Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, as I sat working in the lobby area next to Chimera Coffee in downtown Bangor, a very nice person walked in with a cat carrier. I involuntarily squealed at the kitties, and then the nice person asked if I wouldn’t mind watching them for five minutes while he got a coffee. I said yes, but I’d need to know their names, which are Q and Dax which are of course named after two Star Trek characters from Next Gen and DS9, respectively. We hung out for five minutes and they mewed at me through their carrier. These are the things that make life worth living!
So… uhhh… is Acadia National Park open during the government shutdown? Are the doors open and nobody is staffing it? Or just, like, a few people here and there? We truly live in the dumbest, cruelest, most asinine timeline. Also: shame on you, Angus King, for enabling the MAGA attempt to take healthcare away from people.
I haven’t a clue if my endorsement (lol) means anything to anybody, but Susan Faloon has my strong support in this year’s race for Bangor City Council! She’s smart, practical, empathetic and a hard worker. Big fan!
Stephen King is the most-banned author in the U.S., according to PEN America. Good on ya, buddy. If a book is banned, that means you should read it!
It would be nice if the Portland Hearts of Pine would go on the road sometime and play a game up here in the Bangor area. I think people would go nuts for it. I know it probably won’t happen. But it would be nice.
I am conducting an informal poll of TOM readers. Which is the most obnoxious, poorly designed street in the Bangor area? I’m talking about streets with bad traffic, bad planning, overdevelopment, turns that are impossible. What do you think?
On our way back from Canada the other week, on Route 201 in the Somerset County town of Caratunk (population 81) we were greeted by signs along the road for Confluence Cafe, promising lattes, matcha, ice cream, pastries and other goodies. Sure enough, a cute little trailer with adorable woodland picnic seating soon appeared. They serve 44 North Coffee (the best in Maine IMHO) and my espresso mocha made with housemade chocolate syrup was excellent. The maple lemonade and iced latte my friends had were also fab. I have no idea how much longer it will be open for the season, so my apologies if it’s already closed. The very nice person at the window said they plan to be there next year. What an unexpected treat in such a tiny Maine town!
Here are some things I’ve cooked in the past few weeks that I thought were really good.
Melissa Clark’s Coq au Vin - definitely a Sunday dinner, since it needs at least four hours of marinating, and there’s a fair amount of steps during the cooking. As long as you follow the directions, you can absolutely make this – it’s mostly a bunch of browning and chopping and simmering. Remove the skin from the chicken. Don’t bother toasting the bread in the pan; instead, brush the slices with melted butter or olive oil and put them on a baking sheet in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Save yourself more active cooking time. Equally delicious.
Curried Chickpeas and Squash from Amateur Gourmet - I’ve been a fan of Adam Roberts’ site for years now, and he pretty much never steers me wrong. I made this dish last weekend, and it’s so simple - pop that butternut squash in the oven for an hour fifteen, make those chickpeas mega crispy in the pan, and don’t skimp on the lemon in the yogurt sauce. I had neither parsley nor pomegranate to top it with, but I didn’t miss it that much. An easy weeknight vegetarian dish to use up plentiful squash this time of year.
Chicken and Dumplings - Maybe you have your own recipe. I don’t. When looking for a recipe for something like chicken and dumplings, I’m going to go with a site called something like, I don’t know, “Sandy’s Savory Sensations” or “Mom Plus Four” or “Tasty Thyme” over the New York Times or Bon Appetit. After I skip nine paragraphs about how their kid/husband/grandma/pool boy has an emotional connection to this dish, I will make chicken and dumplings with the homemade stock I had in the freezer, and the dumplings will be fluffy and flavorful and perfect for a rainy day, and I’ll have lunch for two days afterwards.
The housing crisis in Bangor - and, let’s be clear, across the entire state and most of the country - is very real, and very pressing. Little real progress has been made. 80 years ago, the Bangor region faced another housing crisis, as soldiers returning from World War II returned home to a city without enough places for them to live. How did the city respond? Well, much like today, progress was glacially slow. Within a few years, the tidy little houses in the Bangor Gardens neighborhood were constructed specifically for veterans and for service members from Dow Air Force Base. Though it was first proposed in the mid-1950s, the Stillwater Park housing project wasn’t completed until the mid-1960s, and the new housing along Hancock Street - which at the time was largely composed of tenement-style housing - didn’t even break ground until the late 1960s. By the time those projects were completed, it had been 20 years since the housing crisis was first identified. Not a great precedent for the current housing crisis, now, is it? 😬
Music & Dance
Oct. 2: Nick Finzer Quartet, jazz ensemble, 7 p.m., Minsky Recital Hall, Orono
Oct. 3: OneSixtyOne, 6 p.m., Orono Brewing Company, Orono
Oct. 3: Travis Cyr’s 40 Thieves, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth
Oct. 3: Showgirl Soiree Taylor Swift album release party, 8 p.m., Happy Endings Martini Bar, Bangor
Oct. 4: BookHead SweetTooth, 4 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport
Oct. 4: Damn, Girls! all-woman classic country band, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, fundraiser for Tree of Life Food Pantry
Oct. 4: Belfast Bay Beer Bash, feat. lots of beer and music from Fully Functional and Primal Soup, 4-10 p.m, Marshall Wharf Brewing Company, Belfast
Oct. 4: AZV, Widows Club, Gunshot Glitter, 7 p.m. Old Town Theatre, Old Town
Oct. 4: Latin dance night, 9 p.m., Happy Endings Martini Bar, Bangor
Oct. 6: Singer-songwriter circle feat. Phoebe Kreutz, Matt Colbourn, Lesley Graves, Toby Goodshank, Skip Bailey and Franzi Kafka, 6 p.m., Hey Sailor, Searsport
Oct. 7: St. John’s Organ Society presents James Kennerley performing Bach, Mendelssohn and an improvisation based on a submitted theme, 7:30 p.m. St. John’s Catholic Church, Bangor
Theatre & Comedy
Oct. 2-5: Belfast Maskers present “One Blue Tarp,” by Maine playwright Travis Baker, nightly at the Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast
Oct. 3: Comedy night feat. Ian Stuart, Adam Hatch and Jim Bishop, 8 p.m., Hollywood Casino, Bangor
Oct. 3-4: True North Theatre presents “Ghosts of Mount Hope,” cemetery walking tour, 6 p.m. nightly, Mount Hope Cemetery, Bangor; tickets online
Oct. 4: Comedian Bob Marley, 8 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, Orono
Oct. 5: “The Malaga Ship: A Story of Maine and the Middle Passage,” original play by Antonio Rocha, 3 p.m., Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor, Park Street, 3 p.m., Bangor
Oct. 6: “Whose Live Anyway?” improv feat. Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, Jeff B. Davis, and Joel Murray, 7 p.m. Collins Center for the Arts, Orono
Arts, Books, Film & Culture
Oct. 2: Author talk with Kristen Brittain on her book “Falling in a Sea of Stars,” 6:30 p.m., Jesup Memorial Library, Bar Harbor
Oct 2. Author talk with murder mystery writer Moe Claire, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library
Oct. 3: Author’s night with Bangor-area authors Douglas Wright, Christopher Packard, J.D. Mankowski, and Annaliese Jakimides, 7 p.m., The Stage Door, Bangor
Oct. 3: First Friday Art Walk, 4-8 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor
Oct. 4: Downtown Bangor Fall Sidewalk Arts Festival, vendors, performers and more; 9 a.m.-4 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor
Oct. 4: SardineFest!, a day celebrating all things Maine sardine, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport
Oct. 4: Hands-on granite splitting demo with artist Mark Herrington, 1:30 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library
Oct. 6: “One Climate Future: From Plan to Process,” talk by Maine sustainability expert Katie Tims, 3 p.m. Norman Smith Hall, University of Maine, Orono
Oct. 7: Author talk and signing with Shannon Bowring and Ron Currie, 6:30 p.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast
Oct. 8: An evening with author Ken Baxter, 5:30 p.m., Bangor Public Library
Oct. 8: Book group for Rebecca Traister’s “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger,” 5:30 p.m., Bangor Public Library
Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.
Oct. 4: 32nd annual Paws on Parade, fundraiser for the Bangor Humane Society, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Bangor Waterfront
Oct. 4: Climate Resilience Fair, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast
Oct. 4: Bangor Historical Society’s annual awards dinner and fundraiser, “Great Gatsby” themed, 6-9 p.m., Hollywood Casino, Bangor
Oct. 4: Bangor Art Society’s 150th anniversary gala, Gilded Age themed, 7 p.m. Zillman Art Museum, Bangor
Oct. 4: Phoenix Pro Wrestling, 6 p.m., Brewer Auditorium, Brewer
Oct. 4-5: Living History Days, feat. re-enactors, demonstrations, food and more, Maine Forest and Logging Museum, Bradley
Like many people my age, Jane Goodall was one of the first scientists or science-y people I encountered as a child - and, more importantly, one of the few woman scientists anybody could name, aside from Marie Curie or Rachel Carson. That’s probably still true today, sadly. Watching footage of her with the Gombe chimps in the 1960s makes me feel so many things. Fascination, at how many similarities we have with chimps. Curiosity, at how different we are. Wonderment, at the marvels of evolution and our incredible planet. And delight and deep respect, for the fearless woman who brought these revelations to us. Rest in peace, Jane. I hope David Greybeard is waiting for you on the other side.