I promise you there will be NO holiday stuff in this weekend's lineup, because I know you can only take so much and there are other stories on this site where you can read about holiday happenings. But if you're down for some art openings, chocolate tastings, dance parties, handcrafted art and more, then you've come to the right place.

Thursday, Dec. 4

· As always, the Open Mic at The Highlands Coffee House promises some great talent in the Midcoast and beyond. Drink and food specials. Sign up early.

Friday, Dec. 5

· The last Rockland Art Walk of the season is happening downtown from 5 to 8 p.m, so get to it! To see a list of other galleries showing new work just in time for the “shop local” holidays, visit: artsinrockland.org

·  Clementine, the funky new craft store in Rockland, is having its first Craft Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. for all of you crafty makers out there. Bring your crafts to work on, meet others with crafting inclinations and be inspired — and inspire!

· Then there’s Åarhus Gallery in Belfast having an evening of chocolate tasting, browsing and music from 5 to 7 p.m. This will be the gallery's last event, with samples from Dean's Sweets' hand-dipped chocolates and all-natural, Bixby Bars produced in the Midcoast. Tom Luther will be bringing his unique hybrid blend of original music to the mix.

· If Belfast is where you’re headed, then also stop by Waterfall Arts Handmade Show from 5 to 8 p.m. More than 70 artists will be participating in this year's show with handmade items like clothing, jewelry, ceramics, prints, food, lighting fixtures and much, much more! The Moody Dog will be there selling gourmet hot dogs and condiments, Belfast Soda Company will be serving up some soda, and Shawn Brewer will be making screen print T-shirts. They will also have virgin Bloody Marys and hot apple cider, along with wine and cheese.

· And still another interesting thing to see in Belfast: the Midcoast Actors’ Studio is putting on their last production of the season, the Maine Playwrights’ Showcase, running Dec. 5-14 at the Playhouse on Church Street in Belfast. The showcase includes four original works. The opening show is $6 and starts at 7 p.m. The show is intended for mature audiences. For tickets, call the MAS box office at 370-7592 or email midcoastactors@gmail.com. FMI: Midcoast Actors Studio.

· I have to say Rock City Cafe has been hitting all cylinders with hosting young women singer-songwriters lately. Lauren Crosby is a rising folkie bluesy singer/songwriter from Georgetown Island. Her music is real, raw and poetic. In a world where it seems every teenage girl is trying to become the next Taylor Swift or Adele, Lauren is a refreshing and unique breath of air. She’ll be playing 7-9 p.m.

· Dance party! If you need to shake it off (see Taylor Swift reference above), Sea Train is putting on a funky groovin’ dance party at The Speakeasy from 8 to 11 p.m. No cover if you’ve dined at the Chowder House.

· If you like the blues, Blind Albert is playing the Narrows Tavern in Waldoboro at 8 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 6

· Back at Rock City Cafe, the Otter Folk are a new, acoustic band from the Bangor area bringing to the stage a progressive folk sound with classic rock roots. They combine the talents of singer/songwriter Morgan Donnelly, with James Chester on guitar and Irish whistle and the steady beat of Joe Gates. Show goes from 7 to 9 p.m.

· If you like the blues, Blind Albert is playing The Speakeasy at 8 p.m.

Sunday, Dec. 7

· FOG Bar & Cafe hosts Drink & Draw. They supply the art materials and you provide the raw artistic talent. Drink and food specials all night.

Hey, want to know where to go for happy hour every day of the week? Check out our Guide To Midcoast’s Happy Hours.

If you have an arts and entertainment event that fits within the adult scope of fun and cool things to do for Weekend Picks, contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

What is this tyke sitting on, what’s he doing and what businesses are standing where these building are now? Bonus if you can guess the date this photo was taken.

Last week’s Thanksgiving Throwback Thursday photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society/Maine Todaywas taken at the Chestnut Street School in Portland, circa 1924.

The provider of this week’s photo will be revealed next week so we don’t give it away!

Throwback Thursday needs your submissions. Send us your “back in the day” photos with a caption at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — Belfast artist Eric Leppanen got a call from a high school friend earlier this fall who had a great idea on how to propose to his girlfriend. Kevin Blackwell, of Owls Head, wanted to propose to Rachael Yandell, of Camden.

“He called me out of the blue and was like, ‘Hey, I’m ready to ask her and I was thinking it would be cool if we walked into a gallery and there was a piece of artwork on the wall that would ask her to marry me.’”

Leppanen hadn’t heard back from him for a couple of months, but right before Thanksgiving, Blackwell called him and said he had secured the ring from his grandmother and he was ready to ask Yandell.

Leppanen, who regularly shows his work at Asymmetrick Arts gallery in Rockland, asked owner and fellow artist Jared Cowan if they could use the gallery as the backdrop. Cowan went with the plan and Leppanen went right to work, throwing together a simple “Will You Marry Me” painting.

“I do my best work under pressure,” he joked.

On Nov. 28, the couple, on their way to dinner, walked into the gallery. Leppanen posed as the gallery owner and said they staged it like one of those reality shows. Because it was so last minute, he said,  “I wish we could have had more people in the room, but we had a couple of our friends as part of an audience.”

He recalled: “So they walk in and I said, ‘Hey, how are you guys doing tonight? Look around if you have any questions.’ They milled around for awhile and then came to the back wall of the gallery where we had the painting covered in a black curtain. I told them this was a new piece we hadn’t unveiled yet and I had Kevin grab the other corner so we could slide the curtain off.”

From Blackwell’s perspective, he was trying to play it cool.

“It was nerve-wracking,” he said. “I was trying to hide it from her for about a week. Then, I had to get a babysitter for our kids; it was crazy.”

From the moment they entered the gallery, he said: “I was ready to throw up. I was shaking ridiculously.”

When the curtain came off, the room was hushed.

“She looked at it and got this sort of perplexed look on her face,” said Leppanen. “Then, he got down on one knee and proposed then and she kind of got misty-eyed, all that great stuff. So, they rode off into the sunset and will be officially be married next fall some time.”

As a present to the couple, Leppanen gave them the painting.

“The painting is actually going to be at the reception when we get married in September,” said Blackwell.

The pair have come full circle, after knowing one another for 30 years, even dating in eighth grade. They reconnected six months ago.

“I knew when we got together, I was done looking,” he said. “I have found everything I ever wanted in another person. She is absolutely amazing.”

Look for Leppanen and Cowan this Friday night at during the final Dec. 5 Art Walk in Rockland from 5 -8 p.m. To see a list of other galleries showing new work just in time for the “shop local” holidays visit: artsinrockland.org

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Last week, we wrote about a flash mob in Hannaford Supermarket on Broadway Street in Bangor that went viral. The orchestrated event not only garnered nearly a half-million hits on YouTube since the video debuted in September, but has apparently struck a chord with Penobscot Bay readers, as well. In little less than a week, that story got 17,500 hits and about 180 shares on our own Facebook page.

So, here’s more to the story.

The man in the video with the headphones is Broadway actor-singer-teacher-arranger Roosevelt Andre Credit from New York City. The flash mob was organized by the folks at the First United Methodist Church in Bangor as part of the church's 'Spirit Weekend.‘ We spoke to the chief organizer, Joyce Mallery, a member of the church by phone this morning. Her husband, John Haskell, is the choir director of the church.

“Roosevelt is an old friend of my husband’s and mine and he was up in Bangor for a concert with our choir for the First United Methodist Church in September,” she said. “I just woke up one morning and thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have a flash mob?’ It just seemed like a great time of year to do something with our choir. My husband said, ‘if you can get at least 15 people, I’ll do it.’ So, I went to the choir and everybody was all on board.”

In the beginning of the video, you can see Credit with headphones begin to sing. The first woman to join in happens to be his mother. The choir is scattered throughout the Hannaford’s, mostly standing in the checkout line.

She said, “When I talked to Roosevelt about which song to do, he chose, ‘This Little Light of Mine’ because it’s light, lifts the spirit and everyone knows it.”

The flash mob blurred the lines when ordinary shoppers began joining in and singing, as well.

”We had it all orchestrated that each person in the checkout line would sing one line of the song and get out of line,” she said. “After that, it was just a mishmash of people joining in with our choir.”

Mallery didn’t think to film the event, but, a student, Megan Lewis did. When the camera was shut off, Mallery said everyone in store broke out laughing and began to clap.

“A lot of people came up to us and said how much fun it was,” she said. “It was just a happy, little moment.”

Mallery didn’t expect the video to go viral, but soon it did. Within the first month that the video was released, it gained nearly 40,000 hits on YouTube.

“People would contact me and others in the group all around the country,” she said. “I’d have friends call me and say, ‘you know, my friend in California sent me this. It was such an odd thing.”

Mallery began to see how meaningful these few videotaped moments were for people.

“I think since there have been such painful moments in our country of late, people continue to go back to that video. I’ve had people say to me, ‘I just like to start my day with that video.’”

As for Credit, she said, “Roosevelt has been a singer for a long time, but as far as this video, we just crack up about it. Who would have thought?”

To watch the video again, go to: Bangor man starts a singing flash mob at Hannaford supermarket

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — A Seal Called Andre, originally co-written by Harry Goodridge and Lew Dietz and published by Warner Books in 1976, has been recently republished by Downeast Books with more pages chronicling the last 10 years of Andre’s life.

Harry’s four daughters, Susan Goodridge Crane, Toni Goodridge, Carol Goodridge and Paula Goodridge Armentrout were on hand Friday, Nov. 28 to sign copies of the book’s latest release at the Maine Lighthouse Museum, right at the kick off of The Rockland Festival of Lights.

While a group of people watched the documentary of Andre the seal, The Seal Who Came Home, playing in the background, others were there to meet the Goodridge sisters, tell them their own Andre stories, and of course, get their own books signed. In just over an hour, they were nearly sold out of the 50 books on hand.

“It’s been pretty even,” said Toni Goodridge. ”Not a huge surge,” she added, just as a surge of people came through the door.

Even though the sisters have not always been comfortable in the public eye, they were clearly enjoying the book signing process.

“It’s gone really well,” said Paula Goodridge Armentrout. ”Yes, it’s been a lot of fun,” said Susan Goodridge.

A Seal Called Andre is the true story of the unique human-animal friendship between Harry Goodridge and Andre, the harbor seal who was as comfortable in Goodridge's home as he was in Penobscot Bay. 

Related story: Goodridge sisters reminisce about growing up with Andre the seal

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

A video is making the viral rounds this week, which is perfect on a day like this where no one feels like working.

Animator and designer Adam Patch recorded his wife telling a joke one night after she’d had a bottle of wine and decided to put a little visual story around it. It’s pretty cute.

We all have that one friend or relative who cannot tell a joke properly. Who is that person in your life and what is the joke?

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Hint: not a school in the Midcoast, but can you guess where this Thanksgiving handshake took place in Maine and in what year?

Last week’s Throwback Thursday photo couldn’t fool you! A bunch of people guessed correctly that it was Crescent Beach in Owls Head circa 1920 with Charlie St. Clair the first to guess correctly.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving turkey lurkeys.

This week’s photo courtesy of Maine Historical Society.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Here we go again. Did you see that article about keeping your sanity when the power’s out in our latest edition of The Wave? Well, looks like Rockland’s taking the spotlight this weekend (I hope the power will be on enough to light the lobster trap tree) so buck up and bust out the snow blower...here’s the best of what’s going on this weekend.

Thursday, Nov. 27

· Happy Thanksgiving! If you don’t feel like making dinner (or you don’ have power) just remember that Cappy’s Chowder House and Point Lookout are both doing special Thanksgiving day dinners. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and The UU Church in Belfast are also hosting free turkey dinners.

· Just to note, the Open Mic at The Highlands Coffee House will be closed for Thanksgiving.

Friday, Nov. 28

· All of the Goodridge sisters will be on hand to sign copies of A Seal Called Andre by Harry Goodridge and Lew Dietz. The book signings will take place at the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

· Highlight from Rockland’s Festival of Lights weekend:  Santa will preside over the lighting of the Lobster Trap Christmas Tree, measured by some as the Largest Lobster Trap Tree in the world. Starts at 6 p.m. FMI: RocklandMainStreet.com

· If you like that old-timey string music with a modern flair, the Ale House String Band is playing the Narrows Tavern in Waldoboro at 8 p.m.

· Get pumped! If you like Ska, rock, reggae, funk, punk, you’ll like El Grande, playing at The Speakeasy at 8 p.m.

· If you like blues duo Slippery Slope, they’re playing Rock City Cafe 7-9 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 29

· Highlight from Rockland’s Festival of Lights weekend: On Saturday night, there will be the annual after-dark Parade of Lights, where dozens of illuminated floats will roll down Main Street for all to see and enjoy. Make sure you get the bar stool by the window! FMI: RocklandMainStree.com

· If you like pounding blues rock, you’ll dig The Blame Hounds playing at The Speakeasyat 8 p.m.

· Or maybe you like more laid back soulful stuff. In that case, check out the young prodigy singer-songwriter Alice Limoges, 7-9 p.m. See our story on her.

Sunday, Nov. 30

 · After a crazy weekend, you might want to just chill with By the Bay jazz trio at The Landings Restaurant in Rockland, 5-8 p.m.,

 Hey, want to know where to go for happy hour every day of the week? Check out our Guide To Midcoast’s Happy Hours.

 If you have an arts and entertainment event that fits within the adult scope of fun and cool things to do for Weekend Picks, contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — She’s a painter on canvas, windows and kids’ faces and there is nothing she loves better than a splash of color in her life, right down to her roots.

“I got these purple highlights from Sogno Salon,” said Elizabeth McKinney. “They’re great permanent colors.” This is about the fourth or fifth color she’s had done to her hair. She has had orange, fuchsia, teal and magenta highlights in the past. She said, “I’ve seen more and more women of a certain age coloring their hair with these vivid, bright colors, so it’s kind of a trend.”

I visited her in her Rockland home office as she worked on turning some Ocean State Job Lot holiday crafts into fanciful holiday awards in time for Rockland Main Street’s Festival of Lights this weekend, something she’s done for the last four years. The awards are for the Parade of Lights as well as for the best store decorations. She is also a graphic designer and has done the festival’s logo and posters for a number of years.

“I was always interested in color,” she said. “I was fascinated by the fact that the three fairies in Cinderella had sprinkles from their magic wands that matched their gowns. That’s the first time I can remember caring about color. And I can always remember asking my father after he bought a new car ‘What color is it?’ And he was indignant, like ‘That’s the last thing that matters.”

McKinney grew up in Michigan. A painter who developed her skills in high school, she went back to her creative roots at age 40, after a divorce. She graduated from The Art Center, a design school in Albuquerque, N.M., with an associate’s degree in advertising art.  After 20 years in the southwest, she remarried and she and her husband moved to Maine in 1999.

Along with her graphic design business, she paints a number of storefront windows in Rockland, and in Camden as well. Likely you’ve seen her work for the Windjammer Festival, The Lobster Festival, the North Atlantic Blues Festival and Maine Boats Homes & Harbors show as well as specialty one-off events for the Strand Theatre and the Farnsworth Art Museum.

“I paint windows with craft acrylic, but first, I actually have to  clean the spot I'm going to paint because of oil particulants in car exhaust or else the paint will crawl around,” she said.

Of all of her creative endeavors, McKinney considers face painting to be the most fulfilling. “I love face painting because kids are used to someone doing maybe a little flower on their cheek, but I go all out with flowers and curlicues and vines. So, when they are handed a mirror, they go ‘Wow!’ That’s very rewarding,” said McKinney.

Happy with all of the little colorful pieces that make up her life and work, she said.  “I think if you have creativity, it’s across the whole spectrum of your life.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

In the wake of a deeply disturbed and frustrated nation following the latest events in Ferguson, there’s a video making the rounds on social media that is going to make you feel good.

A man entered a Bangor Hannaford supermarket on Broadway with headphones and at first, started singing the gospel tune “This Little Light of Mine” to himself. Then, as he got louder, more people joined in.

Was it a flash mob? Or was it just a spontaneous public reaction? Either way, it was awesome.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

SEARSMONT — Author Danielle Bannister, of Searsmont, has a new book she’s pushing herself to write this month. For the entire month of November, she is supposed to write 1,667 words a day, according to the National Novel Writing Month challenge, which more than 300,000 people across the globe participated in last year.

She said, “I’ve not done that much so far. I’m behind.” The best she’s done so far is about 800 words a day. “And after I hit that number I say to myself, ‘You know what? I’ve written enough today.’”

She’s already a self-published author of a romance series called Pulled, Pulled Back and Pulled Back Again, “Because I’m really clever with my titles,” she said.

She and her co-author, Amy Miles, wrote another novel after this series called Netherword that they’re pitching to producers and publishers. But for this month, her NaNoWriMo challenge is another romance called The A,B, C's of Dee.

“This book is about a 40-year-old single woman who has really done nothing substantial with her life,” she said. “She foolishly decides to take a bet from a rich friend to date 26 men in a year in alphabetical order. So, it’s really about 26 disastrous dates.”

Following is an excerpt:

Adam

“It's ten minutes to five and my underwear has already climbed up my ass more times than people have climbed Mt. Rushmore. I'd love to blame Victoria's Secret for selling me faulty '3 for $25.00′ panties, but let's be honest, I'm the one trying to cram my 40 year old fanny into underwear meant for people who don't eat food. They just looked so good on the stark, white half-mannequin butt, that I thought they would totally cover the square footage of my backside. I was grossly mistaken.”

As a participant of the NaNoWriMo challenge for the past four years, she said she’s only been able to complete the 50,000 word challenge once. And, she admits she’s nowhere near that number as the end of November approaches.

Like most emerging writers in Maine, Bannister supports herself through several part-time jobs. She is the director of the Religious Exploration program at the Unitarian Universality Church in Belfast as well as a PR consultant for Red Coat PR, which helps independent authors get exposure.

She said, “So, I help pump up other authors as well as my own stuff.”

Bannister said the way she gets into the groove when she’s sitting down to write is to type a post on Facebook that she’s starting to write.

“That way if people continue to see me still posting on Facebook, they’ll start to yell at me to get back to work,” she said. “I do that intentionally so people will direct me, because writing sometimes is so ADHD. Oh look! Something sparkly! and I’m distracted.”

Bannister has a profile on the NaNoWriMo website, along with thousands of other writers. “They provide you with daily charts, just to let you know how bad you’re sucking,” she said. “They’re really nice to do that for you.”

She said is currently at 36,335 words toward her 60,000-word goal. She has about 10 local friends who are participating and many more on Facebook across the country.

“NaNoWriMo just forces you to keep going,” she said. “You can’t go back and fix what you’ve done. Their philosophy is ‘write it and move on.’”

To see more of Bannister’s chapter excerpts, follow her blog: The Ramblings of a Struggling Writer.

To find out more about the challenge visit: National Novel Writing Month

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Welcome to our ongoing feature Behind the Slides, where we meet up with an artist who recently presented at a local PechaKucha night and find out the deeper story beneath the images he or she chose to portray.

Painter Phoebe Bly was one of the presenters at PechaKucha Night held during the Juice Conference 4.0 at the Strand Theatre Nov. 14. Bly grew up in the Maine woods in the 1970s. She lived in a tiny cabin my father built, without electricity or running water.

Note: Bly’s PechaKucha slides appear in the right column. Click on the photos to match them with the actual slide notes (in italics). Beneath the slide notes will be the deeper story.

Woods

I grew up in the woods of St. George. We lived in a tiny hand-built cabin without running water or electricity.

I still live in the woods and love how a snow storm can totally transform a familiar neighborhood into a foreign landscape. I remember as a kid feeling like l was transported into the snowy woods of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe after a big snow.

Outhouse

Growing up we had an outhouse and so I'd have to go out every night before bed. One of my parents would accompany me when l was small. They would wait patiently, commenting on the beautiful night and pointing out the constellations.

I still love to go out at night. It's one of my favorite times to paint. I love the juxtaposition of the Big Dipper and the telephone pole, the mix of the celestial and the other worldly. It's the world we live in.

Farms

I love to hang out around farms. I like the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.

This painting was done in March; the snow was starting to melt back and the crows were scavenging the fields for corn cobs that were being uncovered. It's nice when you see nature getting something from human endeavors; it's usually the other way around. We're the ones benefiting from nature.

Woodstove

I've always had a woodstove and am a big fan of bonfires. I don't think I will ever get tired of watching or painting fires.

There's something so elemental, so powerfully real about fire. I've seen both my husband's boat and my brother's house burn, and as horrible as they were, the force of nature was undeniably impressive.

Music

Music is by far, my favorite art form, but l have no aptitude for it, so l paint.

My neighbor, Rob, is a musician and he has music nights where other folks come and play. He lets me hang out even though l don't have an instrument. I listen to music constantly when I'm painting, often if I'm really loving something, I'll listen to it repeatedly. I feel like l painted an entire painting once listening to Andrew Bird's “Tenuousness" over and over! I still have no idea what the song is about, but it still gives me goosebumps whenever l hear it.

Christmas

I look forward to Christmas every year. I love all the lights. This painting is of the tree at the end of our driveway. We keep the lights on all year and plug them in when the holidays come around. It's much easier that way!

My neighbor, Ray and I go on a Christmas light cruise every year, looking to find the most awesome display. I love all the different styles of decoration.
There's a house in Thomaston by the Catholic church that wins our vote every year.

All photos courtesy Phoebe Bly. Visit her webpage: phoebebly.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — ‘Wich Please, a sassy, comfort food sandwich truck will soon be rolling up to Rockland.

On Nov. 18, with fewer than three days to go in his crowd-funding Kickstarter campaign, local food blogger Malcolm Bedell blew through a $25,000 goal to fund his food truck project. The campaign ended on Nov. 21 with $29,457 raised, just shy of their $30,000 stretch goal.

Funded by 401 backers, many of them from Maine, the project has built-in local enthusiasm. Bedell, who grew up in Tenants Harbor, said on his Kickstarter page, “I want to bring an obsessive level of detail to sandwich making, and sling the finished product out of the side of a trailer in a small-but-happening town in Midcoast Maine.” That “happening” town he referred to will be Rockland. According to the campaign they’ve got two spots secured around Main Street for the summer.

What can foodies expect?

Not just sandwiches. Incredible sandwiches, baked on fresh, crusty bread and filled with braised meats and locally-produced cheeses. Highbrow sandwiches made with garlic-roasted asparagus and quick-pickled onions in the summer. Lowbrow sandwiches packed with homemade lamb chili and cheese in the winter.

Within a matter of days of its launch, ‘Wich Please became a Kickstarter staff favorite. Combined with coverage by statewide press, interviews with Food Truck Empire and FoodTruckr, as well as a massive push by Mainers, Bedell’s baby was fast on its way to becoming a viral sensation.They’re currently the seventh-most-funded food truck campaign in Kickstarter history.

With an obsessive love of Maine’s local food scene, Bedell and his wife, Jillian, created a blog, From Away, writing about such oddball comfort foods as Frito Pie Grilled Cheese. The blog got some serious notice and Bedell has gotten offers to write and take photos for Bon Appetit, Down East Magazine, The Guardian, Serious Eats, Food & Wine, and L.A. Weekly, as well as appearances on NBC's Today Show and WCSH6's 207. From that success, they got a book deal with Tilbury House in Thomaston, and recently published Eating in Maine: At Home, On the Town and On the Road.

Not content to sit on his laurels and wait for the campaign to end, Bedell was just in Las Vegas this week competing for $100,000 in the "Sandwich" category of the World Food Championships. The invite-only event was open to chefs who have competed in and won a qualifying contest sometime earlier in the year, which Bedell was able to do for the second year in a row. They had to cook in the middle of the street on an induction burner and Bedell found it challenging, which he chronicles on his Kickstarter page.

For luck, he wore a ‘Wich Please T-shirt, illustrated in Ed Roth/Rat Fink hot rod style by Seth Mathiau, artist and owner of Atlantic Studios in Rockland.

No doubt the lines will be long when ‘Wich Please first starts to slap some sammies together. Rockland is waiting for you.

Related page: Gourmet Food Trucks in The Midcoast

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — A pop-up shop, the hot, new trend of opening a temporary retail store, has come to Rockland’s Main Street this holiday season, and it is benefiting several island micro-businesses, as well as local artisans.

Fox I Printworks, a North Haven silk-screen and letterpress studio whose successful Kickstarter campaign we previously wrote about, opened a shop Nov. 15 and plans to stay open through Christmas Eve.

“We don’t get a lot of foot traffic this time of year around North Haven,” said Claire Donnelly, co-owner of Fox I Printworks. “So, we’d been scheming for awhile that we wanted to do this.”

The idea around a pop-up shop is to “test-drive” the market before committing to a long-term lease, which is an ideal way for a micro-business without a lot of capital to get a feel for the market.

She said: “This space was so much bigger than our studio on North Haven. We thought how cool would it be to bring in locally-made stuff, much of it made on other islands, as well.”

The pop-shop at 464 Main Street has been artistically transformed from a former jeweler’s space to a rustic showroom, using many donated elements from friends and the islands.

The retro puffy chairs came from one of Fox I’s team members.

“It wasn’t easy,” said Donnelly.  “We had to bring them from Vinalhaven across the thoroughfare, then load them onto the ferry and lug them over here.”

Along with potted pine trees and giant marshmallows decorating the display window, the shop repurposes block and tackle pulleys, apple boxes, window baskets and an old splintery ladder to offset the handmade items.

Fox I's products, with their quirky screened T-shirts, pillows, hats and leather goods, line much of the wall space. The interior of the store features ceramics, jewelry, handmade longboard decks, recycled lobster rope mats, coffee, goat milk soap and encaustic art.

The other artists consign their products to Fox I’s owners.

“It gives them exposure, which in turn, gives us exposure,” Donnelly said.

Fox I's pop-up shop is the latest example of small businesses from Maine's islands using creative, low-cost initiatives to reach larger retail markets.

In October, Deer Isle-based coffee roaster 44 North participated in a pop-up shop in Boston.

Vinalhaven-based Green Granite Soap is a sponsor of Fox I's pop-up.

And in Gardiner, several pop-up businesses have opened for the holiday season, thanks to an initiative by Gardiner Main Street.

“We’ve seen a lot of small businesses doing this model through Instagram,” she said.

Fox I’s other co-owner, Sam Hallowell, has a full-time job running operations on Hurricane Island, so Donnelly is the face of the pop-up shop this season. She said that they will use this experience to determine whether they will come back as a pop-up shop next year or on a more permanent basis.

After their grand opening celebration Friday, Nov 21, from 4-6 p.m., the next public event will be Saturday, Dec. 6: Live Screen Printing! Print your own holiday poster, 11 a.m.–3 p.m.

This should look familiar. Any guesses?

Last week’s Throwback Thursday photo was toooooo easy. Lifted from the Facebook page “You Knew You Grew Up in Camden-Rockport Maine when...”  many people guessed correctly that it was The Mary E. Taylor school in Camden. In the foreground was the new Camden High School gym, circa 1950-51. Penobscot Bay Pilot reader who goes by the handle “Megunticook” had a great comment. “C'mon, y'all can come up with more obscure ones than that! Was in 5th grade in that school the day we learned that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Still remember my hard-nosed teacher Mrs Norwood bawling her eyes out.”

This week’s photo courtesy Penobscot Marine Museum

Send us your Throwback Thursday photos to news@penbaypilot.com

We're on the verge of the crazy holiday season but that doesn't mean you can't combine some weekend fun while getting some of your to-do items checked off the list. Support Maine artists while getting your wine tasting on is the thing to do this weekend, then check out some of the rootsy bands or an open mic in the evening.

Thursday, Nov. 20

· As always, the Open Mic at The Highlands Coffee House promises some great talent in the Midcoast and beyond. Drink and food specials. Sign up early.

· Did you know that “lumbersexual” is the new hipster trend to replace the metrosexual male? Well, Maine men have been rocking that look for more than a century and the Strand Theatre will host a film and live presentation In The Blood, illustrating the history of Maine lumbermen and river drivers at 7 p.m. Tickets $12.50/general admission. FMI: click here.

Friday, Nov. 21

· Bell The Cat in Belfast is hosting an open poetry reading. Musicians also welcome to accompany poets. Sign up starts at 6 p.m., and reading starts at 6:30 p.m.

· Belfast Co-op Café will offer a free wine tasting of highlighted seasonal wines and the opening for Kelsey Floyd's art exhibit, "Stand Still." Event goes from 7-9 p.m.

· The sixth annual Art-Full Gifts Fine Craft, Fine Art, & Gourmet Food Show is kicking off at Point Lookout Resort, in Northport, for the weekend. Friday night’s event is a Gala Preview Opening featuring 50 select exhibitors and goes from 5 to 8 p.m. $10 admission.

· If you like pop, rock, top 40, reggae and hip hop, The Speakeasy is hosting the band Tomorrow Morning. Show starts at 8 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 22

· Art-Full Gifts Fine Craft, Fine Art, & Gourmet Food Show at Point Lookout Resort in Northport, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Maine-made art and gifts, 50 exhibitors. Admission $3 and benefits Coastal Mountains Land Trust.

· Speaking of Maine-made stuff, Maine Made 2014 is a show featuring 50 exhibitors showcasing the variety and high quality of products that are made in Maine. There will also be wine tastings. The show will take place at the Samoset Resort from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $5 and available at the door. Ticket price is $5 and children under 12 are free. Wine tasting tickets are an additional fee. FMI: www.mainemadeshow.com

· If you’ve ever wondered what holler folk is, it is a term coined by Maine band The Ghost of Paul Revere, which is like a jacked-up version of folk with the old-timey feel of field hollers. To get a taste of this sound, three New England bands, Darlingside, The Ghost of Paul Revere, and The Ballroom Thieves, will share the Strand Theatre stage and rock the house at 8 p.m. Note: you might see a lot of lumbersexuals at this show. Tickets: $18/advance, $23/day of show.

· Rock City Cafe is hosting the Portland dance rock band Forget, Forget from 7-9 p.m.

· If you like the blues, The Speakeasy is hosting the band Juke Rockets. Show starts at 8 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 23

· Art-Full Gifts Fine Craft, Fine Art, & Gourmet Food Show at Point Lookout Resort in Northport, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Maine-made art and gifts, 50 exhibitors. Admission $3 and benefits Coastal Mountains Land Trust.

Hey, want to know where to go for happy hour every day of the week? Check out our Guide To Midcoast’s Happy Hours.

If you have an arts and entertainment event that fits within the adult scope of fun and cool things to do for Weekend Picks, contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — More than 400 people attended the Juice Conference 4.0 this past weekend, Nov 13-15. Taking a page out of other successful weekend events such as PopTech and Camden International Film Fest, this is the first year the Midcoast Magnet-produced event spanned over three days. The conference was designed to generate energy, to be a conductor for ideas and action, and to connect elements of the creative economy to spark growth and prosperity.

The conference drew many entrepreneurs, artists, and small and micro-businesses across Maine, which are vital to the state’s economy.

This year’s theme was all about inspiring trust and the various ways one can do that — not only in boosting one’s own confidence and intuition, but also in collaboration with other people and businesses.

Some of the highlights included keynote speakers Casey Gerald, co-founder and CEO of MBAs Across America, who told his own story about growing up without direction and, ironically, finding it on an extended road trip with other Harvard MBA grads as they worked collaboratively to invest in other entrepreneurs across America. There was also Gino Bona, an advertising professional who used his own brother’s success story in how a promotion for a chicken wing and beer joint went insanely viral on major news outlets. Kea Tessyman, COO and co-founder of Power Performance, was a local speaker who illustrated how giving all of your commitment and energy to people who need it, in fact, sparks a cycle, where the receiver eventually turns back into the giver. See our profile on Tessyman here.

The workshops varied this year from focusing on overcoming failure, powerful decision-making, communication styles, cultural commerce, intellectual property, food access and overcoming fear through improvisational techniques. Rachel Flehinger, a Portland performer, improv instructor and founder of her own company, InnerVision, used humor to illustrate how even the shyest introvert can be coaxed to shed layers and turn into a mooing cow. Want to know how? See our profile on Flehinger here.

Some of the coolest downtown businesses provided the meeting space for this year’s conference including The Speakeasy, Strand Theater, Fog Bar and Cafe and 3Crow. Whether it was intentional or not, just to be able to use many of these nighttime venues as dynamic spaces for conference workshops during the day dovetailed into the concept of one of Juice’s workshops called “Shared Space: Creating and Promoting Co-working Spaces.” In other words, it’s already there; why not multi-purpose it for special events like these, rather than build something like a hotel with conference space?

Nov. 14, a Friday, was the most jam-packed day, ending with a stellar PechaKucha at the Strand and an after-party with ‘90s tribute band Hello Newman at Trackside Station. The weekend was for the forward thinkers, the bold, energetic entrepreneurs. Earnest, not stuffy, dynamic without being pretentious—that’s the gist of this year’s Juice Conference 4.0.

To see a gallery of faces and places for the event visit: Juice Gallery

To learn more about Juice Conference visit: juiceconference.org

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — The theme of this past weekend’s Juice Conference 4.0, serving the creative economy, was all about inspiring trust. Trusting your gut instinct, trusting the process, trusting your collaborators—all of the ingredients necessary to propel your creative vision forward.

One Juice presenter, in particular, manages to push people very far out of their comfort zone every day. Rachel Flehinger, founder of InnerAction in Portland, is an improvisational comedy instructor. Having performed for the past 30 years, she is an award winning improv comedian and former radio morning show personality. She led a presentation earlier on Friday morning, discussing the 10 things people do to engage in negative self-talk and how it self-sabotages our confidence and potential. Later in the day, she led an improv workshop titled “If You Can’t Trust The Voice In Your Head, Who Can You Trust?,” which employed improvisational acting techniques to identify what might be holding participants back in business and life. We asked her to elaborate.

As an improvisational comedy instructor, how do you get people to shed all of their inhibition in front of a group?

That’s the whole thing, from the beginning I acknowledge how weird it’s going to be. I’m going to ask you to come way out of your comfort zone and when that happens, they go, ‘Oh she told me, here it comes.’ I don’t ask them to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. And I also try to anticipate in certain people if it gets to be too much.

Sometimes people just can’t go from zero to 60 and behave completely the opposite of their personalities in an exercise, right?

Yes, sometimes you have to go into the kiddie pool.

Is there something you’ve learned from the group of JUICE participants you just led in your workshop

It always surprises me just how scared people are to communicate from an honest place. People usually protect themselves. I’m always in awe when someone lets that guard down for a second. One of the reasons I love working with adults is that we go through our lives putting up layer upon layer of protection so that we don’t feel discomfort, and when I can break it down and get someone to shed one of those layers, it is a huge level of trust. And it’s a gift.

Is it particularly difficult for introverts to shed those layers?

It is and when I work with clients I often say, ‘If you were a party, what kind of party would you be?’ So, often introverts or shy people think they have to be a kegger (i.e. keg party). When really, if you just want to be a small tea party, just be who you are on that scale. Don’t try to force yourself so out of a comfort level, that it’s not really ‘you’ anymore.

To see more highlights on the Juice conference visit: facebook.com/JuiceConference

To learn more about Flehinger visit: yourinneraction.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — This past weekend’s Juice Conference 4.0 centered around the theme of trust. In our last profile on improv comedian Rachel Flehinger, we explored the obstacles around trusting our own potential. In this second profile, we feature Kea Tesseyman, COO/co-founder of Power Performance, Dance and Empowerment company, Kinetic Energy Alive Productions, who delivered a high-energy, motivating presentation Nov. 14, titled Power Performance Dance Your Story, Unleash and Reclaim Your Power Through Dance. The video and talk included the stories several local adults and teens, some of whom were not able to break through their own painful experiences until they learned how to dance. They trusted Tesseyman so much they allowed her to showcase them on film as they worked through certain issues through dance.

How do you get people to trust you in not only telling you their stories, but also to get them to leap out on stage for the first time in front of an audience?

Sometimes people who see me or my dancers on stage become inspired and want to learn how to dance. Once they’ve taken that step, it’s golden, because they don’t have to do the work alone. I’m there. So, I don’t ask them to trust me. I show them my reason for dancing, my vulnerabilities. I will give all of me that I can to that person and over the course of time, I earn their trust. They come to know that they are not alone in learning these moves, these awkward positions of dance they’re not used to, at first. Along the way, they build that muscle memory and become confident. When I can get them to perform on stage, it becomes this cycle. Someone else in the audience sees them, and is inspired by their story.

To see highlights from the Juice Conference 4.0 visit: facebook.com/JuiceConference

To learn more about Tesseyman visit: www.powerperformancedance.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Can you guess what this photo is and where?

Given last week’s arboreal and weather drama, I picked a particular image for last week’s Throwback Thursday photo and Eric Buch was the first to guess correctly. It was a 1950s era photo (courtesy of Belfast Historical Society and Museum) of the old gas works building, owned and used by CMP at that time. They still own the structure.It was a demolition of several commercial buildings on Washington Street in Belfast about to take place in order to open the area to new development.

Photo courtesy Jill Goodwin (via a Facebook page that will be revealed next week-lest I give away the photo!)

Send us your Throwback Thursday photos to news@penbaypilot.com

Did you have a nice mellow week? Good, because the weekend is ramping back up to its high-energy levels with all kinds of boot-scooting music, some unique plays, a roller derby blow out and a celebration of the creative economy. Here are some of the best things going on in the Midcoast this weekend you won’t want to miss.

Thursday, Nov. 13

· As always, the Open Mic at The Highlands Coffee House promises some great talent in the Midcoast and beyond. Drink and food specials. Sign up early.

· JUICE conference kicks off Thursday night at the Strand Theater with a musical collaboration between Maine and New Brunswick musicians called Songs Beyond Borders 2. It’s formatted as a songwriters’ circle, a relaxed performance in which songwriters share stories about creating their music and perform selected songs.If you have a JUICE ticket, it’s free; otherwise it’s $22 at the door. Show starts at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, Nov. 14

·  The Strand Theatre is hosting a special PechaKucha, Faces of the Creative Economy. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; the event begins at 7 p.m. Admission: Free for JUICE conference attendees, $5 at the door, for the public.

· After that, everyone is welcome to attend the after party at Trackside Station with the band, Hello Newman, from 9 p.m. to midnight. Entry is free with conference badge; $5 all others.

·  Or pop on over to 3Crow for a night of dark, wintry ales. Sebago Brewing Company crew. They will be tapping a cask of Sebago's winter ale 'Slick Nick,' as well as a special keg of their limited imperial stout 'Royal Tar.' Starts at 5 p.m. and they will be giving away some cool Sebago swag all night.

·  Or pop on over to Rock City Cafe to watch young singer-songwriter Devi Randolph play piano and sing some sweet music. Show is from 7-9 p.m.

·  The Belfast Maskers will present "Comedic Chekov," a series of scenes based on the works of Anton Chekov, combining it with an evening of a four-course meal and theater at the First Baptist Church, Belfast, at 6 p.m. Tickets for the evening of dinner and show will be $15 per person, or $25 per couple. FMI: Visit the Maskers at BelfastMaskers.com.

·  The Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta opens with the quirky play Almost, Maine. “Welcome to Almost, Maine, a town that's so far north, it's almost not in the United States — it's almost in Canada. And it almost doesn't exist. Almost Maine: It's love. But not quite.”  Show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 adults/$13 LT members/$5 under 18. FMI: atthelincoln.org

Saturday, Nov. 15

·  The 4th annual Rock Coast Rollers ‘Derbytante’ Ball is celebrating at Trackside. This is one helluva costume party every year. Starts at 8 p.m. at Trackside Station.

·  Wacky and wonderful Chicky Stolz is playing at FOG Bar and Cafe. Described as one-man band. Part gutter and part vaulted ceiling. Starts at 8:30 p.m. No cover.

·  The band People of Earth will be bringing a dance mix of Rock, Reggae, Funk and Latin music to The Highlands Coffee House in Thomaston from 7 to 9 p.m. featuring Kristen Burkholder on vocals, Jason Dean on drums, Jeff Weinberger on guitar, Alan Boyer on keyboards and Mike Whitehead on bass.

· The Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta continues with the quirky play Almost, Maine. “Welcome to Almost, Maine, a town that's so far north, it's almost not in the United States — it's almost in Canada. And it almost doesn't exist. Almost Maine: It's love. But not quite.”  Show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 adults/$13 LT members/$5 under 18. FMI: atthelincoln.org/

Sunday, Nov. 16

· Matinees rule!  The Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta continues with the quirky play Almost, Maine. See above for details.

· Poet Ellen Goldsmith will be on hand to talk about "A Taste of Russian Poetry," 2 - 4 p.m., at the Cushing Public Library.

· The FOG Bar and Café has Drink and Draw starting at 7 p.m. They supply art materials and there is a different theme each week.

Hey, want to know where to go for happy hour every day of the week? Check out our Guide To Midcoast’s Happy Hours.

If you have an arts and entertainment event that fits within the adult scope of fun and cool things to do for Weekend Picks, contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

MOUNT DESERT ISLAND — You can’t turn on the radio without hearing Meghan Trainor's catchy song All About That Bass over the airwaves these days. The song, a retro send-up on body positivity, got Mount Desert Island High School’s Library Media Specialist Davonne Pappas thinking. Instead of bringing booty back, why not bring reading back? (Click the video to see the tribute song.)

She and her daughter Ella started recrafting the lyrics to Trainor’s song with the idea of focusing on books and libraries. She then enlisted the help of a colleague Jeff Zamen, film class teacher to collaborate on the video.

“Finally, I wanted a student who was a really good alto singer, but who also had a love of books, so I got in touch with the band and chorus teachers and we decided on a student, Mary Ellen Sharp, a junior,” she said. “She comes into the library all the time.

“We wanted to mirror the Megan Trainor video with a similar feel with fast cutaways and some dancing. We wanted to have the same kind of feeling, but a different message.”

The video was shot earlier this fall with Sharp doing all of the vocals, layering in all of the harmonies and the background “doo wops” as well.

Other MDI students joined as backup dancers and “singers.”

When the video debuted on YouTube Nov. 5, Pappas said: “It’s really amazing the response we’ve gotten. We had no idea that it would be as popular as it has been, up to 29,000 views on YouTube. And it’s very cool, the kids all were so excited about how much people have paid attention to it.”

The video is not only well executed and dominated by Sharp’s strong vocals, but it’s also a great message all around. Here you have Maine kids in normal everyday clothing espousing their love of reading traditional media at a time when studies have indicated that children and young adults read significantly less than in the past.

A 2007 update to a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) study,To Read or Not to Read, found that "Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of nonreaders doubled over a 20-year period, from 19 percent in 1984 to nine percent in 2004.”

As Sharp is portrayed holding about 10 books she sings: “I’m bringing reading back. Go on and check out a gigantic stack. No, I’m not joking, you may think it’s smack, but I’m here to tell you, every book is an adventure, makes you never want to stop.”

Simply awesome.

A fan of the video started a playlist for other schools who were doing their version of an “All About The Books” tribute, which you can see here.

Related links:

• All About That Bass cover by Postmodern Jukebox

• Jimmy Fallon, Meghan Trainor and The Roots Sing All About That Bass (with classroom Instruments)

• All About That Bass - Parody - Laughing Moms by Alisha found Eden

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

BELFAST — Call it upcycling for literary types! For the last two years, New Hampshire artist Victoria Su has combed through bins at thrift stores, library giveaways and yard sales to find discarded, found, and forgotten books, many of them literary classics, and has taken them home to her studio in New Hampshire to create her original artworks, namely wreaths, wall sculptures, tabletop sculptures, and bookmobiles, all made from the pages and covers of the books.

“I first got the idea seeing other book art sculptures,” she said. “I found them fascinating, and began making Christmas presents for friends who were in a book club with me, so I made wreaths from their favorite books. The more I made them, the more I began concentrating on the various forms. I’ve gotten a little more complex and focused since then.”

With a master’s degree in English and as a lifelong lover of books, she makes sure that before she builds a book sculpture, she researches the book to rule out whether it is rare or valuable.

“The books I use in the sculptures are in some small way damaged: ripped, bent, written in, outdated, or broken making the likelihood of them being read again slim,” she said.

Su has hung her pieces in her own local library in New Hampshire, but thanks to the suggestion of a local Maine friend, she approached the Belfast Free Library about hanging a show up here. For the rest of November, an exhibit of her book sculptures are on display in the Kramer Gallery. The sculptures up close are fascinating, especially for book lovers, encompassing famous and beloved fiction titles such as Wuthering Heights, Little Women and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as well as children’s classics like Where The Wild Things Are.

“Literary fiction is my favorite genre to work with and that’s where I started,” she said. “For example, I loved finding so many variations of Wuthering Heights. I never saw that particular copy of Wuthering Heights before and I was just so struck by it. It was kind of a cheesy 1970s or 1980s cover in a way, but when I saw that little silhouette of Cathy and Heathcliff, I loved it and knew it would make a great center for the wreath.”

Some of her book sculptures are crafted with more than one version and more than one author.

She said: “Sometimes I’ll take two or three copies of the same book and assemble them together. Sometimes I’ll get a crisp white page contrasting with that nice yellow page from a paperback and combine them that way. Sometimes I can line up all the chapter headings and make it a lot more graphic.”

Visitors to the gallery will also find a Maine Gazetteer in a glorious display. 

“I’d made one before for a friend, so once I knew I was going to hang a show in Belfast, I knew I had to make one just for this exhibit,” she said. “I’d also made one for my father’s birthday with the town he was born in highlighted in the sculpture.”

Check out our gallery of her work, with close ups of particular books. To learn more about Su’s process visit her website: openbookstudio.wordpress.com

The Kramer Gallery is located on the ground floor of the Belfast Free Library, 106 High Street. For more information call the library at 338-3884 ext. 10.

Kay Stephens can be found at news@penbaypilot.com

BELFAST—An influx of quirky, individualistic stores opening in the Midcoast this fall has been only too good for the creative economy. Belfast has just gained a new home decor store at 69 Main St. called Patina, which means a surface appearance of something grown beautiful, especially with age or use.

It is a new arts, accessories and furniture store featuring antique, vintage, modern and re-purposed items, mostly sourced from Maine, with some procured from Connecticut.

Owned by four partners: Melinda and Jerry Weaver and Todd and Chase Hall, Patina is a feast for the eyes upon first walking in. “We’re all about antiques and uniques,” said Weaver. “We find things that are quality-made and have handmade aspects to them—things that you can’t really find around here.”

The Weavers have worked in the antique business for 20 years, while the Halls have each worked in retail. Chase Hall has a specialty in re-purposed items as well.

Patina’s opening day was on Halloween and saw a fairly good crowd. “We haven’t done a lot of social media yet, but there was some good word of mouth and foot traffic that day,” said Melinda Weaver. Soon after they opened, they had to close due to the snow storm. ”We actually made some good sales right before the power went out,” said Jerry Weaver.

From furniture to jewelry, baskets and large-scale gorgeous pieces like a hidden bar within a giant globe, Patina is more than just a typical antique store. And the owners are not without a sense of humor. One of the more eye-catching pieces in the store is actually not for sale. It’s a life-size cut out of the actor Zac Efron behind the counter. Apparently he helps with sales and presumably listens to customer complaints.

For more information on the store’s opening day photos and unique items visit their Facebook page.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

This week has just been ridiculous hasn't it? Everyone will be just plain exhausted by the time the weekend rolls around. Oh wait, it's here. Welcome to the weekend. Hope you have power. If you don't, these places do and it'll take your mind off your troubles and let us all start to get back to normal on the Micoast again.

Thursday, Nov. 6

· As always, the Open Mic at The Highlands Coffee House promises some great talent in the Midcoast and beyond. Drink and food specials. Sign up is at 6 p.m. and goes from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

· Artist Eric Hopkins is doing a free talk in Damariscotta called Talking Art in Maine: Intimate Conversations at Lincoln Theater. 7 p.m. Free.

Friday, Nov. 7

·  Two art receptions are happening Friday and all you have to do is decide where you want to be, Rockland or Belfast? Carver Hill Gallery in Rockland will host an opening reception for "Contours,” a benefit show for the Coastal Mountains Land Trust. The work in the show will celebrate one of the Land Trust's properties, Beech Hill Preserve. 5-8 p.m. FMI: click here.

· Or check out the Open Holiday Extravaganza at Åarhus Gallery, on 50 Main St., Belfast with work from more than 70 Maine artists. Goes from 5-8 p.m. Show runs to Dec. 24.

· If you like soul-funk-blues-rock, you’ll really dig The Midnight Riders, playing at The Speakeasy at 8 p.m. With Will Niels on vocals and Owen Cartwright on drums, this is sure to be a power performance. This is their first Rockland performance. No cover.

· It’s a jazzy kinda weekend for Rock City Café as they introduce By The Bay jazz trio, which performs arrangements from the Golden Age of American Song, as well as numerous Latin rhythm standards. Show goes from 7-9 p.m. No cover.

Saturday, Nov. 8

· Sweet! The Appleton Village School will host a Chili and Chocolate Challenge Supper fundraiser for Appleton Library at 5 p.m. Start with meat and veggie chilis made by local cooks, and finish up with a decadent chocolate dessert. Enter your own chili or dessert for a chance to win a prize. $8 per person, $5 under 12, $25 per family. FMI: call 785-5656.

· If you like the blues, Raised By Wolves will be playing at The Speakeasy from 8 p.m.-midnight, with only a $5 cover, which is waived when you dine at the Chowder House.

· Rock City Café  kicks it up a notch with the Aurora Jazz Project, who blend jazz, jam, and funk in ways that keep all three forms moving in new directions. Show goes from 7-9 p.m. No cover.

Sunday, Nov. 9

· Road trip! Stephen King's latest project is a supernatural musical stage production called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County with music by John Mellancamp and T Bone Burnett. (See the accompanying video.). Called “a haunting tale of fraternal love, lust, jealousy and revenge, which will be performed by an ensemble cast of 15 actors and a four-piece live band.” Check out the Sunday matinee (2 p.m.) at the Collins Center in Orono. FMI: get tickets or call 207-581-1755.

· The FOG Bar and Café has Drink and Draw starting at 7 p.m. They supply art materials and there is a different theme each week.

Hey, want to know where to go for happy hour every day of the week? Check out our Guide To Midcoast’s Happy Hours.

If you have an arts and entertainment event that fits within the adult scope of fun and cool things to do for Weekend Picks, contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

This may be hard to pinpoint where this is in the Midcoast, but I’ll give you a hint. The buildings were once owned by a company that has been very prominently mentioned in Maine news this week. What sits there now and what street?

Last week’s readers correctly guessed the Throwback Thursday photo was where Main Street in Belfast, somewhere in the 1800s whereThe Gothic sits now.

Photo courtesy Belfast Historical Society and Museum

Throwback Thursday needs your submissions. Send us your “back in the day” photos with a caption at news@penbaypilot.com

LINCOLNVILLE — With power still out in much of Lincolnville (and no one able to take showers), it’s a challenging day for the volunteers at the polling center of Lincolnville Central School, but they’re not letting anything stop them from showing up. And they urge the voting public to make that extra effort, as well.

Lois Lyman and Frederick Heald manned the check-in station. Lyman had a great story for anyone who claims his or her vote “won’t matter anyway, so why bother.”

“Your vote counts,” she said. “One day when I lived in New Hampshire, I had to stay home because of the flu and my candidate lost by exactly two votes. If I and someone else had shown up, at least it would have been a dead heat.”

She added: “I have a bumper sticker that says The World Is Run By Those Who Show Up.”

“It should be,” said Heald.

 Meanwhile, over a the baked goods table, the offerings were a little more scant than usual. Volunteers Betty Heald and Peg Miller had a variety of cookies, cupcakes and a pie for a nominal price, but the storm couldn’t have come at a worse time as they prepped for Nov. 4.

“We would have had a lot more pies, coffee cakes but the power went out at a bad time,” said Heald.

Miller, who is known for her famous baked beans, said it took an extra-long time to get the crock of beans just the way they should be.

“I have a gas stove,” she said. “It doesn’t do too good, but if I turn it on and off and let those beans cook all day, I could have them ready for today.”

The volunteers wanted to emphasize that the polls are open until 8 p.m and it’s warm inside if you want a place to warm up. So get out and vote!

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

CAMDEN—The Camden Public Landing parking lot is buried under a big old slushy pile now, but just two days ago, on a 60-degree-day Oct. 31, part of it was transformed into a temporary green space with café tables, hay bale seating areas, a pop up art installation and a lot of donated plants. The idea came from the Community Institute's "Streets, Places and People” 1 ½-day workshop and the whole point was to work with the town's Downtown Master Plan to repurpose the unused space in the middle of the pavement where the majority of cars park.

The obvious question was: why bother changing a parking lot if there are other natural green spaces already around?

“We have several parking lots in this town that I’m personally not inspired to do anything with,” said workshop participant Kristen Lindquist. “But, this one is on our greatest asset, the waterfront. And it has one of the most incredible views of Mount Battie and the harbor. Just doing a couple of tiny things to capitalize on that makes sense.”

Essentially the pop-up park was a living classroom of ideas.

Jane Lafleur, executive director of Friends of Midcoast Maine, added: “Everything here is borrowed. We have plants from Plants Unlimited, tables and chairs from Seabright andhay bales from Aldermere Farm. We’ve used temporary chalk to outline sidewalks. This is to show what you could do to share unused space between people and automobile use. There are some plans the town has been working on to look at alternative use of parts of this parking lot without losing parking spaces. The deeper idea is that communities can start thinking about parts of their town that can turn into productive, attractive spaces to come sit and enjoy. It’s all about building a place for people to hang out and enjoy.”

Mike Tomko, the artist who provided the mermaid popup art installation, is a contractor and design drafter. After participating in the workshop, Tomko got inspired to add something to the pocket park and drove back to Boothbay. Specifically, he wanted to beautify the stacked floats by the side of the harbor, so he and his wife, Martha Cowdery, also a design drafter, came up with the whimsical concept of mermaids.

“I got home at 10 p.m.,” he said. “We bought the ¼-inch plywood at Home Depot. Then we sketched out the rotating seagulls and mermaids, cut them out, painted them and were done at 1 a.m.”

He then came back the next day and installed them on the floats.

“It was really interesting to participate in the workshop with people who aren’t from Camden,” said Lindquist. “We’ve been looking at this particular parking lot all of our lives and now see it with different potential. Some of the things we covered in the class were different examples around the country of little pocket parks, real cheap easy ways for communities to transform physical places into more attractive spaces.”

By 5 p.m., the entire green space was dismantled and the participants each walked away with practical ideas to bring back to their own communities.

The Downtown Master Plan's Harbor Planning Project recommends eventually creating a green space in the island, or unused space, in the middle of the pavement where the majority of cars park.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — Within moments it’s easy to see that Paula Jalbert with her rhinestone glasses and black fingernails will be a perfect fit in the emerging downtown Rockland scene. She and her husband are just about to open a duplicate of her Portland-based boutique store, Motifs, on 415 Main Street. Motifs is a funky mixture of clothing, jewelry, housewares, candles, perfumes, and humorous signage. She describes it as a boutique somewhere between an Anthropologie and a classic French flea market with an assortment of merchandise for stylish living.

But don’t get the impression that this is an “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it” type of store.

“One of the things I believe as a retailer is that you have products that appeal to different levels of shoppers,” she said. “You can come into my shop and find a $2.95 item or a $450 Nicole Miller dress and somehow it all blends together. That’s the way I’ve always been.”

She added: “I don’t like the word curate. There’s something really snooty about it.”

Her original Motifs store started about seven years ago, sits on Commercial Street in Portland and is doing well; but, Jalbert and her husband have always loved the character and slower pace of Rockland. 

For years, when she’d come up here, she had her eye on what used to be the location of the Caravans store. So, when the owner of Caravans vacated the building, Jalbert knew it was the right time to open a second store. 

“For me it’s finding products, creating a story with that product and having people experience that in the store,” she said. 

A strong design element is something Jalbert is passionate about.

“When I thought about doing this store, it was about a sense of design, not just what’s in the store, but also how the store was put together,” she said. “I joke that I’m the bar back because all of my staff look nice and I’m in jeans and a T-shirt, schlepping around doing the display work. But, that’s what I love to do.”

 With a degree in art education from the University of Oregon, she’s been in retail for approximately 30 years and clearly has a thing for French words, because her first store in the Old Port was called Communiqué.

“Of course, when I first had that store, people didn’t know how to pronounce it or spell it, calling it  Comm-unique. So, when I put together the store for Motifs, I thought, well this is pretty easy.”

Not so. People coming into the store or vendors she talks to usually pronounce it Mott-iffs.

A sense of humor is big with Paula and she is delighted to experience how friendly people are in the Midcoast, noting that the other Rockland clothing shop owners have been very welcoming. 

“In Portland, things can get edgy sometimes between shop owners,” she said. “Here, I feel respectful about what other stores carry and I feel the same respect back.”

Paula’s store had an informal debut during “Rockland’s Got Style” fashion show Oct. 29. Motifs will do a soft opening on Oct. 31 and officially open Nov. 1 to the public. For more information visit: shopmotifs.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ST. GEORGE — Not everyone can take one glance at a giant log and “see” it as a life-size nude figure, but that’s a sculptor’s job. And Steve Lindsay is getting pretty good at knowing what a giant piece of wood is going to look like once he’s taken his chainsaw to it.

Lindsay, who lives in St. George, often scours wood lots owned by the logging industry for unusual-shaped logs, particularly ones that have been rejected by saw mills.

“I look for nice big pieces of white pine,” he said. “White pine is a beautiful wood, very plain and simple.”

Wood is his favorite medium to work with, followed by stone and granite. For the most part, his work is representational, and ranges from portraits to gargoyles, and from small delicate carvings to the large life-sized figures. He also makes woodcut prints.

“Both mediums use reductive carving, where I start with something big and I carve away until you get what I want,” he said. “I can usually see what it’s going to be when I start, but then, I usually have to make adjustments and improvise.”

When the material presents him with an obstacle, that’s usually when the creative process leads to something he didn’t anticipate.

“When I carve, I sometimes see things I hadn’t thought of, like the shape of the clothes or the posture, that I can accentuate,” he said. “So, it’s not a case of having a model I’m making a reproduction of, I’m discovering things as I go. That’s what makes it exciting.”

For example, recently while he was carving a fish out of stone, he used a certain tool that left a particular texture on the piece that he discovered he liked so much that he made the entire piece with that texture.

“I didn’t know where I was trying to go with that, but now I see it was a good idea,” he said. He uses carving tools that haven’t changed in centuries, but he particularly loves the way a chainsaw works.

“It’s like a lot of little chisels attached together,” he said.

Lindsay has an extensive background in sculpting. In 1971, he graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and then moved to New York City, where he worked as an apprentice cabinetmaker at the Pardini-Bertoli Fine Furniture Company.

In 1974, he moved to Canada, where he spent the next two years studying wood sculpture with Pierre Bourgault and Herman Raby at the École de Sculpture sur Bois in St. Jean-Port Joli, Quebec.

In 1976, he moved back to the states, eventually settling in the town of St. George. There, he set up a studio, and began showing his sculpture around the Northeast.

As far as recent work, he’s just finished making two awards entirely out of natural materials for the Maine Center for Creativity.  The biennial award recognizes creative collaboration in the sciences, arts and industry in Maine. He made the first prototype of the award for them in 2012 and has constructed two more for the 2014 recipients, actor Patrick Dempsey and The Jackson Laboratory.

The concept of collaboration was inherent in his design.

“We chose a design based on the logo of the Maine Center for Creativity—two freely drawn concentric circles,” he said. “The design is a three-dimensional sculptural representation of that logo...made from different materials working together: a large black walnut ring, a smaller white granite ring on a bronze rod, and a slate base. The black walnut came from a tree that grew in Winthrop, the white granite is from Jay, and the slate was quarried in Monson. The bronze rod came from a local marine supply store, as it is a material used by boat builders. When seen from directly ahead, the award reproduces the logo; from other vantage points, it is a dynamic three dimensional object.”

The awards will be given away in a Gala ceremony on Nov. 15 in Portland. For more information on Lindsay’s work visit: stevelindsay.net

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Let’s say you’re not the Halloween type. All of the spooky parties and events this weekend are one big “Meh” for you. That’s all right, we’ve got some interesting talks, art walks and a party from the 1920s era, along with some decent music for the weekend.

P.S., If you are the Halloween type, we’ve updated all of the best Halloween events for both adults and kids in a separate list titled Your Halloween Rundown.

Thursday, Oct. 30

· As always, the Open Mic at The Highlands Coffee House promises some great talent in the Midcoast and beyond! Drink and food specials. Sign up is at 6 p.m. and goes from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

· You know what? This is just kooky enough I had to include it. If anyone has ever told you that you have an unusual voice, maybe you should check this out. "Getting Paid to Talk: An Introduction to Voice Acting," 6-8:30 p.m., Great Salt Bay School, Damariscotta. $29 fee. Call 563-2811.

· Anyone struggling to understand their relationship or coworkers, the Lincoln Street Center is offering an emotional intelligence workshop, ideal for people in any kind of relationship (personal and/or professional) where they have responsibility to or for others. Goes from 6 to 8 p.m. $10 at the door, $5 students/seniors. FMI: call 207-701-7725.

· The Postman Cometh is back for their last show of 2014 at The Speakeasy tonight. The music starts at 6pm

Friday, Oct. 31

·  The Belfast Arts Final Fridays Art Walk is happening from 5:30 - 8 p.m. More than 15 galleries will be open for the evening. Of special note: Waterfall Arts will present its new exhibit Experimental Comminglings, a hybrid of science lab and art studio, the artists invite the audience to fully engage with, alter and transform the materials. Goes from 5 to 7 p.m. FMI: visit belfastcreativecoalition.org.

· Join the "Blues Jam" with Blind Albert & Friends, 7- 10 p.m., at The Highlands Coffee House, 189 Main St., Thomaston. No cover. FMI: 354-4162.

Saturday, Nov. 1

· Beyond The Sea in Lincolnville Beach is hosting a book signing with David Estey, author of Whoop and Driver ‘Er!,  With a title like that, I’ll bet he’s got some wicked funny old Maine expressions.The book is a humorous and affectionate memoir of colorful characters in northern Maine in the 1940s and '50s. The event goes from 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

· Ever want to be an actor? The Midcoast Actors' Studio is holding auditions, 12-4 p.m., at Waterfall Arts, 256 High St., Belfast. FMI: MidcoastActors.org. And... scene.

· The Speakeasy is throwing its second annual Great Gatsby party. $10 cover charge covers your entry and your first glass of champagne punch! Prizes for best zoot suit and flapper costume, as well as the best Bonnie and Clyde couple. Music supplied by 3 Button Deluxe.

Sunday, Nov. 2

·  Brunch and jazz, baby. Can’t beat it. First Sunday Jazz Jam, Sun., Nov. 2, 1-3:30 p.m., The Highlands Coffee House, 189 Main St., Thomaston. No cover. Tips appreciated. FMI: 354-4162.

 Hey! Want to know where to go for happy hour every day of the week? Check out our Guide To Midcoast’s Happy Hours.

If you have an arts and entertainment event that fits within the adult scope of fun and cool things to do for Weekend Picks, contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND—Kids, dogs, men and women all put on their finest for the “Rockland’s Got Style” fashion show on Wednesday evening. Designs from 20 Rockland businesses ranged from sexy to sassy and from cute to guy-chic! Check out our gallery of photos!

Click to see gallery

Boo! That’s the only hint you’re getting with this TBT photo. Can you guess where this is and the era?

Last week’s Throwback Thursday got some traction.  It was a photo of a parade on Main Street in Rockland, looking south from Elm Street, circa 1940. First National is now the location of Key Bank. Commenter Sarah Sylvester Tavares had a good story: “My grandparents Herman and Carrie Winchenbaugh managed this store when it first opened for about 20 years. We shopped there every Friday. My Mom walked up from the South End.  I either went with her or met her there after school and my Dad would come and pick us up with the groceries after he got home from work. It was the primary grocery in town for many years.”

Commenter Peggy Palmer also had another great story about that store. “My father bought me the biggest white teddy bear there that I had been eyeing for weeks. Stopping for a few groceries, and it being my birthday, he bought it. People gave him strange looks as he drove through town that night. He had put the bear in the passenger seat. It was approximately four feet tall and cost $10.00. Today, it would probably cost close to $100.00.”

Photo courtesy Maine Historical Society

Throwback Thursday needs your submissions. Send us your “back in the day” photos with a caption at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — On the last stop of their month-long tour, the annual film showcase titled Damnationland: The Way Life Should Bleed will be back in Rockland on Saturday, Nov. 1 at The Strand Theatre. Fans of the horror genre as well as Maine indie films will appreciate Damnationland’s current lineup, which features seven short Maine-made films from Maine filmmakers who redefine the classic thriller and horror categories, leaning toward visions that are surreal, comedic, and artful, while still providing scares, shocks and surprises.

When organizer and co-producer Eddy Bolz used to be a projectionist for Portland’s Nickelodean Theater, he had the idea to start a film showcase around the Maine horror genre and found that it was wildly popular. He invited his two co-producers, filmmakers Allen Baldwin and David Meiklejohn, to start the first Damnationland film project with him and recruit other filmmakers to contribute to the showcase.

”The rest is kind of history,” he said.

Along with another co-producer, Charlotte Warren, this is the fifth year that the group has undertaken this grassroots, out-of-pocket tour all around Maine to be able to show these films to Mainers around Halloween. They don’t operate like a traditional film festival. The producers curate each film by choosing Maine filmmakers based on the strength of their previous work and their connection to Maine, and then commission them to create a new film that will premiere in the program. In exchange, Damnationland  promotes the short films on a statewide tour.

All of the filmmakers in the 2014 series come from Portland. “The whole point of it is to expose people all around Maine, not just in Portland, to some of these great Maine filmmakers,” Bolz said.

Each film is around 10-15 minutes with seven one-minute film bumpers between each feature made by Through the Door Productions, tying the entire showcase together in 90 minutes.  “I think horror fans will appreciate the diversity of the films this year,” said Bolz. “There are some interesting horror subgenres. There isn’t your typical horror movie series; although there will be some monster movies, and some fun, quirky films too.”

As for vampires and zombies? Nope, not this year. Every year is different. But Midcoast film-goers will catch a glimpse of Belfast in one of the short films titled Driver’s Seat (directed by Jason M. Bosch for Red Stallion Media). Here’s the premise:

In the back country roads of Maine, a woman spots a car accident. She stops to help the victim, but quickly discovers that he was involved in more than a mere fender bender.

Other films include several psychological thrillers and demented characters, with the backdrop of Maine providing much of the scare factor itself.  In a profile of this fall’s not-to-be-missed events, the Portland Phoenix describes the films as “ranging from spooky to gory, darkly comedic to downright terrifying.” 

Starting with the world premiere at the State Theatre in Portland, the Damnationland 2014 films have traveled to Brunswick, Bridgton, Ogunquit, Saco, Lewiston and Dover-Foxcroft. Many of the screenings will be followed by a brief talk with the filmmakers and actors, where audiences can ask questions about the film-making process - behind the films.

Full details of each screening are available on the Damnationland website: http://damnationland.com/screenings

While these films are not rated, they do contain strong language and depictions of violence, and therefore may not be appropriate for younger children or sensitive viewers.

The showcase starts at 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 1. Tickets are $8.50/Adults, $7.50/Under 12, Seniors.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND — Now that we’re heading into late fall, where Muck boots and long sweaters that double as Snuggis are considered fashionable, Rockland Main Street is bringing the glam back with its second annual “Rockland Has Style” fashion show tonight, Oct. 29, in the Knox County Ballroom at the Samoset Resort.

Gordon Page, the executive director of Rockland Main Street Inc., which is hosting the event, said that this is a unique way to bring more attention to the downtown businesses and community.

“There’s not a lot of fashion shows that go on around here,” said Page. “But we certainly have a lot of businesses who are happy to participate.” More than 20 businesses in fact, will be on hand to drape their models with clothing, cosmetics, hair, jewelry and accessories.

The way it works is that each business gets to do sort of a PechaKucha style presentation with their own models displaying their wares. Each business has up to six minutes to showcase three separate models walking for two minutes while the business owner narrates what they’re wearing.

“It’s basically an opportunity for businesses to do a live commercial in front of a live audience for hopefully up to 250 people.” said Page. And it’s also about entertaining the crowd while providing some gift-giving ideas for the fall and holiday seasons.

Asked how one can get people to actually pay to attend an event where they are essentially watching commercials, he said, “I’ve been in radio broadcast and music industry for a long time and a live show is always so much more fun than a canned program or commercial. You feel the energy, you have an opportunity to relax, have a couple of cocktails, a bite to eat.  In many ways, it’s kind of a Ladies Night Out when you go with some friends.”

The models had a blast last year and many are well known members of the community. Among others, models for the evening's events will include Chris Raye, Celia Knight, Kelly Woods, Janet Page, Maggi Blue and Chris Oliver. Makeup will be provided by RHEAL Day Spa, and hair styling will be provided by Coppola Salon and Day Spa.

“A lot of the models will just be getting off work and we’ve got people on hand to freshen up their makeup or do their hair,” said Page. And human models aren’t the only ones giving “face” to the crowd. There will even be clothing for pets on the runway.

North Atlantic Blues Festival promoter Paul Benjamin will emcee the event. And there may be some additional music once the presentations are over. There is even a rumor that the newly formed Knox County Camera Club might be on hand — gotta have some paparazzi!

Tonight’s event begins at 6 p.m. with a cash bar and complimentary light bites. FIORE will be on hand with an Artisan Olive Oils and Vinegars tasting table. The fashion show begins at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $15 per person, and are available at participating businesses, and at the door prior to the show. For more info visit Rockland Main Street Inc.’s Facebook page.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

ROCKLAND—For fans of the literary horror genre, Dracula by Irish author Bram Stoker, is considered one of the best novels of the 19th-Century and unlike its title character, continues to live on into eternity.  In that vein, (yup, went there) vampire fans and history buffs flocked to the the Strand Theatre Sunday, Oct. 19, to hear Bram Stoker’s great grand-nephew, Dacre Stoker, give a fascinating presentation on the historical source materials that shaped Bram’s writing of Dracula. Following, the Strand screened an award-winning 50-minute documentary, Vampires of New England, by Historical Haunts, which examined turn-of-the-century cases of purported ‘vampirism’ in New England.

But first, a bit on Dacre’s presentation.

An author himself, Dacre is clearly a person who finds his distant relative as intriguing as millions of fans around the world and it was a real treat to hear from him on what made Bram tick as an author. For instance, we learned that up until the age of seven, Bram fell ill with an undiagnosed disease, which Dacre hypothosized might have been a respiratory illness. Given the era where blood-letting was common medical practice as a cure-all, Dacre posited that this childhood trauma would come into play later on in Bram’s career.

Combine that with growing up in a bleak era in Ireland where the Irish were just coming out of the potato famine. Cholera deaths were so common that some sick people were getting taken away in the night mistakenly to contain the contamination; in some cases, not knowing if the person was actually dead, a few were buried alive.

Dacre surmised that by the time Bram became an adult, he’d had a ‘perfect storm’ of Gothic horror ideas, stories and experiences to inspire his dark imagination. For example, in the novel, Dracula, where Jonathan Harker is preyed on by the ‘sisters’ (Brides of Dracula) and falls under their  spell, Dacre said this is likely a literary device that was manifested from Bram’s own childhood fears of being subjected to blood-letting against his will.

Even though Bram grew up in a middle-class family and had the talent to become a writer, that was not considered a suitable career and he had a filial duty to follow his father’s footsteps to become a clerk, taking over when his father could no longer do the job.

An active athlete and highly imaginative young man, Bram was understandably bored and unfulfilled in this job, so he found refuge in writing as a hobby. But, by nature, he was still a disciplined and a methodical writer and wanted his novel to have a real aspect to it in order to create suspension of disbelief.

Dacre’s presentation allowed glimpses into these methods showing scribbled character notes and marked-up train schedules that depicted how long it would take for Jonathan Harker to travel from England to Transylvania.  

As to the name Count Dracula, slides of historical evidence show that Bram originally chose Count Wampyre as his first choice, then scratched that out and later changed the character name to Dracula. He’d found this term in a Wallachian pamphlet while researching Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia, which in translation means ‘Devil’ and he thought that had a better ring to it.

Dacre has not only traveled the world to present this compelling Stoker family history, but he has also cowritten a best-selling novel, Dracula the Un-Dead, the Stoker family endorsed sequel to Dracula.

To round out this evening, filmmaker Alec Asten, who is at the helm of Historical Haunts, a film production company that celebrates New England Horror folklore, followed Dacre Stoker’s presentation with a documentary, Vampires of New England, which explores the gradual evolution of vampire mythology.

The documentary demonstrated how closely consumption was tied to people’s misperceptions of vampirism. For example, the effects on the victim were shockingly the same — wasting away of vital energy, a deathly pallor, a sunken chest and often, a propensity to cough up blood. Before anyone knew what the disease was or how to control it, families and healers tried all kinds of bizarre and gruesome “remedies” from grinding up the blood and bones of swallows as a tincture to cutting out the heart of an exhumed body suspected of vampirism, burning it with ashes and serving the leftover disgusting paste as a tonic to young children.

For those who find this genre of literature and film-making mesmerizing, this was a special evening of lore, facts and chilling real-life legends of New England.

For more information about Dacre Stoker visit bramstokerestate.com For more information and to see a streaming video of Vampires of New England, visit histhaunts.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

Are you all set to rage into the Halloween season? 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 Kids to make finding them easier. Don’t forget that there is also a Candy Drive for the neighborhoods in Camden and Belfast most hit up for Halloween.

Friday, Oct. 24

· Adults and Kids: Fright At The Fort is seriously bugging out this year and the crowds are loving it. Visitors are led through the dark passageways of Fort Knox where indescribable things lurk in the shadows, creating screams of fright. Admission is $10 per person ($5 for those 12 and under) Additional information on Fright at the Fort 2013, may be found on the fortknox.maineguide.com. The three dates remaining, Friday/Saturday, Oct. 24, 25 and on Halloween. 5:30 to 9 PM (arrive by 8:45), tickets only $10 for adults and $5 for kids under 12.

· Adults and Kids: Megunticook Campground is having a haunted hayride and village with a screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show from 5-9 p.m. Tickets: Adults $10’ 12 and under $5.

Saturday, Oct. 25

· Kids: Skulls! From 1-2 p.m. at the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center on 9 Water Street in Rockland.Wildlife Biologist Beth Goettel will lead a program for school-aged children examining a variety of skulls to reveal facts about animals, including what they eat. FMI: click here.

· Adults and Kids: A pumpkin carving and display is happening at The Muck, also known as Kirby Lake, on Lincolnville Ave - just up from Hannaford’s. Materials are supplied for the first 40 folks.  If you have a pumpkin from home, bring it along for the photo and voting.Starts at 4 p.m. Votes will be cast for the crowd's favorites and at 6 p.m., some prizes will be awarded. Apples and treats for everyone. FMI: Call the Chamber at 338-5900.

· Adults and Kids: A free sketch-fest is happening at Waterfall Arts from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. One of the activities they will be doing is the Exquisite-Corpse-a-Thon. Imagine taking a very large sheet of paper and folding it in thirds, so all you can see is the top third. A few people draw the head and shoulders of a monster, then fold it over so just the middle third of the paper is showing. Another group draws the torso and then another group draws the feet. Hold the hold thing up you’ll see a crazy fantastical creature.

· Adults and Kids: Fright At The Fort 5:30 to 9 p.m. (arrive by 8:45), tickets only $10 for adults and $5 for kids under 12.

· Adults and Kids: Megunticook Campground is having a haunted hayride and village with a screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show from 5-9 p.m. Tickets: Adults $10’ 12 and under $5.

Sunday, Oct. 26

· Kids: Planet Toys in Rocklandin Rockland is having a big anniversary and Halloween Party from 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. They will have cake, cider, a raffle, and you'll get to meet ELSA from Frozen! Come in costume!

Tuesday, Oct 28

· Adults and Kids: If you’ve ever wanted to bust out those sweet patented Michael Jackson moves when the Thriller song comes on, you’re in for a treat. Kea Tessyman, owner of Kinetic Energy Alive Productions, has this dance down pat and it is so much fun to learn. She will be hosting a Dance Workshop-Fundraiser held on Tuesday, Oct. 28 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at High Mountain Hall, in Camden. Open to families and all ages. No experience needed. Costumes optional. Suggested donation of $20. For information or to hold your spot at the Workshop-Fundraiser, email director Kea Tesseyman at kineticenergyalive@gmail.com or call 2079754450.

·  Adults: The Flagship Cinema in Thomaston is hosting a free movie, The Shining at 10 a.m. This classic Stanley Kubrick movie is spectacular on the large screen–don’t miss it!

·  Adults: A very cool literary event for Halloween, the Highlands Coffee House in Thomaston is hosting Maine authors read tales or horror, mystery and suspense from 6-8 p.m.

Wednesday, Oct. 29

· Adults: Lincoln Street Center is turning their weekly Open Mic into a Halloween Party this evening with a dance costume party with prizes for the best costume. The event goes from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Come shake and rattle your bones!

 Thursday, Oct. 30

· Adults and Kids: The Lincolnville General Store is hosting a pumpkin carving event.from 3:00-4:30 at Walsh Common in the Lincolnville Central School. For $2 they can get a pumpkin, and assistance carving the pumpkin. They are hoping some folks will donated their carved Jack-O-Lanterns to set up a display on Halloween when kids go trick-or-treating.

· Adults: Kind of interesting, this combines highbrow with the supernatural. The Rockland Public Library, will present "'Enter Ghost', Shakespeare's Preternatural Universe" at 6 p.m. in the Library's Community Room. The performance, created and performed by seven members of the Society, will be a collage of vignettes containing various supernatural elements, from nine different plays, contrasting some of the scariest and most dramatic scenes in all of Shakespeare. FMI: click here.

· Adults: The Camden Opera House is screening the iconic 1080s film Halloween starring Jamie Lee Curtis. What better venue to watch a scary film at this time of year than in their famously haunted, gorgeous Victorian venue?! Tickets are $8.50 and available at camdenoperahouse.com, (207)470-7066 or at the Camden Town Office M-F 9am-3pm.

· Adults: Another eerie literary event, Damariscotta’s Maine Coast Book Shop is hosting GHOST NIGHT, at 8:00 p.m. Anyone who has had a personal experience with the paranormal is encouraged to share their story with the audience. Please contact staff member Lauri Campbell at campbell@midcoast.com or call 563-3207. Staff will be joined by Greg Latimer, author of "Haunted Damariscotta." Horror illustrator Glenn Chadbourne and author/speaker Van Reid will also be on hand to help set the mood.

· Adults: Cuzzy’s Restaurant in Camden is throwing a “Scareoke” costume party with drink specials from 9 p.m. to midnight.

Friday, Oct. 31 (Halloween)

· Kids: The Rockport Public Library is starting a new tradition, the Library Halloween Party! There will be Halloween Happenings beginning at 4 p.m., and the library is staying open until 6:30 p.m. There will be refreshments, a haunted book-talk station and face-painting. Children will be making Spooktacular treat bags, Boooo-marks, and painting pumpkins.

Updated! This event has been cancelled!· Kids: The Peril on Pearl Street awaits you this Halloween. Goes from 6-9 p.m. at the American Legion Hall, 91 Pearl Street in Camden. This haunted house is brought to you by volunteers for the Five Town Communities That Care Coalition. Suggested donation: $2.00

· Kids: Waldoboro Fire Department will once again be filling guests with fear as they travel the halls of the former A.D.Gray Middle School from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.  This year's theme is "Fairy Tales Gone Bad." Those who dare will be able to visit horrific scenes from their favorite childhood stories. Goldilocks and the Three Bears will keep company with Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Blind Mice, and many more. Note: The Halloween Night showing is not intended for younger children. Admission is $1 per person.

· Adults and Kids: Rock City Cafe is hosting their Halloween Jamboree featuring Georgiana Butler. Goes from 7-9 p.m. for some Halloween fun! Bring the whole family! Games! Prizes! LIVE music

· Adults and Kids: Fright At The Fort 5:30 to 9 p.m (arrive by 8:45), tickets only $10 for adults and $5 for kids under 12.

· Adults and Kids: Celebrate the October Belfast Arts Final Fridays Art Walk on All Hallow's Eve from 5:30-8 p.m.! Over 15 Galleries will be open for the evening.

· Adults and Kids: Megunticook Campground will be extending their second annual Haunted Campground on Halloween night. 7- 10 p.m. There will be a haunted hayride and a haunted village. The cost is $10.00 for adults and $5.00 for kids under 17.

· Adults: This is probably the most hip happening in the Midcoast for Halloween. Necessary Music and The Speakeasy in Rockland are throwing a Halloween party with Temp Tales latest episode "Andrew the Seal's Revenge" viewing at 8 p.m. The Halloween party kicks off with live music by The Dolphin Strikers. People are encouraged to dress up as Temp Tales characters. No cover!

· Adults: Front Street Pub in Belfast is throwing a Walking Dead-themed Halloween Party and costume contest. $250 prize for best zombie and $250 prize for best hunter. There will be DJ's, dancing, games, prizes, passed food, and an outdoor special area for the whole weekend. $5 cover with passed apps. Goes from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.

· Adults: Bowen’s Tavern in Belfast is having their second annual Halloween Party with the band, Oversoul starting at 9 p.m. There’s a $150 cash prize for best costume, winner take all. No cover.

· Adults: FOG Bar in Rockland will be jamming with Just Teachers, from 9 p.m. to midnight. No cover.

· Adults: Three Tides in Belfast is throwing an awesome Friday Fright Night, with a black light, 80s dance party for Halloween! Starts at 8 p.m. Music starts at 9 p.m. music. 21+ No cover!

· Adults: The Badger Cafe in Union is throwing a Halloween party! Starts at 9 p.m., with rockin' live music from All Stove Up!

· Adults: Cuzzy’s Restaurant in Camden is throwing a “Red Light & Pirate Night” costume party from 9 p.m. to midnight. Sexy costumes or pirate costumes encouraged. Prizes, giveaways and drink specials.

Saturday, Nov. 1

· Kids: For those young ‘uns who were too little for the Waldoboro Fire Department’s haunted house, in the halls of the former A.D.Gray Middle School, this year's theme is "Fairy Tales Gone Bad," and a tamer version of the haunted house with minimal fright, will be held Saturday afternoon, 4-6 p.m. Admission is $1 per person.

· Adults: Front Street Pub in Belfast is throwing a Day of the Dead Costume party to celebrate the Mexican holiday. $100 Cash Prize for The best face/hair/get up. $100 Cash Prize for The Best Full Day of the Dead costume There will be DJs, dancing, games, prizes, passed food, and an outdoor special area for the whole weekend. $5 cover with passed apps. If you have a meal at La Vida, show your receipt and the cover fee is waived.

· Adults: Rouse yourselves up from the dead, The CMCA’s 2nd annual “Afterlife” party is going to be another hella Hallow fest at 86 Pascal Hall in Rockport.. If you went to the first one, you know how intricately decorated this will be. Tickets are $20 for members/$25 for future members. Music by Owen Cartwright. Bar set up by 40 Paper. Costumes required. Tickets are limited. Purchase online or call: 20-236-2875.

· Adults: The Strand Theatre is doing a special one-night presentation from Maine filmmakers that redefine the classic thriller and horror categories. Now in its fifth year, the DAMNATIONLAND 2014 program will feature world premieres of seven short films produced in Maine by Mainers especially for the Halloween season. These are dark, surreal, and fantastic pieces, and they offer film fans an excellent sampling of the talent producing independent film in Maine today. Starts at 10:30 p.m. $8.50 for adults.

· Adults: Cuzzy’s Restaurant in Camden is throwing a “Natural” costume and karaoke party from 9 p.m. to midnight. Maybe they’re all worn out from the last two nights, because this is a “wear what you want” theme. Prizes, giveaways and drink specials.

If you have any public events to go with this list, email Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

Kind of a slow weekend, folks. And I promise, not one mention of Halloween. (We’ve compiled all of the Halloween cool stuff for both adults and kids in a separate list titled Your Halloween Rundown.)

Want to know where to go for happy hour every day of the week? Check out our Guide To Midcoast’s Happy Hours.

Thursday, Oct. 23

· As always, the Open Mic at The Highlands Coffee House promises some great talent in the Midcoast and beyond! Drink and food specials. Sign up is at 6 p.m. and goes from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

· Hey artists and fans of Waterfall Arts Anon Show! They’re hosting an Anon Salon focusing on the current anonymous show at Waterfall Arts, where they will share thoughts and insights on the works and perhaps take up other art matters. See our story on the show’s guessing game aspect here. The salon is a free event and open to everyone. Starts at 6:30 p.m.

Friday, Oct. 24

· The Belfast Co-op Café will be offering a free tasting of Peak Organic beers, and the opening for Audrey Broetzman's art exhibit, Sombras Gemelas/Twin Shadows, which will be on display in the Café through late November. Event goes from 7 to 9 p.m. FMI: click here.

· Rejoice because at 8 p.m. Friday, Lovewhip brings their energetic dance music to the stage at The Speakeasy in Rockland. The Boston Globe says "Lovewhip has a celebratory and upbeat feel that has kept crowds dancing everywhere they play." Lovewhip creates a live show that is rooted in fun with the passionate vocals and dance moves of the "soulful electro-rock diva." Show starts at 8 p.m. with a $5 cover, which is waived if you dine upstairs at the Chowder House.

Saturday, Oct. 25

· Belfast is joining the fun of The Big Draw with a free sketch-fest at Waterfall Arts on Saturday, Oct. 25 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Big Draw is an annual celebration of drawing happening around the world in more than 20 countries, with 280,000 people expected to participate in more than 1,000 events.  This isn't going to be an art class with people sitting at tables drawing. It's an art party: it's going to be big. It's going to be silly. It's going to be over the top.

· If you’re into folk music, Rockport Opera House is hosting a concert featuring several of Maine's best-known folk musicians, including Gordon Bok, Nick Apollonio, David Dodson, the Gawler Sisters and Dean Stevens. The concert benefits We the People Maine, a state-wide organization with a mission to “return power to the people, not corporations.” Tickets are $18 in advance, and $21 at the door.  Purchases can be made online at wethepeoplemaine.me; in Rockland at Good Tern Co-op and the Grasshopper Shop; in Camden at K2 Music; in Belfast at  Belfast Co-op; in Thomaston at Highlands Coffee House; and in Union at The Common Market and MicMac Market.

· The Ale House String Band is playing Rock City Café at 7 p.m. The band is comprised of Brian Dunn on mandolin, April Reed-Cox on cello and Oren Robinson on guitar. No cover, but donations appreciated.

· If you like the blues, Blind Albert will be playing at The Speakeasy at 8 p.m., with a $5 cover (cover waived if you dine upstairs at the Chowder House.)

Sunday, Oct. 26

Combined with a stellar Sunday drive, South Thomaston is hosting an Open Studio Tour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The studios will feature works of encaustic wax art and printmaking, hand-made artist books, paper and ceramic masks, ceramics, sculpture, collages and prints, all created by artists with studio space on the premises. More details are available at: www.26splitrockcove.com.

If you have an arts and entertainment event that fits within the adult scope of fun and cool things to do for Weekend Picks, contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

Easy one. But who knows what First National Stores carried and what’s in its place now? Tell us your stories.

Last week’s Throwback Thursday photo got some good comments. those who guessed The Lincolnville Ferry were correct. Ding! Ding! It was the Lincolnville Beach terminal of the Isleboro ferry, built in 1959.

Photo courtesy Rockland, Maine History Facebook page.

Throwback Thursday needs your submissions. Send us your “back in the day” photos with a caption at news@penbaypilot.com

LIBERTY — Like many a home brewer before him, Guy Hews’ hobby has morphed into something bigger and now, the Midcoast can claim another small-batch microbrewery. With Liberty Brewing Co.’s grand opening on Saturday, Oct. 18, hundreds of people made the scenic drive to check out the rustic tasting room located on 7 Coon Lane off Route 220 in Liberty.

The two-car garage, which stands apart from his house overlooking a spectacular mountain range used to be Hews’ “glorified man cave” before he converted the downstairs into the brewing facility and the upstairs into the tasting room. Standing behind the bar as his wife, Karen, welcomed people in and his daughter, Maddy, tallied up people’s purchases, Hews poured from his taps and chatted with the crowd. The free tastings came in either small or large Dixie cups delivered in hand-hewn paddles Hews made and featured a range of beers in the pale ale and lager region.

A couple of his beers centered around local flavors, such as his Queenbee Honey Lager, which contains more than 11 pounds of Clover honey in each batch. His Blueberry Ale also has a good story. His great-grandfather came down from Canada to do blueberry farming and left the property to Hews’ uncle, who leases it out commercially. There’s a still a plot left for Hews’ family to use personally and the whole family goes up every year to rake the blueberries. After he boils the batch down into a concentrate, Hews adds it to his beer, resulting into a fresh, floral taste that doesn’t overwhelm.

Coming up on Halloween, his Chupacabra IPA (8 percent abv) is sure to have a cult following with those who enjoy spooky legends to go with their beers.

“My wife’s from Turner and a few years back, they found something on the side of the road,” he said. “And they didn’t know if it was a dog or a wolf or what it was, and the state police and a Maine biologist determined it was a chupacabra.” For those who aren’t familiar with the Latin American term, it is said to be mysterious beast that drains the blood of pets and livestock. See the original story here. “I always liked the story and I thought the name fit what is a very bold, outrageous beer.”

Hews has been doing small-batch micro-brewing for about five years.

“I had several friends and locals who loved the brews and asked me all the time when I’d sell it,” he said.

After applying for the proper licenses this past April and receiving them last month, he has been hard at work getting his brews and production ready for the grand opening. He currently offers four bottled brews that will be available on site and at Liberty General Store.  His Blueberry Ale is only available in growlers.

Hews, who works full time as a civil engineer said he plans to stay small and local, with the help of his family “as it is all I can handle for now,” he said. “In the future, I’ll probably hire one more person, but right now it’s a lot for my wife and kids to help me.”

Out of 54 breweries that grace the Maine Brewers’ Guild Maine Beer Trail, Liberty Craft Brewing Co. is listed as #22.

To learn more about the brewery’s offerings and tasting room hours visit their Facebook page.

Related story: 24 hours in the Midcoast for the “Craft Beer Lover.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

CAMDEN — The original Wild Rufus was a good boy (and a great CD and record shop), but now a new dog is in town.

Manny's CD's, Vinyl and Other Cool Stuff recently opened Oct. 11 and sits at 25 Mechanic St. in Camden, next to the Bagel Cafe. Keeping with the tradition of naming a record shop after their dog, Matt and Karyl Brown have named the new shop after their 125-pound Bernese mountain dog, Manny. The shop is split into two sides, one housing Matt’s business and the other side for Karyl’s original jewelry designs.

When Brown first opened Wild Rufus in 1979, records and cassette tapes were the only way people could hear their favorite bands and artists. Even though vinyl has had a Renaissance, it is fairly unusual to find a traditional record store in a small Maine town anymore. Camden now has two record shops, with Byron Greatorex’s Spirit of Sound Records in the Merchant's Cooperative (the antique store next to Camden House of Pizza). See our article on that here.  Greatorex also happened to own Wild Rufus after Brown and the two music lovers have a friendly collaboration. Brown’s tiny shop has both new and used CDs and vinyl records, Blu-Ray discs, box sets and used DVDs and he’s constantly adding to his collection. We stopped by to meet Matt.

Q: What made you come back?

A. We love Camden. We owned a home in Camden for 12 years and then we spent a lot of time in L.A. I worked for a bunch of studios and Karyl sold jewelry there. We were tired of the the smog and traffic. My son is transitioning middle schools so it seemed a good time to come back.  And I’ve always had the dream of co-owning a shop with Karyl.

Q: Have some of your old customers come back for your opening?

A; The first few days have been wonderful. People have told me that they really love having another record store in town. Having run a business here before, we have no illusions that some days will be slow—but it’s a lot of fun.

Q: How do you make a traditional record store work in this digital age of Mp3s?

A: I am kind of a junkie with new technology, iPods and streaming and stuff but, through it all, I have always bought vinyl and CDs. There was very little new vinyl 12 years ago; there’s now 44,000 titles in vinyl. So, it’s back. I don’t have any aspirations it will come back to the heyday of vinyl and CDs, of which I was able to participate in some form, but I do think people will come in here and find something that appeals to them, whether they are 17 or 70.

Q: What kind of music are you carrying?

A: There’s certainly a lot of classic rock. I love jazz, so there’s a bit of that and blues. I’m selling most of my collection to get off the ground, but we will soon be selling all new CDs, vinyl, Blu-rays and audio stuff. I’m already placing orders for people who want something specific, so that’s something we still do. My goal is to add a lot more new stuff and I want people to tell me what they want. But, just to note, we won’t be buying any used CDs from the public.

Q: How are you cross-promoting with the other music stores in the area?

A: I’ve played music all of my life and I know Byron and the guys at K2 Music. I’ll send people looking for specific genres of vinyl over to Byron because he has a much bigger selection and he does the same when people are looking for something he doesn’t have. I think the idea between me and K2 Music is that if people need something like guitar strings or something else I send them over there. It’s just really special to be able to do that in a town where you all know each other. It’s not competitive, it’s more about how we help each other.

Keeping with the old-school vibe, Manny’s and Karyl’s doesn’t have an online presence, so stop by and check them out or call 706-4039.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

I’m sure this one will be no problem to identify, but can you guess the year this photo was taken? Anybody have any memories of this time?

No guesses for last week’s Throwback Thursday photo, but perhaps it’s because Ii forgot to put it up on Facebook. (Whoops.) Anywho, according to the Belfast Historical Society and Museum, it was “Opera House Indoor Block Party...19teens! Food Fairs, Healthy Baby Contest and merchants displaying their most modern wares were popular mid-winter events at the Opera House. Booths at this fair included: Waldo County Herald newspaper, Hamilton's greenhouse and florist, toasted corn flakes cereal, Tudor coffees and teas and...Jell-o!”

This week’s photo courtesy Maine Historical Society

Throwback Thursday needs your submissions. Send us your “back in the day” photos with a caption at news@penbaypilot.com

With gas being the lowest we’ve seen in years and it being peak foliage season, you’d be seriously missing out if you don’t take a road trip these next two weekends. But try to make it back for Saturday’s events and come back for Sunday’s vampire weekend. (No, not the band)

Want to know where to go for happy hour every day of the week? Check out our Guide To Midcoast’s Happy Hours.

Thursday, Oct. 16

· As always, the Open Mic at The Highlands Coffee House promises some great talent in the Midcoast and beyond! Drink and food specials. Sign up is at 6 p.m. and goes from 6:30-9:30 p.m.

· One of the nicest authors I’ve ever met, Tess Gerritsen, will be at the Vose Library in Union for the Soup and Suspense mystery author program. She will read from and talk about the latest book in her Rizzoli and Isles mystery series, Die Again, coming in December, and answer questions from the audience. There’s an $8 suggested donation that supports the library and you also get homemade soup! Starts at 7 p.m. For more information, call Vose Library at 785-4733.

· Ever hear of the Wailin’ Jennys? New York-based singer-songwriter Heather Masse, a member of the Canadian trio The Wailin' Jennys, will perform solo on the Strand Theatre stage at 7:30 p.m. She has appeared regularly on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" and has also performed with the bluegrass band the Wayfaring Strangers on NPR's "World Cafe," and at Boston's Symphony Hall with the Boston Pops Orchestra. Tickets are $20 for general admission. To purchase tickets, visit rocklandstrand.com, stop by the box office, or call 594-0070, ext. 3.

Friday Oct. 17

· If you are one of those adults who gets as psyched for Halloween as other people get for Christmas, Fright at The Fort’s “What’s Bugging You” kicks off tonight! Visitors are led through the dark passageways of Fort Knox where indescribable things lurk in the shadows, creating screams of fright. Admission is $10 per person ($5 for those 12 and under) Additional information on Fright at the Fort 2013, may be found on the fortknox.maineguide.com The haunted fort tour goes all weekend, next weekend and the bonus Friday night (Halloween) on the 31st. Pro-tip: Don’t arrive any later than 8:30 p.m. and buy your tickets online to avoid the long lines.

· New! The 10th annual Belfast Poetry Festival is taking place Friday and Saturday all around Belfast  and everything’s free, except the workshops. To find out the lowdown on individual events go to: www.belfastpoetry.com

· New! The fifth and final Twin Villages (Damariscotta/Newcastle) Artwalk is taking place tonight at 4-7 p.m. And hey if the rain is still lingering, a free trolley loops through the Artwalk area, allowing riders to hop on and off. Cheap Date!

Saturday Oct. 18

· Another brewery in Midcoast? Yaaaasssss! Liberty Craft Brewing is having a Grand Opening from 11 a.m.-9 p.m., 7 Coon Mountain, Liberty. Taste the Queen Bee Honey Lager or Haystack Extra Pale Ale while you look over the Camden Hills, then buy a growler or six-pack for home. FMI: 322-7663.

· New!  Rockland is hosting an Open Studio tour in the South End. Thirteen (oooo) artists will open their studios and welcome visitors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more info on where to find the studios visit: Studio Tour.

· New! Beer lovers, this is your weekend! Marshall Wharf’s 7th year of Mussels and Beer is happening tonight from 5-11 p.m. And the Toughcats are playing–whoo! Free in-town shuttles. $30 admission/$10 non-beer drinkers. Food trucks will also be on hand if you don’t get enough of the Pemaquid mussels and yummy frites!

· If you like the blues, Raised By Wolves will be playing at The Speakeasy from 8 p.m.-midnight, with only a $5 cover which is waived when you dine at the Chowder House.

Sunday, Oct. 19

· New! Cappy’s Chowder House is hosting its restaurant for The Jim Laurita Fund. All proceeds from diners’ sales will be donated to the Laurita Fund.

· The Strand Theatre is hosting Vampires of New England at 7 p.m. OK, I just finished watching the original Nosferatu (1922) an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and apparently there was quite a bit of copyright drama around what is considered the first original horror movie and the estate of Bram Stoker. Copresented by Historical Haunts, the evening includes a screening of The Tillinghast Nightmare vampire documentary by Rhode Island Director Alec Asten, and presentation from guest speaker, Dacre Stoker, the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker. The Tillinghast Nightmare explores the facts and folklore of vampire exorcism in New England in an effort to shed light on this gruesome practice. Tickets $15/General Admission.

If you have an arts and entertainment event that fits within the adult scope of fun and cool things to do for Weekend Picks, contact Kay Stephens at news@penbaypilot.com

DAMARISCOTTA—Greg Latimer, an investigative reporter specializing in the paranormal, is working on a special case this fall and winter. One might call it a “cold case.” A very cold, 6-feet-under case.

Latimer, author of Haunted Damariscotta: Ghosts of the Twin Villages and Beyond, runs Red Cloak Haunted History Tours with his wife, Sally Lobkowicz,, along with Mysterious Destinations magazine.

The story of a woman, Mary Howe, being buried alive has long been a local legend in Damariscotta.  Here’s the long and the short of it:

Investigating multiple sources, Latimer uncovered bits and pieces of the life of Howe, an unmarried medium in her 50s, whose family built the Howe House on Elm Street. In the late 1800s, Howe House was a popular tavern. Today, it is an apartment complex known as Clark’s Apartments, and according to Latimer, has been the site of reported hauntings. At the time of her so-called “passing,” Mary was a practitioner of spiritualism, a movement based on the belief that spirits of the dead could communicate with the living, which was very popular at the time. Mary used to lead séances for guests with her brother, Edwin, and her specialty was going into deep trances. One night in 1882, Mary slipped into a trance that lasted about a week before it started to become the talk of the town. As written in Haunted Damariscotta, “She was described as having little or no respiration or heartbeat, while her skin stayed a natural color and her limbs remained flexible.”

During this time, her brother kept Mary’s body warm with stones, fully believing she would come out of this trance like the other times, but other townspeople began to have doubts.

By the time two weeks had passed, her body was still warm to the touch and not ashen in color, nor was there any odor of death, yet she still had not emerged from her trance. This observation was passed down to local historian Harold Castner from his aunt, Laura, who had personally witnessed Mary’s state, along with her future husband, Kendall Dunbar, publisher of the Twin Village Herald. However, one person who doubted that Mary was still living was Dr. Robert Dixon, a government-appointed physician who observed her and pronounced her dead. It was a determination her brother vehemently protested. Many other residents joined in support of Edwin, but to no avail. On a December night, Dr. Dixon, assisted by the county sheriff and an undertaker, came to the Howe House with a wooden coffin, placed Mary into it, nailed it shut and carried her away on a horse-drawn hearse.

From there, the resolution of this story grows murky. There is no record of Mary Howe’s burial in Damariscotta.

According to Latimer’s sources, the closest cemetery in Damariscotta, known as the Hillside Cemetery, a.k.a The Metcalf Cemetery, wouldn’t accept the coffin, because the administrators still thought her alive. So, as the story goes in Haunted Damariscotta “...a grave had been dug by out-of-town gravediggers who didn’t know the circumstances of the burial. When these gravediggers learned of the situation, they refused to participate any longer. Working alone into the night, the two county officials lowered the box into the dark pit, covered it with sod and then worked to conceal the grave so that those who believed Mary was still living wouldn’t try to dig her up.”

Anecdotal information from the time period indicates she was buried in the "Glidden Cemetery," but it isn’t clear if this was the Glidden Street Cemetery or the Glidden Cemetery on River Road in Newcastle. Latimer, a former police evidence photographer in Los Angeles, Calif., and former investigative reporter for the daily Los Angeles Herald Examiner has a theory.

“My personal feeling is that if you look at the Glidden Street Cemetery, it’s right in the middle of a neighborhood that was populated at the time. It’s not the place to plant someone if you’re trying to hide her. So, that makes the Glidden Cemetery in Newcastle on River Road that much more attractive to hide someone,” he said.

For the sake of this story, we ventured over to the Glidden Cemetery in Newcastle on River Road to see if there were any clues. In this tiny, hillside graveyard, surrounded by a Gothic iron fence, we took care not to step across graves, a practice Latimer does, not just out of respect, but necessity.

“In some of these very old cemeteries when there is a sagging in the ground due to crumbling wooden coffins, people have been known to step into and down through a grave,” he said.

Some of the plots in this cemetery are missing markers. Latimer explained this was likely due to the fact that the gravesites were marked with wooden markers, not granite; typically a cost-saving element for poorer families. Those wooden markers have disintegrated over the years, which makes it tougher to match the plots to names.

This fall and winter, Latimer plans on making multiple site visits to both cemeteries to look for anything that might indicate an unmarked grave.

"Even if such indications are located, there is a good probability that a number of grave markers at these sites may have been lost to time and the elements. But one never knows where new information could lead," Latimer said.

His purpose as a reporter is to solve this mystery and give peace to Mary’s descendents. “In the 1880s, Mary Howe was considered a particularly extraordinary woman and attracted a lot of attention for her séances and spirtualism,” he said. “Just by the fact that she was carried away in the night and buried, perhaps, alive is tragic enough. But, there is no marker for her. So, we’re trying to resolve it.”

Red Cloak Haunted History Tours and The Lincoln County News are sponsoring Latimer's efforts to find the grave. Red Cloak Haunted History Tours will lead an effort to raise funds for a marker and The Lincoln County News will publish articles on the progress of Latimer's investigation. If Latimer does find where she was buried, he assures the public there is no plan to exhume her.

“It wouldn’t do much good anyway,” he said. “Any evidentiary value would be gone at this point, I think.”

Latimer added, “I think it’s probable we’ll find the cemetery she’s buried in but I’m not sure it’s likely we’ll find the actual location. All of the information we’re looking at boils down to one thing: If you’re a going to bury someone in a cemetery, you’re going to make a notation of it so that you don’t accidentally dig that person up when you’re going to bury someone else.”

This notation is the key element to solving this cold case. “That’s not something, pardon the pun, someone is going to take to his grave,” said Latimer.

Latimer will be participating with other authors on “Ghost Night” on Oct. 30 at 8 p.m. at the Maine Coast Book Shop & Cafe in Damariscotta. Anyone who has a personal experience with the paranormal is invited to tell their story.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

BELFAST—Like a modern day Johnny Appleseed, apple expert John Bunker, of Palermo, is a man on a mission to collect every apple variety in the state as he can. For the last 40 years he has worked to catalog varieties beginning from researching the backyard orchards that populated New England to asking the public to bring in varieties from their own land they can’t identify. 

As the state’s most prominent pomologist and the author of Not Far From the Tree: A Brief History of the Apples and the Orchards of Palermo Maine, 1804-2004, Bunker gave a presentation on Oct. 7 to a packed room at the Belfast Free Public Library to talk about his lifelong interest in tracking down, identifying and preserving rare historic varieties in Waldo County and elsewhere.

Speaking before an audience before a table lined with apples of every color and size, he spoke about the multi-tasking value of the apple.  If a certain variety of apple was tasty, or made delicious pie, stock, cider, or medicinal tonic and it kept all winter in root cellars, so people could still have fruit in the spring, it had a particular lasting quality that made it valuable. Over time, people began to select those particular apples for specific purposes.

Bunker said in the early days neighbors would pass around grafts of apple trees the way folk songs were passed around.

“These people wanted fruit on their farms and the name wasn’t important,” he said. “The apple would be renamed by different people, and you’d have five to 20 names for one apple. So if an apple was introduced in Belfast it might become the Belfast Sweet. Then it would get to Searsmont and be called the Searsmont Red. Then it would get to Montville and become the Jones Apple. The objective was not to make a commercial crop; the objective was to grow fruit you could use in multiple ways.”

To that degree, Bunker said historically, if a special variety that did well, people would amass a collection of apples that was unique to each area of Waldo County.

“This was local agriculture at its absolute pinnacle,” he said.

Just right after the Civil War, Bunker said there were 25,00 to 30,000 named American varieties that had done well in one community or another and had been named and passed around by grafting.

Several members in the audience had apples they wanted to have Bunker identify after the presentation.

Bunker, along with his partner Cammy Watts, operates Super Chilly Farm in Palermo. The orchard features home more than 200 varieties of rare and historic apples, many originating in Maine.

He established the Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association's (MOFGA) 10-acre Maine Heritage Orchard in Unity, which houses the only collection of apple varieties originating in Maine.

In 1984 he started Fedco Trees and has also served as President of the Board at MOFGA, where he continues to serve as a Board member.

He has been featured in Martha Stewart’s Living magazine as well as in The Atlantic for his expertise in preserving heirloom varieties.

For more information about Bunker and his orchards, visit: Super Chilly Farm.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com