Juno Boat Subject of Fireside Dinner

Imagine, if you will, a tasty repast, by fireside with the waters of Vineyard Haven harbor just a few yards aft from the window. And while you tuck into your victuals, pictures of boats and black dogs spotting the walls, a bearded man with glasses and an ever present smile steps to the lectern. He proceeds to spins a yarn for your pleasure about building a wooden boat, and not just any boat, mind you, but the 65-foot schooner, Juno.

During its 16-year history, Aboveground Records has been a haven for finding all manner of music, new and old, popular and obscure. The store has also been one of the best places on the Island to hear live music.

“The concept around [our concerts] was to bring the bands that didn’t have a place in other venues, artists that maybe didn’t fit in the downtown Edgartown or Oak Bluffs scene,” owner Mike Barnes said the other day at his store. “It’s the little bit noisier, a little more dangerous sound.”

By PETER BRANNEN

Meet the Island’s most reluctant tourist, the ring-necked pheasant. Plucked from a bucolic life on a MassWildlife-sanctioned game farm in New England, in the fall they’re packed in cardboard boxes and given a one-way ferry ticket to the Vineyard. After a brief respite at one of the Island’s most picturesque properties half will be shot, others will be picked off by red-tailed hawks and the rest will likely succumb to the cold.

Unsightly trash along the West Tisbury-Edgartown Road has become a problem and West Tisbury police chief Dan Rossi intends to stop it.

“I have to go down that road to go home and it’s irritating,” he said at Wednesday’s meeting of the West Tisbury selectmen.

The problem was brought to the attention of the town by Arnold Fischer, the owner of Flat Point Farm.

Mark Snider, owner of the Winnetu Oceanside Resort at Katama, has inked a deal to purchase an iconic Nantucket hotel.

Mr. Snider paid $2.8 million to buy the Point Breeze from TD Bank, which has owned the hotel since it fell into foreclosure two years ago, the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror reported this week. Mr. Snider also has been granted a $40 million construction loan from the bank.

The historic 17th century Barn House in Chilmark, famously home to an avant-garde communal colony of Vineyard artists, writers and intellectuals, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places, the Massachusetts Historical Commission has announced. The compound is the first place in Chilmark to be named to the national historic register, and joins other Vineyard landmarks such as the Gay Head Cliffs, the village of Edgartown, the Flying Horses Carousel in Oak Bluffs and the five Island lighthouses.

Adult and Community Education (ACE MV) will hold information sessions for its winter and spring classes today, Jan. 17 and tomorrow, Jan. 18. Sessions will take place from 4:30 to 6 p.m. on both days at the regional high school.

Course offerings include arts, music, dance, business, computers, education, parenting, cooking, health, history, language and writing. Many classes earn college credits too through Cape Cod Community College and Fitchburg State, all taught on Island

Today is Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday. All schools and municipal buildings, as well as the Gazette office, are closed.

Brewster police chief Richard J. Koch Jr. said in a statement Monday that Oulton Hues, 73, of Norwood and Edgartown, and Robert Walker, 68, of Falmouth, were the victims who died in the single-engine plane crash in Cape Cod Bay on Sunday.

Mr. Hues was the pilot and a flight instructor; Mr. Walker was his student and co-owner of the plane, a Piper fixed-wing aircraft.

Having trouble getting a handle on what to occupy these days? Well, on Sunday, Jan. 15, there will be an educational forum entitled, Understanding the Occupy Movement.

The forum takes place at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center, located at 130 Centre street in Vineyard Haven. The discussion is from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. and will be followed by a community supper at 5 p.m.

The group Occupy Together Martha’s Vineyard will present a series of short video clips, after which smaller breakout groups will be formed to facilitate discussion.