Why? Bleeping why? Saw a fellow shuffling along Park Street the other day and unabashedly talking to himself. You know what he was saying? He was standing in front of the newspaper and saying: “Why doesn’t the (BLEEP) Sun Journal clock tell me the time and temperature anymore? What the (BLEEP) is going on?” So […]
Mark LaFlamme
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Street Talk: He plays piano in the dark. Or would if he knew how to play piano.
By the time I got out of the Franco Center, I was half in love with Tamara Poddubnaya. It was her passion — the way she moved and the way she turned her face to the heavens in moments of great exaltation. And her fingers. My God, her fingers! How they crept and crawled, probed […]
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Talk of the town
Paperboy vs. postman So the United States Postal Service, with its professionally trained and well-paid crews, decided Winter Storm Nemo was just too much and kept their carriers off the streets. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Unless there’s a […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street talk: Cozy up to the fire, lay person, and hear me not talk about the weather
I tell you what. I’m not going to sit here and write about our latest winter storm after a week of nonstop chatter about it. You poor folks have had enough. For five days straight, news reporters battered you ceaselessly with emerging details about the storm. If you turned off your TV and threw your […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Talk of the town: My kingdom for a funny King Richard joke
Cleavage A skeleton with a cleaved skull entombed under a car park is that of the embattled King Richard III, archaeologists said this week. Dammit, I lost the office pool. I had “skeleton with cleaved sternum found beneath pastry shop operated by left-handed former prostitute.” I hope you did better. A funny King Richard joke! […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
I swear I didn’t snowball that car over on Hazelwood
You know the drill. It’s 9 in the morning and you’re eating Frankenberries in front of the TV. Bugs Bunny and friends, Foghorn Leghorn, all those sketched characters who have become like brothers to you. Your mother is in the living room, vacuuming and dusting, moving from one task to another like one of those […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Talk of the Town: Why I like Lisbon Street
Gash and dash So, I’m walking down Lisbon Street in the bitter cold on a Friday afternoon. Just another day of foraging for coffee beans until a young man approached me near the corner at Pine Street. He walked up to me and pulled open his coat, revealing a long scar that ran along his […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Street Talk: A piece of the White Rock
I used to work at White Rock, you know. This was back in the early ’90s, a time that didn’t feel like the economy was a plate-glass window with a galaxy of tiny cracks in it. I was new to Lewiston and whether or not I had a place to stay depended on how well […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Talk of the town
Good grief So, the man who provides the voice for the inimitable Charlie Brown has been arrested on suspicion of stalking. His only comment when they picked him up: “Uuuuuugh!” Coming soon to a TV near you: “It’s a Restraining Order, Charlie Brown.” It will be difficult to film given that Charlie isn’t allowed within […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Old and new faces in the City of Transients
I saw him again the other day, deep into Auburn, stomping along Center Street like a pirate marching across a Pacific island, looking for plunder. From his ungloved hands hung those iconic plastic bags, overflowing with riches. And right about the time I spotted him, I read a message on Facebook from a person on […]