{"id":1336,"date":"2009-11-25T13:09:47","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T20:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=1336"},"modified":"2018-02-07T13:01:55","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T18:01:55","slug":"from-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/from-away\/","title":{"rendered":"From Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 2009<\/p>\n

\"colin08\"I love the story of the People of the Dawn mooning Giovanni da Verrazzano\u2019s ships as they first sailed down our wild coast in 1524 to document their own claim of having \u2018discovered\u2019 Vacationland. After all, Verrazzano was From Away.<\/p>\n

But a few centuries after this first contact, how can any of us laugh at someone From Away when we can\u2019t even agree on what From Here is? When even Tim Sample<\/em> doesn\u2019t talk like Tim Sample?<\/p>\n

When did <\/em>some of us become so insular and self-conscious?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy theory is, it started in the world of art,\u201d says William David Barry of Maine Historical Society. \u201cThrough the John Neal (1793-1876) era, it was possible to launch yourself as an internationally famous painter or art critic here<\/em>\u2013Neal was \u2018America\u2019s first art critic\u2019\u2013and stay here. <\/em>You really could<\/em> live in the Forest City and sell your work in London, Paris, and New York\u201d without risking censure for your eccentric behavior. \u201cThen, after the Great Fire of 1866, when shipping went down here, forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barry says, \u201cYou can actually see the dividing line where people look at Maine and Portland as being as good or better than anywhere else in the world, and then see a kind of jealousy for other places settling in, as though all that was left to us was the right to argue who\u2019s been here the longest.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, \u201cyou can track it to quotes about Winslow Homer. In 1888, John T. Hull, in Handbook of Portland<\/em>, makes a point of saying, \u2018Winslow Homer, the well-known New York artist, has his summer studio at Prouts,\u2019\u201d with all the suspicion and veneration that attends to that. A few decades earlier, \u201cJohn Neal would simply have called Homer a Maine painter.\u201c<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s 1889. Barry points to the story of some \u201cWalter Corey chairs having been praised as \u2018fine Philadelphia furniture\u2019\u201d at a local soir\u00e9e, only for a guest to flip them over and discover the Exchange Street labels. An embarrassed Portland Sunday Telegram<\/em> lamented, \u2018We know that it is a too frequent characteristic of Portland people to deem everything which emanates from our own city inferior until it is proven otherwise.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays, no one\u2019s immune from being accused of being From Away. In just the past year, someone has come up to me and whispered, \u201cWhere you from?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from right here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said, lifting an eyebrow, \u201cI mean, where were you born<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the Maine Eye & Ear Infirmary,\u201d I said. It\u2019s where many Portlanders from the Dave Astor Show years were born. Stephen King was born there, I think. What could be more Maine than that? Game, set, match, even if Bob Skoglund jokes and calls me a \u201cyear-round summer person\u201d because he correctly senses that part of me doesn\u2019t know if I\u2019m from anywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yeah?\u201d the man said, deepening his suspicion. \u201cWhat floor<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Colin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 2009 I love the story of the People of the Dawn mooning Giovanni da Verrazzano\u2019s ships as they first sailed down our wild coast in 1524 to document their own claim of having \u2018discovered\u2019 Vacationland. After all, Verrazzano was From Away. But a few centuries after this first contact, how can any of us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[60],"class_list":["post-1336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-december-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1336"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14517,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions\/14517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}