A Real Thanksgiving

Written by Henry Beetle Hough. From the Vineyard Gazette edition of Nov. 19, 1971:

Thanksgiving editorials and proclamations are, in general, too “usual”; there is nothing one needs to know less about in order to produce an appropriate measure of rhetoric. Thanksgiving is able to carry itself and should continue to do so, but just the same I’d like to write something a little apart from the inherited pattern.

Martha’s Vineyard Glassworks, a hand-blown glassworks gallery and studio, will donate five per cent of December sales to the Safe Haven Project, an Island-based nonprofit learning organization that provides educational opportunities for the greater community of young people living with, or affected by, HIV/AIDS.

Libby Johnson, gallery manager and a member of the Safe Haven Committee, said Safe Haven is raising money to fund the organization’s spring camping season.

When the Elves Faire in Edgartown opens on Saturday, Dec. 8 at 10 a.m., children and parents can enjoy craft-making together, producing gnome or princess hats, snow globes and many other delights. Other favorite attractions are decorating gingerbread houses and face painting. Booths are set up with all the materials and a coach for each project.

The Journals of Constant Waterman, Paddling, Poling, and Sailing for the Love of It. By Matthew Goldman, Breakaway Books, Halcottsville, N.Y. 2007, page 336. $14.

Matthew Goldman has sailed into Vineyard waters with his book The Journals of Constant Waterman. Boat enthusiasts and especially wanna-be boat enthusiasts will enjoy the short stories assembled between the cover. His trade is boat repair and maintenance and a lot of other crafts. He lives in Stonington.

In the midst of Hanukkah, children’s author Sarah Marwil Lamstein polishes up timeless motifs about the mysterious ways of God in Letter on the Wind: A Chanukah Tale, her dexterous retelling of a folktale from the Middle East.

She will share the book on Friday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. upstairs at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore on Main street in Vineyard Haven.

It’s Girls Night Out at Outerland next Thursday night, Nov. 29, when the New England male revue show Men in Motion comes to Martha’s Vineyard. In a bid to warm up the approaching winter, Outerland is importing professional male dancers for a fun evening that begins with dinner and drinks at the club’s bistro from 5 to 9 p.m. Show time is 8 p.m. and tickets are $12 at the door for ages 18 and over.

What do tick bites, moldy homes, depression and alcoholism have in common? The Vineyard Haven Public Library continues its evening lecture series with a presentation by Dr. Lisa Nagy on environmental health — and the controversial connection between ill health and chronic Lyme, depression, alcoholism, and living in a moldy home. The lecture is at Katharine Cornell Theatre on Spring street in Vineyard Haven on Thursday, Nov. 29, with 7 p.m.

“I don’t even like musicals,” says Donna Swift, writer and producer of more than a dozen musicals and founder and excutiver director of Troubled Shores Inc., a not-for-profit theatre organization. She is sitting on a newly painted stage prop for her latest production — a reworking of the Seventies musical Godspell — in the cafeteria of the Oak Bluffs elementary school.

“I try to put that in my writing, though — to say, ‘Look how ridiculous this is — I’m singing now.’”

Alpaca Farm Open House

The Island Alpaca Farm on Head of the Pond Road in Oak Bluffs will hold pre-holiday open houses on Sunday, Nov. 18 and Sunday, Nov. 25 from noon to 4 p.m. Besides offering products from the farm, the open houses will provide snacks and hot cider. More information is available by visiting islandalpaca.com.

Wanted: Directors

Island Theatre Workshop, Inc., celebrating its 40th year in 2008, invites proposals from directors for one-act plays to be produced in March.

New directors are encouraged to submit proposals; plays can be from 10 minutes to just under an hour. Collections of 10-minute plays and one-act plays are available in local libraries.

To apply please call 508-693-5290. Copies of plays to be considered must be submitted no later than Dec. 15 to be performed at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven in March.