Photos from the Common Ground Fair

Common Ground Country Fair

Yesterday, we bombed up to Unity, ME in Emily's grandma's car, the car her family made her give up because she's now too old to drive it. We stopped to take photos of wind turbines past the fields and farms along the way. We parked and walked through the trails, past the composting toilets and into the fair laid out in concentric circles. We got there in time to hear the keynote speaker, Gary Nabhan, talk about the loss of heritage breeds and species and the importance of organic farming on a small scale. He read two poems. Arch had sticker shock from the price of the food at the stands, and though some of it looked good, it didn't taste all that great. The falafel I had was bland, even with the tahini sauce and hot tomato and cilantro salsa. It made me miss Mamoun's on MacDougal.

It was a great fair though, with interesting people, exhibits, music, livestock & vegetables. I bought some local wildflower honey from a vendor. She said they haven't seen a drop in bee population this year, and I wondered if Maine had somehow avoided Colony Collapse Disorder that is panicking the food industry across the country. The honey is delicious...

We spent a good amount of time checking out the "tables" - the different organizations who table and give out information and promote themselves. We saw the Maine Socialist Party, Peace Action, Maine Public Library, Pagans, Planned Parenthood, community radio, Veterans Against the War, etc. One table I had never seen before, but I had heard of the organization: Project Laundry List, which promotes using clothes lines instead of dryers. That's something I can get behind.

Chebeague Island

My writing collaborator Marc and I took the 6:30am ferry on Saturday morning from the wharf to Great Chebeague Island, and being the genius I am, I left the map at home. To our great fortune, there are only a few country roads on the island and a nice man named "Spec" picked us up and gave us a ride to the church. We made it on time for our appointment to check out their "weatherization workshop", which proved to be both interesting and visually compelling. A group from the church spent a few hours making simple wood frames with plastic on either side to prop into their windows for extra warmth in the winter. Apparently these suckers work pretty well. Marc recorded audio and took notes while I shot, thinking of what different publications we could pitch this to. It's a sweet story, but also a relevant one for people living in rural areas in the North. These people are not only rural, but they live on an island, with limited resources and dependent on the ferries to transport goods. We ran into the mail carrier on both routes to and from Portland, and she told us a story or two herself. Chebeague is so darn pretty, and we were lucky - it was another gorgeous day in Maine.

Wednesday Night Tango Lessons

On a lighter note, I stopped in and watched students at a Tango school tonight after the movie and mediocre Mexican food. This is one of my favorite shots.

Photo : Claire Houston (c) 2008, Tango Lessons #62

Potluck Conversations Inevitably Turn To Politics If You Invite The Right People.

Last night, I hosted the first of what I hope to be several potluck dinners at my little country home in Portland. The idea came up during our "man on the street" session with Jenny and Tasha, so they of course, were invited. I also invited Heather & Jud, but he couldn't make it, and Arch invited Emily Eagle, who I later found out is a "Marketist" (not a Marxist - I'll explain). After a helping of rotini with a homemade pasta sauce, fresh salad and some good wine (thanks Moet), the conversation inevitably turned to politics. Emily was talking about the "Libertarian camp" she attended when she was younger (I didn't know such a thing existed), and was sizing up the young Libertarians and why they'll most likely vote Obama rather than McCain. She went on to describe her belief in the "Market" to promote innovation in areas of Science & Industry and shouldn't be regulated (i.e. held back) by the government. That's all well and good, but business is, by nature, a moral. The bottom line is about profit, regardless of worker's rights, social programs like pensions and health care, community, the environment, etc.

HP just announced layoffs of 24,000 workers, mostly in the U.S. which accounts for about 8% of their workforce. This was necessary to stay competitive with IBM, according to one news source. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gp10gghHwMG5030paEBbVQMH_RwQ. If I understood these bailouts better, I'm sure I could draw some comparison here, but I'll save that for another post.

Now I don't pretend to know all of the Libertarian platforms, and in her defense Emily didn't claim to be a Libertarian, but I imagine what she was saying is not far from the party platform. I admit, also that my first intro to this political party was a completely negative one. I had a roommate in college named Jim, the fiance of a friend of mine from Spanish class, Jean. Jim was a staunch Libertarian, and at the time I knew nothing about it. He gave me a book to read about it, and within the first 3 paragraphs, I knew I was reading a paranoid conspiratorial theory about how the government wants to raid your home and take your guns away. I wasn't impressed. And Jim creeped me out. He was always so angry at the world and I remember he had a "Subvert the Dominant Paradigm" bumper sticker on his old car. I will never understand why Jean, a beautiful, intelligent, funny girl, would marry an idiot like him. Needless to say, I wasn't invited to the wedding. And I've been skeptical of Libertarians ever since.

I saw this bumper sticker today. It was the only sticker on the car.

Photo : Claire Houston (c) 2008, Iraq/n

Gary

Gary's nickname is "Media Mike" because he acts as the spokesman for the Fire House. He works part-time as a policeman as well, but says he prefers working as a fireman.

Photo: Claire Houston/Salt (c) 2008, Gary P.

Portland Has Small Town Values

(I hope you've all had a chance to see the hilarious (hi-larry-us) clip from the Daily Show about how much Republicans know about small town values. And if you haven't seen it yet, please watch this first:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjSha0CqPfc

Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, you should know that Portland, ME, actually does have good small town values. We (a group of Salt students) walked up to the fire house on Congress St. in the West End around 10am yesterday and asked if we could hang around, talk to the guys and document. We spoke to the Deputy Chief who had to run it by the guys, who agreed that we could. They were the nicest guys. We spent the day shooting, recording & taking notes on what happens in a fire house when there is no fire. The answer, we found out, varies, though mostly it's anything to ward off boredom. And what happens when they do get a call? We all jump on the truck, of course. (With their permission and instructions, of course.) They get a lot of false alarms apparently, and the first call we went on was just that, but it was at the hospital around the corner, Maine Med. What I found out later from reading the news was that the governor of Maine and Barbara Bush (As in George W's mom, not his daughter) were there that day dedicating a new wing of the pediatric ward. We missed them, unfortunately. I would have loved to have gotten a shot of Barbara.

I went on a second run to a housing project - an elderly woman had fallen the night before and was feeling shortness of breath. These guys arrived before the ambulance took her away. They're all trained in medical emergencies now, since there aren't as many fires as there used to be. All those years of fire prevention have paid off.

The group shot above was taken toward the end of our day with them. We've got to put all the audio, writing and photos together into a cohesive story to present to our peers and instructors for next Friday. I'm also making copies of the group shot for each of the guys, which I'll bring them next weekend along with a batch of cookies, or something like that. Because, despite the fact that I've lived in New York for the last 10 years, I've got small town values, too, gosh darn it.

Photo: Claire Houston/Salt (c) 2008, Bramhall Fire House 2008, Portland Maine

(A note about the photo: the man in the middle who is not in uniform is named Jimmy. And although he's not technically on the squad, he has been visiting that firehouse every Saturday afternoon for the last 35 years. He's 57 years old, and played us a song on his harmonica.)