African American Festival

The seventh annual African American Cultural Festival takes place on July 28 and 29 at Hartford Park in Oak Bluffs, with daily activities from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

On Thursday at 6 p.m., broadcast news journalist Carol Simpson reads from her new book. From 9:30 to midnight there will be a teen dance party.

On Friday at 6 p.m. Jessica Harris discusses her book.

The festival is free.

WATER’S FINE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

So I hear the waters that I have gone swimming in every summer since I was an infant (Truman was president) are deemed “maybe polluted.” Ho hum. Not the first in a long line of indignities visited upon what I revere as the Galilee of bathing beaches. Here is a timeline of sorts:

Bright Waters, Shining Tides: > Reflections on a Lifetime of Fishing, paintings and essays by Kib Bramhall, Vineyard Stories, Edgartown, 2011. 96 pages. Hardcover, $29.95.

I know of three painters who are also enviably good writers, all of them Vineyard men by birth or choice.

From Gazette summer editions:

It’s one of those odd things that the northeast wind which, most of the year, produces three days — at least — of rain and wind, usually raw and bleak, can produce in late summer and early fall the beautiful phenomenon known as a dry northeaster. A northwest day is pretty fine, but the clear northeast day is finest of all, for its air makes the heart lilt and sing.

Helping Habitat

Habitat for Humanity of Martha’s Vineyard is in urgent need of volunteers to help build its house in West Tisbury this weekend.

Work will be needed, Friday, July 29, and Saturday, July 30, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The directions are as follows: Take Old County Road to Great Plains Road. Go 2/10th of a mile to Bailey Park Road and turn left. Go to the end of the road to the site.

Improv Show for Kids

Nightmares were never so much fun. During the past two weeks the campers at Imp have been learning the ways of improv — the fast action, quick reflexes of theatrical art Yoda would be proud of. But who’s to say, once the mind is unleashed to improvise at will, how the subconscious will be affected.

On Friday, July 29, you are about to find out as the campers present The Dreams and Nightmares Show at the Edgartown School.

Carolyn Daniele Art Show

On Thursday, July 28, artist Carolyn Daniele is having her first solo exhibition at Featherstone Center for the Arts in Oak Bluffs. Ms. Daniele began her career as a ceramic sculptor but over the years has begun to incorporate painting and collage in her work.

Anna Edey stooped over one of her many wineberry bushes at her West Tisbury home Saturday afternoon, plucked one of the raspberry-like wild berries and popped it into her mouth.

“What a treat,” she said. “They have no shelf life, so you have to pick them right off the bush.”

A proposed Wind Energy Plan for Dukes County was released for public comment yesterday by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

The document includes two fundamental options regarding possible offshore wind energy development. One would allow development in certain areas defined by the analysis; the other would hold off on short-term development within the waters of Dukes County.