Further Afield Archives - Hal Phillips

Maine Place Names: Observations on visiting, pronouncing Vienna, Madrid, Calais and Peru — while never leaving the 207

Hal Phillips — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 14:16:00 +0000

Prior to the smartphone era, when folks read mainly in analog fashion, a great many of us kept a Maine Atlas and Gazetteer in the glove compartment of our cars, or the privy. Published by Yarmouth-based mapmaker DeLorme, this oversized, soft-cover booklet neatly divided this Great State of ours into 96 pages, or rectangular quadrants, […]

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Great Moments in Getting Towed: A Brief, Late ’80s Anthology

Hal Phillips — Sun, 06 Jun 2021 13:34:55 +0000

It’s been a long time since I’ve lived in Boston, which is to say it’s been a long time since I’ve experienced the complicated sensations of getting towed. Cars do get towed in Maine, I suppose. But vehicular hazards here are more often centered on large antlered mammals in the roadway, as opposed to somewhat […]

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Trump Verse: “Coup-by-Con” — an Alternative Fragment

Hal Phillips — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 16:43:55 +0000

“What’s unfolding now is an attempted coup by a con.”— Tim Egan, The New York Times, Nov. 20, 2020 In Xanadu did Coup-by-Con Via stately news bubble decree Where Rudy, the sacred river troll, ran Amok through caverns baseless and inscrutable to man Down to the Four Seasons — no, not that one. Twice the popular […]

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Can Rodent Extermination Yield Life Lessons? You’d Be Surprised

Hal Phillips — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 19:51:59 +0000

[Ed. — From 2000-2003, I wrote a monthly op-ed column for The Portland Press-Herald,which had resolved to make space for a regular op-ed feature called “Stages”. In essence I was the paper’s “30something with kids” columnist. As I’m now 60something and my kids are both out in the world, columns like this make for fun, […]

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Sixty months into my NFL Boycott, Another Tragic On-Field Moment Pierces the Bubble

Hal Phillips — Thu, 14 Nov 2019 16:38:45 +0000

BUFFALO, N.Y. (Jan. 8, 2023) — It’s difficult for me to profess that I ever came to dislike the National Football League or football in general. Indeed, that’s part of the problem. I quite like it, as exhibited by 40-plus years of fandom starting with the Sam Bam/Mike Haynes/John Hannah Patriots. I also logged three […]

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Foster Parenting Digest: A Day in The Respite Life

Hal Phillips — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 20:34:05 +0000

6 p.m. on a Friday in May: The 12-year-old we’d been foster parenting the previous 8 weeks, whom I’ll call Bri, informs us there is a concert at school where the “staff band” performs — and the kids apparently join in. Having been through the middle/high school thing twice with our own children, both of […]

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Greetings to Mr. Morey, NBA & The West: Welcome back to The Middle Kingdom

Hal Phillips — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:44:33 +0000

HOUSTON, Texas (Oct. 11, 2019) — There’s a reason China has long referred to itself as The Middle Kingdom. Daryl Morey, the NBA and frankly much of Western Civilization is beginning to understand what that meant and what it means today. As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Morey is the general manager of the […]

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Portland Food Scene: More Boho-Proletarian Landmarks rent Asunder by Upward Mobility

Hal Phillips — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 14:22:49 +0000

PORTLAND, Maine (Aug. 31, 2019) — Two pillars of the Portland food scene have exited the city’s vibrant but transititory culinary tableau. First came the announcement that Silly’s, the longtime boho totem on Washington Street, would shutter its operation on Sept. 1, 2019. Two days later, Brian Boru — the peninsula’s “It” dive bar for […]

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Three Rules to Promote Baseballing Alacrity

Hal Phillips — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 13:10:28 +0000

See here three simple rules for the betterment of baseball and the country whose pastime it remains, to the extent that anyone can sit through an entire 9-inning game these days without the aid of a DVR. First, give the ball to the pitcher and oblige the batter to be ready when the ball is […]

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Network Snafu Stymies Smartphone Scrabble

Hal Phillips — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 22:26:40 +0000

A week into the Great Scrabble Freeze-Out of 2014, I’m left to contemplate my beginnings. It all started in the Dominican Republic back in January 2013. Then again, the game took root far earlier than that. There has always been Scrabble. The Scrabble I play now, or did until a week ago, is the Facebook […]

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