So you go to be spaceman. If the space race had taken a few different turns, we might have ended up with a historical exhibit that looked like the one cooked up by the American Dream Technical Institute. [more inside]
posted by mikepop on Mar 18, 2009 - 6 comments

"...it looks like the dad's selling the tickets, the boy's complaining about something, and the mom and girl are extremely disinterested." If you liked Ted Bates, you'll love the Portland Sea Dogs. Quoth King Kaufman: "The hilarious part of the controversy is the statue itself, which is funnier than Spinal Tap's Stonehenge. It's that bad."
posted by staggernation on Apr 10, 2007 - 54 comments

Rough draft or a copy made by a Da Vinci acolyte? A painting entitled, "La Gioconda" which bears a striking resemblence to this one hangs in the distinctly non-Parisian Portland Museum of Art (Portland, Maine). Technical studies indicate that it was painted in 1510 (3-7 years after the orignal Mona Lisa). The Portland museum recently decided to re-display the painting [NB: link to public radio story] (having last hauled it out of the basement when the book came out).
posted by scblackman on Jun 3, 2006 - 17 comments

"The principle issue is the federal government's total disregard of local government," said Gerald Cayer, director of Portland's Department of Health and Human Services. "It's the Department of Homeland Security not appreciating other levels of government as they go through their work." The feds take 5 Honduran nationals from a jail in Bangor, Maine, where they've been held since Sept. 27, and without any notice to local health or law enforcement officials, drop the men off this week at a homeless shelter 2 hours south in Portland. When he asked whether the city would be reimbursed by the federal government for providing services to the men, Cayer said, he was told that the department did not have the money for that.
posted by damn yankee on Nov 18, 2004 - 15 comments