Books & Ideas
Sea Breeze
Alas! the flesh is sad; the books I’ve read already —
O to run away! To flee! I feel with birds their giddy
Flights between unknowns: sea-foams and skies!
And nothing, not old gardens mirrored in bright eyes,
Can now hold back this heart — o sea-drenched nights!
Nor, on this empty paper, lamp-light’s
Desert clarity, whose whiteness keeps it undefiled;
While other recent natural disasters may have drawn the international news media’s attention elsewhere, Haiti continues to struggle against widespread corruption and popular fear in the effort to rebuild itself in the aftermath of an earthquake that struck of the beleaguered island several months ago.
The Vineyard Haven library does its part in keeping Islanders updated on the situation faced by our southerly sister at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 25, with a free screening of a film, Burn!, followed by post-earthquake updates.
Adult Farming Programs
The Farm Institute in Katama is expanding with adult programming — 11 weeks of workshops for grownups, on Wednesday afternoons (from 1 to 3 p.m.) and Saturdays (from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) this summer.
Upcoming courses include: Building Solar Ovens with Steve Ruzanski Solarazza, Pickling with Sheila BenDavid, an Eat Global, Cook Local ethnic cooking series with Jan Buhrman and Robert Lionette, as well as mushroom cultivation, cob building, fermentation, and canning, jamming and drying!
West Tisbury author John Hough has received the the W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction for his Civil War novel Seen the Glory, published last year by Simon & Schuster. The award honors the best fiction set in a period when the United States was at war. It recognizes the service of American veterans and military personnel and encourages the writing and publishing of outstanding war-related fiction.
Connor Gifford, a 28-year-old man from Nantucket, was born with some extra chromosomes. Sometimes that little bit extra can be a burden; other times, a boon. But it will always mean that Mr. Gifford has Down syndrome.
Roughly one out of 1,000 people are born with Down syndrome. They share specific and easily-recognizable aspects of appearance and behavior, similarities in facial features, body type and difficulties with speech and cognition.
A Talk to Rock Your Socks Off
Specializing in the very groovy (pardon the pun) sounding field of neotectonics, noted geologist Patrick Williams will explore the origins of the Island’s major landscape features in a discussion billed as Hills, Hollows, Bays and Bogs: A Geologist’s View of Martha’s Vineyard, taking place Saturday, May 15, at 3 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum library.