Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week… YIKES. And we had such a nice weekend, too! I’ll get to the big political news of the week later. Let’s talk about far less pressing matters first, shall we?

• This weekend, we survived a heat wave, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, potentially limb-threatening fireworks, ODing on hot dogs and the Taylor and Travis wedding. And we found out robots will soon begin roaming the streets of Bangor. I have to admit: the latter news deeply unsettled me when I first read it, as it is a general truth that most applications of robots, AI-powered or otherwise, is a recipe for either disaster or annoyance. In this instance, however, I welcome our new robot overlords, as they will be engaged in the noble task of analyzing all of Bangor’s sidewalks and crosswalks to improve pedestrian accessibility - something that would take us fleshy humans many weeks longer to accomplish. Or at least, that’s what they’re telling us.

• Really cool science reporting from the Boston Globe on an experimental forest in the Penobscot County town of Edinburg, where scientists are researching tree microbes that can consume methane as a potential way to reduce the amount of methane in the atmosphere. Kind of like the astrophages in “Project Hail Mary,” except for good!

• RIP to Victory Chimes, the historic Maine schooner that sank during a storm in Brooklyn, New York over the weekend. Though she was built in Delaware, she’d called Maine home for nearly 80 years, and was named Maine’s “state windjammer” in 1990 and appeared on our 2003 state quarter. I guess two guys bought it in 2023 with plans to turn it into a floating restaurant in NYC, a plan that hadn’t yet materialized, apparently. Owning a boat that’s just for fun, regardless of the size, seems like a huge pain in the ass, doesn’t it? I don’t know a single person that’s bought a boat for fun that hasn’t had tons of trouble.

• This weekend is the grand opening of the new and greatly expanded International Cryptozoology Museum on Broadway in Bangor! The museum is open from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and will have lots of vendors, special guests, presentations and more on hand, all accessible with regular museum admission (only ten bucks for adults). True believer or total skeptic, is it not incredibly cool that something like this is now open in the Bangor area? Now, where’s my $10 million, so I can buy 74-78 Central St. and turn it into a museum and cultural center?

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Top five, or seven, or ten lists about things to see/do/try in Maine are a dime a dozen. Yours truly has written more than her fair share of them over the years. I was surprised, however, by this interesting list from the BDN 40 years ago, which named the seven wonders of Maine - none of which are places that regularly appear on any list even today. I’ve heard of most of them, but I have to admit I’ve only ever been to one: Height of Land, way out in western Maine, near Rangeley, on a glorious fall day many years ago. I’d love to check out the Debsconeag Ice Caves, though! And paddling in the Great Heath sounds super cool as well. Have you been to any of these places? Let us know in the comments.

Music & Dance

July 9-15: Bar Harbor Music Festival, classical music, opera and jazz performances throughout Bar Harbor including Criterion Theatre, Jesup Library and more; click here for full schedule

July 9: Monthly sea chantey singalong, 4 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

July 9: Belfast Summer Nights presents Rockville and Very Greasy, 5:30 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast

July 9: Traveling Wilburys Revue, 7:30 p.m., Center Theatre, Dover-Foxcroft

July 10: Lucy and Gus, Shrimp Jesus and the White Falcons, 5 p.m., 419 South St., Blue Hill

July 10: Ring and Strings acoustic duo, 7 p.m., Milbridge Theatre, Milbridge

July 10: Two Piano Jazz Duo with Scott Martin and Tom Porter, 6 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

July 10: Lazers in the Jungle, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

July 10: Waterfront Concert Series presents Chris Ross, 6 p.m., Harbor Park, Ellsworth

July 10: Madison Lake, Black Box Recovery, Empty Your Pockets and R0B1N Gaming, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

July 10: Songwriter Ashley McBride, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

July 11: Oodelally, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

July 11: In The Kingdom of Nightmares, Paradise is Cancelled, Manuel, Castle Crusher and Melody of a Car Crash, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

July 11: Jammy Buffett, Jimmy Buffett tribute band, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

July 13: Nina Emery and Ellis Sanchez Jazz Duo, 6 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

July 15: Panstorm steel pan band, 6 p.m., Lura Hoit Pool Gazebo, Hampden

July 15: Summer Music Series presents the Silver Duo, piano and cello, Bangor Public Library, Bangor

July 15: Sonja & Friends Jazz Ensemble, 5:30 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

Theatre & Comedy

July 9-12: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “The Fantasticks,” daily at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

July 10: Opera House Arts presents “Late and Alone: An Intimate Portrait of Johnny Cash,” 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

July 11: Eye Candy Dance Studio presents The Night Circus, a night of neon-lit circus arts, 8 p.m., Eye Candy Studio, Bangor

July 12: “Bait and Switch: From Hollywood to Haulin’ Traps,” one-woman show by Anna Conathan, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

July 14: The Norman Magician Experience, 6 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

July 14: Comedian Juston McKinney, 7 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

July 9: Reading and signing with Rylan Hynes of their book “Grafting,” 7 p.m., Bookspace, Columbia Street, Bangor

July 10: Reading and signing with Christina Baker Kline of her new book, “The Foursome,” 10 a.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor

July 11: Reading and signing by horror author David Wilson, 11 a.m., The Emporium Spooky Goods, Bangor

July 12: “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” 1 p.m. screening, Colonial Theatre, Belfast

July 12-13: “My Neighbor Totoro,” 7 p.m., Black Bear Cinemas, Orono

July 14: “What Should We Remember About the American Revolution?” talk by Liam Riordan, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

July 14: “Jonathan Lowder’s Truckhouse, 1776-1779: History and Archaeology of a Revolutionary War Trading Post,” talk by Chip Lagerbom, 6:30 p.m., Belfast Free Library, Belfast

July 15: “Researching Women in the American Revolution,” talk by Melanie McComb, 2 p.m., Belfast Free Library, Belfast

July 15: Reading and signing by mystery author Paul Doiran, 6 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

July 15: Leonard Lecture Series presents artist Thuan Vu, 5:30 p.m., Zillman Art Museum, Bangor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

July 10-19: Orrington Old Home Week, annual community celebration, multiple events throughout the week, throughout Orrington; more info here

July 11-12: Dawnland Festival of Arts & Ideas, presented by the Abbe Museum, College of the Atlantic campus, Bar Harbor

July 11: Downtown Bangor Summer Sidewalk Arts Festival, art and craft vendors, food, music and more, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Central Street, Bangor

July 11: Annual Strawberry Shortcake Festival, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Old Town Museum, Old Town

July 11: Twilight nature walk, 8 p.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden

… so yeah. This week sure is something. “Something” is a word. So aren’t the words “hot mess.” “Chaotic.” “Implosion.” “Men are disappointing.” Plenty of other words spring to mind when I think about the past four days and a certain disgraced Maine oyster farmer. There are also sayings, like “Don’t believe the hype” and “Opinions are like assholes; everyone’s got one.” Honestly, what is wrong with the New York Times, who claimed - falsely! - that Heather Cox Richardson and Patrick Dempsey were both considering running to replace Platner? Patently untrue and pure unsupported speculation from some overpaid political consultants. Please, large national media outlets: please just shut up and let us figure this out. I know you won’t. But please? We might make a mess of it. Please just let us do it ourselves.

Here are the words I’ll much more gladly paraphrase from my friend Rob, a compassionate scholar of politics, who said that anger, confusion and disappointment are all correct emotions to feel - but that the cold comfort of cynicism is incompatible with the belief that a better world is possible. An even more cock-eyed optimist view would be to say that the messenger isn’t as important as the message. It’s not him. It’s us. We are the ones we’ve been looking for. We’re the ones that showed up every weekend to rallies and house parties and town halls to share our fears and frustrations and to be seen and heard by one another. It is a movement - a deeply imperfect one, but a movement, bent on improving the lives of everyday people and opposing the corruption now rotting our system from the inside. As this shitstorm rains down on us over the next few weeks and, for better or worse, we eventually emerge with a new Senate candidate, I will cling to that life raft. I will hang on for dear life.

Katie Aselton and her cast and crew had already packed up and returned to Los Angeles before almost anybody knew they’d spent two weeks shooting a film in Bangor in November 2024.

Aselton, a director and actor known for her roles in shows like “The League” and “Legion” and for directing films like “Mack & Rita” and “Black Rock,” quietly filmed her latest directorial effort, “Their Town,” in Bangor, with small, highly focused crew and cast, including lead actors Chosen Jacobs and Ora Duplass - Aselton’s own 18-year-old daughter, in her film debut. “Their Town” tells the intimate, deeply personal story of two teenagers finding connection through big emotional and philosophical questions, over the course of one chilly fall night. It will have its Maine premiere this Friday, July 10, at the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville.

Almost nobody knew Aselton and company were shooting a movie on location in recognizable Bangor places like Broadway Park, 2 Feet Brewing, the Bangor Waterfront and others. Some may know, though, that Aselton is herself a Mainer - she grew up in Milbridge, and graduated from Narraguagus High School in 1996. She and her husband, Mark Duplass - known for his Emmy-nominated role in “The Morning Show” and producing films and TV series with his brother, Jay, including the acclaimed “Wild, Wild Country” and “Somebody, Somewhere” - shot their first feature film, the delightful micro-budget comedy “The Puffy Chair,” in Maine more than 20 years ago. “Their Town,” also written by Duplass, is the third film the pair have shot in Maine, and is a love letter to teenage yearning - and, in many ways, to Maine, and to Bangor in particular.

Aselton sat down last week for a chat about filming in Maine, her youth Down East, and the family business of moviemaking.

Did you and Mark always have Bangor in mind as the setting for this story, and as the place you’d shoot the film? Why here?

Mark wrote the script with Bangor in mind, because there’s this great quality of Bangor where it feels - and I mean this with the most respect and love - it feels a little time-stopped. Like, the downtown area feels very untouched by big box stores and whatnot, and it’s very separated from the area of town that does have that. Although I do have to say, the Bangor Mall was my mecca as a kid. We drove there all the time. An hour and 20 minutes just to go to the Bangor Mall! It was such a destination. And now it’s kind of run down and deteriorating. It’s kind of a graveyard. And then downtown is on the upswing, and it’s so charming. I think the look and feel of it really ended up being a big part of the story of the film.

It was also so great to shoot it in November, when it’s kind of chilly and cold and you can see your breath. It just felt kind of romantic. Everywhere we pointed our camera was beautiful. Nothing beats Maine in fall. There’s something so crisp about the light. Everything feels and looks crackly and crisp. And we only shot for two weeks, and in that time, the leaves fell. The film is supposed to be one day, so we had to kind of contend with that.

So, by all accounts, “Their Town” is an incredibly intimate film. Mark wrote the script, and you directed it, so it’s also obviously very personal. What made this film in particular the next project you wanted to take on?

I just loved the dignity that Mark treated these characters with. And I think in my experience of having two teenage daughters… there’s so much depth there, and they’re so thoughtful. They’re almost, like, too thoughtful, right? They’re in their heads all the time. And I think we do them a disservice by being like, ‘Ugh, kids, am I right?’ These kids are so incredibly thoughtful and deep, and they have big takes on the world. I still remember that feeling of being discounted because I was a teenager or a kid or whatever, but their feelings are incredibly valid and should be considered. I think very often in teen movies they get sort of stereotyped as like, mean girls, or catty, or whatever, and it’s like, no, they’re really weighing their life decisions. Their loves are big, and their feelings are tumultuous. I think there’s so much there to explore, and I also think they hold a lot, and their insecurities are so big, and they’re taking the pressure that we put on them as adults very seriously. It’s a scary world to be growing up in. I think it’s a very different world than what you and I were growing up in.

And I really just loved the way Mark wrote these two kids. I loved the way Chosen and Ora brought these two characters so sensitively to life. I think there’s so much to be said for the rare moments that we as people, regardless of what age, feel truly seen and to have that sort of be the crux of the story was so cool, and, like, that can happen at any age, but I think it’s very rare that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to be truly seen by someone else. Those are those nights that are so magical, you know?

I saw somewhere else someone very aptly compared it to like the sort of teen version of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy [“Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight,” all starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy and set over the course of one day in Vienna, Paris and Greece, respectively - required viewing!].

Definitely. Without question, that’s a direct influence. Those are some of our favorite movies.

And, you know, Bangor and Paris are very similar, obviously.

Oh yes, they get compared every day. They say Bangor is the Paris of New England.

Truly, nothing says romance like a giant Paul Bunyan statue. Anyway, speaking of being a kid, you grew up in Milbridge, in Washington County. Were you an artsy kid? Were you a theater kid? Where did your path to where you are now begin?

I was all of those things. My mom was the high school art teacher at Narraguagus, so art was definitely always very much a part of my childhood and creativity. She was very great about going down to Boston, and taking me to the theater. I remember she took me to see “Les Miserables” when I was 9, and I, like, looked up and saw Cosette, who was the same age as me, and had the same, like, long blonde hair, and I was like, wait a second. We loved watching movies together, and we loved “Saturday Night Live,” We had the box set from Time Life, so that was major. I was a member of the drama club at Narraguagus all four years but we didn’t put on one play. I got my picture in the yearbook though. My parents had us in ballet, at the Libitski School of Dance in Ellsworth. I was also the youngest by far - my closest sibling is 6 years older than me - and so I was sort of on my own a lot to go out in the woods and my imagination would just run rampant. I grew up right on the ocean, and so, the rocks were my playground. I was always creating these fantasy worlds. My imagination was wild.

That is definitely a specific kind of Maine thing. The imaginative little girl out in the woods or on the shore, all alone, making up her own fantasy world. I speak from experience!

I should also mention, however, that my sister Mary directed a lot of plays in our home. She was the director, and I would often get cast as, like, the deer running through the scene. So those were my first roles.

You’ve come back to Maine a lot, not just to visit family, obviously, but to film - you’re one of the rare filmmakers that actually films in Maine! Three movies now, including “The Puffy Chair” and “Black Rock.” The conventional wisdom about filming in Maine is that it’s basically impossible, and super expensive and complicated because there’s not a lot of film infrastructure, and there’s no real tax breaks, and on and on. How do you make it work?

I will say it’s easier now than it was when we shot “Black Rock.” When we shot that, the closest rental house for cameras and whatnot was Boston. For “Their Town,” we were able to work with a company out of Portland, which was definitely more convenient, but we still had to drive it all up from Portland to Bangor. It is definitely tricky when it comes to the logistics of shooting.

That being said, what you get production value-wise is unbeatable. Like, you turn the camera on, and you have a gorgeous shot. It is a real gift. And, truthfully, the communities we’ve shot in are incredibly supportive. You make a movie in Los Angeles, everyone wants to make a buck. In Maine, people just want to show how beautiful their town is. ‘Oh, you’re from here? How can I help?’ It makes the technical trade-off so worth it.

You and Mark have such a family business going on, between Mark and Jay [Duplass, Mark’s brother and producing partner), you and your sister Mary [a producer on “Their Town”], and your daughter Ora now. What are the best parts of having this close-knit family relationship in both your personal and professional lives?

I think there’s a couple answers to that. One is that there’s something really nice about knowing what the people you’re working with are truly capable of. I know what Mary is capable of. Mark knows everything I am capable of. We know when you push and when to pull back, and it’s so much easier to calibrate a working relationship if you have such intimate knowledge about the people you’re working with.

The second level is that we have a very strict no-asshole policy. I won’t do it. I won’t work with someone that makes my life difficult. We’re so lucky. We’re not tasked with curing cancer. Our job at the end of the day is entertainment, and that is such a privilege. If you don’t show up every day acknowledging that, I have no time for you.

[A beat]

Can I tell you a great story about my sister?

Please do!

So, the climax scene in “Their Town” is shot in a park at night, with a swingset and everything. We found the perfect park in Bangor [Broadway Park], and we scouted it in October. Come November, however, there was all this construction on 95, over by TJ Maxx and that area, and it was all happening at night, and we’re shooting at night, and it’s actually our last night of shooting. They are just dismantling that bridge. Constant bang, bang, bang. Our sound guy was like, ‘This is gonna be an issue.’ We’re praying it’ll shop, or that maybe we can fade it out in the mix. And then all of a sudden, Mary just disappears. And then within like 30 minutes, the banging stops. This is a federal construction project, a multi-million dollar multi-year project. I don’t want to know what Mary said to them, but the rest of the night it was pin drop quiet. Isn’t that so Maine?

That is a powerful woman. If I need to stop traffic some time, I know who to call.

Maine International Film Festival passes are now on sale. Tickets for the 6:30 p.m., July 10 screening of “Their Town” at the Waterville Opera House are available online at miff.org.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I’m taking a fun-sized vacation, such as it is; i.e., no Tuesday post from me. I’ve got some very cool stories I’ve been working on for a long time that’ll be going up in the next few weeks, and I’m about to head into the woods for a few days for festivities with family and friends. And, as you’ll see below, there’s not a particularly robust slate of events in this neck of the woods outside of Semiquincentennial celebrations this weekend!

• Speaking of the 250th, there are, of course, lots of Fourth things to do this weekend, from the usual parades and fireworks to historically-themed events honoring the two and a half centuries of the U.S. of A. Bangor and Bar Harbor have full days of large-scale activities planned, though I’m also partial to long-running small town festivities, like those in Searsport and Castine.

• Please be careful this week. It will be, to quote my former college roommate, hot as balls out. Drink that water and use that sunblock and keep grandma inside with the AC! Here’s a list of statewide cooling centers, in case you need it.

• Here’s what Maine and the rest of the New England states contributed to the America 250 time capsule and the Congressional time capsule, which will be buried in Philadelphia and Washington DC, respectively, on July 4. What would you have added to it?

• Li’l Wayne bailed on his Tuesday night concert in Bangor, leaving fans waiting for hours at the Maine Savings Amphitheater before being sent home at 11 p.m. Wayneless. He has apparently rescheduled for July 28 and has apologized. Meanwhile, people are eagerly using AI to generate some slightly cringey images of Mr. Wayne in various locations across Maine.

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Here’s how Bangor celebrated the last big American anniversary, the Bicentennial in 1976: with a giant-ass birthday cake. The cake was actually made by the city of Brewer, and was its contribution to a big parade held on July 4 in downtown Bangor. Man, the 1976 Bicentennial sure seemed like it was a lot more fun than the 2026 Semiquincentennial is shaping up to be, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s due to nostalgia bias, given the reality that the country that year was still in the fallout of both Watergate and Vietnam, among other pressing matters. Or maybe it’s because the current administration has set a tone that’s toxic, and they’ve done a terrible job planning the national-level observations. The entire 250th celebration is tainted with the stink of greed, tackiness, bigotry and corruption emanating from the White House - and probably the stink of the Reflecting Pool right now, too. I’m not a rah-rah patriotic person, but I do love history. I’d loved to have done something special and interesting this week for the Semi-Quin, but honestly: it doesn’t really feel right. It’s a double bummer for me as a Mainer, since the Maine 200th in 2020 was canceled by COVID. Both my big history parties have been ruined! Anyway, enjoy these cute photos from 1976 of Bangor celebrating the Bicentennial. Though in reality it really wasn’t, it did seem like simpler times.

Music & Dance

July 2: Belfast Summer Nights presents the Searsmont Street Band, 5:30 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast

July 3: Fully Funktional, 6 p.m., Marshall Wharf Brewing, Belfast

July 3: Down East Dead, Blaze Brewing, Blue Hill

July 3: Godsmack, Stone Temple Pilots and Dorothy, 6 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

July 5: Woody Sings: The Musical Legacy of Woody Guthrie, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

July 6-7: Muzzy Ridge Concerts presents clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson and pianist Min Kwon, 5 p.m., 7 Sirota Drive, Searsmont

July 8: Summer Music Series presents the Skyliners Big Band, 6 p.m., Bangor Public Library lawn, Bangor

July 8: The Soulbenders, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Theatre & Comedy

July 1-5: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “The Fantasticks,” daily at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

July 6: “Single Woman: Work in Progress,” one-woman comedy show, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

July 7: “Bluey’s Big Play,” children’s performance, 6 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor

July 8: The Silver Circus with magician Andrew Silver, 6 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

July 2: Author talk with Claire Ackroyd on her new book, “Body in the Blueberry Barrens,” 6 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth

July 2: “The Spirit of Cacao: More Than Chocolate,” presentation by Christina Montano, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

July 2-4: “A League of Their Own,” daily screenings, Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

July 3: First Friday Art Walk, 4-9 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor; multiple studios, galleries and shops open

July 5: Bangor Historical Society presents “Founders and Freedom: A Revolutionary Walk through Mount Hope,” 10 a.m., Mount Hope Cemetery, Bangor

July 7: “What Should We Remember About the Declaration of Independence?” talk by Liam Riordan, 6:30 p.m., Belfast Free Library

July 7: Book talk and signing with author Judson Merrill on his new book, “Paranoid Storytelling,” 7 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

July 8: Deep dive curator’s tour with Cipperly Good, 5 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

July 8: “Reseeding the Social Ecology of Participation,” book talk and performance by Elizabeth Adams, Don Hudson and Lisa Leaverton, 7 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

Maine author Judson Merrill was kind enough to send me a copy of his book, “Paranoid Storytelling,” which came out this week and which he’ll be reading from and talking about with local writer Sarah Walker Caron at 7 p.m. July 7 at Bookspace on Columbia Street in Bangor. I gave it a read over the past week and thoroughly enjoyed myself - it’s rare to see such a bold and stylistically daring novel come out of Maine. It’s equal parts fictionalized gonzo journalism, conspiracy theory romp and missing person-cum-murder mystery, kicked off by an encounter with a QAnon-esque group protesting the deep state on the ferry pier in Lincolnville. It takes readers across the world and into weird, dangerous corners of fringe academia, cabals of tech billionaires and experimental art. A fictionalized version of Merrill himself is a first person narrator, though he frequently disappears in favor of a third person perspective as we get to know the other characters. The intellectual/scientific movement at the center of the plot - a new field of study called “cultural immunology” - can be a bit hard to follow, but then again: so aren’t conspiracy theories much of the time. Regardless, it’s a very fun book and one that I’m glad I got to spend some time with. You don’t see these sorts of big swings in the Maine literary scene all that often.

BONUS: Here are some photos of flowers readers sent after my request for images of their gorgeous summer gardens. Left to right; columbine and poppies in Cynthia’s garden in Dover-Foxcroft, and a vaseful of peonies from Brook’s home in Orrington. Thank you both for sharing!

Good morning (OK, afternoon I guess) from eastern Maine, where this weekend, you’ll see me at Bangor Pride! Don’t forget: the parade starts at 11 a.m. Saturday, and the festival is on the waterfront this year - not in West Market Square, as it has been in years past. Read my piece from a couple weeks ago about the history of LGBTQ+ activism in the Bangor region, while you’re at it.

• A judge has decided that the wreck of the schooner Delhi, which sank in Somes Sound off Mount Desert Island in 1893, belongs to the state of Maine - including the thousands of granite pavers that a salvage company wanted instead. I still think this would make a great story song a la “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Has anybody written this yet? I’m waiting.

• Nerd alert: I read historian Alan Taylor’s New York Times article this week about Joseph Plumb Martin, the Revolutionary War soldier whose personal narrative about his war experience is an invaluable historical document. I did not know Martin settled in the Waldo County town of Prospect! Or that he appeared to have been screwed out of a land deal by another Revolutionary War figure in Maine: Gen. Henry Knox. Anyway, the article is worth a read. And Alan Taylor is giving a talk at the Blue Hill Public Library on Tuesday.

• Why do we keep having to potentially vote on these stupid, stupid ballot questions? Who is actually asking for this? Is it just a minority of hardcore conservative Christians with a bunch of out of state money and nothing better to do? What a huge waste of time and resources. If these people get their anti-weed question on the ballot next year, I look forward to it being defeated.

• The community of Searsmont is still reeling from the devastating explosion and fire at Robbins Lumber Mill last month, with many folks still in the hospital recovering from grievous injuries. The city of Brewer is showing solidarity with our neighbors in Waldo County by hosting a big fundraiser event at 6 p.m. today, June 25, at the world famous Brewer Auditorium. It’s a family-friendly affair, with lots of kids activities and food and a family movie screening at 7:30 p.m., with all donations going to help the folks affected by this tragedy. You could also check out this mini Restaurant Week-style fundraiser being held by a bunch of eateries on the midcoast, all of which are raising money to help Lily Robbins, the young EMT who was critically injured in the blast. That runs through this Saturday!

• I loved this really sweet article and photos by the BDN’s Cameron Levasseur on the annual Midsommar festival in the Aroostook County town of New Sweden, held last weekend.

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Happy birthday to Medicare, the socialized healthcare program that went into effect 60 years ago this week! Millions of older people, people with disabilities and their families have access to healthcare and increased economic security thanks to this groundbreaking program. We could make Medicare accessible to everyone, of course, but in this country we prefer to make access to healthcare tied to your ability to work, and to prop up private insurance companies that care more about their money than your wellbeing. That’s the American way - waste lots of money for worse outcomes, and further line the pockets of already incredibly wealthy people! Happy 250th!

Music & Dance

June 25: Belfast Summer Nights presents Muskeg and the Monday Night Jazz Orchestra, 5:30 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast

June 26: OneSixtyOne, 6 p.m., Orono Brewing Company, Orono

June 26: Pretty Good Jazz Trio feat. Nina Emery, 7 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

June 26: Pride techno contradance feat. DJ Pawz, 5:30 p.m., Unitarian Universalist Society of Maine, Bangor

June 26: Dance party with the Hot Suppers, 7 p.m., Marsh River Theater, Brooks

June 26: In The Kingdom Of Nightmares, Wormhole and Earthwyrm, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

June 27: Rock and Disco Dance Party feat. Virtual Strangers and DJ Aquavantes, 6 p.m., Black Moon Public House, Ellsworth

June 27: The Mallett Brothers Band, 6:30 p.m., Barncastle Hotel & Restaurant, Blue Hill

June 27: Oeuvre and Phantom Vespers, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

June 28: Dead Gowns and Louisa Stancioff, 6:30 p.m., Working Loose, Blue Hill

June 28: Essex Piano Trio, 4 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

June 28: Chameleon feat. Philip Greenlief, 4 p.m., Fogtown Brewing Company, Ellsworth

June 30: Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz, 6 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

July 1: Summer Music Series presents PanStorm, steel drum band, 6 p.m., Bangor Public Library lawn, Bangor

Theatre & Comedy

June 25-28: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “The Fantasticks,” daily at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

June 25-28: Opera House Arts presents “Outside Mullingar,” nightly at the Stonington Opera House, Stonington

June 25-28: Midcoast Shakespeare Studio presents “(Lady) Macbeth,” a retelling of the original, nightly at Belfast City Park, Belfast

June 26: Delicious Drag Divas, 7 p.m., Eye Candy Studio, Bangor

June 26-28: The Grand Players present “Spongebob: The Musical,” The Grand Theatre, Ellsworth

June 26: High Stakes House of Comedy presents Ryan Shea and Cher Lynn, 8 p.m., Hollywood Casino, Bangor

June 27: Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers present “The Legend of the Banana Kid,” 6 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

June 27-28: Machias ACT presents “Tick, Tick… Boom!”, nightly, Milbridge Theatre, Milbridge

June 27: Queen City Improve Pride night comedy show, 7 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer

June 27: Comedy night feat. Zac Calden, Chris Fitz, Mike from Dexter, Malcolm Holmes, Carlo Rojas, Lloyd “Legacy” Sharp, Mike Gray and Katy Moon, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

June 27: Delicious Drag Divas, 6:30 p.m., Jeff’s Catering, Brewer

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

June 25: Book talk with Caroline Bicks, author of “Monsters in the Archive: My Year of Fear with Stephen King,” 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library

June 26: POP Studies presents “How to Safely Handle Antique Objects,” 10 a.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

June 27: Old Town Museum 50th anniversary celebration walking tour of downtown Old Town, 10 a.m., Old Town Museum, Old Town

June 27: Readings and signings by LGBTQIA+ authors Robert Monroe, Miriam Rimkunas and Rylan Hynes, 3 p.m., Anodyne Books, Searsport

June 27-28: “Jurassic Park,” nightly, Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

June 27: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” 8:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

June 27: Zillman Art Museum 80th anniversary gala event, 5-10:30 p.m., Zillman Art Museum, Bangor

June 23, 30: “Blade Runner,” Black Bear Cinemas, Orono

June 30: An evening with author Jennifer Breedlove in conversation with Gabriella Stiteler, 7 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

June 30: “American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804,” talk series by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor, 1 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

June 30: Reading and signing with mystery author Paul Doiron, 11 a.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast

June 30: Recovery in Maine Film Festival, 6:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

July 1: “Stories of the Sea: Adventure and Heroism on the High Seas,” staged storytelling about maritime adventures, 5:30 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

July 1: Sci-fi book club reads “The Murderbot Diaries, Vol 1,” 7:30 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

July 1: “Revolutionary Ideas: How Popular Power Shaped the Declaration of Independence,” talk by UMaine history professors, 5 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

June 26: Mr. Drew and his Animals Too, 10 a.m., Belfast Free Library, Belfast

June 26: Native plants walk and workshop, 1 p.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden

June 26-28: Orono Arts Fest, three days of music, performance, local artists and more, throughout downtown Orono; visit oronoartsfest.com for more info

June 27: Bangor Pride Parade and Festival, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor; parade at 11, festival 10-4 on the waterfront

June 27: Lake Ecology and Fields Pond educational paddle, 10 a.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden; bring a boat or rent one

June 27: Furball Festival benefiting the Animal Orphanage, feat. music, artisans, food and more; pet-friendly, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Binette Park, Old Town

June 27-28: Arts in the Park, annual artisan and arts festival, over 100 vendors, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast

June 29: Chewonki traveling tidepool interactive exhibit, 11 a.m. Belfast Free Library, Belfast

It’s time to brag about your gardens! Summer has officially arrived, and we’re approaching peak blooming season in Maine flower gardens. I want to see your beautiful photos of the things you’re growing - from tried and true perennials, to profuse peonies and radiant rhododendrons, to the annuals you just planted last month. Send an email (emilyburnham207 at gmail dot com), leave a link, send however you’d like - if I get enough, I’ll share them next week. Vegetables are also acceptable, though we may save that for a later date. And huge fields of lupine - wild invasives they may be - are welcome as well.

I’ll start. Here’s a foxglove in my backyard that is nearly five feet tall, growing out of a rather weedy corner of my bee balm patch. I’m so proud of it.

Nobody remembers anyone’s phone number anymore. If you asked me to reel off the number of any of my closest friends and relatives without looking them up, I could not do it. Our phones aren’t phones, and we really shouldn’t call them that anymore. They’re computers in our pockets, and audio calls are, at best, the seventh most common thing we do with them.

There are a few phone numbers that remain permanently seared into my brain, however. When I’ve finally lost my marbles, I will still remember those numbers and other vitally important things, like the names of all the Valar from “The Silmarillion” and the music from the Ladysmith Black Mambazo Lifesavers commercials. My husband’s phone number, of course, and my parents’ landline. My first personal phone extension at the Bangor Daily News. And the movie listings line for the Colonial Theatre in Belfast.

207-338-1930. Between the ages of 12 and 18 I called the Colonial almost every week to hear which new movies would be hitting the screens - minus the 207, that is, since in Maine back then you didn’t need to dial the full nine digits. The recorded voice of former co-owner Therese would read off all the showings, and I would sit, impatiently, until something that piqued my interest came through. As soon as it did, the plan was set: Saturday at the Colonial.

About half the time, my Mom would drop me and at least one friend off in downtown Belfast about an hour before the show, with money for tickets and popcorn - and maybe pizza at Alexia’s - in our pockets. The rest of the time, it was usually me and my Mom, a fellow film buff. It was hard to interest my fellow teenagers in seeing a movie like “Amistad” - but my Mom would go see “Sense & Sensibility” with me not once, but twice. We both agreed that Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet could do no wrong.

Despite being a burgeoning snob with a mature-for-her-age taste in cinema - my actual godfather Tommy showed me “The Godfather” when I was nine years old - I was not picky when it came to what I went to see. “Michael,” the 1996 movie starring John Travolta as an angel? Saw it. “Joe’s Apartment,” about singing and dancing New York City cockroaches? Saw it. “Batman Forever,” a jarring tonal shift from the magnificent Tim Burton Batman movies? Saw it twice. Bought the soundtrack. Side note: that’s an amazing soundtrack. Not a bad song on it. My first introduction to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Yes, even “Kiss From a Rose.”

The Colonial and I go way back. I recall going on a field trip there to see “The Land Before Time” with the entire first grade class at Searsport Elementary - which, as far as I can remember, was my first time actually going to the movies. A decade or so later, my friend April and I saw all the re-releases of the original Star Wars trilogy, and then went to the big block party for the midnight screening of “The Phantom Menace,” toting along our lightsabers. The movie was… fine. The preceding five hours hanging out with all the other ticket-holders, however? Great. I went to bed at 3 a.m. and skipped school the next day.

Being Kate Winslet fangirls, my Mom and I saw everything she was in - including “Quills,” which we went into thinking it would be a serious period drama, which at the time was our whole thing. It’s a serious period drama, sure, but it’s also a movie about sex - graphic, lavishly depicted sex. That’s a fun one to watch while seated next to your mother. I think I blacked out.

It was also the golden age of teen horror movies, and my friends and I saw every one of them. “Scream.” “Scream 2.” “Urban Legend.” “The Faculty.” “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.” None of these films are actually that scary. They’re meant to be seen in a dark room with your sweaty, awkward, hormone-addled teenage friends.

“The Matrix.” “Twister.” “Armageddon.” “Independence Day.” “Air Force One.” “Blade.” Saw them all. Piled into the theater, stoned out of our gourds, ready to laugh our heads off at “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.” Went to see “Spice World” twice, a movie I still hold is profoundly underrated. Saw “American Pie” once, a movie I still hold is profoundly overrated.

More importantly, the Colonial was where I learned to be a real film fan. “Magnolia” introduced me to Paul Thomas Anderson - which turned me onto filmmakers like Robert Altman and John Cassavetes, thanks to the plentiful film messageboards of the early internet. “Being John Malkovich” and “12 Monkeys” made me feel like being weird and off-kilter was OK. Non-linear plots? Puppets? A matryoshka doll of identities? How you tell the story is as important as what the story is. Technically, as teenagers we weren’t allowed to see R-rated films without a parent, but nobody at the Colonial box office seemed to give much of a shit if we saw “Fight Club” or “Eyes Wide Shut” at age 17. I consider that a public service. I remain grateful to them for looking the other way.

And while this might sound like a very niche and hyper-specific-to-Maine type of name-dropping, I’ve got a personal connection to the Colonial as well. Hawthorne, the fiberglass elephant that sits on the roof? And his little sidekick, Baby Hawthorne, who hangs out in the Dreamland theater lobby? Those came from Perry’s Nut House, the beloved Belfast roadside attraction that my grandfather, Jay Treat, owned for more than 30 years. Before he died in 2009, he was glad to see them find a new home at the theater.

There aren’t typically a lot of entry points to culture for kids growing up in small towns. There aren’t a lot of places where you can feel like you belong, even if you’re there all by yourself. Movie theaters - from scrappy indies like the Colonial to your local multiplex - are one of the few places where such experiences are permitted and are open to everybody. Anybody can buy a ticket and take the ride. Far be it from me to quote a certain Australian actress in a widely-parodied commercial, but it’s true: <insert emotion here> feels good in a place like this.

Hollywood media loves to go on about how movie-going audiences are shrinking and big studios can’t make money on anything, but I tend to think that’s because they keep pushing out repetitive garbage that mostly appeals to young children. Films like “Backrooms,” “Obsession,” “Sinners” and “Project Hail Mary” are proof that original movies can be well-made and thought-provoking and can make lots of money - wow, what a novel concept! It’s almost like people want to see good movies.

Here in Maine, theaters like the Colonial, Black Bear, the Maine Film Center, the Strand, the Lincoln, the Alamo, the Criterion, the Milbridge, Reel Pizza and plenty of others remain bastions of moviedom in small towns across the state. You can go to the movies for the latest mindless sequel, sure, but for anybody out there hungering for more connection and for more in general - more viewpoints, more imagination, more diversity, more experimentation, more ideas to chew on - there’s a whole world out there. And I can still call 207-338-1930 to find it.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I discovered that I’m mildly psychic, apparently, since the Orrington trash plant caught on fire on Tuesday night not two weeks after I brought up the last garbage fire there on this here Substack. It was a very smelly and possibly carcinogenic Wednesday morning in Bangor! At least this time it only took 17 hours to put out, instead of 10 days. Is that place cursed? I think it’s cursed.

• RIP to the Unity College campus in Unity. It was a big part of Waldo County culture for a long time. It’s gonna be a fancy summer camp now, apparently. Hopefully anybody other than rich kids get to use it.

• Yes, I can think of no better way to spend half a billion dollars than on the most annoying and distasteful television ads that literally everybody - everybody! - hates. Surely there is no other thing that money could be spent on, right? God, this timeline is the worst.

• This very long and very thorough Boston Globe piece about the ongoing injustice of the denial of tribal sovereignty to the Wabanaki people in Maine - and the advent of tribe-managed online casino gambling, which will begin in Maine next month - is very much worth reading.

• See, what you do is, you take something that some assholes want to try to hurt you with, and you reclaim it as a symbol of resistance and resilience. That’s why the organizers of Bangor Pride have t-shirts, stickers and other items up for sale as a fundraiser that feature a rainbow design (created by Monique Bouchard) inspired by the burnout marks left on the Pride crosswalk a few weeks ago.

• FYI: Portland Pride is this weekend! I know lots of folks from the upper half of the state make the trip down for it, so I’d like to shout out a couple cool events around town, like comic (and The Other Maine subscriber!) Kate Sisk’s two-night stand June 19-20 at Empire Comedy Club alongside fellow trans and queer comics, and the Equality Community Center’s annual Saturday night dance and drag bash at the State Theatre, featuring RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Myki Meeks!

• My essay on Maine beauty standards seemed to hit a nerve! Hello, new subscribers and followers! If you liked that one, here are a few other stories I’ve written recently that you might enjoy, like this one about the utterly unique bagels you can get in Bangor, or this one about riding the Concord Bus up the Maine coast, or this fiction piece about an outsider artist who is out of this world. They’re behind the paywall, but a (very inexpensive!) paid subscription gets you access! Click the link below!

The Kennebec River is famous for its jumping Atlantic sturgeon and shortnose sturgeon, which each summer can be seen leaping their massive, prehistoric-looking bodies out of the water alongside the waterfront in towns like Gardiner, Hallowell and Augusta. Less known, however, is that they’re also found in the Penobscot River - in smaller numbers, yes, but sturgeon can be seen along the waterfront in Bangor, Brewer, Winterport and Bucksport. That’s quite an improvement from 50 years ago, when both species of sturgeon were all but extinct in the Penobscot due to pollution and overfishing. 20 years ago, in June 2006, the first sturgeon were spotted in the Penobscot River in decades - numbers that have only improved in the subsequent years, though shortnose sturgeon remained endangered. Have you ever seen a leaping sturgeon in any Maine rivers? I never have and, like spotting otters in the wild, it remains a bucket list wildlife encounter for me.

Music & Dance

June 18: The Star Family Singers, Emily Irving and Darcy Withers, 7:30 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

June 19: The Harborside Trio presents “Songs of the Sea, Sailors and Sirens,” 7 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

June 19: Church of the Morning After, roots music ensemble, 6:30 p.m., 16 Thurlows Road, Stonington

June 19: Mr. Greyy, Vanity Crisis and Arc Eden, 8 p.m., Eye Candy Studio, Bangor

June 20: Jelly Roll and Kashus Culpepper, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

June 20: Alex Creamer and Frank Fuehan, songwriters, 6 p.m., Marshall Wharf Brewing Company, Belfast

June 20: GoldenOak, 6:30 p.m., Barncastle Hotel & Restaurant, Blue Hill

June 20: Takoda Dionne, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing Company, Ellsworth

June 20: Bad Move, Last Embrace, Guillotine and Dying Mind, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

June 21: “Spectrum: The Human Journey,” summer concert from vocal ensemble Divisi, 2 p.m., St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bangor

June 21: Chris Ross, 4 p.m., Fogtown Brewing Company, Old Town

June 23: Bangor Band, 6:30 p.m., outside at Bangor Public Library, Bangor

June 23: Lord Huron, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

June 24: The Newell Family Band, 5:30 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

Theatre & Comedy

June 17-21: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “The Fantasticks,” daily at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

June 18-24: Opera House Arts presents “Outside Mullingar,” nightly at the Stonington Opera House, Stonington

June 19: Comedian Bob Marley, 7:30 p.m., Morgan Hill Event Center, Hermon

June 23: Hilby, the Skinny German Juggle Boy, 6 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

June 24-28: Midcoast Shakespeare Studio presents “(Lady) Macbeth,” a retelling of the original, nightly at Belfast City Park, Belfast

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

June 18: Talk by Margie Patlak on her book “Insect Safari: Exploring the Wondrous World of Everyday Bugs,” 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

June 18 and 23: Bangor Historical Society walking tours, including Best of Bangor, 6 p.m. June 18, and the Great Fire of 1911, 6 p.m. June 23; all start from Thomas Hill House, Bangor

June 19: Bangor Parks and Recreation free movie night screens “How To Train Your Dragon,” 6:30 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

June 18-21: “True Grit,” Coen Brothers film, daily at the Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

June 20: “Anthrotypes: Explore the Dark Room in Your Garden,” nature printmaking workshop, 1 p.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden

June 22: Belfast Historical Society presents “Bits of Belfast History” by ephemera collector Steve Fuller, 7 p.m., Belfast Free Library, Belfast

June 22: “Diverse Manifestations: Queer Art Around the World,” art talk with Christopher Brumfield, 6:30 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

June 23: Crafternoon session, “Create Bee Hotels,” 4 p.m., Old Town Public Library, Old Town

June 23: Torchlight Media summer film showcase, 5:15 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

June 24: Derry-Free Horror Book Club reads “She Waits Where Shadows Gather” by Michelle Tang, 7:30 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

June 20: Punk Rock Flea Market, 12-5 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

June 20: Open history day at Leonard’s Mills, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Leonard’s Mills, Bradley

June 20: Downtown Bangor Summer Solstice Garden Party, 5-7 p.m., Norumbega Parkway, Bangor

June 20: Bass Park After Dark, artisan market and food truck festival, 4-9 p.m., Bass Park, Bangor

June 21: Outside with Pride nature walk, 12-2 p.m., Walden-Parke Preserve, Bangor

June 21: Friends of Sears Island Summer Solstice by the Sea, 12-3 p.m., Sears Island, Searsport

I’ve brought it up in The Weekly Haul before, but after the season one finale this week, I must once again urge you to watch “Widow’s Bay” on Apple TV+. It is, in my opinion, the best show on television at the moment, and one of the finest-ever entries into one of the most difficult-to-pull-off genres: horror comedy.

The most basic description of the premise - a cursed island off the coast of New England, and the townsfolk trying to save it - does not do it justice. Matthew Rhys, as Tom, the increasingly desperate mayor (Lord Protector, if you will) of the island, turns in a predictably note-perfect performance; I think he’s one of the best actors working today and I have a huge crush on him (sorry, Keri Russell). But the many, many supporting and guest actors are the true stars of the show, from Stephen Root’s crotchety sailor Wyck, to Dale Dickey’s chainsmoking town clerk Rosemary - and the revelation of the brilliant Kate O’Flynn as Patricia, who is simultaneously the show’s final girl and comedic relief. And so many wonderful cameos and tiny details! The disturbing board games at the definitely haunted inn, like “Teeth: The Game”? Hilarious. Chris Fleming (who also put out the best stand up special of the year) as the local drug dealer? Perfection.

Is “Widow’s Bay” set in Maine or Massachusetts? The show never says. It could easily be either - what small town in this neck of the woods doesn’t have an ancient evil that demands periodic human sacrifice living in its catacombs? - but regardless, it’s peak New England horror. The scenes of small town governance and the discord between the locals and the tourists would be enough, even without the immortal colonial Plus, it scratches so many itches for so many different types of fans. “Lost.” “Twin Peaks.” “Northern Exposure.” “Parks and Recreation” (which show creator Katie Dippold worked on). “Yellowjackets.” Movies like “Jaws,” “The Witch” and “Halloween.” And, of course, a heavy dollop of Stephen King, who has always had mordant humor laced in among the frights. It is incredibly hard to be both genuinely scary and genuinely funny, and “Widow’s Bay” manages to pull it off beautifully.

I have a skincare routine, the current iteration of which I’ve followed for the past year or so. I switch between various face washes in the shower (an exfoliant, a gentle cleanser, a gel), followed by a toner, a serum and, finally, one of several moisturizers, depending on the day - I’m partial to the Truly brand, either Glazed Donut or Glass Skin (I own both), but I also like SKIN1004’s Centella cream. I’ll do a mask every week or two (pore refining in the summer, moisturizing in the winter). If I had some disposable income, I’d get some laser hair removal. I would even consider Botox, since the lines in my forehead are starting to show up in photos.

Not a day goes by as I’m applying my lotions and potions and unguents and poultices and whispering benedictions to various beauty goddesses that I don’t think - for a second, or for a while - that this is not only stupid and a waste of time and money, but out of step with nearly everything else about me. “What am I doing?” I say to the person in the mirror. “Who fucking cares?” she answers back, as she rubs grape-scented cream into her temples, in a circular motion to stimulate blood flow. “You’re better than this, right?”

I’m a feminist, and proud of it. I’m profoundly aware of the toxic, capricious beauty standards that keep women perpetually in a state of self-doubt and self-loathing and in thrall to society’s impossible expectations. My own complicated relationship to my gender aside, I’m living in what’s generally perceived to be a ladybody, and am susceptible to all the stuff that comes with that.

Equally as important, however: I’m a Mainer. And, as I’ve come to understand we hardy folk, these kinds of vanities and impracticalities simply do not jive with our whole thing. Unless you’re one of those people that comes to visit their second (or third, or fifth) home for two weeks in August, or you grew up with a mother that read beauty magazines, I’d say that, for the most part, the beauty standards in Maine are pretty different from other places in the country. I’m not saying they don’t exist - it’ll never be easy to be fat anywhere, and straight men will always, always have something to say about your body and how it looks and performs. I’m just saying those standards are nowhere near as pronounced as in other places. It’s hard to feel underdressed in Maine.

If you’re not from here, it may shock you to learn that the beauty norm for Maine women, generally speaking, is that unless you work at a bank or a law office or something, or you’re going to a fancy event, you likely don’t wear much makeup - if you wear any at all. A tinted Burt’s Bees lip balm is makeup. Wearing heels will get you stared at - not because you’re sexy, but because what are you doing wearing heels? What are you, a millionaire? They’re going to get all dirty, anyway. And in the winter? Do you have a death wish? There’s a reason Maine’s most iconic (and pretty much only) contribution to the fashion world is L.L. Bean. Practicality is everything.

I have a skin routine now, yes, but for most of my life, I did not. Nobody ever told me I had to. It’s not typically part of the conversation in Maine. I was well into my 20s before anybody told me anything about moisturizer. If I put on makeup, it was thick black eyeliner, mascara and glitter, because I wanted to be David Bowie or Siouxsie Sioux - and to be fair, makeup has, for me, always been more of an exercise in playing dress up and feeling transformed into a slightly different version of myself. That’s probably why I love and identify with drag queens so much. But the more regimented, expectation-heavy forms of beauty care - tightening and waxing and pore-refining and all that jazz - I learned in my late 20s and 30s, from YouTube and my few friends who knew about that stuff. Before that, it just wasn’t on my mind.

I did not have many - any? - role models for glamor and that kind of performative femininity growing up. Maybe it was different when she was younger, but by the time I came around, it seemed like my grandmother went to get her hair washed, dried and shellacked into an old lady ‘do every two weeks or so, and that was that. I recall my mother’s makeup in the medicine cabinet when I was a kid being a three-color eyeshadow palette in various shades of brown, one of those pink and green tubes of Maybelline mascara, and a lipstick in a sensible shade of neutral, likely purchased at LaVerdiere’s or Shop n’ Save. Did anyone wear makeup at my high school? Not that I can recall. If they did, it did not register with me. I was too busy brooding in the computer lab, reading “The Communist Manifesto.”

But that’s par for the course for women in Maine. If there is a standard of beauty here, it’s one based not on trends, or money, or handed down on high from a magazine editor or influencer. It is based, instead, on your contributions, your actions, and how those might manifest physically - regardless of your outward femininity or whatever work you might put into appearing a certain way.

I’d trace some of this back to two strains of cultural norms that are present in Maine. The first is that old double-edged socio-cultural sword - the Puritan value system that makes some of us both incredibly hard workers with a moral backbone, and uptight and self-righteous and, sometimes, afraid of people deemed to be outsiders. Fripperies and superficialities like makeup and clothing are of the lowest importance, when there are fields to be tilled and barns to be raised. God is watching you, and you’ll be judged on the content of your character and the deeds you do on Earth - not on how dewy and glass-like your skin is.

And then, more recently, the back-to-the-landers that began arriving in Maine in the late 1960s brought a rejection of the shallowness and wastefulness of the current beauty standards. Pantyhose? Girdles? Helmet hair? Toss it out the window of the homestead you’re building in the Maine woods. Liberate yourself from society’s expectations. Return to the goodness of the land, and let your inner beauty shine through your work and your community. Wear Birkenstocks to your daughter’s wedding. Just as L.L. Bean is Maine’s contribution to fashion, so don’t we produce eco-friendly, fairly unglamorous brands like Burt’s Bees and Tom’s of Maine as our beauty products. Second-wave feminism and the back-to-the-land movement went hand in hand, and the legacy of those folks is still felt strongly in the communities where they settled.

Both strains of values - the Puritan, and the granola - present alternatives to the prevailing attitudes about what mainstream culture considers beautiful, and acceptable in a woman. You could argue they also enforce their own kinds of orthodoxies, in that they view those beauty standards as so stupid and meaningless that they paint those who partake in them as hopelessly shallow and disconnected from what truly matters. That’s not fair either. I know lots of people who dress the part who aren’t like that at all.

It’s complicated, of course. Here I am, a dyed-in-the-wool Mainer and a feminist, with my skin care routine and my Botox-curious feelings about my forehead. How did it come to this? Why am I like this? I do place a majority of the blame on social media, of course, and the constant stream of beauty content and Get Ready With Me videos and images of emaciated, nipped and tucked celebrities shoved in front of our faces. It gets in your head - even me, a hyper-aware person who knows it’s not great even as I actively do it. I worry, deeply, about younger people and how they internalize these messages. The cycle of self-doubt and self-loathing continues on, as ever, and even worse, somehow.

The question, then, is will Maine manage to hold onto its decidedly more chill attitudes toward how women and feminine people are supposed to look? Even as the digital monoculture insists that they must spend hundreds of dollars each year on various beauty products, and then use them, religiously, unless they want to look completely chopped? Can Maine resist being transformed by an algorithm bent on smoothing out our rough edges and buffing away our wrinkles, until we’re all the same yassified version of what an A.I. thinks is human?

I sure hope it can. I hope people can do whatever they want, quite frankly - another fundamental Maine value is live and let live, after all. You should be free to wear as much or as little makeup as you want. You should be able to get out of the shower and do nothing afterwards - or spend however long it takes applying all the stuff in your skin routine. Cut your hair short, or get it colored every six weeks, or let it grow long and gray and wear it in a big thick braid. Wear Birkenstocks to your daughter’s wedding - or wear those nice gold wedges you splurged on.

Just don’t wear heels in the winter. You will slip on the ice, and you will fall. Don’t be stupid, bub.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where last weekend, I walked down to the Maine Savings Amphitheater on the Bangor Waterfront and shook my ass to rapper-producer Big Boi’s set (alongside Sleepy Brown!) on Saturday, as the special guest on the bill alongside Kid Cudi and others. It was, essentially, an Outkast greatest hits set minus Andre 3000. Outkast was one of the soundtracks to my college years. Big Boi said he’d never been to Maine. Nice of him to visit me down the street from my house. It was a very good weekend.

• I am irresistibly drawn to the horse race of electoral politics, and utterly disgusted by it simultaneously. How many hot takes is too many hot takes? How much money can one set on fire via the purchasing of ad time and/or space? Why is someone from Beverly Hills writing a letter to the Los Angeles Times about Graham Platner? Sometimes it’s nicer when they forget Maine exists.

• Nevertheless: it is very heartening to see how much statewide voter participation there was in the primaries on Tuesday. What’s your bet on how many weeks it will take until candidates for governor and CD2 emerge via ranked-choice voting?

• I am fascinated by this obituary that was published in the BDN on Tuesday. Who ran this? Who paid for it? Why did it run 137 years after this Irish immigrant’s death in the town of Macwahoc?

• A little ray of positivity, though: invasive browntail moth caterpillars are dying, according to Maine Forest Service scientists. As someone who one summer was the victim of browntail moth rash all over my arms and chest that pretty much ruined my life for several days, I will be glad to see every one of them die.

• Congrats to Bangor resident and University of Maine English professor Hollie Adams on the publication of her short story collection, “Dear Humans”! It’s lovely and funny and whipsmart. She’s wonderful. Buy it at The Briar Patch in downtown Bangor or wherever books are sold.

• And, I’m thrilled by the idea of a Netflix adaptation of Ron Currie’s wonderful Waterville-set book, “The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.” Here’s hoping the series is greenlit and it’s filmed here in Maine!

• Check out these crazy bastards that flew in a hydrogen balloon from Presque Isle to Luxembourg last week. In an open basket, too! I wrote about Maine’s weirdly long history with trans-Atlantic balloon flights a while back. I have never been in a hot air balloon. It looks fun. Maybe not enough fun to fly across an ocean in, though.

I was genuinely stumped by this headline in the BDN 75 years ago this week, about a Greenville woman who apparently had a small nuclear explosion directed toward her head in an attempt to shrink a brain tumor, the first-ever attempt at that type of radiation therapy (if you can call it that). I could not find any other information on this Pearle Bartlett Jamieson or this particular bit of atomic age/medical history - that “slow neutrons were catapulted into [her] brain” at Brookhaven Laboratory in New York. Was this a defining moment in radiation therapy and medical history? Or a mistake scientists would rather not talk about, like the radium cures of the early 20th century?

Music & Dance

June 11: Monthly sea chantey singalong, 4 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

June 11: Psycho-Frame, Mortar and Satiate, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

June 11: Alan Cook and Cheryl Oliver with 1 Country, 6 p.m., Black Moon Public House, Ellsworth

June 11: Gailesh, Darwin and the Finches, And Then Some, 7:30 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

June 12: Stillwater Bluegrass Ensemble, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

June 12: Jake and John Hart piano guitar duo, 7 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

June 12: Lumos Experiences presents A Classical Queen vs. Elton John Tribute, 7 p.m., East Orrington Congregational Church, Orrington

June 12: Hamell on Trial, Will Bradford and Plague Dad, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

June 13: Surry Contradance, 6 p.m., Surry School, Surry

June 13: Calypso Soldiers, 7 p.m., Marshall Wharf Brewing Company, Belfast

June 13: Hymn For Her, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

June 13: Floydian Trip: Echoes Through Time, Pink Floyd tribute band, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

June 13: Laus, Street Trash, Horse Funeral and Trixie, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

June 13: GONZO Radio dance party at Dream Charm Bar, 8 p.m., Bangor

June 14: Tom DiMenna presents Story Songs of the 70s, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

June 16: Mumford & Sons with Dylan Gossett, 6 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Theatre & Comedy

June 11-14: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “The Fantasticks,” daily at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor

June 12-14: Belfast Maskers present the Maine Playwrights One Act Play Festival, nightly at Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast

June 12-14: True North Theatre presents “Dancing at Lughnasa,” nightly at the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre, University of Maine, Orono

June 13: Pride After Dark: A Neon Drag and Variety Show, 8 p.m., Eye Candy Studio, Bangor

June 16: Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers present “The Legend of the Banana Kid,” 6 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

June 11: Talk by Rylan Hynes on their new book “Grafting,” 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

June 11: “The Last Navigator: A Young Man, An Ancient Mariner and the Secret of the Sea,” presentation by Steve Thomas, 6 p.m., Bangor Public Library

June 12: Author talk by Jane Goodrich on her book “The Seraph,” 4 p.m., Friend Memorial Public Library, Brooklin

June 14: Screening of Akira Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood,” 6:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

June 16: Talk by Peter Cowin, the “Bee Whisperer,” 11 a.m., Old Town Public Library, Old Town

June 16: Reading and signing with Caitlin Shetterly for her new book, “The Gulf of Lions,” 7 p.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast

June 17: “Point Of View In Fiction Writing,” workshop with Anna Story, 1 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor

June 17: Red Rabbit Film Club screens “But I’m A Cheerleader,” 7 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

June 13: Pride Month Paddle, 10 a.m., Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, Old Town

June 13: Big Jim Sardine Statue celebration feat. live music and open campus, 2 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

June 13: Masked Mania Lucha Libre Mexicana wrestling, 7 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor

June 14: Maine Audubon Paddle Series at Sedgeunkedunk Fishway, 10 a.m., Orrington

A few weeks back I asked for your favorite camp recipes - your go-to dishes and drinks you make for long days along the shore and lazy afternoon barbecues. I’d still love to have them, if you’ve got them!

I received one from my friend Abby Rice, who said her favorite camp contribution is a combination of her wife’s homemade lavender syrup, a bottle of Collective Arts Brewing’s lavender gin, and Newman’s Own Lemonade. As Abby said: “Store bought? Mostly. But I went through four batches at a friend’s camp last summer and had zero left over for most of my garden parties. It’s a hit.” As the Barefoot Contessa said, “Store bought is fine.”

Speaking of store bought is fine, I’ll piggy back on that and say that my husband and I were turned onto the wonders of the Spaghett a few summers back by our friend and my former BDN colleague Matt. You take a bottle of ice-old Miller High Life, you have a sip or two of it, and then you top the bottle up with Aperol and shove a lemon slice in. I don’t know why, but it’s a magical combination - the beer, mixed with the bittersweetness of Aperol, and the slight lift of lemon. Perfect accompaniment to getting tanned or sunburned on the dock, or a post-lawn mowing reward.

To the rest of the country and much of the rest of the state - and despite intentional and crucial work to reverse the association - Bangor’s LGBTQ+ history is intertwined with violence. The 1984 murder of Charlie Howard, a young man attacked and left to drown by three local teenagers explicitly because he was gay, horrified gay and straight people alike. Howard’s brutal death remains a defining moment for the LGBTQ+ community in Maine, and Bangor will forever be associated with it.

But the gay rights movement in the state - and specifically in the Bangor area - that Howard’s death galvanized started more than a decade prior, in the wake of the 1969 Stonewall riots and a subsequent national awakening about rights for gay and trans people. And, of course, gay, queer and trans people have always existed, even in small towns and cities like Bangor. The record shows it. The stories of the people who experienced it are known, and retold. The lives lived today strengthen and vitalize our communities.

It’s easy to look at the size and scope of Pride celebrations statewide and think about all the progress that has been made, especially in comparison to just a few decades prior, when something as simple as a parade would be considered a shocking public display. It’s clear, however, that that progress is hard-fought and hard-won, and can just as easily be stripped away by a few court cases or executive orders. Last week someone twice defaced the Pride crosswalk next to Charlie Howard’s memorial by the State Street bridge in downtown Bangor. The vile, careless comments about it left on social media only further prove the point that the fight is far from over.

Over the past few years I’ve squirreled away multiple images of those early years of LGBTQ+ life in the Bangor area, and of the fight to secure rights for gay and trans people in the state, gathered from longstanding collections like those at the University of Maine and the University of Southern Maine, and from the Bangor Public Library and the Bangor Daily News. Many of these images may be familiar to some; many more likely haven’t been seen in decades.

One of the first gay rights organizations in the state was founded in Bangor in late 1972. Gay Support and Action was a small but mighty group that was the direct precursor to a more well-known organization: the Wilde Stein club at the University of Maine, founded in April 1973, and which met weekly in the Memorial Union.

Later in 1973, Wilde Stein announced plans to host the Maine Gay Conference, the first gathering of its kind in Maine - a plan opposed by UMaine administration, who feared public backlash. According to a 2023 article in Maine Alumni Magazine, the administration might have gotten its wish were it not for a January 1974 federal court ruling that found that the University of New Hampshire had unlawfully denied UNH’s Gay Students Organization (GSO) the right to hold functions on campus. After heated debate among administrators, the conference was allowed to go forth in April 1974. Predictably, groups like the Christian Civic League and Maine fundamentalist churches were outraged, and lodged their homophobic complaints in the Bangor Daily News and other media outlets. Some conservative Maine legislators even threatened to try to pull state funding from the University, though those threats never materialized.

In the end, the three-day conference attracted more than 300 people - double what was expected - and despite a few homophobic incidents on campus, organizers Karen Bye, Steve Bull, John Frank, Dan Estes, John Noble and David Cadigan were vindicated. Today, Wilde Stein continues to thrive, 53 years after its founding. I remember going to my first Wilde Stein meeting during my freshman year of college at UMaine. I have friends I met there that I still consider among my very closest. In many ways, it changed my life.

While campus activism in Orono remained prominent throughout the 1970s and attracted LGBTQ+ people from all over the state, in Bangor, queer life was much less visible - though certainly not non-existent. “A Gay Person’s Guide to New England,” published in 1975, devotes six whole pages to the entirety of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, where Bangor is reasonably well represented. Among the spots the magazine’s contributors point out in Bangor are bars and lounges including Peter’s Candlelighter (a.k.a. The Main Tavern, which it says is “distinctly cruisy” after “the witching hour”), the lounge at the Bangor House Hotel (“gay since forever”) and Benjamin’s, which it says is getting “gayer by the minute.” By the 1990s, Benjamin’s, on Franklin Street, was home to The Bar, a longtime Bangor gay bar, and later Karma and Fusion, both popular 2000s queer nightclubs (I was there!). Bangor doesn’t have a gay bar anymore. I think that’s sad.

The magazine also mysteriously refers to “The Pub,” an unnamed establishment somewhere in Bangor that it suspects is just another way to refer to Benjamin’s or Peter’s. Regardless, in the research for my book, “Downtown, Up River: Bangor in the 1970s” I came across these incredible photos in the BDN photo archive of a drag queen performing somewhere in Bangor in 1975. As far as I can tell, these images were never actually published in print, but they miraculously survived and are some of the vanishingly few public documents of queer social life in Bangor - not to mention of gender non-conforming or trans folk. It would take another 22 years for the BDN to take photos of drag performers, for a landmark 1997 article by my pal Judy Harrison about local drag queens. Then again, “female impersonators” were popular mainstream entertainment in the vaudeville era, judging by the regular advertisements for their performances at Bangor venues like the Bijou Theatre in the 1920s.

By the 1980s, things in the Bangor area weren’t looking dramatically different - LGBTQ+ visibility and acceptance moved at a glacial pace. The scourge of the HIV/AIDS epidemic was beginning its deadly creep into Maine. And 1984, as we know, saw the murder of Charlie Howard - both a tragedy and a turning point. People return each year on the anniversary of his death to throw flowers into the Kenduskeag Stream, from the bridge where he was attacked.

From that point on, however, that slow pace began to quicken. Just a few months after Howard’s death in July 1984, the Maine Lesbian Gay Political Alliance formed, the precursor to EqualityMaine. Gay rights bills were put in front of the Maine Legislature with every new election, though it would take until 2005 for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity to be outlawed statewide, and until 2012 for same sex marriage to be legalized. HIV/AIDS activist organizations like ACT UP founded chapters in Maine and began to make noise and offer information and support statewide - including a notable 1992 effort to distribute condoms and safe sex information at high schools throughout Maine, including at Bangor High School.

Pride parades and festivals also began to take shape in Maine, first in Portland, in 1987, and in Bangor in 1992. The below photos were all taken from the 1994 parade in Bangor. Except for 2020 and 2021, when another global health catastrophe rocked the world, it’s happened every year since. Bangor’s parade and festival this year is set for 11 a.m., Saturday, June 27, and as in more recent years, it’s expected to attract thousands of people - a dramatic increase from the 200 or so that came to the first year in 1992.

Sadly, it’s occurring this year amid a spike in HIV/AIDS cases in eastern Maine, and renewed threats and violent rhetoric to the LGBTQ+ community and the people who love them. The more things change, as they say. So much progress has been made. So much work is left to be done.

Do you have your own stories or photos to share? Did I miss something? Leave them in the comments below, or respond to this post in your email.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I have once again been reminded how profoundly lucky I am to know so many kind, loving, helpful, good-humored and generous people in this beautiful state, and to be a part of an eclectic, far-flung community that values such characteristics. Ten years ago, saying something like that without further context would have been called “vaguebooking,” but I assure you I’m not fishing for anything. I’m just stating a fact: love the people in your village with all your might.

• Hey, remember a couple years ago when the trash plant in Orrington caught on fire and the entire Bangor area smelled like burning garbage for days, and toxic chemicals may have been released into the air? The cause of the fire is believed to have been a lithium ion battery from a vape pen, though we’ll likely never definitively know exactly what caused it. Regardless: Maine just became the first state in the nation to establish a program to collect and either recycle or dispose of vape pens. Time will tell if it makes us safer, but to paraphrase a bear: only you can prevent garbage fires.

• Pickleball! It’s such a fun way to exercise and be social. It can also ruin lives, according to a family who lives next door to the pickleball court at the Belfast City Park.

• Our friends at SK Tours just launched their new Derry-themed rental property to go along with their highly popular tours! Check out The 19, which you can book for up to six people all summer and fall long. Right around the corner from the Standpipe, too. Smart idea!

• Another smart idea: if you haven’t voted early in the primaries, today is your last day to do it at your town or city hall! Otherwise, vote on Tuesday at your local polling place. I voted on Monday and treated myself to boba at Fat Panda afterwards! And said hi to the bust of Hannibal Hamlin at Bangor City Hall and rubbed his shiny bald pate. Side note: ol’ Hanny’s face in that bust kind of reminds me of Droopy Dog.

• Speaking of voting: Penobscot County residents will decide at the ballot box in November whether or not to move the county jail. As we noted in a previous edition of The Weekly Haul, the current building is nearly 160 years old, and has been overcrowded and out of date for decades.

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The first time I’d ever heard of the murders of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams was six years ago, when my friend and former colleague Abby Curtis reported on an anniversary of their late May 1996 deaths in the BDN. Winans, a Unity College student, was brutally killed alongside her girlfriend, Julie Williams, at a campsite near the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. The murder was unsolved for decades, even after a book, “Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders,” written by Maine author Kathryn Miles, was published. In 2024, however, FBI investigators finally cracked the case, identifying the killer, who died in prison in 2018, through DNA testing. 30 years ago this past week, the pair met their violent end. At least now their loved ones have something like closure.

Music & Dance

June 4: Danny Bedrosian and Secret Army and Mike Billings, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

June 5: Machine Gun Kelly, Wiz Khalifa and De’Wayne, 6 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

June 6: Northern Hell Kult’s Punk Pride Extravaganza, noon to late, feat. Ick, Film and Gender, Trick the Riddle, Cat Crash, Unabomber, Terfstomp, Lint Lobotomy, Mars the Starchild and Felch, 263 Levenseller Road, Holden

June 6: Bookhead Sweettooth, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

June 6: Kid Cudi and Big Boi, 6 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

June 6: Damn, Girls! and Hella Band, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Town Hall, Blue Hill

June 6: Dance with the Alumni Jazz Band, 7:30 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer

June 6: Hymn for Her, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

June 7: Dustbowl Revival and the Steel Wheels, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

June 10: Hamell on Trial, Will Bradford and Plague Dad, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

Theatre & Comedy

June 4-7: Belfast Maskers present the Maine Playwrights One Act Play Festival, nightly at Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast

June 5-7: True North Theatre presents “Dancing at Lughnasa,” nightly at the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre, University of Maine, Orono

June 5: Comedy night feat. Ian Stuart and friends, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

June 4: Bangor Beautiful presents screening of “The Extraordinary Caterpillar,” 6 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor

June 5: “Organizing Your Photo Collection” with Kevin Johnson of the Penobscot Marine Museum, 10 a.m., Belfast Free Library, Belfast

June 5: Bangor First Friday Art Walk, 4-9 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor

June 6: Society for Creative Anachronism Medieval Village, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Fort Knox State Historic Site, Prospect

June 6: World Ocean Day talk with Charlie Rolsky, director of the Shaw Institute, 5 p.m., Blue Hill Co-op, Blue Hill

June 6: Readings from Maine writers from “Echoes in the Fog: Literary Reflections on the Liminal Spaces of Maine’s Coast,” 3 p.m., Anodyne Bookshop, Searsport

June 6: Family-friendly printmaking workshop inspired by Maine artist Francis Hamabe, 3 p.m., Castine Historical Society, Castine

June 7: 30th anniversary screening of “The Birdcage,” 3:30 p.m., Black Bear Cinemas, Orono

June 7: Screening of documentary “Heightened Scrutiny,” 4 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

June 8: Poetry reading and book event with poet Jeanne Bartlett, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

June 10: Romance Book Club reads “The Duke” by Anna Cowan, 7:30 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

June 4-7: Bar Harbor Pride, pride events throughout Mount Desert Island and Ellsworth incl. drag shows, festival, hikes, music and more; full schedule at barharborpride.com

June 6: Brewer Riverwalk Festival, feat. vendors, organizations, food, music, activities and fireworks at end of evening, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Brewer

June 6: MOFGA tour of Beauregard Wood Lot and ladyslipper walk, 10 a.m., Beauregard Woodlot, Old Town

June 6: Maine Audubon presents “Who Lives Along the River? A Family Nature Walk Along the Kenduskeag Stream,” noon, starts at 30 Valley Ave., Bangor

June 7: Great Bangor Marathon and a Half, starts at 7 a.m., corner of Main and Dutton streets, register and more info here

A new album from one of the most mysterious and fascinating musical acts of all time is always a cause for celebration - at least in the Burnham household, where we treat such occurrences with the reverence they deserve. That’s why I set aside deep listening time this week to crack into the new release from Boards of Canada, the magnificently atmospheric and brainy electronic music duo from Scotland - their first new album in 13 years is “Inferno,” and it came out last week. It’s excellent. It will take me several listens to really let it sink in.

Now, I suspect a great number of my regular readers are not familiar with Boards of Canada, and their music would likely not be their cup of tea if they were. That’s fine! If you’re open to new experiences and willing to go on a journey, however, please consider reserving a little time - perhaps on a warm summer evening, in the pleasing visual setting of your choosing - and diving into their discography. Though each album is a different beast from the next one, they all share similar DNA in that they are almost fully instrumental, sonically dense and beat-heavy, full of surprising samples, and constantly shifting vibes between unearthly and even a little creepy, and soothing pastoral beauty. “Inferno” treads that line spectacularly, even as it feels thicker, heavier, more weighty, somehow, than previous albums.

If that makes no sense to you, that’s also fine! You could also consider trying it out if you like any of the following bands and artists: the Grateful Dead, Bjork, Philip Glass, Nine Inch Nails (they share a penchant for a certain mood-setting chord progression) Air, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Cocteau Twins, Brian Eno and/or Berlin-era David Bowie. And if that’s still not your bag, that’s, of course, also fine: not everybody likes everything and I respect that. But I like - no, love - this album and the entire Boards of Canada output, which has been a soundtrack to my more thoughtful and pensive moments since I first heard them nearly 25 years ago.

For decades, people have wanted to build something big and industrial on Sears Island - a.k.a. wahsumkik in the Penobscot language - in my hometown of Searsport. Gov. Angus King wanted to build a container port there. Gov. John Baldacci proposed a liquid natural gas terminal on the island. Most recently, Gov. Janet Mills announced plans to build an offshore wind power port - but talks began well over 50 years ago, in the 1960s, when an aluminum smelter was proposed for the island, followed by ideas for a desulphurization plant, a nuclear power plant and a coal power plant.

Every ambitious plan for Sears Island has failed. The last time anything was built on it was in 1906, when a short-lived seaside resort was constructed; it was out of business by the 1920s. The only human development that can be seen there today are the foundations of a few 19th century farmhouses, and the causeway connecting the island to the mainland, built in 1988 in anticipation of what many assumed were the inevitable developments to come. It’s been nearly 40 years since that causeway was built, but despite developers’ best efforts, anything being built on Sears Island anytime soon seems quite unlikely.

Why has every plan for Sears Island failed? I have my theories, but I asked Julia Hiltonsmith, who is finishing up her PhD at the University of Maine in environmental policy and anthropology, for hers. Her dissertation is about the long history of development proposals on Sears Island, and the fascinating interplay between energy policy, marine resources, environmental concerns and community interests. In her research, she’s spent hours interviewing everyone from local residents and fishermen to policymakers and scientists, trying to piece together the complicated narrative of nearly 60 years of planning and pushback.

Before we dig into the topic of Sears Island, what brought you to Maine from your home state of Tennessee? Memphis, where you grew up, is a pretty wildly different place from rural Maine.

My love for Maine was kind of inherited from my grandparents and my paternal side of the family. In 1971 my grandparents bought a little piece of property in Penobscot, and they came up from their home in New York to repair this really old house. It was their life dream to retire there, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and the house kind of fell back into disrepair. The local fire department actually ended up burning it down! And then my dad decided he was going to develop the land himself, but then he died in 2014, when I was 17. That was obviously a pivotal life moment for me. And so I think I’ve always had this thing in my mind that Maine was where we were supposed to be, and I’m kind of fulfilling my family’s dream of being here. I’ve put down roots. This is where I want to be. The University of Maine was my top choice.

I’m from Searsport, and I grew up going to Sears Island. I definitely took it for granted back then, and I definitely didn’t really understand at the time what was at stake with all the development talks over the years. It’s obviously a special place. What drew you to it as the central focus of your research?

So, my background as a graduate student is in offshore wind development. One of my co-chairs invited me to join a project funded by Maine’s Department of Marine Resources that talks to fishermen who have historically fished in the area in the Gulf of Maine that’s being cited for Maine’s offshore wind research survey. The idea is to document not just how the ecology in that region has shifted over time, but also to document their stories, and their relationship to the place. That last piece - relationship to place - is so interesting to me. It often kind of gets subsumed under the whole NIMBY idea, but I think in this case that diminishes people’s relationship to the natural environment.

When I pitched my PhD project, it was about offshore wind development with a focus on storytelling and language. As we narrowed the focus, I really honed in on Sears Island, which I admittedly knew very little about at that point. It quickly became clear that Sears Island was such a perfect example of the larger concept of economic development versus conservation - not just in terms of offshore wind, but with all the different proposed developments there over the years. It’s kind of the ideal case study. It just opened up a whole wealth of ideas and arguments and narratives around our relationship to place, and our economy and so on. The arguments people made decades ago are strikingly similar to the ones people make today about offshore wind. Why is that? Why do we keep circling back and doing the same thing over and over again? I think it’s fascinating.

Besides the obvious - largest undeveloped island on the Maine coast, access to deepwater harbor - what is it about this place in particular that’s proved so endlessly desirable for developers, and so precious to protect for environmentalists and communities?

Well, for the folks that love the island and venture out there almost daily, I would say that it’s a place of healing - even if it’s sited in between two different industrial developments, with GAC Chemical on one side and Sprague Energy on the other. Regardless, I think people feel really deeply connected to it, and have spent all these years protecting it. It’s this publicly accessible swath of nature. It’s really special to people. I think given that there are other parts of Maine, like in the greater Portland area, where so many fields and farmlands have been developed and diminished over time and access to beaches and the shoreline start to get restricted, that makes places like Sears Island even more important. Those kinds of open, accessible natural spaces are pretty integral to Maine’s identity. Sears Island has defied that kind of encroachment for so long. It’s almost like it’s this autonomous entity that has its own identity. Someone in one of my interviews described it as the island that fights back.

And yet, every decade or so, some governor or entity decides that they’ve got the right idea for Sears Island, and they’re finally going to be the ones to build something there. It kind of feels like a white whale, or a big political prize to win.

Why is the state so keen on developing it, given the fact that they have failed every time? I don’t have a surefire answer, but I can tell you my gut reaction, which is that Waldo County has historically been a very rural and impoverished county in Maine. There was a huge economic decline in the middle of the 20th century, and when you desperately need some kind of economic boost, and you have this piece of land you can use… it makes sense you can justify that kind of development. Now that the state has tried time and time again to develop it, it starts to feel like a passed-on project for each governor. Who will win that prize? Who’s going to succeed in developing Sears Island? If I were governor - which I would never want to be! - I would steer so far away from that topic. It’s so contentious. It invites so much criticism.

There are countless other examples of projects that have flopped because of local or statewide opposition - from the fish farm in Belfast, to tidal power in Passamaquoddy Bay, to ski mountains in western Maine and housing developments on Moosehead Lake. We also saw big opposition to CMP’s power corridor, and very recently to data centers, even if those developments did manage to get pushed through in one way or another. What is it about Mainers that not only drive us to oppose such things - but to be so successful at getting them canceled?

I’ve heard a few times in the interviews I’ve done that maybe, at one point, in perhaps the 1970s and before, Mainers were more open to inviting industry into their towns because of the economic hardship they faced. But I think that as time has gone on, and Maine has grown and people have started to look at the sacrifices that we’ve made in terms of our environmental integrity and our natural resources, they may not see these sorts of things as such a good deal after all.

Maine has definitely been burned by big business. Look at all the towns hollowed out by mill closures, and the environmental devastation that’s been wrought, between river pollution and PFAS and so on. I’m not surprised that lots of Mainers wouldn’t trust someone, whether it’s a politician or a corporation, trying to sell them on something like that.

And yet, I don’t think there’s any true consensus on it. It’s not like everyone is united against these sorts of things. Even in Searsport and the surrounding towns, not everyone is opposed to developing Sears Island. I’m also really fascinated by the kind of strange political alliances that have arisen over the years. I certainly don’t want to wade into it too much because it’s a very touchy subject, but it’s been so interesting to see how organizations that were formerly deeply opposed to development have changed their minds, and similarly how people that would be all about such development have changed their minds too. I guess it depends on which way the political winds are blowing, and who’s in office at a given time. At the end of the day, I guess the core arguments remain the same. It’s just which people are making them.

I wonder if anything will ever be built on Sears Island? Or, for that matter, if it could even be turned into something like a state park or a nature preserve, or some other lower impact development.

If I were to look at the track record of the past 50 or so years, I’m not sure I’d place any bets on anything.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where over the past week, I was quite dismayed to be waylaid by a summer cold. I feel like this should be illegal. I’m always reminded of this Calvin & Hobbes strip whenever I get sick in the summer. I’m feeling much better now, but seriously, there’s a law, right? I demand justice for two lost days of warm weather.

• The rebuttals to the out of touch national media narrative around Maine’s U.S. Senate race continues - this time from Naomi Schalit, a co-founder of The Maine Monitor, who makes more salient points about Mainers and why we defy most stereotypes when it comes to our politics.

• This is your recommendation to check out Rylan Hynes’ lovely new book, “Grafting,” which comes out next week via Islandport. It’s set in a Maine apple orchard!

• I think this Boston Globe profile of a Maine woman who was one of the lucky ones to come out of prison actually rehabilitated was very well told. Sometimes I read stories like this and think, “I knew this person in high school.” I didn’t know her, specifically, obviously, but I certainly knew people like her.

• It is the Boston Globe, however, so we can’t go one day without referencing something like the “Kandeskeag Stream Canoe Race.”

• What do you think? Is sending The Weekly Haul out in the evening on Thursday better than sending it out mid-morning on a Thursday? I may start doing this instead if the data backs me up on it!

• Good kitty.

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We’re used to DUI checkpoints on holiday weekends and signs on 95 reminding you things like “YOU’RE NOT A FIREWORK, DON’T DRIVE LIT.” 100 years ago, however, patrollers on state highways - i.e. Route 1, for the most part - were looking not for drunk drivers, but for bootleggers moving then-illegal alcohol around the state. 1924 was the height of prohibition, and it wasn’t cops pulling people over - it was the feds. Locals and summer folks alike complained about the ill-treatment, many of whom initially thought they were being waylaid by bandits, not G-men aiming to interrupt your shipment of champagne for your seaside clambake. It was still the early days of automobile travel in Maine, mind you, so it’s not like people were going super fast, or that the roads were particularly well cared for. This clipping also suggests that bootleggers were bribing cottage owners along the coast, in exchange for letting them store their illicit hooch in their “snug harbors.” Fun!

Music & Dance

May 29: Sweet Motha Child feat. Danny Bedrosian of P-Funk, Mike Billings, 7 p.m., Bodywise Pilates, Bangor

May 29: Maine Metal Night feat. Gary and the Cruisers, Thy Enemy, The Burial Curse and Revenant, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

May 29: I Love the 90s Tour feat. Vanilla Ice, Montell Jordan, Tone Loc, Color Me Badd, and Young MC, 7 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor

May 29: The Speed of Sound and The Kenya Hall Band, 7 p.m., The Underground Lounge, Belfast

May 29: Folk duo 40 Thieves, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing Company, Ellsworth

May 30: Bad Daddy Blues Band, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

May 30: Down East Dead, 7 p.m., Marshall Wharf Brewing Company, Belfast

May 30: Bangor Celtic Crossroads presents Sean Heely and Beth Patterson, 7 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer

May 31: The Met Live in HD presents “El Ultimo Sueno de Frida y Diego,” 1 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono

May 31: Rowing songs workshop and contradance, 6 p.m., Belfast Boathouse, Belfast

June 2: Uga Buga, Earthwyrm, Viqueen and Krull, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Theatre & Comedy

May 29: High Stakes House of Comedy presents Andrew Dela Volpe and Ryan Ellington, 8 p.m, Hollywood Casino, Bangor

May 30: “When Everyone’s At The Table: Storytelling as Solidarity,” live storytelling event and potluck dinner, 5:30 p.m., Halcyon Grange, Blue Hill

Art, Books, Film & Culture

May 28: Author talk by Caitlin Shetterly on her new novel, “The Gulf of Lions,” 6 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

May 28: “Exploring Wabanaki Knowledge: From Place Names to Wild Blueberries,” talk by John Bear Mitchell and Natalie Michelle, 6 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

May 29-31: Signed With Spice: Maine’s Romance Book Convention, more than 100 authors and vendors over three days, Cross Insurance Center, Bangor

May 29: Summer local horror writers panel feat. Zak Cowell, Jesse Speed, Fox Emm, Samantha Eaton, William Chanler, Katherine Silva and Amber Hathaway, moderated by Justin Soderberg, 7 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

May 30: Book signing and storytime for “Lobster Bake and Blueberry Cake” by Karen Richards Toothaker, 11 a.m., The Briar Patch, Bangor

May 30-31: Screenings of “Sense and Sensibility,” Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc

May 30: Pollen-palooza celebration of pollinators and native plants, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Rogers Farm, Old Town

May 30: Ghosts of Fort Knox guided ghost tour, 8 p.m., Fort Knox State Historic Site, Prospect

Memorial Day, as we know, marks the unofficial start of summer and, for many of us, the start of camp season. Whether it’s your own family camp or a beloved friend’s lakeside retreat, it’s a beautiful Maine tradition if you’re lucky enough to have access to one. Long days of swimming, sunning, boating, fishing, games, campfires and winding conversations over dinner. It’s magical.

That’s where my question this week comes in. What is your go-to recipe for a day at camp? The kind of thing you always think to bring when it’s time to pile in and head out to Lake Whatever. A side salad, a dessert, a casserole, a cocktail recipe, anything - what’s the dish you turn to? For me, I have a couple side salads I default to, like a Mexican street corn salad and the classic broccoli salad with cranberries and bacon. When they’re in season I make a peach and cherry pie. I’ve been known to bring a panzanella salad if I’ve got good bread and nice veggies. I marinate a damn good boneless chicken thigh for grilling. And if we’re staying the night I’m a big fan of make-ahead breakfast sandwiches to pop in the freezer and throw in the oven in the morning.

If you’re willing to part with them for the greater good of everyone’s summertime, I’d love to know your camp recipe. They do not have to be fancy. In fact, the less fancy, the better - what, are we from Connecticut here? We most certainly are not. Share your recipes in the comments or respond to this email, and if I get enough good ones I’ll post an epic summertime camp food story later on in the summer.

You’re on a long-ish drive to or from somewhere, and you’ve stopped at a country store in a tiny Maine town to pee and get a snack. Not a Circle K or a Cumberland Farms or a Freshies - a store called, like, RJ’s Variety, or Campbell’s Family Store, or Little River Market. Creaky floors. An ancient Slush Puppie plywood cutout on the front facade. You can get your deer tagged in November, or park your four-wheeler there in the summer.

You bring your snacks up to the counter and notice some dark brown little hockey puck-like candy things stacked next to the register, hand-wrapped in plastic. If you’re from Maine, you probably know what it is. If you’re not, you might ask the woman behind the counter about it, and she might reply that it’s a Needham - sweetened potato and coconut coated in chocolate. It’s a Maine thing, she says. Her friend’s mom makes them for the store. Weird, right?

It’s a rather peculiar thing, when you really think about it: why is a coconut-based confection the most iconic candy made in Maine? Why is the Needham a staple of grandma’s holiday candy-making operation and tourist-friendly candy stores statewide? And who first put coconut and potato together?

Whenever I try to answer a question like that in regards to food I usually start with the ingredients. For the Needham, it’s a pretty short list: potato, coconut, sugar and chocolate. This is when I get to Google things like “when did flaked shredded coconut become widely available” and put whatever answers I find to legitimate use. Here’s what I found out.

The coconut palm is native to Southern Asia, in the area where the Pacific Ocean meets the Indian. It’s believed Austronesian settlers brought the coconut with them on their sea voyages around both oceans, naturalizing the coconut throughout the Indo-Pacific. In fact, there’s a much-debated theory that suggests that many-thousand year old remains of Pacific coconuts found in Panama may indicate that Austronesian sailors visited Central America and introduced coconut to the Americas as early as 4250 BCE - long before the other theory, which is that the Spanish introduced the coconut via their colonies in what is now the Philippines. But, as I so often do, I digress.

Anyway, coconut remained a delicacy generally restricted to tropical areas until the 19th century, when colonial powers began to establish coconut plantations in Southern Asia, the Caribbean and parts of Africa, with the main goal of processing them into oil. While coconut oil was used for a variety of applications, the coconut meat didn’t begin to be widely used as a culinary product until the 1890s, when producers figured out how to dry it out to increase its shelf life. There’s a semi-famous story involving a Philadelphia flour miller who in 1895 received a shipment of coconut in payment of a debt from a vendor. He dried it, shredded it, sold it to stores and was shocked to find that customers loved it. That business, Franklin Baker, still sells coconut products today.

By the early 20th century, there was an explosion of coconut recipes across the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom, like coconut cream pie, cakes, pudding, cookies and other treats. Interestingly, Scotland has a famous confection that also historically combines potato, coconut and chocolate into what they call a Scottish macaroon - though in that case, the mashed potato is sweetened, coated in chocolate and then rolled in coconut. Is the Maine Needham related to the Scottish macaroon in some way? Did a Scottish person emigrate to Maine and bring the potato-coconut knowledge with them? Or is it just an incredible coincidence?

In Maine, the story promulgated is that a Maine confectioner, John Seavey, invented a recipe that mixed dried coconut, mashed potato and sugar and then coated it in chocolate. Seavey named his new treat a Needham, after Boston-based George C. Needham, an Irish American Baptist preacher and writer who, according to his 1902 New York Times obituary, was a very colorful character, touring the world preaching the gospel and writing and selling a constant stream of evangelical tracts. Needham claimed that, as a child, he was forced aboard an English ship bound for South America, where he eventually was “nearly eaten” by cannibals in Patagonia. Between that and the Bible-thumping, he made quite the name for himself - so much so that he was something of a household name in late 1800s New England. Today, it would be like naming a candy after a Christian influencer. Yikes.

The earliest references I can find to Needhams in any Maine newspaper are from the Lewiston Sun-Journal in 1906, Waterville’s Morning Sentinel in 1908, and the Bangor Daily News in 1925. The Maine Needham Company, which has since 2007 sold Needhams in stores and online, claims on its website that Seavey invented the Needham in 1872, but given that shredded coconut wasn’t widely available in American markets until the 1890s, this seems unlikely.

This likely inaccurate date was repeated by a Bangor Daily News reporter in 2019 - wow, she did a bad job researching, didn’t she? She should be ashamed of herself. I hope wherever she is now she is atoning for this lazy oversight by publishing a 1,200 word essay on the Maine Needham. Someone should update Gov. Janet Mills, since she proclaimed Sept. 27, 2025 Maine Needham Day, and specifically cited the 1872 date in her proclamation. But I, as usual, digress.

It’s more likely that the Needham was first dreamt up sometime between 1890 and 1900 - perhaps by Seavey or another confectioner, or perhaps by an enterprising home cook. The other main ingredient is potato, after all, Maine’s largest agricultural crop and the iconic staple product of Aroostook County. The potato part is actually completely unsurprising - it’s the coconut that’s the oddity in the Needham. Old-fashioned Maine food is not particularly known for its bold flavors and experimentation and variety of ingredients. An old Maine relative of mine from the Boothbay area considered garlic “spicy.” Coconut probably seemed intimidatingly exotic to an old Mainer.

And yet, it’s easy to imagine grandma or mémère looking at a glob of leftover boiled potatoes, a bag of shredded coconut and some sugar and thinking it might taste all right together - especially if it was dipped in chocolate. I can also see a situation wherein someone might have wanted to actually make macaroons, but lacking eggs, decided to see if potatoes might work as a binding agent. And I can see yet another scenario in which the Needham was actually invented as a means to stretch pricey ingredients like sugar and chocolate by padding a recipe with cheap and plentiful potatoes.

At the end of the day, I suppose it doesn’t really matter who invented the Needham, or when they did it. It’s not like anybody knows who invented the whoopie pie, either. All we really know is that it’s as Maine as a lobster in Bean boots. Now, the real question is: would a lobster wear eight tiny Bean boots on each of its walking legs? Or would it wear two slightly larger but differently-sized boots on its claws? I, for the millionth time, digress.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, summer barged in through the front doors and immediately began making itself at home. It brought a full catered meal, took over the music with its own specially crafted playlist, brought gifts for everyone and politely but firmly squeezed out spring and the last remnants of winter. It even installed our air conditioner for the season. Nobody complained. They were glad to have someone take over.

• Forget about New York and L.A.; what about eastern Maine, huh?! We here at The Other Maine agree with The New Yorker and believe the local newsletter is a vital balm against the rising tide of algorithmic mundanity and faceless A.I. ghouls that threaten to rob us of all our lovely messiness and humanity.

• Speaking of things made with purpose and love and real human connection: I’m one of the 50-odd Mainers featured in Buddy Doyle’s second book documenting people where they read (and what they’re reading), appropriately titled “Maine’s Still Reading.” Thanks, Buddy!

• My heart goes out to the people of Searsmont and the surrounding communities after the devastating fire at Robbins Lumber last Friday. There are many ways to donate to help those injured while saving people’s lives, but I’m going to share this link to the Maine Strong Foundation, which has worked to help families and communities during other tragedies in Maine. Give if you are able!

• Keep your head on a swivel, as Maine’s immigrant rights organizations are reporting an increased presence of ICE agents in some communities - particularly the Lewiston-Auburn area.

• Guess I’ll go eat some baked dirt about it.

• Happy Memorial Day. Check with your town about parades and other events celebrating the day. Bangor’s parade is at 10:15 a.m. on Monday morning!

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One thing you may not know about me is that I am mildly (fully) obsessed with cults. Some people are into serial killers, some are into the paranormal, but for me, I’m fascinated by how seemingly sane people can find themselves involved in groups that believe what most would consider to be completely crazy things, or, much worse, control and abuse them. One of my favorite cults of all time is Heaven’s Gate, who believed that if they followed the strict rules of their leaders Do/Bo and Ti/Peep they would be transformed into beautiful, immortal aliens and whisked away aboard a spaceship. It did not end well, as you likely know. Anyway, as I did my weekly perusal through the Bangor Daily News archive, what did I see but an article from 50 years ago this week about two emissaries from what would come to be known as Heaven’s Gate, spreading their extraterrestrial gospel in Maine? Wild. Do you have any stories of cults in Maine? I would love to hear them if you do.

Music & Dance

May 21: Swingmatism Jazz Ensemble, 6:30 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor

May 22: Bangor Contradance feat. Here on the Hill with caller Alex Deis-Lauby, 5:30 p.m., Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor, Bangor

May 22: The Problematics and Razorshins, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

May 22: Osmia, Cryin’ Caleb and Lynda Mandolin, 7:30 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

May 22: Sanctum Obscura goth dance night, 9 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

May 23: Whatever It Takes local hip hop showcase, 6 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

May 23: Deery and Greg Jamie, 7 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport

May 24: The Soulbenders, fundraiser for FarmDrop, 6 p.m., Grand Theatre, Ellsworth

May 24: Born of Osiris, Edjinn, Stillborn Condition, 6 p.m. The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

May 24: The Wallflowers, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

May 25: Flash in the Pans community dance, 7:30 p.m., Blue Hill Town Park, Blue Hill

Theatre & Comedy

May 23: Comedian Bob Marley, two shows 5:30 and 8 p.m., Center Theatre, Dover-Foxcroft

May 23: Drag night with host Lady D, 7 p.m., Eye Candy House of Entertainment, 128 Main St., Bangor

Art, Books, Film & Culture

May 21: Penobscot Marine Museum season opening party, 4-6 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

May 21: “Historical Memory of Land Use Proposals at Sears Island,” talk by Julia Hiltonsmith, 6:30 p.m., Carver Memorial Library, Searsport

May 21: Red Rabbit Film Club screens “Multiple Maniacs,” 7 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

May 21: Bangor Beautiful screening of “The Buzz About Native Plants,” 6 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor

May 21: Screening of “Clear Day Thunder: Rescuing the American Chestnut” followed by chestnut tree planting, 6 p.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden

May 23: Fred Wiseman memorial screening of “Belfast, Maine,” 12:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

May 23: Community screening of “The Grocery List Show,” 2 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth

May 23: Bangor Historical Society Best of Bangor walking tour, 6 p.m., starts at Thomas Hill House, Bangor

May 24: Bangor Beautiful community mural painting at the Bangor Farmers Market, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Bangor

May 26: Screening of “Bevel Up: Drugs, Users and Outreach Nursing,” 6:30 p.m., Needlepoint Sanctuary, 120 Park St., Bangor

May 27: Sci-Fi Book Club reads “Operation Bounce House” by Matt Dinnaman, 7:30 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc

May 23: Native Plants Festival and Sale, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden

May 23: 2026 Alewife Day, watch alewives in Chemo Pond, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Maine Forest and Logging Museum, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Bradley

May 23: Belfast Garden Club plant sale, 9 a.m.-noon, Belfast Boathouse, Belfast

May 23: Come Boating! season launch and nautical yard sale, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Belfast Waterfront

Fellow Maine Substacker Andy O’Brien has the correct take on the New York Times’ questioning of Graham Platner’s working class bona fides. Does the New York Times understand anything about the working class? For a publication that confidently assumes its readership can afford multi-million dollar homes and $95 watering cans, I suspect not.

I think rich people live under the mistaken assumption that being working class (or, in their minds, poor) means that you do not have access to anything, period - or, if you do, it’s because you toiled, ceaselessly, and pulled yourself up by your bootstraps to get it. You know, that ol’ capitalist softshoe. If you have a relative or family friend that does have access to money or connections and shares some of that with you, well then, you certainly can’t be working class, right? My great uncle was a very wealthy man who helped pay for some of my college tuition, and my (not wealthy) parents gave me the down payment on our (extremely modest and purchased pre-pandemic) house. By the NYT’s estimation, that means I’m no longer working class, despite the fact that my husband and I still live, essentially, paycheck to paycheck.

I think sometimes people that aren’t working class have one idea of what a working class person is. That person is almost always a white man who works in the trades or in a factory, and does not have a college degree. That’s the convenient stereotype that pollsters and wonks and unimaginative, disconnected folks in the media have decided is working class. Anyone who is not that person - a woman or person of color, for example, or someone that has a bachelor’s or even master’s degree, or someone who works in health care or the service industry or any job, really, where they live off their wages - is not working class.

That lack of basic understanding of the lived realities of the majority of Americans (and Mainers, obviously) is a crucial misstep on the part of the monied class. As New York Times writers and corporate Democrats sit in their offices and scratch their heads about why Graham Platner is so popular, many of the rest of us are looking for something, anything, anybody that recognizes that most of us are one catastrophe away from financial ruin. The working class - ie people who work for a living - is a much bigger tent than the rich and their enablers currently understand.

I have a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that (hopefully) make me a total delight for people like you. Skills like having committed to memory a long list of recommendations from every corner of Maine f…

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Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, despite not being much of a reality competition show person outside of my beloved Drag Race and the original “Project Runway,” I did tune in for “America’s Culinary Cup” because I wanted to see Maine’s own Cara Stadler compete! And man, not only did she shine: she won th…

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I didn’t know Bill Bishop at all. I’d never had a conversation with him. I’d known his nephew, Aaron, for a while, but it was years before I found out he was related to Bill - the man with the long hair and massive gray handlebar mustache, who rode a neon-colored electric bike towing a little trailer around town and sold Christmas ornaments made from br…

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Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I encourage you to watch “Widow’s Bay” on Apple TV+. It’s set on an island off the coast of a delibera…

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Last weekend I had the pleasure of leading a Jane’s Walk in downtown Bangor, as part of the statewide Jane’s Walk programming organized by Maine Preservation. My topic, unsurprisingly, was on Ur…

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Good morning from eastern Maine, where it’s shameless self promotion time: I’ll be leading one of this year’s Jane’s Walks in downtown Bangor this weekend! Jane’s Walks, in case you don’t already know, are walking tours organized in towns and cities nationwide in honor of the legacy of Jane Jacobs, th…

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