Sometimes when a restaurant is hyped for so long and so repeatedly, I confess to wondering if the reputation is a product of this hype. But the Maine Diner exceeds all expectations.

The Maine Island Dance Festival takes up residency this week at Chebeague Island in Casco Bay.

Saved from an ignominious end, this rare 19th-century painted scroll — one of America’s early ‘motion pictures’ — has been painstakingly restored and will be displayed by the Saco Museum in a new exhibition.

Nancy Meader’s pots have an organic feel that revels in their maker’s hands. On her tall vases, her thumbprints run up and down the outer seam. Her “People Pots” are loose and varied. With a head, neck and body, they have that recognizable regularity that makes them human but enough individuality to make them people. […]