Reinaldo's Corner
by | Oct 5, 2023 3:58 pm | Comments (0)
Republicans: You don't represent us!
Arts & Culture
Artists Build Worlds At CAW Show
by | Oct 4, 2023 11:34 am | Comments (0)
Jihyun Lee
Doll Shelf.
The look of Jihyun Lee’s Doll Shelf partakes at once of the past and an imagined future.
The collection of objects has the feel of a cabinet of curiosities, the contents of the shelves of an old house, even maybe a beloved junk shop. But the red tint gives it a science fiction twist. They could be as much artifacts of the future as of the past. Or perhaps that tint transports us into the future, looking back at the fleeting present.
Best Video Scares Up Spooky Movie Screenings
by | Oct 4, 2023 8:20 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photo
Can she?
For some people October means autumn is here, bringing with it pumpkin everything, apple picking, and sweater weather. For other people October means only one thing: it’s time to celebrate Halloween. Best Video Film and Cultural Center’s monthly film series is honoring the latter (though you can definitely purchase the requisite seasonal beverages there) with four horror movies, ones specifically chosen by their members.
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Afternoon Tea Steeped In Afrofuturism
by | Oct 3, 2023 10:41 am | Comments (0)
Lisa Gray Photo
At Bloom-hosted Afrogalactic Tea Party.
The description online read: “In this ephemeral haven of sonic and poetic delights, the Afrogalactic Tea Party invites you to immerse yourself in a curated experience of taste and culture.”
The Sunday afternoon event at the flower and lifestyle shop Bloom on Central Avenue in Westville was part of the ongoing 6th Dimension Afrofuturism festival, a series of art exhibits, talks, screenings, and other gatherings running now through Oct. 25.
I love a tea party, and coupling one with Afrofuturism intrigued me, so I headed to the festival website to grab a ticket, which was pretty reasonable at $23. I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Sketchers Draw Inspiration From New Haven
by | Oct 3, 2023 8:19 am | Comments (3)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
The sketches
Yet another downpour threatened to upset many events planned for Saturday, but not the meet-up for the New Haven Sketchers. The local club of artists, who meet up every week or so, had scheduled to gather at the Yale University Art Gallery to take in and take down the sights of Chapel Street and its surrounding stores and locations — and the weather and other adjustments to the norm did not deter them.
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boygenius Bowls Over Westville
by | Oct 2, 2023 8:33 am | Comments (0)
Outtafocus Media Photos
Westville Music Bowl said so long to the summer and another full season of outdoor concerts with their closing show Thursday night, headlined by none other than boygenius, a band with a name spelled in lowercase letters and stacked with uppercase talent. Singer-songwriters Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus have been touring the country in support of their first full-length album, the record, which was released in March 2023 with a variety of opening acts. On this night it was Palehound, who also released an album, Eye on the Bat, in July.
NHSO Triumphs In Return To Woolsey Hall
by | Oct 2, 2023 8:28 am | Comments (1)
KT Kim Photo
Joyce Yang.
Towering C major chords from organ and orchestra in unison. Dazzling rhythmic interplay between soloist Joyce Yang and the orchestra. An energetic rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” resuming a tradition in Woolsey Hall. Thursday night’s debut of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s 2023 – 24 season was full of triumphant moments, even as it very meaningfully kicked off the orchestra’s final season under Music Director Alisdair Neale.
Still In Tuna: At CSMH, Jorma Kaukonen Shows Why Octogenarians Still Tour & Boomers Still Buy Tix
by | Sep 29, 2023 9:56 am | Comments (8)
Zach Pelletier/ Outtafocus Photo
Hot Tuna performing Wednesday night at College Street.
There was no scoreboard visible when a four-piece version of the band Hot Tuna played on the stage of College Street Music Hall Wednesday night.
NHDocs Celebrates Tenth Anniversary
by | Sep 28, 2023 7:59 am | Comments (3)
Still from Karen Carpenter: Starving for Perfection.
Black Barbie, and how that doll came to be. A queer Russian artist who protests the government in costumes made from junk and tape. A dive into the world of legendary jazz drummer Max Roach. Another look at music legend and New Haven native Karen Carpenter.
All of these subjects and more are featured in movies to be screened as part of the New Haven Documentary Film Festival, or NHDocs, which observes its 10th anniversary this year. The annual nonfiction film fest will screen over 100 movies in various locations across New Haven and Hamden, from Oct. 12 to Oct. 22.
When Kristen Met Ani
by | Sep 27, 2023 11:40 am | Comments (0)
Kristen Ford is leaping into a white man’s rock dream — on the wings of a Righteous Babe.
Poetry Open Mic Celebrates Anniversary With Anthology
by | Sep 27, 2023 9:07 am | Comments (0)
The cover of Never Ending Poetry.
On the last page of the new poetry anthology Never Ending Poetry — a celebration of the first year of Open Mic Surgery, the poetry reading series that happens almost every Tuesday at Never Ending Books on State Street — there’s an incisive poem by Alice Prael about a barrel in a field on fire, melting plastic. “Polymers propagating / intimate inanity / inane intimacy,” she writes. “It’s poison but it’s warm.” On the same page is a poem called “Ode to Baby Jesus” by Julie Meehan. “You’ll get nailed down,” she writes, “but you’ll get up again / They’re never gunna nail you down.”
The juxtaposition is just fine by Brian Robinson, who runs Open Mic Surgery and put together the anthology. “I love that one poem is a beautiful, really elegant” piece, “and then the last poem is an adaptation of a Chumbawumba song about Jesus,” Robinson said. To him, “that’s the dichotomy” of Open Mic Surgery itself. “Nothing is off the table.”
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Bye Bye, Bow Tie
by | Sep 26, 2023 5:01 pm | Comments (24)
Thomas Breen photo
It's official: Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas will permanently close next month.
New Haven’s last remaining commercial movie theater will go dark for good after Oct. 12, bringing to a close roughly two decades of screenings on Temple Street downtown.
Possible Futures Looking Bright On Edgewood
by | Sep 26, 2023 12:17 pm | Comments (5)
Allan Appel photo
Author Winsome Bingham, at Possible Futures-hosted reading.
Over the course of just three days, the following all unfolded on the modest corner of Hotchkiss Street and Edgewood Avenue: A regular monthly meeting of a major local nonprofit; a happy hour for exhausted educators; three authors’ readings, and a two-hour-long neighbors’ knitting circle smack dab among the displays, plants, comfy couches, and shelf after shelf of shiny, new, colorful volumes.
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Buffalo Nichols Embodies The Blues
by | Sep 26, 2023 11:56 am | Comments (0)
Lisa Gray photo
Buffalo Nichols at Cafe 9.
Saturday night was a great night for blues. As rain pattered on the windows of Cafe Nine on the corner of Crown and State Streets in New Haven, a small and diverse crowd of music lovers sipped beers and munched pretzels as they listened to Buffalo Nichols give a lesson in the music of musicians like Robert Johnson and B.B. King. That lesson, in time, made the joint jump, with a few couples two-stepping in front of the stage.
Artist Tapped To Cultivate Connections At Mary Wade
by | Sep 26, 2023 11:55 am | Comments (1)
Contributed photo
Expect plenty of storytelling, visual art, bookmaking, and oral history explorations in Fair Haven in the year to come, now that a neighborhood-anchoring nursing home has tapped a new artist-in-residence to lead its annual Cultivating Connections program.
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Artist Takes Notes From A Compassionate Future
by | Sep 26, 2023 8:34 am | Comments (0)
Birthing a New Sky (Mira and Sora).
The central figure in Birthing a New Sky (Mira and Sora) has immediate, obvious associations with the Buddha, and with meditation and enlightenment. But it’s not just a generic picture of a spiritual leader. The silhouette is specific; it’s an individual, a real person, alive today. Colors course through the shape of their body, the shadows of multitudes of people. The image buzzes with movement and growth, but also exudes balance and peace, connection with nature and with the self. It points toward the future with a sense of genuine, earned lightness and hope.
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Sequential Artists Break The Frame
by | Sep 22, 2023 8:33 am | Comments (0)
Pebble Stone
The Prince and the Magic Lake and Fable.
Two narratives are laid out on the wall. They follow at first familiar forms, a plucky young person setting out on a quest. But they quickly take an unusual turn. Within four panels, they’ve ended on cliffhangers that feel, in a strange way, almost existential. “Who is this?” one protagonist asks. “Who are you?” the other says. Laying them out in parallel adds to the fun. It points out the repetition. Are they just iterations of the same story? (Are most stories just iterations of previous stories?) Is there a moment when these story lines might come together? Or is this all there is?
Music Writing Luminary Kicks Off Windham Campbell Festival
by | Sep 21, 2023 8:25 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
A rumination on the question of why people write — delivered by legendary culture writer Greil Marcus — that took in his personal history, the history of the tail end of World War II, and David Lynch’s classic Blue Velvet proved a moving and thought-provoking start to Yale’s Windham Campbell Festival on Wednesday evening. The festival, which runs Thursday and Friday, celebrates the world of words, centering on this year’s recipients of the Windham Campbell Prizes.
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Black Western Star Hasn't Given Up On Studio Plan
by | Sep 20, 2023 5:04 pm | Comments (9)
Lisa Reisman file photo
Michael Jai White: Movie studio is “definitely happening. We just have to regroup a bit.”
Movie poster for White's newly released movie, "Outlaw Johnny Black."
The scene: an out-of-the way mining town ruled by a notorious land baron. The situation: a cowboy-turned-outlaw seeking to avenge the death of his father with a bullet bearing the name of his nemesis. The upshot: posing as preacher, he learns the power of community.
It’s “Outlaw Johnny Black,” the latest release of action star Michael Jai White, otherwise known as the visionary behind Jaigantic Studios, the major movie studio seemingly poised to rise on a desolate stretch of River Street in Fair Haven before vanishing over the last year.
White’s message on “Outlaw Johnny Black,” which is now screening at Criterion Cinemas: tune in. On Jaigantic Studios: stay tuned.
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Artists Explore Themes And Variations, With And Without AI
by | Sep 20, 2023 12:07 pm | Comments (1)
One wall of the gallery is a long stack of lively faces, the energetic style matching the animation in the faces. They match their subject, a clown in the old-school sense, more Charlie Chaplin than Ronald McDonald. The artist, Brian Flinn, has numbered the series under the title Auditions. It’s an entertainer looking for a gig. But for Flinn, it’s a sly double meaning, because it’s also a test run for new way for making art. Does it pass?
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MINIPNG Brings Maximum Creativity To Audubon Street
by | Sep 20, 2023 9:05 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
MINIPNG.
Audubon Street is a promenade of institutions that ignite creativity and keep it alight. For the past year that street has also housed the storefront of artist/designer MINIPNG (a.k.a. Eiress Hammond), who has made a home away from home for fans of her original handmade clothing as well as lovers of vintage pieces and accessories from the late ’90s and early ’00s. This Saturday, Sept. 23, she is co-presenting an event that will be bringing an even larger creative crew to the street from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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Westville Music Bowl, Meet The Bowery Presents
by | Sep 19, 2023 12:02 pm | Comments (12)
Andrew Hutchins photo
A leading East Coast concert promoter has signed up to help book shows at the Westville Music Bowl, after teaming up with the local group that runs the ex-tennis stadium-turned-music venue.
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Wax Artist Makes It Look Natural
by | Sep 19, 2023 9:08 am | Comments (0)
Roberta Friedman
Aglow.
Aglow has been given the right name. It’s an abstract of shapes and colors, but the vibrant yellow in the background suffuses it with sun, with life, as if the viewer is looking upward through something — the slide of a single cell, or a lattice of bridges — into a summer sky. The way the colors keep separate, yet flow together, makes the effect possible, and that is the result of the technique the artist uses. That technique, it turns out, is the focus of the show.
Rainbow Flags Welcome Pride Week's Start
by | Sep 18, 2023 4:22 pm | Comments (13)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Pride Center Executive Director Juancarlos Soto (center): "Come party with us!"
Drag performances, banned books, rainbow flags and more will be on display across New Haven this week — as the city kicks off its annual pride festival.
Local Book Club Enjoys The Silence
by | Sep 18, 2023 9:00 am | Comments (3)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
Silent Book Club New Haven selections for September.
Are you one of those people who grabs a book with all intentions of plowing through a decent number of pages and ends up not reading any — distracted by the phone, the TV or household chores? The Silent Book Club might be perfect for you.