On Sunday afternoon, Occupy Wall Street-Martha’s Vineyard held its first general assembly at Howes House in West Tisbury. The purpose of the assembly was to refine ideas generated by a previous meeting at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center and introduce Islanders to the so-called circle process, which is designed to encourage “high quality listening and a safe supportive space for all of us to share ideas,” as Chris Riger explained it.

When Nat and Pam Benjamin and their two-year-old daughter Jessica sailed into Vineyard Haven Harbor in 1972, Nat wondered aloud to his family, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a boatyard to fix up some of the wrecks around here and maybe build some new boats?”

On Jan. 15 more than 90 people gathered at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center for an afternoon of videos, music and discussions about the Occupy Wall Street movement. As participants gathered, pictures of “occupiers” from all over the world as well as many taken right here on the Vineyard, were shown on the large screen at the front of the community center’s main room. One of the many anthems of the Occupy movement, We Are The Many, written and sung by Makana, a popular Hawaiian troubadour, set the mood.

Willy Mason on drums? I have never seen that before. The headliner of Vineyard musicians who fills houses across our nation and in Europe played back-up all night. But Willy was appropriately humble in this company — a gathering of the best of the best of Island musicians. Rob Myers, aka Jellybone Rivers had invited Nina Violet (viola), Brad Tucker (standup bass), Marciana Jones (ukelele), Michelle Jones (electric guitar), Adam Lipsky (piano), Charlie Esposito (clarinet), Slim Bob Berosh (electric guitar) and Elisha Wiesner (electric guitar).

The music was a medley of songs, originals by Jellybone and covers of old favorites. The atmosphere could have been a club in downtown San Francisco, Austin or New York or it could have been the Mooncusser or the Unicorn or Wintertide Coffee House — early Island music venues from the sixties and seventies. But it wasn’t. This was the Pit Stop in the Arts District in Oak Bluffs.

On Saturday night, Nina Violet celebrated the release of her new CD, We’ll Be Alright, at the Pit Stop on Duke’s County avenue in Oak Bluffs. Catty-corner to Tony’s, in the town’s Arts District, the place has been a garage, a jazz joint, a consignment shop for art, a recording studio and more, so it has a homey industrial feel to it — a spot for getting all kinds of creative things done. It’s owned by Nina’s father, Don Muckerheide, who hosted the celebration.