noticed if you watched me frantically mashing the button during the first round of my first game.

2. The set is, in my opinion, beautiful. The screen is huge and all-enveloping. The colors are vibrant. They keep it quite cold in there, but trust me: you will not notice once you start playing the game.

3. Jeopardy! is an incredibly well-oiled machine, which is what you would expect from such a beloved institution. Producers and staff want to make it as seamless an experience for you as possible, and they succeed in that in every way. They tape five episodes a day, so it’s all got to run smoothly! Plus: as a non-showbiz person, it’s kind of cool to eat lunch in a studio commissary.

4. Everyone that makes it onto the show is a regular person who loves J! with all their heart, and is just beyond excited to be there. I truly loved meeting everyone on my tape day. They genuinely could not have been nicer and more supportive. It’s a cliche, but I really wish everyone could have won. They all deserve it.

5. Ken is great. He’s as witty and charming as he seems.

Game one was a nail biter. We had a watch party at Orono Brewing Company in Orono on Wednesday night, and by the end of round one I legitimately had to ask myself during the commercial break “Wait, did I win?” And then I was impressed by my own comeback, which I already knew had happened because it’s me and I was there. Thank you, Lindsay Vonn. Thank you, “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Dr. Strangelove.”

I came into game two feeling confident, but quickly ran into a few snags. Two categories involving wordplay (Word Puzzles and Quasi-Related Pairs) which are among my least favorite types of clues. A missed opportunity in not answering Linda Hamilton, a.k.a Sarah Freaking Connor. And Nicolas, an extremely nice kid from Florida who is ridiculously smart and, of course, knew the answer to Final Jeopardy (The Everglades!).

And then it was over! Including my second-place finish on the second game, I won just over $20,000, which (after taxes) is enough to pay off some credit card debt, put in a new shower and flooring in our upstairs bathroom, go on a decent vacation and sock a little away. It’s been a tough financial year, so it is all incredibly welcome. It is not enough to change our lives, but don’t worry: my life has been changed. My goals in going on the show were A. To make it to Final Jeopardy and B. Win one game. You only have to win one to be a champion, and goshdarnit, that’s what I did.

Really, though, there’s a third goal: I wanted to make both my parents and my town, Bangor, proud. I take a lot of pride in living in the Queen City, and really, I am who I am because my mom and my dad encouraged me from literally the second I was born. After school classes on mask-making, jazz and tap, landscape painting? Sure. You’re collecting cool bugs out in the neighbor’s field? Great. You want to watch “Citizen Kane” instead of going to a classmate’s 14th birthday party? OK. You’re writing a “novel” at age 10? Let’s get you a typewriter (yes, an actual typewriter) for Christmas. How about a few more Eyewitness Books to go with it - “Aztec, Inca & Maya” looks right up your alley (I still have a copy of this, btw).

I think a lot of J! contestants likely have similar stories or backgrounds. One of the reasons I think the show is so special and is so much more than “just” a game show is that it is truly one of the last pieces of mainstream culture in the U.S. that celebrates learning, knowledge and - let’s be real - facts. It is entirely based upon knowable things, documented and agreed upon and widely accepted. No fake news. No slop. No bad science. And as if that wasn’t enough, it’s a bastion of fair play and integrity in competition. Can you imagine someone being a visibly sore loser on the show? Unacceptable.

In our current socio-political climate, Jeopardy! is something you can hang onto as a reliable bastion of civility and humanity. The rhythms of it are predictable - even if the clues certainly are not - and it’s always on at the same time in the place you call home. That makes me happy. That makes me feel safe. I’m honored I got to be a tiny part of it.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where I will fully admit I am a bit on the tired side after going to Orono Brewing Company last night to watch my Jeopardy! debut with a bunch of friends and then staying up late to answer approximately 400,000 texts and messages. It was completely overwhelming and absolutely wonderful and I am so profoundly grateful to everyone I have ever met. Hello to all my new subscribers! I’ll be sharing a much more in depth post about my J! experience soon. To all my longtime subscribers: I promise that in relatively short order this Substack will return to being primarily about weird Maine things. I’m on TV again tonight! Watch it!

In other news:

• I’m not particularly shocked that Susan Collins got a kickback from a military contractor for pushing through a multi-million dollar naval contract to build 3D-printed boats at the University of Maine. That sounds completely on-brand for her. The real question is: are Mainers happy with someone that uses her power and position to benefit herself?

• A fisherman in Searsport caught an insanely rare Pokemon - excuse me, lobster - in the nearly-impossible “cotton candy” color morph.

• Maine Preservation’s list of the most endangered historic sites in Maine includes Wild Blueberry Land in Columbia Falls - you know, the place just off Route 1 with the blueberry-themed geodesic dome? The concern is not with the buildings, which appear to be in fine shape, but with finding someone to take over the property for the next generation. Anyone want to go in on buying a geodesic dome with me? Great place to start a cult!

• Devin Finigan at Aragosta at Goose Cove in Deer Isle is one of the best chefs in Maine and I for one plan to make this recipe of hers that was featured this week in the New York Times.

I remember this date well. I was 14 years old, and Pearl Jam - a band that I had loved since getting a copy of “Ten” for, appropriately, my tenth birthday - was set to play a show at the Augusta Civic Center on Sept. 26, 1996, 30 years ago this week. Yes, that’s right: the Augusta Civic Center. Maybe the fourth largest arena in the state? A place that even to this day is widely regarded as a pretty crappy venue? More importantly: 45 minutes from my hometown?!

Pearl Jam’s first and so far only appearance in Maine came as a result of the band’s famous tour of non-corporate music venues across the country in protest of Ticketmaster’s unfair practices, like BS fees and monopolistic behavior. Instead of playing Madison Square Garden, the band played civic centers and ballfields, and charged a maximum of $25 all-in for tickets. Pearl Jam, of course, were totally right: Ticketmaster, now wholly owned by the equally monopolistic behemoth Live Nation, was the subject of a massive antitrust lawsuit that they lost in April of this year. Noble though their cause was, however, even one of the biggest bands of the 1990s couldn’t make touring work outside of the large venue network. Within a few years, the band was back to working with Ticketmaster.

For me, however, I remember all of this primarily for my being “too young” to go to such a concert, and that I was one of a very few girls in my school that generally preferred rock music. I later learned that basketball legend Dennis Rodman - who I loved because he was so crazy and colorful - showed up in Augusta and sang “Alive” with Eddie Vedder. Seriously? I was so pissed.

Music & Dance

Sept. 25-27: Live music daily; Mood, 6 p.m. Friday; Circus Mutt, 6 p.m. Saturday; Tim Seeley, 4 p.m. Sunday, Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

Sept. 26: Along for the Ride dance band, 6 p.m., Brooksville Community Center, Brooksville

Sept. 26: Cadenzato, annual faculty music recital, 7:30 p.m., Minsky Recital Hall, University of Maine, Orono

Sept. 27: Ivalas String Quarter, 3 p.m., Minsky Recital Hall, University of Maine, Orono

Sept. 28: Volcandra, Grave Ripper and Darkwound, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Sept. 30: “The American Story Through Song,” musical revue by due Sultana, 7 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

Theater & Comedy

Sept. 24-27: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “On Golden Pond,” nightly at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

Sept. 26: “All Things Equal: The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsberg,” 7 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

Sept. 24: “Saving Black Bear,” local film screening, 1 and 6 p.m., Black Bear Cinemas, Orono

Sept. 24: “Ambiguous Allegiances in the Revolutionary Northeast: Wabanaki Diplomacy, Patriot Defeat, and British Fort George” talk by Liam Riordan, 5 p.m. Castine Historical Society, Castine

Sept. 24: Author event with with Alice Hotopp and Coco Faber, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

Sept. 24: Red Rabbit Film Club screens “Frankenhooker,” 7 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

Sept. 25: Ellsworth Historical Society presents “You Be the Jury: The Unsolved 1815 Ellsworth Axe Murder,” mock trial, 6 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth

Sept. 25: Manhattan Short Film Festival, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Sept. 25-26: “Blade Runner: The Final Cut,” daily, Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Sept. 27: Northern Maine Outdoor Movie Fest, 3 p.m., Center Theatre, Dover-Foxcroft

Sept 29: “What Happens to Bangor’s Trash?” community learning session, 5:30 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor

Sept. 29: “Saving Walden’s World,” local documentary screening, 7 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

Sept. 25-27: 50th annual Common Ground Country Fair, MOFGA headquarters, Unity

Sept. 25-26: Fling Into Fall, annual fall festival feat. music, crafts, food, activities and more; throughout downtown Searsport

Sept. 25-26: Autumn Gold, annual fall festival and community gathering, throughout Ellsworth

Sept. 25-27: Old Town Riverfest, annual community-wide celebration, throughout Old Town and at Binette Park on waterfront, Old Town

Sept. 26: Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncakes, parade and more; 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor

Sept. 26: Carmel Days, annual community festival, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Mick Fahey Recreation Field, Carmel

Sept. 29: “Sesame Street Live: Elmo’s Got The Moves,” 6 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor

The featured image for today’s post is a drawing created at the age of six by none other than my husband, Zach. He drew it for his godmother, Sara Cox, a second grade teacher from Bangor who in 1990 won four whole games on Jeopardy! and even made it to the Tournament of Champions in 1991. Aunt Sally, as she is known in our family, brought the drawing to our eternal J! king, Alex Trebek, who was kind enough to sign it for her and comment on the incredible gift Zach clearly showed in getting his likeness exactly correct. 36 years later, it still hangs in Sally’s house. I love that the J! legacy is so strong in the Bangor region - last night, fellow contestants Allen Adams and Kara Perucchio even came to my watch party (photo below!), and I also heard from fellow former contestant and Bangor-area state representative Amy Roeder. I have to wonder if Bangor has one of the highest per capita rates of contestants in the country. What’s in the water here?

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I was slightly overwhelmed by the response to my BIG NEWS that I’m going to appear on Jeopardy! next week. Hi there, new subscribers! We have fun here. None of this feels real to me. I’m not used to being the subject of news articles. I’m the one that writes them!

• It was genuinely delightful to see the long line of people waiting to get into the new Flagg Trading Co., the card shop in downtown Bangor opened by Tyler Flagg and his cousin, NBA superstar and Newport native Cooper Flagg!

• Oh goody, more measles cases in Maine. At an urgent care in Waterville. The sixth one this year. Honestly? Gross.

• The ongoing saga of how some far right activists (funded in part by Maine Policy Center, the same folks that bring you the Maine Wire) managed to take over and destabilize a Hancock County school board is not actually shocking. These are deliberate acts by extremists bent on undermining our public schools and pushing their agenda - an agenda that seems to mostly consist of hating trans people and making it easier for children to get measles and other diseases. Can you imagine that being your motivator in life? Sad.

• A very good article about the slow, careful process of adapting to climate change - or, if you don’t like that word, the fact that flooding and rising ocean temperatures are definitely coming down the pike - in rural communities in Maine.

• Our friends at the Midcoast Villager put together this excellent guide to all the local programming at this year’s Camden International Film Festival, which kicks off today.

• Does anyone have a wild personal story - like this guy’s tale of falling down a mine shaft in Cape Rosier - they’d like to share with me? I would so love to hear your crazy Maine anecdotes.

  The Other Maine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

  

Sometimes I truly find almost nothing of note in my weekly perusal of This Week In Headlines in the Bangor Daily News. Once in a while, however, I stumble across gold - like this headline about two Ellsworth teens who in 1926 “eloped” with the help of a car-stealing friend. The elopers, Nellie Piper and David Coughlin, were both 14 at the time of their departure, and had apparently tried to run off several times before finally successfully escaping the clutches of their parents and their school. They managed to do it thanks to their friend Colby Foss, an older teen who stole a car from Linnehan’s Garage and drove them out into the woods. The story ended up going national, with the New York Times covering the wayward teens, who eventually were believed to have made it to Canada - though in reality, they were hiding out in a camp not far from Ellsworth. They were recaptured and returned home on Sept. 24 of that year. You can watch this video made by fellow Substacker Hidden Lens History for a little more info on the story. Not a lot of stories these days about teenagers eloping!

Music & Dance

Sept. 18: Isaac Raven, Mannequin Republic and The Leeches, 8 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

Sept. 18-20: Strung Together: A Maine String Band weekend, three days of music, workshops and more; Searsport Shores Ocean Campground, Searsport

Sept. 19: ‘80 and ‘90s dance party with I Want My MTV, 7 p.m., Center Theatre, Dover-Foxcroft

Sept. 19: Bangor Celtic Crossroads presents Will Woodson and Cait Finley, 7 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer

Sept. 20: Filth, Kryptosporidium and End Your Life, 6 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Sept. 20: Songwriter Caroline Cotter, 2 p.m., First Congregational Church, Blue Hill

Sept. 22: The Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms Band w/ fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves, 7 p.m., American Legion Hall, Belfast

Sept. 22: Bear Bones Trombone Quartet, 7:30 p.m., Minsky Recital Hall, University of Maine, Orono

Sept. 23: The Robert Cray Band, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Theatre & Comedy

Sept. 17-20: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “On Golden Pond,” nightly at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

Sept. 18-19: Counter/Current Collective presents “My Boyfriend Bonhoeffer,” 7 p.m., First Church, Belfast

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

Sept. 17: “Stop Calling America An Experiment,” 2026 Constitution Day Lecture by Prof. Gregory Collins, 3:30 p.m., Barrows Hall, University of Maine, Orono

Sept. 17: “The Burning of the Royal Tar, 1836,” talk by Capt. Dennis Dorsey, 5 p.m., Castine Historical Society, Castine

Sept. 18-19: “North By Northwest,” classic film screening, nightly, Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Sept. 19: Presentation on historic timber hewing, 1 p.m., Jonathan Fisher House, Blue Hill

Sept. 19: Poetry Reading with Claire Millikin and James Brasfield, 3 p.m. Anodyne Books, Searsport

Sept. 19: “Tire Tracks,” local documentary screening, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Sept. 20: 40th anniversary screening of the original “Transformers” movie, 7 p.m., Black Bear Cinemas, Orono

Sept. 21: “How Maine Birds Have Changed,” talk by Audubon birder Zachary Holderby, 7 p.m., United Methodist Church, Penobscot

Sept. 22: “Live to Hike Another Day,” best practices for hiking with Erica Dubois, 6 p.m., Bangor Public Library

Sept. 22: Book talk and discussion with NYT best selling author Michael Koryta, 7 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

Sept. 22: Belfast Poetry Festival presents “Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming,” documentary screening, 6:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

Sept. 18-20: Stephen King’s Birthday Carnival, three days of Stephen King-themed events in downtown Bangor, including street fair, film screening, “Pet Sematary” pet parade, beer fest and more; click here for more info

Sept. 19: Bangor Waterfront Craft Fair and Food Truck roundup, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Bangor Waterfront

I really like this song. It scratches that jangly indie pop R.E.M. meets early Wilco meets Big Star vibe. I feel good listening to it. I feel like I’m driving in a car with my friends and we are on our way to a fun day at the lake. That’s it. Enjoy your weekend!

When I asked Michael Senko, a PhD student in linguistics at Stanford University, if he thought I had a Maine accent, we shared a slightly knowing smile. We both knew I didn’t. Despite growing up surrounded by Maine accents, I simply don’t speak that way. Well, unless I’ve had a couple drinks around a bonfire. Or I want the guy at the garage fixing my car to like me.

Senko would know - he spent most of his summer in Eastport, conducting hours and hours of field research into the regional characteristics of the Maine accent Down East, specifically far eastern Washington County. Despite Down East arguably being the epicentre of the Maine accent, Senko said that there’s been virtually no sociolinguistic research done on the accent and ways of speaking of Mainers outside of Aroostook County and southern Maine.

Senko is aiming to change that with his work at Stanford, which has one of the top linguistics programs in the world. Armed with a built-in knowledge of Maine - he grew up in Massachusetts, but he came to Maine all the time as a kid, and his parents now live in the Augusta area - he’s hoping to document the unique characteristics of how folks Down East talk. We talked last week about accents, identity, and adding an extra “r” to the end of words like “pizza.”

First off: why the Maine accent? There’s such a vast array of topics you could have picked for your PhD. Why this one?

I mainly work on language variation and change, specifically in sound structure, in the phonetics and phonology area of linguistics. Typically, people who study that locate their studies in specific communities, because we want to understand the social motivation for sound change… I also really, really wanted to do fieldwork in my PhD. That was a top goal. I was trying to think of places to do it, and I had all these family members on my mom’s side from Maine. They had all these very interesting features in the way they speak, like the intrusive R.

That’s just like adding an R where it doesn’t belong, right? You’ll add an R at the end of something if there’s a vowel at the end? I had a middle school teacher who would pronounce pizza as “pizzer” or Toyota as “Toyoter.”

Yeah, exactly. That was something I thought of so clearly, because it’s a very interesting feature in general. It follows these really specific rules. I also came to realize that there just hasn’t really been all that much work done on Down East Maine in general. People have looked at Aroostook County, but then all the rest of the work came from southern Maine, which is really very limited. There’s really been nothing done in terms of sociolinguistics in that entire region, which is actually pretty rare. People have studied very rural, relatively isolated places across all of North America, and especially in the US. And yet in Washington County? Basically nothing.

It’s arguably one of the most well-known regional accents that a lot of people can pick out, but Down East, it just simply hasn’t really been studied. That seems wild to me!

New England as a region is probably the most studied region in American dialectology, which just makes it more surprising that there’s this huge chunk of Maine that people just haven’t really looked at. You can look at atlases of North American English, and you can look at the dialect regions that they draw on, and some of them just leave out most of Down East, full stop. They assume that we know things about the Maritimes, and we know things about New England, and so they assume that Down East must just be some sort of combination. That’s a big assumption.

If I were to think of the place where the Maine accent is most prevalent, I would immediately think of Washington County, along with other parts of the coast. Why has it carried on more prominently in those parts of the state? Is it simply isolation? Or is there some other reason?

It’s a combination of things. Isolation definitely plays a big role, but that’s obviously not the full story, because something that I find really interesting about Eastport is that for most of its history, it actually has not been a very isolated place. It was a commercial and shipping hub for a large part of the East Coast, and even internationally. There were boats and people coming into Eastport for hundreds of years from all over the place. It wasn’t like they weren’t having any interaction with people who weren’t from there.

One thing that people have looked at is that the closer you get to a demarcated border, like the Maine-Canada border, is that the accent can actually become stronger. The dialectal features can become a way of sort of signifying or marking differences. As you get closer to a border people, tend to emphasize the features that say, “This is us.” I think a big part of it is social and cultural. There is a whole separate project to be done on the use of the word Down East across all of Maine.

People get real fast and loose with it, in my opinion.

People that I was talking to in Eastport felt very sure that they were Down East, and that other parts of the state were not.

Do people use their accents as a way to signify who they are and what they care about?

You can use the phonetic properties of language to express the concerns of a community. And if a concern of a community is being this authentic Down East person in a world that is changing so much, then one way to do that is through language. Eastport itself has this deep, ingrained pride, which I’m sure many other communities in Down East do as well. They are consciously very proud of where they are from.

I think there’s pride, and almost like a defiance in being a Mainer. There’s two sides to that, of course, because, that can also mean that you are resistant to outsiders, but I also think there’s a legitimate distrust of people that come in with lots of money and power and try to take advantage of us, or exploit us. Mainers have every right to be skeptical of moneyed interests from away. There’s a trust that has to be earned. But on the other hand, it’s like, OK, slow down, buddy. This nice middle-class family from Massachusetts just wants to live here too. They’re not the problem. I see both sides of that equation.

When I was conducting these sociolinguistic interviews, I asked all kinds of questions, not just so I could hear the way they speak, but also because I was just incredibly interested in what they had to say. Within the same interview, when I would ask about people from away, people would at some points be so defiant, as you said, and so critical and almost, like, unapologetically opposed. But then other points also would be, like, oh, well, you know, my neighbor actually isn’t from here, and she’s super nice. There’s an interpersonal warmness that I also think is endemic to Maine. Like, if he treats me all right, then I’ll treat him right too.

You often hear that these little regional accents all across the country are flattening, and that some of the diversity of the way people speak is sort of disappearing. What’s your take on that? Is it inevitable?

Language varies within people and across communities and across regions, and it’s also constantly changing. Across the country, people seem to be converging with some specific features. But the thing that they are converging towards is also changing itself… It’s not like it just stays this monolithic, standard perfect English or whatever. It also is going through all of its own changes.

When we look at local communities, we can identify local features and see that they are receding over time. But I think there needs to be a lot more work within linguistics at analyzing what people are actually shifting towards. That, I think, is a question that we actually don’t have a lot of data to answer right now. That is the reason why I stay optimistic. It just makes me sad when people characterize it as this monolithic, unchanging thing, because I promise it’ll keep changing.

Is there a particular piece of slang or a colloquialism that you heard in your research that either you just enjoyed, or that was unique in some way?

I really love the phrase, “right out straight.” I’ve found myself saying it. I find it really useful. I love that. One thing I thought was also really interesting was the inhalation to say yes.

Oh yeah, like when you kind of inhale as you’re kind of saying yes, right? I actually do that, even though I really don’t think I have much of a Maine accent.

That one is really interesting because some people would use it totally unconsciously and not be aware of it at all. I also thought it would be more reserved for the older speakers. But it wasn’t. A lot of people could also comment on it as a thing they do. I would be really curious to know, for the speakers who seem to use it unconsciously, when do they use it, and when do they actually say “yeah” or “yes” or “uh huh.” We call those things discourse markers, because they don’t really convey a literal semantic meaning, but they shape the nature of discourse. I’d want to figure out what those contexts are, between just saying yes or using the inhaled version. It’s a very unique sound, because we don’t typically make sounds when we’re inhaling. It’s a feature that’s really unique to places like Maine.

Here’s the million dollar question. Do you think in another 30 or so years, we’re still going to hear Maine accents?

I mean, I think it might become more subtle. And for sure, the features that once signaled Maine or even once signaled Down East are probably changing. I would hope, if you took a recording of someone from Maine, and you played it to people in other parts of the country, or the West Coast or something, they’d know there was something there. I also don’t see the specific pride in being from Maine going away. I think language is a great vessel to do that work in.

Hi everybody,

We interrupt your regular The Other Maine posting schedule for an important announcement. I have been sitting on a big surprise for the past two months, and now I finally get to tell people: next week I’ll be appearing on Jeopardy!

No, I’m not kidding. I got to hold the buzzer. I got to see the big screen. I got to meet Ken Jennings (or, as he’s known in our house, Jen Kennings). I got to be in the house Trebek built. It was, as you might expect, awesome.

Tune in this Wednesday, Sept. 23 to see me go toe to toe with my fellow nerds. Jeopardy! airs weeknights at 7:30 p.m. EST on your local ABC affiliate in Maine; elsewhere, you can check your local listings. You know what time Jeopardy! is on, don’t you? Of course you do. It’s Jeopardy!

You have no idea how hard it’s been to keep my mouth shut all this time. I somehow managed to go to California last month and only a select few people knew what I was doing, or that I was even going at all! I still can’t believe this actually happened to me. Later on, I will share a full story about my Jeopardy! journey. Spoiler alert: it starts in elementary school. If you know me, you know that’s probably not really a spoiler because of the, you know, everything about me. I read encyclopedias for fun. Going on Jeopardy! feels very me-coded.

Sept. 23. You. Me. Ken. 61 clues. Be sure to watch!

Your pal,

Emily

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this past weekend, our dreams of Labor Day swimming, paddling and grilling were dashed by two full days of gusty winds and intermittent downpours. We stayed inside and did crossword puzzles. Not such a bad alternative.

• Such was the wind, in fact, that it partially destroyed the set for the annual performance of “Charlotte’s Web” at the Blue Hill Fair, and actually injured a woman in the process. I’m sorry that happened, but wow: that’s so Maine.

• Imagine being such an outright asshole that your sister writes a heartfelt editorial saying that you are unfit to run for public office and that people should vote for your opponent. No, I’m not talking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr, although that happened to him too. No, I’m not talking about that guy in Arizona whose entire family said he was super racist. I’m talking about Maine GOP gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles. That guy. Yikes.

• I hope someone who actually cares about the legacy of a great Maine artist buys Robert Indiana’s iconic Vinalhaven home and studio, and not some rich guy from New York or Connecticut who will turn it into an overpriced boutique hotel or worse. I find this entire saga about Indiana’s estate to be really sad and disheartening.

• I think it’s pretty great that NBA phenom and Newport native Cooper Flagg and his cousin are opening Flagg Trading Co., a card shop, this weekend in downtown Bangor, in the space that formerly housed Salty Brick Market. The fact that Flagg and his family are leveraging his extremely high profile to open a local business that will likely be very popular among collectibles fans - and will bring new people to downtown - is a huge win for Bangor.

• People with kids in Maine schools: how are they adjusting to Maine’s new law prohibiting cell phone use in public schools? Are they twitching and panicking after being away from their phones for seven hours? Or is it all good? I’m very curious.

  If you become a paid subscriber, I get to afford things like health insurance and housing. It costs as little as $7 per month, and you get to say that you actively support Maine writers and creators! Yay!

  

I’m old enough to remember when the footbridge crossing the Passagassawaukeag River in Belfast was so old and crumbling that people were banned from walking on it. Heck, I’m old enough to remember the old car bridge - an ancient structure that was replaced in the late 1990s and caused several seasons of complaining about the traffic hold ups on Route 1. That bridge actually replaced the footbridge, which prior to the 1960s originally carried Route 1 connecting East Belfast to the rest of town. Thankfully, community-loving Belfastians mounted a campaign to save the footbridge, raising a whopping $4 million to restore the span for generations to come. It officially re-opened 20 years ago this week, and it’s now a beloved feature of the Belfast Waterfront, for walkers, bikers, anglers and tourists.

Music & Dance

Sept. 10: Sea chantey singalong, 3 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

Sept. 10: The Hirs Collective, Impetigore, Horse Funeral and Gash Pile, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Sept. 11: Songs and stories with Don Sarlin, 6 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

Sept. 11: Crystal Vision: Fleetwood Mac tribute band, 7 p.m., The Grand Theatre, Ellsworth

Sept. 11: Danny Fisher and the Lochhead Large Ensemble, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Sept. 11: Drake White and Stephanie Ryan, 8 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Sept. 12: Community contradance, 4 p.m., Searsmont Town Library, Searsmont

Sept. 12: Baroque Orchestra of Maine (BOOM), 7 p.m., First Congregational Church, Blue Hill

Sept. 16: Prince Edward Island kitchen party with Cynthia MacLeod and Gordon Belsher, 6 p.m., Black Moon Public House, Ellsworth

Theatre & Comedy

Sept. 10-13: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “On Golden Pond,” nightly at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

Sept. 10-13: The Belfast Maskers present “Bookworms,” comedy play, nightly at the Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast

Sept. 11: Bread & Puppet Theatre present “The Upside Down World Circus,” 6:30 p.m., The Bay School, Blue Hill

Sept. 12: High Stakes House of Comedy presents comics Jimmy Dunn and Tony V, 8 p.m. Hollywood Casino, Bangor

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

Sept. 10: Book launch for “A Blind Spider” by Moe Claire, 5 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth

Sept. 11: Book launch for “Landscape with Rocks, Sky, Nails: Poems” by Judy Kaber, 6 p.m., Belfast Free Library, Belfast

Sept. 12: Author talk by Joasha Dundas on her book, “Rosa’s Scarf,” 2 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth

Sept. 12: Maine Outdoor Film Festival, 6 p.m., Boreal Theatre, Millinocket

Sept. 13: “Million Dollar Mermaid,” classic film screening, 1 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

Sept. 13: Talk on Helen Nearing’s “Loving and Leaving the Good Life,” by Kate Braestrap, 4 p.m., The Good Life Center, Brooksville

Sept. 15: “Louis Sockalexis & the Integration of Professional Sports,” talk by author Chris Boucher, 11 a.m., Old Town Public Library, Old Town

Sept. 15: “The New Deal at Work: Frances Perkins, Labor Reform and the Continuing Legacy,” panel discussion, 6 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth

Sept. 16: An evening with Maine author Debra Colby, 6 p.m., Pittsfield Public Library, Pittsfield

Sept. 16: Red Rabbit Film Club w/ Andrew Clark screens “The Sword of Doom,” 7 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

Sept. 11-13: International Seaplane Fly-In Festival, throughout Greenville and on Moosehead Lake, Greenville; more info here

Sept. 12: Great Event Community Yard Sale and Festival, food, activities, music, more; 8 a.m.-1 p.m., Stockton Springs Community Library, Stockton Springs

Sept. 12: Orono Festival Day, full day of music, food, fun, parade, fireworks, sports and more, throughout downtown Orono and University of Maine campus, 8 a.m.-8:30 p.m., Orono

Sept. 12: UMaine Cooperative Extension Garden Fest and Fun Run, 10 a.m.- 1 p.m., Rogers Farm, Orono

Sept. 12: Dark Sky Maine star party, feat. live music, food and stargazing, 4-10 p.m., Flye Point, Brooklin

Sept. 13: 10th annual Maine Cheese Festival, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Manson Park, Pittsfield

This only tangentially has to do with Maine, but earlier this week I spent over an hour poking around the brand new Cooperative National Geologic Map, published earlier this month in its entirety, including all 50 states plus U.S. territories. It’s the first-ever digital map of all geologic data across the entire country, bringing together both the U.S. Geological Survey and state geologic surveys to produce a comprehensive look at the ground beneath our feet.

As you may know, I love maps, and I love accessible, easy-to-understand public science. If you love that kind of thing too, this map is so fun to explore - it really gets down to the granular detail, to the point where you can see data for specific towns and regions. For example, while most of Maine is made up of glacial till left over from the last Ice Age, there are all sorts of cool pockets of Paleozoic volcanic rock scattered all over the state - I didn’t know a big chunk of Bucksport was sitting on igneous rock! Nor did I know that most of the little islands off Stonington are volcanic as well.

Yes, I realize how nerdy this makes me sound. That’s why you like me though, right? Some weeks you’re going to get underground avant-garde electronic music recommendations. And some weeks you’re going to find out about plutonic intrusions into Maine’s otherwise boring geologic landscape. That’s what it’s like living in The Other Maine! Oof. Yeah, I didn’t like that attempt at branding, either.

If you combine something pumpkin spice-flavored, a cozy scarf, a bag of freshly-picked apples, a leaf-peeping drive, an apple cider donut, a bonfire, a jack o’lantern and a big ol’ flannel shirt, I believe what happens is you are spiritually transformed into a being of pure autumnal energy, and are elevated to a higher plane of fall-themed existence, where every candle smells like cinnamon buns and every outfit is perfectly layered to achieve infinite fall inspo.

Or, you know, you could skip all that and just attend one of the vast array of fall events throughout eastern and central Maine this year, which I have organized and listed for you here. There are so many of them I couldn’t even realistically fit them all without this story being WAY too long. I didn’t even include Halloween-themed events! I also didn’t include the Common Ground Fair, because it’s so obviously the greatest fall event in Maine (in all of New England, perhaps?) and all these smaller events deserve a little love, too! You can read my guide to all things CGF here.

That said, if I did miss something important, please leave a comment or email me at emilyburnham207 (at) gmail dot com. I’ll aim to fix it! Fall is secretly (or not so secretly) the best season in Maine. Yeah, I said it. You know it’s true.

Trails End Festival, Millinocket

The Katahdin region does big events right - from the fabulous Millinocket Marathon in December, to the Trails End Festival, this year set for Sept. 11-13 at Veterans Park in the ‘Nocket. It’s got three full days of live music, including roots, classic country, bluegrass and r&b bands from all over Maine. A parade for both people and for dogs, kid’s activities, food, vendors and a demonstration by the UMaine Woodsmen Team round out the lineup. Pair it with a jaunt to Baxter State Park or Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument, and you have the makings of an epic weekend in the Maine woods.

Maine Wienerfest, Belfast

I mean, come on. It’s dachshunds - hundreds of them, if the weather is good - taking over the Belfast Waterfront. A veritable army of wiener dogs, with their humans accompanying in events like the Grand Parade of Dachshunds, the Doxie Derby and the Canine Costume Contest, the latter of which non-wiener dogs may also enter. It’s free, but you can donate to the PAWS Animal Shelter to help them help pets. It’s set this year for 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 13 at Steamboat Landing Park in Belfast. I mean, come on. Just look at them.

Maine Apple Sunday, statewide

Apple picking season peaks in Maine in mid-September, and the Maine Pomological Society celebrates it with the annual Maine Apple Sunday, this year set for Sunday, Sept. 13 at apple orchards all across the state. In the Bangor region and eastern Maine, some participating orchards include Conant’s in Etna, which will host a comedy and beer festival on Sept. 12, followed by apple-centric fall festivities on the 13th. Mullis Orchards in Corinna and Cayford Orchards in Skowhegan are also participating.

Stephen King’s Birthday Carnival, Bangor

Bangor’s most beloved resident turns 79 on Sept. 21, and for the third year in a row, 2 Feet Brewing and SK Tours are teaming up to plan a weekend celebration in his honor. This year’s event is set for Sept. 18-20, and kicks off with a book signing on Friday with Tom Deady, author of “40 Years of Pennywise,” at The Emporium Spooky Goods & More in downtown Bangor. On Saturday, The Emporium hosts a Stephen King memorabilia and book appraisal event in the morning and screening of “Dollar Baby” short films in the afternoon, and there’s a beer festival themed to Derry - Bangor’s sinister alter ego - is set for 4-8 p.m. on Columbia Street. The main event - the carnival and “Pet Sematary” pet parade - is set for 2-5 p.m., also on Columbia Street. Tickets are $55 and are all-inclusive of all events.

Fling Into Fall, Searsport

My sweet little hometown has hosted Fling Into Fall for more than 20 years, and it’s everything you’d want out of a traditional small town fall festival. Parade! Spaghetti supper! 5k run! Craft market! Bingo! Dance party! Wagon rides! A big bonfire! Pumpkins and apples galore! This year’s event is set for Sept. 25-26 throughout downtown Searsport.

Autumn Gold, Ellsworth

Not to be outdone, Ellsworth has its own fall festival, also set for Sept. 25-26 and also featuring a plethora of autumnal activities. Autumn Gold features a pancake breakfast, storefront decorating contest, car show, golf tournament, a Kid Zone, a line dancing party and other fun events across town.

Old Town Riverfest, Old Town

Old Town’s most precious asset is the mighty Penobscot River, and each year, the city celebrates it with a big ol’ festival. This year’s Old Town Riverfest is set for Sept. 25-27, and features fireworks, food trucks, live music, a parade, a car show, a craft fair, a big show from the UMaine Marching Band, a community-wide yard sale and more.

Hirundo Fall Fest, Old Town

With 2,400 scenic acres along the Pushaw Stream, Hirundo Wildlife Refuge is a jewel in the natural landscape of the greater Bangor area. Yes, I may be biased, since I work with Hirundo to promote and support them as a nonprofit! There’s a reason I’m proud to be on their team, though - the fact that one of its core missions is to make outdoor recreation accessible to all, regardless of physical ability or cost, is something I really believe in. Hirundo’s Fall Fest is set for 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday, October 3, and will feature an array of educational, interactive activities for people of all ages, alongside food vendors, craft stations, boat rides in the pond, nature walks and more. I can say with 100 percent certainty that Hirundo is absolutely beautiful that time of year!

SardineFest, Searsport

Searsport is a happening place to be this fall! The Penobscot Marine Museum hosts its second annual SardineFest from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, celebrating all things fishy. For several years now, the PMM has been engaging with communities statewide to remember and record Maine’s sardine industry. SardineFest shines a light on all of it, with family activities, demonstrations, live music, lectures, salty sardine tales, vendors and other exhibitors and, of course, sardine tastings. Best of all: it’s free, and this year there is 100 percent more Big Jim.

Living History Days at Leonard’s Mills, Bradley

As a certified history nerd, I love a historical re-enactment. The Maine Forest and Logging Museum at Leonard’s Mills in Bradley hosts one of the best such events in Maine, with this year’s Living History Days set for Oct. 3-4. This immersive weekend brings the museum to life with historical reenactors, traditional craftspeople, cider pressing, livestock demonstrations, and all the sights, sounds, and smells of a working 18th-century village. Who wouldn’t want to see a Lombard log hauler in action? If you’re that person we’re probably not going to be friends.

Downtown Bangor Sidewalk Arts Festival, Bangor

A dizzying array of vendors take over Central and Harlow streets in downtown Bangor for the fall edition of the Sidewalk Arts Festival, this year set for 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3. There’s some excellent shopping to be done at this well-attended yearly event, and the people-watching is pretty great too!

Maine Maple Fall Fest, statewide

Pumpkin, apple and maple complete the trifecta of traditional fall flavors - think cozy, sweet, spicy, earthy. Maine’s maple sugarhouses host a fall version of their springtime maple weekend, with Maine Maple Fall Fest this year set for Oct. 10-11. Some participating sugarhouses in eastern and central Maine include Mattakeunk Maple in Lee, Honeybee Acres Farm in Orrington, Moosehead Maple in Jackson and Wilson Family Maple Syrup in Albion.

Acadia Oktoberfest, Southwest Harbor

This is one of the OG beer festivals in Maine, and it’s still as fun now as it was when it first started more than 20 years ago. Break out your pigtails and dirndls and lederhosen and get your Oktoberfest on over the weekend of Oct. 10-11 at Smuggler’s Den Campground in Southwest Harbor, which will feature a vast array of Maine craft brewers and cider makers.

All Roads Music Festival, Belfast

This much-loved Maine indie music festival now has both a spring and fall edition, with the Belfast version moving from May to October. Regardless of the time of year, it is literally the best opportunity there is to listen to the best Maine music all in one weekend. This year, 26 bands and artists play in venues all over downtown Belfast over the weekend of Oct. 16-17. Not only is the music fantastic, but it’s just fun to hang out in Belfast. Go get a margarita at Rollie’s in between sets. That’s what I like to do, anyway.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, as I surveyed the wreckage of our backyard and garden, fried by this summer’s unrelenting sun into something resembling ramen noodles, I noticed a handful of red leaves already peeking out from the trees. Will it even be warm enough to float in the pond for Labor Day weekend? My sorrows compound.

• I love this story about Dale “Grey Beard” Sanders, who at age 91 this week reclaimed his title as the oldest-ever thru-hiker in Appalachian Trail history. Sanders reached the summit of Katahdin on Monday, cementing his place in hiking history. Would that we could all be so tough into our 90s!

• What do I have to do to have the Boston Globe pay me to write about eating lobster rolls in Castine? Sheesh. I always approach these sorts of stories with a bit of bemusement. And while we can all agree Castine is beautiful, it’s a bit irresponsible to mention Witherle Woods - a place I used to love to visit - without also mentioning the fact that you’ll emerge from a walk in the woods there absolutely covered in ticks. But hey: at least this article isn’t quite as myopic as the one the New York Times just published, recommending a $27 burger in Camden.

• New mural in downtown Bangor! The big, blank brick wall on the side of 2 Hammond St. will be transformed this month by artist Rachel Gloria Adams into a colorful tribute to iconic Bangor landmarks, utilizing designs created by local artists including Carlie Deshane, Juliana Cantreli, Nina Earley, Annette Dodd and Karen Nichols.

• New book alert: check out Hancock County resident Emerson Whitney’s new book, “O Mother,” out this week via McSweeney’s. It’s a searing memoir, set mostly in Maine, about disability, addiction and the complicated relationship children often have with their mothers. Well worth a read.

  The Other Maine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

For decades, some of the finest pottery made in New England was found at Rowantrees Pottery, the Blue Hill studio that starting in 1934 produced fine earthenware in a variety of colors and shapes. Its potters crafted each item by hand using old-world techniques - and old-fashioned ingredients that would turn out to be hazardous. Though U.S. safety standards had been updated since the early 1970s to recognize that no amount of lead is safe for humans, Rowantrees was still using lead glazes in its products as late as 1986 - no doubt to give their jugs, mugs and plates their depth of color, and as part of its long-running creative practice. Once the Food and Drug Administration got wind of the studio’s use of lead, it quickly moved to temporarily shut it down. A cleanup by the Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection was initiated, and Rowantrees was fined by OSHA for unsafe working conditions. By 1988, the cleanup was finished, the fines were paid, and Rowantrees would go on to operate for another three decades - without lead glazes. Today, former Rowantrees potter Geoff Miller carries on its tradition at his own studio, Lowell Hill Pottery in Blue Hill. While lead is long gone from the process, the beautiful earthenware items remain the same.

Music & Dance

Sept. 3: Belfast Summer Nights presents The Hot Suppers, 5 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast

Sept. 3: Benefit concert for H.O.M.E. Inc, feat. Birds on a Wire Ensemble, 7 p.m., Burnt Cove Church, Stonington

Sept. 3: Danny Bedrosian and Secret Army with Mike Billings, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Sept. 3: Pianist Liana Paniyeva, 7 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

Sept. 4-5: Somes Sound 5 p.m. Friday, Lazers in the Jungle 5 p.m. Saturday, Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

Sept. 4: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, 8 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Sept. 5: Alumni Jazz Band dance night, 7:30 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer

Sept. 5: Bite the Bullet, Knifebiter and Rope Trial, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Sept. 5: Breakin’ Strings bluegrass ensemble, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Sept. 6: ZZ Top, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Sept. 9: Parker McCollum, Vincent Mason and Owen Riegling, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Sept. 9: Bagaduce Music presents Quebecois duo Roy-James, 6 p.m., 49 South St. Blue Hill

Theatre & Comedy

Sept. 3-5: Witch Hunt Theatre presents “Closer Than You’d Think,” immersive theater performance, site-specific location on Hammond Street in Hermon; visit witchhunttheatre.com for tickets

Sept. 3-6: The Belfast Maskers present “Bookworms,” comedy play, nightly at the Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast

Sept. 4: Scripts in Spotlight playreading series reads “Silent Sky,” 7 p.m., The Stage Door, Bangor

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

Sept. 3: “Mary Oliver: Saved By the Beauty of the World,” 4:15 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

Sept. 3 Talk with executive director Perry Price on Haystack Mountain School of Crafts’ 75 anniversary, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

Sept. 4: First Friday Art Walk, 4-9 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor

Sept. 8: Talk by Judy Sandler on her book, “What Kind of Mother,” 7 p.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast

Sept. 9: Screening of local film “Saving Black Bear,” 7 p.m., Black Bear Cinemas, Orono

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

Sept. 3: Celebration of the designation of The Good Life Center to the National Historic Register, 10 a.m.- 3 p.m., The Good Life Center, Brooksville

Sept. 4-7: Harmony Free Fair, annual free agricultural fair and entertainment, Harmony Fairgrounds, Harmony

Sept. 5: Maine Audubon presents Brewer waterfront bird walk, 6 p.m., Brewer Waterfront Park, Brewer

Sept. 5: Bass Park After Dark artisan and food market, 4-9 p.m., Bass Park, Bangor

Sept. 3-7: The Blue Hill Fair, classic country fair, daily, Blue Hill Fairgrounds, Blue Hill

This is a very belated recommendation to watch “Tony,” the not-quite-a-biopic of Anthony Bourdain, which came out in theaters a couple weeks ago and which we managed to catch last week. You’re probably going to have to wait for it to hit streaming, but you can pay to rent it now or wait for it to show up on HBO Max a little later this year. Anyway, it’s a lovely film directed by the brilliant Matt Johnson, who also directed the fantastic “Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie,” and it is particularly evocative of the seaside towns we New Englanders know and love. It shows the young Tony (played beautifully by Dominic Sessa) as an incredibly intelligent young man full of potential, but as so many people are when they are 20-ish years old: he’s kind of an asshole. An irresistible asshole, but an asshole nonetheless. I still mourn the loss of Bourdain. It probably is a bit of a cliche, but I consider him to be one of my all-time biggest inspirations.

I’m actually going to single out another thing about the film, however: the soundtrack. It’s fantastic. It not only speaks to the mid-1970s in a beautiful way, but it also manages to capture something that’s at once full of swagger and full of melancholy - a very Bourdain sort of feeling. It also has Richard and Linda Thompson’s “Calvary Cross,” which is an all-time banger (especially the live version). In another life, I’d have enjoyed being a music supervisor for movies and TV. Whoever put this soundtrack together: I’m impressed.

I’ve spent countless hours with books, podcasts and documentaries about every type of cult that’s out there. Heaven’s Gate, Branch Davidians, NXIVM, the People’s Temple, Scientology, Aum Shinrikyo, you name it - I’m a bit obsessed. How does a person become the kind of sociopath that starts something like that? And how do otherwise regular people get sucked in, and often end up doing horrible things to themselves and others? I never tire of those questions.

Naturally, I have a particular interest in the cults that have formed or operated right here in Maine. There are a surprisingly large number of them - practical, skeptical Mainers might seem more immune to the charms of such charlatans, but that just shows how easily some people can be manipulated into joining groups that seem so detached from reality.

There’s the Holy Ghost and Us, a turn-of-the-19th-century Christian sect based in the town of Durham, founded by a Maine preacher who ended up taking his followers on a doomed ocean voyage around the world. There’s the Millerites, who in 1844 famously awaited the Rapture at locations throughout Maine only to experience what is now known as the “Great Disappointment.” More recently, the now-defunct Gentle Wind Project in Kittery was embroiled in lawsuits in the early 2000s alleging its leaders engaged in financial and sexual exploitation and cult-like behavior, and in 2024 two Maine brothers published a book detailing the cult-like practices of the former Faith Baptist Church in North Yarmouth.

Perhaps the most outrageous of them all, however, was the Church of the Messiah. 160 years ago this summer, 156 residents of Washington County loaded thousands of pounds of Maine lumber aboard a ship in Jonesport and set sail for the Palestinian city of Jaffa, today a part of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. Once there, they planned to construct homes for the Jewish people they hoped to re-migrate back to Israel in order to - you guessed it - bring about the Second Coming of Jesus.

There’s a long tradition in the U.S. of Christian zealots obsessed with Israel, and with jumpstarting the End Times and the Second Coming by returning the Jewish people to the Holy Land. There are plenty of them around today, given the support many of those Christians have for the Israeli government - despite the fact that it is doing something profoundly sacrilegious by committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Longing for the world to end has always felt deeply selfish to me, as it usually implies that only a handful of “chosen” people get to live on past it, while the rest of us suffer or die. But I digress.

The man that managed to convince 156 Down East farmers and fishermen and their families to give him all their money and set sail for Jaffa was George Jones Adams, a New Jersey native, an itinerant preacher, and a failed Shakespearean actor. After his career in theater failed, in the 1840s, Adams converted to Mormonism, rising in the ranks of the church until he grew close to founder Joseph Smith. In 1846, however, after Smith’s assassination, Adams was kicked out for claiming he was the most powerful of the church’s apostolic leadership, and pushing for Smith’s son to be the new church leader, instead of Brigham Young. Adams then went on to join an offshoot of the Church of Latter-Day Saints led by fellow excommunicant James Strang, only to be kicked out of Strang’s church in 1851 for drunkenness and adultery.

By the mid-1850s, Adams had moved to Maine, and began preaching up and down the coast, according to a 2016 article in Down East Magazine. Adams attracted new followers in villages throughout the state with his frenzied sermons and theatrical antics, blending a potpourri of Christian traditions from Baptist to Mormon. Adams started a newspaper, “The Sword of Truth and the Harbinger of Peace”, with Jonesport resident Abraham McKenzie, and eventually founded his own church, the Church of the Messiah, also in Jonesport. Hard to get kicked out of the church again when you’re the one that founded it.

How did Adams manage to attract so many followers, particularly in Down East Maine? The “Great Awakenings” of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were seizing many Americans with evangelical religious fervor, especially in more rural areas. Many of the itinerant preachers like Adams who roamed the countryside wrapped up their sermonizing in postmillennial promises of the Second Coming - compared to the reality of their difficult lives, the end of the world may have seemed like a nice alternative to poverty-stricken farmers.

Add to that the great trauma of the Civil War, when nearly 10 percent of Mainers representing around 80,000 men went away to war, nearly 13 percent of whom died in battle or from disease. A significant percentage of those soldiers and sailors that returned quickly left Maine to make their fortunes out west, a significant blow for rural economies. Economically and spiritually, some Mainers were easy targets for a swindler like Adams.

In 1864, Adams - who at that point claimed he was a prophet of Jesus Christ - announced to his flock that he was ready to embark on a great mission. He would build a colony in Jaffa, constructing houses out of Maine lumber for the Jewish people who they would then repatriate back to the Holy Land. One the Jews returned, Jesus would shortly follow, and the world would be made anew.

In order to undertake this mission, Adams needed money, and lots of it, mostly to purchase a huge number of Whitneyville-built prefabricated houses - a precursor to the modular homes we know today. He also needed people to agree to abandon everything they’d ever known in Maine and set sail for a foreign country. Such was his skill as a manipulator - a crucial skill for a cult leader - that he got more than 150 people to sign away their money and their lives to him, mostly from tiny Washington County towns including Jonesport and Addison.

Adams and McKenzie in 1865 traveled to Jaffa on their own before the mission set off, arranging a deal to purchase a tract of land in Palestine. Adams then asked President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward to petition the Ottoman Empire to formalize the purchase. That deal wasn’t finalized yet, however, when Adams and his colonists loaded up a ship named the Nellie Chapin and departed from Jonesport on Aug. 11, 1866. That was only the beginning of the troubles the Jaffa colonists would face.

The ship arrived in Palestine on Sept. 22, 1866, and Adams quickly learned that the land deal he’d spent months arranging had been rejected by the Ottomans. Faced with few options, the colonists camped out on the beach for six weeks, constructing tents out of whatever fabric and lumber they could spare. Within a few weeks, they had already started to run out of food, and the drinking water began to go bad. Cholera began to spread through the camp, and by mid-November of that year, ten colonists had already died.

Over the winter, Adams finally was able to acquire his land (by pretending to be a Turkish citizen) and the colonists actually did start to build houses and plant crops - though conditions had by no means improved, with still more colonists dying from disease and starvation due to crop failure in the hot Palestinian sun. Some began to notice that Adams was doing a terrible job at hiding his drinking, noting that several dozen empty bottles of liquor were among his possessions. By the spring of 1867, the Jaffa colonists had fractured, with more than half of them abandoning the mission and booking passage back to the U.S., penniless and filled with regret. In total, 17 colonists died.

The last group of Maine colonists to leave Jaffa were around 44 individuals, who then Maine Gov. Joshua Chamberlain arranged passage for on a steamship called the Quaker City that departed for Boston in October 1867. On that same ship was none other than Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, who had spent most of that year traveling through Europe, Russia and the Holy Land on a writing assignment from both a newspaper and a publishing house. Twain was on his way back to the U.S. when he encountered the bedraggled colonists, who he memorably describes in his book, “The Innocents Abroad.”

Adams himself stayed in Jaffa for another year or so before finally decamping to England in 1868, eventually settling in Philadelphia in 1870. He restarted his Church of the Messiah there, though according to a 2024 article in New Lines Magazine, when asked about his connection to the Jaffa colony, Adams pretended to not know what they were talking about.

Despite the disappearance of their self-proclaimed prophet, a handful of those original Mainers stuck around in Palestine, which 80 years later became the state of Israel, and by the 1990s, a few of the colonist-built houses were still standing. In 2001, two Massachusetts residents, Reed and Jean Holmes, bought one of those buildings and undertook an extensive restoration, eventually dubbing it the Maine Friendship House; it still stands today, now located in a well-heeled Tel Aviv neighborhood.

The Jaffa Expedition would likely only be a footnote in history had Mark Twain not been aboard one of the ships returning weary colonists home; instead, their misadventures and miseries in the Holy Land are immortalized forever. As with so many people indoctrinated into fringe religious sects and other cults, the blame doesn’t really lie with the members, who only wanted a new life in a new place and to build a better world.

Instead, the blame lies with the swindlers, charlatans and zealots that use their charisma - alongside threats and careful manipulation - to coerce vulnerable people into doing things that are harmful to themselves and others. Whether it was financially struggling, isolated farmers in rural Maine in the 1860s, or financially struggling, isolated people on the internet in the 2020s, it only takes one charming, smooth-tongued snake oil salesman to get someone to give them everything - in return for nothing.

Good morning to everyone in Maine (physically or spiritually), where I currently am not located. As this post arrives in your inboxes I am on a plane somewhere above North America, returning to our fair state from a Top Secret Mission. All will be revealed in due time.

• This is a very good article about an Ellsworth-based science educator working to help people who have been swindled by quacks and religious con artists into thinking vaccines are bad for you.

• Pro: Yay, so many people want to participate in democracy and local governance by running for Bangor City Council! Largest candidate pool in more than four decades! Con: The amount of cringey AI campaign materials and half-baked opinions about “the homeless” observed during my surface-level look at everyone’s social media presence. At least there aren’t any Nazis running this year!

• In keeping with my promise to pass along the latest animal news in Maine - hey, you’re the one subscribing to this Substack! - here is a story about a pop-up cow spa at an organic dairy farm in the town of Sidney. You’re welcome.

• Here’s a shoutout to the band Milk Street, a good old-fashioned indie rock band formed in Bangor a few years back, though its members now live in both Maine and New Hampshire. The band’s new album, “Good Grief,” comes out next month, and our pals at the ARME Group were nice enough to share a copy with me. It’s fantastic. I’m particularly impressed by the second single and title song from the album, which is out today with an incredible music video to accompany it, shot at a house party in Orono and directed by the very talented Lia O’Toole and Milk Street mastermind Jonah Wakefield. Listen! Now!

I have very fond memories of the day the headline came across our feeds in the BDN newsroom: a strange, horrible-smelling wild animal had been found dead in the woods in western Maine, and nobody seemed to know what kind of animal it was. Dog? Bear? Dogbear? A new, heretofore unknown to science mammal? Werewolf? The Beast of Turner, Maine, as it was quickly dubbed by journalists, was a true mystery that captivated Mainers for the better part of two weeks in August 2006, which it blows my mind to say was 20 years ago this month. Cryptozoologists like our friend Loren Coleman were thrilled to have a potential cryptid on their hands. Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife scientists took the remains of the animal in for study, and while people speculated on what it could actually be, DNA tests were done. On Aug. 27, it was revealed: the Beast of Turner, Maine was a dog. A Chow Chow mix, they thought. Not a werewolf. Womp womp. It was fun while it lasted!

Music & Dance

Aug. 27: Belfast Summer Nights presents Noah Fishman and friends, 5:30 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast

Aug. 27, Aug. 30: “Broadway Comes to Stonington,” musical revue, 7 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. Sunday, Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Aug. 28: John Gallagher and Friends jazz ensemble, 6 p.m. Surry Arts Barn, Surrey

Aug. 28: The Mallett Brothers Band, 8 p.m, Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Aug. 29: Scott Stetson Memorial Show feat. The Burial Curse, Chaos Machine, Thy Enemy, In the Kingdom of Nightmares, more, 6 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Aug. 29: Brad Paisley, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Aug. 29: Needlepoint Sanctuary and the BARN fundraiser with Fake Smile, Rope Trial, Bite the Bullet and Empire in Decline, 7 p.m., UU Church, Bangor

Aug. 30: Melissa Etheridge, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Aug. 30, WERU-FM presents Katherine Perkins, 5 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

Aug. 31: Pitbull and Lil Jon, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Sept. 1: Dri, Candy Striper Death Orgy, Militia, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Theatre & Comedy

Aug. 27-30: Acadia Repertory Theatre presents “The Butler Did It,” daily, ART theater building, Somesville

Aug. 28: High Stakes House of Comedy presents Running With Scissors improv, 8 p.m., Hollywood Casino, Bangor

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

Aug. 27: “Downeast Hardcore: Stories From the Kave,” documentary screening, 7 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

Aug. 27: Talk on Abraham Lincoln with author Jan Cigliano Hartman and editor Deanne Urmy, 5 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

Aug. 27: Maine Outdoor Film Festival, 7 p.m., Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park, Winter Harbor

Aug. 30: “Protect Ancient Forests,” talk by Alyssa and Michael O’Brien, 4 p.m., The Good Life Center, Brooksville

Sept. 1: Book talk and signing with Melissa Sweet for new children’s adaptation of E.B. White’s “The Duck Can’t Sleep,” 1 p.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

Aug 28: Full Moon Paddle, guided paddle, 7 p.m, Gate 3, Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, Old Town

Aug. 29: Wading Bird Walk with Bob and Sandy Duchesne, 9 a.m., Jordan River Preserve, Trenton

Sept. 3-7: The Blue Hill Fair, classic country fair, daily, Blue Hill Fairgrounds, Blue Hill

Someone on the internet said that despite all her talent, success, wealth and beauty, the thing everyone is truly mourning about Dolly Parton is what a good person she was. Someone also said that regardless of whether you have any of your own personal spiritual or religious beliefs, Dolly is with Jesus (and Carl) now, and is eternal. All of that is true. Here is my very tiny and inconsequential Dolly Parton story.

A dear friend of ours used to work for Waterfront Concerts, and when Dolly played in Bangor in 2016, she was kind enough to not only set tickets aside for Zach and I, but also get us on the list for a meet and greet with her before the show. We lined up with the other fans and immediately clocked the incredibly burly and incredibly polite security retinue she had guarding her. Dolly is like a president or a pope; more important, really. She must be protected at all costs.

The line turned a corner, and there she was: dripping in rainbow rhinestones, as petite and blonde as you could imagine, pure and unfiltered and real. When it was finally our turn, we stepped up next to her and she immediately exclaimed “Are y’all musicians? Y’all look like musicians!” We said something about Zach being a pretty good bassist and guitarist but that I was mediocre at best, and she said that the way we dressed made us look cool. Everyone: Dolly Parton said we looked cool. She smelled incredible; like flowers and fresh-baked cookies. Her smile is warm and genuine, crafted lovingly by the finest plastic surgeons in the world to enhance what was already there. She radiates the light of the love of humanity. We stood next to her for perhaps 60 seconds, at most, and then shuffled off with the rest of us mere mortals to watch her sing and charm and entertain, as she had for decades, for millions. We, like everyone, were lucky to live in her time.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I made a really good pot of white bean chicken chili (even if I forgot to mash some of the beans) for my friend who came to visit for a night after she hiked Katahdin. Wow, my life is riveting right now!

• I just want to say that I have had to drive across the temporary bridge on Stillwater Avenue in Old Town many times over the past three years, while Maine DOT workers construct a new one immediately adjacent to it. Last week, that work-in-progress new bridge collapsed. While it was never fully clear how long it was gonna take to build it, I’m guessing we’ll be well into a new decade by the time the new one finally opens. The project started in 2023, so I’m gonna say… 2033? Have fun waiting in traffic once classes start at UMaine!

• Join me in attempting to make this three-legged deer in Machias nicknamed “Tripod” the next Jimothy. Tripod even has babies! Move over, Jimothy. There’s a new little freak in town. If that doesn’t take, might I suggest Doris, the Bucksport Golf Course moose?

• If you enjoy reading about cool science and conservation efforts in Maine, then I encourage you to read this well-researched article from The Maine Monitor about efforts to save seagrass habitats along the Maine coast.

• Some extremely cool documentaries are coming to the Camden International Film Festival next month, including films about icons like Carl Sagan, Desmond Tutu and Jean-Michael Basquiat, films about people who think they’re icons, like Elon Musk, and films from iconic doc directors like Alex Gibney and Barbara Kopple. Here’s the full lineup. Good stuff!

  Scheduling note: There will be no Tuesday post next week (Aug. 25). I will be out of town and away from technology. There will also be a slightly (slightly!) abbreviated Thursday post (Aug. 27). We’ll be back to our regular posting schedule on Sept. 1!

  The Other Maine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

  

  

Honestly, it doesn’t seem like the core elements of the summer tourist season in Maine have changed all that much in the past 60 years. I mean, sure, influencers didn’t exist back then. Nor did lobster rolls made with gochujang mayo or Airbnb. You could make the case that something like glamping existed - were the rusticators of the early 20th century doing it? - but more to the point: people come here for the same reasons they always have. Seafood, shorelines, the wilderness, and so on. During the summer of 1966 the Bangor Daily News asked summer people to weigh in on their experiences traveling through our fair state, and the results were about what you might expect: a mix of complaining and rhapsodizing. One fellow was upset that Bangor was cutting down beautiful old trees, and found the Paul Bunyan statue on Main Street distasteful. Another was mad that they couldn’t find a roadside farmstand that had cucumbers and tomatoes for sale. One wondered why places like Quebec and Hermon were listed on road signs, considering the former is very far away and nobody’s ever heard of Hermon (ouch). At least one person was nice enough to say that Mainers are some of the loveliest people around, and that she hoped the state would do more to encourage folks to stay put and not move away (also still true).

Music & Dance

Aug. 20: Belfast Summer Nights presents Fully Funktional and The Sugar Snaps, 5:30 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast

Aug. 21: Liberty Tune Co. presents Rebel Daughter, Deery, Emmet Lalor and Winnie and Anise Hyssop, 6 p.m., Cedar Grove Sauna, Montville

Aug. 21: The Hot Suppers, 6 p.m., Marshall Wharf Brewing, Belfast

Aug. 21: Jessi & the Rhythm Kings, 6 p.m., Harbor Park, Ellsworth

Aug. 21-23: Live music from The Wayside 6 p.m. Friday, Hymn For Her 6 p.m. Saturday, Chris Ross 4 p.m. Sunday, Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

Aug. 21: Plague Dad, 7 p.m., Nocturnem Drafthaus, Bangor

Aug. 21: Holy Filth, Drowning in Blood, Militia, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Aug 21: TheWorst, Gailesh, Vanity Crisis and Active Stationary, 8 p.m., Eye Candy Studio, Bangor

Aug. 22: Zach Top and The Marcus King Band, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Aug. 22: Contradance with the Big Moose Contra Band, 7 p.m., Jesup Memorial Library, Bar Harbor

Aug. 22: Coelacanth, Wormhole, Opus Decay, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Aug. 23: Acadian Music from Maine with Steve Muise and Robert Sylvain, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Aug. 23: Allegheny Ensemble plays Dvorak and Joplin, 4 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

Aug. 26: One Night of Queen tribute show, 7 p.m., Criterion Theater, Bar Harbor

Theatre & Comedy

Aug. 21-22: Opera Acadia presents “La Traviata,” 7 p.m. nightly, Collins Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono

Aug. 22: Queen City Improv, 7 p.m, Next Generation Theatre, Brewer

Aug. 22: Comedian Dave Attell, 8 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor

Aug. 25: The Firefly Experience, multimedia performance from Wabanaki artist Firefly, 6 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

Aug. 20: Readings from “Echoes in the Fog: Literary Reflections on the Liminal Spaces of Maine’s Coast,” 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

Aug. 20: “The Last Navigator: A Young Man, an Ancient Mariner, the Secrets of the Sea,” presentation by Steve Thomas, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Aug. 20: “What Should We Remember About the Declaration of Independence?” talk by Liam Riordan, 6 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

Aug. 22: Tour of historic orchards and old apple varieties, 1 p.m., Jonathan Fisher House, Blue Hill

Aug. 22-23: Black Cat Book Fair, annual radical book fair, panels, readings, music and more; The First Church and Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast

Aug. 22-26: “Steal This Story, Please” documentary screening about Amy Goodman, nightly, Center Theatre, Dover-Foxcroft

Aug. 23: “How Lucky Can One Man Get,” John Prine documentary screening, 6 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Aug. 23: “Mobile Commoning: How Sharing is Caring in Climate Hope World,” talk, 4 p.m. The Good Life Center, Brooksville

Aug. 23-24: Studio Ghibli Fest screening of “Castle in the Sky, daily, Black Bear Cinemas, Orono

Aug. 25: Author talk with Ann Packer and Ayelet Waldman, 4 p.m., Friend Memorial Library, Brooklin

Aug. 25: Zine making workshop with the Maine Women’s Lobby, 5 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

Aug. 25: Left Bank Books presents a talk by mystery writers Tess Gerritsen and Paul Doiron, 7 p.m., The First Church, Belfast

Aug. 26: Maine Outdoor Film Festival, 7:30 p.m., Knowlton Park, Ellsworth

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

Aug. 22: Butterfly Festival, free family-friendly nature fest, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden

Aug. 22: Bass Park After Dark, artisan market and food truck fair, 4-9 p.m., Bass Park, Bangor

You got a silly picture of my dog at the start of this post; now here’s a silly picture of my cat. I’m heading out of state for a few days. I need a break!

Note: This is fiction. I never worked in a seafood restaurant. Sure spent a lot of time in them, though.

I can smell it now, decades removed from the summer I worked at McCoy’s Oceanside. Thick white slabs of haddock, flecked with gray and shining in the fluorescent overhead lights, dunked in a mix of flour, egg and Budweiser and then bathed in the fryo…

Read more

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I discovered that you can, in fact, be stung by a bee or wasp or something and not realize it until the back of your lower arm starts developing a huge, angry welt, and you think “Oh God, am I allergic to bees now!?” and then you take a benadryl and fall asleep and wake up and it’s fine.

• I love the fact t…

Read more

Read more

Good morning from eastern Maine, where I can’t believe I’m saying this, but given some of the news this week, I am just confirming what I assume (hope?) is obvious: I have never and will never use artificial intelligence to write an…

Read more

Imagine a room - a big, cavernous room - filled wall to wall with people, most of whom are in their teens and twenties. Some of those people are playing loud, intense music, but most of them are in the sweaty, visceral fervor of the crowd, pushed up against each other, sharing a loud, intense experience.

That could describe a bunch of things - a house of…

Read more

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I celebrated my 44th birthday by drinking margaritas and eating chips with guacamole and queso with friends in our backyard. We also had a little bonfire and burned two Christmases worth of wreaths which had been sitting in the back …

Read more