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Lisa Reisman |
Dec 13, 2022 1:52 pm
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Nina Lenitni photo
Bloom reads at Sunday's mActivity-hosted party.
After moving to a place that Conde-Nast Traveler had judged to be “one of the 10 unfriendliest cities in America,” author Lary Bloom worried that — if he were to slip and fall on an ice-coated sidewalk — his new neighbors would simply look the other way and keep on moving.
Instead, those neighbors sprawled on couches, perched themselves on stools, crammed into chairs that ranged outside a Goatville gym’s common room, and braved the December snow to listen to Bloom read and wisecrack about his newly published slim volume which is, in fact, a valentine to New Haven.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 22, 2022 8:43 am
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Sara Scranton’s “Spider Girl” partakes of old circus posters and underground comics from a generation past, but it has a modern twist that tweaks the formula. “Don’t get caught in her web,” the caption warns. It gives Spider Girl a little say in the matter.
That say is brought out in the poem by Karen Ponzio of the same title. “You speak of webs woven / Though your version of a trap is / My version of home. / Should I be punished for being hungry? / Is every ‘should’ a lure / Towards my demise? / Break my heart if it feeds / Your appetite or / Brings you joy. / I can rebuild anything / You attempt to destroy.” The poem, written in response to the painting, twists the painting even further, turning it inside out. Each piece amplifies the other.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 18, 2022 9:00 am
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Katy Rea.
Poetry about the end of the world. Pop music by turns dreamy, elliptical, lush, and jagged. And transfixing music from half a world away. All three art forms were on lavish display at Never Ending Books on Thursday night, as two poets and three musical acts comprised a diverse and thoroughly engrossing evening that entertained, warmed, and nourished.
Once you hear how many steps Estelita Boateng took before arriving on Nicoll Street Wednesday with her 4‑month-old son Lucas, you may never complain again about your exhausting daily routine.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 28, 2022 9:19 am
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On Thursday evening, the storefront space at Never Ending Books was filled with shadows — not only in the images lining the walls, but from the people who came to visit the dimly lit spot, transformed into a gallery as part of the Open Source Festival organized by Artspace. The show on display was “Spectral Musings,” by artists from the Bridgeport-based URSA Gallery, now up at the State Street arts collective through Oct. 31. That date isn’t an accident; in time for Halloween, the art on the walls features artists investigating the darkness that lies within — and ways to move into the light.
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Lindsay Skedgell |
Oct 3, 2022 8:51 am
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Through the curtain-lined doorway of Never Ending Books on Saturday night, an older woman in a blue shirt left the performance room, plugging her ears with her fingers. This reporter passed by her, going in the opposite direction. The room inside was in darkness, the sounds of metal grinding and shaping layers of noise music, echoing from a monitor on a fold-out table. Behind the table, OPCOH moved his hand along what looked to be a black electric violin, while the monitor, with wiring colored red, yellow, and blue, jutted out from the near corner of the table. His performance felt like a conjuring, what with the backdrop of wind from Hurricane Ian’s remnants picking up speed behind him. As he neared the end of his set, it sounded as if raindrops were falling from different corners of the dark room, the sound of them moving off into the distance and then disappearing.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 8, 2022 9:10 am
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The walls of mActivity — like the walls of other New Haven-area businesses — keep getting a little brighter, thanks to an embrace of public art that is now transforming buildings outside and in. In the case of mActivity, the art is the result of series that began in 2017. Curated by Barbara Hawes, the series has hosted a wide array of New Haven-based artists, from public art maestro Kwadwo Adae to graffiti artist Michael Deangelo, from photographers Phyllis Crowley and Sean Kernan to painters Vienna Hinkson and William McCarthy.
For the rest of the month of September, visitors can now see the works of artists Esthea Kim and Eliza Shaw Valk, whose work mirrors the mood of the hottest season and, in keeping with the fitness center’s mission, captures some of the renewed spirit many have found in exercise during the pandemc.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Aug 17, 2022 4:01 pm
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Nora Grace-Flood Photo
19-year-olds Zahra and Malalay with Sen. Blumenthal and IRIS Director Chris George.
Five years after her father was murdered by the Taliban, and just three months after the extremist group burned down her family’s house, 19-year-old Malalay stood with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal in front of a cluster of TV cameras and pleaded for the passage of new legislation that could help her and her relatives establish a permanent home in the United States.
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Brian Slattery |
Jul 27, 2022 9:24 am
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“I don’t want to X‑ray your ghost,” Brian Robinson began, speaking to someone to told him that “it was just a rash and you would get it checked / You told me you would clean up, stop drinking, and fix up the sun room / where the folded cardboard Amazon boxes sneer a stupid arrow smile / alongside Mike’s Hard Lemonade and chewy pet supplies / all wedged behind the rusted patio furniture you never sit in to read a book.” The poem, in exquisite detail, portrayed a life spun slowly out of control, “even as you fold another box and call to say your results came up negative.”
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Brian Slattery |
Jul 26, 2022 8:46 am
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It’s a chicken leg, mounted on a wooden board like a hunting trophy or a piece of taxidermy. But then something else is going on with it, a cascade of white circles, dynamic enough to almost seem to be moving across its surface. For some, the circles might seem like soap, the leg being washed clean. For other, they might look like mold; the chicken left out of the fridge too long. Or what if someone decided not to interpret it at all? To just accept the shapes and shades for what they are, just patterns across the chicken’s skin?
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Brian Slattery |
Jul 21, 2022 8:08 am
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Oliveras.
Andrew Cohen, vocalist and guitarist of the band Oliveras, mopped a little perspiration from his brow. All the doors and windows in Neverending Books were open, but a heat wave was a heat wave.
“I guess we’ll just get started,” he said.
That drew a cheer from the audience right away.
“I haven’t even done anything yet!” he responded, to laughter.
But then he became genuine, mentioning that this was the first time he and drummer Ryan Tedesco had played out, the first time he’d played songs he’d written in front of people. “Thanks everyone. This is a dream come true.”
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Brian Slattery |
Jun 1, 2022 8:46 am
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Beach Side Property.
Two high-energy bands — Beach Side Property and Seeing Double — shook the floorboards of Never Ending Books on Tuesday night, turning the State Street community space into a frenzied dance club.
The Shoreline-based emo band Beach Side Property — Kate Burton on guitar and vocals, Ruby DeGoursey on bass and vocals, Patrick LaLonde on guitar and backing vocals, and Ryan Shea on drums — immediately tore into a set of mostly originals with a cover or two sprinkled in for good measure that showcased what the band was all about: tight musicianship, sharp songwriting, and the ability to draw and hold a crowd. Shea on drums was a constant source of propulsion, while DeGoursey’s muscular bass playing provided pulse, rumble, and slyly sophisticated harmonies. On guitars, Burton and LaLonde created shifted textures of sound out of one hook after another. All this was the grounding for Burton and DeGoursey’s earnest, funny lyrics, delivered with a lot of heart and a sly grin. If the lyrics were often about anxieties, heartbreak, and insecurity, the voices of people moving into an uncertain future, the music itself conveyed a constant message of strength and hope — a message amplified by the sheer amount of fun the band was obviously having playing music together. That enjoyment was infectious, packing the room of Never Ending Books with cheering, dancing fans, and giving the touring band that followed the warm-up they deserved.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 5, 2022 8:58 am
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The colorful digital artwork on the walls brought sparks of light to the space at Never Ending Books. In one piece, swirls of darkness and fluorescence together ripped across an undulating landscape. In another, the dark forms of buildings, lit from within by explosions of brightness, melted into one another, suggesting vastness and a riotous amount of life. In still another, the forms of leaves and pale branches draped across the view of a passing stream. They and many others are part of visual artist and musician Shula Weinstein’s show “The Sun Rises on a Coastal Town,” running now at the State Street spot for the next few weeks.
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 7, 2022 9:16 am
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Bad History Month.
As in the days before the pandemic, on Saturday night, perplexed pedestrians carrying leftovers from nearby restaurants stood outside Never Ending Books on State Street, drawn closer by the raucous music spilling out of it, stopped by the incongruity of a storefront that looked like a bookstore, but sounded like a punk club. They didn’t have to stop; all were welcome to a two-band bill that is the latest in a string of events reestablishing the spot, now under the management of Volume Two, the Never Ending Books Collective, as a hub for adventurous, energetic music.
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Kimberly Wipfler |
Feb 18, 2022 3:03 pm
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Kimberly Wipfler Photo
Chloe Rose models $50 look, styled by Todd Lyon with items from Fashionista's new vintage collection
In a jet-black 1950s Polack dress and gloves to match, Chloe Rose modeled a grieving widow look styled by Fashionista co-owner Todd Lyon — complete only with 1960s kitten heels, Aviators, and a maroon headscarf.
The outfit was one of four that Rose donned to promote “Persnickety Thrift,” the vintage store’s new line of thrifted clothing, which debuts this weekend. The line marks a new stage in the evolution of one of New Haven’s most colorful homegrown businesses, and a reflection of where fashion consciousness and society at large have moved amid the chaos of a pandemic.
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Thomas Breen |
Jan 27, 2022 3:16 pm
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Thomas Breen photo
Demolition underway at 191, 197, 199 Foster St.
After more than three years of delays, the last remaining husk of the former Lehman Brothers printing factory has been demolished — making way for 30 planned new condos and townhouse units in Goatville.
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Thomas Breen |
Dec 13, 2021 3:53 pm
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Thomas Breen photo
The former Lehman printing factory site at 191 Foster.
A local megalandlord’s long-delayed plans to convert a former Goatville printing factory into 30 new condos and townhouse units got a shot in the arm, in the form of a $10 million mortgage loan from Goldman Sachs.
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Brian Slattery |
Dec 7, 2021 9:32 am
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Brian Slattery Photos
Conor Perreault, part of the Volume Two collective that runs Never Ending Books, was seated at an organ in the State Street space. He let out a long, low bass note from the instrument’s foot pedals.
“You’re all set,” said Tim, a musician who was setting up a laptop rig. “Get a brick.”
Perreault left the room for the yard behind Never Ending Books, and in fact returned with a brick, which he placed on the pedal. The sound went on and on.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 18, 2021 9:20 am
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Dutkanicz with 4 Attempts at Being an Individual.
The dozens of colored shapes in New Haven-based artist Andrzej Dutkanicz’s paintings might at first appeared to be scrambled, almost in motion, because the visual effect is scintillating. But the lines that divide the canvas, and the focal dot in the middle of it, suggest something else is going on, a kind of symmetry and repetition. At first glance, it’s hard to say what it is. But the system is there, and for Dutkanicz, it’s the combination — of randomness and rules, of chaotic motion and unchanging order — that makes the art. And for the next month or so, that art will be gracing the walls of Never Ending Books on State Street as a show titled “Works.”
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 21, 2021 7:59 am
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Emily Herberich
Jacob’s Ladder.
The shape of a staircase crosses Jacob’s Ladder, but it offers only the suggestion of a structure. Which planes are the steps and which are the risers? The ghostly shapes using the staircase only confound the reading of the physical space, as they each follow the stairs according to their own rules, their own sense of gravity. Some appear to be using the opposite sides of the planks compared to other figures. The smoke rising from a candle is almost funny, as it moves up for neither the viewer nor the being holding the candle. What’s going on?
Brackeen with Rev. Steve Cousin at East Rock fundraiser.
Upper Westville Darryl Brackeen took his quest to demonstrate viability as a statewide candidate to a tap room in New Haven’s Goatville neighborhood, with a fundraiser at East Rock Brewing Company.
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Brian Slattery |
Sep 13, 2021 8:08 am
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Sage.
Rachael Sage flashed the audience at Never Ending Books a wide smile. “What a revelation to be here performing for human beings in person,” she said. Like several other recent touring musicians visiting New Haven recently, Sage remarked that this was among the first times she had performed live for people, after months and months of livestreaming.
