Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, sadly, I did not get raptured. Nor did I get stuck on an escalator at the United Nations and claim that it was sabotage. Nor did I try to blame women taking Tylenol for kids with autism existing. Nor did I designate a concept (not an actual group) a “terrorist organization”. Man, I guess I’m pretty lazy.
(Actually, I went to Quebec City for the weekend with two of the coolest people I know, where we ate a bunch of delicious food, drank a bunch of fancy cocktails, shopped in some amazing vintage stores and dodged tourists with no spatial awareness in the Old City. It was great. Onto the headlines!)
“It: Welcome to Derry” premieres on HBO on Oct. 26, and the official trailer dropped this week. The new series – set in the world of Stephen King’s “It” and operating as a prequel of sorts to the book - was filmed in Port Hope, Ontario. NOT Bangor, on which, as we know, Derry is modeled. Judging from the trailer, Bangor/Derry in the 1960s is home to an Air Force Base (true), some racist af white people (sadly true), and attractive teenagers wearing the latest, coolest clothes (maybe true? Kind of doubt that). Oh, and a murderous interdimensional clown. Will you watch the show?
I’m so sad to hear that Serendib in Ellsworth, one of my favorite restaurants in eastern Maine and where we JUST ate for our 15th anniversary last month, is closing at the end of the year. I will miss their tangy Madras chicken, their silky, hearty dhal and Mom’s love cake, the recipe for which I should really just call them up and ask them for. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait too much longer to get our South Asian cuisine fix, with Rasa Indian Cuisine opening soon in Bangor.
Two of the victims of the Lewiston mass shooting were posthumously awarded the Carnegie Medal for Heroism for their actions that helped save countless lives at the bowling alley - even as they lost their own lives in the process. If you’ve never read about the Carnegie Hero Fund, you now have a rabbit hole to go down that will make you feel much better about the state of humanity.
The whitewashing of American history and scientific fact continues in Acadia National Park, where the Department of the Interior removed signs informing visitors about the effect climate change has had on the park, and on the fact that Wabanaki people lived on Mount Desert Island thousands of years before white people did.
While this is obviously against the law and very gross, don’t act like you didn’t LOL when you saw this headline. Completely unrelated: if I’m in the mood for a crappy Dunkin pastry, I usually get a donut stick.
This weekend brings the annual Recovery-palooza, a free, day-long festival celebrating Maine’s recovery community. Organizations and individuals throughout the state truly do amazing work in supporting and guiding people who struggle with substance use, putting them on the path to a healthier life. It is difficult, incredibly important work, and it is deeply interconnected with other issues like homelessness and lack of access to health care. If you’ve ever wondered about the work they do and want to know more about this issue that is at the root of so many of the things Bangor - and the entire state, really - struggles with, I recommend heading down to the Bangor Waterfront at 11 a.m. this Saturday, Sept. 27, and checking out the festival and the many organizations represented there. There’ll be food trucks, kid’s activities, a cornhole tournament and live music from bands and artists including Spose, Smoked Salmon, Myles Bullen and Sarah Trunzo. And if you brought some cash in your pocket to stuff in a donation jar, that would be nice, too.
Maine really doesn’t get hurricanes. In fact, you can literally count on one hand the number of hurricanes that have made landfall in Maine in the past century - or at least since they started keeping official track of hurricanes. One of those storms occurred 40 years ago, as Hurricane Gloria made landfall off the coast in Maine over the weekend of Sept. 28. Though its power didn’t exceed a category 2, the fact that hurricanes so infrequently occur in Maine meant that it still did some damage, including more than 250,000 people losing power, and winds that ripped off roofs and toppled trees. I think my earliest memory as a child was my parents taking me and my cousins down to the beach near our house in Searsport to “watch the hurricane,” which gives you a sense of 1. How rare hurricanes are in Maine and 2. How little we knew about them in the 1980s.
Music & Dance
Sept. 26: Bangor Contradance feat. Dead Sea Squirrels and caller Quena Crain, 6 p.m., UU Church, Park Street, Bangor
Sept. 27: Slab Show feat. bluegrass and Americana bands incl. Dusty Buckets, Jake Tantog, Rebel Daughter, ENiAM and more; 2 p.m., 910 Pleasant St., Blue Hill
Sept. 27: Legend Has It, Wild Once, They Called Me Legion and Fake Smile, 7 p.m, Old Town Theatre, Old Town
Sept. 27: Takoda Dionne, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth
Sept. 28: Bangor Symphony Orchestra’s Masterworks series presents “A Journey Abroad,” feat. pianist Jonathan Biss performing Brahms; 3 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, Orono
Oct. 1: Twenty One Pilots and Dayglow, Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor
Oct. 1: Bear Bones Trombone Quartet, 5:30 p.m, Alamo Theatre, Bucksport
Theater & Comedy
Sept. 25-28: Penobscot Theatre presents “Steel Magnolias,” final weekend, Bangor Opera House, Bangor
Sept. 27: End of Summer Improv Fest feat. Queen City Improv, 7 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer
Sept. 27: Ten Bucks Theatre Company’s 24-Hour Play Festival, 7 p.m., UU Church, Park Street, Bangor
Sept. 27: “Late Nite Catechism: Las Vegas: Sister Rolls the Dice,” 7:30 p.m, Gracie Theatre, Husson University, Bangor
Sept. 28: Comedian Gabriel Iglesias, 7 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor
Sept. 29: Wheel of Fortune Live!, 7 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor
Arts, Books, Film & Culture
Sept. 25: Screening of “Sludge: A PFAS Uprising,” 6 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport
Sept. 25: “Haunted Bar Harbor,” author talk with Jennifer Pictou and D. Michael Fleming, 6:30 p.m, Jesup Memorial Library, Bar Harbor
Sept. 25: “What It’s Like to be a Home Caregiver: Exploring Maine’s New Certification Pathway,” 4 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library
Sept. 26-28: Friends and Family Weekend at the Jordan Planetarium, with Ozzy Osbourne and Pink Floyd music shows and multiple space and science shows, Versant Power Astronomy Center, University of Maine, Orono
Sept. 27: 9th annual Belfast Chalk Walk, artists transform Harbor Walk into chalk drawings; 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Heritage Park, Belfast
Sept. 27: Terrarium building workshop, 1 p.m., Sprague’s Garden Center, Bangor
Sept. 28: “Accessing Shakespeare,” all ages workshop by Midcoast Shakespeare Studio, 2-6 p.m., Belfast Center, Belfast
Sept. 28: The Emporium Spooky Goods Folk Horror Tea Party, feat. costumes, food, tarot readings and more; 3:30 p.m., 35 Main St., Bangor
Sept. 29: “Whose Knowledge Counts? Trust, Expertise and the Politics of Sustainability in Rural America,” talk by Dr. Nicholas Jacobs, 3 p.m., Norman Smith Hall, University of Maine
Sept. 29: Author talk by Sy Montgomery, naturalist and writer, 6:30 p.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast
Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.
Sept. 26: Sunset Paddle, 5 p.m., Gate 3, Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, Alton
Sept. 26-27: Fling Into Fall, community festival, family-friendly activities throughout downtown Searsport
Sept. 27: Carmel Days, feat. parade, festival and fireworks, 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Recreation Field, Carmel
Sept. 27: Apple Festival, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Bald Mountain Farm, Dedham
Sept. 27: “Preserving Ash, Protecting Traditions,” a day of workshops and hikes about preserving Maine’s ash trees; 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust Wildlands, Orland
Sept. 27: Bangor United Multicultural Festival, music, dance, cultural exhibits, children’s activities, food, and resource tables from area organizations, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Bangor Public Library
Sept. 27-28: Ghost Camp with 207 Paranormal, overnight camping experience, Fort Knox State Historic Site, Prospect
Halloween season is upon us. For more than a decade, Zach and I have hosted a Halloween party at our house on the Saturday closest but still before Halloween. We’ve got a big stash of decorations, an epic Halloween playlist, a closet full of costumes and accessories, and multiple recipes for spooky snacks and beverages. We are Halloween people. We are not Christmas people (I like Christmas, to be sure, but I prefer Halloween).
This year, however, prior commitments and work requirements mean that we unfortunately are not throwing the party – though we are definitely going to celebrate Halloween itself, especially since it’s on an actual weekend this year. But we’ve both been so busy the past few weeks that I realized just this morning I haven’t put ANY decorations up outside. Not the retro neon orange spooky door hanging. Not the skeleton hands giving a thumbs up from the front flower bed. Not the ghost windsock, the bloody window gels, or the Dracula door-knocker that tells everyone that passes by that “this party sucks” (get it?!?). I haven’t even bought a dang pumpkin. I will remedy this this weekend.
Are you a Halloween person? I feel that we are treated unfairly by Big Christmas and by people who hate fun. I love fun. I love dressing up. I love dumb stuff. If I had lots of disposable income you bet your ass I’d be buying a 12-foot Home Depot skeleton. Like I said: Halloween person.
The article on Hurricane Gloria brought back memories. Apparently, I had lived through a real hurricane in the 50s but was only 3. I became a weather nerd at age 6 and looked forward to both Donna and Esther in the early 60s in Massachusetts but they were duds. Gloria had some promise, so I headed over to what was then Doug's on Broadway in Bangor to get film for my 17-year-old Polaroid and laughed at people cleaning the shelves of bread, milk, and water. Aside from a few flying branches in Broadway Park, Gloria was a dud. So was Bob in 1991. I'm patiently waiting but refuse to go to Florida.