Lifestyle Features

50 ways to leave 2009

Get your New Year's Eve down to an Auld Lang science

By JEFF INGLIS | December 30, 2009

Illustration: K. Bonami

Your usual lackadaisical approach to New Year's Eve — just see what happens and go with the flow — is not going to cut it this year. Sure, the end of this decade may not have the same kind of new-millennium pressure as the last one, a year that sent you scurrying to your basement Y2K bunker or out on a Strange Days-like celebration of impending global collapse. But the plunge into 2010 is a milestone nonetheless. So to help you make this one count, we sent a team of future-thinking Predator drones all across the state of Maine, and a little ways down into Seacoast New Hampshire to sniff out any NYE happenings. We threw the results in our data centrifuge to spin out the good from the lame. And from that, we've distilled the 50 best goings-on, broken down by distance from Portland, from barely-off-the-couch to the Maine mountains, all the way to interstellar travel (we're not kidding!).

At arm's length

If you really can't be bothered to move for New Year's, stick tight to your computer and visit newyears.earthcam.com to see LIVE WEBCAM FEEDS of what everyone else is doing. Use that, and the party footage on www.newyearsnation.com, as motivation to get your butt in motion.

Don't get distracted by all the MUSICAL ACTS on TV: JLo and the Black Eyed Peas on ABC, Rihanna, Jay-Z, and Green Day on NBC, and American Idol-ists on FOX. Seriously, head out of your living room and see the world as a new decade begins.

Close by

For an early start without leaving the peninsula, stop by the PHYZGIG show at the Portland Performing Arts Center. Starting at 2 pm (there's another show at 7), clowns, jugglers, slapstick, music, and a general variety show will take over the stage. $18, $16 students & seniors, $14 under 13 | 25A Forest Ave, Portland | phyzgig.org | 207.854.0065

If you're anticipating more silliness later in the night and want to start with sweet, swing in to Aucocisco for one of the two FOFER SHOWS (at 3 and 7 pm), featuring artist, musician, and storyteller Shana Barry and her creations, the Maine-island-dwelling furball Fofers. 89 Exchange St, Portland | fofers.com

Fuel stop

It's going to be a long night, so take a break for sustenance (and be sure to call for reservations anywhere you go!). At PEPPERCLUB, there are two seatings (5:30 and 8:30 pm) with five courses of their scrumptious vegan/vegetarian/omnivore cooking for $35 (plus drinks). 78 Middle St, Portland | 207.772.0531

Just up the block at HUGO'S is a five-course meal of Chef Rob Evans's locavore-based cuisine for $75. 88 Middle St, Portland | 207.774.8538

VIGNOLA has a $48 prix-fixe upscale Italian menu with free prosecco at midnight. 10 Dana St, Portland | 207.772.1330

Portland's newest classy restaurant, GRACE, has a 6 pm seating for $70 per person for a five-course meal from their excellent menu. There's also an 8:30 pm seating but to that one you can add (for $20 per person) an after-dinner-party, complete with housemade chocolates, a champagne toast at midnight, and even a balloon drop! (Or get into the 10:30 "just the party" for $25.) 15 Chestnut St, Portland | 207.828.4422

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Related: Ghost stories, Winged migration, Being Scrooge, More

Ghost stories
For all of the excitement that surrounded Wilco on the Maine State Pier or Sufjan Stevens at Port City Music Hall or the various sold-out Ray LaMontagne shows of the past year, there is no question that last Sunday's Phish show at the Cumberland County Civic Center was the biggest thing to hit our fair city in a very long time.
Winged migration
Since their start in the middle of the decade, Brown Bird have been one of the region's go-to chamber-folk outfits, with a couple of dark and stormy albums earning them a following in various nooks of New England. The release of their latest album, The Devil Dancing , feels like both an ending and a new beginning.
Being Scrooge
Over the 33 years that Trinity Rep has been staging A Christmas Carol , many actors playing Ebenezer Scrooge have growled and grumped, cantankered, and curmugeoned around the stage.
Christmas present
Christmases come and Christmases go, as psychedelic wrapping paper gives way to orderly Republican stripes, as sweet little Jimmy grows into gruff Uncle James.
Hot for teacher
MECA faculty re-imagine the natural world and play with nostalgia
Wanting more
After its triumphant traversal of the complete Béla Bartók string quartets at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Borromeo Quartet was back for a free 20th- and 21st-century program at Jordan Hall, leading off with an accomplished recent piece by the 24-year-old Egyptian composer Mohammed Fairuz, Lamentation and Satire.
Injustice for all
Scott Sturgeon loses his train of thought a couple of times during this interview. He's loopy from jet lag — which is unavoidable after a 20-hour flight from New Zealand (halfway around the planet from his non-residency at a squatted apartment building in New York City), where he's just finished a tour with his claim-to-fame band, Leftover Crack.
Photos: Boston expressionism at Danforth Museum
Photos of the works of expressionist artists David Aronson, Henry Schwartz, Gerry Bergstein and at the Danforth Museum in Framingham.
Still Wonderful
It's a risky gamble, creating a stage version of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life .
Group hug
Things aren’t always what they’re called — we know that flying fish don’t fly and starfish aren’t even fish.
Fears and rages
Woyzeck isn't a play, it's a Rorschach inkblot test for directors and theater companies.
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Topics: Lifestyle Features , Entertainment, Science and Technology, David Camlin, More

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