Today's Ted Toons
by | Nov 13, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (0)
Arts & Culture
Shubert Opens Broadway Season With Hope
by | Nov 10, 2023 9:00 am | Comments (2)
Contributed photo
From the Shubert production of Come From Away.
A bus driver has brought a busload full of stranded airline passengers to a camp in Newfoundland, in the middle of the night. The passengers don’t really know why they’re there, and many of them are scared. When they arrive at the camp, the first passengers in line don’t want to get off the bus, and they don’t speak English. The bus driver doesn’t know how to get through to them. Then he notices that one of them is holding a Bible, and he knows his Bible. He flips the pages to Philippians 4:6: “Be anxious for nothing,” the verse begins. He points to the page. The passengers read it, and understand.
“And that’s how we started speaking the same language,” the actors address the audience.
Today's Ted Toon
by | Nov 10, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (10)
Hundreds Celebrate 51st Links Gala
by | Nov 9, 2023 1:54 pm | Comments (0)
Lisa Reisman photo
Sheila Carmon, Dr. Chaka Felder-McEntire (second from left), and Higher Heights high school students at Links annual gala.
The crowd listened, rapt, as Diane X Brown told her story.
The scene was a lavish Saturday-night black-tie affair in the ballroom of Hamden’s Cascade Fine Catering to celebrate the 51st anniversary of the New Haven Chapter of The Links, a historic Black female advocacy organization rooted in community service and philanthropy.
Nature Journal Club Draws From "Urban Oasis"
by | Nov 9, 2023 9:25 am | Comments (3)
Karen Ponzio photo
Map sketching and nature journaling in East Rock.
East Rock Park on a sunny November Saturday was an idyllic setting for the most recent New Haven Nature Journal Club meet-up. The biweekly event focuses on gathering in natural settings to witness, observe, and document the surroundings through drawings and writings, with a bit of guidance and a bunch of support.
The group, led by Madelyn Neufeld, meets on Saturday mornings twice a month: once in East Rock Park and two weeks later at another location that changes each time. Neufeld started this club back in August after researching the Wild Wonder Foundation — which provides free nature journal resources — and finding no groups in Connecticut.
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Today's Ted Toons
by | Nov 9, 2023 8:00 am | Comments (3)
Berryman Strikes Up The Choir
by | Nov 8, 2023 12:23 pm | Comments (1)
Jonathan Q. Berryman at WNHH FM.
Dr. Jonathan Q. Berryman isn’t lamenting how technology has changed our world. Instead he’s harnessing it to help young people find their voices in the choir.
Artists Lead The Narrative In "Voir Dire" Exhibition
by | Nov 8, 2023 11:14 am | Comments (0)
Cal Bocicault
It's Gotta Be the Shoes.
The two men in Cal Bocicault’s painting are, first and foremost, stylish, and they know it. Peering askance at the viewer, colors coordinated with themselves and each other, together they open the shoeboxes on their laps. The shoeboxes themselves become classic MacGuffins. We have no idea what’s in the boxes. For all we know, the boxes are empty. But maybe they’re not. Maybe they contain the most stylish sneakers we’ve ever seen, footwear that elevates all the clothes around it. The important thing is that the two men can see what we can’t. They know what’s in the boxes. They’re just not telling us.
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"Rustin" Revives Oft-Overlooked Civil Rights Leader's Story
by | Nov 7, 2023 11:20 am | Comments (2)
A scene from the new movie "Rustin."
At a time when civil rights are being challenged and some of the 60-year-old battles are being waged again, last Saturday night, Yale Schwarzman Center (YSC) presented an early screening of “Rustin,” a film about an often-forgotten civil rights leader.
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Two Bands Move From Darkness To Light
by | Nov 7, 2023 9:29 am | Comments (0)
Head with Wings.
Seven precise strokes from a rhythm guitar don’t prepare the listener for the way “The Dream Broker” — the first song from Without Intervention, the latest release from New Haven-based progressive rock band Head with Wings — takes a sudden turn, into thick drums and bass, soaring guitars, and straight through the middle of it, strong yet plaintive vocals. “It’s not funny when you feel this way / You’re champing at the bit to make money then you feel ashamed / Yet you’re coming back for more and more and more,” the singer belts out. “Nobody wants to relive the beginning / Or walk away from a life they’ve built on borrowed time / The situation is so goddamn deflating / Just sign your name along the dotted line.” And then the song turns again, heating up, making the words sink in that much more.
Arts Awards Fetes Creative Futures Amid Arts "Crisis" And "Renaissance"
by | Nov 6, 2023 8:48 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
The 2023 Arts Awards recipients.
On Saturday night, the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s 43rd annual Arts Awards honored six of New Haven’s creative minds — Juanita “Sunday” Austin, Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez, Adrian Huq, Sun Queen, Possible Futures/Lauren Anderson, and William Graustein — at the John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts at Southern Connecticut State University.
In the shadow of a multitude of changes this year in the city’s arts scene, which continues to be reimagined and restructured, these six recipients — who have each added to that scene in multiple ways far beyond their own creations and personal accomplishments — offered speeches that touched upon the personal, the profound, and the importance of caring for one another in the local arts community and around the world.
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Art Exhibition Unveils The Horror Beneath The Horror
by | Nov 3, 2023 8:52 am | Comments (0)
Joan Fitzsimmons
The Woods.
Joan Fitzsimmons’s images both beckon viewers and warn them about what’s in store in the Institute Library’s upstairs gallery. The hands, in part because of their visual treatment, feel iconic, perhaps from an old horror movie. But what are they doing? Are they trapped? Are they casting a spell? Are these the hands of a prisoner, or is the owner of those hands doing the manipulating?
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Student Moviemakers Keep It Spooky
by | Nov 3, 2023 8:49 am | Comments (0)
"Try to Survive" Movie Trailer
"From the Death" Movie Trailer
"Revenge" Movie Trailer
Despite New Haven having no more movie theaters, it isn’t lacking in young, creative, and spooky-loving moviemakers — particularly at John S. Martinez School.
Collective Consciousness Takes The Sharpest View
by | Nov 2, 2023 8:41 am | Comments (0)
Jamie Guite, Marie R. Altenor, Kendall Driffin, Joshua Eaddy.
There’s a moment rather early in Fairview when a family is dancing together, performing steps and singing a song that they all remember. It’s an expression of joy, the strengthening of a familial bond. It’s silly and easy to like. But then Keisha, the youngest family member, steps away from her family and into a spotlight. She’s not having fun. She’s troubled. “My future just looks so big and bright, I can’t wait for it to hurry up and Get Here. I want to know all there is to know and be all there is to be,” she says. “But. But I feel like something is keeping me from all that. Something.… Yes, something is keeping me from what I could be. And that something. It thinks that it has made me who I am. It’s.… It’s just so confusing.”
Something’s off. Something’s wrong. And we’re just getting started.
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Student Artists Run Like Aliens & Bankhead Bounce
by | Nov 1, 2023 8:16 am | Comments (1)
In Ty Scurry’s advanced drama class …
…and Carissa Kee's dance class, at New Haven Academy.
In a dim and costume-filled drama classroom at New Haven Academy, time slowed down as an alien ran away from two space cadets looking to capture it.
Time then sped up, and back down again, as theater educator Tyheed Scurry gave the student actors a lesson in tempo.
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Two Artists Consider The State Of Play
by | Nov 1, 2023 8:13 am | Comments (0)
Marjorie Gillette Wolfe
Alhambra Hedge.
Two photographs by Marjorie Gillette Wolfe hang in the front of Kehler Liddell Gallery, at 873 Whalley Ave. in Westville. They’re both of hedges, and the way Wolfe composes the image, the eye is drawn to the plant life, without worrying too much about where it is. We can see the similarities in the forms of the plants, the spacing between them. It’s only in looking at the titles that the true humor comes out, as one photograph is taken in front of a diner somewhere, and the other is taken at the Alhambra, one of the great architectural wonders of the world. Both locations are almost entirely absent from the images.
Madeline's Expands Empanada Universe
by | Oct 31, 2023 2:08 pm | Comments (2)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
"Sweet Flame" Empanadas! on Spring St.
Independent restaurant review crew with Madeline's owner Hazel Lebron (center) on the beat.
Madeline’s Empanaderia
86 Spring St.
Madeline, the 11-year-old cello player who is also the namesake of a Hill empanaderia, likes the Guava Lava her mother serves there — it’s her favorite, the one that sticks while she goes through phases of Cheeseburger or Sweet Flame.
It’s not mine, though. I liked the Baked Bee, whose combination of sweet potatoes and chili-infused honey surprised me.
But our table couldn’t agree on a favorite, and it’s not hard to tell why.
LIFFY 2023 Takes "An Honest Look"
by | Oct 31, 2023 2:05 pm | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
One of the photos of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo by Eduardo Longoni.
The Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale — a.k.a. LIFFY — commenced Monday night with a screening of the documentary film Una Mirada Honesta/An Honest Look, the story of Argentinian photographer Eduardo Longoni and his iconic images that changed history. It was a fitting way to begin the festival’s 14th year, as it has become known for its provocative and passionate presentation of films that open viewers’ eyes and hearts with stories often left untold elsewhere.
"Faux Départ" Gets A True Start
by | Oct 31, 2023 11:06 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Klein watches her video premiere.
Volume Two and a crew of three local acts amped up their audience for Halloween on Sunday night with a spooky video release celebration and a selection of songs that got everyone in the holiday spirit.
Musician Laura Klein started working on the video for “Faux Départ” while recovering from surgery. She happened upon unreleased tracks from her band Western Estates, deciding “this song deserves more than just an internet blast.” After working on the video for over two years, she gave it its premiere in front of an enthusiastic crowd, some dressed in apropos Halloween attire, and all surrounded in the appropriate art of the most recent Volume Two art exhibition, titled “Volume Boo!”
NHSO Makes Time For Three
by | Oct 31, 2023 8:09 am | Comments (1)
Time for Three.
In introducing Thursday Night’s New Haven Symphony Orchestra program in Woolsey Hall, Music Director Alisdair Neale cut to the chase. “Both these works feature a lot of art — without artifice,” he said, referencing their emotional immediacy. The program, featuring Grammy-winning trio Time for Three as something along the lines of a group of concerto-grosso soloists, featured two works by American composers, both of which presented a more romantic vision of orchestral music.
"Bank of Targets" Screening Uncovers Palestinian Suffering Amid Israeli Airstrikes
by | Oct 30, 2023 9:38 am | Comments (1)
Filmmaker Rushdi Sarraj.
Roughly 130 people from around the world tuned in to a virtual movie screening to get an on-the-ground view of the human suffering caused by bombs dropped on Gaza, past and present — and to vent their frustrations and fears of still more bloodshed to come amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
"Golda" Screening Seeks Resilience, Survival, Hope Amid Israeli Wars
by | Oct 30, 2023 9:37 am | Comments (1)
A colossal intelligence failure, an arrogance of power, followed by a surprise attack, on a major religious holiday, and of a scope and lethality adding up to the most serious national trauma inflicted on the Jews since the Holocaust.
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Westville Brings The Heat With Open Studios
by | Oct 30, 2023 9:33 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photo
David Sepulveda at work in his Westville studio.
The last weekend of October finally gifted the city a warm and sunny Saturday, but nowhere was it hotter than Westville, where a two-day neighborhood event — part of the artist-led City-Wide Open Studios — encompassed everything from galleries, creative collectives, and private residences to Edgewood Park and even pods on Central Avenue.
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In "After Picasso," Artists Reckon With A Giant
by | Oct 27, 2023 8:39 am | Comments (2)
Cynthia Beth Rubin
Orange Interplay with Diatoms, Salt, and Seaweed.
Cynthia Beth Rubin’s collage crackles with energy, as colors vibrate off one another and forms within forms, textures within textures, rub against each other. Keen senses of both aesthetic freedom and control of technique suffuse the piece — which, it turns out, hearken back to a famous artistic ancestor.
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New Book Explores Secret Life Of Monsters
by | Oct 26, 2023 2:59 pm | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Patrick Scalisi and Valerie Ruby-Omen.
New Haven and Connecticut overall have a vibrant history, from the indigenous cultures that flourished here, to the religious zealots that founded the New Haven Colony, to the creation of the modern city as we know it in the 20th century. Weaving in and out of that is a folklore that includes sea serpents in the Long Island Sound, monsters in the woods in Winsted, Hamden, and elsewhere, and dragons in Fair Haven. All these and more are chronicled in Connecticut Cryptids: A Field Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Creatures of the Nutmeg State, written by Patrick Scalisi and illustrated by Valerie Ruby-Omen. The duo celebrated the book’s release with a party at Strange Ways this weekend, in which partygoers were invited to dress as their favorite fanciful creatures.
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