by | Aug 29, 2024 9:41 am | Comments (0)
Rappers, producers, and drummers came together at Cafe Nine on the corner of State and Crown Wednesday night to celebrate the release of a new album, and give a sense of how the underground hip hop scene connects New Haven and New York.
by | Aug 28, 2024 3:12 pm | Comments (1)
Abiba Biao photo
Yale first-years at Noir Vintage.
Whether she was out in the city or inside her house, you couldn’t catch Evelyn Massey’s late great-grandmother Virgina Adams without a black dress.
by | Aug 28, 2024 1:25 pm | Comments (0)
The History of Sound: Stories
By Ben Shattuck
Viking
July 9, 2024
306 pages
It’s a long story. And 12 short stories.
Ben Shattuck tells those dozen stories in his new collection called The History of Sound. The stories span three centuries. They interconnect in pairs — sometimes in passing, through an old painting or field recording buried under floor boards, sometimes more directly in traveling back in time to reveal the full story of a mystery that has been reinterpreted and rewritten by later generations.
In the process, Shattuck is telling us one story, about our legend-laden region of New England. And about telling stories, period.
by | Aug 28, 2024 9:47 am | Comments (0)
Local rapper Ceschi, to be featured in State House compilation.
The State House may be closed — but its music lives on, in recordings made of a wealth of live performances that happened during the much-loved former venue’s five-year run.
Former co-owner Carlos Wells has a plan to release some of those recordings via a digital compilation featuring four Connecticut artists — in what he hopes will be the first in a series that documents the vast array of local, national, and international acts that left their mark on the Elm City at the now-shuttered State Street spot.
by | Aug 28, 2024 8:39 am | Comments (1)
Eyes on the Planet.
They’re eyes, but they’re taking in a universe of shifting shapes and colors. The piercing structures of the irises only accentuate how the rest of the eyes are swimming with color. In the middle of each pupil is an astronaut, which throws the scale of the image into question. On one level, it’s all fun and inviting. On another, it’s disorienting. The astronauts could be exploring a colorful new dimension. They may also be in danger.
Continue reading ‘Artists Paint An Ailing Planet In Vivid Color’
by | Aug 27, 2024 9:23 am | Comments (0)
Short chords from electric piano and synthesizer set the mood, contemplative but with a pulse. “Estoy aquí / ya estuve allá / ya fui feliz / y acaba mal,” Ene de Nadie croons — “I’m here / I was already there / I was already happy / it ends badly” — as the beat drops. The lyrics are full of longing and regret, while the music pulses on, the kind of song you can dance and cry to.
by | Aug 26, 2024 1:20 pm | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen file photo / Contributed Photo
Shelley Quiala and Rev. Kevin G. Ewing.
New Haven’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas announced in a Monday press release that Shelley Quiala will step down as executive director to take on the role of senior strategist for the arts organization.
by | Aug 26, 2024 9:23 am | Comments (2)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
Zine Fest set up inside Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op.
On Saturday afternoon and evening the New Haven Zine Fest expanded beyond its usual Bradley Street Bicycle Co-Op location to the sidewalk outside, as well as other locations around East Rock, for artists and writers to share their zines, prints, creative activities, and more.
by | Aug 26, 2024 9:15 am | Comments (1)
Leo Slattery Photos
Thirty vendors in a crescent surrounded a central green area. From the stage, a rotating selection of spoken word, music, and dancing was interspersed with an ongoing set from DJ Tunes. Off to the side of the stage, activities and crafts were available, including free tie-dyeing and a community banner. People of all ages darted around, chatting with vendors or people they recognized.
by | Aug 23, 2024 9:47 am | Comments (0)
Howard el-Yasin
My Mother's Hose.
Howard el-Yasin’s My Mother’s Hose hangs at one end of Orchid Gallery in The Lab at ConnCORP, redolent with associations without landing definitively on a single one. From a certain frame of mind, the associations can be literally visceral: with intestines, or for that matter, the products of intestines. It could also be sausages, however, or a balloon animal. Or, abstracted, it could be figures embracing one another. The associations multiply when we learn that the sculpture (as the name reveals) is made from pantyhose, but is stuffed with plastic, burlap, a boa, a cardigan sweater, and a cotton shirt. The sculpture is an act of preservation, but also transformation. There’s no one answer that brings it together.
by | Aug 22, 2024 9:28 am | Comments (1)
Ralph Levesque
Match Maker.
Ralph Levesque’s Match Maker, at first glance, looks like religious art, from the halo encircling one of the figures to the positions of the figures in relation to each other. We’ve seen the general idea before, in Christian medieval art. But the first glance proves deceiving, an overt meaning elusive. Who or what is the visage in the background? And why the faces on sticks? Are they mirrors? Portals? The title suggests that a transaction of some kind is taking place. But what? We don’t know what’s going on, but the sense of meaning, a belief system being enacted, remains.
by | Aug 20, 2024 9:26 am | Comments (1)
Bethany Edwards
The Eye of the Beholder.
Bethany Edwards’s The Eye of the Beholder is both formal and relaxed. It’s formal in the staged positioning of the two subjects, the way that (it appears) they aren’t interacting with one another, and that one of them is interacting with the camera. But it’s relaxed in the apparent comfort the subjects have with the photographer. They’re told to stand still, but you can see the wheels turning in their heads, their personalities coming through.
Continue reading ‘Photography Show Sees Through Younger Eyes’
by | Aug 19, 2024 9:40 am | Comments (7)
Karen Ponzio photos
Matthew Boland at Saturday's fest: Self-love "starts with you."
Cerella Griffin, with 4 types of fruit-flavored lemonades.
Adriane Jefferson, with Babz Rawls Ivy: “I have goosebumps seeing what we have been able to create.”
The sky hanging over the New Haven Green may have been hazy Saturday, but to anyone attending the Black Wall Street Festival it was clear that this was the place to be.
Over 200 vendors dotted the lawn and lined up along Temple and Church Streets to offer a stunning variety of products and services — some to help treat your body, mind, soul, and spirit, some to help you look and feel good, and some to simply help you have fun under the summer sun.
Continue reading ‘Business Is Beautiful At Black Wall Street’
by | Aug 19, 2024 9:17 am | Comments (2)
Elm Shakespeare Company photo
Elm Shakespeare Company's Richard III.
Elm Shakespeare Company’s production of Richard III — running in Edgerton Park now through Sept. 1 — opens on a scene of warfare, complete with smoke, red lighting, and clashing swords. Then it transitions into a party, with swirling ribbons and joyful dancing. The titular Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Lisa Wolpe) feels much more at home in the former scene than in the latter. “Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace / Have no delight to pass away the time,” Richard proclaims bitterly. This is the key to his entire character, and in some senses, the play itself.
Continue reading ‘Elm Shakespeare Kicks Off “Glorious Summer”’
by | Aug 16, 2024 8:39 am | Comments (0)
Sarah Groate with her two photos.
Sarah Groate’s photographs, Duke’s Arrival and Waiting at The Rainbow Bridge, married two of her great loves: photography and horses. Groate works at the CT Draft Horse Rescue, and she uses the horses there as both inspiration and the subjects of her art. “I just found that I loved photographing them,” she said. “They’re the true gentle giants.”
by | Aug 15, 2024 1:43 pm | Comments (0)
For the first time, WNHH’s Tuesdays @ the Mediterranea Cafe concert series featured a saxophone, a harmonica, and a golden trumpet — though the last wasn’t making any sound.
That didn’t keep Snake Hill Blues lead singer Vaughn Collins from taking the miniature instrument from around his neck, pressing his fingers to the keys, and letting the imaginary horn blare among the real, rightly-sized instruments surrounding him.
by | Aug 14, 2024 11:33 am | Comments (6)
Eleanor Polak photos
Statue of Bl. Michael McGivney outside St. Mary.
Father Joseph McNeill and altar boys at Tuesday's "feast day."
Outside the St. Mary Church at 5 Hillhouse Ave. stands a life-sized statue of the Blessed Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus and the patron of that parish. The sculpture has its arms outstretched, as if embracing everyone who enters the church, welcoming them in.
Continue reading ‘St. Mary Pays Tribute To Michael McGivney’
by | Aug 14, 2024 11:00 am | Comments (0)
Ariel Bintang’s pieces can be understood as abstractions of figurative landscapes. The color choices, of vivid greens, blues, and oranges, don’t happen much in the real world, and when they do, not in the way that Bintang uses them. But Bintang also deftly outlines recognizable features into the pieces — buildings, cliffs, rocks, islands, clouds — that show them as landscapes, reduced to their essentials and manipulated. It makes sense, as Bintang, like fellow artists Uzayr Agha and Ethnie Xu, is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture. In “Mosaic,” the show running now through Aug. 25 at City Gallery, the three artists transfer their eyes for the landscape and the built environment around them to two-dimensional canvases.
by | Aug 13, 2024 2:35 pm | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
Signs of the times, outside of Wexler Grant's polling place.
Ponytails and pairs of glasses have been popping up all over parts of Dixwell and Newhallville, in a show of support for candidates in a race not many might typically pay close attention to — a summer primary for state representative.
by | Aug 13, 2024 9:16 am | Comments (1)
A still from Wanda.
What’s an arthouse film? Not unlike the cult film, it can draw in a certain type of cinephile that searches for an experience unlike the one you get from a blockbuster crowd pleaser. The arthouse film is typically independently made and is often experimental: sometimes cerebral, sometimes gut wrenching, sometimes both at once. Best Video — home to many of these films on VHS and DVD — is looking to share such experiences with others on Arthouse Sundays, a new monthly series that debuted this past weekend with the 1970 film Wanda.
by | Aug 12, 2024 9:44 am | Comments (2)
Karen Ponzio Photo
One of the many Puerto Rican flags at Saturday's fest.
Saturday was a scorcher throughout the city, but nowhere was it hotter than the New Haven Green, where the 2024 Puerto Rican Festival brought thousands to celebrate the culture with food, fun, and music.
Continue reading ‘"Everybody Today Is Boricua In New Haven"’
by | Aug 12, 2024 9:20 am | Comments (0)
Magnolia Theatre Company photos
Ocean O’Connor Rosenberg is tearing up the stage with her friends, forming them into a human pyramid. She’s belting out an uptempo song at the top of her lungs. She’s gotten all her friends to support her — literally — but the song she’s singing, if you listen carefully to the lyrics ricocheting by, is actually about how much better she is than they are. Is it fair? Is it mean? Is it even true?
The answers are probably no, yes, and no. But on the other hand, can we really blame O’Connor Rosenberg for wanting to come out on top? She’s literally singing for her life.
Continue reading ‘Magnolia Theatre Company Rides The Cyclone’
by | Aug 9, 2024 1:39 pm | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
KP's serving of Ozzy's Apizza.
New Haven-style apizza arrived in East Rock Market last weekend as the East Coast outpost of a super successful Glendale, Ca. location. Wait — New Haven apizza from L.A.? Yes, indeed.
Ozzy’s Apizza, which started in the West Coast kitchen of CT native Chris Wallace and made its way from pop up to mainstay in Los Angeles is now a part of Goatville. Pies with names like The Liotta, The Swanson, and The Bada Bing are already hits on the other side of the U.S. Now co-owners Wallace and Craig Taylor are hoping to become an integral part of their home state’s scene.
by | Aug 9, 2024 9:41 am | Comments (0)
Howardena Pindell
Katrina Footprint.
Howardena Pindell had already created the spiraling mess of oranges, yellows, blues, and greens, footprinted with red arrows indicating the path of the swirls, when she realized that the lithograph resembled a hurricane tracking map. She titled the piece Katrina Footprint, memorializing the over 1,800 people killed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. What was once a relatively simple design of colors and shapes became a political statement. In hindsight, it feels as if the politics were already embedded in the art. Pindell only had to bring them to the surface.
Continue reading ‘"Everything Is Political In America," Including The Art’
by | Aug 9, 2024 9:26 am | Comments (0)
Eleanor Polak photo
The Chomins at Weird Music Night.
“Hellooo!” called out John O’Donnell, in an exaggerated, almost Cookie-Monster-like voice.
“Hellooo!” called back the crowd, matching his energy and tone. It was weird, wacky, and wildly entertaining, setting the tone for Weird Music Night, a monthly event at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art on Trumbull Street. Attending the event felt like walking through a cabinet of curiosities, as the audience shifted from room to room and experienced a series of acts that were as odd as they were incredible.