Articles
Barter Island
Down East Books, 2007 A Surfeit of Understanding Barter Island, a novel, is based on some of Peter Scott’s own experience on an island a lot like Isle au Haut. In this sequel to an earlier book, Something in the Water, Scott describes what happened back in the 1970s when hippies and Vietnam vets both
Two cookbooks
Stonewall Kitchen Favorites: Delicious Recipes to Share With Family and Friends Every Day Clarkson Potter, 2006 The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese By Jeffrey P. Roberts Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2007 The Truth About Good Food We New Englanders bump up against a Puritan cultural legacy: it should not feel good to feel good. And
B-20 and Be Green: Will biodiesel be the fuel of the future for Vinalhaven?
Listening to a conversation at a Vinalhaven party recently, I heard Ross Trainor describing, with gusto, how sometimes he smells just like clam baskets. I thought this was understandable because he lives near the Harbor Gawker restaurant with its always-busy fryolator. But the way he was talking about it also conveyed some sense of pride,
An Unexpected Forest
Camden, Maine: Down East Books, 2007. A fairy tale where dreams come true This novel, by Peaks Island resident Eleanor Morse, reads as a kind of fairy tale for adults, catching four people in the crux of personal crises. Horace Woodruff, a middle-aged but not yet ready to retire lawyer in Connecticut, has been fired
A generalization can get you into trouble
On Aug. 12 Vinalhaven made the news in an article in the New York Times titled, “When Conflict Washes Up On A Quiet Maine Island.” Conflict has surfaced here before, of course, as it does in any community. Maybe because of its small island setting, familiarity can breed both contempt and comfort. But to the
Seashells
Photographs by Josie Iselin & text by Sandy Carlson New York: Abrams, 2007. The Benificence of Beaches Calling to my nieces to go for a walk when they visit me on Vinalhaven, I ask, “Wanna go shopping?” They’ve learned that for me, island-bound, “shopping” means beachcombing. We give ourselves a list of what we’d like
The Trouble With Lobsters
When lobstermen began receiving crustacean demands in writing last spring, they thought of it as a joke. In an effort not to take any of it seriously, they claimed to be unable to read the handwriting. Lobsters were impugned as bad spellers, practically illiterate. All they were asking for was more respect. Well, that and
Sippewisset: Or, Life on a Salt Marsh
Chelsea Green, 2006 Home on the Marsh Tim Traver, a science writer, attempts the near-impossible with this first book. Consider the word “dumbstruck” and what it means: something hits us so hard that we are unable to find adequate words to describe it. Does this lead to an eventual effusion in an attempt at articulation?
When Collaborative Efforts Come Together
When the outside door of the Victorian-era Engine House on Main Street in Vinalhaven is open, it is an invitation to enter. You climb a steep and narrow wooden staircase, creaking underfoot, to the second floor, where you come into a high-ceiling workroom filled with light. The windows all around it invite perusing the world
Still Point
A current collaboration in Rockland provides the opportunity to enjoy the works of artist Bo Bartlett in two different venues, the Farnsworth Museum and Archipelago Gallery at the Island Institute, just steps apart. The Farnsworth features many large canvases, as well as several cases displaying sketches and journal entries. In what seems a curatorial choice,