It’s 7:03 p.m. and people are milling around with no particular sense of urgency. I observe them and scribble something in my notebook. It looks like I’m taking notes, but I’m not. I’ve just sketched a puffin smoking a cigarette. Pretty cool, huh? It’s 7:06 p.m. and they’re still milling about, having private conversations and […]
Mark LaFlamme
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Talk of the town: Don’t you know that you are a shooting star?
Fireball streaks across Maine! They say it was a beautiful thing, a blazing piece of space rock burning hot enough to turn night into day. It happened at about 1 a.m., which is the hour of day that I’m at my most alert. So did I witness this cosmic marvel some are calling the coolest […]
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Make Budweiser great again!
The king of beers will be renamed “America” over the summer to foster a mood of . . . I don’t know. Drunken patriotism. To properly drink it, one must stand up and remove his cap lest he be branded a terrorist. Should you get pulled over by a cop after imbibing in the jingoistic […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Cool cats and the people who hate them
My brother and I stood in the heat of a July afternoon, our faces smeared with dirt, shovels gripped in our blistered fists. His face was streaked by tiny rivers of moisture that coursed through the grime. It was perspiration, he’d tell you — but I’m not so sure. Cat-burying is emotional work, and this […]
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The war on traffic lights: We ain’t stopping for nothing
Guck vs. Gunk Got a call from a fellow who was reporting a white stripe of guck on the rocks beneath the Longley Bridge. I went over there, but by the time I arrived there was no guck to be seen. There was some gunk, don’t get me wrong. But guck has a different sheen […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
On tonight’s episode of ‘Street Talk Dickering’
I met the guy in the darkest parking lot available along Route 4, a place where weeds have long grown over what used to be a thriving parking lot. I killed the engine and waited, listening to the solemn ticking from beneath the hood. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted uneasily. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked […]
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Talk of the town: You kiss your mother with that mouth?
Deflategate It’s back! A federal court ruled earlier in the week something, something pertaining to Tom Brady’s beleaguered ball, bringing the matter back into the spotlight a year-and-a-half after the squishy pigskin became an object of worldwide contention. This new development is awesome because, let’s face it: I don’t think the matter got nearly enough […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: They’re not my Crocs. I’m just holding them for a friend
Six or seven years ago, the scoundrels I work for sent me out on the street with a notebook, a pen and a bright orange pair of Crocs. Good luck, they said. You’re going to need it. Crocs were new on the scene back then, but they were already the source of much derision. People […]
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Talk of the town: Gargantuan toddlers invade!
Half in the bag A report came in earlier in the week of a man walking down East Avenue in Lewiston with a bag over his head. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, maybe the guy is simply ugly and self-conscious about his appearance. But no. This guy was walking around with a Ziploc […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
‘In this news jungle, the press is King Kong’
There’s this bathroom down here at the paper that’s tucked in right next to the presses. It’s a tiny windowless space with ink-stained walls and none of the frilly accouterments you’ll find in the more popular bathrooms up near advertising. This gloomy little spot carved into massive concrete walls is where the pressmen go when […]