It's usually not a good thing when an interview ends in bloodshed, but an exception will be made for Ward Just, who was still nursing his wounds from a battle with a wicker basket when this reporter left his West Tisbury home one morning this week.

It will be a landmark event for the Island and for the Martha's Vineyard Preservation Trust when the Old Sculpin Gallery opens its doors on Thursday afternoon to unveil a 40-piece retrospective of paintings by the old master of a modern era, Ray Ellis. The oil and watercolor landscapes selected for the three-day show - gathered from private collections across the country - were all painted en plein air on the Island. The show will close just two days later at 9 p.m.

It is not surprising that the first book published by Michael Pollan, who has built a national reputation for his magazine articles and bestselling books about food and nature, was actually a no-holds-barred travel guide to Martha's Vineyard.

Patricia Nanon is back in the barn. She may need her dancers as a barre to balance herself these days, she may choreograph with the aid of a rehearsal assistant, but there she is in the Chilmark studio that bears her name at The Yard. Now in her eighties, the tiny dancer who founded this unique performing arts colony is there entrancing the elite dancers, preparing to debut another new work.

The ominous, quickening strains that can mean only one thing - the shark is near and getting nearer - are slated to fill Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs at an August 5 open-air screening of Jaws.

Netflix, a company that operates a DVD mail rental service, has applied to the Oak Bluffs Park Commission to show the movie at the park off Seaview avenue. Admission would be free. The commission was scheduled to vote on the application last night.

Robert Brustein loves a good fight. His production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame so enraged the Irish Nobel laureate, he demanded it be shut down; Mr. Brustein refused, but allowed the playwright a program note informing audiences they should be disgusted.

Then there was the New York town hall run-in with African-American Pulitzer winner August Wilson, who called Mr. Brustein "a sniper, a naysayer and a cultural imperialist."