1. Well golly gee, wouldn’t it be nice to have a weekend that wasn’t 100% rain? We might get a little bit of that Friday afternoon, and Sunday’s looking OK, but Saturday? Forget about it. Get your sunny fall days later, fool! Sounds like a great weekend to stay indoors. WPC Presents its first show since KahBang this Saturday, with Jacob Augustine and Sara Hallie Richardson (pictured) at the Bangor Opera House, starting at 8 p.m. – it’s free! At Ipanema there’s a dance party Friday night with DJ Reid and another dance party Saturday with River Bottom Funk. Paddy Murphy’s hosts the swingin’ good time that are the Moon Puppies on Friday, and Juicebox rocks the house on Saturday. There’s jazz and guitarist Mark Miller both night at Nocturnem. And, of course, the biggest dog (and even cat) centric event of the year is on the Waterfront, with the Bangor Humane Society’s Paws on Parade.
2. It’s First Friday Art Walk night in Portland, and some of the super cool events planned include two openings at the Space Gallery (Alison Pebworth’s “Beautiful Possibility” and “Limitless Range,” a collaborative mural project), the wonderful Edward Gorey exhibit at the Portland Public Library, and a dance premiere at Maine College of Art by choreographer-artists Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer. There’s also music on Friday from Miss Fairchild and Biscuits and Gravy and Empire, a CD release from the Reverie Machine at the Big Easy, Forget Forget and When Particles Collide at Slainte, and a punk show with the Jonee Earthquake Band, the Flipsides and Two Saints at Geno’s. Saturday brings a great local show at Mayo Street Arts, featuring Ryan Flaherty and the Burners, Sean Mencher and his Rhythm Kings, and Teri Joyce and the Tagalongs; there’s also Jimmy and the Soul Cats at the Big Easy.
3. The Maine Grind on Main Street in Ellsworth hosts a super fun event Saturday afternoon, to help defray health costs for Ellsworth stalwart Nisa Smiley and to help Sustainable Harvest International. Starting at 4 p.m. you can hear the Blast Addicts, Garlic Jones, Through The Dirt, the Loose Cannon Jug Band and Jesse Alexander, as well as enjoy kid’s events and some seriously great food and drink. Admission is $10. In Ellsworth, the Lompoc Cafe closes on the season on Saturday with Bastard Saffron, and Trisha Mason rocks it at Atlantic Brewing Company. In the Midcoast, 3RD Party is set for the Myrtle Street Tavern in Rockland, there’s the two-day Blues Ball at the Samoset Resort, featuring Shemekia Copeland and many others ($25 for both days), and in Belfast, there’s the wild n’ crazy monthly contradance on Friday night at the American Legion Hall.
4. Want to entertain the kids this weekend? Look no further than the Great Maine Puppet Festival at the Grand Theatre in Ellsworth, set for Saturday and Sunday. Four puppetry troupes from all over the Northeast will perform, including the Manipulators from Ottawa, Canada, doing their silly take on “Romeo and Juliet,” Tanglewood Marionettes from Massachusetts doing “Perseus and Medusa,” Nancy’s Puppets doing “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and Maine’s own Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers doing “The Legend of the Banana Kid.” Performances are at 1 and 4 p.m., and at 6 p.m. Saturday there’s also a screening of Jim Henson’s “The Dark Crystal.” Admission for youth to all four shows and the movie is $20; adults are $40.
5. Speaking of movies, there’s lots of good stuff out there right now. In mainstream theaters, Tim Burton’s long-in-the-making “Frankenweenie” opens, as does the comedy “Pitch Perfect” and the utterly absurd and insanely entertaining Liam Neeson-kills-everybody-but-this-time-in-Turkey-and-he’s-with-his-whole-family sequel, “Taken 2.” There’s also the stunningly shot and acted film from auteur Paul Thomas Anderson, “The Master,” set for Railroad Square Cinema, as well as “Samsara” and “Arbitage,” as well as an encore screening of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” at Reel Pizza in Bar Harbor.