Holiday Concert

This is the season for holiday favorites spilling forth from the radio. Jose Feliciano, Bing and Bowie, those Jingle wooofing dogs. We smile for a bit, but then it fades. How could it not? We’ve heard it all before. There is nothing new the Boss can tell us about Santa coming to town.

Perhaps then it is time to seek out the new and different this year. Some feast for the ears and by extension the soul. But where to turn?

The Old Whaling Church this weekend, that’s where.

Hard a lee and coming about for art.

Sail Martha’s Vineyard will transform its offices at the historic Mayhew Schoolhouse on Main street in Vineyard Haven into an art gallery for a seasonal fund-raising sale. The unveiling is this Saturday, Dec. 4 and will continue daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Dec. 22.

To mark the occasion there will be a wine and cheese reception from 3 to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 5. There will also be a closing artists’ reception on Saturday, Dec. 18 again from 3 to 6 p.m.

Patricia Neal Month

It’s Patricia Neal month at the Vineyard Haven Public Library’s Tuesday night film series.

This week, on Tuesday, Dec. 7, Ms. Neal stars as Alma Brown in the role that won Ms. Neal an Oscar for best performance in the movie Hud with Paul Newman. Subsequent films are The Day the Earth Stood Still on Dec. 14, The Fountainhead on Dec. 21 and The Subject Was Roses on Dec. 28.

All movies begin at 7 p.m.

For more information, call 508-696-4211.

Lamplighter Gets Oily

The West Tisbury Library welcomes visiting artist Billy Hoff to their gallery with a reception on Saturday, Dec. 4 at 4 p.m.

Although Mr. Hoff’s art is just visiting the library, Mr. Hoff the person is no mere interloper. Although born in New Jersey, he saw the light and moved to West Tisbury where he lives with his wife and two children.

Winter Walks

The Polly Hill Arboretum is beginning their winter walk series on Saturday, Dec. 4 at 10 a.m. Exploring the grounds during the off-season is a chance to experience and embrace the ethos of a less is more way of life at its most relevant, outside.

Each month Polly Hill will offer a new tour so visitors can continue to witness nature in its more quiet, winter glory. Subsequent tours will be held on Jan. 8, Feb. 12 and March 12.

The recent obituary for Norm Asher reminded me of what bird-watching was like in the 1970s. Norm Asher was one of many Vineyard summer residents that were “turned on” to bird watching by the Chilmark Community Center bird walks. Norm signed on to participate in the CCC bird walks in the early sixties when Eddie Chalif was the charismatic leader. I didn’t join in until the very late sixties, early seventies. By that time there was a devoted group of friends and fellow bird-watchers that had met at the community center who would go out almost daily.

I spent some time last week thinking about things in my life for which I am grateful. Certainly there is health, family, shelter, food and friends.

If Edgar Allan Poe laid his eyes upon a fertile frond, he would no doubt have been profoundly affected. He observed that “Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.”

Some can’t help but be sensitive. Edgar Allen Poe and the sensitive fern know this.

The Island’s oldest and youngest high school football teams met, not for a match but for a meal last Friday night at the school cafeteria. Nineteen members of the 1960 team met the 2010 team before the big Saturday game with Nantucket. Add to that six members of the 1960 cheerleaders, who also shared stories with the current squad.

In 1985 the rock journalist Stephen Davis wrote a book about Led Zeppelin called Hammer of the Gods. Mr. Davis traveled with the band during their 1975 Physical Graffiti tour and witnessed the band members up close at what many say was the height of their creative powers. The book became a New York Times bestseller. The band hated it.