News
The fifth annual African American Cultural Festival sponsored by The Cottagers, Inc. of Martha’s Vineyard will be held on Friday, July 31, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Hartford Park in Oak Bluffs. It is free and open to all.
The festival will feature Cottager history and Vineyard family stories, an African American marketplace, mini talks on history and culture, activities for children, nonprofit services booths, belly dancing and decoupage workshops, and food by Chef Deon.
The Vineyard recently received an honored guest and a living historical figure to its shores. On Wednesday, the Honorable Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, Haiti’s minister of women’s affairs and rights since 2006, came to serve as guest of honor at a weekend-long celebration of solidarity between the island of Hispaniola and Martha’s Vineyard, sponsored by the Vineyard organizations Peacequilts and MV Fish Farm for Haiti.
On Saturday, August 1, Curt and Ida Gear will host their second annual fundraiser for AHEAD (Adventures in Health, Education and Agricultural Developments), Inc at their home in Oak Bluffs. The soirée will go from 4 to 8 p.m. with food, drinks and music.
Corn Maze
Surprise your friends and lose your enemies in the Farm Institute’s corn maze. Covering five acres in Katama, the maze is open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Cost is $10 for those over 15 years old, $5 for ages 3 to 14, and free for kids two and under. For details, call 508-627-7007, or visit farminstitute.org.
There are several deaths in House of Bones, Victoria Campbell’s raw, personal documentary about a final summer at her grand family home, tucked snugly into the old Bostonian world of West Chop.
There’s the house itself, the grand dame, with its nine bedrooms, five clawfoot bathtubs and wide veranda from which pre-lunch sherries were sipped in the West Chop Club heyday.
In the film’s final frames it is shown gutted to its skeleton by new owners, its garden stamped out in favor of the beginnings of a garage.
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
Fishing season has finally hit its stride. And if they can keep from getting lost in the fog, anglers are finding dinner. There are reports of bonito. Striped bass are still around, although in deeper water. Somebody caught a nice bluefish in Nantucket Sound on Wednesday morning. Someone else was seen toting five gallon buckets full of black sea bass.