The Times They Are A-Changin’ Venerable Maine publication morphs into new format, editorial philosophy

Maine Times is back. Again.

Actually, it is back in two forms. The first, which is most true to the fighting character of the Maine weekly founded in 1968, is one of seven forthcoming collections of original Maine Times stories. Compiled and culled meticulously to reflect the spirit of questing journalists Peter Cox and the late John N. Cole, “The Best of Maine Times 1968-1970” will be published over the next several years. The current one, which may find its way into local bookstores eventually, now is available only by calling the home office or ordering online.

The other form is a new glossy magazine, which arrives in stores today. It, too, is called Maine Times and is described by one of its editors as “a magazine for active people who love Maine and Mainers.” She rightly made the distinction that the new high-tech monthly is Maine Times “in name only.”

Nothing emphasizes that position more than an inaugural letter from publisher Christopher Hutchins. The Bangor businessman bought Maine Times four years ago, tried to revive its waning vigor, then suspended publication abruptly last year with the intention of relaunching it as a magazine. “This will be a statewide publication,” he writes. “The dialogue with former and new readers alike will begin with accuracy and balance. Rather than stir controversy, the content will explain it with sound, logical writing.”

Comparisons, of course, are inevitable. So let’s just say it right now: We’re talking apples and oranges. And the only solution? Get over it. Goodbye, days of economic debate. Hello, days of economic development. The old Maine Times was an institution here and beyond state lines. This is the new coffee-table cover for an SUV crowd with aspirations.

The ranging topics include Somalis in Lewiston, rising real estate prices in the state, tips for auctions, a guide to the best 18 holes of golf between Madawaska and Saco, a description of a prison showroom, a profile of folk singer Gordon Bok, a first-person reverie about working at a boatyard, info boxes about Maine products and people, recipes, a calendar, and a gallery of stylized photos and graphics – a kind of Down East, Forbes, Yankee and your favorite entertainment glossy all bound into one happy publication.

The next issue on entrepreneurship in a state whose mills are closing faster than a lobster trap, it might seem at first glance that the monthly on newsstands today is as far away in outlook as possible from the steaming weekly of yesteryear. Philosophically speaking, that’s true. It is only fair to say, however, that the premier issue nearly has the same mission in mind – in a twisty sort of way – as its older stepsibling. Really, if you think about it, there’s one slight suffixal change. The people who founded the Maine Times were not active. They were activists.

There you have it.

As with so much of the history of the paper, whose fire expired long ago, it’s all in the timing. Maybe Maine Times magazine is right for the upward-bound hopes of people who monitor the GNP (gross national product) rather than the EPA.

But talk about timing: The publication of “The Best of Maine Times 1968-1970” and the resurfacing of old Maine Times stories – balance and logic be damned – are welcome reminders of the usefulness of snooping, digging and dissenting. Is there a better time to revisit excellent, if controversial, journalism than when we are thinking, again, about war, civil rights, government power, patriotism, and the fight to sustain the best in our state and country?

If you missed the first incarnation of the news weekly, “The Best of” brings it all back. The maiden voyages into racial issues, child hunger, industrial power, housing discrimination and animal rights are, sadly, not all that different from headlines in today’s papers. Except Maine Times did it with personal pluck and editorial swagger. The Vietnam War, the communist contagion, drugs, draft dodgers, the Wyeths – it all comes back now in this readable large-scale paperback (what else?) with a stormy cover illustration by Robert Shetterly, the Brooksville artist often featured in the old pages and still lyrically captivating after all these years.

The journalism within these pages is a testament to the restless candor and unyielding excitement of the time. The underlying principle is: Question authority and then question the answers. But never question the right to speak out. And the result is a collection for reportorial posterity, a kind of “Our Town” or Spoon River for journalism and history classes at the local college. The hard-hitting writing is not as urbane as, say, the Village Voice, but – and there’s only one way to put this – it’s often damn good.

Take, for instance, the last line of Lloyd Ferriss’ chilling account of the night in 1970 when his 3-year-old son was willfully poisoned by Nick, a nefarious 21-year-old lodger at the family farm in Richmond. After revealing his disappointment with the local police and his own family’s naivete, as well as the potentially lifelong emotional damage to his son, Ferriss finishes off the story with a line that could have been lifted from a Raymond Carver short story: “I should have said at the beginning, ‘Listen, Nick, you’re a strange cat and we’re a straight family. Go take a room at the YMCA.'”

The reader may be filled with enough nostalgia to be romanced into believing that the stories in “The Best of” depict a radical departure from the Maine depicted in today’s sleek version of Maine Times. If you consider that the 1969 real estates listings, included at the end of “The Best of,” advertise a fully-restored, nine-room Colonial house in Freeport for $39,000, and 3 acres near the beach in Bar Harbor for $4,000, then we’re talking difference.

But when you think in terms of race relations, Wal-Marts and Rite Aids, empty factories and unemployment, the nebulous arts-and-cultural-economy drives, and, well, two Republican senators, there still is plenty of room in the state for debate.

“The Best of Maine Times” reminds readers and radicals of a tradition of journalistic foment. The new mag reminds us simply that the Times, it has a-changed.

To order “The Best of Maine Times 1968-1970,” visit www.mainetimes.com or call 1-800-439-8866.