Around Town 5/4/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

What’s the Word on Maine Street? 5/2/26

What’s the Word on Maine Street?, hosted by Sarah Pebworth, is a weekly short feature Saturdays at 9:30am looking at local literary and visual arts events and offerings!

About the host:
Sarah Pebworth leads the steering committee for Word—a Blue Hill Literary Arts Festival, founded in 2017 and held each October. She serves on the boards of the Cultural Alliance of Maine and Lawrence Family Fitness Center YMCA. Since February 2023 Sarah has written “Shared Seas and Common Grounds,” a column published in the Penobscot Bay Press’s Weekly Packet. She and her wife Julie Jo Fehrle live in Blue Hill.

Theme music: Ross Gallagher is a bassist who grew up in East Blue Hill, ME, and currently lives between Bath, ME and Brooklyn, NY, where he works with a wide variety of musical artists. Infinite Blues is a cut from his recently released neon night, an excursion into an ambient/electronic musical world built around rhythmic bass ostinatos, clouds of processed looping electronic atmospheres, and melody. By turns both subtle and unapologetically noisy, the songs are a collection of luminous constellations, roved between by a band of texturally minded instrumental improvisers.

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Earthwise 5/2/26: The Loon

Producer/Host: Anu Dudley

About the host: Rev. Dr. Anu Dudley is an ordained Pagan minister and a retired history professor. She continues to teach classes, including the three-year ordination curriculum at the Temple of the Feminine Divine, and others such as History of the Goddess, Paganism 101, Ethical Magic, and Introduction to the Runes. Currently she is writing a book about how to cast the runes using their original Goddess meanings. She lives in the woods off-grid in a small homesteading community in Central Maine.

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Conversations from the Pointed Firs 5/1/26: Charles Cantalupo

Host: Peter Neill
Producer: Spencer Albee
Music by Casey Neill (Mock Turtle Music)

Conversations from the Pointed Firs is a monthly audio series with Maine-connected authors and artists discussing new books and creative projects that invoke the spirit of Maine, its history, its ecology, its culture, and its contribution to community and quality of life. Airs the first Friday of every month from 4-5pm. Online at pointedfirs.org.

This month, host Peter Neill has a conversation with Charles Cantalupo, Professor Emeritus of English, Comparative Literature, and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Charles is an active contributor to various literary journals, a co-author of the Asmara Declaration on African Languages and Literature, a critic and translator of African writers from Eritrea; author of a personal memoir, Joining Africa, about his African experience, and a poet himself, with several published anthologies. He lives in Eastport, Maine.

About the host:
Peter Neill is founder and director of the World Ocean Observatory, a web-based place of exchange for information and educational services about the health of the ocean. In 1972, he founded Leete’s Island Books, a small publishing house specializing in literary reprints, the essay, photography, the environment, and profiles of indigenous healers and practitioners of complimentary medicine around the world. He holds a profound interest in Maine, its history, its people, its culture, and its contribution to community and quality of life.

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Around Town 5/1/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

May Day / Workers Over Billionaires National Day of Action (“No Work No School No Shopping.”) local events
Camden, noon, village square
Bangor, 3-5pm arts and tabling, 5-7pm rally and potluck, Broadway Park
Belfast, noon-1pm, Post Office Square
Maine Education Association members are holding rallies in Portland and Bangor. In Bangor the rally will be at the Bangor High School parking lot from 4-5pm
FMI:
May Day 2026: Together We Stand, Indivisible
The Workers Over Billionaires Movement, Organized Power in Numbers
Mobilize.us May Day Calendar of Events
Activate Maine calendar of events

Data Center bill with bipartisan support vetoed by Governor Mills. A majority voted to override her veto, but not the 2/3rds required. 13 legislators were absent from the vote. View the rollcall here

On Saturday, May 2, Jane’s Walk will bring a full day of free, volunteer led walking conversations to Ellsworth. Inspired by Jane Jacobs, the global festival encourages people to explore the places they live through local history, civic engagement, art, design, and shared observation. This year’s Ellsworth lineup invites participants to join one walk or make a day of it, with topics ranging from walkability and downtown history to art, public space, and a seaweed centered stroll through downtown More information at Heart of Ellsworth

Staged reading of Circus of finance, a comedy about private equity, featuring live circus, written and directed by local playwright Lisa Leaverton, followed by a panel discussion: “Whose Economy; Community Initiatives for Autonomy & Stability, free and open to the public, Sun May 3, 2026, 3:00-5:00 pm at the American Legion hall in Belfast with refreshments and socializing to follow

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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Around Town 4/30/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Charles Rolsky, Ph.D, Executive Director & Senior Research Scientist, joins us with an update from the Shaw Institute, a Blue Hill based nonprofit scientific research organization founded in 1990, that “focuses on researching and better understanding the connection between environmental and human health” Their work was recently featured in this article (which links to the study)

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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World Ocean Radio 4/29/26: To Regulate

Host: Peter Neill
Producer: Trisha Badger

ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Regulate is a verb with many nuanced meanings: to standardize, to classify, to monitor, to supervise, to coordinate, to administer, to rectify. Government and the courts are designed as the tools of regulation, created to sustain, preserve, and protect us. Has this changed? How is regulation working to sustain the world ocean, to protect its vitality, and its essential contribution to our survival?

WORLD OCEAN RADIO
5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. A catalog of more than 730 episodes offering perspectives on global ocean issues and solutions, and celebrating exemplary projects. Available for RSS feed and broadcast by college and community radio stations worldwide via Exchange.prx.org and Audioport.org. Visit WorldOceanObservatory.org for the full catalog, searchable by theme.

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