Recent Reads

The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah

Ms. Hannah is the queen of the first person dialogue. Her characters speak directly to you with passion and wit, and they draw you in to their worlds with the momentum of a runaway train. You are going so fast that you pick and choose characteristics, tics, moods and motives which at first seem straightforward and unequivocal. Only there is a clever catch. Maybe you’ve presumed wrongly; maybe you have assigned more weight to a verbal “turn of phrase” than you should have; maybe you should reassess what you have assumed and take a somewhat more relaxed look at the big picture? At some points the central characters appear almost like clones of each other, but are they? Ms. Hannah’s skill is in her nuanced portrayal of reaction and emotion. You know there is something going on in the text that you cannot quite grasp, just like an itch you can’t scratch. Mercifully she does turn up the lights at the conclusion and lets you see the cast sans makeup! A superb read.

Oh Joy!

I stumbled upon a corker of a music video. I found it at Unruly Media's Top 100 music videos where it is currently #73. I witnessed the contagion of sheer joy that is seen in the two performers. What a breath of fresh air for a slightly dull November morning!

Early November brings clear skies, damp cool soil covered in golden and ruby leaves and nights closing in.

All the more reason to be overjoyed at our intrepid carpenters' skill and speed as they frame up our addition.

Tomorrow we choose roofing shingles and the crew expect that they'll be stripping our old roof and laying down the new roof next week.

Meanwhile I spent the day at our community garden plots where I pull carrots which are small but delicious either raw or cooked, and turn the soil getting ready to put the garden to sleep for the winter.

Found musical gems and related musings...

Although I am a deeply cynical person - certainly when it comes to the fickle fads of our media driven world - I am sufficiently curious and engaged to not only experiment with my little blog but to sample the frequently real and inspired talent out there on the world-wide-web.

This morning I was reading/watching Mercedes Bunz's excellent Viral Video Chart post in the Guardian on-line edition and somewhere in my meanderings came across a link to the Playing for Change web site.

Playing for Change is a slick but heartwarming entity that was founded to support music education especially in politically and economically challenged areas of the world. The production values are so high that is often hard to know whether a given segment (see the video below) is of a stunning street artist or is of a celebrity musician who has volunteered their time for the project.

I just hope that the street musicians are benefitting from this as much as the PFC organization.

Some of my correspondents will know already that, some time ago,

I was blown away by the wonderful performance, posted on

You Tube of the Chooky Dancers from Elcho Island of the coast

of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia.

I see from the associated videos that they have been discovered and

have even appeared on Australia's Got Talent. This may well be

good news for these talented young men but for me it is

diabolically awful to see such amazing talent reduced to

a carnival side show.

Yikes, I've just realized, I'm one of the imbeciles in the

sideshow audience!!!!!

I have been walking past this plaque for ages and have not noticed it. The other day I did notice it and have since become a little bit obsessed by it.

It seems to me that while we are in a period of rebuilding our economy right now, the Great Depression of the 1930's will remain the mother of all depressions (I hope).

So many wonderful projects came out of the Works Progress Administration and in a small way the little bridge across the Megunticook River on Knowlton Street at its junction with Mechanic Street in Camden, Maine is worthy of consideration and appreciation just as we appreciate the many more dramatic projects of the era - I'm thinking of the development of accessibility for all to our great National Parks.

I just love what seems to me to be the enduring beauty of this little plaque. The typeface is just wonderful. I have sought help in learning more about this typeface design. Luckily for me my brother Rory's good friend Brett Jordan over in England is a typography boffin and he is in the process of enlightening me.

I am very grateful to Brett for this help, and would be grateful indeed to anyone reading this who could help me in further research regarding design in the period of the WPA!

Summer Sonic Tonic

A perfect convergence of weather, people and music took place on Sunday, August 16, 2009 at the Waterfall Arts campus on Kingdom Road in Montville, Maine.

Ian, my superb spouse's younger son is visiting from Brooklyn. He brought about half his band, 12,000 Trees, to a gig at Waterfall Arts. The 12,000 Trees line-up: Ian on percussion and electronic thingies, Brett on trombone and vocal, Sky on guitar and vocal, Yuko on guitar, Alison on percussion and recorder, Mekiko on keyboard and percussion, Zak on guitar and percussion and Pam on percussion and birdcalls.

Other bands included the Belfast Fiddlers and two more fiddle ensembles.

All in all, a superb way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon!

Moose freed after being caught in Camden building - Bangor Daily News

Moose freed after being caught in Camden building
- Bangor Daily News
We were blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding just around the corner from us yesterday morning! I am glad the moose was let loose in a (hopefully) safe place later in the day.

This post illustrates the gritty semi wilderness side of Camden that not many people are aware of. Thank goodness that handling this sort of incident is just all in a days work for Camden's finest!

Shared via AddThis

Drop-dead deals?

Spotted in West Bath, Maine

Shelter Institute house tour, July 30, 2009

Woolwich, Maine

We are wrapping up the Design/Build course and are privileged to enjoy the charming generosity of six Woolwich homeowners who have allowed us to pour over their homes. All six homes have been either built by SI faculty or by SI graduates. The homes range in age from 1 year to 30 years. Some have remained with their original owners and some have changed hands several times. Although all share the one concept of the timber post & beam frame, each one is utterly unique - bearing the stamp of individual or successive owners. They do all share an accessibility of scale which seems to encourage people to explore their own creativity in decoration and choice of materials.

Check out the link to my Flickr page to see some details of the homes that tickled my fancy.

Three Swedish Connections

Saturday, July 25, 2009 - Arrowsic Island, Maine

I spend the morning watching the folks at Hennin Post & Beam raise a structure. Before I know it I am pounding nails fixing 2" X 6" tongue & groove planks to beams. Myself and five other students at the Shelter Institute Design/Build course are observing and at times participating in the raising of this small building and the owner has very generously allowed us to put our own unique marks on his property.

As the posts and beams go up I notice Pat Hennin, the Hennin clan's somewhat eccentric patriarch, controlling a superb Swedish Volvo crane truck like a ballet master effortlessly moving his pupils through the air and placing them just so at centre stage. Only he is shifting his bulk-bought BooForssjo Swedish lumber into exactly its correct position on the slab foundation.

Later in the day I rendezvous with my Swedish-American Bra Fru (Good Wife!) and we meet up with students and members of the Hennin family for supper at the delightful Five Islands Lobster pound for a very pleasant, relaxing supper.

Back to School!

It's day 2 of the Shelter Institute Design/Build course and we are preparing our foundation.

We're having another of those soft rainy days that have been so familiar during this Maine summer.

Check out my Flickr photo gallery for more pictures of the class having fun with heavy and wet equipment!

The Shelter Institute's fame is spreading far and wide: see the link to a recent Financial Times article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/24802c2a-459e-11de-b6c8-00144feabdc0.html

Recent Reads

The Likeness by Tana French

I sometimes have the greatest difficulty getting into a book.  I'm never sure whether it is because of the mood I am in or the jumble of thoughts whirling in my mind at the time.  With me it is unlikely that it is because of any imperfection in the author's style or content.  I can say this because some of the best books I have read have been difficult for me to get started and then to build up that crucial (for me) momentum of absorption and interest that gets me glued in for the duration.

Tana French's The Likeness is one such book for me.  And what a book!  Ms French delves deep into her characters' psyches and chooses fascinating themes to explore so one gets a great deal more than just a good who-dunnit.  Amongst the many aspects of the book that had me enthralled was her exploration of charisma emanating from people whose characters are deeply flawed and her examination of the ease with which we can become caught up and controlled by the magnetism of another person.  It is her skill to enable the reader to personally identify with her characters in an internal deeply personal way.

Ms French has an ability to almost magically draw the reader into her descriptions of place and character.  It's that peculiar lyricism of her writing - like water flowing over mossy pebbles - which is so very, very Irish and which is so intoxicating for the reader.  Well, I can't speak for others but she surely intoxicates me! 

Magic moments during a very rainy month of June!

Vinalhaven, June 25th 2009

My Passionate Partner and I had just arrived at the PP's First Born and his Glorious Girlfriend's summer holiday rental cottage when I stepped out onto the porch to unlace my boots and was rewarded with the above sight.  I could hear the chatter of the crew's voices muted by the fog, otherwise the only sounds were the many birds twittering in the woods behind me.  A gently magical moment of many during this wet, wet June.

Recent Reads

From the wonderful Rockport Public Library: Nicholas Drayson's A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

I'm taking the liberty of putting this book down halfway though and declaring it a miniature gem!  

How could you not love a story where, on page 2, our protagonist is reminiscing about his first Sports Day (circa 1959) in which he is party to a very dramatic mishap involving a cricket ball in his hand being grabbed by a black kite but in a self deprecatory way goes on to say, "Of course it wasn't quite accurate that he had no memories of the javelin throwing. Few would forget the incident with the Governor General's wife's corgi."

This is a gentle book in which gentle humor is mined from the deeply personal lives of characters gallantly trying to continue a courteous and polite society within a greater reality that is not by any means always gentle.

Mr. Drayson, in my view, takes some liberties with the language spoken by characters.  By language I mean as in English, Swahili, Hindi, Gujurati etc.  I have friends who hail from Kenya who whilst speaking perfect English to me, immediately lapse into Hindi (or Hinglish) when chatting among themselves. Mr. Drayson's Kenyan Asian characters continually speak and think in an English frozen in time and place, the same time and place that P.G. Wodehouse uses in a great many of his stories!   However, it is the prerogative of the writer to take such liberties, thank goodness, as without them it would be a far less charming book.

Part of the joy of reading is to skip from one genre to another and appreciate each one because of the sheer variety of writing styles and formats that are so available to us, thanks to such institutions as the Rockport Public Library which incidentally has the most amazing calendar of events within and without the library's four walls. 

Recent Reads

Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Rumor has it that my reading preferences now lean towards translations of Scandinavian mystery authors and that this may be on account of a certain Swedish American presence on the home front, namely my bra fru or good wife in our lingo.  After reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson I say, “Absolutely right - and bring on even more translations!”

This is a rip roaring read, guaranteed to keep one up at night.  The author, who sadly died in 2004 at the age of 50, has a wonderful knack of weaving stories within stories in such a way that I really had difficulty putting the book down.  At the same time I noticed myself slowing my reading pace down considerably towards the end of the book because I did not want it to end.

I have just discovered that this is the first novel in a trilogy.  Yes it is sad that the author died so young but he has certainly left very rich material for his growing readership.

Dept of Unintended Photography

Here I am trying to photograph our cat, Hazel who is luxuriating in a window.  Although this was a complete failure I rather like the photo.  Early morning light reflects brightly on the house while the background shows some of that lovely dappled light one sees before the sun gets too high.  Click on my slideshow to see a somewhat better image of this and other efforts.

Good morning!

This is my second attempt at using the movie function on my camera and it shows!  No, I am not in pain, just squinting into the sun!  I'll keep these vignettes short and sweet - one minute or a tad over a minute - in the future.

I am excited that the microphone picked up the bird song.  We welcomed our first hummingbird of the season to our garden on Saturday, May 16th.  This morning whilst having our first cup of tea of the day we heard a loon.  In the morning with no traffic we can hear clear down to the mighty Megunticook river.  There are still way too many bird calls that I do not recognize but I am working on it!

Keith, Daniel, Mark, Ben, Keiran, Dominic, Jim, Rory, Martin and all you men of Chester, UK: this splendid lawn could be used for putting practice - know what I mean, there are some ducky golf courses dotted around magnificent Midcoast Maine!

Au revoir,

B

B's pick of the web week

I'm indebted to Jon Henley for his article in the Guardian, Blackpool, je t'aime published on the 15th May, 2009.

The young french woman in in pearls suddenly finding her appetite for "casserole de Lancashire 'ot pot" is thoroughly charming and the retro videography portrays a Blackpool that I remember clearly from visits over 35 years ago. 

I would like to think that I would not be disappointed if I went back today.  This is, maybe, wishful thinking on my part but three cheers to Visit Blackpool for coming up with this delightful video!

Things that go bump in the night

There is a tiny chest of drawers which doubles as a step up to our bed for the most elderly of our three cats (Caligula: at almost 2000 years old is one of the few remaining Roman era cats still alive, curiously a sex change occurred sometime in the middle ages, Caligula is now a she).  The chest/step is on my side of the bed and the surface of the step is about one foot from the floor and about 1' 6" below the surface of the bed.

I had never given this little artifact much thought - that is until last night at about 2:00 am when my body came into contact with its rather sharp front edge.  Moments before I had been asleep and  experiencing a particularly frightening dream involving severe teachers wearing stained and ancient religious robes in decrepit Dickensian dark classrooms and corridors.  Moments before waking I had leapt from a hiding place to avoid being caught.  

That was it.  I was then brutally awake and aware of a burning pain in my right hip, there was a loud crash and I was on the floor with the little chest of drawers leaning on its side against me and most of the bed covers on top of me.  My DW (darling wife) was sitting up clutching what remained of the bed covers and wondering what on earth had happened.  Later DW told me that as she woke up all three cats jumped in unison off the other side of the bed as I moaned on the floor!

I don't appear to be seriously damaged although I have a corker of a bruising mass just under my trouser belt line on the afore mentioned right hip.  I'll spare you the digital photograph, spectacular though it is.

I'm intrigued.  I must have fallen out of bed as a child but I have no memory of doing so.  This is the first time that I can recall that this has happened to me, but I imagine (and hope) it is not uncommon.  Curiously my Mum used to tell us boys that if we ate cheese too close to bedtime we would have nightmares.  What do you know?  I had indeed enjoyed some slivers of a particularly nutty and delicious flavored parmesan (on special at Hannafords) not long before retiring to bed the previous evening.

Pseudo twitching on Sunday afternoon

The SS (my Splendid Spouse) and I decided early today to rest relax and enjoy this lovely May day in Midcoast Maine.  After a hearty breakfast at Boynton McKay Food Co. we walked back home for a quick pit-stop.  We grabbed our binoculars; I stuffed my Sibley Field Guide and Audubon bird list into one jacket pocket, and the camera into the other one and then jumped in SS's car and after a very short drive parked by the superb Rockport Public Library.  From there we walked through quiet village streets taking a meandering route eventually leading to Beauchamp Point.  On the way we spotted amongst other small birds a female American Goldfinch at a garden bird feeder.  Just as we were going to leave the paved (asphalted) road for the dirt Beauchamp Point road we heard clear, short whistles coming from high above our heads.  Looking up we saw two Ospreys drifting and soaring, low enough to be easily identified without the binoculars and once we found them through the lenses they were spectacular!

As a brief aside I must mention that being so isolated by time from my British roots I had thought that a colloquial British simile for birding was twitching, on a par with the more common bird watching.  It wasn't until I got home and looked up definitions of twitching that it dawned on me that twitching seems to have a negative or at least a derisory connotation.  Bird watching or birding as it is known as over here is a pastime one can do from time to time and gain varying levels of expertise of knowledge, field work and familiarity with matters ornithological. Whereas twitching is very much an obsession which can quite possibly be psychologically unhealthy just as being obsessed with continually washing one's hands can isolate one from one's peers. I am indebted to an article I found on the web: British Isles Birding by Richard Bonser.  The title of this post is linked to this article.  

Back to our walk: as we were tracking the Ospreys we momentarily lost balance and had to reach out and grab each other to stay upright.  Just as well, as we realized we were standing almost in the middle of the road and a car was approaching!

For extreme amateurs as ourselves the most frustrating thing is to be surrounded by woodland, to hear abundant and varied birdsong... and not being able to spot a single living bird... aaaargh! Luckily there are many consolations to a long walk, hand in hand with gentle sea breezes causing your hair to shimmer in the dappled light - well, causing one person's hair to shimmer.  It's just that ears flapping does not sound quite so idyllic!  

Anyway, back to birding: however, we did in fact score some points and did spot a ducky little brown creeper flitting from one tree trunk to another and skittering around the bark coming in and out of sight for a minute or so.

We left the little brown creeper to his world and strolled up and across the point to the very lovely Children's Chapel.  You can see photos I took of the chapel and the surrounding gardens and sea views.  It is a magical place but I will have to save yakking on about it for another post.  From the chapel we wandered down through the nearby golf course (the road runs through it) and eventually back to the Bra Fru's (Good Wife's) trusty horseless carriage and  back home to gallons of hot tea and slices of home made quince & blueberry pie.  All in all, a good Sunday.

Barrie's Continuing Education

Prior to my departure from Boston and my arrival in Camden, Maine I mulled over all sorts of ideas to "improve" my life, foremost amongst those ideas were various educational pursuits.  They all featured plans of a grandiose and time consuming and costly nature such as studying for a nursing degree with a view to becoming an RN.  Now, I know there was nothing wrong with having these noble ideas but they were all a bit close to, "Which hurdle race will I put in for now?"  Never mind that my knees are clapped out, my back is shot and my short term memory is on a downward slope!

Four months have passed and happily I have turned my (delicate) back on the hurdles and am now enjoying the bunny slopes of Maine's Adult Education network facilitated by http://fivetowns.maineadulted.org/.

So, this week has turned out to be a very busy week but it's been entirely free of any hurdles!  Monday & Wednesday evening was Zumba Fitness at High Mountain Hall with sublime teacher Korinn Scattoloni, and last evening, Thursday, was Composting with Beedy Parker and Sonia Spaulding. My goodness, this was another superb class.  Beedy Parker is a hot ticket, as they would say in the Zumba world.  She has a delightfully hands-on and hands-in approach to composting and she explodes any myths about fears of it being an exact science.  She gave me great confidence to go forth, get my hands (and arms) dirty and produce awesomely valuable black/brown gold for our garden.

I can hardly wait to get up close and personal with some of our very own red wigglers!

Adventure in adult education

When my SS (Sensational Spouse) and I reached the top of the stairs at Camden's High Mountain Hall http://www.highmountainhall.com/

I had a sense that we just might have been directed to the wrong class. Since I grew out of my bicycling shorts I haven't owned any lycra or spandex garments, and ahead of us on the dance floor I could see an awful lot of the stretchy material attached to very confident healthy looking, non-male bodies. (continued below video)

Not to worry, Korinn  http://www.highmountainhall.com/teachers/korinn-scattoloni, our charming instructor introduced herself and immediately apologized for a scheduling publishing error.  The error, of course, being that Monday night's classes were for advanced Zumba, but no problem, we were totally welcome to join in and we would have no difficulty picking it up.

SS and I looked at each other, shrugged and said of course we would join in.  Mercifully the hourlong session started almost immediately, eliminating further contemplation on my state of supreme un-fitness.  If you watch the You Tube clip above you will get the gist of Zumba.  Korinn was absolutely right in that each participant can go at their own level and have a thoroughly enjoyable time.  The old human bod is a wonderfully self regulated life form, so there really is no fear of injury.  However five minutes into the routine every muscle in my body was crying out for mercy but one is enjoying the music and movement so much that mercy has to wait!  

Towards the end of the program I became deeply aware of the contrast of my vision of Korinn executing a sinuous, graceful set of moves looking like a cross between the Hindu Goddess Durga and Kylie Minogue, while I, in attempting the same set of moves, looked like a senile orangutan with three herniated discs.  One's internal voice can be so cruel sometimes!

Besides SS and myself there was one other complete novice and at the end the three of us were soundly applauded by the rest of the class.  The class was a thorough delight with an inspirational instructor and a group of friendly people of a very wide age range.  We have four more classes so watch for updates!

The garden wakes up...

Drum stick primroses are springing up,

Tulips are coming out,

the magnolia is blossoming,

and Hazel is buffing her claws on the quince tree!

Recent Reads

Kate Atkinson's When Will There be Good News is an absolute gem.  This is the 3rd Ms. Atkinson novel I have read and the 2nd featuring investigator Jackson Brodie.  She has a way with dialogue and her general prose which brings to mind words flowing as easily as water pours over a waterfall.  She has a great sense of humor and of character without brooding or noir-ish cliches. Everything I have read of hers has been refreshing and gripping, so much so that I don't want to get to the end as soon as I do!  

Recent Reads

Jacqueline Winspear's latest Maisie Dobbs novel, Among the Dead.  The series is set in 1920s and 1930s London and while being a bit on the melodramatic side, is very readable and interesting.  Ms. Winspear is an ex-pat Brit living in California.  She certainly seems to do a huge amount of research for these books.  Either that or she's making it all up - not a crime amongst novelists.