Bellydance, a dance form originating in the Middle East, has shimmied its way up to Maine, where Portland is the center of a welcoming community of dancers. Salt student Andrea Muraskin dropped in at an event called Raqs Borealis, which is held every two months at North Star Music Cafe in Portland's East End (note: The North Star Music Cafe has closed since the taping of this piece).

Contra-dance is "like taking a jag of happy pills." - Edie Konesni

Belfast, Maine -- Once monthly, contra-dancers flock from across the Northeast to The Belfast Flying Shoes dance series. Chrissy Fowler, who organizes the event, starts the evening as a caller alongside an impromptu All Comers Band. October's special guest, Elixir, adds an exciting twist to traditional contra-dance music with their full horn section.

Producer: Carolyn Barnwell
Photography: Noah Fowler

Do opposites attract? This is the story of a Buxton, Maine couple, Theodore Carter and Gregory Bembry, who bond together by sparring over politics.

A short (2:15) video by Tucker Walsh

On Sunday, October 10 (10/10/10), I attended the TEDxDirigo event at the Frontier Cafe in Brunswick.  It was intense and overwhelming in the best possible way.  I left inspired personally and inspired about Maine and everything that is going on here.  For a list of the speakers you can check out the TEDxDirigo website, and soon they'll post the talks as well and you can watch them.  And I encourage you to.  Because they are about Maine, and the future, and creativity, and inspiration, and technology.

And if you are not familiar with the TED lectures, do yourself a favor and go to their website to take in some of the great talks they have posted.  The likes of Malcolm Gladwell and JK Rowling, as well as leaders in tech, dance, music - you name it.
 

So the talks were great, the Frontier Cafe was the perfect venue, and the food was top-notch as well.  Dolcelinos was there to offer us ice cream sandwiches at lunch and the Gelato Fiasco provided amazingly delicious ice cream after dinner.

Once my daughter announced that she wanted to make a fairy house, I went to the best source I had. No, not Alan Lee and Brian Froud’s classic tome Faeries, but Down East’s own Fairy Houses of the Maine Coast. Next a suitable grove in a wood where Yeats might have taken a nap was located. Moose Point State Park in Searsport was chosen since it wasn’t too far away and it already had the hundred-year-old Big Spruce that any woodland denizen would be proud to call home.

Once there my family and I scoured, scavenged, rummaged, hunted, and rifled like mudlarks until a heap of stones, windfall berries, moss, ferns, driftwood, fungi, birch bark, and other woodland scraps awaited our nimble fingers.
 

Finding the appropriate fairy grove, though, was no picnic. It took a lot of traipsing about, backtracking, scouting, and Aragorn skills to finally uncover a hidden-away spot far enough away from the beaten path but not too far away that mortal eyes wouldn’t encounter the secret dwellings.

The summer clambake has always been a tradition in my family. Growing up on Cousins Island in Yarmouth, I don’t remember a summer season passing without the ritualistic day-long feast. Usually in the morning, my brother and dad and I would drive bare-footed and bathing suit-clad down the road to Madeleine Point, a local swimming cove. If it was low tide, it made our task of seaweed collecting quite easy. We’d pull the green strands from the exposed rocks they were fiercely attached to, and we’d fill coolers with the stuff and place it in the back of the car for the short trip home. If it was high tide, well then, we’d go swimming.

Back in the kitchen, my mom would be preparing the clams, which always need to be thoroughly scrubbed. And she’d take a few of them to make the clam broth in which you “clean” the steamers again at the table. And then there was the melted butter in little cups, which I remember carrying out precariously on trays to the lawn, if we were lucky, or the covered porch if it was a rainy day. She’d have already shopped, too, for the day’s fixings: the onions, potatoes, eggs, and corn that we piled on top of the fire to accompany the lobsters and clams.