An Edward Little High School senior is skipping a French test this week to hang with TV stars.

Jake Sasseville, 18, plans to fly to Hollywood, where he’ll attend rehearsals for the show “Will & Grace.”

“I’m going to interview the whole cast,” said Sasseville. The high schooler managed the visit with the help of Adam Barr, an Auburn native who is a co-executive producer of the NBC comedy.

Sasseville hopes to turn his interviews into a pilot for his own show. It would be his second.

The Lewiston teen has been hosting “The Edge with Jake Sasseville” on public access cable for the past two years. And though this new show would be for commercial TV, no money has been made yet.

“The entire trip is donated,” said Sasseville, who convinced a Portland radio station, WJBQ, to help pay his costs.

“I just want to break even,” Sasseville said.

– Dan Hartill
Flailing Frenchmen

What happens to you when someone sneaks up behind you or you hear an unexpected noise?

If you simply jump up, snap your head back and let out a whimper, you are probably OK.

If you flail your arms, scream at the top of your lungs and start repeating meaningless words, you might want to see a doctor. You may have a rare disorder called Jumping Frenchmen of Maine.

The disorder was first identified during the late 19th century in Maine and the Canadian province of Quebec.

The disease was named after lumberjacks of French Canadian descent because they were the first to be diagnosed, but it has since been observed in many other parts of the world. It is suspected to be a genetic disorder, and research shows that symptoms improve with age.

Author Nancy Butcher wrote about the disease in her recently published book, “The Strange Case of the Walking Corpse.”

The book is about rare disorders that most people haven’t heard about. Its title refers to one of the other diseases mentioned in the book, Walking Corpse Disorder.

Unlike startled, flailing, very alive jumping Frenchmen, walking corpses think they have lost body parts or their souls and they often walk around believing they have died.

– Lisa Chmelecki
Super speller

Give 12-year-old Jonathan Albert a word – almost any word – and there’s a good chance he’ll be able to spell it.

The Holy Cross School eighth-grader from Auburn is this year’s winner of the Androscoggin County Spelling Bee. He will represent the county at the state competition today. If he wins, he will go to the nationals.

Concurrent. Aspic. Name a word, he knows it.

“I have a great memory,” he said.

Jonathan has been in the county finals three times. This will be the first time he’s been to the state competition.

It’s a little nerve-wracking.

“It’s just the fact that it’s representing the whole state of Maine if I win and I’ll go to Washington, D.C.,” he said.

He hopes to place in the top 10 at the state competition today in Bangor. But there may be one word that gives him a problem.

Orthography.

It was the only word Jonathan misspelled during the county spelling bee. Ironically, it means a style or method of spelling.

“I still don’t know how to spell that word,” he said.

– Lindsay Tice