Lawless is a Maine poet and publisher. In January his imprint, Blackberry Books, published a collection of Sakaki’s work, How to Live on the Planet Earth, with a foreword by noted poet Gary Snyder. Lawless will read from this book, as well as some of the favorite poets of the late Sakaki, including Kobayashi Issa, Kenji Miyazawa, Sakaki’s poet friend Tetsuo Nagasawa, and some sagas, known as yukar, by the Ainu of northern Japan.

The title poem of the book begins:

Dwell in the neighborhood
Of stars & rainbows.

With donkey’s ears
Listen to the wind whispering.

With monkey’s limbs
Hang around mountains & rivers.

For more information on the reading of Japanese poets by Gary Lawless on Tuesday, May 21 at 4:10 p.m. in COA’s McCormick Lecture Hall, contact John Visvader at jvisvader@coa.edu or 207-288-5015. www.coa.edu.

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The award-winning films take viewers from daredevil kayaking exploits to a trek along the length of the Colorado from its mountain birth to its desert demise, miles from the ocean.

In A Hand to Stand, a group of indigenous youths from British Columbia create their own stand-up paddle boards—building a sense of empowerment as they forge a connection to their culture.

Rock the Boat is a story about Los Angeles and the Los Angeles River. “To most people, the LA River is a joke,” observes river activist and COA environmental law professor Ken Cline. “It is just a concrete trough used for chase scenes in Hollywood films. But it is the home river to a group of dedicated people who will not let it get written off. With humor, a creative storyline, and good production values, this is a great film about the reclaiming of a river.”

A third film, Ikkatsu: The Roadless Coast, follows skilled sea kayakers as they document the flotsam from the 2011 Japanese tsunami along Washington’s remote coast. Ikkatsu means “united as one,” a concept that the tsunami debris illustrates in a powerful way.

Says Cline, “The festival will inspire anyone who has held a paddle, looked out at the ocean with longing, or jumped into a river.”

Tickets are $5 for students; $10 for adults in advance via the website https://ticketriver.com/event/7027-reel-paddling-film-festival and $15 at the door. Tickets include an electronic subscription to one of the four paddle sport magazines produced by Rapid Media: Rapid, Adventure Kayak, Canoeroots, or Kayak Angler. Proceeds support the whitewater paddling program at COA.

For more information about the Reel Paddling Film Festival from 7 to 9:30 on Friday, May 31, contact Donna Gold at dgold@coa.edu or 207-288-5015.

Photos courtesy of Reel Paddling Film Festival.

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Robin’s contemplation of this change in so many people’s experience is the subject of her senior project, the interactive art installation “user / inter / face,” at the college’s Ethel H. Blum Gallery from May 20 to 24. The installation includes drawings, paintings, video, and some interactive sculptures exploring the relationship between people, technology and codes. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, with an opening from 4 to 5:30 on Monday, May 20.

As an example of the way Robin is working with the interface between the work of the hand and the work of the box, Robin ground wood ash into black ink to paint her own QR or Quick Response codes on birch wood, for those with smart phones. Though hand drawn, the codes can be scanned by the smart phones of viewers, leading the participant beyond the Blum Gallery, via the medium, of course, of technology.

The exhibit is part of Robin’s final project for COA, along with an intensive term spent in the college’s Sustainable Venture Incubator, where she is studying the business side of an artist’s work, while also creating the website, robinowings.com.

Says Robin, “We use words, symbols, and codes to systematize and find meaning in our abstract world.” Recognizing that “to define is to divide,” she continues, “This show is a response to the presence and prevalence of information coding in my world.”

For more information on the exhibit, which runs from Monday through Friday, May 20 to 24, contact Robin Owings at rowings@coa.edu, or 207-288-5015.

College of the Atlantic was founded in 1969 on the premise that education should go beyond understanding the world as it is, to enabling students to actively shape its future. A leader in experiential education and environmental stewardship, COA has pioneered a distinctive interdisciplinary approach to learning—human ecology—that develops the kinds of creative thinkers and doers needed by all sectors of society in addressing the compelling and growing needs of our world. For more, visit www.coa.edu.

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Marissa Altmann looks at bats archived at the Smithsonian Museum.

Altmann’s project consists of exit surveys of buildings on Mount Desert Island where bats have recently been reported or have been known to reside. Six species of bats are known to be on MDI; at least five spend some part of their summer on the island. Many of them can be seen at dusk near a pond, stream, or body of water that attracts insects. Your knowledge of where bats have been or are roosting will help Altmann and her partners learn about bat activities and roosting behavior on the island. It will also promote greater appreciation for the important role bats play in the region’s ecosystem, primarily by regulating insect populations.

Deeper knowledge of bats is especially needed in light of declines due to White Nose Syndrome, which reached Acadia in 2011 and 2012. Using acoustic and visual methods, Altmann can learn what species are present, estimate the number of bats using each building, and how the species or bat numbers change through the summer.  The knowledge gained from her efforts and those following her this summer will establish an informational baseline that can be used in comparisons with future surveys. Altmann is excited to work with the community of MDI in her research on bats.

During her time at COA, Altmann has explored relationships between wildlife, biological research, communities, and policy; last spring she also researched the effects of wind direction on bat foraging behavior at Bubble Pond. Altmann recently served as the U.S. Youth Delegate to the Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Trade in Endangered Species in Bangkok, Thailand. Having spent an extended period of time as an intern and research student in the Mammal Division of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, she became interested in how interdisciplinary understandings of different types of ecological knowledge can be used in conservation. Both her bat research, and her COA senior project—a look at how the 1910 Smithsonian-Roosevelt Expedition portrayed local relationships with wildlife—have been presented at academic symposiums.

Please send details of bay activity, along with the buildings or structures where bats have been seen to batsofMDI@gmail.com. Altmann will be monitoring this e-mail through June 1and park staff will continue to check the email address through the summer for new reports from MDI residents.

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According to staff at Allied Whale, COA’s marine mammal research center:

• Harbor seal mothers often leave their pups for hours at a time to forage for food. They may even leave their pup on the same beach day after day while periodically coming back to feed it. The pup might “cry,” but a seal’s vocalizations are essential—the mom listens for her own pup’s plaintive hooting calls. Generally, the pup is healthy and simply awaiting its mother’s return.

• Leave the pup alone. The mother will not return if she detects the presence of humans. Human closeness can significantly stress the animal, potentially causing internal bodily harm.

• Seals are semi-aquatic; while they spend a good deal of their life in the ocean, it is necessary, even critical, to spend portions of time hauled out of the water—on beaches, docks, even perched in discarded tires, or on uncomfortable-looking rocks.

Yes, there are cases in which harbor seal pups are truly abandoned by their mothers. The mother may be ill and unable to care for her pup, she may have died or gotten separated from the pup. In these cases, the pup will need human assistance, given appropriately and safely.

If you find a seal pup:

• Do not touch it. That is for your own safety as well as the animal’s well being. Seals can carry infectious diseases that can be transmitted to humans and to pets, making them very ill.
• Do not remove it from the beach. The pup may be resting and awaiting its mom’s return.
• Do not put the pup back in the ocean. They are babies; they need rest like all infants.
• Do not pour seawater on the pup. They do not need to be wet.
• And do not feed the animal; at this age, pups are still nursing. Mom’s milk is better and different from the milk we drink, so refrain from playing surrogate mother!

Remember, it is illegal to touch, harass or harm any marine mammal in the United States.

If you feel the pup needs assistance, or if you simply want more information, call Allied Whale, the marine mammal research lab of the College of the Atlantic at: 288-5644 or the stranding cell-phone at: 266-1326 (weekends, evenings, holidays).

COA’s Allied Whale is a member of the Northeast Regional Stranding Network and is authorized by the National Marine Fisheries Service to respond to marine mammal strandings. All marine mammals are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

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These thoughts turned into Anna’s senior project on Maine’s Wabanaki/Penobscot language through which she is exploring and learning about linguistics, culture, and governmental administration and history.

When the French arrived in Maine and surrounding areas they made an alliance with the people who already lived here and the Wabanaki languages were still healthy until the English defeated the French and started a campaign to make the American Indians “civilized”.

“A lot of people stopped speaking their languages when they were put in boarding schools or foster homes as kids, which was really purposeful by the government to try to make people not be Indian,” explained Anna before going on to point out that even today, though this form of governmental abuse isn’t legal anymore, there are still many obstacles to speaking Penobscot. Speaking Penobscot limits the number of people one can communicate with, making English much more practical if you want to reach a larger audience. Also, as Anna puts it, “There are so many other things going on in these communities—other serious problems that come from everything that’s been done to them—that learning their language isn’t always top priority.”

Even if one has the time to learn and teach others the language, other doubts occur: “If I’m not fluent in this language should I bother passing a disjointed version of it on to my kids?” Or, “If my kids do begin to speak it, people will tease them or exclude them.”

Though there are many difficulties to speaking minority languages, Anna believes it is important to keep them alive. Languages record a culture’s stories, customs and perspectives. While most words have equivalent meanings in other languages, all languages have words unique to them that give insight into their culture and collective way of viewing the world.

“In Algonquin languages,” says Anna, “you can’t have a noun without a verb; in Passamaquoddy the word for field is ‘over there where it fields along.’” If the Passamaquoddy language were lost, their way of viewing places, people, and objects as always in a process of becoming and movement would no longer be there to add their perspective to the mix.

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I sat down for a question and answer session with director Gina Sabatini and co-director Polly McAdam to discuss their upcoming play, The Jolly Mon, premiering May 24. Gina`s senior project is adapted from the children`s novel by Jimmy Buffett and his daughter Savannah Jane Buffett. Gina and Polly shared details about the early ideas for the play, and the casting, audition, and rehearsal process. – Marina Cucuzza

In The Jolly Mon, Sarah Duff plays Princess Marigold, while Tyler Prest is The Jolly Mon

Marina: So how did you get the idea for this play?
Gina: I got the idea to write this play from the book by Jimmy Buffett and his nine-year- old daughter Savannah Jane Buffett. The children’s book was always my favorite. I was eight when I got it, I just loved the illustrations and the colors. I take it with me when I go some place new, or if I go away for a long time because the story is anchoring for me. It’s very much about transitions and it’s touching in a deep way.

I was flipping through it one day while and I was listening to music. I was reading a particularly dramatic part and a song came on, and it was very theatrical. I really felt like I was underwater, reading it, and I thought it would be a beautiful scene on stage. This was two years ago, so my second year at of COA. I thought it would be an amazing senior project for me because I am very theater- oriented. Also, this story carried me through difficult times and allowed me to celebrate good times. I wanted to bring it to COA and the wider community for that reason. I truly believe that theater is a great vehicle for causing change and this story and the theatrical presentation is really powerful.

Marina: Can you tell me a little more about the writing process and what that was like?
Gina: So I began writing the play over the course of the summer between my second and third year, and I wrote the second act last summer. Bill Carpenter and Polly edited it with me, but it’s still ever-changing. The actors make it much more malleable and bring the characters to life.

The storyline of the play goes beyond the book. One important thing in writing the script is that in children’s books, the protagonist doesn’t always save himself. Magic or an outside force saves him; other elements help him succeed. In my version, I intentionally made the protagonist be his own hero. In my version he is facing adversity and he pulls himself out of it. I am also very influenced by Shakespeare and how he structured his plays. There are intentional Shakespearian dramatic elements in my version of the story. The monologues are structurally based on some of his monologues, but despite that, the show is also kind of a musical.

Bethany Anderson as One-Eyed Rosy with the pirate-clowns,  right to left, Janoah Bailin as Giggs, Maddie Hoeppner as Bosun, Colleen Courtney as Pele in Gina Sabatini’s The Jolly Mon.

Marina: What do you want the audience to know before they come see the play?
Gina: It’s based on a children’s book and it’s appropriate for children. They can come see it and enjoy it and walk away with a moral message. However, it’s also mature enough that adults can come see it and be moved in a different way. It’s important for both audiences.

Marina: Polly, can you tell me about your involvement in the play and what this experience has been like for you?
Polly: It was really exciting for me because I heard a lot about the writing process and I wanted to help Gina. It was helpful I think because I saw things with fresh eyes. We are really open in the way that we direct.

Gina: We sometimes have opposing ideas, but I don’t know what I would be doing without Polly`s creative insight. We have different brains and life experiences and we think differently so I’m so glad she’s here.

Marina: Can you tell me about the casting process?
Gina: The audition process is so important. For casting we held open auditions. We took selections from the script and had people read them. We had to make sure there was chemistry between the lead characters as well as that the villain instilled fear and held her ground.

The pirate clowns seem to be up to no good in The Jolly Mon.

Marina: So I know you’re currently in the rehearsal stage, how is that going?
Polly: Rehearsals are going really well. It’s eye opening to see how much everything is changing. We were a little bit tentative at first, but now starting the rehearsal process, it’s evident that everyone has really latched on to his or her character. They are really excited about it and the atmosphere is so positive.

Gina: Yes, this might be the most positive theater experience I’ve ever had. It feels really special and everyone is pulling more than their own weight. It’s just incredible. Everyone is helping out. One thing about doing a senior project that requires other people is that it’s risky. People can’t flake out—you have to depend on them. But I am so grateful that this is my senior project because I get to work with so many awesome people. I am thrilled beyond words.

Right now we are just about done rehearsing everything once through. Lines are basically learned and we are giving some more intense stage direction. Generally how we rehearse is: warm up, check in, including how we are doing and energy level, and then we start the rehearsal process. Initially we allowed the actors to do the scene without direction because the actors have their own creative minds and we want to see how they approach the scenes. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but it is important because it’s more of a collaborative effort that way. We direct, but we’re open. Our job is to help the actors find their character and give some clarity. We can be their guides to explain the character and situation they are acting. Now we’re working on refining things more. Now that they have the foundation of the scene we can add nuances, fine tune things, try costumes on to see if people are comfortable, become more aware with light cues and music cues and stage directions.

Marina: What are you most excited to see on stage?
Gina: Everything! … I am excited for the “underwater” dance scene because that’s the scene that inspired me to write, that’s what spurred all of this.

Polly:  It’s absolutely beautiful, I can’t wait to see it on stage. I think the audience will really appreciate it. … It will be nice to see everything else that goes on: the set and lights and music. It will really fill up the space.

Marina: What do you want the audience to take away from the performance?
Gina: There’s so much more to this play than a moral. For any piece of theater I would ask the audience to be taken along for the ride and use it as a tool to reflect on their own life. Shakespeare said that theater is a mirror we hold up to nature. It’s more than that— it’s a tool for us to get to different places in our life. It’s a motivator and a life changer. I hope people carry this play with them and they too can find the music within them as the Jolly Mon does.

Show dates
Friday, May 24 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 25, 2:30 and 8 p.m.

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One spring night, College of the Atlantic’s herpetology professor Steve Ressel took a group of students on a moonlight field trip to Acadia National Park to observe mating spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum). The site was of special interest since the salamanders were mating in pools on the rocky coast, close to the intertidal zone – very different from the vernal pools where spotted salamanders are usually spotted (pun intended). Salamanders, being amphibians, have highly permeable skin and are thus very sensitive to their surroundings, including the salinity (salt content) of water. As a result, we had also been given strict directions from Steve to have clean hands with no hand lotion if we wanted to handle the small critters.

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Becca Haydu, Staff Photographer: I had so much fun on Earth Day! The day had a busy start, as I was helping to organize a booth for the Permaculture Club. We planned to set up a station where people could come and make their own seed bombs. In the morning, we gathered materials from around campus. Natalie Beaugard made an awesome sign out of trash. It was important to us to use materials we could recycle or gather from the community rather than buying from a store. It was a little hectic getting our booth set up, but once we did, it was a big hit! Lots of people came to visit our booth and make seed bombs. There were lots of children, which was fun. We also had some books about permaculture for people to browse. It was a fun way to encourage people to get their hands dirty on Earth Day. In between working the booth, I took photos for Newsworthy and got to explore the other cool booths and activities that were set up. It was a beautiful day to be outside with friends and celebrate our relationship with the earth.

Erica Allen, Staff Writer: Normally my Sundays on campus start lazy and end busily finishing homework for the upcoming week, but Earth Day was different. The sun was out, there were folks of all stripes taking rides in a horse-drawn carriage around campus, or alternately, a solar-powered golf cart-like car. I’m really involved in Spectrum on campus, so I sat with my Spectrum buddies at our booth, offering feminist reading materials, queer romantic comedies, and safe sex information to all who wandered our way. There, my friends and I challenged one another to build the highest structure out of packaged condoms, cursing the gusts of wind that blew them down. In the course of the afternoon, I got a cone of the most divine salted caramel ice cream from MDI Ice Cream, made a seed bomb, sorted through the rummage sale and library book sale, and twirled to traditional music upon the red bricks. I was filled with pride seeing my friends sharing their passion for Mother Earth at their booths, giving workshops, facilitating discussions, creating art, or just reveling in the sunny spring day.

Joanna Weaver, Staff Writer: Walking toward the library, mentally sinking into a quagmire of homework and stress, I looked up from the ground and was startled to discover a quantity of people milling around tables. Then I remembered, today was COA’s Earth Day celebration. The raincloud of stress subsided as I let myself pause to soak up the sunlight and explore the festivities. Little kids ran around and stopped to stare at the draft horses, eager to get a ride. One of the boys was enthusiastically playing hacky sack with a COA student, while a faculty member was rejoicing on the find of a very large French coffee press at the yard sale table. Spotting the farm veggies table I got some of the most delicious kale I’ve had in a long time. Walking up the stairs to the library, I approached my homework armed with a more appreciative view of life.

For more glimpses of COA’s Earth Day celebration, view the Flickr slideshow.

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COA students have an unexpected range of talents in addition to their concern for the community and the environment. Singers, dancers, poets, and more will take the stage during the Fandango to raise money for Share the Harvest. Hear music from Argentina, England, Elvis Presley, and COA itself, dance from Greece and the Middle East. Expect good humor and great talent along with some quiet, lovely music—and a few surprises.

Among the treats provided will be empanadas, pizza, crispy kale, and dulce tres leches. The raffle prizes include gift certificates from local businesses for baked goods, flowers, hardware, a massage and more.

Share the Harvest is a program developed by COA to make the purchase of healthy, local, organic food possible for all members of the community. The program distributes gift certificates to the Beech Hill Farm Stand through Mount Desert Island food pantries.

Admission is $5 for adults and $2 for students. Children are free. All proceeds from admission, food sales, silent auction, and raffle go to Share the Harvest. For more information on the Fandango Saturday, May 11 at 7 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. in COA’s Gates Community Center, contact Anyuri Betagon, abetegon@coa.edu, 207-288-5015.

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Drawing by Mollie Bedick for her exhibit, “Drawing Close: Face to Face Encounters”

The work is of people, with Bedick’s drawings created using walnut ink, turmeric, and graphite. The intention is to evoke her own perception of the moments of connection between people.

Says Bedick, “This project is inspired by my own day-to-day interactions with loved ones, strangers, and friends. I use drawing, animation, and installation to dismantle these ephemeral moments of connection. In this process of dismantling I am confronted with confusion. What did I make up and what is true? What have I remembered and what have I forgotten?

“Although it may sound counter-intuitive, in this state of confusion I am most productive. I am able to reorganize fragments of my memory and reassemble them into a new whole. This whole is a reconfiguration of the imagined that is yet somehow plausible: moods, histories, and narratives. My hope is that these reconfigured images offer the viewer a chance, in their own daily encounters, to investigate the boundary between fiction and reality.”

For more information about the exhibit “Drawing Close: Face to Face Encounters” in COA’s Blum Gallery May 14-17, with an opening May 13 at 4 p.m., contact Mollie Bedick at mbedick@coa.edu, or 207-288-5015.

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Pirate One-Eyed Rosy aka Bethany Anderson, threatens, right to left, Colleen Courtney as Pele, Maddie Hoeppner as Bosun, Janoah Bailin as Giggs, the trio of pirate-clowns in Gina Sabatini’s The Jolly Mon. 

Though based on a children’s book and accessible to children, the play is for all ages, says Sabatini, who wrote the script and co-directs it with Polly McAdam ’14.

The production is set in the Caribbean where the Jolly Mon is a fisherman with a voice so beautiful that fish leap out of the water and into his outstretched frying pan when he sings. One day the Jolly Mon, played by Tyler Prest ’16, fishes a guitar out of the ocean. The guitar turns out to be magical. Like all magical things, it holds a message for the Jolly Mon: there’s a destiny awaiting him; he can’t keep fishing. That destiny, it turns out, is to protect the Caribbean from pirates.

Enter the evil One-Eyed Rosy, played by Bethany Anderson ’13, a trio of pirate-clowns, puppet fish representing actual species (this is COA, after all) and some quite dramatic action. That, coupled with plenty of music and dance based on Caribbean rhythms, makes the play a joy for all ages. In the words of the Jolly Mon, “Like music, life is made up of rhythms; music brings people happiness because it is just another form of life.”

Though there’s a battle between good and evil, the play is not a simple fight between two extremes, Sabatini says. It becomes clear, she continues, “That where there’s bad there is also equal good.” She is hoping to communicate the complexities: “Good and bad, and right and wrong, are not clear-cut. You can be a good person, but make bad choices. What’s important is being true to who you are, and finding inner strength, because what makes you who you are and able to have an impact is being true to yourself.”

The book The Jolly Mon has been a touchstone for Sabatini since she first read it at age eight. It encouraged her to follow her dreams—including coming to COA and writing this play. Having been involved in several COA student plays over the past years, Sabatini decided to create one for her senior project three years ago, when the image of an underwater dance came to her while reading the book.

For more information about The Jolly Mon, which is free and geared to adults and children, at COA’s Gates Community Center on May 24 at 8 p.m., and May 25 at 2:30 and 8 p.m., contact Gina Sabatini at gsabatini@coa.edu.

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