July/August 2011 To celebrate Portland Magazine’s first 25 years, and to get ready for the next 25, I deep-cleaned my desk. Until I reached my lower left-hand drawer, that is, where I keep tokens that defy filing to such a degree that their only commonality is...
Summerguide 2011 I’m driving behind a New Mexico license plate–yellow with red letters in celebration of how much sunshine they enjoy in the great American Southwest. “If you love your ‘Land of Enchantment’ so much,” I laugh, “what brings you to Vacationland?” Because...
May 2011 I love Thursdays. You can see the weekend ahead through your windshield. The world is at your doorstep. Thursday is that hush before the curtain rises. The starter’s gun is up. Ready, set? Come to think of it, that’s why I love May, too. Dylan Thomas has a...
April 2011 “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”* “Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”** To celebrate the silver anniversary of Portland Magazine’s April 1986 debut–for which I’m so deeply grateful to our...
February/March 2011 What a blast to crack open the Washington Post’s Metro section and run into breathless posturing (even lecturing!) about how the Sidecar should properly be served. The cocktail has as many inventors as baseball, ice cream, or Facebook, but here’s...
Winterguide 2011 By Colin W. Sargent We’re eating crab cakes in Todd Jurich’s Bistro in Norfolk, Virginia, when the waiter drops us with, “These are made with fresh crab from Maine.” But this is Crabtown, USA! “Chesapeake Bay crabs go dormant from December through...
December 2010 By Colin W. Sargent “Lady Gaga, meet the ghost of Lucky Lindy” ran like quicksilver through my brain when I heard the lady in question had chosen Deering Oaks as the perfect place in Maine to make a speech. That’s because famed aviator Charles Lindbergh...
November 2010 During the holidays we often catch ourselves looking in the mirror, but if you happen to bump into your reflection in a Federal gilt and eglomise mirror with a label emblazoned with James Todd Looking Glass Manufactory, Exchange Street, Portland, you’ve...
October 2010 Standing in line at San Francisco Airport, I was asked by an attendant, “What is your destination, sir?” “Portland,” I said proudly. “Oregon?” he asked. “Maine!” “Oh,” he said. He waved me to the line marked "International Flights." When I indignantly...
September 2010 If you discover a painting in your attic with strikingly remote human figures in it, don’t throw it away. It might be a Fairfield Porter (1907-1975). As Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes writes, “There was always an awkwardness to Porter’s...
July / August 2010 If Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! ever treated us to the lore and legends of the Kennebunk River, they’d lead with the strange case of the Ocean King. Launched for Nathaniel Lord Thompson at the present site of Federal Jack’s in 1874, the 215.5-foot...
Summerguide 2012 The unconsidered state is not worth visiting. Looking for a post-midnight cocktail? Hit up Grace for their five-alarm, jalapeño-infused tequila concoction (aptly named the “Heated Affair”). Or how about a casual celebrity encounter? Stroll the...
