President Obama is due to land on the Vineyard on Thursday for a planned 10-day family vacation up-Island, and three days before the arrival few details have been released by the White House.

By MEGAN DOOLEY

On Thursday night, soprano Jeanine De Bique told the story of a woman torn between her loyalty to her family and her love for a man whose family ties made him enemy to her own. She asked that the gods strike her down with lightning, “because it’s better to be dead, I guess, than to be in love,” said Ms. De Bique. She told another story of a woman who found herself unexpectedly pregnant by a cold, cruel man, and the heartbreak that ensued.

Carlin Hart is already settling into his new job as principal of the Oak Bluffs School. In an interview at his office on Wednesday this week, he took a seat among boxes and books, some of them his, some belonging to outgoing principal Laury Binney.

The late Patricia Neal, at some point in her dazzling half-century run as a Broadway and Hollywood actress, said “A strong, positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug.” But it’s not so important that she said it. After all, an actor is excellent at reciting empty lines; they make whole careers out of the practice. What’s more important is that she lived it, despite all the deep valleys and dark corners she faced along the way.