Speaker 1: Pushkin Southwest again with the Southwest. Who knows their cardinal
Speaker 1: directions when they're visiting a town. They should change these
Speaker 1: voices like they should get like actors to Oh my God,
Speaker 1: imagine Jeremy Irons giving a direction that sounds that came
Speaker 1: too quickly, Danielle, imagine Jeremy Iren't telling you what to do.
Speaker 1: This is not lost. I'm Brendan Francis Newnham, an audio
Speaker 1: journalist based in New York. That's Daniel Henderson. She writes
Speaker 1: for Hollywood. Each episode, I go someplace with a friend
Speaker 1: to make a travel podcast, and to really get a
Speaker 1: sense of that place, I try to get invited to
Speaker 1: someone's home for dinner. Today's destination Portland, Maine. If there
Speaker 1: was a list of cities on the most lists, Portland,
Speaker 1: Maine would be on top. It's on Voter's Best Places
Speaker 1: to Travel in twenty twenty list, US News and World
Speaker 1: Reports Top twenty five places to Live list, Bonapati's Top
Speaker 1: Restaurant town list, and it's on my list of places
Speaker 1: I'd go if I gave up life in the Big
Speaker 1: Apple as a kid, I vacationed in nearby Cape Cod
Speaker 1: so I find the rugged new England coastline oddly soothing.
Speaker 1: Plus the whole area feels so appealingly literary to me,
Speaker 1: and not just because it has great turtleneck weather, but
Speaker 1: because it's been home to eb White, Thurreau and Henry Longfellow.
Speaker 1: And as someone who wish to see Rote Moore and
Speaker 1: definitely like Sacca turtleneck, I dig that. So we're at
Speaker 1: this lighthouse, We're on this kind of you know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a there's pathways and cliff walks and you know,
Speaker 1: jagged rocks meeting the ocean and waves crashing against them.
Speaker 1: The water's bonkers today. It's really violent out there. It's
Speaker 1: really churning out there today. I'm gonna go over there
Speaker 1: because I feel like I can get a good Instagram
Speaker 1: shot over there. I mean, this is I don't know
Speaker 1: why influencers aren't coming here on mat Danielle and I
Speaker 1: are on Cape Elizabeth, an outdoor area at the entrance
Speaker 1: of Casco Bay, the body of water Portland sits on.
Speaker 1: It's blustery, drizzly, overcast, and the sky looks like an
Speaker 1: oyster show. Portland, by the way, named after Portlandia, which
Speaker 1: is not an Old English word that means satirical sketch
Speaker 1: show about hipsters. But it is an old English word
Speaker 1: that means land across the harbor, so I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: meet him under the lighthouse. I feel like it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a detective story, like a Graham Green story.
Speaker 1: Being that the coast and literature are two of the
Speaker 1: main things that attract me to Portland. I thought we
Speaker 1: started our trip with the combination of the two. So
Speaker 1: I invited a local poet to me this year. There.
Speaker 1: He is Steve Idea Danelle. When I first got here,
Speaker 1: I thought, Gee, this is really crowded for this time
Speaker 1: of year. But then when I saw the waves and
Speaker 1: all that, I figured out that's probably why is it
Speaker 1: not always this dramatic here. It's not like this every day.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've been here from New York City.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, beautiful, Maine, it is utiful. I agree.
Speaker 1: My name is Steve Latreelle, and I present myself as
Speaker 1: an existential entity in the early twenty first century. That's
Speaker 1: what I do. I do poetry. You're born and raised here.
Speaker 1: Why why did you stay in Portland? Well I didn't.
Speaker 1: I actually left and went out to San Francisco because
Speaker 1: there was a lot of people of my generation doing that.
Speaker 1: I traveled around and then came back to me because
Speaker 1: I couldn't find a place that I liked any better.
Speaker 1: So the lighthouse, Yeah, is that too obvious a symbol
Speaker 1: as a beacon for people to come from coming to Portland, Maine?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I would say it's yeah, yeah. I guess
Speaker 1: the short answer as yes, you've been a line through
Speaker 1: it with Red pen Well. Yeah, you know the lighthouse,
Speaker 1: Longfellow's House, the taide House, the museum about those are
Speaker 1: probably the top four or five, you know, spots where
Speaker 1: people coming from away want to go. I wonder it
Speaker 1: seems like Portland is there's a lot of arts flour
Speaker 1: share there are for a small city. We're very fortunate
Speaker 1: to have some wonderfully talented people, not just writers, but
Speaker 1: musicians and painters. Maybe we can have you read some
Speaker 1: of your poems. This poem is entitled coming to the four.
Speaker 1: How often I have looked to see this river in
Speaker 1: it's moving toward this harbor from a hillside down across
Speaker 1: this river's mouth, one can see the scope of it,
Speaker 1: how it opens out and curves around behind the small
Speaker 1: squad lighthouse. Wow, it's beautiful. That is beautiful. Even though
Speaker 1: you are an existential being, you're also a poet. Laureate,
Speaker 1: I was the poet Lauria to Portland. How does that happen?
Speaker 1: What is what are the steps that do you submit yourself?
Speaker 1: Do you ask me if I would be that? And
Speaker 1: I agree, special license plate or something? No? No, But
Speaker 1: it wasn't honor, you know. I mean, to be honored
Speaker 1: by the city was nice. And you know, my teacher,
Speaker 1: my mentor was the late Robert Creeley, Bob Creeley. I
Speaker 1: always just to tell me, Steve, the only reason to
Speaker 1: make a poem is because you have to, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I mean, I do this. I get
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night and run down
Speaker 1: stairs to write three lines because it occurs to being
Speaker 1: in a moment of whatever to do so. And that's
Speaker 1: really it, I mean. And that's if you can take
Speaker 1: that from the activity, then then you're okay. But if
Speaker 1: you're looking for more than that, you could get into
Speaker 1: deep waters. I do a investion to make Portland kind
Speaker 1: of does reside as a plan by in my head
Speaker 1: because because I can't afford anything in New York in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: people fantasize about moving to Portland. It has become this
Speaker 1: like ideal of like, oh, just if I can make
Speaker 1: it there, my life will be calmer. We'll be able
Speaker 1: to raise my children with fresh air. Right, you talk
Speaker 1: to the people that have been here for generations in
Speaker 1: the way that comes up as gentrification because it is
Speaker 1: so beautiful and so livable that people are coming from
Speaker 1: places that are a lot more expensive to live in
Speaker 1: and you know, livable, but not to the same pace.
Speaker 1: So just one last question, so longfellow. I think his
Speaker 1: first collection was called The Seaside and the Fireside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I'm not I wouldn't swear to that,
Speaker 1: but that sounds right. What is your fireside life like
Speaker 1: in Portland? Like? What do you do at the after
Speaker 1: you're writing your poems? Because part of our our show
Speaker 1: ideas we go to these places, we meet people, but
Speaker 1: to get the real sense of place, we need to
Speaker 1: break bread with them, right right, Well, you know the weekends,
Speaker 1: I generally I got a little cabin I go to
Speaker 1: So Okay, so no we can't. We can't have a
Speaker 1: dinner party your house. See no next game though, alright, check,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll take it with bad weather in the
Speaker 1: forecast for pretty much our whole visit. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling I'm going to leave town with a lot of
Speaker 1: uncash rain checks. I was into Steve's that we didn't
Speaker 1: get to say. He was wearing a rich mustard corduroy
Speaker 1: jacket so sweet, Doc ciders, an incredible tweet hat, a
Speaker 1: gold hoop earring, one singular, I know, just a little
Speaker 1: rock and roll, long, long gray hair, like if Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders grew out his hair. Oh he did well in
Speaker 1: San Francisco in nineteen sixty seven. Right, don't people become
Speaker 1: poets to get laid like in the sixties. Maybe at
Speaker 1: the sixties. You really didn't have to do much. In
Speaker 1: the sixties to get laid. They invented the pill and
Speaker 1: it was over. As we're getting ready to leave, a
Speaker 1: shiny object in the distance catches my eye. It's a
Speaker 1: vehicle with a clapboard sign out front and a crowd
Speaker 1: of people. My stomach growls, and I decided to investigate. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there's a little lunch truck and there's a bulletin
Speaker 1: board covered in plastic. With all this praise given to
Speaker 1: this lobster stand number one lobster role in America according
Speaker 1: to BuzzFeed. Number one food truck in America according to
Speaker 1: The Daily Meal. And on the menu there are main
Speaker 1: lobster rolls and then we got main style, which is
Speaker 1: mayo and fresh chives. Connecticut style just warm butter. There's
Speaker 1: nothing more Connecticut than I've heard. There's warm butter things,
Speaker 1: no spices. Hey, how are you doing? All right? Can
Speaker 1: we get too? I'm gonna get a main style lobster role.
Speaker 1: Also a main style lobster role please? And can is
Speaker 1: there a way to make the lobster role to go?
Speaker 1: Is that? Oh? Sure, yeah, we can pack it to go. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: lobster role to go. And that's how we lobster roll
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah with you. Lighthouse lobster rolls were one
Speaker 1: stop away from a Portland, Maine hat trick, and the
Speaker 1: place we're going it also starts with the letter L.
Speaker 1: Two of them. In fact, we're eating a lobster roll
Speaker 1: in the parking lot of ll Bean. We're a peakmane
Speaker 1: and I'm wearing boxer shorts with lobsters on them. That's
Speaker 1: a little too much about I don't have I don't
Speaker 1: wear boxer short yep. We're visiting the ll Bean factory
Speaker 1: and outlet. Mm hmm, how is it there's and short
Speaker 1: for decent. I feel like we're like degrading the lobster
Speaker 1: a little bit here, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: like drinking champagne, like while watching football or something like that.
Speaker 1: It seems kind of wasteful, or maybe it's on brand.
Speaker 1: This is like going to the Vatican for preppins here.
Speaker 1: Literally have you told me as a teenager? But I
Speaker 1: would be visiting LLL Bean in any capacity I would
Speaker 1: not fully do. I get what Daniels saying. LL Bean's
Speaker 1: preppy outdoor gear hasn't always been my style either. I
Speaker 1: could rock that fan, I think, but who knows. If
Speaker 1: I moved here, maybe I can make sensible clothing work
Speaker 1: for me. Come like in these shoes right here. I'd
Speaker 1: fill my fanny pack with pencils and a notebook to
Speaker 1: write down my thoughts, a tobler own bar for what
Speaker 1: I'm feeling peckish, and a jaunty kerchief for when the
Speaker 1: wind picks up or if I find myself feder remote
Speaker 1: wine bar and need a flash of style. But my
Speaker 1: shopping would have to wait, because when we asked to
Speaker 1: record in the store. Lll Bean's PR team one up
Speaker 1: to us and invited us to visit their testing center. Hi,
Speaker 1: how are you? They call it the smash lab. My
Speaker 1: mind immediately pictured a Hadron collider where monogrammed totes are
Speaker 1: slammed together at high speeds. So we decided to check
Speaker 1: it out. So we're walking into an actual lab for
Speaker 1: I just get your name and your title first, Tom
Speaker 1: Legley Research and Testing Laboratory ll BEAN or a lab coat?
Speaker 1: Is that an ll BEAN lab cut? No? This is
Speaker 1: a standard laboratory lab coat found on all around the world.
Speaker 1: Are you guys going to move into the lab code market?
Speaker 1: Not that I know of right now? Okay, So what
Speaker 1: goes on in here? Like? Why do you have to
Speaker 1: test everything up? So the reason that we test everything
Speaker 1: is we want to meet the expectations of our customers
Speaker 1: to come out with a quality product that's going to
Speaker 1: meet their daily needs in the real world. You said
Speaker 1: that perfectly. It's almost like you said that before. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'd love to break things that would be the precursor
Speaker 1: to this. Can we can you show us a test here?
Speaker 1: So this is a buckle for our wax canvas cotton collection.
Speaker 1: So all of our snowshoes will go in here, put
Speaker 1: a sunflower shower head over it. Our tent poles, ice
Speaker 1: skates ave into a solid black of ice. We will
Speaker 1: then bash that out with a hammer. Are you saying
Speaker 1: I get to bash it that with a hammer? Okay?
Speaker 1: Yea yeah, yeah you go get a yeah. When is
Speaker 1: your appointment with your therapist? Again? Kind of therapist I'm
Speaker 1: used to makes me line a couch and blame my
Speaker 1: parents for why I can't even commit to buying a
Speaker 1: house plant. But here, when things get stressful, like say
Speaker 1: a moose steps in your subaru, you can just bash ice.
Speaker 1: But then what how do you unwind if you're not
Speaker 1: wound up? So tom like after you're smashing things all
Speaker 1: day like what happens pint of beer? But Danielle and
Speaker 1: I are here through Saturday, and so if we were,
Speaker 1: you know, we think the real way to get to
Speaker 1: know places maybe to like get invited into someone's home
Speaker 1: and have a meal, Like what are you what are
Speaker 1: your plans this weekend? Oh? I'll have to get back
Speaker 1: to you. Are you just saying though, because you're press
Speaker 1: guys in the in the room and you're afraid to
Speaker 1: Oh no, I'll get back to you. Trust me. How
Speaker 1: that right? So far over two in the dinner party count.
Speaker 1: After our visit to Smash Lab, Danielle and I are
Speaker 1: ready for nap Lab, but we've got places we need
Speaker 1: to be, so we stopped for coffee at a spot
Speaker 1: everyone told us we had to try happily enough for
Speaker 1: a duo like ourselves. It's name, it's Tandem. Got is
Speaker 1: a line? I do wait a line for coffee? Forget that?
Speaker 1: Did it come with a hand job? Do you look nice?
Speaker 1: There's literally like a corner shop right there. Let's get
Speaker 1: coffee there. I don't know what I mean. Let's not
Speaker 1: be crazy. It wasn't Tandem's fault. They were popular. The
Speaker 1: crowds are the sort of thing we'd come here to avoid. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: like any Hiptown Worth, it's pink Himalayan ce salt. Portland
Speaker 1: has a ton of good coffee shops to choose from.
Speaker 1: All right, coffee shops. We're going to coffee by design,
Speaker 1: double espresso, cortados, a small cappuccino. Where you guys from
Speaker 1: in New York? Your biggest nightmare is Portland. We're here,
Speaker 1: we're hearing, we're buying condos. We're here to raise around,
Speaker 1: So what are you guys hardcasting for? We visit town
Speaker 1: and then we want to learn about the place, but
Speaker 1: by avoiding the tourists spots head on and maybe getting
Speaker 1: invited into someone's home to eat dinner. So do you
Speaker 1: guys know a dinner party later? If you find out,
Speaker 1: let me know. I'm also like, I do shaman work,
Speaker 1: so then I'm like, I do my I have pet sitter,
Speaker 1: I sling shots during the day. Whoa, it's a way
Speaker 1: to go. It's fun. Should we get your name where
Speaker 1: you work? Or like, yeah, my name full name, Brendan Thorpe.
Speaker 1: I work at Coffee by Design on Congress Street. Alternate Brendon,
Speaker 1: I'm Brendan. I'm your Brendan Doppler. This is what If
Speaker 1: I lived in Portland? Would I be a shaman? Probably not?
Speaker 1: The only spirit world I interact with involves three parts gin,
Speaker 1: one part driver muth olives. Please, then who would I
Speaker 1: be if I lived here? My Brendan doppelgangerre exuded a
Speaker 1: sense of calm that was enviable calms in short supply
Speaker 1: Where I come from? New York, after all, is the
Speaker 1: city that never sleeps, a motto that sounds exciting in
Speaker 1: your twenties, but later sounds like a warning. A city
Speaker 1: that occasionally sleeps is what I'm looking for. Newly caffeinated
Speaker 1: Danielle and I stroll Congress Street, one of the city's
Speaker 1: main thoroughfares. It's packed with cafes, buskers, and bookstores. This
Speaker 1: is like that bad bookstore that you use. Bookstore smells
Speaker 1: a little musty and dusty, has lots of treasures hidden
Speaker 1: in here. This is the kind of bookstoere you find
Speaker 1: thinks that you weren't intending to find where you kind
Speaker 1: of you come in and see what's here, and we
Speaker 1: will always walk out with something that you never expected
Speaker 1: to find. Let's go me, let's come. He should be whispering.
Speaker 1: Why are we whispering. It's not a library, it's a bookstore.
Speaker 1: Why are you needed to meet you? Michelle, daniel My
Speaker 1: name is Michelle Seulier, and I own the Green Hand
Speaker 1: Bookshop in Portland, Maine. I'm looking at all these Stephen
Speaker 1: King books, which makes sense. He's one of your native authors. Yes,
Speaker 1: we've got to stock a lot of King. We're in
Speaker 1: a stew in King country. I'd nearly forgotten that the
Speaker 1: King of Horror hailed from here. Yeah, of Portland's a
Speaker 1: great town for books. We have three used bookshops and
Speaker 1: three new bookshops, all in the downtown area, and they
Speaker 1: all do their own thing and they all do Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess well, because we're all still open. Ye know.
Speaker 1: Chell not only sells books, she wrote one. It's called
Speaker 1: Strange Maine, and it's about all things strange in Maine.
Speaker 1: Probably could have guessed that. Why do you think there
Speaker 1: is a conglomeration of eccentrics and in Portland? I think
Speaker 1: Maine has a tradition of encouraging individual thought and also
Speaker 1: encouraging privacy, so you're allowed to do the things you
Speaker 1: do and kind of grow and cultivate them yourself without
Speaker 1: a lot of people pushing on you if you figure
Speaker 1: out a way to do it on your own. So
Speaker 1: are you you're closing down soon? Or what time? I am? Yeah,
Speaker 1: six o'clock is closing time. Okay, get a drink with us?
Speaker 1: Are yeah? Which are we going out? Oh? We're gonna
Speaker 1: go out the door and then we'll head to the left. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're going to bow Bow. Where is that a
Speaker 1: relationship to your Oh, it is a hot skip and
Speaker 1: a jump. You're almost there. You can practically smell it.
Speaker 1: The sidewalks feel eerily empty for a Friday night. At
Speaker 1: the same time, every few buildings there's a restaurant filled
Speaker 1: with people. Portlanders take food seriously, and as someone who
Speaker 1: knows they're Taijin from Tartar, I have to admit it
Speaker 1: might be part of what made me want to come here.
Speaker 1: All right, we are at bow Bow here. You say
Speaker 1: that again. We're here at Bowbow. Awesome. I'm very excited
Speaker 1: about dumplings. Food. There's I also have cocktails and beer
Speaker 1: and specialist for your guys. Excellent, thanks a lot, thank you.
Speaker 1: I know. Embarrassed, is said, I don't even I don't
Speaker 1: drink beer and Maine. Every two where we go, they're like,
Speaker 1: there's a great brewery on the corner. Yeah, they're all
Speaker 1: about do you think I could live here even if
Speaker 1: though I didn't drink beer? Would I get excluded? Okay,
Speaker 1: you drink cocktails? Yeah, yeah, you're golden. We keep winding
Speaker 1: up on those top lists of cities, and it's there's
Speaker 1: no turning the tide. At this point, I was in
Speaker 1: my shop. It was a couple of years ago now,
Speaker 1: but I was talking to somebody and they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I just moved here from Brooklyn recently, and
Speaker 1: so we're kind of trying to get the hang of everything,
Speaker 1: and some person who's for the rack of the shop
Speaker 1: stuck their head. I was like, oh my god, me too,
Speaker 1: I just moved here from Brooklyn. And then somebody else
Speaker 1: and me too, Oh my god. It's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: my aunt tire shop. I'm not gonna lie. I mean,
Speaker 1: I live in Brooklyn and this has been kind of
Speaker 1: a plan B in the back of my head. The
Speaker 1: flip side is that your that funny story you're talking
Speaker 1: about your shop. It's like he's like, me too, me too,
Speaker 1: me too. But then you're as a store owner. You
Speaker 1: have three customers there that are giving you money. Can
Speaker 1: we get another order of the bulgogie? And another order
Speaker 1: of the slaw? Another slaw, another bulgogie? So what is
Speaker 1: love and dating light here? That's a difficult question to
Speaker 1: me because I've been married for a long time. But
Speaker 1: I would say that I think it's difficult. I've always
Speaker 1: been astonished by Portland's little pockets, So Portland I kind
Speaker 1: of compare it to like a you know, a little
Speaker 1: furry rodents who have all these little warrens and dens.
Speaker 1: And so everybody's burrowing in and creating these little warrens
Speaker 1: and doing all their little projects in their different little dens.
Speaker 1: And it's not until like something happens accidentally, like somebody
Speaker 1: busts through all of their den and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: what are you doing in here? Then you find out
Speaker 1: like there's people right next to you doing really similar
Speaker 1: and interesting things that you didn't know about at all.
Speaker 1: You're a bunch of Nerdsland. Yeah, yeah, Portland is packed
Speaker 1: up with nerds, nerds and metal heads and artists, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we all like to do our own things. But what
Speaker 1: if one's own thing was learning about other people's things.
Speaker 1: Nerds by definition, are single minded people obsessed with the
Speaker 1: non social pursuit, whereas I am single mindedly obsessed with
Speaker 1: the social pursuit dinner parties. Well, Michel, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for meeting up with us. I'm sharing your knowledge
Speaker 1: of Horland. That's my pleasure. We're here for like two
Speaker 1: more days. And one of my strategies for getting you
Speaker 1: no place is trying to like not just go to
Speaker 1: the Taurus spots and like maybe even like get into
Speaker 1: someone's world and so what what what do you guys?
Speaker 1: What are you doing tomorrownight? Like what's going on? Well, um,
Speaker 1: Saturday day is kind of wide open. One never knows.
Speaker 1: Can we stay in touch with you and maybe we
Speaker 1: could begin to hang out again and maybe break bread
Speaker 1: with some of your cohorn Yeah? Absolutely, really that would
Speaker 1: be amazing. Okay, so we'll check in with you in
Speaker 1: the morning, Thank you so much. With our dinner party
Speaker 1: plans set in motion, we said bye bye to Booboo
Speaker 1: and drove drove back to our lodgings. Back in our
Speaker 1: rented den, I thought about what Michelle said about Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Knight's cropping up in her shop. Did the B in
Speaker 1: my plan B stand for basic? Was my attraction to
Speaker 1: Portland the result of a true yearning for quieter life?
Speaker 1: Was I just another Brooklyn Knight checking out the next
Speaker 1: buzzy thing? These questions ping ponged in my mind until
Speaker 1: finally I went night night. The next morning, I woke
Speaker 1: up for Danielle to meet with someone who definitely didn't
Speaker 1: move to Portland because it was trendy. Her name Decca
Speaker 1: Dlac Brendan nice to meet you. Decca is this mind
Speaker 1: refugee who came to me in ten years ago and
Speaker 1: recently became the first black woman in Muslim elected to
Speaker 1: the South Portland City Council. We met up outside an
Speaker 1: old maritime signal tower that overlooks the city. She said,
Speaker 1: we can pretember on top because we're outside. In their birds,
Speaker 1: Decca were her job the color of autumn orange, yellow, red.
Speaker 1: It was almost as bright as her constant smile. How
Speaker 1: was it when you first arrived here that first winter?
Speaker 1: How did you adapt? It was really scary. It was
Speaker 1: very scary. It was very very white. Everything was white. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even my children had a cultural shock because they
Speaker 1: were born and raised in this country. But yet they
Speaker 1: get used to the South. In the South the world,
Speaker 1: they have you know, African American friends. Yeah, and when
Speaker 1: they came here, actually we lived in Lewiston, where has
Speaker 1: a large number of Somali community. And my oldest who
Speaker 1: was twenty six now, said Mom, what are the old
Speaker 1: black people? And I said, look around, you know, just
Speaker 1: how all African. He's like, no, no, those are your people.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the African American people sometimes go to
Speaker 1: Boston so that they can see other folks who are
Speaker 1: African Americans. I'm just feeling better that way. So so
Speaker 1: when you say white, you mean not just the snow
Speaker 1: that's everywhere you're talking. This is like an we kind
Speaker 1: of go back and forward. Vermont, Okay, So who is
Speaker 1: the wyest estate? Wow? So it's ninety seven? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: how have you been here? There's another conversation that happens
Speaker 1: in Portland itself. We're seeing where people are coming from
Speaker 1: from New York City, from other cities, and they're coming
Speaker 1: here and they're moving, and they're changing the nature of
Speaker 1: the town. They're making rent higher, they're changing the culture.
Speaker 1: How does that does that, if at all, intersect with
Speaker 1: your your community or Europe? It is, it is, and
Speaker 1: it's just a lot of if you will, gentrification that
Speaker 1: is happening in Portland especially, And you know, as much
Speaker 1: as Portland mixed into the national news, there are more
Speaker 1: people who are interested in any coming here and want
Speaker 1: to buy this condo or get rid of this lo
Speaker 1: income housing and make it a bigger condos condos and
Speaker 1: things like that. And as maners, we had a great
Speaker 1: state older people, older people populations exactly how very old
Speaker 1: and we talk about how we need young people, and
Speaker 1: when you look at that, the immigrants are the youngest
Speaker 1: people that are here that can make a difference for
Speaker 1: this city. Even young white people who want to stay
Speaker 1: here and have their families raced here cannot afford it,
Speaker 1: let alone an immigrant person who you know already struggling.
Speaker 1: So how can we retain young people in this city
Speaker 1: if we are making a studio for seventeen hundred dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I live in New York. I'm from Philadelphia originally,
Speaker 1: and I had an MPR show for years and now
Speaker 1: I'm working on this. But I'm at a point in
Speaker 1: my life where I live in New York so long,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna be able to afford to buy anything
Speaker 1: in New York. And I feel I don't party as
Speaker 1: much as I used to, Like I don't need that
Speaker 1: that thriving nightlife, And so when I dream of other
Speaker 1: places to go, I have to meet Portland is a
Speaker 1: plan B for me? Even better? It is even better.
Speaker 1: How is that a bit cheaper than Portland? You're saying like,
Speaker 1: maybe not go directly in the city but go adjacent
Speaker 1: to it. Yes, yes, okay, but you would you would?
Speaker 1: I be welcomed or would you be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: here's another white guy from the city. You will be
Speaker 1: really welcome because we have people are really lovely here.
Speaker 1: I mean you might have one person who's bad and
Speaker 1: their voices are louder. Don't get me wrong, the good people,
Speaker 1: their voices are lower. I heard you, and you're answering
Speaker 1: the question. Earlier. You referred to yourself as a Maner.
Speaker 1: You feel like a maner. Well, a lot of people
Speaker 1: are preferring to ask new maners, So I kind of
Speaker 1: challenge that. What does that mean? I don't even know
Speaker 1: what that means. What does that mean? You know? Do
Speaker 1: we call new Manners people coming from California or you know,
Speaker 1: people coming from New York. Yeah, no, we don't. We
Speaker 1: just stand that on a person who's coming from another country. Interesting,
Speaker 1: so that is where these new Americans new Maners knew
Speaker 1: whatever is coming from. But our friend of mine said,
Speaker 1: I need to challenge that because I've been here twenty
Speaker 1: five years. He said, I've been here what as soon
Speaker 1: as I was ten? So am I a new Maner?
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting question. You're saying.
Speaker 1: The new manor label is usually used referred to this
Speaker 1: immigrants or refugees, but not necessarily someone coming from Boston
Speaker 1: or no, no, yeah, no, there are there any Uh,
Speaker 1: sorry to mix up the high and the low, but
Speaker 1: you're you've seemed very comfortable talking about everything. Are there
Speaker 1: any like main habits, like they like, do you like
Speaker 1: skiing or anything? Or hiking or things that you never
Speaker 1: would have thought as as a young person in Somalia
Speaker 1: or in Atlanta. Well, I would not hike. I would
Speaker 1: not ski, I can tell you that right away. But
Speaker 1: my kids did all of that. And it was so
Speaker 1: funny you asked that question. I was in another meeting earlier,
Speaker 1: and a community meeting, yeah, and one of our young
Speaker 1: youth leaders who was talking about how she has a
Speaker 1: hiking group of young people and I'm like, oh my god, okay,
Speaker 1: do not break anything. And she's like, come on, Auntie,
Speaker 1: I been hikinson as I was ten. Okay, we know
Speaker 1: what we're doing. So a lot of kids are changing
Speaker 1: that they're doing a lot of activities outdoors. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: but the parents are not because we were not, you know,
Speaker 1: raised in that. Yeah. Honestly, it was nice to know
Speaker 1: that if I moved to Portland, I wouldn't be the
Speaker 1: only one who sees hiking as a dangerous walk to nowhere.
Speaker 1: I asked Decca if maybe dinner parties were more her style,
Speaker 1: but she said she had plans that night. It was
Speaker 1: time to pick up Danielle and head to the city's waterfront.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit Michelle up later. Do you might dinner
Speaker 1: party thing? She said she would hang out. She seemed
Speaker 1: really eager that the way the people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they've definitely get together. No, she said it like she was.
Speaker 1: I think she thought we were bringing good chill today.
Speaker 1: Would you call it an imperfect storm and would call
Speaker 1: it drizzle? I mean, I'll learned the position to bring
Speaker 1: it back. You know, I think it's white people's saying.
Speaker 1: I know, I think we killed was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: we can. I think there's a list of where I
Speaker 1: have a question that while we're on that topic on fleek,
Speaker 1: what about it? Are you allowed to say that? You're
Speaker 1: not allowed to say it? After spending our first day
Speaker 1: in Mainland Portland, we thought we'd visit one of the
Speaker 1: city's surrounding islands, going to Peak's Island. Okay, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: and where is it? The department number five. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot. It's crazy that here in the ferry
Speaker 1: terminal the most prominent display our real estate boards because
Speaker 1: it's people like you and I fantasizing. I guess that's
Speaker 1: a good house lost. Whoa, I could really almost live here,
Speaker 1: Really you can live on Peaks Island at least. I
Speaker 1: don't think I could live here quite up, because it
Speaker 1: reminds me of places I've already been. I know that
Speaker 1: small town, small city life, and that's not what I'm
Speaker 1: looking for right now. Yal boarding call Island a gay
Speaker 1: number five. This is your first and vinal boarding call
Speaker 1: pour Peaks Island only at gate number five Islands. Does
Speaker 1: this count as an island if it's so close? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe there's I've been under in the subway coming
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn. Now this is it, Peaks Island. We're rolling up.
Speaker 1: How do you do? I fancy Danielle. You're wearing an
Speaker 1: umbrella hat. Yeah, and then you're wearing purple, a purple
Speaker 1: polar pleece. Yeah. And what are these pants? These are
Speaker 1: African pants and they actually have umbrellas on them, kind
Speaker 1: of hidden in all this pattern. So this is the spot,
Speaker 1: This is the museum so welcome to the world's only
Speaker 1: umbrella cover museum, where you'll see there are hundreds, probably
Speaker 1: about seven hundred umbrella covers on display in this little
Speaker 1: tiny space. Wow. Nancy three Hoffman. How to describe her well,
Speaker 1: She spells her middle name with the number three. That
Speaker 1: should give you an idea. Nancy shows us around her museum,
Speaker 1: which doesn't take long because it's one small room the
Speaker 1: size of a closet. I'm imagine you collected umbrella covers
Speaker 1: personally before you started displaying them exactly. I got curious
Speaker 1: about umbrella covers after I cleaned out my house one
Speaker 1: day and found some umbrella covers, and I just said
Speaker 1: to myself, m do other people have the same problem,
Speaker 1: which is, will I ever use these little things again?
Speaker 1: Are they just too hard to get back on the
Speaker 1: umbrella to even bother with? And if so, why were
Speaker 1: they even created? I use my umbrella covers. Ah, You're
Speaker 1: one of the twelve percent of people, Danielle. There are
Speaker 1: very few people that actually conscientiously use their umbrella covers.
Speaker 1: The thing I like to show people is our mission statement,
Speaker 1: which is about appreciating the mundane, finding wonder and beauty
Speaker 1: and the simplest of things and knowing that there is
Speaker 1: always a story behind the cover. How many umbrella covers
Speaker 1: do you have? I have two thousand cataloged umbrella covers
Speaker 1: in this museum. More or less. Well, when I heard
Speaker 1: about the museum, one of the things that attracted me
Speaker 1: to it was this kind of My mind immediately went
Speaker 1: to kind of zen Buddhism. And there's way more mundane
Speaker 1: things that happened to us than epic big things. And
Speaker 1: do you find that people come here sometimes with an
Speaker 1: element of reverence or is it always whimsy? Mostly whimsy,
Speaker 1: but in excitement, you know, enthusiasm, And it's hard to
Speaker 1: say because people are touched. It's about attitude. I had
Speaker 1: a friend who was very depressed and that mission statement
Speaker 1: has helped her through some of her depressed times. Not
Speaker 1: to be too grandiose about it, but but it is
Speaker 1: about how appreciating the simple things as you were describing
Speaker 1: can remind you that, yes, we have to plod through
Speaker 1: some of these things in life, but we can take
Speaker 1: a breath and enjoy any moment that we can. Just
Speaker 1: let us smile. Your umbrella on a rainy, rainy day,
Speaker 1: and yours, sweety Christ just tell her that a smile,
Speaker 1: we'll always pay. So this case has some of our
Speaker 1: most exciting umbrella covers in it. Is that made out
Speaker 1: of candy? Yes, it's a gum rapper chain umbrella cover. Um,
Speaker 1: I have a lot from England. I have some from
Speaker 1: the Olympics team, Great Britain. Do you want to see
Speaker 1: the sexy room. We'll just look at the sexy room,
Speaker 1: you know? Okay, whoa it looks like look sexy sexy covers?
Speaker 1: What is just a thong? What's it covered with? Oh?
Speaker 1: Gon umbrellas? As Nancy played, it occurred to me that
Speaker 1: the Museum of the Umbrella cover is one of those
Speaker 1: warrens Michelle told us about a place where a passionate
Speaker 1: enthusiast burrowed in and built their own little world. I'm
Speaker 1: glad it exists, but it made me wonder whether I
Speaker 1: was ready to park somewhere quiet and lose myself in
Speaker 1: a project. Yeah, Broman School, how do you? How do
Speaker 1: you feel about it? Could you live here? I'm still
Speaker 1: on the fence. It's like Michelle was saying last night
Speaker 1: about She mentioned how people stay in their little mouse
Speaker 1: or wrap dens and warrens and don't come out like
Speaker 1: I feel like I'd have to have a partner if
Speaker 1: I want, if that's what I want in my life,
Speaker 1: or a family already. I don't get me anybody here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not to that level. I don't know um And I
Speaker 1: like knowing the vanguard about what's about to happen, and
Speaker 1: I feel like here. It takes a while for that
Speaker 1: to get up here. I don't know how I found
Speaker 1: a place in my head as like a place I
Speaker 1: could live an alternative life. Yeah, where did that come from?
Speaker 1: There's so many cities between Portland and New York. I
Speaker 1: just felt like doing. I grew up going summers in
Speaker 1: Cape Cod and New England in general always had a
Speaker 1: kind mellow vibe to me, and I guess I read
Speaker 1: all the magazines about the food. Stuff kind of seemed cool.
Speaker 1: I'm being honest, the food is incredible. Yeah. What is
Speaker 1: that like a brick building in the middle of the water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was kind of empty, and that's it's like an
Speaker 1: old prison. Yeah, that'd be a dope house if I
Speaker 1: could live there. I've here. While Danielle was inspired by
Speaker 1: the house in the island, for me, it symbolized the
Speaker 1: isolation I might feel if I lived here, people are
Speaker 1: the thing I nerd out on, and for now I
Speaker 1: want to be in a place where there are lots
Speaker 1: of them, and I want to travel to meet even more. Traveling,
Speaker 1: not burrowing, is where I'm at. Well, dinner parties are traveling. Well, dude,
Speaker 1: we're going to a dinner party pizza party. All right.
Speaker 1: We were going to a pizza party, but pizza's dinner,
Speaker 1: so that makes it technically a dinner party. On the ferry,
Speaker 1: I texted Michelle from the bookstore and asked if she
Speaker 1: was still game to host a gathering with us that night,
Speaker 1: And so Danielle wouldn't think I was being pushy, I said,
Speaker 1: we'd supply the food party. Pizza party. Remember that commercial.
Speaker 1: It was like a board game that pizza parties, no party.
Speaker 1: My grandma would by it. So I just rememberize yourself
Speaker 1: like a pizza party. See if I can pull up
Speaker 1: it was a board game called pizza Party. Yeah, at
Speaker 1: least I can pull up the commercial part pizza party.
Speaker 1: That's your pizza. You can't see pizza party, party, Pizza Party.
Speaker 1: That song always gives me like it's my pop up channel.
Speaker 1: Listen to at the gym Our party consisted of Michelle
Speaker 1: and her husband, Tristan. We brought some pizza, beer, We
Speaker 1: brought some such an inviting store, and the setting couldn't
Speaker 1: be more in keeping with the nerd team that was
Speaker 1: emerging in Portland. We were in Tristan's comic book shop.
Speaker 1: I like comic shops that make people feel like we
Speaker 1: don't have to be an ultimate geek already. The store
Speaker 1: is a cavernous, high ceiling geek valhalla filled Florida roof
Speaker 1: with comic books, horror movie ephemera on pinball machines. My
Speaker 1: ex husband and I met on a Delphi comic book forum.
Speaker 1: Danielle is on cloud nine. She and Tristan hit it
Speaker 1: off like Yoda and Batman. Anyway, they got along and
Speaker 1: while they zipped around the store, Michelle and I munched
Speaker 1: pizza in contented silence. Right bored yet, what's up? What's up?
Speaker 1: I wasn't bored, just taking in Michelle and Tristan's habitat
Speaker 1: and thinking about how this podcast could be both my
Speaker 1: smash lab and Museum of the Mundane. Anyway, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for hosting us and sharing Portland with us. Thanks
Speaker 1: for so glad that you guys came here. We finally
Speaker 1: knocked them all together. Yeah together. Yeah, and thanks for
Speaker 1: letting us have a little pizza party your Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was great. So their video games back here, we should
Speaker 1: just play them, Daniel, do you want to play around
Speaker 1: Zina eight around? Well, we'll take Terry. Portland has been
Speaker 1: great to us. Perhaps part of the reason travel is
Speaker 1: so intoxicating is that it allows us to fantasize about
Speaker 1: a different life, and in the case of me in Portland,
Speaker 1: it's a different life. I really thought about leading, but
Speaker 1: Plan b's, it seems, are like mirages. They disappear as
Speaker 1: you're approach them. That doesn't mean they don't have a role.
Speaker 1: They can act as kind of release valves that lower
Speaker 1: the pressure on our actual lives. But it means that
Speaker 1: once you visit and you return home, you're left only
Speaker 1: with that actual life, your Plan A, and of that
Speaker 1: you can be foschism in Nizzle, I think I used
Speaker 1: that right. The lead producer on this episode of Not
Speaker 1: Loss was the talented Tally Abacasas. The show was also
Speaker 1: produced and written by me Brendan Francis Newnham. Our associate
Speaker 1: producer was Jackson Musker. Special editorial guidance came from Mira
Speaker 1: Bert Wintock. The show was mixed and mastered by Hannas Brown.
Speaker 1: A big thanks to my friend and this episode's travel partner,
Speaker 1: Danielle Henderson. Go check out her book The Ugly Cry
Speaker 1: Not Lost. As a co production of Pushkin Industries, Topic
Speaker 1: Studios and iHeartMedia, it was developed at Topic Studios and
Speaker 1: the show's executive producers are me Christy Gressman, Maria Zuckerman,
Speaker 1: Lisa Langang, and Latom Mulotte. Production assistance on this episode
Speaker 1: also came from Jacob Smith, Amy Gaines and Julia Barton.
Speaker 1: Our theme song was created by Alexis Trojopolis aka ARP.
Speaker 1: You can check out his music at Mexican Summer Records.
Speaker 1: And thanks to everyone in Portland, especially Poet Laureatesteve Latreelle,
Speaker 1: Tom Begley and ll bean By Brendan Dobbelganger at Coffee
Speaker 1: by Design, Nancy three Hoffman and Decca Delac who I'm
Speaker 1: happy to say recently got a promotion. She's now the
Speaker 1: mayor of South Portland. Hope I'm still invited to visit.
Speaker 1: And a big thanks to our pizza party host Tristan
Speaker 1: Gallagher and Michelle Soulier. Check out Tristan spot Co City Comics,
Speaker 1: and you can buy Michelle's books the ones she wrote
Speaker 1: Strange Maine and Bigfoot in Maine, as well as many
Speaker 1: other fine publications at her own bookstore, The Green Hand Bookshop.
Speaker 1: Please go support your local booksellers people, or in this case,
Speaker 1: support you know the local bookseller in Portland. Oh. And
Speaker 1: speaking of support, please head to Apple Podcasts, go rate
Speaker 1: and review the show. I know you hear it a lot,
Speaker 1: but it's real. Learn more about Topic Studios at topic
Speaker 1: studios dot com. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Francis, Newnham. Until next time, bon voyage