The chorus was catchy, the kind that easily got stuck in your head: “When the sparks turn to flames, it’s time to play the blame game.”

The beat was almost inspirational, symphonic samples over a kick and a snare.

“Yo, who’s them four MCs with the same name?” rapped Robert (Bubba) Brown, Matt Lucier and Andrew Larsen, all seniors at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, together with their friend Henry Peacor from Colorado College.

The serialized, real-time Vineyard novel Moby Rich continues here every Friday. Previous chapters are available to subscribers online at mvgazette.com.

June 6, 2008

Dear P:

Nancy Noble Gardner calls her solo photography show opening this weekend at Featherstone Center for the Arts an honor: “I‘m excited by the total freedom I was given, and I chose photographs which are most significant to me, creating a retrospective.”

The opening reception for this exhibition will be on Sunday, June 8, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the gallery on Barnes Road near the blinker in Oak Bluffs.

Edwina Rissland Show

All are welcome at an artist’s reception today, June 6, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Bank of Martha’s Vineyard on South Road in Chilmark, celebrating an exhibition of fine art photography by Edwina Rissland titled Abstract Realism: Pursuit of color and form. The art works depict scenes around the Vineyard as well as Bologna, Tokyo and Oxford.

The show continues during bank hours until June 13.

Dan Aykroyd on UFOs

Plum Martha’s Vineyard will broadcast an interview with comedian and writer Dan Aykroyd about his research on aliens and UFO sightings. The program will be shown on Channel 76 at various times this week. It also is available on the Plum Web site, vineyard.plumtv.com.

So you think life is tough? You should be a baby piping plover. Born in a mere scrape in the sand, expected by your parents to fend for yourself from birth, facing danger at every turn from skunks, raccoons, crows, hawks, storms, off-road tires.

And yet the tiny birds — and there are not that many of them left — appear to be doing pretty well on the Vineyard this year, albeit with the help of a social safety net that would be the envy of hard-scrabble humans.

Diners at Island restaurants will pay more for everything from fish and chips to omelettes this summer as the cost of almost all ingredients has skyrocketed.

Vineyard, chefs, caterers and bakers struggling with their soaring costs — the price of basics such as eggs, flour and cooking oil have more than doubled, even tripled in the past year, they report — have been forced to increase their own prices.

A great white shark was reported twice in Vineyard waters this past week, the most recent off Menemsha Beach on Wednesday evening.

Capt. Buddy Vanderhoop of Aquinnah called the Gazette Wednesday night to say a great white shark had been seen 50 feet off the Menemsha beach at about 6:30 p.m. He said the animal was finning and moving up the beach. Later it moved toward the Brickyard.

Capt. Scott McDowell of Chilmark was out fishing on a charter on Sunday afternoon when, he said, a great white shark came out of the water three times near his new boat.

The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School graduating class of 2008 is made up of of 193 individuals. But as advisors and administrators describe the students they have come to know over the past four years, the running theme is that this is a group class.

“The thing I like about this class is they do things together, they achieve together,” school principal Margaret (Peg) Regan said this week. “It’s not a class of competitive individualists. They’re a class of thoughtful contributors.”

Pay increases for top administrators at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School were approved this week, completing a round of raises for nonunion administrative staff in Island schools. The increases, which ranged from 3.5 to 6.5 per cent, were recommended by Vineyard schools superintendent James H. Weiss based on several factors including cost of living, performance and reaction to raises resulting from teacher contract negotiations last year.