The News of York (Not New)

York, Me. (photograph by Hallie Cohen)

What accounts for the honky think feeling of many seaside resorts? There are the boardwalks with their poker games, ski ball and bumper cars. The first thing you see when you go to Coney Island is The Cyclone—a perfect metaphor for environmentally challenged coasts. The peals of hysterical laughter are actually a premonition of the terror to come--that  a Sandy or more recently Irene can bring. Violence lurks around these redoubts facing the ocean. The malevolent Pinky is the the lord and master of Graham Greene’s Brighton which is the eponymous tawdry and beautiful vacation destination. In York, Maine right over the Portsmouth Bridge  everyone has a tattoo. You spot a guy with bare arms only to see a full leg of tattoo. “I hate to be a pain in the butt,” says one of the denizens of the Anchorage Inn, on Long Beach Road, “but I think I gave you the wrong room number on that Bloody Mary." It’s only 9AM and there’s a long day ahead. He’s a huge forbidding looking character who looks like an Allmann Brother with his biblical beard. Get with the program. It could be the Jersey Shore, Hampton Bays or Virginia Beach. Seeing it's Maine, you’re going to get loggers from up North who are bringing their oversized personalities and coolers into town.

read Joan Baum's review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department with Illustrations by Hallie Cohen

and watch the animation of Erotomania