HOLLY NADLER

508-693-3880

(sunporch@vineyard.net)

Unlike James Bond’s martinis, we were shaken and stirred during the storm last weekend. At times the views out our windows of thrashing trees looked like the hurricane videos we see of anchormen in rain slickers standing against wet and contorting palms. Do you ever wonder if the guy is really on the scene? Or is he being taped in a studio with generic storm footage blue-screened behind him, with perhaps a techie suspended from an overhead grid hosing him down?

Flu Clinic on Monday

An all-Island flu immunization clinic will be on Monday, Nov. 12 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School gymnasium. People 50 or older, anyone who has a chronic medical condition, pregnant women, health-care workers or first responders with direct patient contact should attend.

A thin crescent moon appears low in the southwestern sky on Monday evening, under the bright planet Jupiter. Both celestial objects are in the zodiacal Scorpius. The two will look nice amid the light of twilight.

Temperature: Precip.

Day Max. Min. Inches.

Fº Fº

Nov. 2 68 47 .00

Nov. 3 63 45 .28

Nov. 4 51 41 2.48

Nov. 5 57 37 .00

Nov. 6 59 40 .00

Nov. 7 63 35 .26

Nov. 8 52 36 .00

Water temperature in Edgartown harbor: 53º F.

JOHN S. ALLEY

508-693-2950

(alleys@vineyard.net)

It is a great story, one that has everything: conceit, vanity, envy, brutality, monsters, and family deception. There is a bright side, though, and for some characters in the story, a happy, fairy-tale ending.

The bright side is the luminous shine of the stars. It is these stars that make up the constellations of a royal family that inhabit the fall night sky and give us this epic drama.

Belly Dance Revue

Come join in the fun when Edgartown Council on Aging presents Vineyard Belly Dance and Revue on Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 1:45 p.m. at the Anchors.

Group numbers, solos and duets will be performed by Pat Szucs, Betty Smith, Sheila Rayyan and Suzanna Nickerson. Special guest Jerri Wells will accompany the troupe. Jerri is a seasoned professional singer with a unique style and powerful voice.

Island artist and American Impressionist Ray Ellis launches his 15th book, called By the Light of the Moon: The Moonlight Paintings of Ray Ellis, with a talk tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore on Main street in Vineyard Haven. Art historian Valerie Ann Leeds, adjunct curator of American art at the Flint Institute of Arts, traces the artist’s development as a painter of the night in this edited version of the introductory essay.

Regrettably, a very brief summary will suffice for birds brought here by ex-hurricane Noel, which massaged the Vineyard with 60 mile-per-hour gusts and about two inches of rain last Saturday. Local birders were hopeful: tropical systems moving north along the East Coast can produce spectacular birding, blowing in anything from offshore migrants like phalaropes, to southern seabirds like sooty terns, to songbirds like blue grosbeaks diverted from their usual migration routes.

Veterans, merchant mariners, and others involved in past and present service will be honored at 5:30 p.m. today, Friday, Nov. 9 at the Shabbat service at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center on Centre street in Vineyard Haven.

An Oneg Shabbat with refreshments will follow the service honoring veterans. The Island community is invited to the service.