Arts & Entertainment
The summer solstice is one of mankind’s most ancient and universally recognized holidays. Noontime on the longest day of the year marks the highest the sun will rise in the sky all year round. Every day that follows the solstice is progressively shorter, and the sun grows progressively lazier, until reaching its low point in December. For Islanders, the solstice marks the end of late spring’s easy charms, and the beginning of the summer hustle. For some seasonal residents, it represents the start of a new job; for others, a break from work.
There is a kinetic movement to the Taste of the Vineyard, the annual feast and fund-raiser for the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust. It’s the giddy energy of hundreds of people who skipped lunch, and maybe breakfast, playing gourmand for the night. Sampling. Sipping. Spying what’s ahead. Suddenly it’s forget the forks; it’s just finger food, faster and faster, with less and less room in the belly, until finally, barely two hours after the tent doors opened, there’s no right move but to dance.
Mother/Daughter Art Show
Mother and daughter artists, Gloria and Jennifer Burkin have a show of their new work, at The Martha’s Vineyard Bank at Bettlebung Corner in Chilmark, running from June 12 to June 19.
Both artists will be exhibiting and selling their work throughout the summer at the Chilmark Flea Market on Saturdays, and Tuesdays at the Featherstone Flea Market in Oak Bluffs.
Despite dismal weather conditions, the sixth annual American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Martha’s Vineyard raised more than $60,000 for cancer research and patient services in the walk through the night to help raise funds and cancer awareness.
Bittersweet Beginnings: A Sketchbook of a Great Depression Boyhood by James V. Wyman. Plaidsweed Publishing, Concord, N.H. Illustrated by Linda L. Tillson , 137 pages $19.95
Day’s End on Eel Pond
Sunlight falls through holes in the clouds
spotlighting the marsh grass here and not there,
whitening a sail out on the water, leaving
others in shadow, shining the transom
of the moored cat boat, its bow disappearing.
The bobwhite calls its name without knowing it.
Sparrows and swallows, fussing and twittering.
line up like deacons on the deck railing,
