TONIGHT! Strange Maine on WMPG

WHEN: Monday, May 16th from around 10:00pm to 11:00pm
WHERE: WMPG, 90.9 FM and 104.1 FM in the Greater Portland area, or listen online here to their streaming broadcast.
WHAT: DanK of the Random Thought Crime Generator show interviews me about the world of Strange Maine and the latest issue of the Gazette

Who knows what will surface? The show customarily features a mix of soundtracks, novelties, spoken word, experimental, and instrumentals from all genres, especially jazz, surf, and r&b, but the Strange Maine interview show creates a neat hybrid of these elements with extensive interview segments interspersed. Nifty dandy!!!

Tune in and check it out! Labels: maine, portland, radio show, strange maine gazette, wmpg

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Maine Ghost Hunters on WCSH6

Back at the beginning of March, the Maine Ghost Hunters visited the studios of WCSH-6 here in Portland to answer some questions on their morning show. Check it out!

Source: http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=150576 Labels: maine ghost hunters, video

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More Maine UFOs?

MUFON listed a new report from a Mainer this week, which occurred on May 7th, 2011. Unfortunately no area or location is mentioned, beyond a rural setting, so it could be anywhere:

I saw two bright lights out the window. The lights came from the east and headed west. It appeared to look like a jet headed for a landing in my driveway.

When I went outside, it changed direction towards my property which is in a rural area. I then noticed there were two sets of lights. As it got closer I could see two triangular shaped vessels. They were very close to each other. There was the sound of machinery, engine. But it was not like the sound of a jet engine, helicopter, prop plane or automobile. The air was still underneath it. It was not a very loud sound.

I called for my friend in the house to come out and see it. There were many white lights underneath. There were bright lights at each corner of the isosoles triangle. When looking up you could see inside the vessel. It appeared to be about 20 ft across. As you looked up into it seemed to be constructed like a pyramid. Inside the lights you could see geometric patterns.

Lights like search beams eminated from it. The light was very bright but not blinding. At one point the light fixated on me for a few seconds and the vessel continued on like what seemed to be a walking speed. As I stared up at the vessel I knew it was other worldly. It came in from the east and then proceeded south southwest.

(I have corrected a few minor and obvious single-letter typos for readability.)

Source: http://mufon.com/mufonreports.html

Back on April 22nd, another sighting was reported via MUFON, this time near Lewiston:

I took my dog out for some business about 12:10 this morning. I went out on my stoop and I always look at the sky. Having moved here a little over a year ago, I enjoyed the night sky because it had so many more stars than where I lived before.

I noticed what appeared to be a plane above and to my right. It had a couple of lights on, flashing but not going on and off. They seemed to twinkle more than flash. I assumed it was a plane and continued to watch the dog as she sniffed around. After a few seconds, I looked up again and there was one steady light. I thought I must have been mistaken about the additional lights and thought maybe it was a star. Then they came on again. It wasn't moving but it was hovering, and I realized after a minute or two that this was something unusual.

The lights flickered, and then it started moving extremely slowly toward me, with no sound at all. That freaked me out a little and I went inside. I looked out the window of the door, and I saw it moving side to side, slowly. Then it stopped and continued to flicker.

At first I thought it looked like it was a boomerang shape. But it could have been a disc. It definitely had an angle to it. It reminded me of a wedding band that had diamonds all around it. Like I said, they were white and flickered, sometimes all of them, sometimes a couple and sometimes just one.

It was hovering out towards Lewiston, ME and it was about the height and size of a plane. I watched for about 15 minutes, but because of it moving toward me, I decided to stop watching. It definitely gave me an eerie feeling. I've seen UFOs in the past (many years ago) and they didn't evoke that feeling in me. This just seemed different, maybe because I was by myself and it was so dark out. I watched the news hoping to hear of other reports, but so far there haven't been any. I thought I should mention it to someone. Thanks.

Labels: maine, ufo report

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Maine Talks... but how?

One fascination that folks seem to have with Maine is the so-called "Maine accent," which is liberally abused by actors from all over the place.

Mainer Tara Taylor did a bunch of research on the topic for her thesis project, which can be seen online at http://mainetalks.com/, and is called "Hahd Tellin' Not Knowin'"

The project itself takes the form of a massive Flash file, which will take some time to load and watch. But the end result is pretty neat. The page that loads gives you several options. You can listen and read about "The Dialect," "The Words" (there's a great vocabulary list), and "The People" who use them. For another melange of words and images, you can click on "The Place." All in all, it's a fun way to focus on the rhythm of speech that most of us here in Maine take for granted.

I realized when listening to her recorded interviews that I run across the Maine accent all the time, but being from here I don't think about it, my brain just fills in the blanks and accepts certain turns of phrase and pronunciations as normal. For me, they are normal. There's almost a tidal push and pull in the way Mainers talk that grows on you, and while it drives some folks from away nuts trying to decipher it, there are those of us that delight in it as a simple element of who everyone here is. Labels: maine accent, maine dialect

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