The scene was Mammoth Mart in Waterville, a store that was destined to become King’s, which would become Rich’s, which would become a vast empty building that nobody knew what to do with. It was the end of the disco era and life was good. You could listen to the radio without being asked to […]
Mark LaFlamme
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Talk of the town
Tweet twits In a pre-election poll, local candidates were asked what they would say to the voters within the limitations of the Twitter word count. Several of them remarked “I don’t Tweet” and left it at that, entirely missing the point of the exercise and blowing a chance for free campaign space in the newspaper. […]
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Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: I’m sure the next six months will fly right by
Here’s an ugly secret about Street Talk: If I don’t write a column for a week or more, I completely forget how it’s done. I mean, where are the ideas supposed to come from? Dreams? The ether? The Lewiston canal? I forget, so today I’m scrambling. I’ve emptied out drawers and flipped through notebooks, looking […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Talk of the town — Lock up the candy corn
Kingmaker So, Jared Golden was campaigning in my neighborhood last week and he stopped by my backyard to chat. Now, here’s a young politician who happened to remember my previous week’s column almost word for word. Very impressive. I’m not saying that this has any bearing on the upcoming election, but neither John McCain nor […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Street Talk: The World Series is WAY better than socks and underwear
So, I’m riding down Park Street in Lewiston when suddenly I behold a one-eyed prostitute riding a unicycle and wearing nothing but earmuffs and a two-piece … But, who am I kidding? I can’t sit here babbling on about downtown stuff. Not today. Today the Kansas City Royals are playing in the World Series, an […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Talk of the town
Bite me Nitrile gloves? Oh, I’ve got nitrile gloves. But this isn’t ebola protection, specifically. I’m wearing the gloves to prevent myself from chewing my fingers right down to the bone during the Major League Baseball playoffs. Which the KC Royals are dominating, in case you haven’t be watching. If I didn’t have those gloves, […]
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Talk of the town: Horton hears a what, now?
I got the music in me So, dashing and muscle-bound photographer Russ Dillingham and I are sitting in a lecture hall at Bates College Wednesday listening to an esteemed professor speak about the dark history of music. We’re talking Wagner here, and Beethoven and the role of music in Nazi Germany. Deep stuff. Heavy stuff. […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: News-gathering process explained. Teachers, please post.
Oh, boy. It’s that time of year again when perfectly lovely school teachers are asking me to come to their classrooms to talk about the news-gathering process. For the children! Oh, won’t you do it for the children! Frankly, there’s nothing I’d like better than to stand in front of a group of bored, sneering […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Talk of the town
Sign your life away It’s that time of year again (I’ve never done this before; don’t be stupid) to go ahead and rate the campaign signs on important things like color, lettering and style. In early polling (which involves me riding around on my bike and sort of looking at things) I’ve got to give […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Street Talk: A bleak trip down memory lane, with cats galore
Every now and then, I think about the cat house. It stands in my memory, not as a highlight or a lowlight, but as grim placeholder to be taken down on occasion and re-examined; a reminder and a warning. The facts are these: In the spring of 2011, I was sent off into the woods […]