On Sunday, Nov. 18, at 6 p.m. Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard and The Farm Institute are hosting a community harvest potluck at the Chilmark Community Center. The potluck is open to the public and everyone is asked to bring a dish for six to share, made with at least one local ingredient.

This event is zero-waste and BYOB and BYOP (plates and utensils).

Perhaps it is time to invent a new word. Swine-apalooza? No, too much like a disease. Pork-arific? Better, but perhaps a whiff of the frathouse lingers. Pig-tastick? Pass me the bacon.

The reason for this conundrum of phrasing is the Pork and Knives and Swine and Dine events heading this way.

On Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. Edward Hoagland will speak at the Vineyard Haven Public Library about his 60 years of writing. Mr. Hoagland lives for most of the year in Edgartown and is one of the nation’s most celebrated essayists. He has written more than 20 books, both fiction and nonfiction, received two Guggenheim Fellowships, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011. His 2011 book, Sex and the River Styx, won the John Burroughs Medal. His latest book is Alaskan Travels.

John Potter is a retired gentleman who walks his dog Rocky twice a day along East Chop. He is a quiet, unassuming man whose life on the Island centers around family; his wife Joan, three sons and daughters in laws, and several grandchildren.

But what one sees on the bluff is just the current iteration of the man.

The annual Barn Raisers’ Ball is this Saturday, Nov. 3, starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury. The event is a celebration harkening back to when the hall was built and the whole community pitched in to help. Bring a dessert to share. Otherwise, the night is free,

Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish provide the music and the dancing goes until 10 p.m.

For more details, call 508-693-9549.

Mitt and Barack, please step away from the podium. This weekend the Vineyard stage belongs to another power struggle, one that due to its historical significance easily trumps the contemporary ways of man. King John is coming to the Katharine Cornell Theatre.

It is the first show of the season for Shakespeare for the Masses, a theatre troupe that condenses the master’s plays to a running time of one hour. The concise telling usually results in more humorous tales.