New Haven Magazine April 2009

APRIL

2009

www.newhavenmagazine.com

Eco-fashion, eco-food, eco-home, eco-everything for spring

ONE2ONE God’s green soldier

ECOFASHION

Wearing your heart on your sleeve

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New Haven I April/2009

37 Suburban Subversive Michael Harvey profiles Hamden painter Christopher Mir

14 Heritage

44 Different Drum

Go hug a tree right this very minute

Pulitzer-winning composer David Lang brings new music to New Haven

Steve Blazo. Model: Kathleen Jowdy.. See Our Cover section (below) for hair, wardrobe and jewelry.

Yale’s Daniel Esty leads the Obama administration’s charge on environmental issues

PHOTOGRAPH:

08 ONE2ONE

16 Eco-fashion Wear your green heart on your sleeve — literally

23 On the Road Yalies lead a climate-change caravan through India

27 Body & Soul

50 Camp Stories ONSTAGE profiles the co-creator of Yale Rep’s Notes from the Underground

56 Words Of Mouth New eatery Dolci brings sweet culinary music to State Street

Economic recession needn’t take a bite out of healthy eating habits

62 Discovered

29 Green Gables

Massive flower power at Meriden’s fabulous Daffodil Festival

A new Short Beach home is about as green as you can get

16 New Haven

| Vol. 2, No. 7 | April 2009

Publisher Mitchell Young, Editor Michael C. Bingham, Design Manager Larissa Wigglesworth, Design Consultant Terry Wells, Contributing Writers Brooks Appelbaum, Elvira J. Duran, Michael Harvey, Liese Klein, Cindy Marien, Melissa Nicefaro, Tashema Nichols, Joanna Pettas, Ron Ragozzino, Steven Scarpa, Cindy Simoneau, Editorial Assistant Sarah Politz, Photographers Steve Blazo, Anthony DeCarlo

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Senior Publisher’s Representative Mary W. Beard, Publisher’s Representatives Cynthia Carlson, David Gullotti,

for typographical errors or errors in publication. For more information e-mail NewHaven@Conntact.com.

New Haven is published 12 times annually by Second Wind Media Ltd., which also publishes Business New Haven, with offices at 85 Willow St., New Haven, CT 06511. 203-781-3480 (voice), 203-781-3482 (fax). Subscriptions $24.95/year, $39.95/two years. Send name, address & zip code with payment. Second Wind Media Ltd. d/b/a New Haven shall not be held liable for failure to publish an advertisement or

OUR COVER Model: Kathleen Jowdy. Make Up & Hair: D. D. Nickel make up studio. Apparel provided by: Clare Jones, New Haven. Jewelry provided by: Idiom, New Haven. Location: Greenbrier Greenhouses. Photographed by Steve Blazo.

Cover design by Terry Wells.

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EDITOR’S L E T T E R

Give That Tree a Hug

W

elcome to our second annual Green Issue, which coincides with a propitious anniversary.

The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, the culmination of nearly a decade of efforts by what we now would identify as “environmentalists” to place conservation prominently on the nation’s policy agenda. Before the 1960s, if a person suggested that the earth existed for any purpose other than rapacious exploitation by humans, he would have been looked at funny.

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But by then, much of the damage to the environment had already taken place, including some that was irreparable. It was only through the efforts of earthlovers that saving the environment became an action item for many to rival ending the Vietnam War. It is strange to recall a time when preserving nature seemed somehow a radical idea. Today most Americans regard it as an article of faith that we need to tread more lightly on the planet if it is to continue to be good to us.

As I write this, plunging mercury and icy winds are making people joke about “global colding,” and actual green — as in leaves and new grass — remains mostly a rumor. But we can warm ourselves (psychologically, at least) with the sure knowledge that April showers will bring May flowers.

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In the month’s New Haven we address All Things Green. Yale professor Daniel Esty is one of the architects of President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda, including its controversial “cap-and-trade” provision regarding carbon emissions. In “One2One,” Publisher Mitchell Young gets up close and personal with this key environmental opinion leader.

Always-fashionable writer Melissa Nicefaro explores “eco-fashions,” as well as the people who make and wear them. In “Discovered,” Susan Cornell previews Connecticut’s largest public event that celebrates spring’s signature flora, the Meriden Daffodil Festival.

Somewhat larger flora are the subject of “Heritage,” which focuses on the Connecticut Notable Tree Project, a 20-year-old initiative by a Connecticut College botanist to document as many of the state’s most important trees as possible. Even as Glenn Dreyer celebrates some trees that are literally centuries old, those of us who live and work in the City of Elms are ever mindful of the vulnerability of even the most seemingly sturdy species of plant life.

And in “AtHome,” I had the privilege of discovering a new Short Beach home whose owners, builder and architect have made ingenious use of new technology, old materials and timeless common sense to create a dwelling that’s about a “green” as could be imagined — while still providing 21st century amenities and ample comfort for a busy family of four.

Enjoy, and always remember: Don’t fall back — spring forward! v

WAVE WAVE New Haven • 1046 Chapel St.

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— Michael C. Bingham, Editor

I NT EL

Landline Addiction AT&T says it’s going to roll out a significant investment to increase its 3G mobile broadband network here in Connecticut. With 250 new cell sites including some in New Haven County, it may still be difficult for the phone giant to make it pay in the Land of Steady Habits. Connecticut is ranked in a recent study by the National Center on Health Statistics as 49th in the nation among households (5.6 percent) that rely solely on cell phone service.

Comparatively, 26 percent of Oklahoma households have cell phone-only service, 11.4 percent in New York, 16.3 percent in North Carolina and 9.3 percent in neighboring Massachusetts.

A Windy Proposition OLD LYME — Clean and Green Energy, LLC wants to build two 1.5-megawatt wind turbines in Old Lyme including one in a salt

marsh. The company describes its site as marginal for wind production but still claims that with newer technology the 300-foot-high turbines will provide power for 700 homes.

Currently the tallest structures in Old Lyme, a town known for its tough development battles, are 190-foot cell phone towers.

The project is expected to come with a $7.7 million price tag and the company hopes to tap the feds for $2 million in funding to stimulate the project.

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The Rail Way NEW LONDON — Rail Service Advocates are still waiting for a train they had hoped would come this spring to New London.

Tourism officials and others have been pushing for full Shoreline East service to New London as well as an extension to Mystic. The hope is to bring more tourists with a lower transportation impact. Currently there is limited Shoreline East service on weekends to New London, which commenced last July 4. The state’s Department of Transportation had planned to extend service this spring, but Amtrak says more work is to be done on the tracks this summer first.

Eat, Drink and Be Merry NEW HAVEN — The popular Restaurant Week returns this month to New Haven where more than two dozen of the finest restaurants offer fixed priced meals, $16.38 for lunch and $29 for dinner. The weeklong foodie fest will run from April 19 to April 24. Here’s your opportunity to stimulate your senses, try out a great restaurant and keep your budget intact.

Meet the Beetles As if Chinese beetles weren’t enough of a pest in Connecticut gardens, there are new invasive intruders making their way to Connecticut forests from the Chinese homeland. Asian Longhorn Beetles and Emerald Ash Borers, positively identified in Massachusetts and New York, are now poised to invade the Nutmeg State.

Hundreds of square miles of forest in the upper Midwest have been quarantined and destroyed due to one Emerald Ash Borer. The Asian Long-horn Beetle kills trees. Nothing about this insect is cute and the only way to eliminate them is to remove and destroy the trees they infest. The beetles can be killed with pesticides, but it isn’t practical or politically possible to have widespread pesticide spraying. For more information on protecting Connecticut’s trees, visit the Connecticut Tree Protective Association at ctpa.org.

Waiting To Inhale Connecticut residents may not have to hop over the border to Massachusetts to “cop their pot” if Senate Bill 349 is passed. The bill aims to reclassify the possession of minor amounts of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction. The bill has the support of Senate Martin Looney, Majority Leader.

Under current state law, the first-time possession of small amounts of marijuana is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. S.B. 349 would amend the law so that adults who possess one ounce of marijuana or less will be issued a ticket.

In 2007 both the state senate and house passed a bill by wide margins that would have allowed for the use of medical marijuana in the state. Gov. Jodi Rell vetoed the bill, so it’s still best to keep your stash private for now.

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PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

Yale’s Dan Esty is leading the charge against carbon dioxide

D

aniel C. Esty is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. He holds faculty appointments at both Yale’s Forestry & Environmental Studies and Law Schools. He is director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy as well as the Yale World Fellows Program. His most recent book (written with Andrew Wilson), Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value and Build Competitive Advantage, was recently released in paperback. Esty has served in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the administration of President George H.W. Bush and was recently a member of President Barack Obama’s transition team. He served four years as an elected Planning & Zoning Commissioner in his hometown of Cheshire.

vvv How did you become an environmentalist?

I grew up in Watertown and was always interested in the outdoors and in going to the parks, the beach, the mountains, hiking and camping. While at law school at Yale in the early 1980s, I got involved in our environmental-protection clinic and was part of a group that was challenging our park and forest plans, so I saw the power of law to help drive environmental progress. I moved to Washington, D.C. after graduation and became a lawyer with a big firm, doing a lot of regulatory work, and spent a lot of time on pro bono matters for a series of environmental groups. In 1989 one of my pro bono clients was then-head of the World Wildlife Fund named Bill Reilly, who became head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

He asked me to join him as his special assistant. So I moved into the EPA in 1989 and had a fabulous four-year run at the EPA. That was under Father [George H.W.] Bush.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

So you were hired by a Republican.

One of the things I’m committed to is environmental protection that spans across the political spectrum. The kind of things we have to do can’t be done on a purely partisan basis.

What do you think of the idea of a mileage tax?

I think we need to shift to making people pay for the environmental harm they cause — I’m a big believer in harm charges. Some of the things we’ve traditionally done have caused a lot of harm, and we haven’t paid for them. I would rather roll down other taxes, but push up the charges for polluting. That is a perfectly legitimate thing to think about, and in a tough economic time we’ve got to look for some sources of revenue that don’t burden people who are being thoughtful about how they lead their lives. I think that’s a primitive approach, to charge by the mile. A much better approach is to make people pay if they drive gas-guzzlers. Or even better is the kind of cap-and-trade program that’s being talked about in Washington, which will in effect translate into making people pay for the greenhouse gases they emit.

Doesn’t cap-and-trade end up pushing nuclear power?

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I have been predicting for 20 years that the environmental community would become pro-nuclear power, because it is a zero-carbon fuel. It provides a source of electricity without greenhouse-gas emissions. So far I’ve been, if not completely wrong, largely wrong about that transition in how people think about the environment. I personally think it’s very hard to imagine how we get from where we are today to a low-carbon economy without some element of nuclear power being part of the answer.

Our present approach to energy seems like bait-and-switch; we talk about windmills and solar power, but by putting huge resources in the ‘grid’ we’re really talking about promoting nuclear power.

The commitment to the grid is a commitment to big, base load-generating stations. There is a whole other vision of the future, which is disaggregated, smallscale production. I am, to be very honest, interested in trying out the widest variety of options over the next decade, and trying to figure out where the cost can be driven down. I’m a big believer in innovationbased environmental protection and a clean-energy future that is not driven by the government or anyone else trying to pick winners, but rather really making people pay for the harm they cause, both

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PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

years. The past model is what we call command-and-control regulation, where the government not only sets the standard, but in many cases tells you which specific technology you have to adopt. I promise you, having been at the EPA, there is no agency in government that’s got smarter, more dedicated people. But the couple of thousand people working on air issues in Washington cannot be as imaginative as putting the problem of solving air emission onto 10,000 or 100,000 companies, and letting all those business people — who know their own businesses much better than anyone at the EPA can — figure out how to go forward. So I’m a big believer in shifting the action from government to the private sector.

Doesn’t that put you in conflict with mainstream environmentalism?

It’s interesting: The mainstream environmentalists are themselves diverse. There is quite a large number of environmental groups that understand this point and are very focused on innovation. I was on a phone call this afternoon with the Environmental Defense Fund, and they are the first group to think about economic incentive-based approaches to regulation. And they are 100percent with me on the idea that the key to progress is innovation, and the key to innovation is engaging the private sector.

That may be true, but when everybody gets the room it always comes down to things like Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

Esty: ‘Environmental protection has historically advanced only on the basis of gurus telling us what the problems are in the world then [us] accepting it.’

traditional pollution and greenhouse gases. And then let’s see who wins — solar power? Wind power?

And maybe it will be things that we haven’t even thought of — wave power or tidal power. There’s all kinds of interesting work being done on secondgeneration biofuels. I’m fairly well convinced that corn-based ethanol is not the way forward, but cellulosic ethanol or fuel drawn from algae — this could work.

What I really want is a system where thousands of people in tens of thousands of places across this country are trying to contribute to this future, from big corporate research-and-design efforts [by] the United Technologies and the 10

april 2009

But some of that is old-school. There’s a diversity of regulatory tools.

Did you support Connecticut and California mandating what the car companies could sell?

I don’t want to tell people what kind of cars they can buy, or what kind of cars [auto manufacturers] make. But I do want to make people pay for harms they cause. I’m not one of these folks who says Historically, entrepreneurs make the no one should drive a Hummer. But I breakthroughs. Who’s in charge of the think if you’re going to drive a Hummer, green movement now? you’re going to pay a pretty fair premium This is where my book Green to Gold offers for the privilege of getting ten miles per gallon. I’m in favor of having fees a different vision of how we’re going to associated with emitting activities across do environmental protection as a society. the board: driving your car, burning fuel The key to progress is innovation, getting people to think differently about problems, in your home for heat, drawing electricity to do things in new and better ways — and — everything you do that has a pollution impact. bringing technology to bear. If you want to drive innovation, if you believe that Why would we have a carbon tax and not technology development is critical, then an energy tax? you have to engage the private sector. This You answered the problem a little bit is different from the model of the last 40 General Electrics, to back-of-the-garage entrepreneurs who may be the ones to make the breakthroughs.

earlier. Energy that comes from nuclear power doesn’t have the same harm effect.

So the carbon charge is more of a harmrelated charge. I want to penalize the harm, not the consumption of energy.

Some people from the old school of environmentalism want it to be painful to make progress. I’m the opposite. My goal is cheap energy. I don’t want to be with the folks who are trying to drive up energy prices. I would like cheap energy, but lowimpact energy, low-pollution energy.

Energy is only expensive because it’s in our interest to keep it expensive.

I agree. We can have this debate as to why is it expensive — it’s expensive because a small number of players dominate and constrain price. And they constrain supply and drive up price.

But many seem happy about it. The environmental movement was thrilled with $4-a-gallon gas.

What we need is an enormous explosion of creativity in the energy space. Around energy-efficiency you have all these opportunities for alternative energy.

Neither you nor I nor any of the smartest people working on this can actually tell us which of these are going to break through

and be the critical path forward. And I don’t want to guess.

So you don’t like solar subsidies?

I don’t want to subsidize. I think you have to subsidize in limited ways because there are market failures, and certain technologies won’t actually get tested out unless you support them [publicly]. And solar subsidies fall into that category. But the real answer — and this is a break not only with the environmental community but with a lot of the environmental policy analysts — is that it’s much more important to penalize harm-causing than to subsidize good behavior. We can’t figure out who the good-behavior people are, and we can’t figure out which good behaviors are the ones that are really going to break through. It’s much easier to penalize harm-causing and level the playing field for anyone who can bring a new technology to bear that’s not a harmcausing technology. We sit here and say, ‘Well, maybe it’s wind power, or maybe it’s solar power.’ But it may be something that we haven’t even heard of that somebody’s working on in their garage on the other side of New Haven.

Or breakthroughs even in those technologies.

If you made me bet, I’d say we’re going to find breakthroughs in solar power that are going to make it much cheaper. And already wind power has become much more efficient, because they’ve done things like bring advanced materials to bear on the blades of the turbine.

But we haven’t yet seen the impact of carbon taxes on constructing and installing wind turbines.

Well, we haven’t had those charges in place yet. And by the way, it won’t happen this year; you don’t put in the charges in a tough economic year. I would like to adopt this year as a ramp-up in harm charges that kicks in in 2011, after the current crunch is over, escalates in 2012 and ’13, ’14, ’15. The signal today that those charges will be coming in the next few years is enough to change behavior.

Because anyone who’s making capital investments, looking out over a period of time, is going to have to think differently about whether to commit to a fossil-fuel approach — and frankly think differently about how to invest in energy efficiency.

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question about how you think the price of energy is going to go in the future. I want to incentivize the guys who produce those better lights, better windows and heating systems.

The purists in environmental thought wouldn’t really be thrilled with you sitting down with giant corporations like, say, Coca-Cola.

and that there is evidence to support. And where a certain received wisdom turns out not to deliver results, I say pull the money back.

Environmentalism started as a science movement, and but today looks more like a religious movement, at least to me.

I am someone who is very much committed to measuring progress in one way and one way only — and that’s on-the-ground environmental results. A big part of my career has been not only focusing on innovation and how to engage the private sector, but in trying to make environmental decision-making more datadriven, more fact-based, more empirical.

I think that’s a problem. One of the exciting things to see in the last few years is the expanding constituency for thoughtful, careful, systematic environmental protection. It’s expanded in a number of directions. In this part of the country what has been most impressive is to see that it’s no longer a Democratic or left-wing agenda. But you’re seeing a growing constituency across all parties in favor of taking this issue more seriously.

But it’s the opposite now. I ‘believe’ in climate change — isn’t that what people say?

Isn’t it that just a case of ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’?

We have a problem that environmental protection has historically advanced only on the basis of gurus telling us what the problems are in the world then [us] accepting it. I think we can be and should be more businesslike and more toughminded. That is to say that we should do more things that prove themselves out

Up until just a few years ago, most businesspeople thought about the environment as regulations to follow, costs to bear, risks to manage — as a burden. What I think some smart folks like Jeffrey Immelt [of General Electric] and George David at United Technologies came to realize four or five years ago is

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that, first of all, managing environmental issues and related energy issues turns out to be strategically very important to companies and their competitive position in the marketplace. The second thing that these same folks figured out was that, in a society that is going to spend billions of dollars to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and to address a number of other issues, the people who are solutionsproviders are going to actually profit and thrive.

In the past we worried about lead or mercury in the environment — real poisons — and developed technologies that addressed those toxins. We never worried about carbon dioxide before. Why should we believe that technology can’t take care of that quickly as well?

It’s not a poison in the sense that if you ingest it you get sick. It’s poisonous to our planet in that it is changing fundamental structures of our climatic systems in ways that could be very threatening to human life and other ecosystem resources over time. I think we are going to find that our way out of this is by bringing to bear new technologies.

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Many people — unions, for example — didn’t like the Kyoto Protocol. They said, ‘You’re going to move our jobs to China and India,’ and that happened.

I was one of the framework negotiators on climate change in 1992. I think that the Kyoto Protocol has a serious flaw in that it asks only the developed nations to step up to the problem and in effect gives a pass to the developing world. The only way forward on a problem that is really global is the principle of common, but differentiated responsibility. Common, meaning every nation signs up to [share] responsibility; differentiated, meaning how much you’re asked to do and on what time scale varies with how rich the country is. The U.S. and Britain should bring down their emissions over the next decade by a significant amount, but China should not be given a free pass. Not only China, but India should be asked to step up and Brazil — really the whole developing world.

Many Americans are concerned that our country will lose sovereignty in its decisionmaking on all kinds of issues with this kind of world regulation.

That is a very important issue.

We have to ask, ‘What’s the alternative?’ And the answer is the inability to cooperate with others means that we don’t address the problem, and inaction in this case will produce a terribly high price for all of us to pay. Problems at a global scale require a response at a worldwide scale as well.

The collapse of the economy in some ways has brought the world together. How is that affecting the discussions you’re having with the people you’re talking about?

I think we have seen the terrible price that is paid when we don’t have governance, when corporations, banks in this case, are running wild, where there’s an inadequate structure of rules and regulations to ensure that market behavior is bounded in appropriate ways. That debate will translate into the environmental realm: What does it look like to put together a structure of regulations that will both

efficiently and effectively reduce pollution to the appropriate level?

The new administration included a hefty sum in the stimulus package for environmental investments. Was it right, and was it big enough?

I’ve just come off three months of serving on the Obama transition team.

You’re seeing a commitment to moving us towards a better environmental future and a clean energy future. I think the tens of billions of dollars being put into a clean energy future is impressive. Is it enough? Hard to say. What you’re seeing is a down payment from the government on movement in this direction. It’s now going to be up to the private sector to pick up the mantle and carry it forward. I like to say that I am a short-term pessimist, because I think the challenges are big and the difficulties serious, but I am a longterm optimist. v

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PHOTOGRAPH:

Michael C. Bingham

Are Trees Better Than Humans?

In size, durability and longevity they’ve got us beat, easy

By Michael C. Bingham

S

pring has finally sprung, and a young man’s thoughts turn to…trees.

Trees — so much to say. No, really!

At least twice in its history Connecticut has had few or no trees. The last glaciers of course made most plant life untenable.

Then, beginning in the 17th century European colonists removed most of the forest cover between Long Island Sound and Massachusetts to support subsistence farming. The relatively few trees that were left untouched were spared for specific purposes — to shade homes and streets or for use as fuel (for heating) or building materials.

During the 18th and well into the 19th century Connecticut changed from an almost continuously forested state to a pastoral landscape. It was only the development of more efficient transportation technologies such as the canal system that made available to New Englanders agricultural products from the more arable lands of western New York state and the near Midwest that allowed much of Connecticut open space to return to hardwood-dominated forest land, beginning in about the 1880s.

A century later, in 1985, botanist Glenn D. Dreyer helped to create the Notable Trees Project at a time when accelerating development of shopping malls and condominiums seemed to presage a new wave of deforestation. Dreyer & Co. set their sights on “notable” (as opposed to merely “large” or “old”) trees to include trees worthy of note for their association with individuals or events.

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This Stratford red oak commemorates the valor of Capt.

John Carpenter, who defended Ft. James during the 1673 recapture of New York by the Dutch, who renamed the growing town (temporarily, obviously) New Orange.

Best of all (perhaps), trees actually consume demon carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Ronald Reagan once asserted that trees were responsible for more air pollution than automobiles — but since the 40th President also said ketchup was a vegetable, perhaps we need to consider the source.

Some notable lore about notable trees: Connecticut most famous tree, of course, was Hartford’s Charter

In 1902, near the adjournment of the State Constitutional Convention, U.S. Sen. Joseph R. Hawley presented each of the 168 delegates with a Pin Oak tree, representing the first mass commemorative planting in Connecticut.

More than a century later many of these Pin Oaks remain, locally and throughout the state.

In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt presented an oak tree to the town of East Haven to commemorate Gen. Lafayette’s 1824 visit to the town. The seedling was planted on the town green.

After it died decades later it was carved into a bust of Roosevelt by Glenn Rossi.

Unfortunately the unusual statue was vandalized and removed in 1986.

Trees, Dreyer explains, “are symbolic of our relationship with nature — a touchstone to the past and future.”

The longevity of trees, Dreyer observes, is humbling to humans. “They make us feel small, a part of the whole rather than the center of the universe,” he writes.

All rights reserved

In his book, Connecticut’s Notable Trees, Dreyer enumerates some of the many benefits trees bestow on humans: “They cool us in summer with their shade and evapo-transpiration, and keep us warmer in winter by blocking cold winds and providing fuel for our stoves.

Our houses, furniture, books and periodicals [including the magazine your are holding in your hands] and many foods all come from trees. Used as screens, they shield us from neighbors, noise and dirt.

Their roots hold the previous soil in place and harbor untold animals while their leaves filter pollutants from the atmosphere.”

Oak, which earned its name as the hiding place for Connecticut’s original colonial charter granted by Charles II in 1662 but 20 years later revoked by James II. Estimated to have been between 800 and 1,000 years old, the Charter Oak was so large a fire company of 27 men were said to have stood together inside its hollow trunk. It was felled by a tropical storm in 1856, but many of its first-, second- and third-generation offspring have been planted across the state and the nation.

“They are silent companions throughout our lives, giving us shade, shelter, food and beauty without asking for anything but space in return.”

© 2008 Hospitality 3

Dreyer, who is director of the Connecticut College Arboretum, explains that the project began in the mid-1980s as a way to document and, it was hoped, preserve many of the state’s most significant native and introduced trees. The project was based on similar initiatives in other states, and Dreyer was among a group of volunteer botanists and other tree-lovers who worked to document the largest and oldest of many tree species statewide. That work has included the creation of a database (available at oak. conncoll.edu:8080/notabletrees/) that to date has recorded some 3,000 individual trees, Dreyer explains.

Go hug one today. v

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15

Trash or

Treasure?

Eco-fashions come in inďŹ nite shades of green

By Melissa Nicefaro

Trash or

Treasure?

Eco-fashions come in inďŹ nite shades of green

By Melissa Nicefaro

W

here have all the flower children gone? They may not be as instantly recognizable as those of the 1970s, but they’re here, wearing their soy, hemp and bamboo. They’re wearing clothes that are recycled, re-worn and re-fashioned.

They’re not barefoot and hippie-dippy. They’re wearing shoes of veganfriendly man-made materials with soles of recycled leather.

Americans are becoming increasingly concerned with buying cruelty-free items.

More than ever before we are taking into account the workers who make our clothing, shoes and accessories — and also about the environmental impacts of our purchases.

Coleen Campbell, owner of Hamden boutique Dava, has been in the retail business for 28 years.

“Twenty-eight years ago, when I thought about ecofashion, I thought about natural fibers,” she says. “It has changed over the years to be inclusive of the health of the worker and if it comes from a Third World country.

Many people are looking for fair-trade items.”

Though there is new interest in eco-fashion, there are frequent disagreements about “what counts.” It all counts.

“People argue about all kinds of things,” explains Campbell.

“Some people say organic cotton is great, but some say it’s not because it’s still resource-heavy. There is color-grown cotton, which some people love. Other people say hemp clothing is the best. Then there are those who love silk that is made from soy.”

Campbell says the last ten years have been marked by a surge in interest and research done on ways to make things sustainable.

Even Levi’s today makes a line of jeans that are made with 100-percent organic cotton. Launched in 2006, there are men’s and women’s styles within the Red Tab line.

The point of eco-friendly fashion is that the clothing is supposed to last longer, thus causing fewer burdens on natural resources, whether the earth itself or the creatures (including human ones] that inhabit it. Though every small effort is said to help, choices abound; ecofriendly fashion comes in varying shades of green.

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For others, the Tencel pencil skirt is the clincher. Tencel, a fabric with a very similar feel to Rayon, biodegrades easily.

It is a product made from wood splinters and is not as intensive to manufacture as Rayon.

But, hey — even if polyester is your thing, the longer it’s been on this earth and worn, the “greener” it becomes.

“We’re finding many more bamboo clothing items,” Campbell says.

“Bamboo grows very quickly, is comfortable and biodegradable.”

She also sells quite a bit of linen and organic cotton.

“There is definitely a price variable [premium] and many people just aren’t interested in paying it,” she says of buying eco-friendly. “My younger customers appreciate the organic materials and the hemp. It seems to be a younger generation that cares more about eco-fashion than the older generations.

They’re driving the whole green wave.”

Indeed they are.

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Lauralton sophomore Stephanie Simko of Milford models a miniskirt fashioned from a reusable Stop & Shop tote bag.

Sophomore Marisa Lucchesi of Norwalk struts the runway during Lauralton’s 2008 Eco-Friendly Fashion Show.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

At Dava in Hamden, Tina Durgan (left) models a rouched faux Empire top made from organic cotton by Adventura. Accessories include collar with handcarved onyx octopus, Chamila bracelet, coral-and-sterling filigree earrings hand-made by Island imports and red carnelian bracelet by Balinesia. Alsia Ceddia is wearing a textured linen kurta and short-and-sweet pants, both by Flax. Tourmaline carved dragon medallion by Sajen, handmade bracelets and watch with stone and beads by Vermont designer Christopher Dunnigan with earrings of blue chalcedony and sterling silver.

18

april 2009

annual Eco-Friendly Fashion Show before their schoolmates.

Laurelton senior Maureen Cashman of Milford has participated in the fashion show — a celebration of Earth Day — for the past three years and is working on her newest outfit for this year.

“I’m definitely going all out this year,” Cashman says. “That’s for sure.

“Each year, I take bits of fabric that are ready to be thrown out and an old miniskirt or pair of shorts and create something quite fashionable that I actually wear,” she explains. “My mom was about to throw out this old pair of sheets last year, but I didn’t see them as old sheets. I saw them as part of my future chic miniskirt!”

She cut up a pair of jeans that no longer fit and used the sheet fabric to join the two legs into a mini skirt. The year before, she had a pair of jeans with a huge hole in the knee, so she cut them to the length of Bermuda shorts and used an old bathing suit cover that she found in her attic to create a belt and patches of fabric.

“I wear them still in the summer, and people always ask me where I got them,” Cashman says.

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But why? You have Abercrombie and Hollister right down the road in Milford.

“I think it’s very important that our society starts realizing the large potential of what we already have, especially in fashion,” explains Cashman. “Our resources are not limitless and one day, people will wish they went back and stopped buying everything new and being so wasteful.

Everyone can see what you wear — [and then] they learn that your cute outfit is completely eco-friendly.”

Her dream: that reducing waste and keeping the environment clean catches on with other kids.

“Our fashion show allows us to reduce waste, look cute and make a statement all at the same time,” she says.

“We wanted something fun for the school and we wanted to show that being environmentally conscious means more than recycling water bottles,” Cashman explains. “The fashion show is a great way to show the school the importance of reusing things, not buying everything brand new and trying to use what you have to create something cute.”

We’re not just talking duct tape and newspapers.

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This wedding dress, made of sustainable materials by Wai-Ching Clothing of Seattle, will be on view at the Green Wedding & Home Show May 2 in Stamford.

Laurelton junior Olivia D’Atri made pendants from bottle tops that were worn during the annual fashion show.

20

april 2009

“Last year someone wore a newspaper dress and one wore a garbage bag dress. But we also make new fashions out of old clothes,” she says. “I made a miniskirt out of a pair of shorts and one girl made a dress out her grandma’s apron. It was really cute. They look like real runway pieces.”

“I have all of this stuff lying around at home. I might as well put it to use,” she adds. “It’s important that people stop wasting all this stuff. It’s a small, small planet.”

Lauralton Hall English Teacher Donna DiMassa says that this year’s event will include the work of about 30 students.

“They are very passionate about the subject of how fashion impacts the environment,” she says. “This year’s club president, junior Olivia D’Atri, made pendants from bottle tops that were worn during the fashion show. Then we raffled them off and donated the proceeds to the Humane Society because they work against using fur as fashion.

“Marisa Lucchesi, a sophomore, was in the fashion show last year,” says DiMassa.

“She was able to make a very chic outfit out of items such as old Christmas ornaments, plastic bags and cardboard boxes.” Lucchesi worked the catwalk along with D’Atri.

“We look through our closets and try to find items that can be created into something worthy of a runway walk,” D’Atri says. “Some people even use wrapping paper. Wrapping paper is very bad for the environment — it can’t be recycled and has a lot of dyes. Many people make clothes from that.”

Eco-friendly fashion is not a one-day deal for D’Atri. She wears hemp jewelry, much of which she’s made herself, and often dons a Capri Sun handbag.

“I try to search out for organic clothing and 100-percent cotton,” she says. “We’re on this earth and are meant to help its people. We’re also meant to keep it here for the future. We’re going at a bad rate.

There are so many things that we can

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She calls the Environmental Club fun and energizing. “The green movement is a very hot topic and I like the idea of it,” Cashman says. “I’m taking AP environmental science this year and I’m learning about population and waste.

There are so many people out there. We’re going to have 13 billion people on the planet by the year 2050. If everyone is buying new things, there is going to be nowhere left for those things to go.

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change, but most people just don’t care.

Eco-friendly is something we always have to work on.”

She says eco-friendly fashion is so not “crunchy granola” and that one needn’t sacrifice fashion and style to be generous to the environment.

“There’s nothing softer than 100-percent organic cotton, and what can be more comfortable than a pair of previously worn jeans? They’re worn in, comfortable, don’t need to be stretched out and they look great,” D’Atri says. Imagine what she could do with a pair of Levi’s Eco Jeans.

Of course, eco-friendly fashion isn’t just for kids. “I’m in my 50s and I was an environmentalist in my teens,” says Coleen Campbell. “I got discouraged, and to see this coming back around is tremendous. It’s heartwarming and it gives me hope.”

Just like in the days of Campbell’s teenage years, today’s teens are trying desperately not to sacrifice style in their greening efforts.

“I think it’s still getting there,” she says.

“There are some great companies that do

eco-fashion, but they are very expensive.

As a buyer, I see a lot that people simply won’t buy. We carry one cotton and hemp line that only comes in certain colors because they are clay-dyed.

“When you go to low-impact dying, or color-grown, [the clothing] tends to be in the green and brown family,” says Campbell. “Some of the eco-friendly fabrics are not the easiest to dye. It’s a conundrum.”

colorful bottle cap pendants that D’Atri made for last year’s fashion show, Smart Glass earrings and necklaces are colorful and perfect paired with a plain white (organic, of course) tee or your prettiest dress.

Even a wedding doesn’t have to sacrifice style and grace in order to be eco-friendly.

This year marks the fourth Earth Day Fashion Show and these Catholic schoolgirls know that fashion is nothing without accessories.

Conjuring up images of itchy hemp with seashells? Nah. Eco-friendly jewelry has gone elegant. Smart Glass Jewelry, for example, is handmade in Atlanta, Ga. from glass, sterling silver and silver solder using traditional stained glass methods.

Sold at Idiom (1014 Chapel Street, New Haven), each piece is different and many are made from broken pieces of bottles.

Even the idea to create this jewelry was recycled by creator Kathleen Plate, who learned the art of stained glass from her mother in the 1970s. Much like the

Here in New Haven, Kate Harrison runs an eco-friendly wedding planning company, thegreenbrideguide.com, and believes that every small effort makes a difference. She works with couples around the country, planning the weddings of their dreams.

“There are 2.5 million weddings a year in the United States, with an average of more than 150 guests each,” she says. “When you add up all of the stuff that goes into weddings — single-use bleached white dresses, chemically treated imported flowers, toxic makeup and skincare products, mined gem-based jewelry, individual packets of rice, etc. — you see that the environmental impact from these events is enormous.”

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On the Road to a Green Future Yale grads lead a pathbreaking climatechange caravan through India

By Sarah Politz

One of the three solar-roofed, plug-in electric cars the Climate Solutions Road Tour drove from Chennai to Delhi. The cars are manufactured by an Indian company, Reva, and can travel about 90 miles on their rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

M

ahatma Gandhi once famously advised, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” The Indian leader’s words resonated this winter with two young Yale graduates who, dissatisfied with merely studying and talking about the issue of climate change, decided to put their shoulders to the wheel.

Caroline Howe, a Durham native and Yale School of Engineering graduate, and Alexis Ringwald, a graduate of Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, are the masterminds behind the India Climate Solutions Road Tour, a project that led the pair and a cohort of

about 20 students and supporters, many of them members of the Indian Youth Climate Network, on a five-week, 3,500kilometer journey from the south Indian city of Chennai, north through 15 cities to Delhi, where they arrived February 5.

The fleet left Chennai on January 3 in three solar-roofed, plug-in electric cars, which can travel about 90 miles on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries; and a truck converted to run on biofuel made from sustainably harvested jatropha, a native Indian plant, which carried the equipment for the solar-powered band, Solar Punch, that joined the troupe on the road.

Add a truck running on used vegetable oil and piloted by a friendly Czech named Stanislav, which joined the crew midway, and a car with solar panels on the roof that was rigged with power outlets to charge the team’s laptops, cell phones and cameras while they were on the road — and you have a caravan likely to attract some attention in rural India.

“It felt like we were driving in the midst of a revolution of the future of transportation,” says Howe, speaking via Skype from New Delhi.

Bidisha Banerjee, an Indian national currently studying at Yale’s Forestry

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23

India’s President Pratibha Patil offered her congratulations to participants in the India Climate Solutions Road Tour, including Howe, far left, and Ringwald, second from right.

School, was on the road tour as well. “We were touring India at a pivotal moment during its history, when thousands of roads are in the process of being built, and thousands of power-lines are just about to be laid,” she writes in an e-mail. “Too often, it’s easy to feel powerless about the climate crisis. During our trip, I realized that there is still a vivid possibility for India to achieve a low-carbon development path.”

Because of the rapid growth in India’s economy (eight percent annually), which supports one of the world’s biggest populations, the country is currently poised to become the third leading consumer of energy by 2030, and the third leading emitter of greenhouse gases by 2015. Given that India is already experiencing electricity shortages, the search for alternative energy innovations has developed a true sense of urgency.

Yet not all or even most of India’s population burns a great deal of energy.

The country’s highest income group emits an annual average of 4.97 tons of carbon dioxide per capita, close to the world average. India’s low overall per-capita 24

april 2009

emissions is due to the fact that most of its population makes less than $125 per year and contributes a negligible amount of emissions. The painful reality, though, is that the poor, who rely on climatesensitive industries such as agriculture, forestry and fishing, will be impacted by climate change first.

So the India Climate Solutions Road Tour set out on a mission to raise awareness of climate issues, and in search of solutions.

“When we charged [the vehicles’ batteries] at petrol [gasoline] stations, people really saw it as the future, because they don’t [necessarily] want to be working in petrol,” says Howe. “It’s noxious fumes they breathe in every day. They know it’s polluting their planet and their children’s future.

“Students along the way were really drawn in, especially by the band. They played Hindi songs and everybody went crazy.”

Ringwald adds that her favorite charging stop, “and our only princely charging stop,” was an impromptu one at the home of the Prince of Rajpipli, who runs a vermiculture business, has an organic

farm and a wind turbine installed on his property. He also is building a solar hospital.

After finishing her undergraduate degree in political science in 2005, Ringwald was sent as Yale’s envoy to The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India for the summer. She ended up writing her master’s thesis for the Forestry School on the potential of biofuel in India, and returned to south Asian soon after as a Fulbright Scholar researching the business aspects of renewable energy and climate issues. She contacted Howe, a Yale engineering student whom the university had sent to TERI to work on green building issues, and the pair floated the idea of developing a project together at the conclusion of their fellowship years.

Recalls Howe, “What we wanted to do was to create a project that would profile the opportunities to both young people and to entrepreneurs and financers about the fact that there are so many opportunities here in India — and at the same time demonstrate that India is in its own way taking action and needs to be supported.”

On the road, Ringwald explains, they began to develop “incredible distributed networks, amazing energy. It became bigger and we realized we could make this something pretty loud.�

Along the way, they made countless stops to recharge and talk with locals about climate solutions. The electric cars are a homegrown innovation — manufactured domestically in India by a company called Reva. Like refrigerators, they draw electricity from three-pronged power points. According to Howe’s calculations, “At ten rupees a kilowatt-hour, the car could get fully charged for about a dollar, which would fuel the car for 200 kilometers [90 miles]. It takes six hours for a full charge. “People aren’t covering the solutions [to climate change] — they’re covering the problems, because the problems make a better story,� Howe says. “So we created a journey that would be a great story to tell.�

The trek was a remarkable one. Banerjee recalls highlights: “Meeting with organic farmers practicing drip-irrigation in Andhra Pradesh, visiting green buildings and a smart solar micro-grid in Hyderabad

and learning from a college in Rajasthan that trains rural poor from around the world to work on key issues like solarpower generation, water-harvesting, health and sanitation. I was inspired to meet so many architects of possibility — from farmers to engineers working at Reva, the world’s best-selling electric car company, which is based in Bangalore.�

At the Energy and Resources Institute’s climate conference in February, the group submitted a report to the Union environment ministry asking for policy changes to battle climate change, and gave New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman a spin around the block in one of the Revas. On February 18, Howe and Ringwald were granted an audience with the president of India, Pratibha Patil, who congratulated them on their work.

So what climate solutions did the tour identify on its travels? “Almost every city in India has made a law that every building that’s built should have rainwater harvesting systems,� says Howe. “But Chennai is one of the few places that has very effectively implemented it, so every building we saw had a rainwater harvesting system, and

that was really exciting.�

The road tour also made a stop at Peace Garden in Vellore, a school devoted to the environmental education of rural children.

It also boasts sustainable buildings and a growing permaculture site. Sustainable agriculture practices already in use across the country include drip irrigation, seed saving and crop rotation. Some communities make their own reusable banana-leaf plates and clay cups to reduce waste. “It’s not just about tech transfer, about us selling American innovations to villages in India, but developing what makes the most sense here and what’s been in use here, and helping that scale up,� says Howe.

At the Hewlett-Packard headquarters in Bangladore, 14 data centers have been consolidated to save on cooling costs. The facility also has 7,500 temperature sensors that are part of a centralized system which allow for spot cooling, which spares approximately 40 percent of the cooling energy.

Ringwald was especially excited about the program at Barefoot College, where village women from around the world are trained to become solar entrepreneurs.

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a higher level. “We’re trying to spread the message that some policies do need to change in order to better support these solutions, both nationally and internationally,� explains Howe. “As we look toward the international climate negotiations at Copenhagen, we need to be looking at how developed nations can really be supporting technology and innovators in countries like India.�

Alexis Ringwald hanging out in the jatropha truck, which was converted to run on a local, sustainably harvested plant.

“They come and they get trained to understand solar energy equipment, how to put together batteries with lights,� she says. “And they take this knowledge and technology back to their villages. So that brings electricity to their village along with women’s empowerment, which I A N D

B U I L D

D E S I G N

A N D

think is really beautiful and inspiring.�

While young environmentalists can do much to help make low-tech climate solutions available on a larger scale, Howe and Ringwald recognize that the largescale problems require policy changes at

B U I L D

D E S I G N

Banerjee agrees. “I believe that it is imperative for both India and the U.S. to commit to drastically reducing their carbon emissions this December during the U.N. negotiations in Poland,� she says. “We are at the start of a global social movement much like the civil-rights movement. Unless we can help build a new economy and a new energy system, we will have done a grave injustice to future generations.�

Ringwald says the most important thing for people confronting the climate crisis to do is to be creative, open-minded — and daring. “The crazier idea, the better,� she asserts. “We need unconventional ideas.

We thought [the tour] was insane, and everyone told us it was insane, and it was crazy. But we learned a lot, and reached a lot of people.� v

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The House of Green Gables And green nearly everything else in a new Short Beach home that’s eco-friendly to the max

By Michael C. Bingham

In the kitchen, all appliances are Energy Star-certified, the cabinets (from Ikea) are low-emitting and the flooring and beadboard (bottom left) are reclaimed from another house.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

new haven

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PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

The master bedroom affords a breathtaking northwest-looking panorama of the winding Farm River.

ATH OME

W

hen Curt Johnson and wife Nancy Dittes first met with architect Lindsay S. Suter to begin brainstorming the couple’s new home to be built “a ten-minute kayak ride” from the mouth of the Farm River in Branford’s Short Beach neighborhood, Priority No. 1 was to create a structure as “green” as possible within a tight budget while still meeting the practical needs of a busy family of four (they have two sons).

As befits their home’s watery provenance, Dittes and Johnson actually discovered the site while on a canoe excursion some years earlier. The property then housed a boarded-up, fire-damaged house that had been uninhabited for years. Notably, “There was a big ‘For Sale’ sign on it,” Dittes recalls.

The derelict structure notwithstanding, one would be hard-pressed to find a lovelier locale on which to build a home.

Recalls Johnson of that first visit: “When we first walked around the house and saw this view, Nancy — who usually doesn’t get excited about real estate — said, ‘I 28

april 2009

think we’ve got to get this.’ We just fell in love with the spot.”

That was in September of 2006. Following some months of soul-searching and negotiations, they closed on the property in June 2007. Then the real work began.

No stranger to all things green, Johnson is a public-interest environmental attorney with the Connecticut Fund for the Environment — “so I think about this stuff a lot,” he says. “We knew if we were going to build a new house we wanted to do some innovative green things that were also within our budget, because we are not people of great means.”

The couple chose Suter, who is based in North Branford and also teaches part-time at his alma mater, the Yale School of Architecture, based on his experience with similar projects.

the tidy, 2,000-square-foot home has been brainstormed and re-brainstormed for yielding maximum energy-efficiency.

Reduce, reuse, recycle are the holy trinity of green living principles. And in pledging particular fealty to the second of those principles, Johnson, Dittes and Suter were extremely creative — and perhaps just a little bit lucky. too. And in this season of new life, it is impressive to note the number of furnishings in the new home that are risen from the dead — including every wooden door in the house, quarter-sawn white-oak flooring from a demolished house, reclaimed beadboard from an old beach cottage.

“We were very attracted to working with Lindsay because he’s actually built houses himself with his own hands,” explains Johnson, “so he understands prices and difficulties and he’s very, very practical.”

Much of the construction work was performed by builder Jonathan Tuminski of the Center for Green Building in Bridgeport. (The homeowners have also done considerable work themselves.) At the same time the Johnson/Dittes home was in the planning stages, Tuminski had a contract to demolish an older home in Fairfield, and many furnishings from that found their way to the Short Beach house.

“Practical” is one way to describe the new home — perhaps with a dash of “ingenious” thrown in for good measure.

Virtually every component and system in

The first major decision was to disregard the footprint of the previous home and orient the new structure toward the south for maximum solar exposure. Today the

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april 2009

Anthony DeCarlo

The home is constructed on steel piers higher than required by FEMA, ‘in case of unexpectedly high water due to global warming,’ explains Dittes.

On the roof are photovoltaic panels that supply some of the home’s electricity needs.

PHOTOGRAPHS:

In part to keep the project within budget, the family (with generous help from friends) performed much of the construction work, including the Johnson-installed kitchen tilework, granite countertops and cabinetry.

home has ample south-facing glass for passive solar purposes.

Every new home involves compromises.

Johnson and Dittes aimed to make their home as green as possible, but were working within the constraints of a fairly inelastic budget that limited choices.

Take windows, for example, where green equals maximum thermal efďŹ ciency. But that comes at a steep cost. The windows they chose “aren’t the best windows you can get,â€? acknowledges Johnson, “but they are very efďŹ cient windows for the price.â€?

Showing off the home’s beautiful reclaimed wooden doors, Johnson marvels, “These doors cost me $80 or something. If you look for an equivalent modern set of doors of this quality, these are probably $1,000 doors. The cheapest, junkiest doors like this at Home Depot are $450. “Sometimes green is more expensive, but sometimes it’s not,� he adds.

Not everything in the house is reclaimed, of course. The kitchen is entirely new, with modern, clean cabinetry from Ikea, as well as Energy Star-certiďŹ ed dishwasher and microwave. Johnson installed the beautiful granite countertop tile himself. “Our [Whirlpool] refrigerator is not the most energy-efďŹ cient refrigerator you can buy,â€? Dittes admits. “But sometimes you make a deal with the devil. I wanted a refrigerator that I really liked.â€?

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Some of the non-wooden oor surfaces are covered with Marmoleum, a linoleum-like substance that’s manufactured not from vinyl but from renewable products like jute, cork dust, clay and natural rubber. “It’s a terriďŹ c product,â€? Suter beams.

Perhaps the greenest feature of the Johnson-Dittes home is the fact that it has no furnace. Instead warmth is provided by radiant oor heating fueled by a highly efďŹ cient hot-water heater. Photovoltaic panels on the south-facing roof harvest solar energy, and Suter incorporated many passive solar design elements including window placement and roof angles to facilitate heating and cooling.

Relatively speaking, the envelope of the house is tight as can be. The walls are insulated with an organic material made from recycled denim. The interior walls are painted with paints that emit little or no gas from volatile organic compounds.

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PHOTOGRAPH:

which use rainwater captured from the roof and stored in cisterns. They also employ two flush settings — one for liquid waste, the other for solids.

While each of these energy-saving features may not by themselves save a great deal of energy, “It all adds up,” Johnson says. Their house, he adds, “is like a miniature world.”

Anthony DeCarlo

The family that builds together: (L-r) son Ian and mother Nancy Dittes, father Curt Johnson and son Jakes Dittes.

The couple’s goal was to create the most energy-efficient house possible for about $160 per square foot. And, as the finish line approaches, Johnson estimates the final number will come in at between $170 and $175 a foot — a remarkable achievement given the vagaries of new construction.

The family moved in last Halloween, not in the least bit spooked by the fact that

some construction details remained. And they are frank that although it’s been a labor of love, that doesn’t mean no real labor was involved. The reality is quite to the contrary.

“It was a little more of a project than I was anticipating,” says Dittes with some understatement. “But I think we’re on the other side of it now.” v

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Eco-fashions Continued from 22

something, or you don’t want to choose the green option at every turn, that is okay,” says Harrison. “It is called ‘going green’ for a reason — it is a process. Start with just one thing and go from there. The more eco-friendly elements you can include the better, but if you have your heart set on a certain dress, or can’t convince your caterer to compost, don’t feel too bad about it.”

Along with Heather Burns-DeMelo, Harrison is planning the Green Wedding and Home Show, at Stamford’s Hotel Chesterfield from noon to 4 p.m. on May 2. The show includes an eco-couture fashion show which will feature clothing for the bride, groom and wedding party by designers who are committed to making each piece of clothing harmonious with nature. Gowns by Olivia Luca and Jessica Iverson will be featured.

Harrison believes that there are three options for eco-friendly wedding attire.

The best way to have a green wedding gown is to buy once-worn dresses, and there are thousands available on eBay, Harrison says. If budget is not the major concern, or if the bride simply wants new, there are formal gowns and or less formal dresses available in any kind of material, from summery cotton to the lush silk gown. Chrissy Wai-Ching, Rene Geneva and Gwendolyn Gleason all have organic or fair-trade options in their current lines.

The third option, according to Harrison, is to have a gown custom-made or altered.

“That way you can have whatever you want,” she says. “If you’re good with sewing, you can get a pattern and make it yourself using vintage fabrics or ecofabrics.”

Even eco-unfriendly fabrics like petroleum-based tule can become “green” if they are taken from a vintage dress.

“Since green weddings are about producing less waste, they tend to cost about 40 percent less,” says Harrison. Because wedding gowns are white, they are typically bleached.

On the flip side, she urges newlywed brides to donate or sell their gowns, whether they’re used or brand new.

“Chances are if you didn’t want to wear your mom’s dress, your daughter is not going to want to wear yours.”

Remember: One woman’s trash is another woman’s fashion. v

From Idiom come recycled bottle earrings ($45) and a recycled stained-glass necklace ($98) by Smart Glass, as well as recycled aluminum sodacan bracelets ($15 each) by Recycled Planet.

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B O D Y & SOUL

Don’t Cut the Good Stuff How to buy healthier food for less

By Sarah Politz

S

omething’s got to give. In times of recession, many people find themselves with reduced incomes, hewing to tighter budgets and yes, with fewer discretionary dollars to spend even on an investment as precious as their health. If we’re not careful, buying foods that are nutritious for our bodies and healthy for the planet can quickly become an unsustainable expense.

So what’s a health-conscious shopper to do? Will the recession make us fat?

Not necessarily. By changing some ingrained food habits, it is perfectly practical to buy nutritious, local, organic food that won’t break the bank.

“With careful planning, you can choose a healthy diet that costs even less than what you are traditionally spending,” says Georgia Chavent, director of the human nutrition department at University of New Haven. “Healthier foods are not always more expensive.”

Planning is the key, Chavent emphasizes, to controlling spending and still coming home with good food to maintain your health. Just taking a few minutes on the weekend to strategize for the week can save money and yield creative results.

Establish a weekly food budget — and stick to it. Make a list, bring it the store with you and (some people miss this part) don’t be tempted to buy things not on the list. Buy in bulk staples that you use frequently, like whole grain bread and potatoes, to cut down on packaging costs and waste, but be careful not to overbuy

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Nutritionist Georgia Chavent says that buying healthy food doesn’t have to take a bite out of your budget.

unhealthy or infrequently-consumed items.

“Buy large, and break it down on your own, rather than buying smaller amounts of foods,” says Ellen Liskov, of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Nutrition Clinic.

“Many times the value packs of chicken, meat or frozen vegetables are cheaper,” she explains. “So if you don’t mind the extra work, planning ahead could save a lot of money in your budget.”

By investing a little more time you can cook from scratch more often, a health boon because fresh ingredients contain more nutrients and fewer additives. Even if you don’t have time to cook from scratch each day, consider cooking in large quantities once a week and freezing food for use throughout the week.

If organic foods have been a part of your budget in the past, they may be the first

items cut from many shopping carts. But it is worth considering carefully the added health benefits of certain organic foods, especially dairy, before you try to save a few cents by buying mass-market varieties, which often contain added hormones.

“There are certain organic things that are better to choose than others,” says Chavent. “If the budget will allow, plan to spend a certain amount, say $10 to $15, on organic foods. Then choose the ones that are most important. I would always suggest organic dairy; it’s worth the extra money. It stays fresh longer, and it is also free of hormones. Try alternating weeks, buying organic half of the time. Soy is also important to purchase organically, because soybeans are one of most commonly genetically modified vegetables we have, unfortunately. Organic by definition is not supposed to include genetically modified foods.”

Christopher Mir’s ’Is There Life After Birth?’ (oil, 53” X 38”, 2009).

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Christopher Mir’s ’Is There Life After Birth?’ (oil, 53” X 38”, 2009).

36 april 2009

For painter Christopher Mir, the commonplace can conceal the unexpected

By Michael Harvey

T

he setting could not have been more ordinary: a quiet suburban street of shingled houses, a neat family home, a driveway strewn with children’s toys, and a backyard with patio set.

It was an unlikely place to go looking for a young artist, but like his paintings the unremarkable façade of Christopher Mir’s Hamden home conceals another world. The garage is not a garage at all but a small studio with glossy wood floors and white walls. Stepping into it the first thing I encounter is a drum set, amplifiers and leaning guitars — as if the band had just gone on a break. It was so unexpected that we spoke of his music before even approaching the paintings around walls.

Christopher Mir is an open, youthful man in his late 30s. It is not hard to imagine him on stage with a band but he brushes it off as “just messing around with friends.”

He plays guitar and sings, and mentions ‘alternative’ bands the Flaming Lips and Animal Collective as music that interests him. Folk music is important to him, too.

“Songs that come from their life, not just designed for an audience,” he explains.

For authenticity he cites “Johnston,” and for a moment we talk at odds, getting the singers Johnson and Johnston confused.

He is talking about Daniel Johnston, a unique performer and artist, while I am referring to Anthony and the Johnsons, a performer whose recent video features scenes not unlike Mir’s paintings.

As we moved passed the instruments to

’Mirror’ (oil, 31” X 29”, 2009).

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sit near the paintings, Mir talked of his conventional surroundings as an antidote to his childhood. “Dad was a hippie whose band opened for the Mamas and the Papas,” he says, in and out of his life.

His mother was even less conventional, coming from a heritage of Southern mountain women, with even a Cherokee Conjur (medicine) man in her background.

Cradled under a painting of a tarot card in a Baltimore commune, surrounded by rock ’n’ roll and dope and free love, Mir explains, “My form of rebellion has been to avoid dope and heavy drinking, and to form lasting relationships.” At age five his mom took him to Maine where she made Giacometti-like sculptures, and befriended the well known painter Neil Welliver. For Mir it became obvious at an early age that art was what he wanted to do, and his mother was always encouraging.

’Dome Home’ (oil, 40” X 54”, 2009).

‘Birthday Doomsday’ (oil, 42” X 56”, 2009).

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After graduating from Marlboro (Vt.) College he went on to Boston University while his future wife, Karen, moved here

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’Web Sleeper’ (oil, 56” X 48”, 2009).

to attend the Yale School of Art. It was a conscious decision after that to stay in New Haven and avoid the New York rat race. “We had friends down there who were working so hard to meet the rent they never had time to paint,” he says. “When I got the job with the Yale [University] Art Gallery we decided to stay here and raise a family.”

anyway. I get burned out.” He likes to talk to the curators, too: “The art is their subject, they just love to discuss it.”

His job at the gallery is to digitally correct photographs of the artworks in the collection. Anyone who has ever viewed art reproductions closely knows that what is pink in one book is red in another — and maybe brown on the postcard. Mir matches the image to the actual work so that future reproductions will be correct.

A few of the paintings nearby are stretched and finished, but those on the walls around us are mostly in a state of becoming; canvas stapled to the wall and in different stages of development.

Mir’s preferred method is to start with photographic images, some taken by him, like the neighborhood boy who was skateboarding with a pair of angel wings attached, and some such as movie stars or landscapes or architecture culled from the Internet. If he has something specific in mind he will use models to act out roles.

He sifts through these images for ideas.

For Mir the work is a pleasure. “I’ve learned more about art in the last ten years than I could have hoped for,” he says. And not just aesthetically. “It gives me structure,” Mir explains. “I work every morning and then I come home and paint.

I couldn’t paint more than four hours

The process is intuitive. Most often, he says, “It starts with a setting, a landscape, a stage that I can bring things into.” The work is done on the computer incorporating the skills he has honed at his day job. Cutting, pasting and overlaying with PhotoShop he creates

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’Seer’ (oil, 26” X 28”, 2009).

elaborate collages that he can manipulate with ease. When he is satisfied with the result he prints it out and, using an overhead projector, shines the image onto the canvas and traces it with a pencil.

When the painting begins it is quite controlled. There are no great daubs or wild swings with a six-inch brush. The expression is in the images.

The pictures, though traced from photographs, are anything but realism.

They are of another world, as might be surmised from such titles as “Is There Life After Birth?” “Death Is an Illusion,” “Seer,” “Everywhere Forever.” “I like to set up a dream world and then insert an element of menace,” he says.

And the paintings bear him out — they have a quality that readers of Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass will recognize immediately with its daemons and witches and polar-bear warriors, where a normal landscape can contain hidden terrors, where animals or clouds can transform themselves into other beings from other worlds. Mir likes mythological stories and paintings of antiquity, and looks for literary meaning in images.

Often in his images a young girl is the object of a perceived threat — innocence in harm’s way. And there are repeated symbols: birds of prey, knotted trees, icy

landscapes and bearded prophets.

“I’m a secular humanist but I’m deeply interested in things religious — icons, texts, religious paintings,” Mir says. “I’ve had a lot of strange experiences. I just don’t plug the hole with God.” The commonplace concealing the unexpected is much like Mir’s life. He may have chosen the security of the suburban setting and the structure of normality, yet he is clearly drawn to the subversive nature of his own childhood, and his exotic Shaman heritage. He has a meditation room in his house, and when he was younger he pondered a monastic life. His fascination with Outsider art and musical forms that defy conformity fuel his mystical belief and are a recognition of something intense happening beyond the borders of the commercial art world.

This a busy year for Mir. He has a solo show of new paintings at the Rare gallery in Chelsea (521 W. 26th Street) through May 2, as well as works in the group show, (un)spoken at Artspace in New Haven (April 2-May 9). In June he will have his first solo show in Spain at Barcelona’s Senda Gallery. And the Yale University Art Gallery bought one of his paintings and it is now on view as part of the permanent collection. v

CREATING ART Studio Tuesday is an informal, noninstructional “paint-in” that meets each Tuesday. Come work in a creative environment alongside other artists. 9 a.m.-noon April 7, 14, 21 & 28 at Margaret Egan Center, 35 Matthew St., Milford.

Free. 203-878-6647, milfordarts.org.

Bring your sewing, fine art or craft projects to the Contemporary Sewing Circle. Artists share ideas and get advice from one another the second Thursday of each month. 6-8 p.m. April 9 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven.

Free. 203-772-2709, artspacenh.org.

The third annual Open Doors of downtown Milford, an open-air public arts festival celebrating Connecticut artists, announces a Call for Artists to apply to participate in the festival.

Completed pieces will be on view throughout downtown Milford from August 22 through September 27 concluding with a live auction.

Selected artists receive a $100 stipend and 45 percent of their door’s selling price, while 45 percent benefits charity.

There will also be a $500 first prize for the best door as selected by the committee. To apply submit photos of current work along with biographical information to the submissions committee at info@downtownmilfordct. com or by mail to Rosemary CelonGordon c/o Gilded Lily Gallery, 101 River St., Milford 06460 by April 15.

Join Yale students and gallery staff as they relate folktales and myths from across the globe to works of art in the Yale University Art Gallery’s collection in Stories and Art. All ages welcome; drawing materials provided for older children. 1 p.m. April 12 at the YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

Two Museums, Twice the Fun. Families and children with adult chaperones are invited to come and explore the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) and the YUAG. Something for everyone, including special art-making activities, storytelling in the galleries and tours.

Have fun discovering the collections and learning more about art in New Haven. 1 p.m. April 26 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-4322858, ycba.yale.edu.

Still Life Drawing and Painting Studio Sessions are intended for artists with some drawing and/or painting experience who are looking for a group of over-18, like-minded individuals to share and create work.

Students will be asked to create one still-life arrangement. Easels provided; materials and paper are the responsibility of the participants. This is a collective session (no instructor).

Exhibition opportunities for regular participants. 9:30 a.m.-2 p.m. (session) & 2-3 p.m. (constructive feedback) April 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30 at Green Street Arts Center, 51 Green St., Middletown. $14 per session ($12 members). 860-685-7871, gsac@ wesleyan.edu, greenstreetartscenter.org.

The Milford Fine Arts Council (MFAC) officially issues its Call for Artists

for the upcoming 23rd annual New England Arts & Crafts Festival. This popular juried festival takes place July 11-12 on the Milford Green. In the past, the event has hosted hundreds of original displays with participants from throughout the U.S. Artists interested in participating may download an application from the MFAC Web site or request one via mail. Space is limited and all applications are juried. Handmade items only. Deadline June 19. MFAC, 40 Railroad Ave., Milford. 203-878-6647, milfordarts.org.

YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Free.

203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

GALLERY TALKS/TOURS

“Subjects I consider’d as writers do” (5:30 p.m. April 14) is the first of five Paul Mellon Lectures that comprise Pen and Pencil: Writing and Painting in England, 1750-1850. Duncan Robinson, master of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge, lectures on William Hogarth, the stage and the extent to which his modern moral subjects paved the way for the narrative tradition that flourished in English painting during the 19th century. In the second lecture, “He can never be a great artist who is grossly illiterate” (5:30 p.m. April 16), Robinson examines the literary career of Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, concentrating on the discourses he gave there, the reflection of his ideas in his own painting and their subsequent impact on his contemporaries. The third explores John Constable in “From the window I am writing I see all those sweet fields” (5:30 p.m. April 21). Robinson examines the importance of J.M.W. Turner’s seeing poetry as a “sister art” of painting, his frequent quotations from the poets and his own attempts at verse in the lecture “Painting and Poetry reflect and heighten each other’s beauties” (5:30 p.m. April 23). The final lecture, “I dare not pretend to be anything other than the Secretary; the Authors are in Eternity” (5:30 p.m. April 28), discusses how, for William Blake, pen and pencil were interchangeable. This lecture examines his achievement and the

Take a Yale Student-Guided Tour of the Yale Center for British Art’s permanent collection. 1 p.m. Sat.-Sun. at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

Experience “Endless Forms”: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts under the guidance of a YCBA docent in an Exhibition Tour. 2 p.m.

April 12 & 26, 11 a.m. April 9, 23 & 30, noon April 4 & 18 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-2858, ycba. yale.edu.

Enjoy a Masterpiece Tour of the Yale University Art Gallery collection. Tours led by YUAG docents; each tour is different. 1:30 p.m. April 4, 5, 11, 18, 19 & 25 at the YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-0600, artgallery. yale.edu.

Wesleyan University Associate Professor of History and Science in Society Jennifer Tucker leads Picturing Science and the Natural World in the Age of Darwin, a 30-minute gallery talk.

12:30 p.m. April 7 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-2858, ycba. yale.edu.

Picasso and Gertrude Stein in Conversation with Timothy Young, curator of modern books and manuscripts at Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. 4 p.m. April 7 at the

YCBA student guide Joel Pattison gives a gallery talk on 18th- and 19thCentury British Travel Literature. 12:30 p.m. April 14 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-2858, ycba. yale.edu.

Take an Introductory Tour of the YCBA’s permanent collection. 11 a.m.

April 4, 11, 18 & 25 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-2858, ycba. yale.edu.

ART legacy of his “Illuminated Books.” At YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free.

203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

John Elderfield, chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, lectures on Art and the Single Subject: Monographic Exhibitions at the Modern Museum. 5:30 p.m. April 17 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free.

203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

Cropping In, Framing Out: Race and Representation in the Work of William Hogarth and Joy Gregory.

Cyra Levenson, associate curator of education at YCBA, gives a gallery talk on Hogarth and Gregory. 12:30 p.m.

April 21 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

Susan Butts, collections manager in the Division of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, discusses Reading the Rock Record with Fossils. 12:30 p.m. April 28 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven.

Free. 203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

EXHIBITIONS Westville’s Kehler Liddell Gallery features Live Music each Wednesday.

Enjoy new sounds while perusing works of art. 7-9 p.m. April 1, 8, 15, 22 & 29 at the Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven. Free. 203-389-9555, kehlerliddell.com.

Emerging is a photography exhibit exploring the nature of rebirth. Through April 1 at Wink Art & Design, 87 Whitfield St., 3rd Floor, Guilford. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tues.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. Free.

203-453-5921, digitalwink.com.

CRITIC’S PICK: Code Red Estuary: Means and Modes, a 57 x 11.5 feet, handmade paper and wire sculpture by Nancy Cohen.

Frosty the Snowman faces many more challenges these days. A warmer globe may mean less snow shoveling for some, but affects so many ecosystems in not-so-great ways that everyone should seek out more information about how to help combat global climate change.

In conjunction with Feet

to the Fire, Wesleyan’s 18-month climate-change initiative, Zilkha Gallery presents Global Warning: Artists and Climate Change, an exhibition that explores climate change through the lens of visual artists. Although many have collaborated with scientists, social scientists, planners and architects,

the aim of Global Warning is to increase awareness of climate change through challenging content that is laced with poetry and aesthetic power. Included in the show are works in a variety of media from the past three decades by Marion Belanger, Lorraine Berry, Diane Burko, Nancy Cohen, Helen and Newton

Harrison, Chris Jordan, Aviva Rahmani, Lenore Malen, Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Frances Whitehead. April 28-May 24 (May 1 reception 5-7 p.m.; 5:30 p.m. curator talk) at Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. Open noon-4 p.m. Tues.-Sun. (until 8 p.m. Fri.). Free.

860-685-3355, boxoffice@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan. edu/cfa.

— Elvira J.Duran

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Waterman are featured. April 1-25 (sneak preview 6-8 p.m. March 31; opening reception 3-6 p.m. April 5; artist dialogue with Gar Waterman 2 p.m. April 19; storytime & book signing with James Prosek 6 p.m. April 22) at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.-Sun. or by appt. 203389-9555, kehlerliddel.com.

James Prosek gives a whole new meaning to “Flying Fish” with his rendition of Sailfish, a part avian, part aquatic being. See what other treasures of the sea New England artists see in their mind’s eye in Breaking the Surface: Paintings and Sculpture. Housed at Kehler Liddell Gallery in New Haven April 1-25.

The exhibit Pinch was inspired by internationally renowned artist Jack Laroux’s visit to the Louvre in Paris where a circa 1594 painting drove him to create the series. Laroux’s works are enhanced by urban, surreal and abstract concepts and based upon shattered glass and kaleidoscope imagery portraying illuminating, complex surfaces. Through April 11 at White Space Gallery, 1020 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily (until 7 p.m. Thurs.); Sun. by appt. Free.

203-495-1200, whitespacegallery.com.

The Road Less Traveled: Thomas Nason’s Rural New England examines the visual poetry of printmaker Thomas W. Nason (1889-1971). Exhibition draws parallels between the carefully carved, deliberate lines of Nason’s wood engravings and the thoughtfully chosen, measured language of poet laureate Robert Frost, with whom he collaborated. Through April 12 at the Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $9 ($8 seniors & $7 students, free under 12). 860-434-5542, flogris.org.

Russian stage designer and artist Marina Sokolova created critically acclaimed sets and costumes for prestigious theater companies throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe and the U.S. Her paintings and theatrical designs have been exhibited in galleries and art shows worldwide.

The rich, distinctive tradition of Russian scenic art spins its magic yarns and flies off the walls in Flight of a Firebird.

Through April 16 at Seton Art Gallery, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven. Open 1-5 p.m.

Tues.-Thurs., noon-6 p.m. Fri., noon-3 p.m.

Sat.-Sun. Free. 203-931-6065, newhaven. edu/setongallery.

Senior Thesis Exhibitions. View the work of seniors in the art studio program of Wesleyan’s department of art and art history. Through April 5 (reception 4-6 p.m. April 1): Sasha Portis, Jason Quincy Bailey, Elizabeth McClellan, Nicole Irizarry and Lena Shichijo; April 7-April 12 (reception 4-6 p.m. April 7): Kathryn Bofshever, Travis Fitzgerald, Omar Hunter Craighill, Claire Staples and Joshua Koenig; April 14-April 19 (reception: 4-6 p.m.

April 15): Alexandra Hutchinson, Sara Swetzoff, Elizabeth Wheatley, Samuel

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Tea Culture of Japan: Chanoyu Past and Present illuminates the importance of Japanese tea culture and examines the ways in which it has evolved over the centuries. Through April 26 at the YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven.

Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. (Thurs. until 8 p.m.) & 1 p.m.-6 p.m. Sun. Free.

203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

5-7 p.m. April 8) Stevens Auto Group, 717 Bridgeport Ave., Milford. Open 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Thurs., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri.-Sat. & noon-4 p.m Sun. 203-783-5924, plynn@ stevensautogroup.com, stevensauto.com.

An exhibition of wall sculptures by Jonathan Waters and Joy Wulke is titled Smoke & Mirrors. Waters combines painting and sculpture to create geometric constructions that explore the conceptual region between the twoand three-dimensional realms. Wulke, who studied environmental design at Yale, evokes architectural patterns with her sculpture, using fragmented glass and organic materials. Through May 1 at Gallery 195, NewAlliance Bank, 195 Church St., Fourth Floor, New Haven.

203-772-2788, newhavenarts.org.

Wilder Duncan, Silvie Deutsch and Yale Yng-Wong. At Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. Open noon-4 p.m.

Tues.-Sun. (until 8 p.m. Fri.). Free. 860685-3355, boxoffice@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Flowering Cross: Holy Week in an Andean Village Exhibition of Photography with Commentary features the work of New Haven art photographer Robert Lisak; it focuses on the colonial Inca town of Andahuaylillas, near Cuzco. The extraordinary 17th-century church at the center of the town houses remarkable murals, oil paintings, gilded sculptures and two colonial pipe organs. Through April 24 at Yale Institute of Sacred Music, 409 Prospect Street, New Haven. 9 a.m.4 p.m. weekdays. Free. 203-432-5180, yale. edu/ism.

See the marine environment through the eyes of New England artists in Breaking the Surface: Paintings and Sculpture. The vast world of sea creatures comes to life in the form of natural and fantastical science watercolors, dimensional wood panel fish paintings and assemblages, onyx and marble sculpted shells, nudibranchs (a.k.a sea slugs) and squid. A percentage of proceeds support the Penobscot (Me.) East Resource Center. Works by James Prosek, Gar Waterman and Susannah

Phyllis Crowley’s archival pigment print, Blue Marsh, is only one of the many views of Cape Cod landscapes found in Field of Vision, an exhibition at New Haven’s City Gallery April 2-26.

The Cape Cod landscapes depicted in Field of Vision are part of Phyllis Crowley’s everyday life in the summer.

In their simplicity, orientation (up, down or straight ahead) and rich color, she finds a tranquil response to the violence and turmoil that have become part of our everyday lives. Let Crowley turn your world right-side up. April 2-26 (reception: 3-6 p.m. April 4) at City Gallery, 994 State St., New Haven. Thurs.-Sun. noon-4 p.m. or by appointment. Free. 203-782-2489, info@ city-gallery.org, city-gallery.org.

Barbara Curri is the April Artist of the Month exhibitor at Stevens Auto Group. Wine-and-cheese reception April 8. Visitors may enjoy her work and enter a drawing to win an original piece of artwork. April 1-30 (reception

CRITIC’S PICK: Springing to Life In celebration of the season of prayer, penitence and self-denial, Charlotte Lichtblau’s paintings and works on paper of traditional religious subjects adorn St. Thomas More’s Golden Center in the exhibition Incarnate. The thirty pieces featured in this show were created over six decades. While Lichtblau’s paintings of religious subjects are boldly contemporary, they honor both the history of ecclesiastical imagery and the artistic traditions

of German Expressionist painting. Through April 19 at Thomas E. Golden Jr. Center, 268 Park St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m., noon-5 p.m.

Sat., 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sun. Free (photo ID required for entry).

— E. J.D. Lichtblau’s oil on canvas painting, Stabat Mater (1983), draws the eye in with deep tones and uses lines to define, yet, entwine the figures portrayed.

Celebrate Darwin’s bicentenary in style with a visit to the YCBA’s interdisciplinary exhibition Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts. The exhibition illuminates the impact of Darwin’s most important theories on artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through May 3 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. 203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

Seduced: The Relevance of Landscape in the 21st Century. Group exhibition of landscape works in multiple media considers the art historical legacy of the genre, the power of nature, land-use politics and the relativity of aesthetic beauty. The works can be profoundly beautiful, but they also represent

PHOTO CREDIT: KEVIN NOBLE

appalling environmental conditions, therefore expressing the aesthetics of the environment’s decline. Featured artists include Diane Burko, Leila Daw, Karen Glaser, Joseph Saccio, Larry Schwarm, Joseph Smolinski and Joy Wulke. Through May 8 at Guilford Art Center, 411 Church Street, Guilford. Open noon-5 p.m. weekdays. Free. 203-453-5947, guilfordartcenter.org. (un)spoken. Artspace presents a group exhibition that explores the boundaries of collaboration and artistic production within the context of a marital relationship. On view in Gallery 1, the collaborative work of three artist couples: Jesse Lambert and Linda Ganjian, Christopher Mir and Karen Dow, and Maggie Michael and Dan Steinhilber. Galleries 2–7 display each artist’s solo work. Through May 9 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven. Open noon-6 p.m. Tues.-Thurs. & noon-8 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Free. 203-772-2709, artspacenh.org.

Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes explores the social and cultural impact of suburbia through the lens of artists Gregory Crewdson, Dan Graham, Catherine Opie and Edward Ruscha, among others, and the visionary projects of architectural firms such as Fashion.Architecture.Taste, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, MVRDV and Estudio Teddy Cruz.

Through May 10 at Yale School of Architecture, 180 York St., New Haven.

Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. & 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. 203-432-8621, architecture. yale.edu.

Linda Ganjian’s two-foot tall Glagolitic Tower (left) and Georgian Tower I (right) are good examples of the gems mixed media (here paper, acrylic paint, glue, museum board, wood base) projects can become. Part of the couple’s exhibition, (un)spoken, on view at Artspace through May 9.

at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Picasso and the Allure of Language surveys the relationship between art and literature, and painting and writing, in Picasso’s work. Through May 24 at YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. (Thurs. until 8 p.m.) & 1 p.m.-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

Creative Arts Workshop presents Sky’s the Limit: Built, Unbuilt or Just Imagined, a show of audacious art projects by artists from across the country that address the relationship of our physical environment and human life. Janet Echelman, internationally recognized artist specializing in public art installations and sculpture, juries the exhibition. April 10-May 15 (opening 5-7 p.m. April 10) at Creative Arts Workshop, 80 Audubon St., New Haven.

Gallery hours: 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon.Fri. & 9 a.m.-noon Sat. Free. 203-5624927, creativeartsworkshop.org.

In Judith Joy Ross: Photographs, the photographer presents large-format portraits of ordinary people — public school children, visitors to the Vietnam Memorial and Iraq war protesters.

Visitors will see three decades of Ross’ visionary photos, which illuminate the subjects’ simultaneous vulnerability and strength, as well as their trust in the artist. Through May 24 at the Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, 301 High St., Middletown. Open noon-4 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Free. 860-685-2500, wesleyan.edu/dac.

Building on the rich collection of artworks and materials at the YUAG and the Gertrude Stein Archives

Sharon Crain’s photographs of Chinese people in China — Balancing the Changes: Photographs by Sharon

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Crain present a personal view of the changes she has seen since her first visit in 1977. A deep sympathy and understanding of Chinese people comes through in these images, along with respect for her subjects. Come experience a photo-history-book containing images ranging from blue padded suits to high fashion, from 12-to-a-room dorms to Internet access, from squads of steel Flying Pigeon bicycles to the rush of sleek Audi sedans and from clay-stove noodle shops to stainless-steel grill Western fast food. April 1-May 24 (gallery talk noon April 1) at Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies Gallery, Wesleyan University, 343 Washington Terr., Middletown. Open noon-4 p.m. daily except Mon. Free. 860-685-2330, wesleyan.edu/east.

In the Middle. Group exhibit featuring works by Seth Anderson, Thaddeus Beal, Heather Mae Erickson, George Fellner, Charlie Goodwin, Elizabeth Gourlay, Julie Gross, Sarah Gustafson, Vaune Hatch, Jerome Hershey, Janet Lage, Mitch Lyons, Kelly Jean Ohl, Pamela Marks, Meg Brown Payson, Marc Petrovic, Ross Racine, Debra Ramsay, Thomas Stavovy and Malcolm Wright. Includes debut of New York artist Lars Kremer. April 1-May 31 (opening reception & artist talk 6-9 p.m. April 3) at EO Art Lab, 69 Main St., Chester. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.Fri., noon-6 p.m. Sun. or by appt. Free.

860-526-4833, chester@eoartlab.com, eoartlab.com.

Lars Kremer makes his debut with works like Butterfly (portrait of Madeleine) -- Kodak film positive, in lightbox frame -- at EO Art Lab’s In the Middle, a group exhibit. Show runs from April 1 through May 31.

Come have your world distorted, just as Dalí Would! View the final editions of hand-signed, limited edition lithographs by Salvador Dalí as well as rare, exceptional Dalí hand-signed lithographs and sculpture from the Clot Collection of Dalí Sculpture. The defaced Dalí lithograph plates are also on view. April 13-June 6 (open house 12-6 p.m. May 2) at White Space Gallery, 1020 Chapel St., New Haven.

Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily (until 7 p.m.

Thurs.); Sun. by appt. Free. 203-495-1200, whitespacegallery.com.

That Commitment to Discovery is an exhibition of oils, watercolors and charcoal drawings by renowned painter and teacher Richard Lytle. An explorer of both the natural world and the imagination, Lytle makes his discoveries through close observation, experimental juxtaposition and creative reverie. His work is characterized by a mastery of line and color and presents a vision that calls for both finesse and boldness in its execution.

Through June 15 at the Gallery at the Whitney, 53 Wall St., New Haven.

Open 3-5 p.m. Mon. & Wed. or by appt. 203-432-0670, yale.edu/whc/ GalleryAtTheWhitney/main.html.

Lyme Art Colony painter Henry C. White is the patriarch of a family of Connecticut artists and art patrons.

Last year, in some of White’s stored belongings, his grandsons discovered a trove of pastels that had never been on public view. These vibrant landscapes provide insight into a new side of White’s art making. Visions of Mood: Henry C. White Pastels shows that White often chose familiar terrain near Hartford, where he grew up, or around his house on the Waterford shore as the subject of his art. He lovingly captures the landscape’s moods in different seasons and times of day. A short catalogue featuring a remembrance by the artist’s grandson, painter Nelson H. White, an essay by the curator and a portfolio of illustrations accompanies the exhibition. April 18-July 12 at the Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $9 ($8 seniors & $7 students, free under 12). 860-434-5542, flogris.org.

St. Thomas’s Day School Junior Kindergarten through Grade 6 NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR SEPT 2009 An independent Episcopal day school serving children from diverse faiths & backgrounds

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© Peter Serling, 2009

O F NOT E S

The Beat of a Different Drum Pulitzer-winning Yale composer David Lang challenges the ‘socalled laws of nature’

By Sarah Politz

H

ere is how I know I’ve found David Lang: He comes into the coffee shop with his coat slung over his arm. He seems comfortable here, but also slightly out of place. He could be a student, but for the defiant gruffness that marks him as a workman, an artisan.

In conversation, he is direct and honest, which has the odd quality of making him vulnerable, like the patches visible in the red flannel lining of his coat.

Lang is one of the most recent hires in the composition department at the Yale School of Music, the same department where he earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1989. He is a special composer with a taste and talent for the dramatic, the eclectic. His compositions have titles like “Eating Living Monkeys” and “Bonehead,” and he orchestrates for teacups and flower pots. He is a founding member of the New York-based music partnership Bang on a Can, which he describes as “an organization for composers who don’t have a good place to go.”

Even so, Lang seems to made found something of a home for himself in New Haven, where he is enjoying the creative freedom afforded him by last year’s Pulitzer Prize and looking forward to having his work performed later this month in a highly anticipated New Music New Haven concert April 30. The program

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april 2009

David Lang’s composition “the so-called laws of nature” will be performed in a New Music New Haven concert on April 30.

will feature his composition the so-called laws of nature, a 35-minute undertaking in three movements, which he originally wrote for four percussionists who were at the time students at the Yale School of Music.

The piece was inspired by a quote by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: “At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanation of natural phenomena.” Lang, who studied chemistry at Stanford, explains that the piece is intended conceptually as a challenge to scientific thinking.

“It’s an insult to science,” he says frankly.

“It’s sort of a pissing match of who actually has the right to say they are describing what happens in the world. Scientists who defend their lives with measurements and laws and facts are not learning anything significant about the world; they are merely describing it. They’re learning these things, which are descriptions of the world. And that’s why Wittgenstein refers to it pejoratively as the ‘so-called’ laws of nature.” the so-called laws of nature confronts science’s insistence on repeatable empirical results by constructing situations in which the same action repeated yields a different result, disturbing notions of predictability. One

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So Percussion, the ensemble of former Yale students which premiered Lang’s “the so-called laws” at the Bang on a Can Marathon in 2001.

Reich. Lang’s work has even been called post-minimalist or “totalist,” in that it troubles the notion that repetition alone can make a piece provocative today — although Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times probably got it about right when he said of Lang’s compositions, “There is no name yet for this kind of music.”

“All my work is about that issue,” Lang says, “about how repeating things not quite exactly but with very tiny differences can, over a period of time, make you listen more closely. When you hear things that make grand gestures with lots of change, you can sit back in your chair and hear loud things happen and not pay that much attention. When things are happening on a very microscopic level, slightly the same and slightly different, then you have a different job as a listener.

Your job is to listen more closely, to listen in a more focused way and to become a more active participant in what’s going on.”

Lang works in an original language that plays with all of the boundaries of traditional concert music, and yet is beginning to garner the establishment’s attention in a substantial way. Last year he earned a Pulitzer Prize for music in his hybrid opera The Little Match Girl Passion, a mark of distinction for any composer — and an edgy move for the Pulitzer jury, even after giving the award to experimental jazz musician Ornette Coleman the year before. And now his new album Pierced is out on the Naxos label, whose catalogue usually hews carefully to more mainstream classical art music.

The irony is not lost on Lang.

46

april 2009

“My world is messed up,” he admits. “It’s unusual for Naxos. This is slightly creepy, but now that I won the Pulitzer Prize, people who would not get near me with a ten-foot pole are actually being a lot nicer to me.

“If people are really willing to go out on a limb for me now because I have the credential so they can trust me, how far out on a limb can I go?” he wonders.

“Maybe I can actually ask for more ridiculous things now that somebody will believe me. I feel like that’s the way I’m going to handle it — by being even more ridiculous.”

So what’s next? Lang says, “[It’s] sort of my love, doing these weird, hybrid operas,” like The Little Match Girl Passion, inspired

by Hans Christian Andersen’s fable and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Another of Lang’s choral works is a strange, beautiful allegory called The Difficulty of Crossing a Field for the Kronos Quartet and 11 singers, which is gaining popularity after two productions and has a tour in the works. Lang’s current project is a complete musical rewrite of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, using the original libretto and bringing to light its hidden political overtones.

“The interesting composers very often create their own standards for your judgment,” says Bresnick. “Nobody really knew how to think about that until they tried it. David Lang is often associated with minimalism, but his particular brand of simplicity — his own approach is quite distinctive. I don’t think anybody else does what he does.” v

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So Percussion, the ensemble of former Yale students which premiered Lang’s “the so-called laws” at the Bang on a Can Marathon in 2001.

Reich. Lang’s work has even been called post-minimalist or “totalist,” in that it troubles the notion that repetition alone can make a piece provocative today — although Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times probably got it about right when he said of Lang’s compositions, “There is no name yet for this kind of music.”

“All my work is about that issue,” Lang says, “about how repeating things not quite exactly but with very tiny differences can, over a period of time, make you listen more closely. When you hear things that make grand gestures with lots of change, you can sit back in your chair and hear loud things happen and not pay that much attention. When things are happening on a very microscopic level, slightly the same and slightly different, then you have a different job as a listener.

Your job is to listen more closely, to listen in a more focused way and to become a more active participant in what’s going on.”

Lang works in an original language that plays with all of the boundaries of traditional concert music, and yet is beginning to garner the establishment’s attention in a substantial way. Last year he earned a Pulitzer Prize for music in his hybrid opera The Little Match Girl Passion, a mark of distinction for any composer — and an edgy move for the Pulitzer jury, even after giving the award to experimental jazz musician Ornette Coleman the year before. And now his new album Pierced is out on the Naxos label, whose catalogue usually hews carefully to more mainstream classical art music.

The irony is not lost on Lang.

46

april 2009

“My world is messed up,” he admits. “It’s unusual for Naxos. This is slightly creepy, but now that I won the Pulitzer Prize, people who would not get near me with a ten-foot pole are actually being a lot nicer to me.

“If people are really willing to go out on a limb for me now because I have the credential so they can trust me, how far out on a limb can I go?” he wonders.

“Maybe I can actually ask for more ridiculous things now that somebody will believe me. I feel like that’s the way I’m going to handle it — by being even more ridiculous.”

So what’s next? Lang says, “[It’s] sort of my love, doing these weird, hybrid operas,” like The Little Match Girl Passion, inspired

by Hans Christian Andersen’s fable and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Another of Lang’s choral works is a strange, beautiful allegory called The Difficulty of Crossing a Field for the Kronos Quartet and 11 singers, which is gaining popularity after two productions and has a tour in the works. Lang’s current project is a complete musical rewrite of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, using the original libretto and bringing to light its hidden political overtones.

“The interesting composers very often create their own standards for your judgment,” says Bresnick. “Nobody really knew how to think about that until they tried it. David Lang is often associated with minimalism, but his particular brand of simplicity — his own approach is quite distinctive. I don’t think anybody else does what he does.” v

Classical Graduate students from the Yale School of Music will perform Lunchtime Chamber Music. 12:30 p.m. April 1 & 29 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. 203-432-4158, yale.edu/music.

12:30 p.m. April 15 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven.

Free. 203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

Graduate student Iván Naranjo performs an Open Walk Through Fixed Sonic Territories. 7 p.m. April 2 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

New Music by Yale composers and others is performed by the Yale Camerata for Palm Sunday. 3 p.m.

April 5 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, yale. edu/music.

The Yale Concert Band performs Artie Shaw’s Concerto for Clarinet with David Shifrin. Program also includes CHAVEZ Sinfonia India, STRAVINSKY Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) and other works. 7:30 p.m. April 3 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. Free. 203432-4113, yale.edu/yaleband.

Bring your own lunch and enjoy the Bach’s Lunch concert series, where Neighborhood Music School (NMS) faculty members and guest artists perform. The modern transverse flute and fipple flute are performed side by side by Naomi Senzer and Larry Zukof in A Flöte by Any Other Name.

Program also features Telemann’s double concerto for recorder and flute with strings. 12:10 p.m. April 3 at 100 Audubon St., New Haven. Free. 203-6245189, nmsmusicschool.org.

Music director Thomas C. Duffy leads the Yale Jazz Ensemble in its spring concert. 7:30 p.m. April 6 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free.

203-432-4113, yale.edu/yaleband.

The Yale Chamber Music Society welcomes the Nash Ensemble from London. Program for clarinet, horn, string trio and piano includes VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Quintet in D Major, DUKAS Vilanelle for horn and piano, SCHUMANN Fairy Tales (Marchenerzahlungen) for Clarinet, Viola & Piano, Op. 132 and DVORAK Piano Quartet in E-flat Major. 8 p.m. April 7 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $34-$27 ($14 students). 203-4324158, yale.edu/music.

Eponymously titled senior recital, Claude Moïse: Cartoon Melodies.

7 p.m. April 11 at Memorial Chapel, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free.

860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Max Heath performs a graduate recital, Pavilion Circadian. 7 p.m. April 3 at Memorial Chapel, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Yale School of Music’s Degree Recitals continue with a plethora of Master of Music Recitals by violinists Nicholas DiEugenio (5 p.m. April 3), Jiyun Han (8 p.m. April 6 at Sudler Recital Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven), Vesselin Todorov (8 p.m. April 8), YuTing Huang (5 p.m. April 19) and Ruby Chen (2 p.m. April 28); Matt Hofstadt on viola (2 p.m. April 19); oboists Michelle Farah (8 p.m. April 3), Jennifer Shark (5 p.m. April 22) and Merideth Hite (5 p.m. April 25); Jacques Lee Wood (5 p.m. April 4 at Sudler Recital Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven) and Joann Whang on cellos (5 p.m. April 11 at Sudler Recital Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven); percussionists Lia Deroin (5 p.m. April 4), Michael Zell (2 p.m. April 5), Ji Hye Jung (4 p.m. April 5), Michael Compitello (8 p.m. April 5) and Denis Petrunin (4 p.m. April 29); Jennifer Griggs, trombone (8 p.m. April 9); guitarist Simon Powis (8 p.m. April 10); harp players Ashley Jackson (8 p.m. April 11) and Colleen Potter (8 p.m.

April 16); and double bassists Brian Thacker (8 p.m. April 21) and Wen Yang (8 p.m. April 27 at Sudler Recital Hall,

Homages, Tributes & Mash-Ups — An Evening of Original(ish) Music.

Undergraduate Joe Newman’s senior recital. 9 p.m. April 4 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown.

Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Photo credit: Xun Wang

Faculty composer Martin Bresnick’s Caprichos Enfaticos, a multimedia work with sketches by Francisco Goya, is performed by So Percussion and pianist Lisa Moore as part of New Music New Haven (see OFNOTES).

Program also includes Ted Hearne’s brass quintet, plus three oboes and two bassoons; Andrew Norman’s Lost Time for solo piano; Polina Nazaykinskaya’s Three Fairy Tales for mezzo-soprano; and Naftali Schindler’s Violin Duet. 8 p.m. April 2 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, yale. edu/music.

breath.” The Yale Philharmonia, under the baton of Shinik Hahm, performs this riveting work along with Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes” from Peter Grimes, conducted by Farkhad Khudiyev, and Saint-Saens’ Cello Concerto with soloist Ashley Bathgate. 8 p.m. April 4 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, yale.edu/ music.

100 Wall St., New Haven). Also, cellists Hannah Collins (2 p.m. April 4 at Sudler Recital Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven), Yan Ming Alvin Wong (5 p.m. April 24) and Ying-Chi Tang (8 p.m. April 25 at Sudler Recital Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven); Wei-Jen Yuan (5 p.m. April 10), Hyun Ju Jang (8 p.m. April 22) and Christopher Miranda (8 p.m. April 26) tickle the ivories; Tianxia Wu, horn (8 p.m. April 13 at Sudler Recital Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven); Stephanie Fairbairn plays the tuba (2 p.m. April 18 at Sudler Recital Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven); while Jaehee Choi dazzles the crowd with clarinet (5 p.m. April 27) in Artist Diploma Recitals. Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven except where noted. Free. 203-432-4158, yale. edu/music.

Ashley Bathgate, a winner of the 2008 Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition, will perform as the soloist in a musical work along with the Yale Philharmonia on April 4 in Woolsey Hall.

Steven Kellogg’s The Island of the Skog is the work senior undergraduate David Moench will perform for his recital. 9 p.m. April 3 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown.

Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Toshiyuki Shimada directs the Yale Symphony Orchestra in the Waite Concerto Competition. 10 a.m. April 4 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, yale.edu/ music.

Herbert von Karajan said once of hearing Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 5, “You forget that time has passed.

A great performance of the Fifth is a transforming experience. The fantastic finale almost forces you to hold your

Wesleyan Cello Ensemble and Solo Cellists. A concert of solos and ensemble music for cellists. 7 p.m. April 16 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-6853355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan. edu/cfa.

Avin Lucier, experimental music professor and seminal artist of the sound art movement, performs Glacier, a commissioned work for solo cello and electronics. Noon April 17 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

La Navarraise & The Bear. A double bill of Jules Massenet’s La Navarraise and William Walton’s The Bear. Artistic Director Doris Yarick-Cross is assisted

by Musical Director Douglas Dickson and accompanist Timothy Shaindlin.

7:30 p.m. April 17 & 18 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $12-$8 ($5 students). 203-432-4158, yale.edu/music.

Liana’s Senior Recital. Liana Harnandez, performs her senior recital. 9 p.m. April 17 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown.

MUSIC Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Elizabeth Verveer Tishler Piano Recital features the winner and finalist of the Piano Competition of the same name. 2 p.m. April 18 at Russell House, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free.

860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Alex King performs his senior recital, Soul to Soil. 6 p.m. April 18 at World Music Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Soprano Lauren Libaw joins the Yale Symphony Orchestra and Yale Camerata under the baton of Marguerite L. Brooks in Celebrating the Memory of C. William Harwood.

Program: CORIGLIANO Elegy for Orchestra, MOZART Exultate Jubilate and HOLST The Planets. 8 p.m. April 18 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. $15-$10 ($2 students). 203-4324158, yale.edu/music.

Music students perform opera scenes and oratorio selections under the direction of Priscilla Gale in an Opera/ Oratorio Performance. 8 p.m. April 18 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $5 ($4 seniors, students). 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan. edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Wesleyan Concert Choir and Middletown Chorale perform in a combined choral concert featuring double-choir choral works, University Concert Choir selections and Schubert’s Mass in G with string orchestra. 4 p.m. April 19 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $25 ($20 seniors & students).

860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Messiaen’s Le corps glorieux: sept visions brèves de la vie des ressuscités will be part of the program of Great Organ Music at Yale with Martin Jean of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. 5 p.m. April 19 at Christ Church Episcopal, 84 Broadway, New Haven. Free. yale. edu/ism.

This special concert with the Yale Cellos recognizes Aldo Parisot’s 50-year anniversary of service as a faculty member of the Yale School of Music. Featuring the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos, a close friend of Parisot’s, including the Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 (for cello ensemble) and No. 5 (with soprano Hyunah Yu).

Also on the program are Christopher Rouse’s Rapturedux; David Popper’s Requiem, with Elizabeth Sawyer Parisot, piano; Dave Brubeck’s Elegy and The Desert and the Parched Land and Ezra Laderman’s Simoes. Program will be repeated in Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall April 21. 8 p.m. April 20 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $15-

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of California/San Diego performs Martin Bresnick’s Tent of Miracles and Christopher Cerrone’s Variations on a Still Point, plus music by Xenakis, Takemitsu, Manoury and others. 8 p.m.

April 26 at Sudler Recital Hall, 100 Wall St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, yale. edu/music.

Liederabend is an evening of songs with performers from Yale Opera. 8 p.m.

April 27 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, yale. edu/music.

Benjamin Verdery directs a performance of Guitar Chamber Music.

8 p.m. April 29 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-4324158, yale.edu/music.

The Hillhouse Opera Company performs scenes from Madama Butterfly, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Der Rosenkavalier, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Les Huguenots in Spring Opera Scenes. Catch the unfolding drama in New Haven (location TBD) on April 25-26 & May 1 & 3. $10 ($5 students). 203-432-4158, yale. edu/music.

The final concert in the 2008-09 Horowitz Piano Series will include Boris Berman performing Chopin’s Barcarolle, Polonaise-Fantaisie and selected Nocturnes, and Debussy’s Images (Books 1 & 2) and Estampes. 8 p.m. April 23 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $18-$10 ($5 students).

203-432-4158, yale.edu/music.

with classical selections by Orchestra New England. Paul Winter, the awardwinning saxophonist, bandleader, composer, explorer of the world’s musical traditions works alongside the versatile orchestra in an unforgettable evening celebrating Earth Day and ONE’s 35th anniversary. 8 p.m. April 25 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. $135-$20. 888-736-2663, shubert. com.

Jacob Gold performs Helen! The Face That Launched One Ship That She Never Saw, his senior student recital.

9 p.m. April 23 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free.

860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Neighborhood Music School’s Bach’s Brunch features NMS faculty members Emily Fine (horn), Kathy Giampietro (oboe) and Sara Kohane (piano), performing an Unusual Combo: Music for Oboe, Horn and Piano. Noon April 26 at 100 Audubon St., New Haven.

Free. 203-624-5189, nmsmusicschool.org.

Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra. The “Waltz King” returns to Arena at Harbor Yard for a night of breathtaking music with audience members filling the aisles as they waltz along to the music — just as Strauss himself would have wanted it. 7:30 p.m.

April 24 at Arena at Harbor Yard, 600 Main St., Bridgeport. $159.25-$50.25. 203368-1000, arenaatharboryard.com.

George Flynn Classical Concerts presents the New England Conservatory percussion group. 3 p.m.

April 26 at Gagnon Auditorium, Morgan High School, 27 Killingworth Tpke., Clinton. Free (tickets must be requested via self-addressed stamped envelope to George Flynn Classical Concerts, Box 473, Clinton 06413). 860-669-1208, georgeflynnclassicalconcerts.com.

Stephanie Ross performs her senior recital, Musical Favorites. 2 p.m. April 25 at Russell House, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Hillhouse Opera Co. performs its Spring Opera Scenes in New Haven this month. The show will include scenes from Madame Butterfly, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Der Rosenkavalier, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Les Huguenots. 7 p.m. April 25 & May 1, 2:30 p.m. April 26 & May 3 at New Haven location TBA. Suggested donation $10. hillhouseoperacompany@gmail. com, hillhouseoperacompany.org.

Orchestra New England (ONE) and the Paul Winter Consort join forces for a special Earth Day Celebration.

A unique amalgam of earth music, a vital celebration of the creatures and cultures of the whole earth, interwoven

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april 2009

Jeffrey Douma conducts sopranos Adelaide Muir and Mireille Asselin, tenor Michael-Paul Krubitzer and basses Damien Pass and Tyler Simpson in Haydn’s Creation. Preconcert lecture by Elaine Sisman, Anne Parsons Bender Professor of Music at Columbia University. Lecture 2:45 p.m. in the Woolsey Hall President’s Room, concert 4 p.m. April 26 at Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-4324158, yale.edu/music.

Pianist Carolyn Halsted and cellist Julie Ribchinsky perform Ravel, Rorem, Moeran and more in Music for Piano and Cello. 7:30 p.m. April 26 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Contemporary Music from UCSD. An international contemporary music ensemble based at the University

Saxophonist, composer and professor Anthony Braxton, known for his groundbreaking jazz and experimental music, conducts an intimate Small Ensemble. 8 p.m. April 29 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Wesleyan Gamelan Ensemble presents Javanese Music & Dance, featuring classical music and dance of central Java under the direction of I.M. Harjito, Sumarsam and Urip Sri Maeny. 8 p.m. April 30 at World Music Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown.

Free. 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

New Music New Haven showcases music by faculty composer David Lang (see OFNOTES), plus works by other Yale composers. 8 p.m. April 30 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, yale.edu/ music.

Sorey’s work with Steve Coleman, Dave Douglas, Vijay Iyer and others have opened the ears of appreciators of creative music and virtuosic drumming everywhere. Here they join forces with Pete Robbins, a young saxophonist/ composer whose “Brooklyn progmodern (post)jazz” endeavors blur the boundaries between mainstream and avant-garde jazz. 8:30 ($15) and 10 p.m. ($10) April 3 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. 203-785-0468, firehouse12. com.

Drum Circle. Bring any hand percussion, large or small, and a chair and join this improvised ensemble. 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Every Sunday at the bus stop at Cross High School, 181 Mitchell Dr., New Haven. Free. jef@eastrockstudio. com.

Canadian rock singersongwriter and photographer Bryan Adams continues his highly successful solo acoustic concert tour in select U.S. cities including a stop at New Haven’s Shubert. 8 p.m. April 6 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $150-$40. 800-228-6622, shubert.com.

American singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne leaves his farm in Maine to perform in New Haven in support of a new CD, Gossip in the Grain. 8 p.m. April 8 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $38-$30. 800228-6622, shubert.com.

Since Allen Bailey started the Harlem Gospel Choir in 1986, the group has performed with the likes of U2, B.B. King, Mary J. Blige, Elton John, the Johann Strauss Orchestra and Diana Ross. Come listen to the message of love and inspiration this group delivers.

7:30 pm April 10 at the Paul Mellon Arts

Clad in vibrant colors, the Harlem Gospel Choir, sing their hearts out on April 10 at The Paul Mellon Arts Center in Wallingford. They’ll have everyone singing along in no time.

Popular The Robbins/Pavone/Sorey Trio unites three accomplished improvisercomposers. Waterbury native Mario Pavone’s years in Thomas Chapin’s band and his critically acclaimed releases as a leader make him one of the most important jazz bass voices of the last three decades. Tyshawn

Center, 333 Christian St., Wallingford. $20 ($15 seniors & students). 203-697-2035, choate.edu/boxoffice.

Eclectic jazz pianist George Colligan gives a two-set performance with his band, the George Colligan Trio.

The concert will feature music from their recent album, Runaway. Come experience a style that incorporates everything from show tunes to funk,

from free improvisation to modern classical music. 8:30 ($15) and 10 p.m. ($10) April 10 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. 203-785-0468, firehouse12.com.

Fresh off their headlining North American tour in support of their platinum album Indestructible, Grammynominated hard-rock band Disturbed will launch the Music As A Weapon IV Tour — a music, tattoo and lifestyle festival. Festival features some of the nation’s most renowned tattoo artists offering their talents to attendees in each city, including the world-famous

Jazz Orchestra Weekend: Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra. The Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra, directed by Jay Hoggard, and the Noah Baerman-led Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble perform an exciting program of classic jazz orchestra compositions, including works by Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Thad Jones, Oliver Nelson and others. 8 p.m. April 24 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-6853355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan. edu/cfa.

Photo credit: Matthew Fried

The Banlieues Bleues Festival in Paris had asked Wadada Leo Smith and his band Organic Resonance to headline the program with a new project, which eventually became a new permanent ensemble. Initially it had two keyboard players (Vijay Iyer and James Hurt), a guitarist (Nels Cline), an electric bassist (Skuli Sverrisson) and a drummer (Pheeroan akLaff) in its lineup. For the second trip to Europe last year, as headliners for the Saalfelden Jazz Festival, Brandon Ross had replaced Nels Cline. Since then, the keyboards have been replaced with two guitars, plus an additional acoustic bass. The Firehouse 12 performance will be the first one to introduce this reconstituted Organic Resonance ensemble. 8:30 ($15) and 10 p.m. ($10) April 17 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. 203-785-0468, firehouse12. com.

Ariel and Mia Friedman Trio. Ari and Mia are talented young artists. Ari is easily the equal of Rushad Eggleston and Natalie Haas, two of the best “alternative” cellists now performing.

Mia is on her way to being a stunning multi-instrumentalist. Currently in the New England Conservatory’s contemporary improvisation program, she’s an experienced and refreshing improviser who’ll knock your socks off. 7 p.m. April 25 at North Madison Congregational Church, 1271 Durham Rd., Madison. $15 ($5 children). 203421-3241, workdog@mindspring.com, northmadisoncc.org/9.html.

The sensational 22-year-old saxophonist, Noah Preminger, performs with the Noah Preminger Quartet at Firehouse 12 in New Haven on April 24.

Young saxophonist Noah Preminger more than holds his own with his more experienced companions in the Noah Preminger Quartet with trumpeter Russ Johnson, guitarist Ben Monder,

Hammond B-3 and piano double threat Dr. Lonnie Smith commands a worldwide fan base and has contributed his edgy yet accessible keyboard stylings to more than 70 recordings. Smith has been on the jazz forefront since Downbeat Magazine hailed him as the “Top Organist of 1969.” Now considered a forefather of acid jazz, his diverse collaborations alongside prolific borrowing and loaning of material have secured him relevance across genres and generations. Smith has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Grover Washington, Kenny Garrett, Ron Carter and other jazz legends. His sumptuous grooves have been sampled by rap and hip-hop artists, and Smith in turn has covered Beck’s alt-rock hit “Loser” and recorded tribute albums to Hendrix and Coltrane.

8 p.m. April 25 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $18 ($16 seniors & students). 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Hearing China: Chinese Music Concert.

Diverse styles of Chinese classical and contemporary music performed by the Wesleyan Chinese Music Ensemble led

by Guowei Wang. Audience members are invited to examine the instruments and talk to the musicians following the

concert. 7 p.m. April 26 at World Music Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $3. 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Photo credit: Mark Sheldon

Cindy Kallet and Grey Larsen. Superb singer, guitarist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kallet teams up with Larsen, one of America’s finest players of the Irish flute and tin whistle, concertina, fiddle, piano and harmonium (and an accomplished singer). As a composer each has contributed to the unique tapestry of contemporary folk and world music in America today. Together they weave songs and tunes of vibrant color and rich texture. The duo is sure to play songs from their latest CD, Cross the Water. 8 p.m. April 11 at Branford Folk Music Society, First Congregational Church, 1009 Main St., Branford. $12 members, $15 nonmembers, $5 children 12 and under.

203-488-7715, branfordfolk@yahoo.com, harbourtownrecords.com/peters.html.

pianist Frank Kimbrough, bassist John Hebert and drummer Ted Poor.

Preminger is both an improviser and composer of great versatility, wit and emotional depth, drawing on a wide range of inspirations for compositions with memorable melodies and intriguing structures. 8:30 ($15) and 10 p.m. ($10) April 24 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. 203-785-0468, firehouse12.com.

Oliver Peck of Las Vegas’s Hart & Huntington Tattoo Co. Attendees will also be able to check out an extreme sports complex where freestyle motocross, BMX and skate teams will perform, a technology and gaming zone and a vendor village. Killswitch Engage will join Disturbed on the main stage, while Lacuna Coil, Chimaira and other acts will perform on the second stage. 2 p.m. (festival) 7 p.m. (concert) April 21 at Arena at Harbor Yard, 600 Main St., Bridgeport. $39.75. 203-3681000, arenaatharboryard.com.

Master jazz organist and forefather of acid jazz, Lonnie Smith, shows the crowd why his tunes have been sampled by rap and hip-hop artists at Wesleyan University on April 25.

Prepare your heart for an evening of joy with the Wesleyan University Ebony Singers. Their inspiring and uplifting songs will bless your life for sure. Be ready to clap and sing along with this special group on what promises to be a special evening. 8 p.m. April 27 at Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $7. 860-685-3355, cfa@ wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Joe Cocker is one of music’s greatest soul and rhythm & blues artists. He is instantly recognizable for his earthy and unique guttural voice, which is known and loved the world over.

Having the uncanny ability to take wellknown songs and instantly make them his own, this once-in-a-lifetime-artist is not to be missed. 7:30 p.m. April 28 at the Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $81.75-$41.75. 203-755-4700, palacetheaterct.org.

Grammy Award-winning Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter k.d. lang performs songs from Watershed, her newest release. 8 p.m. April 28 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $58. 800-228-6622, shubert.com.

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PHOTOGRAPH:

David Cooper, 2008.

Bill Camp as the Underground Man in Yale Rep’s production of Notes from the Underground.

Finally Fyodor Bill Camp channels the alienation of Dostoevsky at the Yale Rep

By Brooks Appelbaum

M

ost actors will tell you that they love a challenge. But few actors define the word “challenge” like Bill Camp does.

With director Robert Woodruff, Camp has adapted for the stage Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, which is having its world-premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre through April 11. Camp is also playing the Underground Man, which means that he is at the center of what is practically a fulllength one-man show. (The Underground Man is joined, briefly, by the characters of Apollon and Liza, played by Michaël Attias and Merritt Janson. Attias is also sound designer and composer, and both perform the music onstage.)

The project began less than nine months ago. And what drew Camp to it was the challenge.

As Camp tells it, he and Woodruff had worked together previously, though not as writing collaborators; “I had been in a couple of his productions, and we were looking to do something together again,” Camp explains. “We wanted to do something that was totally different for both of us — taking a piece of prose literature and finding a way to make it theatrical.

“We were having brunch about a year ago and I had that particular novel on my mind,” he says. “I suggested that maybe we should look at [Notes from the Underground] because it’s written in the format of a monologue. So that seemed to have some openings, some ways in which 50

april 2009

we could find forms theatrically in which to tell that story, and it would be exciting and” — he emits a warm and slightly rueful laugh — “it would also be extremely challenging.”

Camp describes the early stages of collaboration: “So Robert read it and he said, ‘You go ahead and take the first part and take a crack at it,’ and he took the second part and took a crack at it, and we each took multiple, multiple cracks at it.”

Explaining his fascination with the project, Camp notes that Woodruff has done a great deal of work with adapters and translators. As for him, “I have never done anything remotely like this, really,”

he acknowledges. “And we’re incredibly fortunate because it’s not just Robert and I, it’s Michaël and Merritt, and [dramaturg] Amy Boratko, and all of the designers.”

The intensity of the collaboration clearly fascinates and delights him.

“It’s a real collaboration in every sense of everybody who just happens to be in the room because we’re kind of inventing something, we’re making a vocabulary and trying to find the best frames and forms in which we can create an architecture for how we’re going to tell this story,” Camp explains.

The scope of his role as the Underground

Man only draws Camp in further. “I’ve never taken on — in the sense of the size of what we are doing, in terms of just text — I’ve never done anything as large as that, so that’s very challenging. And I trust Robert so much that it’s just incredibly exciting to work with him, and to work with Michaël and Merritt and everybody else. It’s a challenge, but that’s what’s really fantastic about it.”

Camp is also excited by what he views as strong connections between the novella and “what’s going on now, certainly economically, in this country. In terms of the crumbling edifice of our economy that people have put so much faith into for such a long time, and now we see it falling apart, Notes from Underground speaks directly to that.”

He likewise discusses the novella’s attitudes towards science. “And it’s interesting how [Dostoevsky] talks about natural science and natural laws and essentially mathematics and that human actions can all be calculated to that,” says Camp. “I find a relation to that in terms of the trust and the willingness we show to give over to technology, to give over to the idea of being able now to create

human beings out of a test tube and to clone them.”

Camp also sees a more sinister parallel between recent political events and the Underground Man’s tirade against the corrupting influence of civilization.

Through his character, says Camp, Dostoevsky argues that civilization has actually made man more bloodthirsty and capable of war, rather than less. The Underground Man claims that civilization has encouraged humans to turn a blind eye to facts, and to lie in order to justify violence. Camp draws here a correlation to the way those in power lied to build a case for the war with Iraq.

Camp says that while others might be repelled by the Underground Man, he himself — like any thoughtful actor — finds elements to love in him.

“He is an extremist, obviously, and he goes to the point of testing the strength of human beings in terms of their spiritual principles: in terms of compassion, love, unconditional love,” Camp explains.

“He pushes those things to the ultimate edge and he’s not necessarily a very sympathetic character — but he is, absolutely.”

Your Palace ~ Your Place T O S E E T O U R I N G B R O A D WAY

In the final analysis, the Underground Man is sympathetic because we hide our darkest elements, while he celebrates his in a ferocious way.

“He’s got an addictive mind,” says Camp.

“And he’s obsessive, compulsive. And I think that’s something that, I don’t know if I dare say, but I think that’s something that is just human. Maybe not in everybody, but I think we all have our own obsessions and compulsions.”

As an actor, Camp has signed up to be just as courageously (or outrageously) honest as his character. “Something about this particular story is that there’s a direct address to the audience. That’s very exciting because then it becomes a very inclusive thing, everybody in the room.

And it won’t be everybody sitting back and watching Michaël and Merritt and Bill in this beautiful set with this beautiful imagery and beautiful language, detached.

And I think that’s exciting; I think we’ll be in the ballpark with that.”

Those who join Camp, Woodruff and their collaborators are undoubtedly in for an exciting challenge, too. v

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CABARET Devin Brain directs A Portrait of the Woman as a Young Artist, the story of a muse with creative ambitions of her own. Written by Meg Miroshnik. 8 p.m.

Thurs.-Sat. & 11 p.m. Fri.-Sat. April 2-4 at Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $15 ($10 students). 203-432-1566, ysd. cabaret@yale.edu, yale.edu/cabaret.

Enjoy music with a play in Waking, a production by Phillip Owen. 8 p.m.

Thurs.-Sat. & 11 p.m. Fri.-Sat. April 9-11 at Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $15 ($10 students). 203-432-1566, ysd. cabaret@yale.edu, yale.edu/cabaret.

St., Waterbury. $63-$53. 203-755-4700, palacetheaterct.org.

Internationally acclaimed director Robert Woodruff and award-winning actor Bill Camp join forces to stage Notes from Underground — the revolutionary novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. “I am a sick man...I am a wicked man,” cries the Underground Man, one of modern literature’s first and most remarkable antiheros. A former government official who has defiantly withdrawn from a corrupt society, the Underground Man wages his own personal war on everything — and everyone — around him. At once laugh-out-loud funny and terrifying, Notes from Underground is the passionate, obsessive and contradictory confession of a tormented soul. Through April 11 at Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. $65-$20. 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.

Celebrate the resurrection of Christ with Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece, Jesus Christ Superstar. With performances at the Shubert Theater (April 3-5) and the Palace Theater (April 15) there’s no reason not to catch the show.

In Arabic, Ainadamar means “Fountain of Tears.” Ainadamar is Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov’s first opera.

The libretto was created by American playwright David Henry Hwang. This opera tells the story of a playwright and his lover and muse. The tale is recounted in reverse via flashbacks and involves accusations of homosexuality and murder. Ainadamar is both an opera and a passion play. Jesse Jou directs. 8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. & 11 p.m.

Fri.-Sat. April 16-18 at Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $15 ($10 students).

203-432-1566, ysd.cabaret@yale.edu, yale.edu/cabaret.

THEATER The world of musical theatre was forever changed in 1971, when the first masterpiece from the legendary writing team of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jesus Christ Superstar, burst onto the scene. With a score of amazing songs — “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” “Hosanna,” “Everything’s Alright,” “What’s the Buzz,” “Superstar” and “Heaven on Their Mind” — this original groundbreaking production stars Ted Neeley in the title role. April 3-5 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $68-$15. 203624-1825, shubert.com. 7:30 p.m. April 15 at the Palace Theater, 100 E. Main

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A veteran of stage and screen in Italy, Marco Baliani has been involved in nearly all aspects of dramaturgy and theatrical presentation. Corpo di Stato.

Il delitto Moro: Una generazione divisa (Body of the State. The Moro Affair: A Generation Divided) concerns the 1978 kidnapping, sequestration and assassination of the then-director of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, Aldo Moro, by the Italian terrorist organization Brigate Rosse. Baliani in Corpo di Stato elaborates the mourning of the as yet “unburied” body of Moro in political terms. He reckons with Moro’s “reverent” — as the undead are known — and his effect on the devolution of the Italian left in the years that followed the Moro Affair. 8 p.m. April 16 at CFA Theater, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $6. 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

When Elmo and his Sesame Street Live friends think about growing up, it’s a musical show-and-tell. Bert dreams of becoming a forest ranger, Telly longs to be a cowboy and their newest friend, Abby Cadabby, wants to be a fairy godmother just like her mommy. Elmo thinks about becoming a “weather monster,” but has a hard time predicting his own forecast — he wants to be anything and everything all at once. 7 p.m. April 16, 10:30 a.m. & 7 p.m.

April 17, 10:30 a.m. & 2 p.m. April 18 and

1 & 4:30 p.m. April 19 at Arena at Harbor Yard, 600 Main St., Bridgeport. $33-$14.

203-368-1000, arenaatharboryard.com.

Photo: Paul Roth

ONSTAGE

Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical. This small musical from Minneapolis has taken regional theaters by storm. A humorous, forthright, no-holdsbarred assessment of mid-life, from reading glasses and red convertibles to weekend warriors and proctology exams. Through April 26 at Seven Angels Theatre, 1 Plank Rd., Waterbury. $45-$32.50 ($10 students). 203-757-4676, sevenangelstheatre.org.

Director Eric Tingand Craig Siebels have adapted The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel of a young boy recounting the tale of an old Cuban fisherman’s 85-day struggle to land a whopper. Enjoy the story of a man armed with little more than a few coils of fishing line, who comes to respect and love his adversary while confronting his own mortality in a tale of man against beast and the elements, of courage and faith and of the enduring human spirit. April 1-26 at Long Wharf Theatre Stage II, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $62-$32. 203-787-4282, 800-782-8497, info@longwharf.org, longwharf.org.

The Yale Rep brings Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer- and Tony-winning masterpiece Death of a Salesman to its stage for the first time in a brand new production with artistic direction by James Bundy and featuring three-time Emmy and two-time Tony nominee Charles S. Dutton as Willy Loman. For Loman, as for many, the American Dream is the only dream. Achieving that dream is a whole different story. After 36 years on the road in its pursuit, the traveling salesman, haunted by missed opportunities and an uncertain future, must come to terms with a lifetime of self-deception that has distorted his dream into an American tragedy.

Laugh at memories of your (or your parents’) mid-life experience with the cast of Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical, as they explore hot flashes, sports cars, weekend warriors and proctology exams, amongst other mid-life rights of passage through April 26 at Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury.

April 24-May 23 (opening night April 30) at Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. $65-$20. 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.

From the team that brought you Singin’ in the Rain, Goodspeed Musicals opens its 2009 season with the dazzling Broadway song-and-dance extravaganza 42nd Street, with music

by Harry Warren and lyrics by Al Dubin based on the book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble. It’s the ultimate fairy tale as a stage-struck understudy becomes an overnight star. Packed with razzmatazz and plenty of pizzazz, it will set your heart pounding with its rhythmically tapping feet and hit parade of songs: “Lullaby of Broadway,” “We’re in the Money,” “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” and of course “42nd Street.” April 17June 28 at Goodspeed Opera House, 6

CRITIC’S PICK: Spread Your Wings

Spring is a time of birth and renewal. A different and better future can only be built when the mistakes of the past are taken into account.

This production helps teach those who are our future about our past. A Holocaust remembrance piece adapted for the

stage and movingly underscored with music and visual media, The Very Last Butterfly is a collection of poems, narrative and drawings created by children who passed through the Terezin concentration camp during World War II. The broad range of

style and treatment of subject matter in both the poems and drawings illustrates the feelings, hopes and dreams of children growing up in such a desolate place. While the work tells a few of many Holocaust stories, it also serves as a springboard for inquiry and powerful source of inspiration and perspective for young people today.

Best for grades 4-8. 9:30 & 11:30 a.m. April 20 at the Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $8. 203-755-4700, palacetheaterct.org.

— Elvira J. Duran

BELLES LETTRES Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson is the lecturer for the Dwight H. Terry Lectures at Yale University this year. Robinson’s theme is Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self. The lectures — titled “On Human Nature,” “The Strange History of Altruism,” “The Freudian Sel” and “Thinking Again” — will explore the significance of reflection and the power of unvoiced thoughts in defining the self. The Terry Lectureship, established in 1905, invites distinguished scholars to address issues concerning the ways in which science and philosophy inform religion and religion’s application to human welfare. A reception follows each lecture. 4:30 p.m. March 24, 26, 31 & April 2 in Room 102, 63 High St., New Haven. yale.edu/opa.

The Writers Live! Series brings Yale’s Francis Writer-in-Residence, Anne Fadiman and her students to the Elm City to read her profile of Samuel Taylor Coleridge from her recent collection of essays, At Large and At Small. Her students, Molly Fischer, Anthony Lydgate and Justin Stone will share some of the profiles they have constructed of memorable local people. Coffee will be provided and books for purchase and signing will be available. 6 p.m. April 2 at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free. Registration. 203-946 -8835, nhbulletin.blogspot.com.

reporter. 7 p.m. April 15 at Mancheski Executive Seminar Room at Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden. Free. 203-582-5391, quinnipiac. edu.

camps until 1946, when he emigrated to the U.S. and began his formal education as an electrical engineer. 6 p.m. April 23 at the New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

Registration. 203-946 -8835, nhbulletin. blogspot.com.

Psychololgist and author, Ira Rosofsky, discusses his book Nasty Brutish and Long, Adventures in Old Age and the World of Eldercare on April 14 as part of the New Haven Public Library’s Writers Live! series.

Psychologist Ira Rosofsky converses at Writers Live! about his book Nasty, Brutish and Long: Adventures in Old Age and the World of Eldercare, which Publishers Weekly describes as “a disturbing, often moving account of the lives of some of the two million men and women who reside in America’s 18,000 nursing homes.” 6 p.m. April 14 at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free. Registration.

203-946 -8125, nhbulletin.blogspot.com.

Cary Krosinsky discusses and signs copies of his book Sustainable Investing: The Art of Long-Term Performance.

Written by international leaders in socially responsible investment, ethical and sustainable investment from Wall Street and the City, Sustainable Investing covers the full breadth and depth of sustainable investment. Topics include a thorough explanation of sustainable investment, its history, evolution and mainstreaming; how to select sustainable companies and investments including screening criteria, indices and indicators; investment analysis and performance; the changing landscape towards corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability; and changes in capital markets. A final section looks at future risk, and the possibilities for sustainable investment to actually encourage corporate survival — as well as potential investor returns going forward — in this era of pending climatic change. The 22 contributors include Ray Cheung, Paul McNamara, Sarbjit Nahal and Rachel Whittaker. 2 p.m. April 18 at the Yale Bookstore, 77 Broadway, New Haven. Free. 203-7778440, yalebookstore.com.

The Quinnipiac Society of Professional Journalists hosts Journalism’s Next Chapter, a lecture on the future of journalism, the decline of newspapers and how it will effect career options while new platforms are introduced.

Guest panelists include Melissa Bailey, managing editor of the online newspaper, the New Haven Independent; Bree Nordenson, writer for the Columbia Journalism Review; Joel Rawson, former executive editor of the Providence Journal; and Brian Stelter, New York Times media technology

Martin Schiller talks about Bread, Butter and Sugar: a Boy’s Journey Through the Holocaust and Postwar Europe, his new book, as part of the Writers Live! series. Schiller lived in Tarnobrzeg, Poland, the city of his birth until age nine, when World War II broke out. After several years of hiding in the Polish countryside, Schiller and his family surrendered to a labor camp under the false promise of safety. Following his liberation from Buchenwald in 1945, Schiller moved in and out of various Displaced Persons

Children’s Story Hour is a weekly gettogether for children and parent story lovers alike. 10 a.m. April 4, 11, 18 & 25 at the Yale Bookstore, 77 Broadway, New Haven. Free. 203-777-8440, crc-events@ snet.net, yalebookstore.com.

The Writers Group of the Milford Fine Arts Council, which includes fiction and poetry scribes, meets monthly.

Bring work in progress or completed manuscripts. 7:30 p.m. April 9 at the Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Ave., Milford. 203-878-6647, milfordarts.org.

CALENDAR

Wesleyan Professor and Anthropologist Gina A. Ulysse and Movement Teaching Artist Kerry Kincy have a conversation at Sunday Salon about the challenges and joys of using the arts to tell stories of survival that would otherwise remain untold and explore the healing power of the arts in diverse communities in Telling Voices: Movement, Words and Life History. 2-4 p.m. April 26 at Greenstreet Arts Center, 51 Green St., Middletown. $8 ($5 members, seniors & students). 860-685-7871, gsac@ wesleyan.edu, greenstreetartscenter.org.

R.J. Julia Booksellers hosts authors all month long. Join the author of Melonhead, Katy Kelly (4 p.m. April 1), for a Kids Event; Daniel Wolff discusses his book, How Lincoln Learned to Read (7 p.m. April 2); enjoy the How to Make Your Own Comic workshop with Andrew Arnold and Alexis Frederick-Frost, writers of Adventures in Cartooning (3 p.m. April 4. $20, includes the book.); Gail Blanke presents details on how to Throw Out Fifty Things (7 p.m. April 7); learn about Take It with Joshua Beckman (7 p.m. April 10); Peter Eichstaedt talks about First Kill Your Family (7 p.m. April 14); Best Actress Oscar winner, Marlee Matlin, reveals the ups and downs of her life in her presentation of I’ll Scream Later (7 p.m.

April 15); kids can participate in Pajama Story Hour with Jason Deeble, the author of Sir Ryan’s Quest (7 p.m. April 17) or the Nicholas Club Story Hour (2 p.m. April 18); Allegra Huston, sister of actress Anjelica Huston, offers a conversation on her recent work, Love Child (7 p.m. April 20); Laura Arens Fuerstein shows readers how to “break the glass of the carnival mirror that holds [their] distorted self-image and discover a more spontaneous, creative, and authentic life” as she discusses her work, My Mother, My Mirror (10 a.m. April 23); Ilana Stanger-Ross presents her work of fiction about an underground sisterhood revolving around undergarments in Sima’s Undergarments for Women (7 p.m. April 23); The Soul of Medicine is explored by Sherwin Nuland, M.D. (7 p.m. April 27).

R.J. Julia Booksellers, 768 Boston Post Rd., Madison. Free (unless otherwise noted).

Reservations required. 203-245-3959, mownbey@rjjulia.com, rjjulia.com.

BENEFITS Frank Bronner first hosted his Cheshire auto show, Cruizin’ for a Cause, to benefit the Petit MS memorial fund, and now he’s putting on a ’50s Sock

Hop. Proceeds benefit the National MS Society’s Connecticut Chapter, along with Hayley’s Hope and Michaela’s Miracle MS Memorial Fund, which was established by the Petit family following the killing of Cheshire residents Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Hayley and Michaela. The sock hop will feature music from the ’50s and ’60s, presented by Doo Wop DJ and Rockin’ Rosie. The event will also feature live performances by Furious George and his band. There will be prizes for Best Dressed ’50s, a twist contest and drawings for prizes. Guests are encouraged to dust off the saddle shoes and don pink poodle skirts, all reminiscent of the heyday of the drivein movie and drugstore soda fountain.

7 p.m. April 11 at the Four Points Sheraton, 275 Research Pkwy., Meriden. $25. 860-347-1671, ctfightsms.org.

The Travelers Walk MS, this year presented by St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, will be held at 11 locations statewide on April 19, including Cheshire High School in Cheshire and West Haven High School in West Haven. The annual Walk MS is the Connecticut Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s largest event, with more than 8,000 people stepping out across the state last year in support of their friends and neighbors. 9 a.m. April 19 at West Haven High School, 1 McDonough Plz., West Haven and Cheshire High School, 525 S Main St., Cheshire. ctfightsms.org.

The annual Leonardo Challenge engages hundreds of artisans and artists to produce stunning variations on clothespins, buttons, matches, bead chain and wooden spoons. This year’s theme is Unruly Invention.

All creations will be unveiled and auctioned at the benefit dinner on April 23, then displayed at the Eli Whitney Museum from April 23 through May 17.

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Help ensure no kid in America grows up hungry by joining chef co-chairs Jacques Pepin and Pedro Garzon at Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation New Haven. The Omni Hotel’s Grand Ballroom will be transformed into a colorful tropical paradise, filled with food and wine from around the world. This year, the event has partnered with the New Haven Public Schools Food Service and Yale Dining Services to end childhood hunger at the local level. 5:30-8 p.m. April 23 at Omni New Haven Hotel, 155 Temple St., New Haven. $125-$75. strength.org.

Chances are you have invented a nonspecified use for a ruler before: to hold open a door, prop up a box, etc. For the 15th Leonardo Challenge, Unruly Invention, designers play with rulers as an inventive challenge. They may cut, fold, bend, paint, draw and conceal the rulers. They may add movements and contexts. They may design with them.

The resultant ruling? An exhibition that defines creativity, using very few rules.

The benefit will entertain and enthrall with fine food and wine and interesting designs. It will reveal a treasury of imagination that has been a New Haven legacy since Eli Whitney and his colleagues incubated the American gift for invention here 200 years ago. Ruler designs will be auctioned at the benefit and displayed for a month. Benefit 5:309 p.m. April 23, exhibit through May 17 at Eli Whitney Museum, 915 Whitney Ave., Hamden. 203-777-1833, eliwhitney.org.

Dance to the music of Dick Campo’s 16-piece orchestra at Dance the Night Away II, the Chester Historical Society (CHS) Gala Fundraiser. Band selections include classic big band sounds from the ’40s swing era to the modern swing revival as well as Latin, soft rock, show tunes, waltzes and songs from the Great American Songbook. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres and an open bar in support of the CHS’s vision of the Chester Museum at the Mill. Silent and live auctions of items donated by local artists and merchants will be conducted throughout the evening. 7 p.m. April 25 at St. Joseph’s Hall, 47 Middlesex Ave, Chester. $45 members ($50 others). 860-526-9822, info@chesterhistoricalsociety.org, chesterhistoricalsociety.org.

finds himself among the hunted and his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist in Planet of the Apes (USA, 1968, 112 min.). 2 p.m. April 11 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven.

Free. 203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

Environmental Film Festival at Yale. The inaugural event, sponsored

by Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, will present films that raise awareness about a broad range of current environmental and related social issues. The studentinitiated festival includes screenings narrative films, documentaries, short films and student projects along with panel discussions, conversations with filmmakers and workshops. Check site for list of films and location. April 16-19 in New Haven. Free. effy@yale.edu, environment.yale.edu/film.

A 19th century shipping disaster strands a man and woman in the wilds of Africa.

The woman eventually gives birth to a son in their treehouse. When a family of apes stumbles upon the family both parents are killed and a female ape raises the boy as her own son. Twenty years later, a sea captain discovers the grown Tarzan. When evidence in the tree house suggests that Tarzan is the direct descendant of the Earl of Greystoke, the captain decides to force his return to civilization in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (UK, 1984, 143 min.). Hugh Hudson directs the picture. 2 p.m. April 18 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven.

Free. 203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

Si Al Cine Film Series screens director Mariano Barroso’s In the Time of the Butterflies (USA, 2001, 95 min.), a film inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government of Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. 6-8:30 p.m. April 24 at Fair Haven Branch Library, 182 Grand Ave., New Haven. Free. 203-946-8115.

Franklin J. Schaffner directs Charlton Heston as George Taylor in this story of an astronaut’s crash landing on a distant planet ruled by intelligent apes that use humans for experimentation and sport. When Taylor is captured, he

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Test your knowledge and have fun doing it at Anna Liffey’s Trivia Night.

Teams of one to five compete for prize money. Topics range from music to movies, politics to Shakespeare, geology to sports and everywhere in between. Ages 21 and older. Arrive early to get a table. 9 p.m. April 7, 14, 21 & 28 at Anna Liffey’s, 17 Whitney Ave., New Haven. $10 per team. 203-773-1776, annaliffeys.com.

With sorority sister chemistry, the Four Bitchin’ Babes — outrageously funny women and multi-talented musicians — perform original songs and stories offering both poignant views and unbridled comedic commentary on the joys and dilemmas of everyday life.

The Babes have a new show entitled Hormonal Imbalance...A Mood Swinging Musical Revue! Join Sally Fingerett, a second-chance newlywed turning 49 for the second time; Debi Smith, a Goddess to her husband and son, who knows what to do with all 95 pieces in a Sears Craftsman tool kit, can identify antifreeze by its fragrance and makes pesto from her garden; Nancy Moran, the purple-haired half of a DINK (Double Income No Kids) couple living in Nashville with her adoring and fabulous husband who cooks and cleans; and Deirdre Flint, a 30-something Single Sophisticate, in search of Mr. Right while listening to her heart, her judgmental girlfriends and her inner guidance counselor. 8 p.m. April 16 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $40-$25. 800228-6622, shubert.com.

Stand-up comedian, actress and selfproclaimed “D-list celebrity” Kathy Griffin graces the stage of the Chevrolet Theatre this month. 8 p.m. (doors open at 7 p.m.) April 25 at Chevrolet Theatre, 95 South Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $48$38. 203-269-8721, livenation.com.

Radio host and writer Garrison Keillor hosts a live broadcast of his popular public radio program, A Prairie Home Companion. 5:45 p.m. April 25 at the Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. Sold out. 203-755-4700, palacetheaterct.org.

CULINARY

CINEMA The Sea Wolf (USA, 1941, 90 min.). In this film adaptation of Jack London’s novel, a writer and two fugitives have been given refuge aboard a ship commanded by a cruel captain. The crew mutinies and the three men try to escape. However, they find themselves drawn inexorably back to the captain as the ship sails toward disaster. Directed

by Michael Curtiz. 2 p.m. April 4 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free.

203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

COMEDY

On April 25, public radio program, A Prairie Home Companion’s host and writer Garrison Kellior will broadcast live from the Palace Theater. The show is already sold out. It will feature comedy sketches, music, and Keillor’s signature monologue, “The News from Lake Wobegon.”

Co-chair of the Book Arts department, Paulette Rosen, in coordination with the International Edible Book Festival, organizes the sixth annual Edible Book Tea at Creative Arts Workshop. An edible book is made of something you can eat and looks like a book or makes reference to a book title or structure.

Books should be dropped off and set up on display in the bindery between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. The show will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and books will be consumed at 11 a.m. 10 a.m.-11 a.m. April 4 at Creative Arts Workshop, 80 Audubon Street, New Haven. Free. 203-562-4927, creativeartsworkshop.org.

Chamard Vineyards’ wine seminar A B C (Anything BUT Chardonnay!) is your opportunity to explore the

intriguing, deliciously delightful and yes, sexy, white wines of the world.

Taste, compare and contrast ten dry white wines from various corners of the earth. 5:30-7:30 p.m. April 19 at Chamard Vineyards, 115 Cow Hill Rd., Clinton. $50. 860-664-0299, chamard. com/events.

Have your book and eat it too at Creative Arts Workshop’s Edible Book Tea on April 4 in New Haven. Donna Scialla-Fronte’s creation, The Secret Life of Bees, from a previous Tea is seen here.

City Farmers’ Market at Wooster Square. Enjoy food from local farms including seafood, meat, milk, cheese, organic greens, root vegetables, handcrafted bread and baked goods, honey, more. 10 a.m.-1 p.m. alternate Saturdays through May 2 at Russo Park, corner Chapel St. and DePalma Ct., New Haven. 203-773-3736, cityseed.org.

DANCE Senior choreographers present a collection of new works in as the culminating project of the dance major during the Spring Senior Thesis Dance Concert. 8 p.m. April 2-4 at Patricelli ’92 Theater, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $5. 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Patricia Beaman and Hari Krishnan, two Artists-in-Residence at Wesleyan University, have long shared a mutual fascination with the similarities between their respective forms, Baroque dance and Bharata Natyam. In both, the compositional principles are found in antique texts, the narratives of the dances are rooted in mythology and the formulaic structures are inextricably linked to music. In Goddess, Siren, Monster, and Liquid Shakti, the Spring Faculty Dance Concert, they have collaborated on a suite of solo dances featuring iconic female figures from Greco-Roman and Hindu mythology. 8 p.m. April 17-18 at CFA Theater, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $8. 860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Drancy Fess Ball invites you to come in your finest (and most fun) dance attire to join in an evening of cheerful dances, friendly community and beautiful music. All dances are taught Peggy Vermilya and beginners are welcome. Come with or without a partner. Music by Marshall Barron, Grace Feldman and Margaret Ann Martin, with musicians from Marshall Barron’s Dance Band Workshops.

8-10:30 p.m. April 24 at 100 Audubon St., New Haven. $8. 203-624-5189, nmsmusicschool.org.

Rubberbandance Group is a Canadian company of world-class dancers from contemporary and breakdance backgrounds who explore human relationships through inventive hybrid choreography of hiphop dynamics and contemporary ballet. After years of exploring dance and theater from urban, classical and contemporary angles, Artistic Director Victor Quijada, a highly acclaimed Mexican-American breakdancer based in Los Angeles, moved to Montreal to found the company in 2002. Witness his newest evening-length work, Punto Ciego, a three-part break ballet with six powerful and exuberant dancers who perform with the energy and percussion of hiphop and the grace of classical ballet against a mind-bending backdrop of projections and live feeds. 8 p.m. April 24-25 at CFA Theater, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $23 ($18 seniors & students).

860-685-3355, cfa@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The New York 92nd Street Y’s renowned educational and cultural programming will broadcast A Conversation with Jerry Seinfeld live via satellite to the Shubert Theater. 7:30 p.m. April 7 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $12-$10. 203-562-5666.

the spirit. All levels welcome. Bring a yoga mat. Class led by Nelie Doak.

5-6:15 p.m. Fridays at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. $10. 203-4881441, ext. 313, yogidoakie@earthlink. net or events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org.

The League of Women Voters will host the panel discussion, BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India, China — Giants On the Move, at its 2009 Symposium on International Relations. Panel will discuss how the growth of these four countries impacts culture, the economy and climate in the U.S. Each panelist will deliver an address followed by Q&A. Panelist: Subhash Jain, UConn marketing professor and director of the UConn Center for International Business Education and Research; Anne Evans of the U.S. Department of Commerce; graduate students from Brandeis University, the University of New Haven and Yale University representing each of the four countries to offer personal perspectives. Nancy Ruther, associate director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, will moderate. 9:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m. April 23 in Alumni Hall at Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden. $20 ($10 students). 203-288-7996, quinnipiac. edu.

Pilates is an exercise system that focuses on developing core strength (stomach, pelvic floor and spinal muscles). The idea is to coordinate breath with focused fluid movement, ultimately gaining a stronger body, better posture and relief from stress.

Find out if the Pilates craze suits you at the information session Pilates: Is It For You? This presentation by Pilates instructor Sarah Aldrich includes a 30-minute beginner’s mat class.

Bring your towel or mat and wear comfortable clothing. 6 p.m. April 8 at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free. Registration.

203-946 -8835, pilates.eventbrite.com.

Bill Carney, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) content manager, will make a presentation about OCLC’s copyright registry evidence project,

Happiness Club of Greater Milford events are held the second Thursday of each month. All ages invited. Visitors should bring a food item (appetizer, munchie or dessert) to share. Guest speaker Tom O’Dwyer performing The Art Of Creating Illusions Agreeably. 6-8 p.m. April 9 at Golden Hill Health Care Center, 2028 Bridgeport Ave., Milford.

203-767-3582, plynn_135@hotmail.com, happinessclubmilford.ning.com.

On the second Saturday of each month, Sarah Aldrich Pilates invites the public to its Pilates Studio Open House. Visitors may ask questions about this transformative exercise method and learn how Pilates can help them reach their fitness goals or relieve common orthopedic issues such as lower back pain. 2-4 p.m. April 11 at Sarah Aldrich Pilates, LLC, 681 State St., New Haven. Free. 203-589-7948, sarah@ aldrichpilates.com, aldrichpilates.com.

SPORTS/RECREATION Cycling Reducing costs is the name of the game these days. Find out why Solar Energy is Cool at New Haven Library on April 1.

LECTURES/ DISCUSSIONS The public, especially property owners, are invited to learn more about solar-energy options in Solar Energy Is Cool, a presentation by Sunlight Solar Energy Inc. including an overview of solar technology and site requirements, as well as elements of the Connecticut solar lease program and state and federal rebates available to homeowners. Property owners may bring electric bills to receive a usage evaluation. 6 p.m. April 1 at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free. Registration. 203-946 -8835, nhbulletin.blogspot.com.

particularly aimed at addressing the “orphan works” problem. An “orphan” work is “a copyrighted work where it is difficult or impossible to contact the copyright holder.” Orphan works are the bane of many library digitizing projects and the OCLC initiative may over time provide a way forward. 3 p.m.

April 29 in Sterling Memorial Library lecture hall, 128 Wall St., New Haven.

Free. geoffrey.little@yale.edu.

MIND, BODY & SOUL Yoga promotes a deep sense of physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Classes are designed to help cultivate breath and body awareness, improve flexibility, strengthen and tone muscles, detoxify the body and soothe

Elm City Cycling organizes Lulu’s Ride, weekly two- to four-hour rides for all levels (17-19 mph average).

Cyclists leave at 10 a.m. from Lulu’s European Café as a single group; no one is dropped. 10 a.m. every Sunday at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203-773-9288, elmcitycycling.org.

The Little Lulu (LL) is an alternative to the long-standing Sunday morning training ride. The route is usually 20-30 miles in length and the ride is no-drop, meaning that the group waits at hilltops and turns so that no rider is left behind. The LL is an opportunity for cyclists to get accustomed to riding in groups. Riders should come prepared with materials (tubes, tools, pumps and/or CO2 inflators) to repair flats. 10 a.m. on Sundays at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203773-9288, paulproulx@sbcglobal.net, elmcitycycling.org.

Critical Mass. Participants meet at the flagpole on the New Haven Green at 5:30 p.m. on the last Friday of each month for a slow-paced ride through New Haven streets. The ride ranges from 30 minutes to over an hour depending on weather. Critical Mass is not an organization; it’s an “unorganized coincidence” — a movement of bicycles in the streets as traffic. After the event, everyone is invited to a potluck dinner at the Devil’s Gear Bike Shop. 5:30 p.m. April 24 at Temple and Chapel streets, New Haven. Free. elmcitycycling.org.

Hikes Spring Earth Day Ceremony and Hike.

Trek through Sleeping Giant State Park with others. Wear comfortable shoes, bring snacks and water. No pets, please. 1:30 p.m. April 19, meet at bulletin board at park entrance, Sleeping Giant State Park, opposite Quinnipiac University on Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden. Free. 203-272-7841, sgpa.org.

Road Races Rock to Rock Bike Ride, the daylong celebration of Earth Day and of New Haven’s rich environmental and cultural resources will see a few hundred riders traveling between East Rock and West Rock via the Canal Trail and city bike lanes with a celebration on both sides of the city, as well as along the way. Participants will eat tasty food, hear great music, plant a tree and explore the city’s parks. All proceeds will go to support the work of local parks and environmental education organizations: Common Ground, Solar Youth, Friends of East Rock Park, Friends of Beaver Pond Park, the Trowbridge and West Rock Nature Centers. 9 a.m. April 25 at College Woods in East Rock Park, at the intersection of Orange and Cold Spring. $25 ($10 under 18). 203-389-4333 ext. 1214, rocktorock.org.

Spectator Sports To be a champion, you have to live on the edge. The world’s top skaters including Sasha Cohen, Ilia Kulik, Todd Eldredge, Shen, Zhao, Michael Weiss and more make up the Emmy Award-winning tour produced by Scott Hamilton, Smucker’s Stars on Ice — On The Edge. Special guests Tanith Belbin, Benjamin Agosto, Kimmie Meissner and Evan Lysacek will also be at the show. Don’t miss your only chance to see live skating before the 2010 Olympics. 3 p.m. April 4 at Arena at Harbor Yard, 600 Main St., Bridgeport. $120-$25. 203-368-1000, arenaatharboryard.com.

Please send CALENDAR information to CALENDAR@conntact.com no later than seven weeks preceding calendar month of event. Please include date, time, location, event description, cost and contact information. Photographs must be at least 300 dpi resolution and are published at discretion of NEW HAVEN magazine.

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WO RDS of MOUT H

By Liese Klein

PHOTOGRAPH:

NEW EATS: Dolci

Anthony DeCarlo

Elegant cocktails and well-prepared small plates add to the sophisticated ambience at Dolci, a new State Street Lounge owned by Anthony Urbano.

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or those evenings that pizza just won’t do the trick, travel a bit up State Street past Modern Apizza in New Haven for the newest of the Elm City’s lounges. Dolci, a labor of love opened around the first of the year by two natives of Orange, features a lively, downtown ambiance with skillfully prepared food at decent prices. Catch it at the right time and in the right mood, and Dolci offers the perfect setting for a first date or night out with friends.

Dolci’s front seating area faces out on a quiet section of State Street more known for its tattoo parlor, takeout burritos and neighborhood bars. But from the textured stone leading to the entryway to the spare, elegant font of the sign out front, this restaurant aspires to be more than just another Yale student hangout.

Inside, a gas fireplace and conical light fixtures above the gleaming bar add to the aura of upscale sophistication.

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Get there early if you want to have a deep chat, as the volume of both conversation and the sometimesintrusive sound system rises quickly as the sun sets. Better to keep your mouth busy with the well-chosen wine list that offers many glasses in the $8 to $10 range. As a bonus, my Malbec was cellar temperature instead of lukewarm, which can often give by-the-glass selections stored at the bar an unpleasant kick.

Chef John DePuma, a veteran of the Union League Café and New York restaurants, changes his menu weekly.

On our visit a risotto with duck confit nicely contrasted shards of flavorful bird with creamy grains of rice flecked with herbs and vegetables. Scallops were served perfectly seared with a crisp, almost caramelized exterior and tender, briny interior. Alongside were wilted greens with a welcome tang of tahini and citrus. Portions were modest, but

suitable to an evening of grazing and gossip.

True to the “dessert lounge” vision of DePuma and owner Anthony Urbano, Dolci saves some of its best for last, with the enticing “chocolate menu.” Photos accompany descriptions of truffles flavored with ingredients like Turkish coffee, Earl Grey tea, burnt caramel and sea salt. The intense morsels are the perfect ending to a light meal at $4.50 for three truffles.

Dolci is the perfect place to savor a glass of wine, nibble on chocolates or a light meal and check out the range of New Haven nightlife: from grad students talking dissertations in designer denim to leather-clad suburbanites courting over margaritas. So skip that line at Modern and head up the street for a change of pace at Dolci. Dolci, 932 State St., New Haven (203-764-2069).

Anthony DeCarlo PHOTOGRAPH:

BREAKFAST/DINERS The Pantry, 2 Mechanic St., New Haven (203-7870392). Lines get long on weekend mornings at this East Rock institution, known for its breakfast goodies like gingerbread pancakes, fluffy waffles and hearty omelets.

Chef Steven Guo makes Chinese classics like General Tso’s Chicken shine at Shanghai Gourmet in Orange.

Bella’s Cafe, 896 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203387-7107). Brunch with flair is the specialty at this Westville favorite. You can’t go wrong with the daily specials or omelets like the Tuscan with eggplant and peppers or the Tex-Mex with cheddar and salsa.

Parthenon Diner, 374 E. Main St., Branford (203-4810333). Open 24 hours for hearty, well-made Greek and diner fare, with some low-carb and vegetarian offerings. Another location (not 24/7) in Old Saybrook at 809 Boston Post Rd. Copper Kitchen, 1008 Chapel St., New Haven (203777-8010). Downtown’s most convenient spot for a diner-style, affordable fry-up of eggs, bacon and toast. Cash only, but you won’t need much of it.

Patricia’s Restaurant, 18 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-787-4500). Tasty and very affordable diner basics in an unironically retro setting near Broadway and the Yale campus.

Athenian Diner, 1064 Boston Post Rd., Milford (203878-5680). Visible from Interstate 95 — if not from outer space — this chrome-and-glass landmark draws customers from all over the region with its hearty portions and tasty classics. Great Greek favorites and overstuffed sandwiches. Open 24 hours. Also open all night in New Haven at 1426 Whalley Ave.

JUST A TASTE: Shanghai Gourmet

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f you’re looking for authentic Asian food along with some tax-refund shopping, check out the scattering of restaurants along the Post Road in Orange and Milford. Nestled between strip malls and big-box stores are half a dozen eateries doing tasty food from India, China and Japan, made all the more appealing by friendly service and ample parking.

Shanghai Gourmet, across from the TJ Maxx plaza in Orange, has been a local favorite for five years for its excellent interpretations of Sino-American classics like General Tso’s chicken. And this version is worth waiting in a Post Road turn lane: Our meal had already started strong with a rich, peppery hot-and-sour soup dense with shreds of fresh and dried mushrooms and topped with fried shallots for an extra shot of flavor. Never has a bowl of hot soup disappeared so fast. Also outstanding were the steamed vegetable dumplings, packed with delicately cooked and spiced vegetables and enrobed in a tender, fresh-tasting wrapper.

The chef also scores with more venturesome fare like the Sambal Delight, named for the spicy condiment popular in some of China’s neighbors to the south. Shanghai Garden’s delight has a complex, currylike sauce that beautifully accents chunks of chicken, shrimp, scallops and vegetables. Most proteins can be made with sambal or the equally exotic spicy mango sauce. The Shanghai Noodle Soup, Lemongrass Shrimp and a sauce made with the numbing Szechuan peppercorn also beckon the curious diner.

Shanghai Gourmet will never be mistaken for its grittier, downtown counterparts: The décor inside is airy and lacquered as if to hold its own with the chain restaurants surrounding it.

You’ll get very friendly, attentive service — the hostess may even help you pronounce the Chinese words on your fortune-cookie paper. But if something delicious, familiar and family-friendly is what you’re looking for Shanghai Garden couldn’t be a better choice.

Shanghai Gourmet, 533 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203-891-8788).

SOUTHEAST ASIAN/KOREAN Bentara Restaurant, 76 Orange St., New Haven (203562-2511). Supersized noodle soups and spicy curries are good bets at this Ninth Square Malaysian/ fusion hotspot. The stylish interior and extensive cocktail list also make it an excellent pre-nightlife stop. Open for lunch.

Kari Restaurant, 1451 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203389-1280). Bright flavors and unusual ingredients make this Malaysian restaurant worth the drive up Whalley. The friendly servers are happy to explain the cuisine to newcomers and highlight the catch of the day.

Pot-Au-Pho, 77 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203-7762248). Great for a quick bowl of pho, Vietnamese soup, along with tasty noodle dishes and affordable Asian specialties. Limited hours, so call ahead.

Oriental Pantry Grocery & Gifts, 486 Orange St., New Haven (203-865-2849). A foodie favorite for its home-style Korean dishes like soups and bibimbap.

Takeout sushi, breakfast sandwiches and Asian drinks and sweets are also available.

Soho New Haven, 259 Orange St., New Haven (203-745-0960). Right downtown and in an elegant space, Soho draws a diverse crowd for its top-notch Korean fare. Try the mandu dumplings and fieryhot chicken galbi.

Midori, 3000 Whitney Ave., Hamden (203-248-3322).

Big flavors in a small space are the hallmark of this Korean/fusion restaurant, tucked away in a strip mall. Best bets are soups, the fresh-tasting bibimbap and spicy bulgogi.

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Guti’z Bakery in East Haven, where owner Pedro Gutierrez, Tania Chacon and kids (from left) Ariana Naveda, Justin Gutierrez and Ethan Gutierrez help set a welcoming tone.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

JUST A SIP: Guti’z Bakery

duck and curry plates, along with above-average papaya salad and desserts.

CHINESE/TAIWANESE Iron Chef, 1209 Campbell Ave., West Haven (203-9323888). Unusual Taiwanese specialties and wellexecuted classics shine at this student favorite.

House of Chao, 898 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203389-6624). This Westville institution draws diners from across the region for its bright flavors and eclectic menu.

Lao Sze Chaun, 1585 Boston Post Rd., Milford (203-7830558). You don’t get much more authentic locally than this outpost of Szechwan delicacies and tasty dim sum.

East Melange Too, 142 Howe St., New Haven (203848-3663). Affordable and authentic noodles and Cantonese classics keep this lively eatery near Yale hopping at all hours.

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ike the Italians before them, Latin Americans are making the New Haven area their own with a flowering of restaurants, small markets and bakeries. East Haven’s growing Ecuadorian business community made news earlier this year with some controversial arrests, but politics will be far from your mind when you sample the wares at the Guti’z Bakery on Main Street. The bakery’s bright, sun-filled seating area is flanked by two cases full of guava turnovers, cakes like the unctuous tres leches and jewel-colored cups of Jell-o.

But the most unusual item at Guti’z steams away in a vat at the

back of the bakery, a sweetened corn beverage called morocho.

Popular in the mountainous sierra of Ecuador, morocho is made by boiling cracked white corn for hours with milk, sugar and spices. It’s served morning, noon and night at Guti’z to homesick Ecuadorians, says Merlhy Gutierrez, whose family opened the bakery in January.

“They drink it all day, like coffee,” Gutierrez explains.

Thai Taste Restaurant, 1151 Chapel St., New Haven (203-776-9802). A standout on Chapel’s “Thai Row,” with toothsome basics like pad thai, drunken noodles and green curry.

Bangkok Gardens, 172 York St., New Haven (203-7898718). Tasty Thai in a charming, light-filled dining area with great service. Wide ranges of classics and vegetarian options.

Rice Pot Thai Restaurant, 1027 State St., New Haven (203-772-6679). Great spot for a romantic dinner and some truly tasty Thai food. Try the impeccably

april 2009

“You kind of get a meal with it,” Gutierrez says.

Key to the combination is a long, slow cooking time, Gutierrez says.

“It’s not something so easy to make at home,” she says. “You really have to work on it.”

Offset the sweetness with some coconut bread or a slab of the rotisserie chicken sold at the counter. With Mexican dishes and sandwiches, Guti’z hopes to draw a cross-section of East Haveners, Gutierrez says.

Rice pudding is the flavor that first comes to mind when sipping hot morocho, “All kinds of people come but as the concoction here, they try it and they cools more complex hints like it,” Gutierrez says. of anise and caramel “Then they come back.” emerge. Best of all for Guti’z Bakery, 545 East a hungry immigrant is Main St., East Haven the corn mush left at the (203-745-0977).

THAI

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bottom of the glass, a filling start to the day.

fresh spring rolls, delicately flavored soups and assertive curries.

Thai Awesome, 1505 Dixwell Ave., Hamden (203-2889888). Tangy curries and rich soups make this Thai eatery worth the drive from downtown, but leave time to find parking on this busy stretch of Dixwell.

The Terrace, 1559 Dixwell Ave., Hamden (203-2302077). The chef’s French training shows in this Thai eatery’s above-average plating and seductive flavor combinations.

Ayuthai, 2279 Boston Post Road, Guilford (203-4532988). Quality Thai in a casual setting. Excellent

Great Wall of China, 67 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203-777-8886). Its location near downtown’s best Asian market and an affordable, high-quality buffet attracts a multicultural clientele to this Yale-area spot.

COFFEE SHOPS Cafe Grounded, 20 Church St, Guilford (203-453-6400).

Tasty sandwiches and coffee drinks star at this aviation-themed cafe that operates inside a quonset hut near the town’s Green.

Publick Cup, 276 York St., New Haven (203-787-9929).

Top-notch sandwiches, coffee drinks and teas with a creative flair and a studious vibe that befits its oncampus location. You can even order ahead online.

Kasbah Garden Cafe, 105 Howe St., New Haven (203-777-5053). Quality teas, good conversation and Moroccan treats on New Haven’s best outdoor patio.

Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea, 258 Church St., New Haven, (203-777-7400). Enjoy both the low-key ambience and the region’s best selection of premium roasts and rarities at this small chain.

With Branford and Madison locations.

Bare Beans Coffee, 14 East Grand Ave., New Haven (203-260-1118). A funky new outpost of quality beans and drinks over the bridge in Fair Haven. Weekday mornings only for drinks; order top-quality organic, Fair Trade and eco-friendly beans online at barebeanscoffee.com.

Cafe Atlantique, 33 River St., Milford (203-8821602). Visit this neighborhood favorite for creative caffeinated classics, bistro food and wine and a charming indoor/outdoor seating area.

FUSION CUISINE Mickey’s Restaurant & Bar, 2323 Whitney Ave., Hamden (203-288-4700). This eatery’s sophisticated interior and artful blend of Israeli and Italian flavors bring big-city flair to downtown Hamden.

Sip a Mickey’s margarita with your Marrakech salmon and Israeli couscous and you’ll swear you’re on the beach in Tel Aviv.

Bespoke, 266 College St., New Haven (203-5624644). High-end Latin fusion with a flair, wit and excellent service. Try the lobster arepa and duck-

confit empanada upstairs at Sabor, the in-house Latin lounge. Fixed-price pre-theater menu serves up three courses for only $29.

Friend House, 538 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203-7956888). In a plaza next to Trader Joe’s, Friend House brings together stylish sushi and Chinese and Thai favorites. Best bets are the inventive hand rolls with ingredients like mango, tempura flakes and mint.

Formosa, 132 Middletown Ave., North Haven (203-2390666). Creative and beautifully presented dishes with pan-Asian panache. Don’t miss the Szechwan “ravioli,” tender chicken dumplings in a delicate peanut sauce, or Taiwanese seafood specialties.

Kudeta, 27 Temple St., New Haven (203 562-8844).

Every major cuisine of Asia is represented on Kudeta’s menu, with something for every taste in an evocative interior. Generous and inventive drinks along with good sushi and noodle dishes.

YellowFin’s

New Seasonal Spring Menu

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1027 South Main St • Cheshire

203-250-9999

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FRENCH Union League Café, 1032 Chapel St., New Haven (203-562-4299). New Haven’s most beautiful dining room and world-class cuisine near the heart of downtown.

Le Petit Café 225 Montowese St., Branford (203-4839791). Prix-fixe menu features beautifully prepared classics with a modern twist in a casual setting.

Caseus, 3 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203-624-3373).

Quiche and onion soup with top-notch cheeses stand out at this charming bistro.

Gastronomique, 25 High Street, New Haven (203776-7007).Classics like croque monsieur and steak tartare, plus sandwiches and burgers, expertly prepared at affordable prices. Takeout only.

Sage American Grill & Oyster Bar, 100 S. Water St., New Haven (203-787-3466). The tranquil harborfront view sets off skilled seafood and raw bar selections.

Excellent seasonal specials and a full bar add to the attractions of this veteran favorite.

Foster’s, 56-62 Orange St., New Haven (203-859-6666).

The chef himself is likely to bring over your meal at this acclaimed newcomer in Ninth Square. Comfort food with cutting-edge flair like llama burgers on toasted brioche.

INDIAN Zaroka Bar & Restaurant, 148 York St., New Haven (203-776-8644). Opulent setting for one of the city’s most popular Indian buffets. Enjoy the birayani pilafs, crunchy pappadum crackers and fluffy desserts.

Royal India, 140 Howe St., New Haven (203-787-9493).

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Foe, 576 Main St., Branford (203-483-5896). The perfect setting for a romantic evening, Foe shines with sublime beef and pasta dishes. A black fig and cherry-glazed duck breast also showcases the chef’s sure hand with poultry. Lunch and bar menu.

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Heirloom in the Study at Yale, 1157 Chapel Street, New Haven (866-930-1157). A standout addition to the New Haven restaurant scene and a must for lovers of the finest contemporary American cuisine.

Great service in a warm and modern environment.

Serving breakfast, lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch.

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Anthony DeCarlo PHOTOGRAPH:

EDITOR’S PICK: Elaine’s Healthy Choice

Richard and Elaine Bernard infuse their takeout eatery on Whalley Avenue, Elaine’s Healthy Choice, with their passion to reform the American diet.

classics and a warm, welcoming atmosphere set this Wooster Square eatery apart. Open for lunch and private parties; also hosts a series of cooking classes.

Skappo Italian Wine Bar, 59 Crown St., New Haven (203-773-1394). White truffles and chestnuts are two of the compelling flavors you’ll encounter at this cozy eatery in Ninth Square. A great place to sample wines and small plates in an unpretentious setting.

Tre Scalini Ristorante, 100 Wooster St., New Haven (203-777-3373). Acclaimed pasta, seafood and antipasti in an opulent Wooster Square setting.

Also open for lunch.

L’Orcio, 806 State St., New Haven (203-777-6670).

Outstanding modern Italian in an intimate setting.

You can’t go wrong with the pasta specials and perfectly cooked and seasoned steaks.

Roseland Apizza, 350 Hawthorne Ave., Derby (203-7350494). Don’t let the casual pizzeria decor fool you — this Valley favorite makes some serious Italian food. Look for the daily specials and enjoy.

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es, brown rice is good for you. But it takes a skilled chef to make this fiber-filled grain truly appetizing, and Elaine at the new Elaine’s Healthy Choice takeout kitchen on Whalley Avenue in New Haven is just the woman for the job. This is brown rice that could be served at a fast-food restaurant: flavorful, chewy and studded with toothsome beans for an almost sinfully tasty health food.

That’s the idea behind Elaine’s Healthy Choice, the latest meat-free venture to open in New Haven. Elaine’s is not just vegetarian, it’s vegan — eschewing all animal products. That’s not to say we’re in the land of rabbit food, although Elaine makes a mean salad dressed with a light herbal purée. This

is Jamaican food with a healthy twist, which means lots of “chicken,” “fish” and even “steak” with assertive seasonings and appealing sides.

Best is the barbecue “chicken,” made from a soy-based meat substitute familiar to those who frequent New York’s Chinatown. Chewy and flavorful, the meat is slathered in a sweet barbecue sauce with hints of molasses and spice.

You’ll swear you got a real bird by mistake.

Pepper “steak” is less like the original, with a tofu-like texture; same with the “fish.” But both benefit from savory sauces and artful touches like the seaweed “skin” surrounding the “fish.”

Sides like a rich pea soup and curried lentils are filling enough to be meals

Tasty North Indian fare in an intimate setting on Howe’s mini-restaurant row. Nice variety at lunch buffet with fresh bread.

Darbar India, 1070 Main St., Branford (203-481-8994).

Award-winning shoreline favorite with excellent atmosphere and north Indian classics, run by Royal India owner. Spicy vindaloos and tandooris are a good bet.

Coromandel, 185 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203-7959055). Great breads and regional specialties from the local outpost of a celebrated Fairfield chain. Try the

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in themselves, and the owners are generous with samples, enthusiastic in their mission to reform American eating habits. They’ve also got a generous hand with portions, especially a huge carob brownie that could easily serve four.

It’s not quite the same as chocolate, but carob has a fruity, light appeal all its own.

Blocks from the Yale campus and benefiting from its own tiny parking lot, Elaine’s is an easy stop on your way home from work or a day shopping in New Haven. But for its unique combination of healthy food, low prices and rib-sticking fare, this is a restaurant worth some extra effort.

Elaine’s Healthy Choice, 117 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-773-1897).

shrimp in coconut sauce and unusual lentil dessert.

Swagat, 215 Boston Post Rd. West Haven (203-931-0108).

A tiny outpost of south Indian favorites near the University of New Haven. Best bets are the masala dosa and many vegetarian dishes, plus the friendly service.

ITALIAN Consiglio’s of New Haven, 165 Wooster St., New Haven (203-865-4489). Beautifully executed Italian

Adriana’s Restaurant, 771 Grand Ave., New Haven (203-865-6474). Meat is the thing at this Grand Avenue favorite, especially veal and sausages. Fresh pasta and classics in a formal setting.

MEXICAN Moe’s Southwest Grill, 46 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203- 776-6637). Healthy burritos, tacos and other Tex-Mex favorites along with addictive queso cheese sauce. Beer and wine are served, along with margaritas.

Baja, 63 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203-799-2252). An expansive salsa bar and fish taco entrée appeal to homesick Californians and big eaters.

Guadalupe la Poblanita, 136 Chapel St., New Haven (203-752-1017). Simple, authentic cuisine from Puebla in a down-home atmosphere.

Jalapeno Heaven, 40 N. Main St., Branford (203-4816759). Tasty Americanized fare in a cozy setting with excellent margaritas.

Long Wharf Taco Trucks, Long Wharf Drive near Veterans Memorial Park, weekdays at lunch. Tacos as they’re served in Mexico — just corn tortillas, meat, cilantro and a spicy sauce — eaten al fresco by New Haven Harbor.

Mezcal, 14 Mechanic St., New Haven (203-782-4828).

Big portions and wide-ranging menu with lots of surprises. No liquor license.

Taqueria Mexico No. 1, 850 S. Colony Rd. Wallingford (203-265-0567). The best tortas — or small sandwiches — in the area, filled with spiced meat and accompanied on the weekends by a lipsmacking posole hominy soup.

Viva Zapata, 161 Park St., New Haven (203-562-2499).

Toothsome classics and a killer sangria in a festive pub atmosphere. Open for lunch.

MIDDLE EASTERN Mamoun’s, 85 Howe St., New Haven (203-562-8444).

Cheap plates of falafel and Syrian-style specialties like stuffed eggplant keep this student favorite hopping late into the night. Make sure the fryer’s fired up and stick with the classics, like the silky baklava.

Istanbul Café, 245 Crown St., New Haven (203-7873881). With its airy yet opulent interior, this critics’ favorite has the best ambience in town. A grilled octopus salad and red lentil soup are standouts, along with lamb dishes.

Turkish Kebab House, 1157 Campbell Ave., West Haven (203-933-0002). Every kind of kebab imaginable, from doner to minced chicken to cubes of lamb, is on tap at this neighborhood eatery. Also vegetarian and seafood options.

King Falafel, 240 College St., New Haven (203-8483076). Follow a trip to the Shubert with a tasty falafel sandwich across the street at this late-night favorite. Large portions of the freshest fried chickpea patties in town, with all the trimmings.

Kasbah Garden Café, 105 Howe St., New Haven (203777-5053). Moroccan-style lamb and vegetable dishes prevail on the limited but tasty menu. Savor mint tea and baklava outside on the idiosyncratically landscaped patio.

SEAFOOD Lenny’s Indian Head Inn, 205 S. Montowese St., Branford (203-488-1500). Fried clams praised by national critics and the freshest steamers around make Lenny’s a local favorite. The Shore Dinner covers all the bases with cherrystones, corn on the cob, lobster and steamers.

Lenny & Joe’s Fish Tale, 1301 Boston Post Rd., Madison (203-245-7289). What it lacks in formality it makes up for in taste — the freshest, crispest fried seafood around. The perfect spot for quick eats after beach or a coastal drive, with an ice cream stand onsite.

Guilford Mooring, 505 Whitfield St., Guilford (203458-2921). Pasta dishes, a stellar chowder and a full range of grilled fish set this Shoreline favorite apart.

And where else can you savor Lazy Man’s Stuffed Lobster as you watch lobstermen at work on the Sound?

YellowFin’s Seafood Grille, 1027 South Main St., Cheshire (203-250-9999). Flavors are light and bright at this fusion eatery, with a menu that ranges from cioppino to Asian scallop salad to Tilapia St. Tropez. A raw bar and house-brewed beer round out the offerings.

Jimmie’s of Savin Rock, 5 Rock St., West Haven. 9343212. Take the family out and enjoy the boardwalk view at this West Haven institution, known for its moderate prices and casual atmosphere. All the fried favorites, a full menu of broiled fish and lobster and the famous split hot dog.

SUSHI Wasabi, 280 Branford Rd., North Branford (203-4887711). Good quality rolls and sashimi at reasonable prices, along with Korean specialties like mandu dumplings and bibimbap rice bowls. The sake flows freely on Monday nights, a favorite with students.

Akasaka, 1450 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-3874898). Unusual specials like baby octopus and blowfish make this veteran eatery worth a visit.

Live sea urchin roe and scallops are also a best bet, along with tasty pickled vegetables.

Sono Bana, 1206 Dixwell Ave., Hamden (203-281-9922).

Fresh fish, inventive rolls and extensive combo options make this a neighborhood favorite. Try a

fruity saketini with your sashimi “boat” and ask the chef to load up on the catch of the day.

Miya’s Sushi, 68 Howe St., New Haven (203-777-9760).

Unusual combinations like rolls with cheese and Ethiopian spices are the draw at this Elm City institution. Let go of your preconceptions about sushi with help from some of the beguiling infusedsake cocktails.

Number 1 Fish Market, 2239 State St., Hamden (203-624-6171). Make your own sushi at home with fresh seafood from this market. The helpful staff will steer you toward the best quality tuna, salmon, scallops and red snapper; items like sea urchin roe are available to order.

VEGETARIAN Ahimsa, 1227 Chapel St., New Haven (203-786-4774).

Wide-ranging vegan fare is featured at this (kosher) eatery that uses no animal products. South Indianstyle dals and curries star at the daily $10 lunch buffet, with more extensive offerings at Sunday brunch.

Claire’s Corner Copia, 1000 Chapel St., New Haven (203-562-3888). This veggie veteran has updated its menu with lots of vegan options, of-the-moment meat substitutes and superfoods like acai berry juice.

The homey ambience seals the deal.

Shoreline Diner & Vegetarian Enclave, 345 Boston Post Rd., Guilford (203-458-7380). Non-veg diner fare along with vegan favorites like a tempeh Reuben with sauerkraut on grilled rye and “Twin Towers” of vegetable strudel. Great place for groups with different dining preferences.

We’re Gonna Make Your Day... www.CTcalendar.com new haven

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Photos courtesy of Ernie Larsen

Silver City Springfest Everything’s comin’ up daffodils this month in Meriden

By Susan E. Cornell

Some 70,000 festivallovers will converge on Hubbard Park for music, food, fun — and of course flowers.

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hile daffodils are, not surprisingly, the focal point of the 31st annual Meriden Daffodil Festival, there will also be music, crafts, amusement rides, food, entertainment, a parade and a fireworks display to enjoy.

The Silver City’s 1,800-acre Hubbard Park will become a sea of yellow with 61 varieties of daffodils welcoming spring.

The festival began as a community event and has grown into one of Connecticut’s premier celebrations. This springtime funfest is for everyone — young and old, single and couples, friends and families.

Continuous music plays on three different stages for the two-day event (Saturday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26). Fireworks light the sky on Saturday night.

A huge food tent is open to nonprofits in the community, many of which use the event as their major fundraiser for the year.

Over the course of the weekend, roughly 70,000 attendees enjoy the million or so daffodils and various activities. While the event’s slogan for years has been “599,999 daffodils can’t be wrong,” that number is certainly an understatement. In a 1,800acre park there’s a lot of ground to cover, so planting bulbs in the fall is a tradition.

Admission to the festival is free and the organizing committee is all-volunteer.

Since an outside vendor operates the carnival rides, there is a cost for rides, although a percentage of the ride revenues help pay for the fireworks and tent rental.

The best thing about the Daffodil Festival, says one of the organizers, is that this is the first thing that happens once spring arrives. We’re all eager to get out of the 62

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house, and the kids are anxious to hop on the rides after being cooped up all winter.

The major parade is a draw, as is the food tent where attendees can sample all of the “festival foods” we’re familiar with.

Hubbard Park is vast and beautiful. In the middle of the largest municipal park in New England is a lake and fountain.

Bus companies from upstate New York, New Hampshire and Vermont deliver out-of-state festival-goers. Craftspeople come from throughout the eastern U.S. — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida.

The Daffodil Festival is a great get-together.

Since practically everyone in Meriden shows up, people who haven’t seen each other in a long time reunite.

Kids can ride the rides, ride the ponies or just play. There’s also entertainment just for children. In the Theater of the Trees, kids sit on bales of hay to watch the magicians and jugglers. There is also face painting, kids’ crafts and ice carving.

On Saturday, gates open at 10 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. The food tent, arts and crafts, and children’s rides all open at 10 as well and the musical entertainment begins at 11 a.m. The parade kicks off at 11:30 a.m. and fireworks commence at 8:30 p.m.

On Sunday the festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the food tent, arts and crafts, and children’s rides open at 10 and the musical entertainment beginning at 11 a.m.

Shuttle buses will pick up and drop off riders at Platt High School, Wilcox Technical School, the Westfield Shoppingtown employee parking lot and downtown Meriden from the Max Muravnick Senior Citizens Center.

With free parking, free shuttle buses and free entry to the 31st annual Daffodil Festival, the two-day funfest will be priceless.

For particulars call the “Daffodil Hotline” at 203-630-4259 or visit daffodilfest.com. v