Edward Dillon doesn’t exist. Longtime readers of the Vineyard Gazette may recall reading about Mr. Dillon’s antics in the West Chop column during the summer of 1977. The column, written by then 12-year-old Amor Towles, reported the comings and goings within the close-knit community. Yet unbeknownst to most readers, the man by the name of Edward Dillon, mentioned in columns throughout the summer, was fictional.
The number 56, representing baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in 1941, is the most resonant numeral in sports. Nothing approaches it — not in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, darts or kick the can. To deliver hits every day, amid constant inspection and increasing pressure, leaves athletes in all sports slack-jawed.
There have been a lot of big name poets reading on our shores this summer. And we applaud this embarrassment of riches. But next Wednesday, August 24, beginning at 5:30 p.m., we have the chance to stand a bit taller and clap even louder as some of our very own Vineyard poets take the stage at the West Tisbury library. Readers include Justen Ahren, Samantha Barrow, Ellie Bates, Maureen Hall and Jill Jupen.
This event is free and includes refreshments too. A guaranteed sating of both mind and body.
Of all the ways to go, who would have thought the grocery store would become one of the prime unravelers of our mortal coil.
Sad but true says Nancy Deville in her book Death by Supermarket: The Fattening, Dumbing Down and Poisoning of America.
The problems are many. So many foods laden with high-fructose corn syrup, vegetable oil, endocrine disrupting soy, neurologically damaging aspartame, and all the rest of the maddening ingredients now commonplace in factory made food.
Islanders will have a say in selecting the first Martha’s Vineyard Poet Laureate.
Year-round poets must submit five poems of any genre, style or form. A jury of judges will read all submissions, and nominate five finalists. The winning five poets must be willing to participate in a public reading that will be videotaped and distributed on the Martha’s Vineyard Poetry Society’s Facebook page; MVTV; YouTube and through other Island media and agencies.
Like most of us, Steven Rattner knew little about the automobile industry when in early 2009 he accepted the unenviable task of helping craft a government rescue plan for Detroit’s automakers.
But unlike most of us, Mr. Rattner knew more than a little about finance and profitable companies. And as President Obama’s former “car czar,” he has produced a readable book about the experience in Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry.
Pitchapalooza is coming to Martha’s Vineyard, so time to dust off your pitching chops. But here’s the catch. You will have but just one minute to talk.
The pitch, so to speak, is as follows. Twenty writers will be selected at random from the audience. Each person picked gets sixty seconds to convince the judges of the worthiness of his book idea. At the end of the pitching a winner will be announced. The prize? An introduction to an agent or publisher appropriate for his or her book.
Sarah French, author of the new children’s book Summer Friends, will be appearing in the garden at Dragonfly Gallery on Friday, July 29, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Summer Friends is an exploration, through collage art, of the imagined friendship between a seal and Ms. French’s black Lab Minnie. Dragonfly Gallery is located in the Oak Bluffs’ Arts District. For more details, call 508-693-8877.
How did Tina Chang become the Poet Laureate of Brooklyn? By writing the following words:
“I walk the streets of Brooklyn looking at this storefront and that, buy a pair of shoes I can’t afford, pumps from London, pointed at the tip and heartbreakingly high, hear my new heels clicking, crushing the legs of my shadow.”
Well, actually that is a mere sampling of her work taken from her poem Duality. There is so much more to choose from.
The Emperor of All Maladies is a billed as a biography of cancer and author Siddhartha Mukherjee treats his subject with all the reverence of a living subject.
“Cancer cells grow faster, adapt better,” he writes. “They are better versions of ourselves.”
