The International Festival of Arts and Ideas traveled to France by way of Hamden Wednesday night as its Sister City Films program screened the sweet and surreal film Amelie at Best Video to an eclectic array of movie fans.
The Jean-Pierre Jeunet-directed film from 2001 was the fourth in the eight-film series presented in conjunction with the organization Sister Cities New Haven, whose mission is “to promote awareness of the cultures and customs of the foreign cities designated by New Haven as their sister cities.” Those cities included Afula-Gilboa, Israel; Amalfi, Italy; Avignon, France; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Hue, Vietnam; Leon, Nicaragua; Changsha, China; and Tetlanohcan, Mexico.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 17, 2025 11:00 am
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Alexander Bushnik
Rhino with Teacups.
Alexander Bushnik’s Rhino with Teacups is whimsical enough that it’s easy to overlook the skill it must have taken to create it. But look again: How exactly does it stay together? Why doesn’t it tip right off the wall?
The balancing act on display in the piece is mirrored in the walls around it, displaying portraits, landscapes, and abstract canvases that in some ways couldn’t be farther apart in style, but are brought together and made into a cohesive whole.
That's me, honoring the aphorism: "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly."
Last Thursday night, I took a seat in a makeshift theater — the community room of the Unitarian Society of New Haven — awaiting the introduction of Act 6 of an annual talent show, “Mud Follies.”
Not that I wasn’t paying attention to Acts 1 through 5. Indeed, I was impressed by the performances.
Roya Mohammadi’s body was found in the West River after she filed multiple police reports against her uncle. Two years later, activists gathered to write love notes for Mohammadi and tie them to the branches of a cherry tree, while calling on the West Haven Police Department to further investigate the circumstances of her death.
I had a long list of questions for New Haven music icon Rosalíe Sunday afternoon as I called her to chat about her new single “Radiohead,” a musical feat inspired by a previous relationship. But mostly, I just wanted to know how she’s been. The indie alt-rock singer moved to Brooklyn at the beginning of February, and has re-introduced herself to the neighborhood where she grew up while still traveling back and forth to Connecticut.
So how is life these days? “Groundbreaking, heartbreaking, and beautiful,” Rosalíe said. “I’m trying to discover the self I’m growing into.” In other words, as she reflected later in our conversation, “it’s been tempestuous as fuck.”
Wuzzardo and Martorana lead the post-film discussion.
When you invite librarians somewhere, expect to walk away with more than what you started with.
A partnership between New Haven’s Shubert Theater and PBS ended up becoming a citywide library pop-up movie screening tour this month, hitting all five branches of the New Haven Free Public Library with the not-yet-released documentary film Free For All: The Public Library. I caught up with the tour’s third stop Saturday afternoon, at the library’s Ives branch downtown.
For fans of the cozy and enemies of the conventional, Friday night was an evening of tunes, nosh, and acoustic soundtracks to old silent films at Upper State’s Volume II. It was one of the first out-of-town shows for Aesop’s Sound Fables, an ambient chamber music ensemble based in Brooklyn.
The group alternates between silent film sets like Friday’s, called “Strange Animations,” and “Soup Shows,” which are accompanied by readings and, yes, soup.
Though Friday was not officially a Soup Show, New Haven soupheads found a way to bring in a steamy chowder anyway. Aesop’s Sound Fables’s local-talent openers included soft-spoken singer Melanie Champagne, indie band Old Milk Mooney, and pop-up chef Soup Pauper, who’s been slinging broth in New Britain and New Haven since the beginning of last year. Let me lay out the scene for you, one sense at a time.
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Jamil Ragland |
Apr 14, 2025 8:00 am
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The exhibit How Can the Grid Deal with a Messy World? by Silas Munro
How Can the Grid Deal with a Messy World? Joseloff Gallery University of Hartford West Hartford April 10, 2025
Heading back to the University of Hartford felt like a homecoming after many years. I spent alot of time there in high school, both due to various events I participated in, and because a close friend’s father was a professor there. While I visited initially to see the Dream Murals exhibit (read that review here), I was also invited to view the work of designer and multidisciplinary artist Silas Munro in the Joseloff Gallery on campus. Titled How Can the Grid Deal with a Messy World?, the exhibit was a fascinating juxtaposition of the very public art in Dream Murals, with the personal and intimate work that Munro had on display.
Six-year-old Aria Banks carefully applied navy blue polish to her fingernails before going back in with white accents, creating a tiny galaxy complete with an astronaut on her thumb.
She was one of more than 50 attendees at the Nail Art Workshop on Wednesday afternoon at Mitchell Library, the Westville branch of the New Haven Free Public Library at 37 Harrison St. Kids of all genders and as young as 2 years old showed up to paint with parents in tow.
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Jamil Ragland |
Apr 11, 2025 9:36 am
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Beauty that Bites by Sophie Groenstein (2025)
Dream Murals: Public Art with Hartford Art School Alumni Donald and Linda Slipe Gallery University of Hartford West Hartford April 10, 2025
Dream Murals took a unique approach to the typical art exhibit by opening with incomplete artworks. Alumni of the Hartford Art School were invited to work with a student mentee to create their “dream” mural.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 10, 2025 3:03 pm
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Christina Hunt Wood
Human Nature.
We see crushed cans in the natural urban habitat all the time, but artist Christina Hunt Wood makes us look at them again. There they are, on the road, on the sidewalk, in a layer of scattered leaves. But by turning them to gold, one solid color that connotes value, Wood lets us appreciate the shapes they make, and how varied they can be. Sometimes art is just about a change in perspective, a way to see that we’re making art all the time, even if it’s just because we smashed a can of Coke under the front wheel of our car.
The New Haven Zine Scene was founded in 2023 by local zinester and trash artist Alice Prael to help people make and distribute zines. The group holds craft meetups two to three times per month around New Haven, including a gathering held this past weekend at Never Ending Books/ Volume II in East Rock where folks collaged, chatted, and shared zines with each other.
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Jamil Ragland |
Apr 8, 2025 7:48 am
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Evelyn Dillon and Trevor Pitts perform at Parkville Market.
Evelyn Dillon Parkville Market Hartford April 3, 2025
I’m going to be honest with you: I really didn’t want to work on Thursday night.
It was a gray and rainy evening, the kind where you want to curl up in bed and listen to the raindrops hit the window pane. But I heard that there was live music at Parkville Market, and it had been almost a year since my last visit. I got dressed and headed out.
By the time I arrived, the place was already bumping. I walked into the bar just as the performer, Evelyn Dillon, was singing one of my favorite songs: “Ascension,” by Maxwell. The bar was packed with people nodding their heads and singing along. I felt my mood begin to brighten.
Doug Coffin, Next Door founder and owner, at closing night.
Teary eyes graced Next Door’s dining room Sunday night as pizza-lovers took in the sights and smells of the beloved pizza restaurant for the last time. It was Next Door’s last day in business before closing its doors forever.
The Big Bad Johns, a former staple of New Haven’s local music scene, returned to Cafe Nine from points far and wide for one of their periodic reunion shows Friday night, and the place was packed. Leigh Busby was among the throng taking these photos and videos.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 3, 2025 2:31 pm
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Cai Emmons, in the advanced stages of a degenerative disease, has just gotten off a Zoom call with a doctor to discuss end-of-life options. She’s on a small couch, bathed in her home’s warm light. Her walker, which she can use to get around the house, is within reach. But she can’t stand up to be able to use it. She tries to push herself off the couch and fails. She gets a hold of one handle of the walker, but it’s not enough. She tries again and again, for a full minute, determined, but can’t do it. Her husband Paul re-enters the room. He hasn’t seen how long Emmons has been trying to get up, but a couple seconds later he understands, and goes to her, putting his arms around her. With his help, Emmons is able to rise. Standing upright, she looks straight into the camera. She doesn’t speak but her intentions seem as clear as day: You saw me, right?
On Saturday night the vegan/vegetarian spot The Cannon turned into an old-school hip-hop party for WAX.
Hosted by Dooley‑O, the monthly party event features local and well-known DJs who spin from their personal vinyl collections. This time Billy Bush out of Norwalk crushed the 1s and 2s for three and a half hours, moving the crowd of 70 or so to their feet. Every time I started to take a breather, he’d mix in another banger, and I’d keep dancing.
Panelists Justin Farmer and Jennifer Heikkila Díaz at Tuesday's Big Read.
Four hundred and fifty one degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper burns.
Just transpose the number and word, and it’s also the title of an influential sci-fi novel born in the era of McCarthyism.
On Tuesday, that book was the subject of a spirited, two-alarm discussion on A.I., censorship and addiction to the internet and social media, that unfolded in the community room at the Wilson Branch Library in the Hill.
