Good morning from eastern Maine, where I will fully admit I am a bit on the tired side after going to Orono Brewing Company last night to watch my Jeopardy! debut with a bunch of friends and then staying up late to answer approximately 400,000 texts and messages. It was completely overwhelming and absolutely wonderful and I am so profoundly grateful to everyone I have ever met. Hello to all my new subscribers! I’ll be sharing a much more in depth post about my J! experience soon. To all my longtime subscribers: I promise that in relatively short order this Substack will return to being primarily about weird Maine things. I’m on TV again tonight! Watch it!
In other news:
I’m not particularly shocked that Susan Collins got a kickback from a military contractor for pushing through a multi-million dollar naval contract to build 3D-printed boats at the University of Maine. That sounds completely on-brand for her. The real question is: are Mainers happy with someone that uses her power and position to benefit herself?
A fisherman in Searsport caught an insanely rare Pokemon - excuse me, lobster - in the nearly-impossible “cotton candy” color morph.
Maine Preservation’s list of the most endangered historic sites in Maine includes Wild Blueberry Land in Columbia Falls - you know, the place just off Route 1 with the blueberry-themed geodesic dome? The concern is not with the buildings, which appear to be in fine shape, but with finding someone to take over the property for the next generation. Anyone want to go in on buying a geodesic dome with me? Great place to start a cult!
Devin Finigan at Aragosta at Goose Cove in Deer Isle is one of the best chefs in Maine and I for one plan to make this recipe of hers that was featured this week in the New York Times.
I remember this date well. I was 14 years old, and Pearl Jam - a band that I had loved since getting a copy of “Ten” for, appropriately, my tenth birthday - was set to play a show at the Augusta Civic Center on Sept. 26, 1996, 30 years ago this week. Yes, that’s right: the Augusta Civic Center. Maybe the fourth largest arena in the state? A place that even to this day is widely regarded as a pretty crappy venue? More importantly: 45 minutes from my hometown?!
Pearl Jam’s first and so far only appearance in Maine came as a result of the band’s famous tour of non-corporate music venues across the country in protest of Ticketmaster’s unfair practices, like BS fees and monopolistic behavior. Instead of playing Madison Square Garden, the band played civic centers and ballfields, and charged a maximum of $25 all-in for tickets. Pearl Jam, of course, were totally right: Ticketmaster, now wholly owned by the equally monopolistic behemoth Live Nation, was the subject of a massive antitrust lawsuit that they lost in April of this year. Noble though their cause was, however, even one of the biggest bands of the 1990s couldn’t make touring work outside of the large venue network. Within a few years, the band was back to working with Ticketmaster.
For me, however, I remember all of this primarily for my being “too young” to go to such a concert, and that I was one of a very few girls in my school that generally preferred rock music. I later learned that basketball legend Dennis Rodman - who I loved because he was so crazy and colorful - showed up in Augusta and sang “Alive” with Eddie Vedder. Seriously? I was so pissed.
Music & Dance
Sept. 25-27: Live music daily; Mood, 6 p.m. Friday; Circus Mutt, 6 p.m. Saturday; Tim Seeley, 4 p.m. Sunday, Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth
Sept. 26: Along for the Ride dance band, 6 p.m., Brooksville Community Center, Brooksville
Sept. 26: Cadenzato, annual faculty music recital, 7:30 p.m., Minsky Recital Hall, University of Maine, Orono
Sept. 27: Ivalas String Quarter, 3 p.m., Minsky Recital Hall, University of Maine, Orono
Sept. 28: Volcandra, Grave Ripper and Darkwound, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town
Sept. 30: “The American Story Through Song,” musical revue by due Sultana, 7 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport
Theater & Comedy
Sept. 24-27: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “On Golden Pond,” nightly at the Bangor Opera House, Bangor
Sept. 26: “All Things Equal: The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsberg,” 7 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono
Arts, Books, Film & Culture
Sept. 24: “Saving Black Bear,” local film screening, 1 and 6 p.m., Black Bear Cinemas, Orono
Sept. 24: “Ambiguous Allegiances in the Revolutionary Northeast: Wabanaki Diplomacy, Patriot Defeat, and British Fort George” talk by Liam Riordan, 5 p.m. Castine Historical Society, Castine
Sept. 24: Author event with with Alice Hotopp and Coco Faber, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill
Sept. 24: Red Rabbit Film Club screens “Frankenhooker,” 7 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor
Sept. 25: Ellsworth Historical Society presents “You Be the Jury: The Unsolved 1815 Ellsworth Axe Murder,” mock trial, 6 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth
Sept. 25: Manhattan Short Film Festival, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington
Sept. 25-26: “Blade Runner: The Final Cut,” daily, Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor
Sept. 27: Northern Maine Outdoor Movie Fest, 3 p.m., Center Theatre, Dover-Foxcroft
Sept 29: “What Happens to Bangor’s Trash?” community learning session, 5:30 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor
Sept. 29: “Saving Walden’s World,” local documentary screening, 7 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast
Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.
Sept. 25-27: 50th annual Common Ground Country Fair, MOFGA headquarters, Unity
Sept. 25-26: Fling Into Fall, annual fall festival feat. music, crafts, food, activities and more; throughout downtown Searsport
Sept. 25-26: Autumn Gold, annual fall festival and community gathering, throughout Ellsworth
Sept. 25-27: Old Town Riverfest, annual community-wide celebration, throughout Old Town and at Binette Park on waterfront, Old Town
Sept. 26: Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncakes, parade and more; 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor
Sept. 26: Carmel Days, annual community festival, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Mick Fahey Recreation Field, Carmel
Sept. 29: “Sesame Street Live: Elmo’s Got The Moves,” 6 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor
The featured image for today’s post is a drawing created at the age of six by none other than my husband, Zach. He drew it for his godmother, Sara Cox, a second grade teacher from Bangor who in 1990 won four whole games on Jeopardy! and even made it to the Tournament of Champions in 1991. Aunt Sally, as she is known in our family, brought the drawing to our eternal J! king, Alex Trebek, who was kind enough to sign it for her and comment on the incredible gift Zach clearly showed in getting his likeness exactly correct. 36 years later, it still hangs in Sally’s house. I love that the J! legacy is so strong in the Bangor region - last night, fellow contestants Allen Adams and Kara Perucchio even came to my watch party (photo below!), and I also heard from fellow former contestant and Bangor-area state representative Amy Roeder. I have to wonder if Bangor has one of the highest per capita rates of contestants in the country. What’s in the water here?
There she was, flashing the peace sign at the beginning of the show, setting her competitors at ease. And then her stealth began, answering this one right, the other wrong, letting their overconfidence lead them until she struck, ninja-like, leaving them toppled and blinking. "What just happened?" The Burnham Burn is what happened, my friends. Watch yourselves lest you get Burned again. 😊