Over the next few weeks, it’s going to be tough to find events that are not holiday related, but we’re going to give it the old college try. Here are some unusual, brain stimulating events this weekend.

Pop Up Art Show

Friday, December 4—Rockland

The Captain Lindsey House Inn at 5 Lindsey St. is hosting a holiday pop-up art gallery for the public from 4 to 6 p.m at the downtown inn. Maine artists featured include Aaron Mitchell, Dennis Rafferty, Linda Kelley, Roger Brignull, Janice Lynch, James Hudon and Bonnie LaBelle among others.The show will continue all weekend and into the month. And yes, there will be wine.

Saucy and Serious Story time

Saturday, December 5—Belfast

The Midcoast Actor’s Studio is hosting their second annual Stories @, featuring local storytellers’ unique tales. Currently slated are: Sigrid Coffin, Bob Daisey, Robin Jones, Doug Nye, Arielle Greenberg, Stacey White, and Peter Paton. The suggested donation of $10 benefits Midcoast Actors' Studio. The event is held at the Troy A Howard Middle School at 173 Lincolnville Avenue in Belfast from 7-9 p.m.The stories will not be screened beforehand so leave the kiddies and the pearl clutchers at home!

Pop Up Mexican Night & Wine Tasting

Saturday, December 5—Warren

Sick of turkey? Ready for some hot Latin flavors? If you haven’t yet checked out the latest pop up kitchen, Salty Soup Kitchen will be serving Mexican food (for purchase) with a wine tasting and pouring at 5 p.m. going until about 8 p.m. at their winter home, Oyster River Winegrowers. The winery is located at 929 Oyster River Road in Warren—just past downtown Thomaston.  No reservations or tickets or purchase is necessary to attend Mexican Night but they ask that you  RSVP using their Facebook invite so that they know how many enchiladas to roll and magnums of cider to pop open.

Pat Pepin Blues Mama at Trackside

Saturday, December 5—Rockland

Award winning vocalist and saxophonist Pat Pepin is without a doubt one of the most entertaining blues performers around.She plays guitar, saxophone and sings the vocals with her blues band the Pat Pepin Blues Band and they’ll be playing at Trackside Station starting at 9 p.m. Giver her a listen on Reverbnation.

Killer Road Trip: Alice In Wonderland in Maine

Saturday, December 5—Portland

I caught this show hanging at the Portland Public Library, on my last trip to Portland and as a rabid Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland fan, I was thrilled to see how 35 other Maine artists through the Maine College of Art depicted her the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit and other iconic characters from the book. The show will hang until December 31 at the Portland Public Library. For more information visit: Wake Up Alice. Check out our story: Alice In Wonderland as envisioned by 35 Maine artists.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

PORTLAND—Stumble down to the ground floor of the Portland Public Library and you’re sure to feel how Alice did after sipping the “Drink Me” sizzurp.

A contemporary art exhibition titled “Wake Up Alice!” began November 6 at the library, featuring the surreal, fantastical and cheeky works of 35 Maine artists depicting some element of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The exhibit celebrates the 150th anniversary of the book’s publication as well as the 10th anniversary of the Illustration Program at Maine College of Art (MECA).

“I find that people are either in love with Alice In Wonderland or slightly freaked out by it,” said MECA’s Illustration Program Chair and Assistant Professor Scott Nash. “And it’s funny, I read the book when I was a kid in various forms, but there are certain of our artists that were sort of put off by the book and how unkind the characters were to one another. But that’s the nature of nonsense, moving from one curious situation to another. We, like Alice, travel through Wonderland, much in the way we observe things in dreams—dispassionately.”

Headed up by Nash, the exhibit took two years to prepare and curate. “All of the artists represented in the show have had some connection to our department, either as visiting faculty, current faculty, alumni and even current students,” Nash said, “I wanted to run the full gamut—from seasoned illustrators to new talent. As a result, we’ve gotten some remarkable pieces and some of the student illustrations are our most popular works.”

The diversity of the show shows the range of artistic expression inspired by this story. One of the focal points of the exhibit is a section of wall with what seems like manic Sharpie scribbles. Artist Declan McCarthy put the book on tape and listened to it out loud as he scrawled the entire plot of the book in cartoon form on the wall. “He did this over the course of a few days while we were hanging the show,” said Nash. “He wrote out the whole story in real time. It was incredible to watch him as he worked.”

Another artist who brought out the visceral energy of The Mad Hatter, Alice falling down the rabbit hole and The Cheshire Cat was Lori Stebbins, a recent graduate of MECA. Her dream-within-a-cartoon depiction of these iconic characters washed in dark greens and blues, is another popular attraction to the exhibition. “I’ll get different reactions on what people are focusing on in the show and this is one that’s getting noticed,” Nash said. “I adore Lori’s ‘Alice’ figure and and the dimensions of the illustration all akimbo.”

Nash himself, has a few pieces in the show. A diminutive Alice stands in a wash of white looking up after realizing where she is and says something people won’t expect. “As I was getting work in for the show, I took the opportunity to do something a little understated, taking advantage of white space and the idea of Alice shrinking,” Nash said. That’s what I would have said, I’m afraid.”

So far, 4,000 people have come through to view the exhibit, which is on par with MECA’s Illustration Department’s previous shows at the Portland Public Library on Edward Gorey, Maurice Sendak and The Art of The Pulps. Nash is proud of his Illustration Department. "There is such a wealth of illustrators in Maine. Coming from Boston 20 years ago, I'm just astounded at all of the talent here. It's the primary reason we're able to develop shows like this."

The show will hang until December 31 at the Portland Public Library. For more information visit: Wake Up Alice

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — Women who are homeless in the Midcoast have a much harder time when they cannot afford personal care supplies. It’s something most people take for granted, or don’t want to think about it; yet, it’s a grinding reality for the women who have to go through it.

A movement in Tucson, Ariz., called the Purse Project has inspired thousands of women across the country to donate purses and bags they no longer use, which are filled with comfort items such as body wash, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and sanitary items, and given away to homeless women.

The Purse Project has spurred one female business owner to help women locally with this issue. Rhonda Nordstrom, owner of RHEAL Day Spa in Rockland, said she learned about the movement when somebody posted it to her Facebook page.

“There are homeless people all around us, but we usually don’t see it,” she said. “I just thought it would help some women who could really use some things to make them feel better and clean.”

So far, women from all over the Midcoast have donated about 20 filled bags and purses to the project, including some handmade bags by fiber artists. The purses gathered behind the front desk of RHEAL Day spa are filled with a range of practical items, but some things that women have donated are for emotional comfort.

“In one bag we have some beautiful perfume along with soap,” said Nordstrom. “And in another, one woman donated three new cotton T-shirts.”

From another bag, Nordstrom pulled out a bar of chocolate.

The Purse Project will conclude on Dec. 12. Nordstrom has been in touch with The Mid-Coast Hospitality House and a local food bank, relying on those in charge to distribute the purses to the women who need them the most.

To donate, fill a bag or purse with feminine hygiene products, necessities and niceties (chocolate, lip moisturizer...) and drop your bags at RHEAL, 453 Main St. in Rockland, before Dec. 12. They will deliver them. Call 207-594-5077 for questions.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Lou Davies James isn’t just content with being a poet. She takes her words and reconstructs them into picture books for adults, designed for visual fireworks.

“My favorite thing is working with altered books,” she said. “For my bigger art pieces I use children’s board books—the kind that if you give them to toddlers, they can’t chew the paper off.”

She gets them at bargain tables and garage sales with the intent to completely transform them using gesso, a plaster-like white paint mixture used to prepare a surface for painting.

“It completely covers the original book, giving me a blank canvas to work with,” she said.

James then layers mixed media upon each piece, often with a Victorian or Edwardian theme.

Many of the photos she uses comes from the public domain, which she prints out and then layers with other ephemera such as button and lace.

Her work is divided up into her art books and her “bread and butter” commercial pieces, such as notepads, greeting cards and bookmarks. One such artwork on display at Harbor Artisans, a Belfast cooperative for juried Maine made items, is called The Three Eves after one of James’ poems self-published 10 years ago.

“This is about the transition between the maiden to mother to old woman or crone — the phases of a woman’s life,” she said. “The overall theme of the piece is you keep going on, no matter what. A woman’s strength comes through in each stage of her life.”

For someone who has embarked on her second career as an altered books artist ever since retiring from running a daycare center for 28 years, James’ Three Eves resonates personally.

“Life is a progression,” she said. “Every experience builds on the next. Your beauty continues more internally than externally with those phases.”

James is currently showing her work at Harbor Artisans in Belfast, along with the Artist’s Co-op of Southwest Harbor.

ROCKLAND—On November 24, just before Thanksgiving, photographer Jesse Gifford Stuart had just returned from a film class when he had a horrible feeling. The night before he’d just finished shooting a commercial project for Rock City Café and had stowed his digital cameras away in the trunk of his car, or so he thought. In actuality, he now recalls he put two camera cases in the back seat, and left them in an unlocked car. The car was tucked far up into his driveway on Park Street in Rockland, out of sight.

After his class, he searched the trunk, and with a sinking feeling in his gut, knew what had happened.

“There were two camera cases,” he said. “One had all of my still film stuff and the other one had all my digital stuff. The film case was still in the back seat of the car, but the digital case was gone. In my one track mind, I wasn’t even thinking of the possibility that it had been stolen.”

One of the hard top black cases with a stainless rim contained a Canon 7D and a Canon 5D Mark II, as well as several lenses, SD memory cards, a remote shutter release and tripod quick releases.

The other case containing still photography equipment, as well as a film camera was still left in the car.

He filed a police report that afternoon. The equipment, which took him years to acquire, was worth approximately $7,500. It wasn’t a hobby, it was his livelihood. He has had to cease work on his current commercial projects.

“At first, I was in complete denial that this could happen,” he said. “I’ve never had anything stolen before and when I realized what finally happened, I felt angry for a bit, then sad. Now, I’m just trying to figure out what happens next.”

”It was taken for a specific reason, either taken so it could be used or sold quickly,” said Rockland Police Chief Bruce Boucher. “The first thing people usually do with electronics is to register it online with a warranty. Even if you didn’t write down your serial number, you can always go back to the manufacturer and likely they’ll have it.”

Boucher said the key is getting the serial numbers filed with the police report right away.

“Or if you engrave it somehow and take a photograph of it, that’s icing on the cake,” he said.

Boucher said once they have the serial number of a stolen item, they can run it through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), an electronic clearinghouse of crime data that can be tapped into by virtually every criminal justice agency nationwide, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 

“We put in the make, model and serial number of the item so, that way if it pops up anywhere in the country, it will come up stolen,” he said.

It’s an extremely frustrating and disheartening experience to be victimized by theft and even once a police report has been made, one often feels helpless.

We reached out to our community to crowdsource some suggestions on what people can do and where they can search in Maine when something is stolen.

Suggestions ranged from typing in keywords (with model numbers) in the search box at Maine Craigslist, Uncle Henry’s, and eBay.

“Even if the person [selling the stolen property] is on Craigslist, they still have to provide proof such as the serial number to identify it,” Boucher said.

Other crowdsourced suggestions of where to look for the item include putting out a notice on all of the buy/sell/trade groups in Maine such as Maine Buy/Swap/Sell, GarageSale, Classifieds.com and local/statewide online yard sale sites such as Portland Yard Sale.

People can also contacting all of the pawn shops in Maine, as well as photography shops. Another online tool, Social Mention, is an online aggregator for user-generated content in real time, which scours keywords mentioned in blogs, microblogs (like Twitter), bookmarks, images and video. Using an advanced search feature with the keywords of “Canon 70” and “Maine,” these results popped up.

Other helpful suggestions included:

• Keep a search saved on eBay (and any other online sellers) for the model number(s), restricted to “Nearby Sellers,” so it will email you whenever any items pop up.
• Pay special attention to ads that don't initially offer a picture. Instead, you might see something like "Pictures available upon request." Then, they might send a photo in a private message if they feel you aren't the owner/victim.
  
• Another way they might try to unload stolen property is when they list the item they will include a disclaimer that reads "Selling for a friend" which explains any questions about the product they can't answer. It also defers liability for theft as they claim "I had no idea it was stolen.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

In 2015, Sketch Artist Ken Foster started a project to draw or paint 250 portraits of friends, colleagues and acquaintances he’s met over the years and title it The Portrait Project. Here are Midcoast people you might recognize. For privacy’s sake, Foster only refers to them by their first name. See our original story here.

Terri

This is Terri. She's an appraiser, which is how I first met her. Then I came to learn that she's also a writer and a watercolor painter. For a couple of months one summer we played lawn croquet with a big group of friends. She's intelligent and she speaks her mind. It's great when those two qualities go together. I love hearing what she has to say.

“I used to be a watercolor portrait artist, but for the last 15 years, I've been a writer of historical fiction,” said Terri. “That photograph of me Ken painted was taken at The Breadloaf Writer's Conference in Vermont in 2011. It was my first time at a writer's conference and I was working on a four-book series following the intertwined and parallel lives of the descendants of four American families from the 1600s down through the 20th century. The day that photo was taken was at an outdoor social and I was really happy to be there. All of the writers were taking pictures of each other; I think it was the last night.

“Ken and I met each other through mutual friends, for whom I used to throw backyard croquet parties. When he started posting his sketches on Facebook, as a watercolor artist I knew exactly what it took and what the challenges were. To watch him as an artist mature through each sketch was exciting. When you're working from a photograph, the difficulty is that the camera flattens out the whole image. In order to make the face look alive, it takes a lot of skill - in use of light or animating the hair or rendering clothing - to breathe life into the image so it's not just a head on a stick. And he does that in this portrait and so many others.

“Artists and writers usually only share their best stuff with an audience. And, this is true of every art form. For every success, there are a dozen or more "toss aways" or experiments that never see the light of day. One of the most exciting aspects of The Portrait Project is that Ken was rightfully confident of both the integrity of the project and his own ability to post the portrait however it came out. Thus sharing not only the result, but the process with us. That is an extraordinary exercise for any artist.”

Related stories:

• Hot Sketch: Shannon, Queen of Everyday Adventures

• Hot Sketch: Steven, the man who cross-referenced his way to get to Maine

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

This weekend has had a long lead-up time. Hope you're rested because we've got comedy, a double billing of high-energy music at the Strand, a local talent show and The "Beatles" if you feel like taking a drive.

Final Art Walk of Rockland

Friday, November 27—Rockland

Saturday, November 28—Camden

You ever wish you could go back to high school years and perform a do-over for the Talent Show? A local talent show  large group of alumni and current students will present a variety show filled with vocal and instrumental solos, contemporary dance, the CHRHS Jazz Band & Alumni, and larger choral ensembles. Not to be missed is the theatrical ensemble number, Master of the House, with guest appearances by Dagney Ernest and Piet Lammert in the comic roles of the Thenardiers. All proceeds will support the “Raise the Curtain on the 21st Century Strom” campaign to upgrade the  sound, lighting and projection systems. Tickets are $10 for general admission or $25 for reserved seats. The show starts at 7 p.m. Online ticket sales are available at stromtickets.com. General admission tickets are available at HAVII in Camden. Tickets will also be available at the door.

Killer Road Trip: Matinee ‘Beatles’ Performance

Sunday, November 29—Portland

If you were never lucky enough to see the original Fab Four in concert, musician Spencer Albee and friends will recreate a near perfect iconic sound while performing Abbey Road in its entirety at the State Theatre in Portland. This is an easy day trip to take as the matinee show begins at 4 p.m. Both shows are all-ages. Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 on the day of the show. Buy tickets online, in person at the Cross Insurance Center Box Office or charge by phone at 800-745-3000.

Kay Stephens can be found at news@penbaypilot.com

Anyone who has ever worked a soulless cubicle job knows what it’s like to tap a pencil across the side of your head and daydream things like: “What if I had a more exciting life?” “What if I didn’t hate coming into work every day?”

Standup comic and writer Jon Rineman doesn’t have to daydream like that because he has that dream job. After graduating from Emerson College in 2005,  he became a freelance monologue writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, contributing daily jokes. After a few years working up the comedy ladder, Rineman was hired as a writer for NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. At 32, Rineman is now Fallon’s head monologue writer, and also does his own stand-up on the show. He appears regularly at all of the top New York City comedy clubs, including Caroline’s on Broadway and Stand Up NY on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Rineman is performing at the Camden Opera House on Friday, Nov. 27. In anticipation of his appearance, we bring you five insights into his comedy career.

Q: While at Emerson did you ever imagine yourself where you are now in life? Worst case scenario: if you hadn't taken this career path, where would you have likely ended up?

A: I feel like I would've wound up doing something more generic, like advertising, PR or being a presidential candidate. It actually seems like that last one has become the most viable career path. But the goal when you go to a school like Emerson is to wind up in the entertainment industry, so the whole time I was there, I pictured myself working in comedy. The first few years after? That's a different story. But that seems to be how it goes — right when you're losing faith, sometimes, the universe will throw you a bone.

Q. How did you break into writing freelance monologues for talk shows, such as for Jay Leno?

A: A family friend grew up with Jay, so I reached out to see if he'd pass along my resumé. Then a couple nights later, at 11 p.m., the phone rings at my parents' house. My dad knocks on my door and says, ‘It's Jay Leno.’ So I answer the phone, and there he is - that voice I grew up listening to. So we talked for maybe half an hour, he was very nice and I eventually wound up sending in topical jokes he could use for his monologue. I'd only ever get one or two on a week, but it's a pretty big thrill to hear your joke on TV when you're first starting out.

Q: Walk us through what goes into a day of working as a head writer for Jimmy Fallon, and at what point in your day does he go over material with you? While running through the jokes, how do you know you're killing it - or bombing with Jimmy?

A: We usually start preparing the show the night before. Our writer’s assistant will send me a batch of news stories for the writers, which I'll go through and edit, while our head writer, A.D. Miles, reads through everybody's jokes. Then, the next morning, we all write a few more, and when Miles is done reading and going over sketch stuff, he'll send me all his picks and I'll go through and weed out duplicates—stuff that's similar to jokes we've already done or extra jokes when we already have enough on a certain topic. Then, the monologue team meets, reads through everything, and based off of people's reactions, Miles and I will cut it down to our best 25 or so jokes that I'll organize for Jimmy to read in rehearsal. The key to knowing if a joke is gonna fly is if Jimmy builds on it—does an act-out or an impression, etc. That's kind of what you're hoping, that it'll be something he and Higgins can run with and make even funnier. (As a millennial, of course, I'm actually required to hope someone else does part of my job for me.)

Q: What's it like going from writing someone else's material to writing your own stuff for stand-up?

A: It’s a thousand times harder writing for myself. It's almost like trying to dress yourself without a mirror sometimes. With Jimmy, I can say, ‘Oh, he'll make this funny,’ whereas for myself, there can be a lot of doubt. And it's easy for me to get bored with my own stuff. I do much better when I have a couple of new jokes to be excited about. So, whenever I'm going to be someplace like The Comedy Cellar, where I've been lucky enough to do shows with people like Louis CK, Ray Romano, Chris Rock and Artie Lange, I always feel much better if I have something new to work in somehow. Otherwise, I feel like I'm showing up for a test without studying. My audition at the Cellar was easily the most scared I've ever been in comedy, and passing it was honestly up there with getting hired by Fallon.

Q: Being from Boston and New York City, what impressions do you think people there have of Maine and its people, from the good, to the bad, to the off the wall?

A: Well I'm actually from New Hampshire — which is basically Maine with more fireworks stores — so in a way, I feel like we're all cousins. Literally, probably. So I hope we have a nice little reunion at the Opera House.

Tickets are $16. Call 207-470-7066, visit camdenoperahouse.com or stop by the Camden Town Office Monday through Friday, 9 a.m-3 p.m. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Check out the festivities in our latest gallery!

I hope you like art and beer and wine, because that’s what Friday’s all about all over the Midcoast with a comedy killer road trip on Saturday.

Artfull Gifts Opening Gala at Point Lookout

Friday, November 20—Northport

Art, good food and cash bar—can’t go wrong with that combination. The the Opening Gala of Artfull Gifts at Point Lookout kicks off this weekend. The happy hour styled event goes from 4-8 p.m. and for a $10 admission, you’ll get to enjoy a full cash bar, and lots of complimentary tasty offerings such as homemade soups, salads and other assorted goodies from The Belfast Co-op, smoked oysters, mussels, trout and salmon from Ducktrap Seafood, egg rolls from Pho Sizzle,  handmade chocolates from Bixby Chocolates, and much more. Update: at 5 p.m. if you say "I heard about it through Midcoast Magnet!" the admission price will be $ Half off via Munchies and Mingling. There will be 50 exhibitors so check out some unique handcrafted items along with  live jazz. The show continues Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. FMI: www.artfullgifts.com

Beer and wine tasting at Rockland Food Service

Friday, November 20—Rockland

For Rockland Food Service’s monthly beer and wine tasting, expect some seasonal wine and ciders along with craft libations you’ve never probably tried before like Colorado’s Off Color Brewing’s offering, an Apex Pedator Farmhouse Ale, which smells like “the sweet scent of Juicy Fruit wafting from a frothy, white mane...that completes the dry finish with a fruity bite.” The complimentary event goes from 4 to 6 p.m.

Wine tasting Belfast Co-op Café

Friday, November 20—Belfast

The Co-op is hosting a free wine tasting of highlighted seasonal wines and the opening for "Iconic Works," an exhibit by local artist Carol Mathieu Fowler of Unity. Jack Scully of Easterly Wines in Belfast will host this month's wine tasting with a focus on seasonal wines, along with Jaap Helder from the Co-op's wine departmen. The complimentary event goes from 7-9 p.m.

Jubilee Riots at The Strand Theatre

Friday, November 20—Rockland

Hailing from from a Celtic community in Toronto, this band was once known as Enter The Haggis. Apparently, very soon, they will be known by that moniker once again. (Long story) But for now, they are Jubilee Riots. Here’s how an Inyourspeaker.com review describes them: “The band's usual unique instrumentation (bagpipes, mandolin, fiddles, whistles, etc) is still present, but in the same manner in which they dropped the whole innards-of-a-sheep thing from their name, they've made their Celtic influences subtler.” The show starts at 7;30 p.m. and tickets are $18. FMI: Strand Theatre

Killer Road Trip: Comedy Relief

Saturday, November 21—Bath

Time to get your ha-has out as Mainer and popular standup comic Johnny Ater headlines an evening at The Chocolate Church hosted by The Saltwater Hillbilly/Dennis Dorion with comedians Will Green, Tuck Tucker, Anna Conathan! $15. Laugh Hard. Feel Good. Watch a clip of him here in Portland. (Warning: language). Tickets are $15 and can be purchased here.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Rockland gallery owner Jonathan Frost did something most gallery owners don’t do — he decided to showcase five unknown local artists, all under the age of 35. “I see these kids all the time when I’m in FOG Bar or Rock City Café,” he said.  “I knew that some of them were artists and was curious about what they did.”

He set up an art opening to start the last day of Rockland’s Art Walk titled “New Kids On The Block” featuring art by Joshua Cordoso, Ashley Seelig, Sean Seuffert, Mae Towers and Celia Hensel. Cordoso and Seelig own and run FOG Bar and Café and Seuffert, Towers and Hensel all work at Rock City Café.

In Hensel’s work, all of her subjects are children, babies or cats. Frost used her monotype with pen portrait Mexican Girl as his promotional postcard photo.

Her talent lies in the mesmerizing faces she creates. One, in, particular, looks like a smeary, haunted face coming out of the fog.

“I usually work from photos and I painted it on a piece of plexiglass,” she said. “I just like certain things about people’s faces, particularly the eyes. This photo was actually singer Patti Smith when she was a kid. “I don’t always know how it’s going to end up. I took a piece of paper and lay it over the image and patted it. It did smear quite a bit, but I like that about it.”

Hensen has been painting and drawing since she was a child and this was her first show.

The opening reception took place November 6 to a packed gallery with live jazz played by pianist Tom Luther.

“It was really exciting to talk to people about something other than what you do at your job,” she said. “I couldn’t believe how many people I knew came out for it.” She said she worked that day at Rock City Café and that’s what kept her from being too nervous—that and the fact that two of her other coworkers had pieces in the show, as well.

The experience of displaying one’s artwork in a gallery for the first time is every artist’s dream. She’s already sold a couple of pieces and her plan is to keep working.

“I was thinking of setting up a space to show some of my stuff down the road,” she said.

The show runs until December 1. To see more of the New Kids On The Block artwork visit www.jonathanfrostgallery.com

In 2015, Sketch Artist Ken Foster started a project to draw or paint 250 portraits of friends, colleagues and acquaintances he’s met over the years and title it The Portrait Project. Here are Midcoast people you might recognize. For privacy’s sake, Foster only refers to them by their first name. See our original story here.

Steven

This is Steven. He's from L.A. and developed a pretty impressive resumé in the finance and entertainment industries while he was there. He retired to Maine about 10 years ago and that's about the time we met. I was one of several architects and designers he interviewed for a home renovation project. I didn't get the job, but I got a friend.

“Unlike many people, I had zero connection to Maine when I moved here,” said Steven. “I grew up in L.A., and about 10 years ago my life changed in very dramatic ways. I retired, I sold my last company, I came out and got divorced. Both my ex-wife and I were very much involved in the entertainment industry. I worked with Warner Brothers for almost a decade. She was an agent. We lived in Beverly Hills for 23 years. We raised our kids there; I was on the school board, I was President of my synagogue. When my life changed, I desperately wanted to change everything that went with it.”

When Steven’s youngest son graduated from high school, he knew the time was right. “I had a checklist of things I wanted to do,” he said. “I was looking for a town of 25,000 people or fewer, but with a cultural footprint that seemed larger than that. I wanted four real seasons with a winter, because we never got winter in L.A. I wanted a place that had mountains and an ocean or lake, that had a political bent that was progressive or independent. I wanted a place that had some gay people. I wanted a place that had some Jews. But, most importantly, I wanted a place that had the largest amount of independent bookstores per capita.”

Steven admits he “nerded out” by cross-referencing a list of the American Bookseller Association’s Independent Bookstore directory and Census data with metropolitan areas of 25,000 or fewer with these characteristics that were in the north central to the northeast. “Basically, I was looking at Minnesota through New England,” he said. “I found out that there were three finalists: the Berkshires, the upper peninsula of Michigan and Maine.”

Steven had been in the Berkshires, so he made the trip to both the upper peninsula of Michigan and to Maine. While in Maine, he went on a walking trip from Bath to Bar Harbor and conversed with the trip leader, a man from Rockport named John Doncaster. “John and I became friends and he said, ‘why don’t you come stay with me and my wife in Rockport to get to know the area a little better’ so I did.”

At first, Steven leased a house on Sherman’s Point. “I was there for all of it, not just the great summer months, but for black flies, mud season and lots of grey and for the sun setting at 2:45 p.m. in the afternoon,” he said. “What I discovered was I still loved it, I just didn’t like living on the ocean. Being from Los Angeles, under no circumstances was I going to stick a toe in the water,” he jokes.

Today, he lives on a Midcoast lake, with his partner, where he is happiest. Asked what he thought of Ken Foster’s depiction of him in the portrait, Steven said, “It was love at first sight. I’m a semi-public figure so I’ve had a lot photos taken, but I never had something done before that was this warm and textured, so I’ve made it my Facebook photo.”

Look for more stories to come in our Hot Sketch series.

Related stories:

• Hot Sketch: Shannon, Queen of Everyday Adventures

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Some changes on the Midcoast food scene have been trickling in over the last few weeks. Some are quiet and under the radar, others have more visibility. Here is a quick update on what’s closed, what’s new and what has changed.

What’s Closed

On Nov. 13, The Brown Bag, the deli/cafe at 606 Main Street in Rockland that has been around since 1987, quietly stopped operations. A single word now appears on their website —“Closed.” While it’s not known why owners Jack and Tina Williams shut the doors of the popular eatery, the restaurant had been listed for sale for the last several months.

On Nov. 14, anyone going through the Wendy’s fast food restaurant at 22 Belmont Avenue in Belfast found an empty window with dismantled signs. A temporary sign noted that this franchise had closed for good and would still be open at other Maine locations. 

For those who didn’t know that October was Atlantica in Camden’s last month open, read our PenBay Pilot story about it here: After 16 Years, Atlantica Restaurant Has Closed Its Doors.

What’s New

Two new happy hour offerings have been announced. Shepherd’s Pie in Rockport is now offering a “reverse” happy hour special from 8-9 p.m. on Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays as a way to entice people to come in after the shows at the Rockport Opera House.

Thomaston Café in Thomaston is now also offering a new $5 happy hour food and bar menu starting at 5:30 p.m. You can find more details in our Guide To Midcoast Happy Hours.

FOG Bar, which previously only served dinner, started serving lunch as of Oct. 27, serving 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Thursday.

What’s Changed

The Laughing Dog BBQ wagon, which had been operating in Searsport all summer, has now moved to a Belfast location. It can be found next to new Goose River facility on Route 3, across from EBS. They do not have a website or Facebook page.

The Pho Sizzle food truck located in Bouy Park Rockland this past summer is also gone for good. Instead the owner, Tom Pham, has moved into his first restaurant space at 10 Leland Street in Rockland. See our recent story for more details: Pho Sizzle is latest food truck eatery to gain restaurant space in Rockland

Once summer was over, Salty Soup Kitchen, the pop up Mexican food night, had to move out of an unheated barn it had been working out of in Rockport. It has now secured a winter home at the Oyster River Winery in Warren. For their next pop up night in November, visit their Facebook page and check out our original story: It’s a Wonderful Night for a Pop Up.

Nautilus Seafood and Grill, formerly in the location of 95 Searsport Avenue (over the bridge) in Belfast, has moved into the downtown waterfront Belfast location that was formerly the Weathervane Restaurant. They are renovating now and plan to open in December. For more info visit their Facebook page.

Note: we are not including restaurants closed for the season. We will update this story as more information comes in.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — It’s been a little more than a year-and-a-half since Tom Pham rolled out his bright yellow food truck, Pho Sizzle, in Buoy Park in Rockland. Whipping up authentic Vietnamese cuisine with local ingredients, his food truck quickly became a local favorite. Business grew so fast, it didn’t make sense to shut it down for the winter. Instead, he decided to lease space at 10 Leland St. in Rockland, the site of the old Oh Bento restaurant.

“This summer was really busy all summer and I had a lot of repeat customers, so I thought why not keep going year-round,” said Pham. The move is permanent. He’s sold the yellow food truck to another local entrepreneur who intends to sell tacos out of it by summer.

He’s renamed the business Pho Sizzle Vietnamese Cafe and Asian Market. Inside the tiny two-room dining area, Pham stands in an industrial kitchen, a one-man show with one server helping out in the dining area. He just reopened in the new space this week and on their first day they served about 20 tables.

The biggest change? “I can walk from one side of the room to the other now.”

In a couple of months he intends to open an Asian market in the back of the restaurant. He’ll stock the kind of dry goods ingredients that most people would have to go to Portland to get, such as Asian herbs and noodles. He’ll have some refrigerated items like kimchi as well.

“The only thing I can’t really do is sell fresh produce out of here, as it goes bad quickly if not sold,” he said.

He will keep the same kind of lunch/dinner menu he had working out of the food truck, and will be rotating specials depending on available organic ingredients during the week.

While he won’t be able to take phone take-out orders given his limited staff, he will now be able to process credit cards.

Pham is the second food truck owner to expand into a restaurant in Rockland. In October, food truck owner Malcolm Bedell paired up with the owners of Comida restaurant to share space.

“Running a food truck is the best way to test drive your menu and clientele if you ever want to expand into a restaurant,” he said. Check out their Facebook page for menu and hours.

Related story

• Rockland's new food truck Pho Sizzle...is the shizz!

Reached Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com.

The energy’s kicking back up this weekend as well as Bed Racing in Bar Harbor (if you’re into that kind of thing.)

PechaKucha Night at Camden Opera House

Friday, November 13—Camden

The most mispronounced name in the Midcoast now has a new iteration: Peckham Lucia (Thanks Anneli Skarr and Autocorrect!) Presenters include:
Jennifer Albee and Jason Philbrook, Solar Farm Project; David Allen, artist; Rafi Baeza, graphic designer; Mark Bell, ceramicist; Jason Elon Goodman, filmmaker and photographer; Larkspur Morton, Executive Director of the Expedition Education Institute; Anneli Skaar, artist; Tyler Southard, chief meteorologist at VSTV. Emcee: Hanna DeHoff. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. $5 cover. Stick around after for food, drink, music, etc. A special reception will take place on site immediately following, so you can meet the presenters and enjoy some quality PK-chit-chat.

Glow Show/Black Light Party

Friday, November 13—Belfast

For the third year, Waterfall Arts is putting on an all-ages quirky event called The Glow Show as a way to light up winter’s darkness.  it’s part hands-on art installation, part black light party. Expect a beverage bar of illuminated seltzer, sand drawing on a light table, a collaborative psychedelic mandala coloring under black light, hidden illuminated worlds, backlit paper cuttings, black light posters, lit dioramas and a special performance. The show goes to 10 p.m. so grown up” kids might want to show up after 8 p.m. Tickets at the door are $3 (any additional donations are welcome!). Waterfall Arts is located at 256 High Street in Belfast. Check out our story on it here.

Stand up comedy at Unity College

Friday, November 13—Unity

Stand up comedian Keagan Page from Washburn, Maine will take the stage Unity College Center for the Performing Arts in an in all-ages show, where he’ll touch on subjects from tech support to teenage girls, being single vs. being in a relationship. Page won two awards for stand up comedy and an all festival award in drama. So, give some love to the hometown comedian! Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The show starts at 7 p.m. $15 admission/$10 students. FMI: Unity College

The 220s play The Speakeasy

Saturday, November 14—Rockland

It’s going to be a combined birthday bash and rockin’ party when The 220s take the stage at The Speakeasy. The band weaves the influence of funk through the base of prog rockwith a ‘90s feel along with covers of favorite artists such as Pink Floyd, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, and Sublime. The show starts at 8:30 p,.m.

Killer Road Trip: Pajamas and Bed Races

Saturday, November 14—Bar Harbor

If you hate, hate, hate early mornings, skip this Killer Road Trip. But if you want to see a bunch of people race beds on wheels in their pajamas for the 9th Annual Bed Races, get to downtown Bar Harbor by 10 a.m. on Cottage Street. ( Extra discounts take place in stores from  6-9 a.m. if you wear PJs and don’t hate, hate, hate mornings. ) Come join the locals for Bar Harbor’s most favorite and silliest tradition. FMI: Bed Races

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Writer’s Block: When your imaginary characters stop talking to you.

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which challenges participants to write a 50,000-word novel from November 1 until the deadline at 11:59 p.m. November 30. Even though it is international website, it has state hubs, including a Maine hub, with approximately 6,000 writers all over the state who check in, do virtual “Write-ins” as well as live meet ups.

This month, nearly 800 Maine novelists are competing in the challenge. We spoke with Roger Redin, one of the Maine “Municipal Liaison” from Bath who hosts live and virtual meetups. Redin, 30, who has participated in NaNoWriMo for six years, is also working on a futuristic novel on top of his full-time job and ML duties.

How do you find the time to write yourself?

I use my lunch break at work from 1-2 p.m. every weekday to host a Virtual Write In. I hop onto a chat room with a bunch of other writers from Maine and we use that time to write. We all check in first and then do what we call “word sprints” where you just write for a certain number of minutes and then at the end of that time, we check in again and talk a little bit about what we wrote. The whole point of NaNoWriMo is to get the words down.

How do the face-to-face-meetups work?

The Write Ins we hold are after hours are usually in public places like libraries, where people can feel comfortable to join. For example, we just had a room reserved in the Bath library the other night where 20 people showed up. We first got to know each other a bit, then everyone got down to it and wrote their own stories. 

If someone has a question, say, they need to know what a Victorian era man’s suit would consist of, do they use this community to ask that question?

Sometimes, somebody in our group will be able to provide an answer, but more likely we’ll point them to a section on the NaNoWriMo website dedicated to online forums, for just this kind of thing.

Do you find that NaNoWriMo writers, particularly your Maine community are pretty supportive?

I got into NaNoWriMo initially because my girlfriend at the time was doing the challenge. At first, I was a little skeptical, but I don’t think i would have gotten into it if it were not for some of the people I met at the first Write In we went to. One person in particular kept us motivated to keep writing, checking in with us even after the challenge was over. I was such a great introduction to NaNoWriMo and drew us back in the next year.

Of all six years you’ve been participating in the challenge, how many years have you written 50,000 words and what has become of your previous novels?

This year is my sixth year, but so far I’ve completed it three times. I’ve gone back and worked on a couple of them, but this year I needed a chance to clear my head from the previous stories and work on something entirely new. Some people will work on one novel and go back to it each November.

My understanding of NaNoWriMo is it focuses on the very beginning stages of writing a novel, before your inner editor can come out.

Correct, the original intention of NaNoWriMo was to get the word on paper or on a screen so that you can have that first draft. But, as they have evolved, they use January-February every year to motivate people to get ready to take the next step if your novel is completed. They get published authors to come into the virtual community and write words of encouragement or tips to more than 300,000 people participating all over the world.

 It’s free to join NaNoWriMo and Redin is working on doing a live meetup in the Camden-Rockland area if anyone in the Midcoast is interested. Simply sign up for NaNoWriMo, choose Maine as your hub and message him if you’re interested. We will update this story if a live meetup is announced.

Related stories:

Last year’s featured NaNoWriMo writer: where is she now?

The five habits of highly motivated writers

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

BELFAST—Ah Daylight Savings in Maine. At 4 p.m., the sun’s down, it feels like dinner time and by 8:00 p.m. everybody’s like “is it bed time yet? It feels like freakin’ midnight!”

For the third year, Waterfall Arts is putting on an all-ages quirky event called The Glow Show as a way to light up winter’s darkness.  it’s part hands-on art installation, part black light party.

Waterfall Arts founder Lorna Crichton credits event coordinator Bridget Matros for the concept. “She just likes anything that’s glow in the dark,” said Crichton. “She’s made quite a few pieces of artwork that will light up when black lights hit it.”

The most popular components of previous Glow Shows will be included, for example: a beverage bar of illuminated seltzer, sand drawing on a light table, a collaborative psychedelic mandala coloring under black light, and of course, more Lite Brites than you can shake a glow stick at. In addition, Matros has been working with young artists to round out the event with hidden illuminated worlds, backlit paper cuttings, black light posters, lit dioramas and other works.

Matros is bringing back an intense look she accidentally created for the event last year when she made Play-Doh with glow pigments. “We were disappointed by a bunch of stuff we made using expensive glow pigments, like our ‘galaxy dough,’” she said. “Then,  while we were cleaning up some dropped under the table and it was glowing like crazy!”

The event takes place in the basement of Waterfall Arts. Kids and families will be showing up at 7 p.m., but for “grown up” kids, who want to cut loose and play, you might want to show up after 8 p.m. as there are still lots of surprises in store, including a rumored performance piece on the stage, which could be anything from shadow puppetry to a Daft Punk-style dance routine. The event goes to 10 p.m.

The Glow Shows of the past have not been short on the "wow factor." Last year, about 100 attended and the refrain, "This is AWESOME!!" was heard again and again throughout the night.

And the price is totally right for Cheap Dates! Tickets at the door are $3 (any additional donations are welcome!). Waterfall Arts is located at 256 High Street in Belfast. For more info visit: visit www.waterfallarts.org

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND—In the back of the antique store Rockland Marketplace, a wire shelving unit holds dozens of glass jars and plastic bins of shells from all over the world, from green sea urchins to the tiniest white shells no bigger than a baby’s fingernail.

They belonged to shell artist Sherry Lary of Friendship, who has now retired from the craft. Hundreds of dollars worth of these shells collected over a five-year-period are now up for sale.

“I’ve now got my dining room back,” she joked.

Shell art, also called shell work, is one of the oldest crafts in the world, going back to primitive societies near the ocean. It was only natural for people by the sea to collect shells and use them to decorate furniture, clothing and small personal items. The art form revived in the Victorian era.

Not everyone interested in the crafting of shell art is accomplished, as anyone who has ever seen an amateur music box at a yard sale can attest. But Lary’s work is truly intricate; she is a master. There is an elaborate symmetry and layered depth of color to her pieces.

A former art dealer, she first encountered a Maine-made Victorian antique table completely decorated in shells in 2006.

“It blew me away,” she said.

What started as a fascination, turned into a hobby. Quickly, that turned into sales and commissions.

“The more I got into it, I learned that there were palaces and grottos in England just covered floor to ceiling in shell work.”

Very few of the shells she collected herself. She bought them from shell purveyors, who bought shells from people who combed beaches all over the world. The rarest in her collection is now in a locked case by the shelving unit at Rockland Marketplace.

“It’s a jar of janitha,” she said. “They’re the most incredible, fragile purple, color. It took me years to find them. One of the most fun aspects of shell work was researching where all of these shells came from and the history behind them and I finally found a shell seller in England. These were next to impossible to get.”

At first, she just made small projects like candlesticks, vintage Mexican crosses, keepsake boxes and frames—even a Cinderella-style slipper.

 “After I’d been making these small things for years I discovered a book called Sailors’ Valentines: The Journey Through Time. It just rocked my world and I was just obsessed for years,” she said

In the 19th century, “Sailors' Valentines" were all rage. Homesick sailors would buy these octagonal picture frames decorated with shell work from curiosity shops in the spice islands and bring them home as gifts for their mothers and girlfriends. Today antique Sailors' Valentines sell for between $4 and $30,000.  Recently, the craft has been revived and many contemporary shell artists are taking the form to new heights and interpreting them in a variety of fun and different ways.

Like a knitter, sometimes she worked from a mapped out pattern; sometimes she improvised.

“I worked on a solid piece of octagon wood,” she said. “I’d divide the lines into a pie shape and whatever shells I had would dictate the pattern. I did it every breathing moment and just burned out,” she said. “Sailors’ Valentines were one of the reasons I had to stop doing shell work. It’s very limiting and I actually liked the freedom when I worked on a box instead.”

Now that she’s finally let her collection and her obsession go and her dining room is once again, fit to host people, she doesn’t know what she’ll do next for a hobby.

“To be honest, I’m a little lost at sea,” she said.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

In 2014, Penobscot Bay Pilot put the spotlight on novelist Danielle Bannister on the frustrations, challenges of penning 1,667 words a day in our story: Chapter One: Arrgghhhhh! In her words, this is what became of the novel she was working on.

It has been one year since I began work on The ABC’s of Dee, a romantic comedy I started last November during the NaNoWriMo challenge. We got 30 days to write 50,000 words. Yikes. Although I gave it a good shot, I fell shy by about 6,000 words. I have tennis elbow, and during that month, my hands got really bad. There were days that I wanted to write, but just couldn’t because of the pain. My kids saw my disappointment when I didn’t get to print off that silly piece of paper and declare myself a ‘winner.’ It was ridiculous, really, but it hurt. I somehow thought I had failed. My then 9-year-old daughter decided to remind me of my success and gave me a drawing of a medal.

She knew that I hadn’t failed. She was proud of what I had accomplished and she wanted me to be proud of it too, which is why it still hangs on my wall. It is the constant reminder that I am going after my dreams. I’m not giving up.

That’s sort of how NaNoWriMo works, too. It focuses you. It gives you the permission, nay, insists that you just keep writing and don’t dwell on the words—yet. Not in this draft. It has taught me that your first draft of any novel will be epically bad, so bad, in fact, you may question calling yourself a writer. And that’s okay. Much of that first draft won’t make it to the final product. The first draft is where the bones exist. The real work of novel writing comes in the subsequent drafts when you weed out what doesn’t work and build upon what does. What NaNoWriMo does, is, it gives you a month to build your story’s framework— not a finished novel, but the healthy start of one.

That said, did I ever finish what I began last November? Did I ever find those remaining 6,000 words? Did I ever write those blissful words “The End?” I did. In fact, it ended up being just over 70,000 words. I self-published it in April of this year, where it was placed the top ten books of the summer and of the quarter over at the blog For the Love of Books and Alcohol. My agent loves the story has begun shopping around its movie rights.

Does all this mean I’ve quit my day job and moved into a mansion? Hardly. I’m still eating PB&J sandwiches and store brand chips for lunch and probably will ‘til the day I die. Getting rich isn’t my goal as a writer. Making others feel something is. In that, I think, am beginning to succeed at, book by book, thanks, in part, to the work done during NaNoWriMo.

Danielle Bannister lives with her two children in Midcoast Maine. She holds a BA in Theatre from the University of Southern Maine and her Masters degree in Literary Education from the University of Orono. You can visit her website at: daniellebannister.wordpress.com/

You might have noticed we skipped last week because it was all about the Hallow’s Eve, but because everyone rocked it out last weekend, we’ve got a fairly quiet weekend coming up. Here are a couple of mellow local events and some more raucous Killer Road Trips whether you go north or south.

Final Art Walk in Rockland

Friday, November 6 — Rockland

The last Rockland Art Walk of the season is happening downtown from 5 to 8 p.m., so get to it! Highlights include Carver Hill Gallery’s Portrait Project (see our “Hot Sketch” story here), Dowling Walsh Gallery’s talk and reception on “Pairings” photo collection from 4-6 p.m. and Jonathan Frost Gallery’s “New Kids on the Block”  exhibit by five young artists.  Free to the public. For a list of who is participating, visit:

Rock City Café Double Header

Saturday, November 7 — Rockland

Rock City Café promises an epic double-header with Cranston Dean starting off a New England tour right in Maine at 6 p.m., followed by Muddy Ruckus at 8 p.m.

Hey it’s Uncle Fester! The Addams Family Musical

Friday November 6 — Saturday, November 7, Camden

Though I usually don't pick high school musicals for the weekly lineup, this has a lot of quirky potential. based on the characters created by Charles Addams, the musical is sure to strike a dark and humorous chord with area audiences.The show continues Nov. 8, 12, 13 and 14 in the Strom Auditorium at CHRHS. Click to buy Tickets

Killer Road Trip: What’s up Funny Face?

Friday November 6 — Saturday, November 7,  Brewer

For the second year, improv comedy troupes all over New England are converging at the Next Generation Theatre for an Improv ME Festival laughfest. Acts include: Improv Boston, Providence Improv Guild, Running with Scissors, and many more!  Admission is $10, Beer and Wine will be available for purchase (21+) Tickets will be first come first served. more information on the lineup visit: Improv ME

Killer Road Trip: Happy Hour at Maine Brewer’s Fest

November 7, Portland

Much of Portland will be churning out for this one, but you can make an afternoon of it. If you go down for the 1:30 p.m. Happy Hour Session, $40 gets youa complimentary tasting glass with unlimited 4-oz pours of the best craft beer in New England. (Better bring a designated driver, bub.) The festival weekend continues to be a highlight to a beer lover's winter with great food, interesting vendors, fantastic music and prizes to complement some of the best micro brews in the country. Tickets: mainebrewersfestival.com/tickets

In 2015, Sketch Artist Ken Foster started a project to draw or paint 250 portraits of friends, colleagues and acquaintances he’s met over the years and title it The Portrait Project. Here are Midcoast people you might recognize. For privacy’s sake, Foster only refers to them by their first name. See our original story here.

Shannon

This is Shannon. I met her several years ago when I was doing the Trek Across Maine — a 150-mile bicycle ride across our lovely state that benefits the American Lung Association. She's an Ironman triathlete and big supporter of the Dempsey Challenge — another bike ride that raises money for cancer research, education and support. She is also one of the funniest people I know on Facebook. I love her take on life.

A couple of years ago she got my attention when she posted that every day for the month of December she was going to embark on a different adventure. Here was her criteria - "an adventure is anything that 1) takes me out of my comfort zone; 2) I'm not 100 percent sure I can do; 3) I've never done; 4) I wouldn't normally do in December; 5) is ridiculously fun; or 6) is something I'm so glad I'm doing that I don't have to actually enjoy doing it."

And then she wrote about it in the funny and keenly observant way that Shannon does.

Shannon in fact embarked on a month-long quest to throw herself out of her comfort zone three Decembers ago, when she went snowboarding and rock climbing, videotaped strangers who were wary of being on camera, went on a week-long meditation retreat, then learned how to shoot an M4 assault rifle, a Glock 17 9mm pistol and a .45-caliber pistol.

But the most nerve-wracking thing she did as part of her personal challenge? She decided to pose nude for a life skills drawing class.

“I was up on Mount Battie one morning for a sunrise mountain workout and I was thinking about my body and when is it going to be good enough for me to like it?” she said. “I think a lot of women have these thoughts. I struggle quite a bit with my body image, really hating it, even though it does all these miraculous things and is quite strong. After this long conversation with myself on the mountain that I was going to resolve to make progress on my body image, for the first time, I was like ‘Stop it. It’s never going to be good enough for you to like it, so you’d better like it and it will be good enough.’ I just came off the mountain with this feeling like ‘F—–ing get over it.”

Shannon came off the mountain with a new perspective, only to get a message from Ken Foster. He told her he had an idea for one of her self-imposed challenges—to pose nude for their life skills drawing class.

“Of course, I was like [insert repeated uses of the F word]. I had no choice but to say yes. I am still terrified recounting it,” she said. “I’ve done the Ironman triathlon twice. There is no reason in the world for me to have one critical word about my body. Yet, every day, many, many times a day I turn a harsh and critical eye toward this body of mine that’s accomplished such amazing things.”

Foster recalls in his post about her: “And I have to say, she was a great model — interesting and expressive poses, and she held them for up to 20 minutes. It's not easy work! You can read what she wrote about that adventure in this blog post.”

Look for more stories to come in our Hot Sketch series.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Maine has just received a new powerful tool to combat child pornography and trafficking — a new mobile forensic laboratory for the state’s Computer Crimes Unit, thanks in large part to former Camden teacher and Mainely Girls Executive Director Mary Orear, who more than two years ago spearheaded a fundraising campaign to buy the vehicle.  See more of the story here.

With nearly $40,000 in donations, the Computer Crimes Unit caught a lucky break when the Maine Emergency Medical Services donated their commercial recreational vehicle to the Maine State Police group of specialized forensic investigators. With the campaign money, they were able to retrofit the interior space, so that multiple examiners can work in conjunction with detectives and investigators. 

“It gives us a platform to use in the field to do forensic analysis on any devices we recover or seize that we suspect may contain evidence,” said CCU Sgt. Kyle Willette. “This helps us to bring the investigation to a quicker resolution, whether to rule out a suspect, or a person’s complicity or to make an arrest.”

The reason for this purchase was that the CCU only had two converted, retrofitted cargo vans to cover the entire state. Both were old and experiencing frequent power blow-outs. They were uncomfortable to work in during the heat of the summer and freezing temperatures of the winter, and neither had the kind of room needed to allow for multiple examiners to work alongside one another.

The CCU annually prosecutes between 70 and 80 of the highest volume traffickers in Maine. Based on their own sleuthing and a slew of tips, the CCU visits two to four houses or businesses each week in every part of Maine.

“Because Maine is such a rural state, it often takes time to build cases,” said Willette. “As we interview suspects, we learn new information, such as people who may be associating or cooperating with the suspect. We develop new leads, which may be in a very different location. The new mobile lab gives us tools to find a quicker resolution to a case.”

Just completed this past summer, the mobile lab is stored at the CCU’s headquarters in Augusta. The CCU plans to put it on the road this week.

Gone are the kitchen tables, sofas, chairs and bunks. A special company built out the RV with surveillance equipment, counter tops and work stations to accommodate computers with software that analyzes devices, as well as a power supply adequate to meet the technology’s requirements. In between the work station are tool cabinets.

“A lot of times the devices we recover may require the analyst to open access panels and disassemble them,” said Willette.

The lab now has enough room to allow multiple investigators to use it simultaneously, including a master bedroom retrofitted to serve as a place to interview suspects or a quieter area to do research or reports.

Because members of the CCU may be on the road all day long, it also offers more comfort with a bathroom, a sink and refrigerator, along with air conditioning allowing work to continue throughout the hottest summer days, and heating that takes the unit through the coldest days of winter.

With this lab, Willette said the CCU now can utilize the technology to the fullest, allowing the investigative unit to operate in a faster, more efficient manner to identify Mainers who produce, sell or are in possession of child pornography.

For more information about Maine’s Computer Crimes Unit visit: Maine CCU

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

The Midcoast is getting an early start on the Witching Hour and we have combed every cool event going on we could find to bring you a comprehensive rundown of Halloween-themed events. We've color-coded these events for Adults and Parents & Kids to make finding them easier. Don't forget that there is also a Candy Drive for the Camden and Belfast neighborhoods most hit up for Halloween.

Thursday, Oct. 29

· Adults: Halloween readings: Peter Dudar, John Manderino, Jen Blood, Duane Coffill and Katherine Silva read from their works — ranging from cozy mysteries to supernatural horror to spine-tingling thrillers — at Rock City Café, 316 Main St. in Rockland. 6-8 p.m. FMI: info@voxthebook.com.

· Parents and Kids: The fifth annual Pumpkin Palooza display of Jack-o'-lanterns will be at the Amphiteatre in Camden. Bring pumpkins to the amphitheater or drop them off during the day in the children's garden with your name on them. All ages and carving talents welcome and encouraged to participate. FMI: 236-3440.

Friday, Oct. 30

• Parents and Kids:  Ashwood Waldorf School’s annual All Hallows’ Eve Walk. After 13 years, the Ashwood walk is changing venues and will take place this year on Ashwood’s beautiful 32-acre campus the night BEFORE Halloween: On Friday, October 30, 5-7 p.m. After 13 years (yes, this will be the 14th annual walk!) this is a big change, so please help spread the word! 180 Park Street, Rockport.

· Adults: Midcoast rockers Creatures of Habit play a Costume Dance at Thompson Community Center, 51 South Union Road (Route 131) om Union. Cost: $20; $30/couple. Benefits American Cancer Society Relay for Life of Midcoast Maine. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and runs from 8 to 11:30 p.m. BYOB, costume contest.

· Adults and Parents and Kids: The Morrison family in New Harbor opens their Halloween Scare-Fest to the public from 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 30; Saturday, Oct. 31, and Sunday, Nov. 1 Read our story about it here.

· Adults: Rock Harbor Pub is throwing a Halloween costume party with drink specials (including Brown Ale made with pumpkin and candy corn!).

· Adults: Creatures of Habit will play at the Costumes for Cure dance at the Thompson Community Center in Union from 8-11:30 p.m.

· Adults: Halloween Salsa Party. Primo Cubano will play from 7:30-10:30 p.m., Spooky beginner salsa lesson with Malia Dell starts at 7 p.m. Street parking, BYOB. Tickets$14... must be reserved in advance of the event. Checks made out to Pascal Hall,mailing address below..may pay in person by calling Norm 207-230-4989 or Richard 207-542-3261.

Saturday, Oct. 31

· Adults: Check out our updated Hip Spots For Halloweenies article from the Wave on the coolest places to go for Halloween night.

· Adults: and Parents and Kids: After a month of workshops, founder/director of Kinetic Energy Alive Productions, Kea Tesseyman, will be running Camden's first Halloween flash mob dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller at the bottom of Pearl Street in Camden at 7:30 p.m.

· Adults: The American Legion Auxiliary in Rockland is holding a Halloween Dance on Saturday, Oct. 31 from 7 to 11 p.m. at the Legion Hall on Limerock Street. The country band Storm Warning will be playing. $10 admission. Costumes are fun, but not required - All are welcome to attend.

· Adults: Halloween II will be playing at the Camden Opera House. The film will begin at 8 p.m. and tickets are $9 at the door, cash/check.

· Parents and Kids: The Waldoboro Fire Department will be hosting its seventh annual haunted house at The Old Waldoboro High School, This year’s theme is “Wild West of Waldoboro.” from 2 to 4 p.m. for younger children. That same evening, from 6 to 8 p.m., the haunted house will come to full life for all ages to experience the elevated terror as it returns to the full horrific state. Each visitor is asked to make a $1 donation to enter the haunted house.

· Parents and Kids: The Lincolnville General Store is hosting a pumpkin carving event starting at 4 p.m. at 269 Main St. They will have some food items, and would welcome it if friends considered bringing a pot luck item to share.

· Parents and Kids: The Rockport Public Library is having some Halloween fun beginning at 12:30 p.m. with a costume parade, then back to the library for tricks and treats. Also screening Hotel Transylvania at 1:15 p.m. Free.

· Parents and Kids: Trunk or Treat at Warren Community School 3-5 p.m. For safety reasons, please do not arrive before 3 p.m. as vehicles will still be parking and setting up. Go trunk to trunk collecting treats and showing off your costumes. Take note of your favorite trunk and vote for them at the concession table. Hot Dogs, Popcorn and drinks will be available for purchase.

· Parents and Kids: The Belfast Free Library will host a Halloween Party from 2:30 – 4:30 p.m. Magic and ventriloquist performance by "Dana and Friends." In addition to his puppet friends, Dana will present juggling, surprise paper cutting and mind-boggling magic tricks. Halloween touch and feel boxes will add to the fun, and healthy treats will be provided by the library.

· Parents and Kids: Rockland Library is hosting a Halloween Hullabaloo at 10:30 a.m. Come in costume and enjoy scary stories, a costume parade with prizes; make a gory snack; and create monster puppets for an original Preposterous Puppet Show.

HOPE — At the beginning of November, Hope Orchards’ cider press will come to a grinding halt—literally.  From the last week of September to the first week of November, every Friday is cider-making day, using an old-fashioned cider press that is nearly 60 years old. 

The key to excellent cider starts with just-picked ripe apples (never off the ground). The varieties range from macoun, spartan, golden delicious, northern spy and empire apples, which all get placed in wooden boxes and are stacked by the first mechanical piece of the process, the washer. This section washes and polishes the apples of every grade.

They are then transferred to the sizer and hand-sorted to go back into various boxes, some for sale, some for cider and the rest for compost. 

Then, the cider apples travel up a conveyor belt up to the grinder, which grinds the apples into small pieces. The crushed-up apples fall down into a cloth-covered wooden form producing a 2-inch thick “cake.” Employees then stack 10 layers of cakes into the forms under the hydraulic press. When the press squeezes down on the stack, all of the juice, or cider, drips out of the fabric, down the pan and runs down into a reservoir, where it’s pumped into a tank. From there, a set of beer taps open the tank to allow the cider to be filled into jugs.

The mash that is left over from the cakes goes to a compost area, which is mixed with wood chips and leaves and used for next season’s garden.

Hope Orchards only makes 100-200 gallons a week from the week’s harvest and, sells this raw, unpasteurized cider right out of a cooler next to the cider press. By November, they will have used the last of the orchard’s apples, so when it’s gone—it’s gone. At least until next fall.

Watch our video of the entire process — from freshly picked apples to cider.

Reach Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com.

Maine has just received a new powerful tool to combat child pornography and trafficking — a new mobile forensic laboratory for the state’s Computer Crimes Unit, thanks in large part to former Camden teacher and Mainely Girls Executive Director Mary Orear, who more than two years ago spearheaded a fundraising campaign to buy the vehicle.  See more of the story here.

With nearly $40,000 in donations, the Computer Crimes Unit caught a lucky break when the Maine Emergency Medical Services donated their commercial recreational vehicle to the Maine State Police group of specialized forensic investigators. With the campaign money, they were able to retrofit the interior space, so that multiple examiners can work in conjunction with detectives and investigators. 

“It gives us a platform to use in the field to do forensic analysis on any devices we recover or seize that we suspect may contain evidence,” said CCU Sgt. Kyle Willette. “This helps us to bring the investigation to a quicker resolution, whether to rule out a suspect, or a person’s complicity or to make an arrest.”

The reason for this purchase was that the CCU only had two converted, retrofitted cargo vans to cover the entire state. Both were old and experiencing frequent power blow-outs. They were uncomfortable to work in during the heat of the summer and freezing temperatures of the winter, and neither had the kind of room needed to allow for multiple examiners to work alongside one another.

The CCU annually prosecutes between 70 and 80 of the highest volume traffickers in Maine. Based on their own sleuthing and a slew of tips, the CCU visits two to four houses or businesses each week in every part of Maine.

“Because Maine is such a rural state, it often takes time to build cases,” said Willette. “As we interview suspects, we learn new information, such as people who may be associating or cooperating with the suspect. We develop new leads, which may be in a very different location. The new mobile lab gives us tools to find a quicker resolution to a case.”

Just completed this past summer, the mobile lab is stored at the CCU’s headquarters in Augusta. The CCU plans to put it on the road this week.

Gone are the kitchen tables, sofas, chairs and bunks. A special company built out the RV with surveillance equipment, counter tops and work stations to accommodate computers with software that analyzes devices, as well as a power supply adequate to meet the technology’s requirements. In between the work station are tool cabinets.

“A lot of times the devices we recover may require the analyst to open access panels and disassemble them,” said Willette.

The lab now has enough room to allow multiple investigators to use it simultaneously, including a master bedroom retrofitted to serve as a place to interview suspects or a quieter area to do research or reports.

Because members of the CCU may be on the road all day long, it also offers more comfort with a bathroom, a sink and refrigerator, along with air conditioning allowing work to continue throughout the hottest summer days, and heating that takes the unit through the coldest days of winter.

With this lab, Willette said the CCU now can utilize the technology to the fullest, allowing the investigative unit to operate in a faster, more efficient manner to identify Mainers who produce, sell or are in possession of child pornography.

For more information about Maine’s Computer Crimes Unit visit: Maine CCU

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

HOPE — At the beginning of November, Hope Orchards’ cider press will come to a grinding halt—literally.  From the last week of September to the first week of November, every Friday is cider-making day, using an old-fashioned cider press that is nearly 60 years old. 

The key to excellent cider starts with just-picked ripe apples (never off the ground). The varieties range from macoun, spartan, golden delicious, northern spy and empire apples, which all get placed in wooden boxes and are stacked by the first mechanical piece of the process, the washer. This section washes and polishes the apples of every grade.

They are then transferred to the sizer and hand-sorted to go back into various boxes, some for sale, some for cider and the rest for compost. 

Then, the cider apples travel up a conveyor belt up to the grinder, which grinds the apples into small pieces. The crushed-up apples fall down into a cloth-covered wooden form producing a 2-inch thick “cake.” Employees then stack 10 layers of cakes into the forms under the hydraulic press. When the press squeezes down on the stack, all of the juice, or cider, drips out of the fabric, down the pan and runs down into a reservoir, where it’s pumped into a tank. From there, a set of beer taps open the tank to allow the cider to be filled into jugs.

The mash that is left over from the cakes goes to a compost area, which is mixed with wood chips and leaves and used for next season’s garden.

Hope Orchards only makes 100-200 gallons a week from the week’s harvest and, sells this raw, unpasteurized cider right out of a cooler next to the cider press. By November, they will have used the last of the orchard’s apples, so when it’s gone—it’s gone. At least until next fall.

Watch our video of the entire process — from freshly picked apples to cider.

Reach Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com.

The Itching Hour is upon us—that is, if you’re itching to do something fun this weekend and saving up your hella Halloween energy for next weekend. Check out the line up!

Belfast Art Walk with Masked Performers

Friday, October 23—Belfast

Unmask! Unmask! Okay, you can stay masked. Come and enjoy an evening of masked performers for this October’s Fourth Friday Art Walk in downtown Belfast. Wear your own mask or simply enjoy the masked promenade as you go from gallery to gallery. The Art Walk takes place from 5:30–8 p.m. More than 15 downtown galleries will be participating.  Come and enjoy the paintings, photography, sculpture, ceramics, etchings, assemblage, and fine craft of local Maine artists. Featured performers include Beverly Mann, With Breath Puppetry and Poet Michael Darigan. Beverly Mann’s sculptural masks will be on view at High Street Gallery.

New Temp Tales episode, with music & stand up

Friday, October 23—Rockport

This is some home grown fun and will be the place to be Friday night. Necessary Music Productions will be partnering with O'Chang Comics for the world premier of the next Temp Tales Cartoon: Crittah Gittahz Part II! The event will be mixed media and feature original O'Chang cartoons, musicians and stand up comics. Hosted at the Simonton Corner Community Hall (366 Main St.) in Rockport, the event begins at 7 p.m. Donations at the door of $5-10 will go to the artists and venue expenses. Local Waldo and Knox county bands The Midnight Riders & Sugarbush will be performing, as will stand up comedians Janis Lilly & Ian Stuart!

Salty Soup Kitchen Mexican Night

Saturday, October 24—Rockport

This pop up kitchen has been on a roll this month and this Saturday, they’re getting into the guacamole groove. This Saturday they will start serving once again at 5:00 p.m. until about 8:30 p.m. (Bring cash only).  I like how they advertise it as “Mexican nights are kid friendly but are also adult, young adult, awkward adolescent, middle aged and geriatric friendly.” BYOB. If you bring tequila, they will give you margarita granita mix to go with it or if you bring beer, they’ll offer michelada cocktail (non-alcoholic) with chili salt and lime. Open to all.

5th annual Derbytante Ball

Saturday, October 24—Rockport

The Rock Coast Roller derby girls are known for throwing a left of center party. Whether you come decked out in your most outlandish prom dress or you arrive as Cruella DeVille, you're guaranteed to have the best time. The event is at Trackside Station and starts at 8 p.m. Dancing is required. Music by DJ McLovin. Photo booth fun provided.Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door. They'll have a raffle, as well as a dessert auction, with delicious treats provided by Rock Coast Rollers skaters.

Killer Road Trip: Harvest on The Harbor

Saturday, October 24—Portland

Taste the eight regions of Maine in this daytime event from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. This epic food & beverage experience is a treat to the eyes and taste buds alike. Explore delectable eats unique to each of the eight regions of Maine, meet ambassadors and learn the unique history and stories embedded within each part of the state.Here’s a list of the purveyors. In addition to the amazing food selections you'll receive a complimentary commemorative glass as you enter to allow you to sample a multitude of wines, beers, and spirits from around Maine, New England, and around the nation. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased here.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Halloweenie (hal-uh-ween, -oh-een-nee). A person who loves Halloween above all holidays. Halloween is Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s and St. Patrick's day all in one. — Urban Dictionary

You know this person. You’re sitting together in June watching boats float by while having a beer and he/she says, “You know what I’m going to be for Halloween this year?” This person already has the costume picked out. This person is 36 years old.

Luckily for Halloweenies, the Midcoast has ramped up its All Hallow’s Eve game in the last five years. Holloween falls on a Saturday night this year. You’re guaranteed to see and be seen at the following joints. Please, please don’t go as Ebola Nurse this year. That’s done, hon.

Prospect

Fright At The Fort: If there’s one thing that can be said about the Friends of Fort Knox Executive Director Leon Seymour, it is that he is a mega Halloweenie. He absolutely lives for this season and it shows in each year’s macabre theme and elaborate props. This year’s theme is Water over the Damned. By the look of the poster, imagine aquatic Nazi zombies from Shock Waves (1977) and Zombie Lake (1981), or perhaps the underwater monsters from Sea Beast (2009) or The Host (2007). Dress in an appropriately themed costume for one of these epic tours and Leon might pop out of the shadows himself and let you know he approves. Fright tours, Oct. 17, 23, 24, 30, 31.

Belfast

Front Street Pub is known for its themed Halloween parties and costume contest with a D.J., dancing, games, prizes, and the chance to win a scary looking bike from Shipyard Brewing. 9 p.m.-midnight

Bowen's Tavern is having its third annual Halloween Party with the live band, Oversoul! Costume contest with $150 cash prize goes to best costume to be judged at midnight. 8 p.m. to close. No cover and the kitchen will be open till 11 p.m.

Three Tides in Belfast is throwing an awesome black light party for Halloween. They plan on keeping it creepy and bringing in D.J.s Jason Keith and Matty.t with the tunes. Dress to Impress (the DEAD)! Music starts at 9 p.m.  21 and older. No cover.

Camden

Cuzzy's Restaurant in Camden will have a Scaraoke costume party from 9 p.m. to midnight with prizes, giveaways and specials.

Pig + Poet will be throwing their first Halloween bash with dancing movies, costume and pumpkin-carving contests (BYOP), prizes and specials. 4-10 pm.

Rockland

The Speakeasy loves a costume party, oh boy they do. The Dolphin Strikers are making a return appearance. Their theme this year is Bring Out Your Blaze! Incorporate blaze orange into your costumes; there will be prizes for the most creative, the scariest and the most beautiful blaze. $3 tickets can be reserved ahead. 9 p.m.-midnight.

FOG Bar and Cafe: Just Teachers will be the costume dance band and specials, 9 p.m.-midnight. The party starts when the bar opens and the costume contest will be judged at 11 p.m.

3Crow is throwing a Scar3crow Bash from 9 p.m. to midnight with costume contests and drink specials as well as DJ and dancing. Free admission.

Note: We've been looking everywhere online for events, so if we don't have yours, let us know. Email us if you know of another cool event happening on that night in the Midcoast and we’ll add to our list!

ROCKLAND — Gotta hand it to the Strand Theatre for going big last night. A few hours before the anticipated screening of Back To The Future on Oct 21, 2015, a rented DeLorean came off a tow truck and was parked on a downtown Rockland sidewalk, right under the theater’s marquis.

Wouldn’t it have been cooler if Main Street had been cordoned off and that thing came whizzing down from the sky at 88 miles an hour?

Crowds lined up 45 minutes before the movie to get a ticket, and the theater was packed when the lights went down. It’s funny to see the movie again after 30 years, particularly the comic beats that got the most audience laughs. Here were two quotes that did:

“Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?" — Biff Tannen

"Whoa, this is heavy." — Marty McFly
"There's that word again: 'heavy.' Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?" — Doc

There were three moments in the movie where the audience spontaneously broke out in applause. One was the scene where bully ringleader Biff and his buddies broadsided a manure truck, which dumped all over their convertible. The audience applauded again when George McFly got up the nerve to save Lorraine and punch Biff in the face.

The third, of course, was the tense moment when the lightning struck the old clock tower just as the DeLorean time machine hit 88 miles per hour, sending Marty McFly back to the future.

Well, today is Oct. 22, 2015. It’s all in the past now.

Send us your DeLorean selfies and we’ll post to our gallery!

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Back To The Future, the highest grossing movie of 1985, will always be one of my favorite films because in 1985, I was just a couple of years younger than Marty McFly, Michael J. Fox’s character. My dad took my sister and me to see the movie and this was what was so weirdly meta about the experience. Here I was — a teenager in 1985 watching a movie set in 1985 with my father (who was a teenager in the 1950s) in which the character goes back to find his father as a teenager in 1955.

The film, directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, developed from a concept Gale imagined after finding his father's high school yearbook in his parents’ basement. Looking through the yearbook, Gale discovered his father had been the president of his graduating class. Gale wondered whether he and his father would have been friends if they had attended school together.

Believe me, after this movie, my father and I had that very same conversation (and I imagine millions of people did as well.) If you went back to the future and met your parents in high school, would you have been friends?

Thirty years later, fans are still going bonkers over this film, particularly because this is the week people have been waiting for, when in Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly travels forward in time to a small town in California on Oct. 21, 2015, at 4:29 p.m. The future is now.

Internationally, movie theaters will be screening movies from the Back To The Future trilogy on Wednesday, Oct. 21, as well as several Maine theaters, including The Strand Theatre (Rockland), Smitty’s Cinema (Sanford), Railroad Square Cinema (Waterville) and Regal Cinema (Brunswick).

In 1985, I had no idea where I’d be in life or what 2015 would look like. As far into the future as it seemed back then, it seemed entirely plausible that there would be hoverboards and video phone calls, such as Skype and FaceTime. And given that the 1980s had hideous fashion (I didn’t see that changing much), the Yoko Ono visors and self-lacing Nikes seemed about right for 2015. But flying cars? That, I doubted even at age 16. As it turns out, Business Insider has a list of 21 Things 'Back To The Future 2' Got Wrong About 2015

For fans, this website shows in real time the countdown to how many days, hours and minutes we are from hitting the exact time circuit in Back To The Future II.

Stay tuned as we join other moviegoers at The Strand Theatre at 7 p.m. to watch that iconic movie all over again. I’m going to have to FaceTime Dad while I’m there.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

NEW HARBOR — Raised by a single mom, April Morrison and her older brother, Michael Morrison, didn’t have a lot of extras growing up, but they had a lot of fun. The youngest daughter and son of eight children, April and Michael loved to decorate their mother’s house in New Harbor every Halloween, putting all of their creativity and resources into handmade elaborate costumes and props.

“One year I said I wished for a dragon, and he actually built me one,” said April. From there, the two, who happen to be 10 years apart, always conspired together to make the next Halloween even bigger and spookier. “Usually my brother would dress up and scare the kids who came to Trick Or Treat,” she said, adding, he still did this well into his 20s. “As I got older, I was able to help him create more props,” she said.

For the last 14 years, the entire Morrison family has held a free “Scare-Fest” on Halloween weekend for kids and the community at their mother’s house. Michael still channels his inner kid every year by constructing a gigantic plywood castle facade along with a maze and spooky props to go with it. It takes the family as well as volunteers about a month to set up the full construction.

“The way we were raised, we didn’t have a lot of extra money, so that’s the main reason we keep this free for kids and families,” said April. “People tell us all of the time that we should charge admission, but that adds up for an entire family and becomes too expensive.”

Just last year the Morrisons decided to attach a theme to their annual event and came up with Twisted Fairy Tales.

This year, their theme is “Face Your Fears” and the haunted castle will feature classic phobias including spiders, staring dolls and clowns, among other willy nillys.

The Morrisons state: “All willing to confront phantoms and phobias will be rewarded with something sweet—unless you are afraid of sugar,in which case you will be chased with something sweet.”

“It’s funny, there are certain age groups where kids are a little more frightened of everything,” said April. “Some of the smallest kids are fascinated by all of the props, which is really surprising. Then there are teenagers who come, but sometimes won’t even get out of the car because they’ve psyched themselves out.”

The Haunted Castle’s Keep Scare-Fest will be open to the public on October 30, 31 and November 1 from 5-9 p.m. The address is 2634 Bristol Road (Route 130) in New Harbor, just past Reilly’s store. “Look to your left for the fog bank” the directions say. Find out more at their Facebook page.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Three of this weekend’s events coming up were so cool I had to write more of an in-depth article about them. Despite the cooling temps, this is one excellent weekend for the foodies, the beer fiends and the ghouls.

Wicked Wines and Stone cold-from-the-grave Beer Tasting

Friday, October 16—Rockland: Okay, perhaps Rockland Food Service’s monthly wine and beer tasting isn’t necessarily Halloween-themed. Oh wait, yes it is. Wicked wines will be represented on the wine table and Stone Brewery will be featured on the beer table. (And if you’ve never tried Stone’s beers before, well they happen to be my favorite brewery in the world. Make the trip.) Starts at 4 p.m. FMI: Rockland Food Service

Fright At The Fort Begins!

Saturday, October 17—Prospect

Halloweenies rejoice! This weekend kicks off the annual award-winning Fort Knox hauntfest called “Fright At The Fort.” This year's theme is Water Over the Damned, so expect watery wraiths as well as other elaborate props and monsters. Route 174, Prospect. Cost: $10; $5 younger than 12; $12/$7 for express tickets, available at FrightXTix.com. Goes the next four nights: Oct. 23 and 24; 30 and 31 (Halloween); last tour starts 8:30 p.m. Rain or shine.

Three Tides Beer And Mussels Fest

Saturday, October 17—Belfast

This is Three Tides and Marshall Wharf Brewing Co’s eighth year of throwing open the doors to let the public sample their latest, tastiest brews. Gate opens at 5p.m. A $30 entry gets you in the door, with a commemorative glass to keep, 10 tickets for glass fills (That's 70 ounces of delicious MW beer!), and access to specialty beers such as cask and barrel aged. If you want to go a la carte, $10 gets you in the gate and pays the cover for Toughcats! Mussels and Belgian style Frites will be available for purchase, and there will be a food truck, as well. They also provide an in-town shuttle van that will be making rounds to the local hotels all afternoon. See more of the story at Looky here it’s Mussels and Beer.

Killer Road Trip: Home Movie Day in Waterville

Saturday, October 17—Waterville

Want a glimpse into the “unintended art” that only home movies can provide? Community members are invited to take their Super 8, 8mm, and 16mm films to Railroad Square Cinema in Waterville, where technicians will inspect and project them on the big screen for all to share in the experience of discovery. Submissions will be inspected and projected in the order that they are received, and people are invited to attend as little or as much of the event as they would like, regardless of whether they submit a film. Free to the public. FMI: Home Movie Day 

Rockland’s first FAB Fest

Saturday, October 17—Rockland

To celebrate the locals (particularly those who’ve endured the busy crowds this year) Café Miranda is hosting its inaugural Food And Beverage (FAB) Fest from 1 to 4 p.m. The FAB Fest is being held right n Oak Street in downtown Rockland. It’s also coinciding with Farnswoth Art Museum’s Fall Family Festival, so it’s a good day to be downtown! See our story here: Psst locals, the coast is clear—you can come out now for FAB Fest

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKPORT — Craig Mitchell, the self-employed owner of Rockport Landscape and Design, was at home last week watching his kids and browsing Facebook when a message popped up on an online message board that a cat was stuck about 50-feet up a tree. The owner didn’t think there was any way the cat would come down on her own. She called animal control. No dice. Everyone on the message board told her the cat would come down on its own. But, the nights were starting to get cold.

“I knew it had been up there 48 hours and wasn’t going to come down on its own safely,” said Mitchell. A licensed arborist, he asked if he could help. The owner gratefully accepted and offered to pay him, but Mitchell declined.

“I have animals myself and I just knew she needed assistance,” he said.

With his assistant, Michael Hughes, Mitchell went to the woman’s house with a 24-foot ladder and his tree climbing harness and rope. While he had climbed many trees, he had never rescued a cat. This was going to be tricky.

“I asked first if this was an aggressive cat or not,” he said. “Forty-eight hours up there, you never know.”

Luckily, the answer was no. Mitzi was a good cat, not too bright when it came to tree sitting, but otherwise, well behaved.

“So I climbed the ladder and set myself up with the rope and harness,” he said. “Once I got off the ladder, I just kept resetting the rope and climbing up about another 25 feet.”

Mitchell eventually got within 5 feet of Mitzi, who was huddled on a branch. “Me and the cat spent a little time getting to know each other,” he said.

Once he had Mitzi firmly in his grasp, Mitchell had to keep re-positioning the rope one handed, and lower himself slowly all the way down.

When he got within 20 feet of the ground, Mitzi began to have second thoughts, or sensed how close she was to the ground and was thinking about making a jump for it.

“She tried struggling a bit,” said Mitchell. “But I got her calmed down.”

Once the Mitzi’s paws really did touch ground, she ran straight to her front door.

“She was done with the outside,” he said.

And there you have it. A man with a harness, a Facebook account and a willingness to brave the potential of slashing claws 50 feet up in the air is a good neighbor to have, indeed.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — Kickstarter-funded food truck 'Wich Please is becoming roomies with Comida, a downtown Rockland restaurant with a Spanish flare. Using a symbiosis strategy, 'Wich Please will operate during the day hours, using the restaurant space as they churn out their signature sandwiches, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then clear out in the afternoon so that Comida can run dinner service, from 5 to 9 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday. In the Midcoast, this kind of collaboration between a restaurant and a food truck is the first of its kind, but all systems are go and the arrangement kicks off Oct. 10.

Comida co-owners Tom Sigler and his wife, Lisa Laurita-Spanglet, were trying to find an innovative solution to running lunch service without stretching their resources and staff too thin, and she happened to reach out via Facebook to ‘Wich Please food truck owner and chef Malcolm Bedell. The message was brief — would he be interested in bringing his business and staff in to their space for the winter?

“Her message basically detailed everything I’d been thinking about doing with my business,” said Bedell. “We’d just got this momentum going with the food truck and now that’s it’s October, it just seemed a shame to disappear for six months.”

The trio hit it off.  “We’d never met before,” said Bedell. “But once we did, we could both tell we were going to get along just fine.”

Even better: ‘Wich Please’s weekly Monday “India Night” dinner — originally started as a takeout concept — will now have table service and a full bar with the two businesses collaborating on some weekly cocktail pairings as well.

Beyond the host restaurant giving the food truck a home in the winter, there are numerous benefits for both businesses to this arrangement.

“There are two major benefits for us,” said Laurita-Spanglet. “One, we don’t have to overwork our staff. Summer is busy enough, but we didn’t want to burn them out going into winter and of course, the second benefit of combining financial resources is paramount for the winter.”

“To characterize my business as operating on a shoestring is putting it mildly,” said Bedell. “To take this idea of ‘Indian Night’ and do it as a full service dinner wasn’t going to be in the cards for me for a long time, so the ability to borrow and hire each other’s staff is great. It gives people who would have had to be on part-time schedules the chance to work full time year-round. When we put the same amount of investment into our service help, we both reap the benefits of that.”

As an added bonus, the two eateries realized that in sharing their space, they’ve strengthened their brands with this collaboration. Locals loyal to each are already wild about the idea on social media.

“There’s a level of quality with Malcolm’s food that we knew would work with the way we do things too,” said Laurita-Spanglet.

This week they’ve all been working on pre-planning and logisitics before the combined new opening. “We realized we’ll have an overlap where we’ll be breaking down, as they set up,” said Bedell. Not sure how it’s all going to sort out, everyone has faith it’s going to be just fine.

“It’s funny, Tom and Lisa were apologizing how small the kitchen is and it’s easily a ten-fold increase for me,” said Bedell. “The fact that I can’t touch either wall with both hands is a big step up,” he joked.

Asked what other restaurants and food trucks would need in order to do what they’re doing, Laurita-Spanglet said, “I think you have to have an open personality, and establish a trust factor. This is just a new way to explore a new model of business.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

A warming trend over much of the U.S. for the next week or so should be making you giddy, especially since there are so many outdoor fall events happening this weekend, including pig and beer, apples and alpacas, wine and cheese and farm and art. Get the car ready Gertrude, we're ready to roll.

Killer Road Trip: Swine and Stein Octoberfest

Saturday, October 10—Gardiner

Get your porky goodness on with the 6th Annual Swine & Stein Octoberfest, trifecta of beer, food, and music. A beer tasting will showcase the incredible diversity and quality of Maine craft beers. In celebration of local Maine agriculture, fine restaurants and local food vendors from Gardiner and across the state will serve up a variety of interesting culinary dishes featuring local pork along with other quality menu items. Adding to the festivities, a line-up of favorite and emerging Maine bands will entertain throughout the day.11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. downtown Gardiner. $15 in advance, $20 day of, $15 designated driver. FMI: visit gardinermainstreet.org

Belfast Area Farm and Art Fall Tour

Saturday, October 10 to Sunday, October 11—Belfast

Hosted by Belfast Creative Coalition, check out these free, open studio and farm tours with special workshops and demonstrations. Visitors can observe artists working in their studios, watch a glass blowing demonstration and learn how farmers create artistic consumer products from what they cultivate. The event goes from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. FMI: call 323-8692 or visit BelfastCreative-Coalition.org.

Hope Orchards Fall Festival

Sunday, October 11—Hope

Hope Orchards will be at the top of their apple harvest, with an interesting mix of arts, crafts, music, and food. Come by to check out artist and craftsperson's wares, apple pizza and other edibles, alpacas, music by Rosie and the Wayfaring Stranger, who play 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. The entire event goes from 9:00 a.m to 5:00 p.m. FMI visit: hopeorchards.com

Cheese, Music & Wine

Sunday, October 11—Midcoast

‘Tis the season to have any excuse to jump in the car and go leaf peeping en route to a cool destination. In this case, it’s Open Creamery Day, where local cheesemakers open their farms and establishments to the public with cheese samplings, cheese making demos, music, food, and in some places, complimentary wine tastings. Participating in the Midcoast are: Appleton Creamery, Breakwater Vineyards, State of Maine Cheese Company. The events are open 11:00 to 3 p.m. FMI: visit Maine Cheese Guild

Snow Bowl Chair Lift Rides

Sunday, October 11—Camden

This has got to be one of my all-time favorite Cheap Dates activities in the Midcoast. Every October, the Camden Snow Bowl opens up their chairlift for rides to the top of Ragged Mountain. You can either walk down or ride down, but bring a picnic and a camera and enjoy the spectacular view. Goes from 9:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m. The only down side is they upped their prices to $10 per adult (it used to be $5) per ride. Kids ride for $5. However, (and this is kind of random), the Snow Bowl is advertising that “Those arriving to ride the chair in formal wedding attire will receive free rides and qualify for prizes.”

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”-Rumi..... Virginia “Ginny” Blanchard was one of the Midcoast PechaKucha’s presenters Sept. 18. The event, which always highlights artists or creatives with an unusual skill or talent, was a perfect fit for Blanchard. And it’s always interesting to pluck these people from the PK event and get a deeper look into who they are and what they choose to do with their lives.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from New York University several years ago, she’d never done any woodworking and decided to try a two-week course at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport. That path led to more courses and a fellowship through the Center.

She now makes a living by making furniture on commission and is working on doing the trade show route. Just recently she made the transition to stay permanently in Maine.

Blanchard defines her style as “starting with circa 1900 French and Belgian Art Nouveau and veering toward a Viennese Secession.” 

Loosely translated for the layman, this means she digs making bygone era furniture with fanciful contemporary details.

She picked three pieces in her portfolio that she found to be the most fun to make. 

“Although, usually, I make fun of myself for making more impractical furniture,” she admitted.

Take her favorite piece — a vanity with a matching velvet covered stool.

“This piece I wanted to be a little more glamourous,” she said. “I asked myself how do I want to feel when I’m sitting down at this vanity?”

The tapered legs are feminine, complete with an inlay that blossoms into a garden. The stool that goes with it has the same tapered legs and is covered with gold velvet. Blanchard keeps this vanity at her house.

“It’s a little ostentatious, but it’s one of my favorites,” she said.

Another non-commissioned piece she created is a privacy screen made from framed mahogany with birch veneer with a haughty peacock motif.

“This was the first piece I did after my fellowship ended,” she said. 

The piece took about three months to construct and is currently stored in New York. You can just imagine one of those 1930s actresses standing behind it, changing her clothes while talking to a paramour in the room.

The gramophone stands are made to be a pair. Open them up and there is enough storage for record albums. Both made with mahogany, satinwood, holly and bloodwood veneer. “Somethings just look good as a pair, and I thought it would be fun to play with that floral frieze at the tops of the stands,” she said. As for the perfectly matched gramophone? She bought that at an auction selling around 400 gramophone and just happened to find one painted the same vivid red to match the bloodwood in the stands.

Besides finishing some commissions this winter, she plans to work on some other “fun” pieces this year such as whimsical boxes and stand alone small tables.

Check out more of her work in our small gallery or visit: virginiablanchardfurniture.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

The Rockland, Maine History Facebook page posted this oldie a while back, asking if anyone could identify the house or even the street it’s on. Can you tell by just looking? (No peeking on their Facebook page).

Last week’s Throwback Thursday photo, goes all the way back to 1923 when Willis Harvill had a boat shed in what is now Camen’s Harbor Park, and the anchor factory was still occupying the waterfront (left of the falls).

Send your Throwback Thursday photos to news@penbaypilot.com and please post your answers to Penobscot Bay Pilot’s Facebook page.

THOMASTON — Within a nondescript, low slung building next to Flagship Theater, festive balloons decorate the Midcoast Collaborative sign; otherwise, it’s easy to miss it, tucked away next to an old-fashioned bridal shop. Inside, however, there is some serious creative energy taking place. It’s where eight local men and women use the industrial space as a workshop and office, sharing resources, equipment, and even ideas on each other’s work.

“There’s no boss, everyone is an equal member of the collective. It’s actually a tenant association,” said MidCoLab member Isabella Pierson, a designer and a builder of modern wood furniture.

The building used to be a brake service garage with office space, which everyone can use.  The back of the building is informally partitioned into smaller hives — each bay is set up differently depending on the person’s interests.

Whereas Jill Caldwell, a fine art painter and Stefanie Mojonnier, a graphic designer, printmaker and photographer, might have cans of paint, canvases or art supplies in their sections, Isabella Pierson’s space contains woodworking tools and various projects in production.

Other members include Andy White, a sculptor, fabricator, metal worker; Casey Hufnagel, a builder, timber framer, and concrete fabricator; Seth Bournival, a builder and cabinetmaker; Trisha Badger: Managing Director of the World Ocean Observatory, and Zander Shaw, an architect.

Further down the storage area of the building, it looks like shop class in high school all over again.

“Everyone brought their own machines,” said Isabella, pointing to the various woodworking and metalworking machines situated in the area. “That’s my band saw. That drill press over there, Andy and I bought together. The table saw is on loan from a friend. Because nobody could afford to buy all of this stuff and keep it in one place, this is how we’re able to pool together all of our equipment and share it.”

Each member pays insurance and an equal amount to cover the rent, whether they use the MidCoLab every week or just occasionally for individual projects. It also serves as a storage space for stuff that might not fit in the garage or shed.”We have an agreement drawn up that says how we behave in the space and with each other, what happens if equipment needs to be fixed, and everyone gets a vote,” said Isabella. “It is becoming much more popular to have co-working spaces, and also for high-tech stuff where people can’t afford to buy big equipment on their own.”

Rockland seems to be at the heart of the Maker-Designer-Artist collaborative scene with two other incarnations of this concept in existence. A woodworking collaborative exists in the former Bicknell Manufacturing Co. on Lime Street in Rockland, and the other, the Steel House, a center for design, technology, and education opened on Main Street in 2014.

As a collective, MidCoLab has been around about three years, and just this past summer, formally opened their space up to the public with an open house with all members participating. “We’re just now getting traction,” said Isabella. “Ninety-nine percent of the time you get more back than what you put in. For example, one of us will be working and need some kind of tool. Another person will walk by and say, ‘I happen to have that tool and you can use it.’” 

Being around creative people for a length of time lends to an exchange of ideas and advice that strengthen one another’s projects. 

“We’re all trying to make a living,” said Bella. “The amazing thing is we just happen to have a great group of people who are interested in seeing everyone’s success.”

The sharing of space and equipment naturally leads to collaboration on commissioned projects as well.

“Casey was hired to build a timber frame on an island last summer, so he hired Andy and I to help him cut the frames for that. We did all the work for that here and then hauled all of the materials out to the island.”

The collaborative is currently working on figuring out a way to open the space up to entrepreneurs who just want a short-term lease for specific projects. MidCoLab is also accepting applications from creative individuals seeking shared work space. There are currently desk spaces available in a communal workshop/office environment.

For more information, visit: facebook.com/midcolab

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

He was only here in the Midcoast for a weekend, and gone in a blip, but Penobscot Bay Pilot got a clip of master drummer Namory Keita in action with a booming percussive arrangement on the dunduns—traditional African drums with the deep voice. (See accompanying video).

Growing up studying his world famous uncle, Famoudou Konaté, Keita was only 7 years old when he began playing the traditional djembes and dundun drums in his village of Sangbarala, Guinea, in West Africa. “I learned traditional rhythms mostly from my uncle, but I stopped playing when I had the chance to go to school,” he said. “When I was 18, I picked it up again, following my uncle.”

One of only a handful of initiated masters of the Malinké drumming tradition, his Uncle Famoudou Konaté is universally respected as one of the world's premiere djembe drum masters. A drumming prodigy himself who started out at 8 years old, Konaté first performed in community festivals and was soon in demand by international audiences as a djembe fola (literally djembe player) across the region.

In 1999, Namory became the village djembe fola, and like his uncle, began teaching hundreds of students from around the world in Europe and North America.

About five years ago, he met and married a woman from New Hampshire and moved to the U.S. Though the marriage didn’t work out, he found his purpose in New England, as well as a drumming community. A couple of months ago, he settled in Portland.

Like many self-employed artists, Keita has more than one job. He teaches drumming classes in Kittery, Portland and Boston, as well as performs in a West African drumming ensemble in New Hampshire called Akwaaba Ensemble.

Thanks to his friendship with local dance instructor Denyse Robinson, as well as support from a Hope-based nonprofit, Partners for Enrichment, Keita led workshops for adults and kids all over the Midcoast Oct. 2-3.

From a kids’ eye view, before them was a man with a big smile and an easy demeanor showing drumming techniques. They could not know that this art form goes back nearly 400-800 years, created during the Malian Empire by the Mandé people. Or that, traditionally, only those born into a family that played the djembe would be allowed to play the djembe as they grew up. Today, a very rare few can pick up the djembe or dundun and learn the authentic way. For Keita to make it all the way in his journey from a child in Guinea, watching and emulating the masters, to teaching children the age at which he started, is no small thing. The deep voice of the drums told a little of that tale.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

On Saturday night, October 3, The Salty Soup Kitchen turned a private barn in West Rockport into a random gathering, serving up locally sourced (and totally delicious) Mexican food. Check out our gallery of the event and look for pop up incarnations from this kitchen in the future.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Given all of the flooding we got yesterday, this photo seemed oddly fitting. Can you tell what this is and the era?

Last week’s Throwback Thursday photo was an easy peasy guess. It was a postcard of the Maine Central Railroad Station, Rockland postmarked Nov. 19, 1909. Trackside Station, a restaurant sits there now.

This week’s photo courtesy of Camden Public Library

Send your Throwback Thursday photos to news@penbaypilot.com

LINCOLNVILLE—When September’s temperatures are high enough to wear a T-shirt, but not warm enough to go swimming, MaryAnn Mercier, co-owner of Youngtown Inn in Lincolnville lights the first fire of the season in the tiny bar.

The moment calls for something fall-like, and she unveils a purplish red mixture in a white bucket. Her husband, chef/co-owner Manuel Mercier, had crafted the bucket’s contents from crabapples he gathered from the rows of trees lining their property—trees he planted more than 20 years ago—and boiled them down into a compote.

“Crabapples are very tart and what you get when you make the compote is this simple syrup on the top of the mixture,” said MaryAnn.

This cocktail recipe is so simple. All you need is:

• Crabapple simple syrup
• Sparking wine or champagne
• A crabapple and rosemary for garnish

MaryAnn pours the sparkling wine (in this case a Cuvée Brut from Kenwood Vineyards), and tops it with the simple syrup and a sprig of rosemary they also grow on their property. The aromatic blast of rosemary is still saying “summer,” whereas that first tart and sparkly sip reminds you it’s fall.

This is apple-picking season, so you can do this yourself, or just pop into the Youngtown Inn sometime and let MaryAnn make one for you.

Check out more local sips with our article: Iconic Craft Cocktails of The Midcoast

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

The crazy cat ladies and the tom cats had their shining moment under the s̶u̶n̶ ̶ super moon on Sunday, September 27, 2015 in Rockland Harbor Park with the 2nd annual Cat Video Festival and Fair, sponsored by Farnsworth Art Museum.

Check out our gallery of whiskered faces courtesy Michael O’Neil via the Farnsworth.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

In the week that Seattle filmmaker Jeff Unay worked on his seven-minute pitch for the Camden International Film Festival’s coveted Points North Pitch, he’d pushed himself so hard that he made himself feverish. He had a raging cold by the time he flew from Seattle to Camden and was so nervous at the moment of his pitch, he feared his voice would give out on him in front of the panel presenters.

All of his hard work and angst paid off. Out of six filmmakers invited to pitch their documentary works-in-progress to an international delegation of funders, commissioning editors and producers before a live audience, his film, Greywater, won the award.

Naturally, everyone wants to know what it’s about. Here’s the logline: Joe, a long-time amateur cage fighter, sets his sights on Clayton, a young title-holder. Joe's pursuit comes to a head as his life at home begins to unravel. At first, the premise might seem to be one thing, about a guy who fights with MMA (Mixed Martial Arts).

But actually, the film is so much more.

“It’s actually Raging Bull meets Family Ties,” said Unay, in a phone interview. “A female friend who watched a clip said there is way more estrogen in this film than testosterone.”

Unay first met “Joe” at a gym who was clearly in training, not just some guy working out. Having been previously introduced by a mutual friend, the two began talking. What Unay learned in that conversation has become the basis of the entire film.

“This is really about a family man, a blue-collar guy with a real loving family who is going through some things. His wife became ill and was on experimental medications and they still couldn’t figure out what was happening to her. She was in a lot of pain. On top of that, Joe was battling his ex-wife for custody of his two oldest daughters. Whenever he feels helpless and life feels out of control, the one thing he falls back on, the thing that makes him feel the best, is cage fighting. But at 38 years old, he knows he can’t keep it up forever.”

If that isn’t a real life Rocky set up, the story takes on another twist. “When I met him at the gym that day, he hadn’t fought in years,” said Unay. “He was secretly in training. He told me, “My family doesn’t approve of this and they don’t know I’m doing this, so I’m going to train to fight for only one more year.’”

Intrigued by the lengths Joe was going to continue to pursue his dream, Unay asked if he could follow him around with a camera and film his journey.

Joe agreed, but they had a bit of an unusual problem.

“When I started filming, I’d go home with him and his kids and his wife would look at me, like ‘What are you doing?’,” he said.

For more than a year, Joe and Unay had to work together under the guise that Joe was training other fighters at the gym and Unay was there to film that process. After Joe was done with a fight, Unay would follow him home.

“He’d go home to four beautiful girls and his wife and they absolutely adore the ground he walks on. They’d crawl all over him when he got home and the girls would see a gash above his eye and say ‘Daddy, what happened?’ And he had to say it was just from helping others train.’”

The film hinges around one final fight that Joe has been working toward, given all of the complications in his life.

“This is really a film about what it means to be a father,” said Unay.

With the Points North Pitch and Modulus Finishing Fund Award of post-production time worth $10,000, Unay will be able to finish his film by August, 2016. This is his second full length documentary and he has worked on Avatar (2009), King Kong (2005) and Hellboy (2004). Audiences will be able to see the full film by 2017 when they submit it to film festivals.

For more information visit: Greywater

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Psst Summer, I know you’re still not getting the memo that it’s officially Fall, but that’s cool. You just keep on being you.

Another beautiful 65-70 degree weekend is upon us — and with the Common Ground Fair and the Great Maine Outdoor Weekend happening — this is not your weekend to stay home on the couch and binge watch Netflix. Here’s what we’ve got.

Art Reception and Wine Tasting at Belfast Co-op

Friday, September 25, Belfast

The Belfast Co-op Café, is hosting its monthly free wine tasting for the opening for "FARM + FOOD + FIDDLE: Grannagerie™ 2015," an exhibit of local artist Hope Hoffman's farming, nature and fiddling-themed fabric and food-related gifts, including bold appliqué designs printed on cloth, photography printed on metal, and illustrated sheet music. This month's wine tasting focuses on seasonal wines. The event goes from 7 to 8 p.m.

Manure Pitch at The Common Ground Country Fair

Saturday, Sept. 26, Unity

City slickers have nothing on this culturally hep yearly bash. Seeing who can toss dried dung the farthest is part of The Common Ground Country Fair’s annual Harry S. Truman games. The Manure Pitch is a competition with three age classes: 12 and under; 13 to 17; and 18 and over.

Contestants in each class will receive ribbons for first, second or third place. The first place winner in each class will also receive an organic cotton t-shirt. The contest is limited to 12 contestants per class. Sign up for the distance toss at 9:30 a.m. and for the 25-pound accuracy pitch at 1:30 p.m. I love their tag line: “Take your pick, shoes or sh-manure, but sign up and take part in this year's Harry S. Truman Games.” Tickets to The Common Ground Country Fair are $15 at the gate. FMI: Tickets

Killer Road Trip: Free admission to Acadia

Saturday, Sept. 26, Acadia National Park

To celebrate National Public Lands Day, visitors will have free entry all day to Acadia National Park. But take your bike, hiking shoes, or get ready to ride the trolley because the Park Loop Road is going car-free from midnight to noon that day. The Island Explorer bus will operate the Sand Beach (#3) and Jordan Pond (#5) routes on their normal fall schedule, and will increase service on the Loop Road (#4) route to every 15 minutes from 8:45 to 11:45 am. For more local tips to enjoy the Great Maine Outdoor Weekend, check out this story.

Sex, Drugs and Blueberries

Saturday, Sept. 26, Camden

Maine writer Crash Berry debuts his first film based on the title of his book, Sex, Drugs and Blueberries, which tells the story of failed rocker Ben Franklin, who moves all the way Down East to the Canadian border with his schoolteacher wife in order to start a new life. Desperate for cash, he signs on as a blueberry raker, where he's lured into a seamy world of sex and drugs that could lead to his downfall. Alternating between temptation and ecstasy, desperation and guilt, Ben discovers how quickly thing can go wrong. Starring Maine rock icon Dave Gutter (Rustic Overtones, Paranoid Social Club, Armies), the special screening also includes a solo musical performance by Gutter prior to the film. Doors open at 7 p.m. and tickets are $15, available through the Camden Opera House's box office. For more information visit sexdrugsandblueberries.com.

International Cat Video Festival and Fair

Sunday, Sept. 27, Rockland

It’s finally here! Postponed from earlier this summer, the festival all the crazy cat people have been waiting for has arrived! The Farsnworth Art Museum hosts this wwacky event at the Rockland Harbor Park. Starting at 5 p.m. there will be food vendors, live music and cat-themed activities. Starting at sunset, they’ll show a reel of 85 internet cat videos on a 40 foot screen overlooking Rockland Harbor for a running time of 70 minutes. Live music by Clint Hartzel & Andre Lascoutx. You’ll laugh, you’ll howl, you’ll cry, and you’ll, well, meow. Free.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

What are these train tracks in front of now?

In case you were wondering what last week’s Throwback Thursday photo was all about, it was 1918, end of WWI, and a parade happening in the streets.

Photo courtesy Rockland Maine Historical Society

Send your Throwback Thursday photos to news@penbaypilot.com