Longtime friends of the Yard, Gus Solomons Jr and Carmen de Lavallade, return with Paradigm, their company of fellow luminaries, for a weekend of performances in the Yard’s intimate Patricia N. Nanon Theater. Island audiences may remember Carmen de Lavallade and Gus Solomons from last summer’s tribute to Patricia Nanon at the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center, in which they performed Three Scenes from Archy & Mehitabel.

You can bring the kids for the stilt walkers and jugglers, for the popcorn, pizza and face-painting, for all the under-the-big-tent fun that is Cinema Circus at the Chilmark Community Center every Wednesday at 5 p.m. The main act, of course, is the movie. Here to review what’s on the big screen tomorrow is Island kid critic Gabe Merkel.

This week the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival presents Animal Crackers, a series of eight short films, each featuring animals. I liked all of them, and especially enjoyed these:

When your grandfather is Grammy-winning Cuban pianist and composer Bebo Valdez and your father famed Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger Chucho Valdez, naturally you decide to be a baseball player.

So it was with Chuchito Valdez, the now-renowned pianist who will be playing on Thursday, July 16, at 7 and 9 p.m. at the Whaling Church in Edgartown.

Island artist Julia Mitchell’s work is on exhibit in Tapestries: Nature and Artifact, at Waverly Street Gallery in Bethesda, Md.

A designer and weaver of 40 years’ experience, her works are in private and corporate collections worldwide.

The art of tapestry is enjoying a resurgence in this country, thanks in part to two exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, curated by its director Thomas Campbell.

Compassionate Care ALS represents a new, or perhaps ancient, approach to medicine. Focusing on health care rather than disease treatment, the Cape-based nonprofit seeks to improve the quality of life of people who have ALS. This degenerative and irreversible nerve decay was made famous by Lou Gehrig and then Stephen Hawking. Doctors can do little to treat it or slow its progress ive destruction, even as the mind and senses remain.

Rising Tide

Rising Tide Therapeutic Equestrian Center is having their third annual cocktail party/fundraiser tomorrow night, Wednesday, July 15, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Styron family home on 53 High Hedge Lane in Vineyard Haven. Sponsored by LeGrenier Restaurant, Jim’s Package Store, Donaroma’s Nursery & Landscape, Red Pony Farm & Consignment/Tack Shop and Linda Sibley of Vineyard Electronics, the event is open to the public. For tickets and information, call Vickie Thurber at 508-693-6112.