Arts & Entertainment
Singing for the Beauty of the World
When Melanie DeMore comes to the Island she doesn’t just perform. She gets us all to perform. No, this isn’t one of those uncomfortable moments when you attend a performance and are plucked from the crowd to go center stage. Melanie spends the week before her performance hosting singing classes around the Island. And, if so moved after attending a workshop, you are invited to display your chops at her official performance.
Don’t forget about Vineyard Haven. The town, hit by the one-two punch of the July 4, 2008 fire that destroyed Café Moxie and severely damaged the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore, and the recession, has struggled to match the crowded, bustling streets of Edgartown and Oak Bluffs.
Tonight, July 15, from 5 to 8 p.m. local business leaders hope to turn things around with an event billed as an art stroll but that in fact includes a variety of businesses along Main street.
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
It was showtime this week at Martha’s Vineyard Chowder Company, a new restaurant in the old Dreamland building in Oak Bluffs. The space is across the street from the Flying Horses. Diners will remember the spot as formerly the Ocean Club, formerly Balance and at one time Danny Quinn’s, at 9 Oak Bluffs avenue. As of Tuesday night, after much preparation and waiting, it is officially the Martha’s Vineyard Chowder Company.
The Slow Food movement and Martha’s Vineyard have a lot in common, and not just in our delight in eating locally grown plants and animals.
In the 1970s McDonald’s set its sights on the Island, targeting an area along the Vineyard Haven harbor. But the people said no. A grass roots campaign sent fast food packing.
Similarly, in Italy in 1986 the voracious appetite of McDonald’s spurred another movement that harkened back to a simpler and healthier time.
The sight of an old barn, a beacon of red in the midst of a green and yellow field, not unlike that of a lighthouse, often brings up visions of the past, and a more idyllic time when cows owned the earth and people, well, just milked them.
Artist Richard Dunbrack sees furniture.
Using recycled materials from old barns and antique oddities that have fallen from grace (he does not pillage), Mr. Dunbrack fashions whimsical yet functional furniture. Art you can take a nap in, if you will.
Each week the folks at Cinema Circus show a series of short films on Wednesday evenings at the Chilmark Community Center. The films begin at 6 p.m. but at 5 p.m. the circus — complete with jugglers, face painters, stilt walkers, food and music — gets underway.
