Few people embody the statement “still waters run deep” more than Island singer-songwriter Willy Mason, equal parts thoughtful and lighthearted as he considers his musical roots and his career.

He is half done with his next album, which should be released around January. In August and September, he will be playing festivals in the United Kingdom.

A quick glance at the program for this year’s Hebrew Center Summer Institute speaker series is enough to show that change has happened at the institute.

It is suddenly more diverse in both subject matter and guests.

Chalk it up to the new chairman of the summer institute committee, Geraldine Alpert, and her desire to see the series broaden its appeal.

“I thought I would try to get a more diverse program that attracts people from all over the Vineyard, not just the Jewish population,” she said.

Cue the music, can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?

For more than 40 years the popular children’s television show has played a central role in the life of preschoolers, teaching many important life lessons — how to spell the word cookie, how to count to 10.

Now in a new documentary to be aired by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), young children will be able to learn about the tougher issues in life such as hunger. And a Vineyard single dad and his children will play a leading role.

On Thursday morning all was right with the Lagoon Pond. The water was clear, blue-green crystal, by all appearances the very picture of estuarine health. Just a day before, the water was clouded by an unsightly yellowish-brown fog from the head to the mouth of the Lagoon. It was an explosion of prorocentrum, an algae, and the largest one that Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group director Rick Karney has ever seen.

An overhaul of the shuttered state lobster hatchery in Oak Bluffs has been approved by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and the commonwealth will now invest a significant sum of money to rehabilitate the facility for use by the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, Cape and Islands Rep. Timothy Madden announced yesterday.

Mr. Madden said the state DMF has agreed to invest at least $250,000 in the project in phases. Work began this week to replace the plumbing in the old hatchery that sits on the eastern side of the Lagoon Pond in Oak Bluffs.