HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

It’s time to talk turkey — maybe burnt turkey — about smoke alarms. I’m referring to these new-fangled ones, the ones that get imposed on new houses; a ganglia of gadgets wired together like a diagram of the human genome, each one plugged, redundantly enough, with its own 9-volt battery. Of course they’re in place to protect us from burning to crisps — who wants that? — but on the many occasions that they start to bleep, when the nearest flame is miles away where someone is putting a Bic to a cigarette, the alarms are impossible to switch off.

Last week a townswoman told me she moved into a house so sweet and new, she was high from the scent of freshly milled wood. The only trouble was, when she turned on her oven to bake a carrot dish with bay leaves and sage at a 375-degree setting for 20 minutes, the smoke alarms — yes, all six of them — went off around the 15-minute mark and didn’t quit for another two hours. It put a dent in the otherwise cozy dinner atmosphere.

I recalled the same system of Star Wars smoke alarms in the Circuit avenue building that used to house my bookstore and the fabulous see-and-be-seen clothing store, Jellyfish. Early on in our first summer, the smoke alarms, both downstairs in the shops and upstairs in the apartments, started up a clamor that caused customers to pirouette away at the door. We placed frantic calls to the building management, and the electrician turned out within the hour. We caught glimpses of him wobbling on ladders and scampering up and down the two sets of stairs. The alarms continued their urmp!-urmp!-urmp! warning, seemingly about a fire in a parallel universe.

Finally, with the urmps! threatening to burst eardrum capillaries, the electrician stood on the far side of my counter and held up both hands cupped around a dozen 9-volt batteries. “Don’t tell anyone,” he shouted over the cacophony, “but I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Finally, in a fit of despair, we unplugged every last unit from its moorings and plucked the wires free. When we dismantled the last alarm, a gorgeous silence settled over the building. It was the silence you get high in the Himalayas where monks gather to meditate in stone-walled sanctuaries. We bought a few traditional smoke detectors — the ones with the same 9-volt batteries but no ultra-tech wires — and we installed these to protect us from roasting. These simple detectors are perfectly legal, they rest in most houses not recently built or extravagantly rehabbed, and all you need to do is check the health of the 9-volt every once in a while and, if necessary, replace it.

And then there are stories of houses that burn even with the protection of state-of-the-art alarm systems. Such was the case with the Norton house in Ocean Park on the cold February evening in 2001, when a conflagration took all night to reduce the Victorian mansion to rubble come morning. Fire chief Denny Alley maintained that the smoke alarm system was expensive, extensive and working. On the other hand, maybe you need to have humans around to hear the mechanical distress call? That’s it! We’ve put our finger on the problem! The Norton family was far away in California, and neighbors were few and far between that night on Ocean Park.

In conclusion, let’s rethink burdening new buildings with alarm systems that only an MIT team of physicists can dismantle.

Anybody else have a rant they’d care to uncork in my column? Rant space is available at a special low cost; in fact it’s much more reasonably priced than the product placement ads I’ll be running for Hyundai and Pepsi (come on, they call ours a creative economy, don’t they?), so contact the number and e-mail address below the byline.

And here’s the news from the Oak Bluffs School: The leaves are turning brown, there’s a chill in the air ... must be time for the school’s Halloween party, with a haunted house, costume parade, great games, bake sale and community potluck. Bring a dish to share and take the night off from cooking. The festivities will take place Saturday, Oct. 30, 4 to 7 p.m. If you have questions or would like to volunteer, please contact Dawn Sayre at 508-693-4841.

A treat is in store for the Vineyard on Sunday, Oct. 24 at 5 p.m., when the London Gold Group of Suzuki-trained children, ages 9 to 15, performs at the Whaling Church. The concert is free for children, with a suggested donation of $10 for adults. This is an extraordinary group of violinists and violists directed by Helen Brunner, founder of the London Suzuki Group. Bring your family and friends for a special hour of music. This should really inspire our young Oak Bluffs violinists to get busy. To learn more, call Marilyn Hollinshead, 508-693-5803.

Corinne de Langavant, known to the community as Coco the Clown, ice-skating pro, special events producer and performing artist, is making evergreen Christmas wreaths. She’ll be selling them for $12 a piece in aid of her upcoming trip to New York to present her thesis about treatment of autism using voice movement therapy, Corinne’s specialty. To support Coco, I mean Corinne, in this bold effort, and to have a beautiful, pine-scented wreath to hang on your door, call the multi-talented lady at 508-423-9566 or e-mail her at corinnedelangavant@yahoo.com.