Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, as I surveyed the wreckage of our backyard and garden, fried by this summer’s unrelenting sun into something resembling ramen noodles, I noticed a handful of red leaves already peeking out from the trees. Will it even be warm enough to float in the pond for Labor Day weekend? My sorrows compound.
I love this story about Dale “Grey Beard” Sanders, who at age 91 this week reclaimed his title as the oldest-ever thru-hiker in Appalachian Trail history. Sanders reached the summit of Katahdin on Monday, cementing his place in hiking history. Would that we could all be so tough into our 90s!
What do I have to do to have the Boston Globe pay me to write about eating lobster rolls in Castine? Sheesh. I always approach these sorts of stories with a bit of bemusement. And while we can all agree Castine is beautiful, it’s a bit irresponsible to mention Witherle Woods - a place I used to love to visit - without also mentioning the fact that you’ll emerge from a walk in the woods there absolutely covered in ticks. But hey: at least this article isn’t quite as myopic as the one the New York Times just published, recommending a $27 burger in Camden.
New mural in downtown Bangor! The big, blank brick wall on the side of 2 Hammond St. will be transformed this month by artist Rachel Gloria Adams into a colorful tribute to iconic Bangor landmarks, utilizing designs created by local artists including Carlie Deshane, Juliana Cantreli, Nina Earley, Annette Dodd and Karen Nichols.
New book alert: check out Hancock County resident Emerson Whitney’s new book, “O Mother,” out this week via McSweeney’s. It’s a searing memoir, set mostly in Maine, about disability, addiction and the complicated relationship children often have with their mothers. Well worth a read.
For decades, some of the finest pottery made in New England was found at Rowantrees Pottery, the Blue Hill studio that starting in 1934 produced fine earthenware in a variety of colors and shapes. Its potters crafted each item by hand using old-world techniques - and old-fashioned ingredients that would turn out to be hazardous. Though U.S. safety standards had been updated since the early 1970s to recognize that no amount of lead is safe for humans, Rowantrees was still using lead glazes in its products as late as 1986 - no doubt to give their jugs, mugs and plates their depth of color, and as part of its long-running creative practice. Once the Food and Drug Administration got wind of the studio’s use of lead, it quickly moved to temporarily shut it down. A cleanup by the Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection was initiated, and Rowantrees was fined by OSHA for unsafe working conditions. By 1988, the cleanup was finished, the fines were paid, and Rowantrees would go on to operate for another three decades - without lead glazes. Today, former Rowantrees potter Geoff Miller carries on its tradition at his own studio, Lowell Hill Pottery in Blue Hill. While lead is long gone from the process, the beautiful earthenware items remain the same.
Music & Dance
Sept. 3: Belfast Summer Nights presents The Hot Suppers, 5 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast
Sept. 3: Benefit concert for H.O.M.E. Inc, feat. Birds on a Wire Ensemble, 7 p.m., Burnt Cove Church, Stonington
Sept. 3: Danny Bedrosian and Secret Army with Mike Billings, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town
Sept. 3: Pianist Liana Paniyeva, 7 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry
Sept. 4-5: Somes Sound 5 p.m. Friday, Lazers in the Jungle 5 p.m. Saturday, Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth
Sept. 4: The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, 8 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor
Sept. 5: Alumni Jazz Band dance night, 7:30 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer
Sept. 5: Bite the Bullet, Knifebiter and Rope Trial, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town
Sept. 5: Breakin’ Strings bluegrass ensemble, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington
Sept. 6: ZZ Top, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor
Sept. 9: Parker McCollum, Vincent Mason and Owen Riegling, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor
Sept. 9: Bagaduce Music presents Quebecois duo Roy-James, 6 p.m., 49 South St. Blue Hill
Theatre & Comedy
Sept. 3-5: Witch Hunt Theatre presents “Closer Than You’d Think,” immersive theater performance, site-specific location on Hammond Street in Hermon; visit witchhunttheatre.com for tickets
Sept. 3-6: The Belfast Maskers present “Bookworms,” comedy play, nightly at the Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast
Sept. 4: Scripts in Spotlight playreading series reads “Silent Sky,” 7 p.m., The Stage Door, Bangor
Arts, Books, Film & Culture
Sept. 3: “Mary Oliver: Saved By the Beauty of the World,” 4:15 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast
Sept. 3 Talk with executive director Perry Price on Haystack Mountain School of Crafts’ 75 anniversary, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill
Sept. 4: First Friday Art Walk, 4-9 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor
Sept. 8: Talk by Judy Sandler on her book, “What Kind of Mother,” 7 p.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast
Sept. 9: Screening of local film “Saving Black Bear,” 7 p.m., Black Bear Cinemas, Orono
Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.
Sept. 3: Celebration of the designation of The Good Life Center to the National Historic Register, 10 a.m.- 3 p.m., The Good Life Center, Brooksville
Sept. 4-7: Harmony Free Fair, annual free agricultural fair and entertainment, Harmony Fairgrounds, Harmony
Sept. 5: Maine Audubon presents Brewer waterfront bird walk, 6 p.m., Brewer Waterfront Park, Brewer
Sept. 5: Bass Park After Dark artisan and food market, 4-9 p.m., Bass Park, Bangor
Sept. 3-7: The Blue Hill Fair, classic country fair, daily, Blue Hill Fairgrounds, Blue Hill
This is a very belated recommendation to watch “Tony,” the not-quite-a-biopic of Anthony Bourdain, which came out in theaters a couple weeks ago and which we managed to catch last week. You’re probably going to have to wait for it to hit streaming, but you can pay to rent it now or wait for it to show up on HBO Max a little later this year. Anyway, it’s a lovely film directed by the brilliant Matt Johnson, who also directed the fantastic “Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie,” and it is particularly evocative of the seaside towns we New Englanders know and love. It shows the young Tony (played beautifully by Dominic Sessa) as an incredibly intelligent young man full of potential, but as so many people are when they are 20-ish years old: he’s kind of an asshole. An irresistible asshole, but an asshole nonetheless. I still mourn the loss of Bourdain. It probably is a bit of a cliche, but I consider him to be one of my all-time biggest inspirations.
I’m actually going to single out another thing about the film, however: the soundtrack. It’s fantastic. It not only speaks to the mid-1970s in a beautiful way, but it also manages to capture something that’s at once full of swagger and full of melancholy - a very Bourdain sort of feeling. It also has Richard and Linda Thompson’s “Calvary Cross,” which is an all-time banger (especially the live version). In another life, I’d have enjoyed being a music supervisor for movies and TV. Whoever put this soundtrack together: I’m impressed.