EVENT: Crash Barry Q&A & signing tomorrow!

Whoa! Want to spice up your lunch hour this Wednesday? Head to the Portland Public Library for the latest in their Brown Bag Lunch series, starring Crash Barry, outspoken Maine author of Sex, Drugs and Blueberries and Tough Island! Barry will be doing an author talk, followed by an opportunity for attendees to ask him questions, and get your copy of his book signed. Don't worry, if you haven't picked up one of these beauties, Longfellow Books will be on hand with fresh copies.

WHAT: Brown Bag Lunch with Crash Barry
WHEN: Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 from 12:00-1:00 p.m.
WHERE: Rines Auditorium, Lower Level, Portland Public Library, 5 Monument Square, Portland, Maine
COST: Brown Bag Lectures are free and open to the public.
REFRESHMENTS: Beverages will be provided, and please feel free to bring your lunch along!

About Tough Island: True Stories from Matinicus, Maine:
In 1991, Crash Barry moved to Maine's most remote inhabited island to work as a sternman aboard a lobster boat. On Matinicus, twenty miles out to sea, population fifty, the ferry visited nine times a year and airplanes only landed when there was no fog, rain, snow, sleet or darkness. Tough Island is a gritty memoir and guided tour of a unique society inhabited by resourceful individuals and scoundrels. Stories of danger and drugs, sex and violence, death and sorrow, all unfold in a landscape of breathtaking beauty.

About Sex, Drugs and Blueberries:
In the novel Sex, Drugs and Blueberries, failed Portland rocker Ben Franklin moves Down East with his poet wife to start a new life. Desperate for cash, Ben signs on for the Maine blueberry harvest where he's lured into a seamy world of sex and drugs that could lead to his downfall. Alternating between temptation and ecstasy, desperation and guilt, Ben discovers how quickly things can go wrong.

Crash Barry's website and blog can be found here: http://crashbarry.com/

See upcoming Brown Bag Lectures and other Portland Public Library events at http://portlandlibrary.com/programs/programs.htm

Blaine & the poison dagger?

In digging around after another story this weekend, I came across a curious snippet of bizarre hearsay in the October 8, 1892 issue of the Illustrated American, on page 300:

Fads, Facts and Fancies

A citizen of Augusta, Maine, name G. W. King, has been telling Western reporters that ex-Secretary Blaine is constantly haunted by the fear of becoming mad, and that in anticipation of the dread moment when his mind will become a blank, the slighted leader of the Harrison cabinet carries with him, for ready use, a poisoned dagger, obtained in Italy from a professional assassin.

I don't think I've heard that story before!!!

To quote Wikipedia: "James Gillespie Blaine (January 31, 1830 – January 27, 1893) was a U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine, two-time Secretary of State. He was nominated for president in 1884, but lost a close race to Democrat Grover Cleveland." Photo from Wikipedia as well.