Things I Learned Friday in Augusta Maine

1. 58 Winthrop Street This big apartment lodge on 58 Winthrop Street in Augusta Maine has 15 apartments. Mine only has 4.


2. Weather on Friday Friday was foggy or misty it was calender weather here in Augusta Maine. Beautiful and warm and foggy with church steeples everywhere. New New England. The leaves look like they're burning themselves off the trees.


3. Gas Station Art I'm selling out. Doing gas art now. Gas Fine Art. That's where the money is, gas. Gas Fine Art is smart. The next obvious thing.
(It's actually the new-old thing. Which started with the construction of U.S. Highways, and then freeways. And before that railway, Westward Expansion. European highway paintings. South American map murals on the sides of temples. Aztec calendars. Mounds.
Trying to figure out where you are, where your going, how you're going to get there. Who you are? Or Charlie Brown's question, "Why?!"
Or stay home and watch The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.)


4. I remembered There are no telephone poles in cities.

Augusta Maine Report, 101807: Colby Museum

1. Drove up I-95 I drove up to the Colby College Museum of Art before work today.


2. Miller-Library, wireless 'Street'& Colby card machine Colby College has a very New England feel. It might be because this is New England, USA.


3. NOONTIME ART TALK, 'High-
lights from the Lunder Collec-
tion,' 12:30 p.m., Colby College
Museum of Art; with Mirken Cu-
rator of Education Lauren Less-
ing; free lunch provided to the
first 40 attendees; 859-5608.


4. Alex Katz There is a wing filled with the work of Alex Katz. The museum has modern-style open galleries. And older parlour-style galleries; ironically in the recently added, Lunder, wing.


5. Alex Katz Wedding.


6. Colby College Museum of Art The entrance to the museum and the new Lunder Wing.


7. Drove down I-95 Drove back to Augusta Maine.


8. Tree: House The foliage in Augusta and in most of Central Maine is 50-75 percent peak, so they say.


9. Gas Station Decoration I thought the orange pumpkin garbage bags were a nice touch to the gas station's green washer fluid display.


10. Development on Western Avenue, Augusta Maine. (10/18/07)

The Events of Wednesday: Augusta Maine

1.Looked at Tree I looked at this tree for a couple minutes on Winthrop Street in Augusta Maine. I heard someone laugh while I was taking a picture. I looked over to a house. 'I can't imagine what you're doing,' a woman said.
'I'm taking a picture of the tree,' I said, and at the same time thinking she might not have an imagination.

2.Listened to Radio Wednesday, as nearly everyday, I listened to the radio (aka DXing). I listen to WCLZ 98.9, it might be the best station I've ever heard. And Fader Magazine has the best music podcasts; free.

Augusta Maine Report, 101607

1.Walk to Work I like the hours I work; late afternoon to late night. The hours allow me to have my own time during the day. (I can even go outside if I want.)
The hours don't synchronize well with events that I keep seeing in the newspaper though. Events that, most of them, I have to drive to get there.


2.Car of Arms I've been driving a lot. I'm waiting for a call for an office in Nottingham to tell me my coat of arms is now a 'car' of arms. My rampant lions with be replaced with a rampant Crown Vic & a rampant van.



Driving Culture Tim Hortons, a Canadian franchise of drive-thru coffee houses, is taking advantage of the driving culture by placing their 24-hour stores along I-95 throughout Maine. They also take advantage of the few walker by offering inside seating. They have chicken fajitas, and iced-coffee. They are close to work. I am hooked on their large iced coffee: 3 creams, 2 sugars.


Gas Station Are gas station attendants comparable to bank tellers? When will our gas trucks be led in armed convoys like the tankers in Iraq? Or have armed drivers, or someone riding shotgun?

Free Wireless Augusta Maine!

Information Gathering: I'd like to have an Internet connection without paying for a land telephone line or cable television. I think many people who don't own an 'antiquated' house phone or television would.
I've been using my truck as an information gatherer. Burning gas. Going places. Learning things. Unlearning other things, in other places.

Dear Augusta Maine,
If you want people to repopulate downtown, get free wireless public Internet like Philadelphia. I'm sure it would slowly draw people who were deciding whether to live in Manchester or Augusta, maybe even Gardiner. Maybe someone would even move here from Portland Maine? Free wireless downtown, Augusta Maine.
Thanks,
Mike

p.s. thanks for the lithgow library

Maine Self

Yeah, what is self? blah, blah, blah ... Different thing to different people, yadda, yadda, yadda ...
For instance, I recently watched the movie 'Borat' and discovered that I understood one of my past (Demon House) roommates and friend, Marc, a lot better. No, he wasn't from Kasikhstan. But he apparently loved the movie 'Borat' because the whole time I was watching the movie I felt like I was visiting with Marc. (Which saves me a lot on airfare since he lives in Mexico.) Damn you Marc and your movie catch phrases! Veeeeery Niiiiiice.
I guess you are created by what surrounds you, blah, blah, blah (maybe an old comic strip catch phrase?). And life is a journey to find yourself, yadda, yadda, yadda (Seinfeld catch phrase).


For more information about your self, here is a defunct self-portrait blog:
- Self Portrait Tuesday
And a blog of self-portrait blogs:
- Blogs About: Self Portrait

A Walk to the Maine State Museum: $2

A 2 cent euro I found in my pocket is only one of the things that made me secondthink all the crap my friends give me about the 'unworldliness' of Augusta, Maine. One of the other things might be the well-designed dioramas in Maine's State Library, Museum & Archives. (Also, our K-Mart.)
I stopped to stare at a pile of red leaves in the green grass. I heard some cars pass behind me. They must have thought I was insane. I know I've done the same thing in D.C. and other places before, stood in awe at the beauty of natural things, but it seems more dramatic here in Maine, New England, USA. We're surrounded by trees.


From my house to the State Museum is only a five minute walk. They recently started charging Augusta residents for admission, but according to a brochure, it had been free until a few months ago. But the library is nearly worldclass, minus a coffee shop.


A Tribute to Tim Davis' 'Permanent Collection': I decided to do a tribute to Tim Davis' body of work entitled 'Permanent Collection'. It is a cool piece. Many will think differently, but I love both the procurement of others' art and the blatant use of flash. My friend Andy McMillan described him as essentially 'punk rock.' Dig it.
I overheard some parents and presumably grandparents trying to explain the difference between 'real' and 'alive' to their young museumgoer. It was as interesting as the Maine wildlife exhibit.
By the way, the first moose I've seen so far was here, in the Maine State Museum. Hey, it wasn't alive, but it was real!


Better-than-Smithsonian Dioramas: The dioramas at the Maine State Museum are better than the Smithsonian's, really. One of them is the inside of an old water-powered mill; it is a three-story sculpture.
Again, the things I overheard were as interesting as the exhibits themselves. I heard some museumgoers in the 'Made in Maine' exhibit telling their youngsters about their older relatives (who I think were neither 'alive' nor, hopefully not in the taxidermical sense, 'real') who had worked in the very mills and industries that the dioramas depicted.
Two older couples talked about whether it was rich people who used to have horses for riding, or if it was those who couldn't afford tractors. 'Geez, this is a magnificent museum,' an older man said. 'It is a magnificent magician ... museum,' said an older woman. 'The AAA Magazine called this museum a gem.'
And with those words Augusta, Maine is immediately shot back into the 1950s.


The Strange and Amazing!, step this way: Two of the strangest displays:
-Two moose heads 'stuck in a rut,' 'locked antlers.' These two moose were found this way, died in combat after being locked together in an eternal war. Crazy Maine Moose.
-A chair made of antlers and hides. It was in the Maine Stathouse, and hunters would come and touch it for luck. (I had a chair like that made out of poodles.) Crazy Maine Hunters.

The Boring Events of Saturday

1.Farmers' Market: Went to it.


2.Cut Up Things: To eat them.


3.Recycled: Recycled cans at the grocery store.


4.Marvelled At: The engineering of the recycling machines seem amazing to me.


5.Marvelled At: The engineering ability of my local grocer seems amazing to me.


6.Passing the Augusta Airport: Had the thought to drag race planes down the runway.

Augusta Maine Report, 101107

1.Development on Western Avenue in Augusta, Maine (Oct. 12, 2007)


2.Fireplace Weather: It's been mild and rainy in Augusta, Maine the past couple days. It's beautiful weather if you have a good jacket or umbrella. (Umbrellas are OK here, because you have less of an opportunity to poke someone in the eye as you would in a more pedestrian-friendly place.)
The weather is great depending on what your tastes are. (Paper or Plastic?) It would be nice to have a fireplace, or a camp fire.


Auto-Composting: With the help of the sliding rear window in the back of my truck cab, I was going to start a compost pile of apples cores and grapefruit peels in the bed. I'm still working out the bugs, literally; keep in the microbes, of course. I am starting this truck compost in an effort to make my truck more environmentally friendly.

(My photos finally ran for the Flip Cup story in the Express if you're in D.C. grab one.)

Chaos, Catastrophe, and National Destiny ...

Speaker Circuit: I'm thinking about joining the 'speaker circuit.' It's similar to the 'art gallery circuit.' Last night I went to a talk by Jason Opel, Colby College assistant history professor. It was called, 'Chaos, Catastrophe, and National Destiny: Early Jamestown in Global Perspective.' Free class; well worth it.


7 p.m., 101007, Waterville Public Library, Maine: (I thought that I was new to the lecturer circuit, but I guess I'm not. I went to a lecture by a well-know photographer Tim Davis maybe a year ago at D.C.'s Bridge Street Books. My friend Andy McMillan pointed me out at the back of a Tim Davis photo, in one of his projects called, 'My Audience'. Cool. That's me in the back.)

Outline:
Chaos, Catastrophe, and National Destiny: Early Jamestown in Global Perspective
Introduction: What's in an anniversary?
I.A Sequence of Events
- The Company and its miscalculations
- Laws Divine, Moral, and [especially] Martial
- Towards slavery
II.Chaos: Masterless Men, 'Blackymore Maids,' and Black Dogs
- Discovering the Ocean
- Redefining Property
- 'A Prison Without Walls'
III. Catastrophe: Lost Colonies, Shipwrecks, and ELEs*
- 'I dare to say it'
- Rats, pigs, and pathogens
- War without mercy
IV. National Destiny: 'This Blessed Plot' and its promoters
- Protestant Nationalism
- The 'Black Legend'
- When the Crown took over
Conclusion: Taking the Step


Some Interesting Points:
Chaos: Virginia was a giant tobacco plantation used to cleanse London of Irish and blacks.
Catastrophe: Over the course of a century smallpox, finding its way into pockets of communities, kills 90 percent of the Native American population. Bermuda, the result of a shipwreck, is one of the most successful colonies.
National Destiny: Protestants invent nationalism. The creation of the Church of England took away the umbrella that united much of the world under Catholicism.


Historical Accuracy: After the lecture, finding a visual aid within arms reach on the children videos shelf of the Waterville Public Library, Opal discussed the historical accuracy ... of history.
My Conclusion: In an attempt to learn something, I did.
As Nancy Hill, a member of the Maine Development Foundation, told me after the discussion, 'If you're going to move to a small town it has to have a college in it.'

*Extinction Level Events

1st D.C. Visitors

I saw Sandi and Jason last night. Sandi is Corcoran College graduating class of 2006, me too. She and her boyfriend Jason are up here from D.C. visiting Jason's parents for a week. We three went to Hattie's Chowder House and the Liberal Cup, in Hallowell, Maine. At the Liberal Cup they make their own beer. It's nice.
What did we talk about? Mooses, D.C., New England, the velocity of similar rounds from different grained cartridges. This is Maine.