Arts & Entertainment
Learn a New Language
The Oak Bluffs Public Library is now carrying online language learning software by Mango Languages. Free of charge to library patrons, Mango Languages is a welcome addition to the library for those wanting to study a foreign language easily and at their own pace.
COURAGE: A Novel of the Sea. By Alan Littell, Illustrated. St. Martin’s Press. 148 pages. $16.95.
It surely was not Vineyard Haven harbor waters lapping the beach near the Mary Guerin Inn in Eastville that inspiredthis thrilling sea tale. But its author, Alan Littell, spent childhood summers there. More likely, his later years as a merchant mariner provided the background for this story of the dangers of the enthralling sea.
Quansoo Forest
Spiraled, twisted, screwed and swirled,
Knobbed and gnarled, hunched and burled,
Oaken shapes grotesquely curled,
Ever-howling wind has whirled.
From the stump and toward the sky,
Aged sprouts for sunlight vie,
Grapplings limbs are arching high,
Arms of wooden octopi.
Briny gale the ocean blows,
In this year-long serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native Islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after two decades to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. Abe has a paranoid hatred of Richard Moby, the CEO of an off-Island wholesale nursery, Broadway. Convinced that Moby wants to destroy Abe personally, and all Island-based landscaping/nursery businesses generally, Abe is obsessed with “taking down” Moby.
How’s Your News
How’s Your News, a television show starring former campers from Vineyard Haven’s Camp Jabberwocky, premieres Sunday, Feb. 8 at 10:30 p.m. on the cable network MTV. The show features the talents of Bobby Bird, Larry Perry, Jeremy Vest and Sean Costello, all of who are long-time summer residents by way of the camp. For more information, visit howsyournews.com.
Pruning Blueberries
The Polly Hill Arboretum and Susan Murphy, proprietor of Murphy Blueberry Farm in Chilmark, will host a hands-on workshop in the technique of pruning blueberries on Saturday, Jan. 31, from 10 a.m. to noon.
Learn how proper pruning can stimulate growth to insure a bumper crop of berries on these native Vineyard shrubs. The workshop focuses on correct pruning techniques for both old mature plants and younger shrubs. Meet at the Murphy farm, dressed for the weather with your pruners, if you have them.
