Skidmore Graduate

Isobel Flake, of Vineyard Haven, received her bachelor of arts degree cum laude from Skidmore College at its 100th commencement exercises held Saturday, May 21, at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

The ghosts and haunts have been quiet of late on the Island but just when you thought it was safe to go back to the graveyard, the joint is about to get bone-rattling busy.

That’s right, no more cozy winter potlucks for our Island ghosts bored with scaring the local residents because, well, we scare them back. They are now ready to greet the summer visitors and take them on a ferry ride of another sort, to the grand beyond. Consider yourself forewarned. Perhaps best to go with a seasoned guide.

Arts on the Vineyard

Arts on the Vineyard are everywhere, but starting this Sunday, June 12, the place to go for one-stop arts shopping begins again.

For such a small place, the Island has a surprisingly diverse people — a native tribe, a long-established African American community, waves of Portuguese speakers — and so for its annual Juneteenth celebration, the Martha’s Vineyard NAACP has asked several Islanders to share their interracial experiences here.

There’s wonderful and then there’s the Sense of Wonder, which is like wonderful to the nth power.

Sense of Wonder is an arts camp for kids run by Pam Benjamin that succeeds in every aspect, including making adults jealous they can’t join in on the fun.

Well, this weekend everyone’s invited to drift back to childhood and remember when imaginary friends kept you company and hours spent drawing, tongue tucked tightly between the lips in concentration, was the only item on the day’s agenda.

The Vineyard Playhouse’s current production of Tape, opens on a set that itself poses a plot twist and a conundrum at the same time: Lights bear down on a typical off-highway motel room with twin beds, a banal color scheme of beige, gold and brown, a sink on one side rimmed by overhead white globes. Over in the right-hand corner, a vague charcoal-hued stain hints that a repaint of the unadorned walls is long overdue.

It’s a three-person play and a two-bed motel room. Something’s already intriguingly off-kilter.

Behind a small unobtrusive sign near Beetlebung Corner on Middle Road in Chilmark beats what many feel is the heart of dance on the Island. This is the location of the Yard, a Vineyard fixture since 1973.

A vibrant summer at the Yard was by no means a certainty this year, though, after it was revealed last fall that the dance organization was deeply in debt. In announcing its summer season, the Yard looks to a financially stable future that builds upon its longtime reputation of artistic integrity.

Don’t fritter away opportunity.

I never pass up the prospect of a perfect picking or forgo a chance for a floral feast. This week, black locust trees are in bloom, and with the appearance of their flowers comes more than just a snazzy scent.

Duplicate Bridge

North and South trumps East and West in a Grand Slam ending that slams the competition. Can’t pass on that, right?

Perhaps an explanation is in order.

The duplicate bridge summer season begins on Thursday, June 16 at 7 p.m. at the Culinary Arts Center at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School in Oak Bluffs. The cards will be dealt every Thursday night all summer long. Cost is $6 a session. Feel free to come alone or bring a partner.

Are they back? Captain Jen Clarke and her mother, Carol Miller, were coming through the Menemsha breakwaters on June 7 when they spotted a razorbill. You might remember that back in 2003, 2005 and 2006 several razorbills spent the summer in Menemsha Pond. These alcids are cousins to puffins and murres. All these species, including the razorbills, normally spend their summers breeding in the cooler waters off Maine, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Greenland and Iceland. Come winter they migrate south along the Atlantic Coast, including the Vineyard.