Bella & Arakataka’s Little Band is a musical puppet show, a happy play talking about a musical country where musician monkeys live and enjoy life.

The new original song called A Vida e Bela, or Life is Good, composed by Bella, is the key to getting to this magical place, where a party is going on and Arakataka’s Little Band is performing.

The play was written by Bella, and the songs are live, presented in English and Portuguese.

Bella is a singer and song writer and performs with Carol Loud, musician and music teacher for children.

Hungarian-Canadian author and sailor Ferenc Mate, author of The Hills of Tuscany, the critically acclaimed A Reasonable Life, and two books of photography including the highly acclaimed World’s Best Sailboats and A New England Autumn, will discuss his new book, A Vineyard in Tuscany: Shooting for the Moon, and offer a taste of his wines, on Friday, Dec. 14, at 7:30 p.m. upstairs at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore on Main street in Vineyard Haven.

It’s been called the Buena Vista Social Club for Gypsy music: Gypsy Caravan is a luscious film interweaving the real lives of top international performers and their world music tour across Spain, Macedonia, Romania, India, Europe and the U.S. The Martha’s Vineyard Film Society is screening this whirling Albert Maysles-shot documentary on Saturday, Dec. 8, at Outerland at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport.

Renowned photojournalist Peter Simon will present a slide show documenting his life in photography and music at the Chilmark Public Library on Saturday, Dec. 8, at 4 p.m. Mr. Simon has documented many historic events from the protest-filled 1960s to the greatest names in rock and roll, reggae and pop music.

Chappaquiddick has a powerful and stunning visitor from the North. Olsen Houghton and Joel Graves were between the Cape Pogue Gut and Cape Pogue Lighthouse on Dec. 2 and spotted a snowy owl working over the dunes. They were able to videotape the bird and watch it for quite a while.

With Thanksgiving over, pie crust pressure is off. Whew.

By LYNNE IRONS

Last Saturday’s cold snap lit a fire under me. There were so many last (for me, first) minute winter preparations.

I stapled a bunch of grain bags over the hardware cloth windows of my hen house. The girls were mighty chilly last Friday night. When I closed their door that evening, their feathers were blowing around on them. I always feel sorry for birds in winter with their bare legs and feet.

The world around us is full of misnomers: hamburgers are not ham, tin foil is actually aluminum, and a shooting star is not a star. Nature has even more: koala bears are not bears, peanuts are not nuts, and a magpie is a bird, not a dessert.

This column is about a hornet that is not a hornet.

Bald-faced hornets are not true hornets. To call them hornets would be, well, a bald-faced lie. They are actually wasps, related to paper wasps and yellow jackets, and are identified by the white pattern on their face, if you cared to get that close.

Caroling is all about alcohol, traditionally. “This time of year is about being with friends singing carols, and being in a pub drinking good beer,” Peter R. Boak, director of the Island Community Chorus, told his audience at a performance in the Edgartown Old Whaling Church this Sunday, making a misleading distinction.

A sharply divided Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School district committee voted 5-4 to certify a $16.2 million budget on Monday, up 2.7 per cent over last year. Approved by a single vote at an uncharacteristically well-attended high school committee meeting, the budget reflects last-minute revisions to instructional and fixed costs.

And it follows an emotional public hearing last week at which music and drama students, teachers and parents spoke out on proposed teacher and program cuts across those departments.