Chowder

Bad Kitty

Art Attack Art Attack

What recession? Portland Museum of Art is delighted to report that “11,000 more people visited here in 200 than in 200 ,” says risten Levesque. “It was our second biggest year all time, and our biggest since 2000. One of the reasons is Bac stage ass Roc & Roll hotography which broke attendance records for anuary and February.” How can we top that this year–with stills from vatar? When the clock in Monument Square stopped working over a year ago, Portland city officials decided we didn’t have the funds to repair it. Rather than have passersby always think the clock was set wrong,’ they opted to cover up its face with a sticker embla oned with the city seal (see Fig. ). “Pardon my Latin, but Re surgammy ass,” a sidewalk social critic was heard to say.

Sometimes a (not so) Great Notion

Is this the weird, ‘home-built’ pirate ship the Coast Guard has twice had to rescue? Portland Yacht Services’s Phin Sprague thinks the Coast Guard and harbormaster are unfairly holding Raw Faith hostage. “There’s nothing untoward going on here. There are boats at DiMillo’s less safe than this one.” Owner/captain George McKay hopes one day to provide sailing adventures to handicapped children. “He did a nice job for the dream he had,” Sprague says. “Every time he makes a move, somebody is out there to thwart it… instead of trying to help him.” Because THE CAT can’t take trucks from Portland to Nova Scotia and back, funding for the high-speed international ferry has been dropped by the premier of Canada’s easternmost province. So unlike The Cat in the Hat, this cat won’t be coming back. Still waiting in the wings for a possible return: the Scotia Prince. At last report, she was working as a ferry in the Mediterranean, after having distinguished herself as a Hurricane Katrina relief vessel. Trucks? Yeah, we do that.

FIG. 1

FIG. 2

At Least It Was Right Twice a Day

Missing Herbie

“He was so big and beautiful, I wanted to do everything I could to save him,” says 101-year-old Frank Night of the giant hole in the Yarmouth firmament once occupied by 212-year-old “Herbie,” the personable elm who finally succumbed to his 15th bout with Dutch Elm disease. “It’s too bad to loose him,” says Night, who reveres his 50-year acquaintance with New England’s largest elm tree and spent decades pruning ‘him.’ “I know nothing lasts forever. I don’t have much time left myself. It just happens that his came first.” –Jared Thurber