by | Nov 1, 2021 10:17 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Light Upon Blight
Best Video brought back one of its most anticipated annual events on Saturday night: the Light Upon Blight live scoring of a horror film, and this year’s choice — the 1932 classic Vampyr — provided ample spooky and surreal images to inspire four musicians to create a matching soundtrack that suited the mood.
by | Nov 1, 2021 9:24 am | Comments (3)
Brian Slattery Photo
Matos at her new downtown haunt.
A customer walked into Kiara Matos’s new storefront ceramics studio and gallery on Orange Street looking to buy two matching mugs she had seen earlier on the shelf. The problem: In between visits, another customer had come in and already bought one of them.
“Don’t worry,” Matos said. “I’ll make more.”
“You’re doing well!” the customer beamed.
by | Oct 29, 2021 4:19 pm | Comments (11)
Paul Bass Photo
SCSU President Joe Bertolino, second from left, outside the event with Former Mayors John DeStefano and Toni Harp and current Mayor Justin Elicker.
To mark opening of SCSU archives and an exhibit on the post-urban renewal era.
by | Oct 29, 2021 9:44 am | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photo
Rya’s Joan Miro-inspired art at right.
Rya and mom Caryl Williams.
Edgewood School seventh-grader Rya imagined a green cat, a purple moon, and yellow eyeball, then put a marker to paper.
by | Oct 29, 2021 9:10 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photo
Addy Edward and Sarah Golley Thursday night at Cafe 9..
Killer clowns, candy, and catchy tunes that make you want to dance are not typically associated with one another, but Thursday night at Cafe Nine a combination birthday/Halloween celebration with two local acts showcasing their original music brought them together.
Continue reading ‘Killer Birthday Show Brings Seasonal Spookiness To Cafe 9’
by | Oct 28, 2021 8:53 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
It was just after 8 p.m. on Wednesday, and host Dan Kalwhite lost no time warming up the healthy crowd for the latest A Guy Walks Into a Bar comedy open mic night at Cafe Nine, which featured returning performers from September’s installment as well as fresh new faces. He fished the crowd for anything interesting they have eaten for dinner.
One audience volunteered that she’d had pretzels for dinner — at a pizza place outside New Haven, before coming down to the club on State and Crown.
“They serve pretzels at a pizza place?” Kalwhite said. “The pizza must be terrible.”
Continue reading ‘Comedy Night Relieves Tension Of The Times’
by | Oct 27, 2021 1:36 pm | Comments (14)
Lisa Reisman Photo
The Contois Tavern cheeseburger.
Fresh ground beef. Grilled onions. Tomato. American cheese. Poppy seed bun.
No spices or seasoning or special sauce. No breadcrumbs. No meat thermometer needlessly complicating the process.
Continue reading ‘Today’s Special: Billy Contois’ Cheeseburger’
by | Oct 27, 2021 9:12 am | Comments (0)
On one level, Christian Curiel’s painting of the woman by the water is realistic; she’s sitting in a natural position, not like she’s posing for a picture, but like she’s just gotten out of the water. But ritual soaks the atmosphere around her, in the way her face is painted, the flowers in her hair, the candles floating on the water. Then there are the shapes in the air around her that have no place in a realistic painting, as if Curiel has made visual the intangible spiritual act that has just taken place. In the end, though, you might say the key to the whole painting is the cinderblock at her feet. It looks at first like it’s resting in the shallows, but the woman’s feet suggest the water’s deeper than that. Is the cinderblock floating in the water? Are all the rocks floating as well?
by | Oct 26, 2021 8:00 am | Comments (0)
You know where you are from the opening flourish of Joe Flood’s “Hard Time Blues,” as a warbling harmonica cuts a line through a swinging rhythm from two guitars, a bass, and janky percussion. “It’s been hard times,” Flood sings. “They cut me open, sewed me up / I’m still not quite the same / People dying / Friends and loved ones up and gone / And only life to blame.” The lyrics talk about hardship, but Flood sings with the easy confidence of a seasoned pro. It’s all a setup, as it turns out, for a chorus that opens out into lush territory, and the lyrics suddenly become hopeful.
Continue reading ‘Two New Local Albums Celebrate The Tried, True And New’
by | Oct 25, 2021 11:21 am | Comments (0)
YAM Art Director Jeanine Dunn.
The hard-working crew at New Haven-based Yale Alumni Magazine captured a national award last week for “The Long Agony of Racism,” a cover package of stories exploring the issues raised by the police killing of George Floyd, published a month after his death.
Continue reading ‘“Long Agony Of Racism” Nets Journalism Award’
by | Oct 25, 2021 10:15 am | Comments (2)
Valerie Pavilonis Photo
Katalina Riegelmann at Sunday’s party.
Katalina’s Bakery and Coffee Shop celebrated its 10-year anniversary on Sunday afternoon with a birthday party open to family and friends.
Continue reading ‘Woven Into Community, Katalina’s Cupcake Spot Celebrates 10th Anniversary’
by | Oct 25, 2021 8:02 am | Comments (1)
Roderick Topping photos
New Haven-based photographer Roderick Topping has been documenting the Elm City throughout the pandemic and before. That work is now being celebrated with a new exhibition at the New Haven Museum called “Strange Times” that, in the first week of its opening, garnered media attention from WTNH, the New Haven Register, and the Yale Daily News. What does it mean that Topping’s photos — which he’s been posting on social media as he takes them — have been collected, and now resonate so strongly?
Continue reading ‘Pandemic Photos Mark A Turn — Or Do They?’
by | Oct 22, 2021 8:29 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
daniprobably
Three bands entertained and engaged the crowd — and one another — at Cafe Nine Thursday night, where local acts Mightymoonchew and daniprobably came together with the Philadelphia-based Lizdelise to raise the energy level and get the weekend started a day early.
by | Oct 22, 2021 8:27 am | Comments (1)
by | Oct 22, 2021 8:22 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Kath Bloom.
“It’s a perfect night for this,” said Best Video executive director Hank Hoffman, in introducing Thursday evening’s double bill of music from New Haven folk legend Kath Bloom, with Steve Hartlett opening. The weather on the patio in front of the film and cultural center on Whitney Avenue in Hamden was warm and crisp, the setting sun dappled with clouds, a bucolic setting for music that was all about acceptance.
by | Oct 21, 2021 4:29 pm | Comments (0)
by | Oct 21, 2021 7:59 am | Comments (0)
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?
Continue reading ‘Artist Makes Play Spiritual At Never Ending Exhibit’
by | Oct 20, 2021 3:05 pm | Comments (10)
Paul Bass Photo
Sean Scanlon and Andrea Corazzini down Tweed-bound brew.
Sean Scanlon tried his first-ever cup of coffee Wednesday — after toasting a deal to bring an outpost of New Haven’s popular G Cafe to the growing airport he oversees.
by | Oct 20, 2021 10:23 am | Comments (5)
Brian Slattery Photos
Minto.
At Artspace on Monday, as part of the Open Source Festival, artist Allison Minto was on hand to continue her deep dive into New Haven’s Black community, helping people preserve their own familial past while marking a moment of time in the present.
by | Oct 20, 2021 9:30 am | Comments (10)
by | Oct 19, 2021 8:22 am | Comments (0)
“Exquisitely crafted and exquisitely boring.” “Disgusting.” A source of motion sickness. And for one fan, revelatory.
Such were the reactions of the participants in the New Haven Free Public Library’s ongoing Animation Celebration series to four short works by the Quay Brothers — one of the most influential and also most divisive teams in animation history, whose works are perhaps uniquely suited to the run-up to Halloween.
Continue reading ‘Animation Celebration Contends With The Quay Brothers’
by | Oct 18, 2021 8:48 am | Comments (5)
Brian Slattery Photos
It was quieter than in years past, for the obvious Covid-19-related reasons. The hallways of Erector Square weren’t quite so jammed, the conversations were a little more subdued.
But still, Citywide Open Studios — part of Artspace’s rebranded Open Source Festival — happened this past weekend: Artists threw open the doors of their studios, and on Saturday and Sunday people moved from spot to spot in Erector Square’s warren-like maze of hallways, visiting old friends, making fresh acquaintances, and in many cases getting the first chance since the pandemic began to see the art both longtime and new tenants of the Peck Street complex had been making since before the pandemic began.
Continue reading ‘Artists Open Doors Wide For “Open Source” Weekend’
by | Oct 18, 2021 8:36 am | Comments (1)
Douglas.
The band members stood at a 90-degree angle from the audience at Firehouse 12, facing stage right. Bassist Dezron Douglas held a clave, and played a simple, piercing rhythm that was a call to attention to the audience. Everyone fell silent. Douglas continued with the rhythm. Nazir Ebo picked it up on drums. Douglas then moved to his bass. George Burton sat at the piano. Lummie Spann took up his alto saxophone, and they began.
by | Oct 18, 2021 8:34 am | Comments (0)
T. Charles Erickson Photos
Shannon Tyo.
On the bare stage of Long Wharf Theatre is one of those huge packing crates used for shipping props or sets. A man comes out of the shadows and pushes it further back, then opens its doors to reveal a theatrical space with a curtain and graceful designs on the wings. If you’re a regular theater-goer who hasn’t been in a theater since the Covid-19 lockdown began — and certainly not at Long Wharf Theatre’s stage at Sargent Drive, which has been closed since the spring of 2020 — that simple act of opening the crate to make theater on stage is striking, thrilling, magical.
by | Oct 15, 2021 10:07 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Jake Blount Thursday evening at Cafe 9.
Fiddle music filled the “musician’s living room” Thursday night as two acts took to the Cafe Nine stage to offer an evening full of love, joy, and veneration.
Continue reading ‘Jake Blount, Moon Shells Reach Into History At Cafe Nine Fiddle-Music Show’