Two weeks ago, environmental activist, author and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, came to the Portland US District courthouse to join a midday demonstration “marking the two-year anniversary of the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court ruling that gave corporations unprecedented power to fund political campaigns,” according to a story in the Portland Phoenix. “City councilor Dave Marshall recently submitted a resolution that calls on Maine’s congressional delegation to support a constitutional amendment abolishing the so-called ‘corporate personhood’ codified by the ruling. ‘We simply can’t win the battle against carbon if politics remains polluted by corporate money,’ McKibben says.” Dave Marshall’s resolution was indeed passed that Thursday night. The city council of Portland voted 6-2 to call on the state’s congressional delegation to support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing “corporate personhood.” [Here's a good roundup of the issue from CommonDreams.org]

McKibben went on to give a lecture that Friday evening at the Westbrook Performing Arts Center hosted by the University of New England entitled, “Local and Global: Notes from the Frontlines of the Climate Fight.” [Here's the video of the talk.] That talk is being broadcast today on MPBN’s Speaking in Maine public affairs program.

Now Portland likes corporations just fine, but we like living and working to be in balance. We like our people to be people and our corporations to be corporations.

In fact, a lot of the companies that are attracted to Maine, and to the Portland area in particular, are trying to create solutions to the kinds of problems McKibben addresses in his most recent book, Eaarth, Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.  ReVision Energy, Ocean Approved Kelp, Ocean Renewable Power, all presented at this year’s Juice 3.0 conference and are all based in Portland. Other Portland green businesses listed on the Maine Businesses for Sustainability include Blue Reserve Water, PDT Architects, Wright-Ryan Construction, and Coffee by Design. A great resource for local services with green practices is the new green business directory from The Sunrise Guide.

McKibben’s talk was Skyped live around the State to Belfast, Bangor, Houlton, and the Portland Public Library. Bill said he has been to all of these places, but this “is a very low carbon way to get around Maine!” He apologized, in advance for being, “a professional bummer-outer of people,” but then went on to tell what we can all do to make things better. He praised Maine’s initiatives in the local food movement and Portland’s permaculture efforts during the 10.10.10 day of action, but he also said we need to do more.

In particular, McKibben thinks that the injection of money into politics is crippling our government’s ability to make any substantive changes in our energy future. ”I gave a little talk at the Portland courthouse today,” he said, “because there was a demonstration to mark the second anniversary of the Citizens United thing that sort of opened up fully the money spigots for corporate America to interfere in our political life. And this is just cheating. If the Patriots make the Super Bowl, and Bob Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, is caught giving money to the referees beforehand, it’s a national scandal. Everybody would be outraged, but if Exxon does it, then it’s OK. That’s crazy and we’ve got to stop it, right now.”

McKibben speaks from the deep Yankee tradition (see my discussion with Colin Woodard in relation to this). In fact, in 2010 he wrote a series of articles for Yankee Magazine subtitled How New England Can Save the World. And he was clearly speaking to a receptive audience that night in Westbrook, “The thing that keeps us from fixing things is our cynicism. This is how it’s always going to be. We need to be aggressively naive about this. I think we need to say, ‘This is not right, it’s not fair, it makes no sense. We don’t know how it got started, but it’s time to stop it.’ And we won’t stop it perfectly and all at once, but hopefully we can at least throw a scare into them. So we’re going to have people all over the country and they’re going to be following around their congressman with big signs pointing out how much money they’ve taken. And we’re going to be making up suit coats for them that look like those uniforms that nascar drivers wear, with decals, logos, for each of their companies. It’s shameful what’s going on and there needs to be some shaming done.”

Bill is not a naturally outgoing person and he has taken the mantle of activist leader somewhat reluctantly. In many ways, like many creatives, he would rather sit in his room and write. But there’s clearly something about the momentum of social engagement, and 350.orgs surprising victories, that keeps him going. Returning at the end of his talk to the theme of local foods he concluded, ”The secret is to have more fun than other people have, and part of that involves eating delicious, good things close to home, and frankly i think we’ve reached the point that i’m going to stop so I can eat some of them!”

The Boston/New York face-off in the Super Bowl got me thinking about Portland in relation to those two urban centers of gravity. Many creative professionals here maintain ongoing ties with one or both, and culturally they are quite distinct. Although I’ve lived here for seven years—and although I’m not a sports fan—I find myself rooting for the Giants. Ex-New Yorkers can even think that their urbanity has had a pervasive effect on Portland, but in truth, Portland has probably changed them more than they have changed Portland. To get to the bottom of this struggle for identity—this battle for the soul of Portland—I consulted Colin Woodard, author of American Nations. And like many New Yorkers before me, I tried to change his New England mind and he ended up changing mine.

Q:What is the theory behind American Nations and which Nation is the City of Portland part of?

A: American Nations argues that there has never been one America, but rather several Americas. The original colonial clusters were founded by people with distinct ethnographic and religious characteristics, ideals, values, and political and societal goals. Throughout the colonial period they saw each other as competitors and sometimes as enemies, fighting on opposite sides of the English Civil War and the American Revolution. They colonized mutually exclusive portions of the middle region of our continent, laying down the cultural DNA that subsequent immigrants have confronted as the “dominant culture” around them.

Maine, including Portland, is part of Yankeedom, the Greater New England cultural space established by the early Puritans.

Q: The Super Bowl on Sunday pits the New England Patriots (representatives of Yankeedom) against the New York Giants. What “Nation” do the Giants represent?

A: New Netherland, the Dutch-founded area around New York City, to include northern New Jersey, western Long Island, Westchester and Fairfield counties. Established by the Dutch at a time when the Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world, New Netherland has displayed its salient characteristics throughout its history: a global commercial trading culture— multiethnic, multireligious, and materialistic—with a profound tolerance for diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry and conscience.

Q: Portland has become multiethnic, multireligious and tolerant of diversity (not sure about materialistic) due to the influx of Africans, Asians—and New Yorkers. Plus we have great bagels, a tattoo parlor from Brooklyn, and lots of first-rate writers and other creatives that have moved here from New York. As an ex-New Yorker myself, I have to ask, what does it take to overthrow the “dominant culture” of a city?

A: All that could be said of Boston, Arlington, Charleston or, indeed, London. Don’t confuse the trappings of contemporary urbanity with “New Netherlandishness.” Portland’s food, art, and culture scenes  owe their existence to transplants from many places, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire and other parts of Maine. That’s not to say New Yorkers haven’t enriched our city, but one can overestimate their contribution.

The dominant culture in Portland has been Yankee ever since the Casco Bay area was first colonized in the 1650s, the decade after the English Civil War. While New Netherlanders have much to be proud of, there are important virtues of this Yankee culture. There’s an emphasis on community — rather than individual — good, and a strong social taboo regarding flashy displays of wealth, privilege, and power that is almost entirely alien to Gotham. There is, indeed, an emphasis on cultural conformity — at some level, Yankee culture expects outsiders to melt into the pot, as it were — but its also a culture programmed by the Puritans to improve itself through civic institutions and engagement.

Many affluent, big city professionals have who’ve come and helped invigorate our city have builtupon foundations laid decades and, in some respects, centuries ago. It would be a mistake to assume that Yankees – and indeed, Mainers — haven’t played a central role in the creation of contemporary Portland. (I point your readers to one of my previous works, The Lobster Coast, for more on this.) In short, you wouldn’t want to overthrow the dominant culture of Greater Portland. It’s what makes the city work in the first place.

Q: So you think that urbanites from New York and all the other metros are attracted to Portland in good measure because of the qualities of Yankeedom—emphasis on community, lack of materialism, value on civic engagement—that are expressed in here? And all that New Netherlandish stuff are just superficial trappings that have—in fact—embedded themselves in many metros without changing the essential character of those places?

A: Urbanites are drawn to Portland for many of the reasons pointed out in your website. Every “nation” has cities with different characteristics and attributes (compare and contrast Paris and Marseilles, for instance), but the dominant culture does have a powerful background effect. So, yes, there are Yankee cultural features at the foundation of what people celebrate about Portland.  New Netherlanders — and Left Coasters, Midlanders, Irish, French, Greeks, Serbs and Somalis — have enriched our city, but the dominant culture remains. That, indeed, is why we call it “dominant.”

Q: Point taken. So who do you think will win the Super Bowl?

The Patriots. (Where’s that other team from? Unlike the Mets and Knickerbockers, their team colors aren’t the orange blue and white of the old Dutch Republic.)

Were there bakeries in Portland before Standard Baking opened its doors in 1995? Of course there were, but it feels like Standard has, well, set the standard for a constantly expanding class of artisan bakers throughout town. (Creative Portland’s Andy Graham remembers the bread when he arrived in the 70s was, in fact, being pretty dismal.)

Today, Portland is renowned far and wide for its baked goods. Just ask Bon Appetit, or Road Food authors Jane and Michael Stern, or FoodieMommy. But don’t spend too much time reading about our amazing bakeries. Instead, come here and enjoy what we enjoy, including…

Big Sky Bread, milling wheat and turning out delectable loaf after loaf in Woodford’s Corner for close to twenty years.

Borealis Breads, with cheese ficelles to die for, and a strong commitment to Maine grain farmers.

Katie Made Bakery, where the cheesecakes and pies overflow with love.

158 Pickett Street (aka One Fifty Ate), at the SMCC campus in South Portland, with legendary sourdough bagels worth crossing the bridge for.

Micucci’s Grocery, where baker Stephen Lazalotta has set up shop in the back, producing luna breads that are snatched up the minute they appear on the racks.

Scratch Baking Co., in South Portland’s Willard Square, where each day of the week brings different specialty breads.

Two Fat Cats Bakery, where the pies cry out to you, yearning to come home with you and meet your family.

Rosemont Market, three branches and counting, great baguettes, whole wheat scala and the closest thing to a New York bagel.

And that’s not even mentioning Mr. Bagel, or The European, or Good East Boutique, or Bakery on the Hill, or East End Cupcakes, or, or –

‘Nuff said. Time to eat.

Big Sky Bread

Two Fat Cats

How many times do we actually ask you to do anything on this blog? Our tone is usually more of an invitation to enjoy the pleasures of Portland or a suggestion of someone you might be interested in meeting. We’re not really about action items—but here’s one!

At this month’s Portland Greendrinks event, on the second Tuesday (January 10) at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies (561 Congress Street) Sean Sullivan from Bowdoin College will be filming for a video about career opportunities in Maine. He will be asking people their name, what they do in Portland and why they love living and working in Portland (and Maine). The footage will be used first for a video “to entice Bowdoin, Bates and Colby students to attend the Maine Based Employers Career Fair (prevent the brain drain!), which Bowdoin is putting on to feature opportunities available in Maine.” But since this also fits in rather neatly with the mission of Creative Portland, we will probably find uses for the footage of Portland-loving people too.

For extra incentives (and to highlight sustainable transportation in Portland), Sean has procured 3 free bike tune ups from Allspeed Cycles (that will be distributed at random to participants) and a discount code (for all participants) that waives the membership fee and gives $10 worth of free time from UCarShare ($35 value).

And for all you architects and interior designers out there, the event is co-sponsored by SMRT, the 125 year old Portland based architectural project management company.

So please, help Maine, help Portland and come to Greendrinks with a face and a soundbite to let the world know why you love Portland!

Much of what makes Portland such a cool city derives from the first half of our name. We are a port, perched on the Atlantic Ocean. Because of that, we are utterly unlike, say, Waltham or Austin or Chapel Hill. With ports come piers and wharves. Facing the waterfront from Portland’s Commercial Street, you can count ten wharves from left to right, each with its own character. So as we prepare to ring in the New Year, lets sing out the praises of these fingers into the sea:

1. Maine State Pier is the most heavily used, since it houses the Casco Bay Lines, whose ferries link Portland to islands across Casco Bay. Come here to watch boats pulling in and out, as seagulls wheel overhead.
2. Next door is Maine Wharf, a true working pier. It’s home to businesses such as Morrison’s Maine Course (wholesalers of seafood specialties), Chase Leavitt (maritime services since 1854), the water taxi (to get a private lift across the bay) and the sea tow (to get your boat back to port when you run out of gas).
3. Custom House Wharf houses Sea Bags, where old sails are recycled into beautiful tote bags, and The Porthole, which many claim has the best breakfast in town. But it’s most known for Harbor Fish Market, perhaps the finest of its kind on the East Coast. “Iconic” + “Maine” = “Harbor Fish Market.”
4. To its right is Portland Pier, a curious mix of J’s Oyster House, small law firms, some condos – and New Meadows Lobster, at the far end.
5. Beside that is Long Wharf. Hardly a wharf, this is more of a huge parking lot, with an adjacent marina and DiMillo’s Restaurant, a converted car-ferry-turned-high-end-eatery.
6. Chandler’s Wharf is exclusively upscale condominiums. You probably don’t come here unless you live here.
7. Widgery Wharf is the real thing, unchanged for decades, chockablock with lobster boats, lobster traps, lobster processors, and a smell to remind you how authentic a town Portland really is.
8. Adjacent is Union Wharf, perhaps the most diverse along the waterfront. You’ll find the Maine Life Raft & Inflatable Service Company, an architecture firm, lobster businesses, the Nine Stones Spa, and the Maine Responder, a large vessel dedicated to cleaning up oil spills if/when they occur (she spent five months in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010).
9. Like the other piers, Merrill’s Wharf has lobster boats tied up along its perimeter. But it also has a warehouse recently gutted and refurbished to house one of the state’s largest and most venerable law firms, Pierce Atwood.
10. Portland Fish Pier (aka Merchants Wharf), the last in the line, is a mega-pier that is home to, among others, the Harbor Master, the Portland Fish Exchange (where daily auctions set the price for seafood locally),  social investment non-profit Coastal Enterprises, and the offices of U.S. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree.

A world unto themselves, Portland’s piers and wharves, sometimes unnoticed and uninvestigated, are your gateway to this unique city by the bay. Make a New Year’s resolution to visit them all.

Photo of Merrills Wharf by John Spritz

As Christmas descends on Maine, it is amusing to meditate on how our mania for making shapes the season. Portland writer Caitlin Shetterly, whose book Made for You and Me documented a failed Californian relocation effort as the recession hit in 2008, has a tonic tale for everyone suffering for post DIY Christmas trauma. Her story, The Christmas Cookies from Hell (and 6 Reasons They Might Be Worth It) on Oprah.com, tells the tale of a unique family recipe for Penobscot Bay Ginger Cookies that maddeningly never quite turns out right—until the last batch. And that glimpse of perfection keeps her and her husband Dan coming back year after year to attain the elusive alchemy of butter and flour, molasses and ginger. The holidays are a time for lofty ideals rarely attained—peace on earth, good will towards man—but also a reminder of our will to make things right, to sculpt the fleeting flux, to be ourselves in what we do. Apparently the cookies taste pretty good too!

For many Portlanders, our Farmers’ Market is just about the best thing in town. Twice a week from April to November, more than 30 farmers descend on Portland, and we get the benefit of fresh, local produce and meats from across Maine.

Come December, the whole operation just moves indoors, to the Maine Irish Heritage Center (the former St. Dominic’s Church). Starting this past weekend, the Portland Winter Farmers’ Market is open every Saturday morning, with farmers hailing from Sumner, Dresden, Etna, Greenwood, Unity, Bethel, up and down the Pinetree State.

This week, your correspondent saw an array of celeriac, Manchego cheese, duck eggs, fingerling potatoes, rabbit pot pie, bunches of winterberries, Anadama bread, cider, sunchokes, bagels, honey, feta marinade, and a colorful bounty of carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, squash, garlic and more. Over on the stage, a fiddler and guitar duo serenaded the crowd with old-timey music. Kids ran around, parents mulled purchases, old friends reconnected, and pretty soon bags were stuffed with the makings of many delectable dinners to come.

Make your way to the big brick church at State and Gray streets any Saturday morning over the next few months, and join the foodie fray.

Photos by John Spritz. Top: Fishbowl Farm

Common Wealth Farm purveys free range duck and chicken eggs…and bagels.

A farmer’s market inside a former church basement? Well, why not?

Soaps, cheeses, and jams from Nezinscot Farm.

The Pickle Jar Defenders playing away.

We usually expect to get some high-profile press coverage about where to eat and drink in Portland in time for the summer folk, but hey, this is December! Yesterday, GQ published chef Rob Evans’ list of 10 culinary destinations all within walking distance of his Hugo’s/Duckfat empire. And just the day before, The Boston Globe came out with a piece by Johnathan Levitt on Maine’s New Drinking Culture.

True, it has been uncommonly mild. Maybe it’s global warming, or maybe Portland is just not as cold as people think it is. Whatever the reason, we’ve certainly become a year-round destination for foodies and these two articles do add a few new spots to the map.

Evans calls out Petite Jacqueline, Boda Thai, Otto Pizza and Emilitsa on Congress Street. Then he hangs a right and goes down Fore Street for the new Miyake, Gorgeous Gelato and, of course, Fore Street. Finally, he heads north for a nightcap at Novare Res Bier Café, dessert at Bresca and after-hours Jell-O shots at Sangillo’s.

Photographer and gastronome Johnathan Levitt decided to forgo the food and go right for the beverages. He has cocktails and conversations with the mix masters at The Grill Room, Hugo’s and Blue Spoon and samples the cider and mead at the Urban Farm Fermentory. Levitt then drives north to Freeport for the Cold River vodka and gin at Maine Distilleries before venturing to the midcoast for Oxbow Brewery in Newcastle and Three Tides Bar in Belfast.

The best quote is from John Myers of The Grill Room in The Globe, “When I told a friend of mine in D.C. that I was heading up here [in 2002], he told me that Maine was the perfect place to be when the world ends. ‘Everything happens in Maine,’ he said. ‘It just takes five years to get there.’ The cocktail revolution is right on schedule.’’

Photo of cocktail at Hugo’s by Johnathan Levitt

Part of what makes Portland’s First Friday Art Walks so much fun is that they have no epicenter. As the crowd surges along Congress Street, with smaller group investigating eddies in the Old Port, the Place To Be shifts from one locale to the next. One sure thing: if you stroll enough, and walk through enough doors, wonderful things will happen.

Last night, the December Art Walk that leads up to the holidays, there was an extra energy in the air. You could sense it at Congress Square: on one side, the line snaked into the State Theater for The Fogcutters present Big Band Syndrome (Lauren Wayne posted a video of the finale of the show); the other side of the square featured the Portland Museum of Art (free on Friday nights) and their hypnotic show on classic Shaker artifacts. Meanwhile, in-between, Art Walkers trundled up the stairs of the Flat Iron Gallery, in the pie-slice-shaped Hay Building, to sip and chew and ruminate on Art, Life, and Living in Portland.

Another wonderful thing, as always, took place at Otto Pizza, a few steps down Congress Street. Your correspondent was among the many who stood happily on the sidewalk, waiting in line to purchase a slice of what many consider to be the finest pizza north of Boston (and now Otto is in Harvard Square, too!). When it comes in as ideal and manifold a presentation as Otto offers, pizza can crystallize the creative economy.

Outside Otto, the sidewalk mambo was wending its way down Congress Street to Space Gallery, with many a stop along the way. Inside Space, one of First Friday’s mainstays, there was music, there was art, there was laughter, there was drinking, there were jostling crowds and a buoyant sense of pleasure in the air. There was also an Alternative Gift Market where you could buy donations to a wide range of curated non-profits and deliver them in a selection of limited edition, hand printed cards designed by artists Beth Taylor, Erin Flett and Jacqueline Dubois.

If you prefer your art au plein air, you could step outside of Space onto the sidewalk, where an open-air truck had pulled up to the curb. Just climb the ramp into the truck’s back to observe the paintings hanging within.

The crowd kept surging, now on to the Maine College of Art. Every year, MECA combines their First Friday participation with a huge holiday sale of items by college students and alums. This year, three floors were given over to a cavalcade of holidazzles, and so the crowds were especially strong here. Among the (hundreds of?) tables and booths, there seemed to be a particular emphasis on recycled treasures: playing cards converted into wallets, umbrellas converted into aprons, stamps converted into earrings.

For those who needed to retreat from the gleeful cacophony of MECA, there was quieter contemplation at galleries where one could, for instance, admire scale models, photos, and blueprints celebrating the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Or, upstairs at Cross Jewelers, you could sample “tastings” of various hot cocoas. Then back out into the street and more galleries, more stores, more music.

Until, in the words of Samuel Pepys, one has turned First Friday into First Saturday, “and so to bed.”

Photos by John Spritz

Nobody writes poems about hardware stores. But if they did, Portland’s Maine Hardware would be a worthy subject.

In business since 1935, and on St. John Street since 1978, Maine Hardware is a paradise of practicality. At some point, everyone needs a hardware store, and at some point (or many points) each year, you’ll find yourself blissfully wandering this emporium’s aisles, examining and considering objects you never knew you needed.

If you’re fond of hardware stores elsewhere, rest assured, Maine Hardware fulfills the Four Basic Criteria For A World-Class Hardware Store:

1. Way too much parking.
2. Uniformed staff, each of whom can build or take apart an aircraft carrier.
3. Ridiculously extravagant selections of toilet seats, downspouts and chinking chains.
4. Free popcorn!

Entering the store, you see a circular checkout counter shaped like a 20-foot doughnut. Within, wizard-like staffers, many of whom have worked here for eons, process orders, hunt down arcane objects, and answer more questions than the New York Public Library. The countertop is chockablock with all manner of doodads: Timex watches, lip balm, sunglasses, balsa airplanes, lollipops, magnifying glasses, city maps, and dozens of other tchotchkes galore.

Off to your left is the Rental Place, stocked with a bewildering assortment of machines whose purpose one can only imagine. If it pulls, cuts, tamps, measures, drills, sands, tills, washes, or stretches, it’s here.

Over in the true hardware aisle (what they call “Fasteners”) are hundreds and hundreds of those cute little cardboard drawers, each holding its own trove of metallic goodies. Consider, for instance, the nut. There are separate drawers for breakaway nuts, cage nuts, cap nuts, castle nuts, expansion nuts, hex nuts, jack nuts, jam nuts, knurled nuts, lock nuts, push nuts, rack nuts, slotted nuts, spanner nuts, speed nuts, square nuts, T-nuts and the ever-popular wing nuts. Do you need a knurled nut? Maybe not, but if you do, this is the place.

Roam the aisles and discover acres of extension cords, tons of toilet plungers, legions of lengthy ladders. And when you leave – remember what George Harrison said, all things must pass – pay attention to the smile on your face. You’ve just been shopping, exposed to the beastly belly of American commerce, and you’re smiling. You’re happy, because you’ve been inside a top-notch hardware store. And isn’t that a fine thing?

Photo by John Spritz