New Haven magazine August 2009

August 2009

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ALMOST FAMOUS Singer/songwriter Musk is ready to rock

FIDDLER ON THE GROUND

Legendary priest steps down from the pulpit

PARK STREET MEETS TIN PAN ALLEY Summer Cab conjures up an original musical

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EDITOR’S LE T T E R 08 Fiddler on the Ground

IN T EL At the top of his game, dean of downtown clergy steps down from pulpit

32 Almost Famous Singer/songwriter Daria Musk is ready for her closeup

35 Onstage

14 Green Acres

An original musical takes shape at Summer Cabaret

Buoyed by consumer demand for local and fresh, Connecticut farms make a comeback

41 Words of Mouth

20 Living in Art

Seven months shuttered following a disastrous fire, Adriana’s stages a comeback

L E TT ERS

Reinventing a one-of-a-kind Shoreline home

26 Don’t Bug Out

WORDS of MOUTH FÊTES

46 Uplifting Experience DISCOVERED discovers what it’s like to ride in a beautiful balloon

BODY & SOUL probes Lyme disease myths and realities

I N ST Y L E

ATH O ME

28 The Day the Music Didn’t Die

Rumors of the New Haven Jazz Fest’s death are greatly exaggerated

O F N OT E S

24 62 New Haven

| Vol. 2, No. 11 | August 2009

Publisher Mitchell Young, Editor Michael C. Bingham, Design Manager Larissa Wigglesworth, Design Consultant Terry Wells, Contributing Writers Brooks Appelbaum, 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

4

august 2009

Senior Publisher’s Representatives Mary W. Beard, Roberta Harris, Publisher’s Representative Cynthia Carlson 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 for typographical errors or errors in publication. For more information e-mail NewHaven@Conntact.com.

OUR COVER Contented bovine courtesy of Field View Dairy Farm in Orange. Cover Design and Typography by Terry Wells.

PHOTOGRAPH AND PHOTO COMPOSITION BY STEVE BLAZO.

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hen in 1614 Dutchman Adriaen Block became the first known European to lay eyes on what would become known as Connecticut, he encountered a land that was thickly forested with deciduous native trees, predominantly American chestnut. Connecticut earliest settlers lived on small subsistence farms, and cleared land not only to plant crops but also to harvest wood for building houses, barns, furniture and for use as fuel. Eventually thousand of farms were cleared, forming the basis for the colony’s, and later the state’s, robust agricultural economy. By 1820 fully 75 percent of all land in the state was actively farmed.

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But when the Erie Canal opened just a decade later, Connecticut agricultural zenith had passed. Within two decades, the small, stony farms of Connecticut were unable to compete with the larger, more mechanized farms of western New York and the Ohio River Valley.

AT H O M E

Now, however, farming in Connecticut is experiencing something of a renaissance. Soaring costs of transporting food, combined with consumers’ desire for fresh and locally grown produce are making Connecticut-grown produce and dairy products more appealing and therefore commercial viable.

OF NOTES

As Karen Singer reports in this month’s NHM, New Haven-area farmers are making it happen, in part by appealing to niche markets and meeting underserved needs. It’s a demanding lifestyle, but the rewards are great.

If you had to identify a single architectural signature for the city of New Haven (not counting Yale, let’s say), you could do a lot worse than selecting the three churches on the Green — the Congregationalist United and Center churches and the Anglican — I mean Episcopalian!

— Trinity on the Green. All three are architecturally significant (Center and Trinity were both design by renowned architect Ithiel Town, though they have nothing in common architecturally, reflecting the Georgian and Gothic Revival styles, respectively), but they assume added significance by virtue of their location at the geographic center of the city center. (Another fun fact about the New Haven Green: the city’s Puritan founding fathers designed it large enough to hold the number of people they believed would be spare in the Second Coming of Christ: 100,000.)

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Many influential clergypersons have preached the gospel over the history of the three churches (the pulpit of Center Church, originally known as First Church, has been occupied by such notables as Nathaniel W. Taylor and abolitionist Leonard Bacon). But in our time few have been more notable than the Rev. Andrew W. Fiddler, who retired as rector of Trinity Church on June 14 after a career spanning more than three decades.

In this month’s ONE2ONE, NHM Publisher Mitchell Young gets up close and personal with the still-youthful Fiddler — one of the best sermonizers the city has ever seen — to find out why he elected to step down while still at the top of his game.

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LE T TE R S Health Care to the Dogs... and Cats ORANGE — Aetna Insurance and your local chamber of commerce have teamed up to provide health care — for your pets. The new effort is being spearheaded by the Chamber Insurance Trust, which brings the buying power of 79 Connecticut and western Massachusetts chambers together. Members will receive a discount on insurance from Pets Best, underwritten by Aetna. According to Steve Glick of the Chamber Insurance Trust, 60 percent of chamber members have a dog or a cat.

a $1,100 food tab. You’ll be joined by Jason Page and members of ESPN radio’s The Back Page. The drawing will take place on September 14 and proceeds will benefit the non-profit mission of the VNA/SCC, celebrating its 105th year of service. To purchase tickets, contact the VNA/SCC at 203-859-6051 or vnascc.org.

W ORD S o f M O U T H FĂŠTES

I NS T Y L ENot Made in CT

AT H O ME

OF N O T E S

Nursing a Grudge NEW HAVEN — Maybe some good can come out of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. The Visiting Nurse Association of South Central Connecticut will raffle off 1,500 tickets at $105 each for a chance to attend the September 26 Yankees-Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium in a luxury party suite for you and 33 of your closest friends, including

silent auction and a ride pass at Quassy Amusement Park, the venue for the event. Adults tickets are $35 in advance, $45 at the gate. Children four to 12 are $20 advance, $25.00 at the gate (three and under are free).

Ticket includes MusicFest, all-day Quassy ride pass, parking, tickets for food and drink. For more info visit areyoudense.org or call 203263-0867.

Support Breast Cancer Awareness MIDDLEBURY — The Are You Dense? MusicFest on Saturday, September 12 is an all-day event to benefit Are You Dense?, an organization devoted to educating women about dense breast tissue and the early detection of breast cancer.  Groove anew to the New Rascals – (“Groovin’,â€? “Good Lovin’â€?) featuring original Young Rascals members Dino Danelli and Gene Cornish. Also featured are a gospel band, acoustic artists, metal, smooth jazz, a

HARTFORD — According to Connecticut Manufacturers Register, manufacturing employment fell by 11,293 jobs, a 4.8-percent decline, from May 2008 to May of this year.

The job loss was the sharpest in the 12 years of the survey’s tracking. Manufacturing remains the Nutmeg State’s economic engine, with more than 221,973 workers in more than 5,800 manufacturing companies.

Capitalism Not Dead Yet BRIDGEPORT — People’s United Bank CEO Phillip Sherringham told stock analysts last month he was doing some tire kicking of other banks and distressed assets from the FDIC. In spite of the financial collapse, Sherringhams’s wallet is still pretty full.

Sherringham is looking in the

Maine-to-Washington,, D.C. area to augment the 2008 purchase of Burlington, Vt.-based Chittenden Corp., which afforded People’s United entrÊe into western Massachusetts and northern New England.

While the bank may be moving south and north, the Westchesterbased Hudson Valley Bank is trying to occupy some of People’s core turf, with a new branch in Milford and one to open in Stratford by year’s end.

50 Cent Looking for Change FARMINGTON — Nineteen bedrooms and 37 bathrooms may be a little too much for today’s real estate market. New York City rapper 50 Cent has dropped the price of his 50,000square-foot Farmington mansion to a low, low $10.9 million, down from his original asking price of $18.5 million.

Fitty purchased the “home� for $4 million originally and added $6 million in renovations including the hip-hop industry standard home accessory of stripper poles.

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Like Father, Like Son

august 2009

Steve Blazo

Anthony DeCarlo

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photograph:

’The mainline [Protestant] churches are losing attendance and authority. The leadership has become in some ways estranged from the person in the pew — and certainly the person who is reading the New York Times and isn’t going to church at all.’

photograph:

After nearly four decades in the Trinity Church pulpit, a legendary rector says goodbye

I N T EL

Full Service Salon

O

nTE June 14, the wound up going to seminary at U T H S o f MO L E T Fiddler R SRev. Andrew E. WItheORD gave his final sermon as Episcopal Theological School rector of New Haven’s Trinity Church on the Green, a position he had held since 1978. One of New Haven’s and Connecticut’s most respected and influential clergypersons, Fiddler is a legendary sermonizer (you may read his final sermon at trinitynewhaven.org/Portals/0/Sermons/ June14-09.html). He shares another unusual distinction having completed three dozen marathons. Fiddler reflected on his years in the pulpit in a conversation with NHM Publisher Mitchell Young.

AT H O ME

vvv

OF N O T ES How did you find your calling as a man of the cloth?

I backed into it. In my last sermon I said, ‘A man peruses, but God chooses.’ I was looking at my options in college. I took religion courses for the first time in my life and I loved them. I took all I could.

I wanted to teach religion [at the postsecondary level]. I was told you needed to go first to seminary, get a three-year degree and then to the university and get a Ph.D. Why religion?

I never realized how fascinating it was. I was also interested in literature. I found the same kind of depth in Dostoevsky as I did in Paul Tillich and Karl Barth. But when I wrote my thesis on The Brothers Karamazov, religion and literature seemed to mesh.

So it didn’t come out of a personal religious revelation or born again-type experience?

There was no experiential component.

One professor said, ‘Religion is like falling in love. It’s hard to explain , but you know it when it happens to you and you can’t shake it at least for a while.’ I was falling in love — not with God. but the idea of the holy, the experience of the ‘tremendous mystery.’ It was emotional, but it was not the same kind of emotion as being ‘0slain by the spirit’ or born again.

I never had a sudden moment of ‘aha’. I felt there was this deep truth that was invisible.

Where did you take your formal training?

[in Cambridge, Mass.]. Just before I graduated [as a Princeton undergrad], I was told I could enter the Ph.D. program without going to seminary. I had 24 hours to grab this one place and I could stay right at Princeton. But I had already been accepted at Episcopal Theological, and decided to try that out. The Church, the establishment — I loved it!

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I NST Y L E The establishment?

In terms of the institutional church. If you’re a professor of religion, it doesn’t matter what religion you are. You can be a Catholic and teach Paul Tillich, you can be a Jew and teach Karl Barth. It does matter if you’re on an ordination track.

About half of my class was considering ordination; I was unsure. By the time I graduated, I was sure.

What was your own religious upbringing like?

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Christmas and Easter. My parents were agnostic and atheist.

So were you rebelling, like all the other kids of your generation?

It was my form of rebellion; also it’s the unknown. I had the same feeling when I took sociology. They didn’t teach it in high school. I thought, ‘This is fascinating.’

Photography

Around the time you were going to seminary, we were being told that God was dead.

Yes. In 1965-66 I took a year off from seminary and worked as a college chaplain at the University of Michigan.

The university hosted a God Is Dead conference, they had all of the great American God-is-dead people come. I know this because I picked them up at the airport.

Did they know you were a chaplain?

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Yes, they all taught in seminaries. They were rebels, too, in the schools of religion where they taught.

It’s funny to think today that intelligent people were asserting that God was dead, because God has become so ‘alive’ in the past 30 years or so, What was their point?

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’Even though the phone hardly ever rings at three in the morning, you know it might. And that when it does it might be someone whose child has died or marriage has just fallen apart.’

I think more the spiritual/emotional. But I became a Democrat from a Republican, so it had that [social-action] effect on me.

I went back to being a Republican when I lived in New Jersey, because you had to be one to vote in the primary. When I came to New Haven I switched back to Democrat.

I think that’s a law here. How did you come to New Haven?

I came at the same time as a friend, Craig Little. I was an assistant [rector] in a large church in New Jersey and Craig was the rector of a small church on the other side of the Garden State Parkway. He was called to be the rector [at Trinity]. He said, ‘I need to build a staff — would you come?’

It was 1970; I was 27. After seven years he left, I applied for the job — and by grace or luck I got the job.

What did you hope to accomplish?

I certainly wanted to build up the church in terms of diversity [of the congregation].

There was traditionally not one kind of person, but not 20 types, either. There was a blue-collar contingent that mostly fled to the suburbs; they were still coming in but they were afraid of New Haven.

I wanted to keep them and I wanted to reach out to the minority community of whom we had not a whole lot. And also something I never was able to achieve: the Yale community.

Trinity Church is practically on campus.

Yale is such a secular community it’s hard to make much of a dent. It was hard for me; maybe somebody else can do better.

What’s the composition of the congregation you’ve left behind?

They all had read a lot of Bonhoeffer [German Lutheran theologian Dietrich, executed by the Nazis for participating in the resistance]. He talked about ‘religionless Christianity.’ He had seen the failure of cultural Christianity — it produced Nazi Germany, a nation that was not only sophisticated intellectually but where people went to church. And yet Catholics and Protestants together could not stop the rise of fascism — or, you could say, would want to. That was part of the fuel of it and then the Vietnam War, a nation that was supposedly religious making excuses for the annihilation of civilian populations. It was also the end of church being part of normal life. In the 1950s everyone went to church in the North.

That started to decline in the mid-‘60s and church attendance started to decline rapidly.

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When did you notice that God was indeed alive and people were getting reengaged?

On the social-action side, the civil-rights movement and the anti-war movement were in many ways led by church groups.

I had a classmate in seminary who was murdered in Alabama doing voter registration. He was with a Catholic priest who was also wounded in the same episode. I think because the liberal church became so political, people hungered more for the emotional side of Christianity, the renewal experience. When I was in Ann Arbor we had people who were not religious kids who were drawn to the chaplaincy for the social action side and [others drawn to] the liturgical, emotional, spiritual. There was a hunger for both.

Which drew you?

They’re from 20 different communities, from Meriden to Stratford to Clinton.

They drive by a lot of other churches, but the liturgy alone is not going to bring anyone in. The preaching has to be interesting and challenging, you shouldn’t fall asleep during the sermon.

That doesn’t mean people don’t fall asleep during my sermons, but one’s goal is to keep the congregation awake and to have some depth to it. The music has to be really moving.

Music? Why? I can remember going to church on Christmas Eve as a kid and not understanding anything but still being moved by the music. My father, who was an agnostic, would go on Christmas and Easter for the music. He’d call it a concert and he would be moved by it.

Could marathoning be a contemporary version of fasting and deprivation to reach a different consciousness?

Certainly long-distance running in someone who is not an athlete, — and I was never an athlete — creates a deprivation like fasting might bring.

You’re at your absolute limit. I don’t know how people run ultramarathons [50 or 100 miles, vs. the marathon’s 26.2]. There were plenty of times I could remember in New York, that I would get back into Manhattan at around Mile 20 near Marcus Garvey Park and I thought, ‘I’m not going to make it around this park’ — and it was one square block. You have this sense of grace that a power beyond yourself helps you do it. I’m sure people who aren’t religious feel that.

So were you able to ‘feel the power’ running?

It’s one of those things that convince you that God is real, that faith is not simply an illusion. There is an unseen reality that is just as real as what you can observe through a microscope.

How do you reconcile this with our secular, science-bound experience here in New Haven?

Everything that is was created by God, The creationists say it happened in seven days; I say ‘days’ were longer then — a million, billion years. If we could agree there are different ways of measuring time, then you don’t have to say dinosaurs and men walked the earth together.

I thought Einstein said we are walking the earth together.

The first time I looked through a microscope we were looking at pond water. It was alive; you could see all these [organisms]. It told us what you normally see wasn’t all there is, and that is basically what most religions say. To quote Dostoevsky, ‘That which is alive is in contact with other worlds.’ There is another reality beneath, above, around.

So is the job to get a person there, or to help with life choices?

There are two kinds of sermons and two kinds of counseling; they overlap. One is to get them in touch with the mysteries.

I remember one sermon I heard that someone else preached, ‘Don’t just do something — stand there.’

I think it was Buddha.

The other is: Don’t just stand there; Jesus said there are things you gotta do.

To say America is a Christian country has become controversial these days.

I don’t think the majority of Trinity’s congregation would describe America as a Christian country. I think they’re sophisticated enough to know that just because you say ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t make you a Christian. I think to be nominally Christian — which is what most Americans are — may or may not affect your decision making. Look at segregation.

What was the most religious part of the country? The South. Who had Jim Crow?

There was dissonance there, they would say one thing and practice another — which is exactly what sin is. Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean you’re not a sinner.

How is the Episcopal ‘brand’ doing in America today in terms of advancing values, not just attendance?

The mainline [Protestant] churches are losing attendance and authority. The leadership has become in some ways estranged from the person in the pew — and certainly the person who is reading the New York Times and isn’t going to church at all. It’s hard to recapture that.

Continued on 45

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Back To School Directory Selected Private School Listings Chase Collegiate School, 565 Chase Pkwy., Waterbury (203-236-9560, chasecollegiate. org). Offers full range of academics, arts and athletics with an enrollment of 460 co-ed students and 65 faculty members in pre-K to grade 12. Tuition ranges from $4,060 to $28,790; tuition support provided to approximately 40 percent of students. Headmaster is John D. Fixx.

Cheshire Academy, 10 Main St., Cheshire (203272-5396, cheshireacademy.org). Enrollment approximately 376 co-ed day and boarding students with 70 faculty members for school serving grade 6 to post-secondary (grades six to eight day school only). Tuition assistance provided to approximately 30 percent of students. Tuition: $30,345 to $41,000 (boarding).

Douglas Rogers is new headmaster.

Choate Rosemary Hall, 333 Christian St., Wallingford (203-697-2000, choate.edu). Largest of the region’s private schools offering both day and boarding enrollment to 860 co-ed students with 119 faculty members from grade 9 to post-secondary. Tuition ranges from $31,310 to $41,500 (boarding); assistance provided to approximately 40 percent of students. Edward J. Shanahan is headmaster.

Cold Spring School, 263 Chapel St., New Haven (203-787-1584, coldspringschool.org).

Independent day school prides itself on its urban neighborhood and location adjacent to

Selected College Programs Albertus Magnus College, 700 Prospect St., New Haven (203-773-8550, albertus.edu). President: Julia M. McNamara. Director of Admissions: Richard Lolatte. Offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Of special interest are accelerated MBA programs with five starting points, evening classes, four concentrations and a blend of classroom and online classes. Arts Therapy graduate degree is the only one in Connecticut. New for 200910 academic year is a Master of Science in Education (M.S.Ed.) degree for teachers with an initial Connecticut certification. Financial aid available. Courses offered in New Haven and East Hartford.

Gateway Community College, 60 Sargent Dr., New Haven (203-285-2000, gwcc.commnet.edu).

President: Dorsey L. Kendrick. Director of

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august 2009

a city park overlooking Long Island Sound.

Offers multi-grade classes with a teacher and a master. Serves some 130 students in grades pre-K to 6, served by 20 faculty members.

Tuition ranges from $12,450 to $18,100 and some 35 percent of students receive tuition assistance.

Headmaster is Jeff Jonathan.

Country School, 341 Opening Hill Rd., Madison (203-421-3113, thecountryschool.org). Sixty faculty members serve 250 pre-K to grade 8 co-ed students. Tuition ranges from $10,890 to $22,785 and assistance is provided to approximately 15 percent of students. William E. Powers is headmaster.

Ezra Academy, 75 Rimmon Rd., Woodbridge (203389-5500, ezraacademy.net). Ezra integrates a secular and Judaic curriculum for 175 co-ed students served by a 35-member faculty.

Tuition ranges from $13,400 to $14,400 and assistance is available to approximately 30 percent of students. Rabbi Amanda Brodie is headmaster.

Foote School, 50 Loomis Pl., New Haven (203-7773464, footeschool.org). Fourteen-acre campus houses diverse co-ed student body of 470 from 27 greater New Haven communities. Grades K through 9 are taught by 110 faculty members.

Tuition ranges from $18,370 to $21,370 and some 20 percent of students receive tuition assistance.

Headmaster is Carol Maoz.

Foundation School, 719 Derby-Milford Rd., Orange (203-795-6075, foundationschool. org). Day school for approximately 150 Admissions: Kim Shea. GCC offers perhaps the most affordable way to upgrade your career prospects. Offerings are highly diverse and include both degree and certificate programs spanning everything from nursing to computer networking, to green building and culinary careers.

Paier College of Art, 20 Gorham Ave., Hamden (203-287-3031, paiercollegeofart.edu). President: Jonathan Paier. Director of Admissions: Daniel Paier. Offers degrees of Bachelor of Fine Arts and Associate of Fine Arts, and include full curriculums in graphic design, photography, illustration and interior design.

Quinnipiac University, 275 Mt. Carmel Ave., Hamden (203-582-8200, quinnipiac. edu). President: John L. Lahey. Director of Admissions: Joan Isaac Mohr, Quinnipiac offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Of special interest are MBA

co-ed students ages 3-21 with a variety of developmental needs, learning deficits, autism spectrum disorders and behavioral challenges.

Tuition is $57,000; no tuition assistance available. Walter J. Bell is headmaster.

Hamden Hall Country Day School, 1108 Whitney Ave., Hamden (203-752-2600, hamdenhall. org). Independent day school serves 575 co-ed students from 25 greater New Haven communities with 85 faculty members for pre-K to grade 12. Tuition ranges from $13,000 to $27,350 with assistance provided to approximately 30 percent of students.

Headmaster is Robert J. Izzo.

Hopkins School, 986 Forest Rd., New Haven (203-397-1001, hopkins.edu). Celebrating its 350th year in 2010, Hopkins is among the first educational institutions in the country, predating Yale University. Located on a 108-acre campus the independent day school servers 670 co-ed students in grades 7 to 12, with 119 faculty members. Tuition is $29,400 and approximately 20 percent of students receive tuition assistance. Barbara M. Riley is headmaster.

St. Thomas Day School, 830 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203-776-2123 stthomasday.org) An independent Episcopal day school serving iverse faiths and backgrounds. Grades pre-K to 6, with 130 co-ed students served by 30 faculty members. Financial assistance is available based on income.

offerings in Supply Chain Management, Health Care Management, Chartered Financial Analyst as well as graduate certificates in Health Care Administration.

Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven (203-392-5200, southernct.edu). President: Cheryl J. Norton.

Director of Admissions: James Williams (interim). Offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs, SCSU is perhaps the largest educator of employees and managers in greater New Haven. Of special interest is the Accelerated Career Entry (ACE) program for individuals who are looking to make a career change to nursing. Also available is an MSN and a certificate program to prepare nurses to teach nursing. Graduate-level certificate program in emergency and disaster management is a 12 credit program designed to help students expand existing emergency management duties.

St. Thomas’s Day School

Junior Kindergarten through Grade 6 University of Bridgeport, 126 Park Ave., Bridgeport (203-576-4000, bridgeport.edu) President: Neil Albert Salonen. Director of Admissions: Barbara L. Maryak. UB offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs and has many courses and programs to compliment its international student body.

Making the world better with a Masters degree in Global Development and Peace is one option, as well as an nternationally focused MBA. A Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering is available.

University of Connecticut/Waterbury 99 East Main St., Waterbury (203-236-9800, waterbury.uconn.edu). President: William J. Pizzuto. Director of Admissions: Lee Melvin.

UConn/Waterbury offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Students may pursue an MBA, enter the Teachers Certification Program for College Graduates or obtain a Masters of Social Work (MSW) or Nursing (MS) at UConn/Waterbury.

An independent Episcopal day school serving children from diverse faiths & backgrounds

830 Whitney Ave, New Haven • 203-776-2123

Bui l d i n g a F o u n d a t i o n

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Hamden Hall Country Day School

An Independent College Preparatory, Co-Educational Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12 Day School

For a Lifetime of Learning

1108 Whitney Ave. • Hamden, CT 203.752.2610 • www.hamdenhall.org

University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven (203-932-7000, newhaven. edu). President: Steven Kaplan. Director of Admissions: Kevin J. Phillips. Offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

UNH is bringing back football and adding several new graduate offerings to a large number of career-building programs. In September ground will be broken for the new home of the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science on campus. UNH offers the only Masters in Industrial Engineering in the state and has added a new course on Sustainable Engineering and a new certificate in Biomedical Engineering. Also offered is an MBA for Emerging Leaders and an MS in Labor Relations.

Yale University, Elm St., New Haven (203432-4771, yale.edu). President: Richard Levin.

Director of Admissions: Jeffrey Brenzel. Yale offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Yale has a very extensive set of graduate programs. The Yale School of Management while relatively small attracted students from around the world and an increasing number of students are combining their efforts with the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

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S

ummertime, and it’s easier than ever to find fresh food.

Consumers are flocking to more than 120 farmers markets around the state, a record number reflecting increased demand for locally grown vegetables, meat, fish, fruit and dairy products.

Buoyed by consumer demand for fresh and local produce, farming makes a comeback in Connecticut

“People are concerned about the kind of food they’re eating and where their food comes from,” says Jennifer McTiernan, founder and executive director of CitySeed, which runs four farmers markets in the Elm City.

By Karen Singer

As supermarket chains, specialty stores and restaurants promote more local foods, farmers are cultivating strategies to sell directly, and more profitably, to consumers.

“There’s a lot of niche marketing going on, with more production of ethnic crops and greenhouse tomatoes, herbs and spices,” explains state Department of Agriculture bureau director Robert Pellegrino. There’s also increased demand for organic products and value-added products such as artisanal cheeses and maple syrup candy.

Though dairy farmers are struggling, hamstrung by historically low milk prices, other agricultural sectors in Connecticut are on the rise, including wine production and aquaculture.

Pellegrino says clam and fish yields are higher, oysters are “coming back stronger than ever” and lobsters are rebounding from a calamitous late 1990s die-off linked to a virus.

“We’ve lost some of our bigger farms, but smaller ones are replacing them,” says Jude Boucher, a University of Connecticut extension educator for commercial vegetable crops, who estimates at least 600 farmers are planting on land ranging from half an acre to 3,000 acres. “A big part of the secret is to have something no one else has.”

Mad man: Perry Hack dropped out of a successful Manhattan advertising career to farm hydroponically in Woodbridge. photograph:

Steve Blazo

Connecticut now is “first in the country in terms of per farm, average directto-consumer sales,” says CitySeed’s McTiernan.

“Lots of farmers are realizing they have access to a huge customer base that wants their food,” she says. “There’s also a real range of people going into farming. And they’re only getting more diverse, with more women farmers, more minority farms and more immigrant farmers.”

Some Connecticut farmers still pass their skills from one generation to the next, while others enter the field after studying

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agricultural and environmental sciences in college.

“People retiring early are deciding they would like to try this way of life,” Boucher says.

Pellegrino describes the life as “very hard and sometimes not rewarding,” but “very satisfying for a certain type of person.

“It’s seven days a week,” he says, “and you’ve got to like what you’re doing.”

Here’s how some area farmers are doing it.

Two Guys from Woodbridge

Perry Hack used to create artwork for print and TV campaigns for some of the largest advertising agencies in Manhattan.

Now he produces delectable organic greens that look like art.

greenhouse, went organic and has since hired four full-time employees and a greenhouse manager.

Hack peddles his greens at farmers markets in New York and Connecticut, including CitySeed. Most are packaged live with their roots. He also sells raspberries grown in a patch behind the greenhouses. “I’m constantly experimenting and trying to be unique.”

Walking down the rows filled with dandelion, endive, frisee, sorrel and other leaves, edible flowers and a dozen varieties of lettuce, Hatch laments not having enough supply to meet demand.

“Instead of producing 400 heads of lettuce a day, I need to be producing 4,000,” he says. He is trying to find capital to expand.

He’d like to add several more greenhouses, and is looking into geothermal heating A hydroponic farmer and owner of Two so he can produce local tomatoes and Guys from Woodbridge, Hack grows lettuce heads, herbs, mini-salads and other strawberries during winter. plants in a Hamden greenhouse equipped He wants to get his greens into more with artificial lights, heat, humidity and restaurants, as well as onto wedding and ventilation controls and a state-of-thepublic-school menus. art irrigation system. Grown without Hack works 15 to 16 hours most days. soil, seeds start in a matrix of ground coconut shells, then are transferred to long, “If I’m not at a farmers market, I’m delivering or running errands, invoicing, narrow flats, where they thrive in circular calling people back, making labels for apertures, floating in recycled, nutrientpackaging, ordering supplies, taking rich water. orders or checking the greenhouse,” he “They get exactly what they need, so the says. “What I’m most happy about is I roots are small and they concentrate their have my own business and have no one to energy on leaf growth,” Hack explains. answer to.”

Do they ever. Pest-free, pesticide-free and blemish-free, the plants look still-life Shepherd’s Farm, Woodbridge paintings — almost too perfect to be real.

You can buy eggs any time at Shepherd’s In a smaller greenhouse, Hack grows Farm. Just open the refrigerator in the wheat grass and microgreens. barn, take what you need and leave money in the box.

A graphic artist who grew up in Woodbridge, the 45-year-old Hack started the business in 2001 with childhood friend Moses Newman after becoming disenchanted with his advertising career.

He had returned home to help his mother care for his ailing father, and was inspired by reading an article about growing hydroponic herbs.

Starting with herbs in Hack’s parent’s house, the two guys began selling them to Edge of the Woods and a few other stores.

In 2003, Hack bought an old farmhouse in Hamden, where they built a 900-squarefoot greenhouse and expanded into lettuce heads. While his partner cared for the greenhouse, Hack designed the packaging and did the marketing.

After he and Newman parted ways in 2005, Hack installed a 1,200-square-foot 16

august 2009

“We use the honor system, and no one has stolen from us yet,” says Sarah Shepherd, who owns the remaining 20 acres of an 80acre dairy farm set amid rolling hills on Litchfield Turnpike in Woodbridge.

Started in 1887, Shepherd’s was known for its raw milk and ice cream, but currently sells eggs and heirloom tomatoes.

Sarah became owner after her husband, Rick Shepherd, died in 2002. Rick took over from his father, Fred, who ran the farm from the 1950s until his death in 2001.

She kept the dairy operation going until it became too costly, selling the last of Jersey cows four years ago.

Now library director at Clark Memorial Library in Bethany, she and fiancé Dana Fox are planning to revitalize the farm.

“We’re going to try to get a barn grant next year to get it restored,” says Fox, who oversees chickens, goats, a sheep and an ornery llama housed in fenced-in areas near the faded barn. “I’m going to fix up the main store over the winter, and try to start making ice cream in May. We need the capital from the ice cream to bring back cows.”

Shepherd, who sold heirloom tomatoes at CitySeed farmers markets for a couple of years, wants to grow more vegetables and would like to host a farmers market.

Fox dreams of making Shepherd’s a destination for city dwellers and out-oftowners to enjoy freshly made ice cream, check out old farm equipment and watch cows being milked.

Field View Dairy Farm, Orange

On a warm summer evening, several couples sit at picnic tables, eating ice cream and watching cows amble around the barn at Field View Dairy Farm in Orange, one of the oldest farms in the country.

The owner, Walter S. Hine, a tenthgeneration dairy farmer whose ancestors opened the farm in 1639, is sounding off about the plight of the dairy farmer.

“Our milk is regulated by the federal government and everybody gets the same price,” Hine says. “It’s an antiquated price system and it hasn’t changed in 20 years.”

According to Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s office, state dairy farmers received around $1.07 for a gallon of milk during the first quarter of 2009, nearly 25 percent less than the $1.42 a gallon they received in 1998.

With rising fertilizer, diesel and other costs of producing milk, Hine says, “You can’t compete, and you’re losing about a dollar a gallon.”

Connecticut has just 151 dairy farms, down from 210 in 2007 and 500 in 1990, and On July 17 Rell signed legislation aimed at helping dairy farmers recover some of their losses with direct grants raised through a change in the formula to distribute money from a $40 fee for recording municipal land documents.

Hine was among several dairy farmers who recently met with U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-3) and Joe Courtney (D-2), urging them to amend the federal pricing scheme and prevent more farms “being eaten up by because of the problem.”

Dana Fox (pictured) and fiancee Sarah Shepherd are putting all their eggs in the basket of revitalizing 122-year-old Shepherd’s Farm in Woodbridge. photograph:Steve

Blazo

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photograph:

Anthony DeCarlo

The family that plows together: Fred and Stacia Monahan started Stone Gardens Farm in Shelton a decade ago. Today they have 300 chickens, 400 turkeys and two dozen head of beef cattle.

Hine’s dairy is barely operational these days. He has 16 cows, milks five and sells 60 to 80 gallons three times a week to Calabro Cheese Corp. in East Haven.

“Before the fire we had 110 cows,” Hine says, adding the numbers have gone down steadily since the 1996 blaze destroyed much of the barn.

Hine used to make ice cream at the farm, but now stocks his ice cream parlor with Milford-made Buck’s Ice Cream.

The farm also produces and sells hay and vegetables including sweet corn.

A few years ago Hine sold half his farm, about 100 acres, to developers to make ends meet.

Hines says he’s doing better than many of his dairy farm colleagues because of a trucking business he started in the mid1950s, which sustains the farm. Hines once spent many nights on the road, after long days performing farm chores. Now 74, he leaves most of the driving to his employees and his son, Gregory, who also helps with the farm. His wife Dorothy still milks the cows and grows vegetables.

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august 2009

Despite the hardships he has endured over the years, Hine remains optimistic about farming. He is “seriously considering” selling raw milk because of a growing number of customer requests. He’s also thinking about rebuilding the barn to house more cows, and contemplating a return to ice cream-making.

“I still think there’s a future in it,” Hine says, “because people want fresh food.”

Stone Gardens Farm, Shelton

They have a farm stand and sell produce at farmers markets including CitySeed.

Last year the Monahans launched a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, which became an instant success with 125 members, 88 of them fulltime. This year they have 160 full-time members and may add more.

“I do most of the marketing, selling and picking, and he does most of the planting and makes sure the crops are growing good,” says Stacia, 31.

Fred Monahan’s day begins an hour before breakfast, when he feeds 300 chickens, 400 turkeys and 25 beef cattle.

Their sons, Tommy, 10, and Billy, 7, help out with the chores, and “do quite a bit of the transplanting,” Fred says.

“That’s when I’m deciding what’s going on during the day,” says Monahan, 43, who shut down his landscaping business two years ago to become a full-time farmer with his wife, Stacia.

The Monahans are learning Integrated Pest Management (IMP) in a three-year grant program teaching them how to monitor crops, trap pests and avoid pests by timing crops with their life cycles.

The couple started Stone Gardens Farms in 1998, growing sweet corn and other vegetables on fields once used for cow corn, and have since expanded their vegetable crops, which cover nearly 40 (mostly leased) acres.

“Something Fred and Stacia have done very well is diversified their crops and mastered marketing,” says Jude Boucher, a UConn extension educator working with the Monahans on the IPM program.

The farming life appeals to the Monahans.

“I like being outside and picking when it’s quiet and there’s nothing else around bothering me,” says Stacia. “It’s also great to go to the markets, hear the feedback from the customers and watch their families grow.”

Adds Fred, “I’m working with my wife.

I’m working with my kids. We work 15 to 16 hours every day, but it’s not like work.”

Northfordy Farm

Peter Rothenberg became an organic farmer long before it was fashionable.

“The local farmers thought we were kooks,” says Rothenberg, 67, a Yaletrained psychologist who started planting vegetables in 1975 when his family moved from Westville to an old farmhouse in Northford.

A small garden became larger, and “grew faster than the number of relatives we could feed it to,” says Rothenberg’s wife, Judith, who began adding animals — including chickens, sheep, goats, a llama, horse, cow and donkey — in the late 1980s.

They had a farm stand and took part in few farmers markets before joining CitySeed’s, where he now sells vegetables, eggs, wool and maple syrup.

Last year, they sold goats for meat for the first time. “We’ve always been able to sell them as pets and had two males that nobody wanted,” says Rothenberg.

After signing up with CitySeed in 2004, Rothenberg replaced his swimming pool with a greenhouse, and increased the amount of land he farms from three quarters of acre around his house, where he plants tomatoes, peppers, squash, lettuces and other vegetables, to more than two and half acres by negotiating arrangements with other nearby farmers.

Niche items include pawpaw, the largest North American fruit, filled with essential amino acids, and northern-hardy kiwi, a grape-like fruit containing vitamin C, calcium and other nutrients.

Tailoring his planting to consumer

demand, he has added more crops such as onions and potatoes.

“It’s all about the relationship with the customer,” he says, adding he especially enjoys disseminating information about growing and consuming wholesome food at a time when people are paying more attention to their health in a society awash with junk food.

An activist during the civil rights, antiwar and feminist movements of the 1960s, Rothenberg adds, “I thought I was turning myself out to pasture when I became involved in farming. But this is the most political thing I’ve ever done.” v

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In spring, the couple make maple syrup.

“The part I like best is running the evaporator (a wood-fired device where sap is boiled to remove water)” says his wife, a retired special education teacher who grew up in the New York suburbs dreaming of owning “lots of” animals. “You have to kind of develop a feel for what kind of wood it does well on — and we have gotten rid of a lot of furniture that way.”

She cares for the critters and writes essays about farming life in a column for Gleanings, a quarterly publication of the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

“One of the things that farming has that people may not think it has is an enormous amount of problem-solving,” says Judith. “A lot of times one has to be a little bit creative, whether it’s dealing with keeping predators away from the chickens or figuring out what to do for a plant.”

Peter is a former president of the Connecticut chapter of NOFA, which provides resources for “ecologically sound farming and gardening” and developing local sustainable agriculture.

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I NST Y L E AT H O M E

OUT D O O R S

O F riving NO T E 1Sjust west of B ODY & SO U L off Route the Guilford town center, you

D

ease up a meandering street amid “normal” suburban homes mostly built between 1970 and 2000 — an established residential neighborhood in a lovely New England town. Then without warning, you spot an architectural quirk here, an unexpected shape there amid the mature trees and plantings and ragged rock outcroppings.

ONSC R E E N

During the heyday of expressive “Modern” residential architecture that spiraled out of Charles Moore’s tenure as dean of Yale’s School of Architecture, dozens of architects created highly sculptural houses in nearly every town around Mother Yale, but perhaps the epicenter of that genre’s built expression exists in the Sam Hill section of Guilford. Its name defines the topography — hilly — but the terrain defined the architecture. The craggy rockfilled landscape and the winding roads that it demands do not accommodate centerhall Colonials well — or many other stock plans, either. By definition generic houses are designed for generic sites — featureless and flat — the antithesis of Sam Hill.

Among area architects, when one thinks of sculpted buildings that focus on shape, structure and material and eschew the trappings of a namable “style,” one architect’s name always gets a grin: Wilfred (Wil) Armster. He is not only an architect trained in the experimental artfilled world of mid-century Yale, he owns with his children Wood, Steel and Glas (note the Euro single S) — a Madison company that sells salvaged wood from all over the country and also specializes in plantation-grown (i.e., renewable/ sustainable) cypress — and has done so decades before “green” became fashionable.

As an architect Wil designs memorable structures that are active participants in our bucolic and/or historic New England communities – as well as all over the rest of the country.

When in 1983 Marshall and Leslie Long were looking for the home where they could raise a family, they were clueless about Wil Armster. But the best calling card for an architect is his or her work, and the home the Longs discovered on Sam Hill clearly grabbed them. “It was so

Where there’s a ‘Wil’ there’s a way to reinvent a one-of-a-kind Shoreline home

By Duo Dickinson photograph:

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august 2009

Anthony DeCarlo

The addition’s ‘living box’ is surrounded on all sides by air. The outsized glass walls and skylight allow direct connection with the site horizontally, and with the upper floors of the home’s shape vertically through the skylight. The tightly spaced cedar timbers at top are typical of the 1980s extension.

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The original home’s dining and family room are a flowing space with chiseled-in skylight fitting comfortably over the sofa.

The connection to the added space is to the right, up a few steps, and the home’s central masonry ‘core’ is visible at far right. photograph:

The kitchen was renovated after the home was added onto its lines and detailing dovetail with the final product’s collective ambiance of wood, white and triangulating lines. photograph:

Anthony DeCarlo

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august 2009

Anthony DeCarlo

Designed in the mid-1970s for a couple, the original house took three years to complete. Armster essentially oversaw construction, but the owners ultimately decided to move farther out into less populated country — Maine — and sold the house to a New York couple who used it as a second home in the early 1980s.

When the Longs took possession, the home was a singularity — a cube, with a launching deck to one side and 45-degree angled walls within — a classically distilled, abstracted form reposing in the active stone/tree/hill-fraught landscape.

The Longs hailed from Montana, had new infant, and Marshall had a job teaching mechanical engineering at Yale. They knew the cube had to evolve. If you love a creation, but it needs to adapt, the best start is to contact the creator. They contacted Armster and thus began a multiphase, multi-year evolution.

First, Marshall Long needed an office.

Rather than subvert the existing form Armster slipped a tight office under the floating deck, and found a classic slot window opportunity under the deck’s built-in bench.

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Then, as more children arrived, a new approach for expansion had to be devised.

Armster knew that unless the expansion complemented the original cube, the vision of his design would be lost.

When it comes to houses of any design that are undersized for rapidly growing families, the need is usually for three types of added space: informal living space, bedrooms and bathrooms. Armster saw that these new individual spaces (plus in this particular case a celestial-view tower space for Marshall Long’s love of stargazing) meant he could completely invert the design concept of his original cube with the new spaces he added to it.

His cube was a perfect example of outsidein design and that meant the exterior of the original house was a pristine container that was filled with floors, stairs and had cuts sliced into it for windows and doors — often using a 45 degree angled geometry.

But for the new added space Armster saw that an inside-out design, where each of the spaces for each function — living, bedroom/bath and view tower — could have its own individual box, separated by air supported by expressed beams and columns — the opposite of a single box filled with unseen structure, floors and

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Still friends after all these years: (L-r) architect Will Armster and his wife Sarah Armster with Leslie and Marshall Long. photograph:

Anthony DeCarlo

The view of the home upon arrival. The deck launches off the left of the central cube of the original 1970s home, while the 1980s addition — an ensemble of distinct shapes and structure — steps up the hill to the right. photograph:

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Anthony DeCarlo

august 2009

walls that are revealed only once you enter.

The dynamic between these two approaches is delightful and suited the love affair the Longs had with the original home. “It’s like living in a work of art,” says Leslie Long with a wide grin. The house may be a work of art, but Armster is not a sculptor — he is an architect in the venerable European tradition of the “master builders” who designed and built the great cathedrals and public buildings of the Renaissance through the Industrial Revolution. Every structural concept is freshly interpreted and infused with a muscular assurance that speaks of Armster’s many decades of designing and building.

It has been quite fashionable these last couple of decades for architects to call themselves “Modern.” But the vapor-thin cyber rendering world of computer-aided design has facilitated aesthetic expression without the deep background of technical and environmental knowledge and construction skill that make interesting ideas into viable buildings.

Armster’s confidence is revealed in his design method.

Armster views drawing as the first step in the design process. Once construction starts, desirable changes reveal themselves and the design is modified — not on a flat-screen monitor, but in real time and in real space. Windows were designed for seated children to view returning parents, or adults sitting to see out — not forgiving blank panes of plate glass, but carefully sized and located apertures. Skylights bring in light, but also look back on the other parts of the house. Gaps between the new and existing have full glass infill to put the joint into full view. All these pyrotechnics also meant quite a few floor levels — ten at last count.

If Armster wanted the cheap thrills of an architectural

one-liner, his buildings would tend to disintegrate when the reality of weather, gravity and rot became inexorable.

But a master builder builds structures to last, and this home — parts of it 30 years old — looks fresh and vigorous.

Some floors are solid slabs of ganged two-by-sixes spanning over a dozen feet, allowing the gaps between the boxes. Cedar was used as structure — novel given its structural lightness, but dramatic in its tight spacing and aromatic impact.

Wood is used as steel — large, strong, expressed pieces — allowing for cantilevers and large skylights and windows.

The house floats over rolling terrain, with decks coming off bedrooms and a family deck culminating in a angled pool overlooking the hillside.

As time went on and the Long brood grew to three, a child needed a separate bedroom and Marshall’s viewing tower became a fourth bedroom.

The kitchen was redone and any number of thoughtful accommodations were easily tolerated by this crafty construction. As kids became more autonomous Leslie Long became a science teacher, for the last decade at the Foote School. With the youngest child now safely in college, this nest is empty — but beckoning the returning flock.

The Longs loved this home enough to stage the birth of their third child in their bedroom. “Light is everywhere — the home feeds the soul,” observes Marshall Long. All homes nurture memories and comfort, but the stock designs that blanket our suburbs do not challenge the way we think about space, light and shape.

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O U TD OORS B O D Y & S OUL O NS C R EE N

Don’t Bug Out The pernicious mystery of Lyme disease, and how to keep the little buggers at bay

By Sarah Politz

M

aybe it’s happened to you. You head out the back door on a summery Saturday morning, anxious to get started on some muchneeded gardening or yard work. The sun rises in the sky; you sweat, and remove subsequent layers of clothing. By the time the sun goes down, you are exhausted.

But before you settle in for the night, your spouse discovers something the size of a tiny seed lodged on the back of your neck. If it’s summer in New England, it could very well be a deer tick, and there is a reasonably good chance it carries the bacteria responsible for Lyme disease.

“Many people now have homes either near to or next to forests,” explains Louis 26

august 2009

Magnarelli, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven. “You have an abundance of ticks in settings where people are continually coming in contact with these ticks.”

The deer tick, Ixodes scapularis to the science-literate, carries and transmits the spriochetal bacteria that causes Lyme and can be found across Connecticut, which is ranked in the top five states for Lyme risk.

Before the Industrial Revolution there was little forestland in Connecticut, and deer hunting controlled both the deer and tick populations, which are related symbiotically. “White-tailed deer were pretty much extinct from southern New England at the turn of the 20th

century,” says Durland Fish, professor of epidemiology and microbiology at the Yale School of Public Health. “They were reintroduced purposefully, primarily for recreational hunting.”

“The white-tailed deer are important in this story because they are hosts for the adult stage of the tick,” says Magnarelli.

“So the increase in the tick population correlated right along with the increase in the deer population.”

“Along with the increase in deer, there was an increase in the white-footed mouse population,” Magnarelli adds. “That’s that animal that seems to be the chief reservoir for the causative agent for Lyme disease.

It harbors the pathogen; then when the ticks feed on them in the larval stage they acquire the pathogen.”

The deer tick has three life stages: larva, nymph and adult. During the first two stages, it feeds on a variety of hosts, including birds, rodents and large mammals. It is in the nymphal phase, most abundant in the summer months, that the tick most often transmits Lyme to humans, unfortunately also the stage at

which it is smallest and most difficult to detect.

a little discipline and advance planning.

“If you’re going to go out into a known tick-infested area to do gardening or clear brush, the best thing you can do is wear insect repellent on your clothing and wear your socks on the outside of the pant leg,” advises Magnarelli. But if, like many people, you absolutely can’t tolerate long sleeves and pants in the heat, apply a DEET-based insect repellent to your skin and look for an insecticide with permethrin to apply to your clothing, which will kill ticks on contact.

It is only in the past 40 years or so that doctors in the U.S. have identified the causes of Lyme disease, although Lymerelated observations date back several centuries in Europe. According to the Lyme Disease Foundation of Connecticut, Alfred Bushwald described a Lyme-like degenerative skin disorder in 1883 in Breslau, Germany. Then, at the 1909 meeting of the Swedish Dermatology Society, a physician named Arvid Afzelius first reported the hallmark “bulls-eye” skin lesion that marks the work of an infected tick.

The string of discoveries that occurred in southern Connecticut in the 1970s unlocked more clues to the mystery. A group of children in the shoreline town of Lyme were all experiencing similar symptoms: fever, chills, muscle and joint aches and a characteristic rash. Physicians originally misdiagnosed the children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Allen Steere termed this unusual clustering of cases “Lyme arthritis” in 1977.

Then, in 1981, Willy Burgdorfer, an entomologist at the U.S. Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the National Institutes

And then check for ticks when you come indoors. “The nymphal stage of the tick is about the size of a poppy seed,” Magnarelli says. “The adults are quite large, about the size of a watermelon seed.

The culprit: Ixodes scapularis.

of Health, came across an embryonic form of the disease-causing bacterium in the bodies of two blacklegged ticks. He knew of the work done by the European researchers and correctly hypothesized that this was the organism responsible for so called “Lyme disease.” The spirochetal bacteria were named Borrelia burgdorferi after its discoverer.

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“Even if the tick is infected, it takes the tick a long time to get its mouthparts implanted into the skin,” he adds. “So transmission doesn’t start right away; it would start probably 24 to 36 hours after its initial bite. That’s why early removal of the tick is key for preventing disease.”

Wash your clothes after working and playing outside, take a shower and do a tick check before going to bed, enlisting the aid of a family member to check Continued on 44

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The Day the Music Didn’t Die Thanks to indefatigable efforts of volunteers and musicians, the New Haven Jazz Festival lives to see another day (August 22, specifically) Bobby Sanabria brings his Afro-Cuban groove to the finale, “Salsa Meets Jazz.”

28 august 2009

\By Sarah Politz

I

f you’ve been wondering what happened to the New Haven Jazz Festival, you’re hardly alone.

Information about the event, resurrected last year by the nonprofit organization Jazz Haven, has been hard to come by in recent months. For a while, even the organizers were unsure if the festival would get off the ground at a time when the region was still trying to discern whether the recession had yet plumbed its darkest depths.

But never fear, starry-eyed jazz hopefuls — the fest goes on. Expect more buzz about the festival as August 22 gets closer. “We’re very happy that we’re still supported, and this festival continues to live,” says Aleta Staton, who co-chairs the festival along with Jazz Haven President Doug Morrill and drummer Jesse (Cheese) Hameen II. “It has been so important to the people of New Haven. It’s something they’ve expected for the past 27 years.”

his home in Detroit. “You get one guy soloing with 100 people in the background.

I’m more interested in the 100 in the background. Get them started making up something — everybody needs input.”

Many successful jazz musicians have come to Bluiett as adult students, including saxophonist James Carter, but Bluiett says he now does most of his work with young people: “The older folks, they’re whatever. But the younger folks need something. [Music] is exercise for the brain so you can stop thinking about what dumb people told you, so the brain can think how it thinks. This is the food for it.”

mentorship of her godfather, trumpeter Clark Terry — takes the mood on the Green to a different place, transforming the outdoor venue momentarily into a smoky blues club with her soulful lyricism and facile scat singing.

Pianist Craig Hartley follows with his quartet. The graduate of Manhattan School of Music (2006) and New Haven’s Educational Center for the Arts now uses New Haven as a base for his performances in Hartford and New York City. Though he lists Keith Jarrett “and all the greats” among his inspirations, Hartley attributes his musical success to his flexibility in playing many different styles of music.

“A lot of people get stuck in one style of music and just network and cultivate through there,” he says. “I’ve been fortunate to be able to move across the boundaries.”

The program culminates in “Salsa Meets Jazz,” a danceable set featuring Bobby Sanabria on Down to one day of music from last drum set and Candido Camero year’s two, the 2009 program may on congas. Sanabria, born to be shorter, but short on musical Puerto Rican parents in the South talent it is not — even if some of Bronx and educated in Boston the performers may themselves at the Berklee College of Music, be short in stature. A group of has played with the founders of elementary school students from Afro-Cuban fusion, including St. Thomas’s Day School have over Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente the past year participated in the and Mongo Santamaría. Born in after school program “First Grade Havana, Cuba in 1921, Camero Jazz,” where they learned the basics is today still a force to contend of playing jazz. The students, from with, and his pairing with Tony Juliano, an artist from Orange, is creating the backdrop first through sixth grades, kick off Sanabria is sure to set off a gleeful, for the stage on the Green with the help of students from the afternoon on the Green with a rhythmic firestorm. Camero Bridgeport, New Haven and Orange. performance at 3 p.m. is known to percussionists as the first to employ more than “Our main thrust is trying to keep this “Most of these musicians that I know that one conga drum and the pioneer of the stuff alive at a very early age,” says play jazz now began to experiment with technique of coordinated independence, Morrill. “That’s what really matters, when it when they were in their teens,” says in which hands and fingers play off one you consider that kids absolutely love this Staton, “and then when they were in another but maintain independent, often stuff once they’re exposed.” their 20s when they were allowed into polyrhythmic lines. those clubs so that they could spend time A more advanced group of jazz students The festival will benefit once again from with the musicians at work and go to jam follows — an ensemble comprising high the indispensable sponsorship of the sessions.

When they visited those elder schoolers selected from the Neighborhood City of New Haven, which foots the musicians who are leaving us at this point, Music School’s Summer Jazz Program bill for sanitation, public utilities and when they were able to sit in with their and led by renowned baritone saxophonist instruments and really spend the time that police presence. “We’ve just about made Hamiett Bluiett, who is donating his it financially, by the skin of our teeth,” it takes to experiment and explore their time to the festival. Bluiett, who calls acknowledges Morrill, who says he took own jazz.” the project an “improvised youth jazz a different approach to fundraising this orchestra,” has performed with some of vvv year: “I barely talked about jazz. I talked his era’s more innovative improvisers, more about the culture we live in.” including the Charles Mingus Quintet The performance continues with Bluiett’s and the Black Artists’ Group of St. Louis, Morrill, a sculptor who is past president own group, the Hamiett Bluiett Quartet, which he co-founded. of Artspace, founded Jazz Haven in 1996 before shifting to showcase two artists when he began inviting jazz musicians “I’m into a concept with more improvising with their own distinctive voices. The to play in the gallery. Though it has going on — not necessarily soloists, but first, vocalist Shawnn Monteiro — who been involved with the festival from group improvising,” says Bluiett from has benefited tremendously from the new haven

29

the beginning, Jazz Haven is now in its second year of producing the festival on its own. The festival was dark in 2007 because the celebration of the festival’s 25th anniversary the previous year had exhausted the budget. In addition to producing the festival, Jazz Haven also runs an after school program in scat singing at Betsy Ross Magnet School and is planning to create a citywide jazz vocal ensemble in the coming year.

Morrill and Hameen both say that they hope this year’s festival program represents something of the diversity of jazz music, in tune with this year’s theme of “Sounds, Colors and Cultures of Jazz.” The day will certainly cover a lot of ground — from the elementary-school students to rising stars to octogenarians, and from free improvisation to blues to Latin jazz. Ideally, this kind of programming presents an opportunity for disparate musicians and listeners to cross paths.

“The reality is that we don’t have little turfs and fiefdoms,” says Morrill. “Many times jazz aficionados cut off. They say, ‘If that’s not jazz, I’m not listening to it.’ They cut off from some very exciting stuff. I have heard some great stuff of

At the age of 88, Havana-born Candido Camero is still a force to be reckoned with on the congas.

people who have gone beyond the typical jazz idiom.”

“Rather than be mad about it, we need to turn around and make a place for this music to be,” says Bluiett. “I’m esoteric, but not 24/7. We need all of it — total,

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CREATING ART Studio Tuesday is an informal, noninstructional “paint-in” that meets Tuesdays. Come work in a creative environment alongside other artists.

9:30 a.m.-noon August 4, 11, 18 & 25 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. August 13 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven. Free. 203-772-2709, artspacenh.org.

GALLERY TALKS/TOURS Take an Introductory Tour of the Yale Center for British Art’s permanent collection. 11 a.m. August 1, 8, 22, 29 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free.

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

Experience the exhibition Dalou in England: Portraits of Womanhood, 18711879 under the guidance of a YCBA docent in an Exhibition Tour. Noon August 15 & 22, 2 p.m. August 30 at YCBA, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

EXHIBITIONS Gallery 195 showcases visual meditations on nature by Connecticut artists Claudia Cron and Barbara Hocker. Cron’s work has been exhibited in solo and group shows nationally. Hocker has exhibited her work extensively in solo and group shows in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Through August 7 at Gallery 195, NewAlliance Bank, 195 Church St., Fourth Floor, New Haven. 203-772-2788, newhavenarts.org.

The Milford Fine Arts Council presents its Annual Members Art Show. Works in many media including painting, sculpture and photography — all for sale. Through August 8 at Center for the

Arts, 40 Railroad Ave., Milford. Free. 203306-0016, milfordarts.org.

David Apuzzo Photography & Art Gallery presents works by New Haven graphic artist James Polisky, whose work has been described as childlike, ferociously funny and clumsily tender.

“The creatures in his fanciful menagerie are somewhere between Gary Larson and James Booth,” observed Connecticut magazine. Through August 21 at David Apuzzo Photography and Art Gallery, 4133 Whitney Ave., Hamden.

Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat. 203-859-5825, davidapuzzo. com or mogwok.deviantart.com.

Ocean spray lovers will be ecstatic about Seascapes: Paintings and Watercolors From the U Collection, a small but stunning exhibition of marine paintings and watercolors from the Dutch “Golden Age”. Featured artists include Willem van de Velde (father and son), Peter Monamy, Nicholas Pocock, George Chambers, Edward Duncan and Thomas Sewell Robins.

Scenes of famous naval battles, warships, privateers, fishing boats and historical vessels, including the HMS Bounty. Through August 23 at Yale Center for British Art (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.

Relevant Irreverence: Prints & Sculpture of William Kent. William (Bill) Kent is a remarkable artist whose work chronicles mid- to late 20th-century politics and culture, yet remains thoughtful, provocative, and humorous in the 21st-century arenas of sex, politics, and pop culture. Kent’s sculptures are a master class in woodcarving and form, making banal objects elegant, satirical and uniquely his own. This exhibition includes handcarved slate prints and wood sculpture created over 40-plus years in the artist’s Durham studio (NHM, 7/09).

Through August 23 at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven.

Open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Thurs.-Sun. & by appt. 203-389-9555, kehlerliddel.com.

Get in touch with your feminine side at Dalou in England: Portraits of Womanhood, 1871-1879. Pieces like Jules Dalou’s Woman Reading will be on view June 11-August 23 at Yale Center for British Art.

In 1871, French sculptor Jules Dalou (1838–1902) was exiled from France for his left-wing connections. He lived in London for nine years, creating portrait sculptures and scenes of domesticity, seemingly at odds with his politically progressive reputation. Dalou in England: Portraits of Womanhood, 1871-1879 examines this influential period of the artist’s life when he found his niche among the English aristocracy with the support of the Countess of Carlisle at Castle Howard and created a series of intimate statuettes on the theme of modern womanhood. In addition to Dalou’s sculptures, works from Yale collections

by French artists active in London before and during the same period will be on view. Through August 23 at YCBA,

art Art of Antonella Cappuccio, Contemporary Italian Paintings.

Antonella Cappuccio was born on the island of Ischia in 1944. As a young child, she moved to Rome, where she currently lives and works.

Her works demonstrate a strong commitment to preserve the great traditions of Renaissance Italy. She does not separate the past styles from the present, nor does she ignore the accomplishments of earlier, renowned

’Following Primavera’ by Antonella Cappuccio, a contemporary Italian painter whose works demonstrate a commitment to preserve the traditions of Renaissance Italy. On view at New Haven’s Knights of Columbus Museum.

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.

City-Wide Open Studios Members Exhibition Index II. Through August 29 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven.

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

Time Will Tell: Ethics and Choices in Conservation examines the evolving science of conservation and the questions that arise in preserving works of art while staying faithful to the artists’ intentions, and uncovers the relationship between curators and conservators and the objects entrusted to their care. Through September 6 at Yale University Art Gallery, 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.

Curated by Debbie Hesse and Joy Pepe, White Collar. Blue Collar. Pink Slip. explores the uncertainties, anxieties, and rewards of the workplaces that shape our identities. This installment is the first of a two-part exhibition called Home/Work. Through September 18 at the Parachute Factory Gallery, Erector Sq., 319 Peck St., Bldg. 1, New Haven.

On display 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wed., 12-5 p.m.

Thurs.-Fri. and by appointment. 203-7722788, newhavenarts.org.

artists. Cappuccio has successfully used various mediums, passing from canvas to copper and iron, from glass to mirror. Her art is the complicated expression of truth and ideas. Recent portraits include those of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Through October 4 at Knights of Columbus Museum, One State St., New Haven.

Open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Free. 203-8650400, kofcmuseum.org.

A significant collection of American Impressionist paintings by longtime Florence Griswold trustee Clement C. Moore is on view in Lyme in Mind: The Clement C. Moore Collection. Major works by the most notable members of the Lyme Art Colony, including Childe Hassam, William Chadwick, Frank Vincent DuMond, Edmund Greacen, Harry Hoffman, Willard Metcalf, Ivan Olinsky and Henry Ward Ranger. The collection conveys Moore’s personal and deeply felt appreciation for the Connecticut landscape, an affinity he shares with the colony painters.

Through October 18 at the Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $9 ($8 seniors, $7 students, free under 12). 860-434-5542, flogris.org.

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31

ATH O ME

OUT D O O R S

OF NOTES

B OD Y & SO U L ONS C R E E N

Almost Famous Singer/songwriter Daria Musk has her eyes on the prize — and the chops to get there

By Michael C. Bingham

One of Musk’s pet projects is Rockin’ Hood, which aims to get guitars and other musical instruments into the hands of underprivileged children.

I’m almost famous C’mon and shine a light on me.

— Daria Musk

O

kay, we will.

Daria Musk is a smart young singer/songwriter whose music straddles pop, rock, jazz and R&B.

Daria Musk is also a star in the making.

She is more determined and focused than most on doing what it takes to forge a successful career in music — even at a young age when the attitude of many musicians is: I’ll play what I like, and then…whatever, dude.

on intonation and vocal expressiveness beyond her years. She employs a tool sadly overlooked in a world polluted with mindless American Idol screamers — dynamics. Her voice will get louder or softer within a phrase — sometimes even within a single word — to give a sense of shape to her vocal line.

(One does get the idea that her voice’s color will darken as she gets older — now it is still bright and shiny.)

Her brand-new ten-song EP Bright as Night has much to savor and even admire about it: smart, sophisticated songwriting, imaginative instrumental and vocal arrangements and infectious energy and optimism. A full-length CD is scheduled for a fall release.

At a July 16 show at New Haven’s Ivy Lounge, Musk had to rely on a substandard sound system to compete with a violent thunderstorm raging beyond the front door. She and her longtime collaborator, bassist/keyboardist Rich Allan (who goes by the stage name R.A.M.), battled to cut through the din with a multilayered sound (Musk employs prerecorded drum and keyboard samples in live performance) and infectious enthusiasm that brightened an otherwise uninviting evening.

Musk is a fine and facile singer with spot-

In a world replete with Girls with

32

august 2009

Guitars, Musk is an exceptional rhythm guitar player. She is all over the neck with unusual chord voicings (when she was learning guitar, she watched an Andy Summers tutorial video over and over). And unlike many “chick” guitar players, she plays hard, turning her Taylor acoustics nearly into percussion instruments. “When I starting playing coffeehouses I was a strummer,” she recalls of her teen years. “But then I always wanted it to sound bigger.”

The 23-year-old Musk, who lives in Newtown, is no freak of nature, but a beneficiary of nurture: Her mother and father are graduates of Juilliard and Berklee, respectively, and are practicing musical professionals. “There were always instruments lying all over the place, and my parents are awesome musicians,” she says. She began singing at age nine. For her 13th birthday she asked for a guitar, and “got an awesome Fender Strat[ocaster],” she recalls. Although she knew only a couple of chords, she immediately began writing songs.

She knows more chords now — harmonic adventurousness is one of the hallmarks of Musk’s music. Growing up she listened to outside-the-box pop music such as Yes, the Police (when they still rocked) and Paul Simon’s pathbreaking Graceland album. Then, at age 16 she was admitted to a summer songwriting program at Berklee in Boston.

“That was really eye-opening,” Musk recalls. “I was a lot younger than all the other kids there — most of them already had CDs. I was so inspired by listening to them play that when I got home from that I wrote about eight songs right off the bat.”

She hasn’t stopped writing, and at this point figures she’s written about 100 tunes.

She is not self-conscious about admitting that songwriting comes easily to her — although he is reticent about seizing sole credit.

“In the beginning it came really naturally,” Musk notes of songwriting. “But the songs definitely come from somewhere else — from the ether somewhere, from the muse. It’s really fun to try to get out

of the way of them and let them happen.

There’s so much music kind of just hanging in the air, and it’s always ready to come through you.”

Darias singing in heavenly harmony, though the harmonies are electronically created by a Roland V-Synth (Musk is singing just one line).

Musically and lyrically Musk has a lot to say — sometimes almost too much. Many songs seem crammed so full of word and ideas and yes, notes that it can be difficult for the listener to absorb them all.

Having already deferred college to get her career up to speed, Musk has her eyes squarely on the prize. As she sings in “Almost Famous” (co-written with Allan for an eponymous Internet show):

Bright as Night straddles so many different musical touchstones that it’s hard to categorize. Musk is willing to try. “I usually say that it’s kind of like the heart of a singer/songwriter, then filtered through a rock/pop kind of [sensibility],” she says, adding with a laugh, “It’s somewhere in there.”

The EP’s most sophisticated track is the closing “Space,” in which a driving polyrhythmic instrumental track (in 11/8 meter!) supports Musk’s long, legato vocal line through surprising modulations of key. This is truly groundbreaking music.

Preceding that on the disc is the haunting “On Your Shoulders,” a breathtaking a cappella number that sounds like four

‘Cause I’ve had one dream I’ve been dreamin’ it for years.

A great big stage, and a song That rips through the sky.

A crowd calling out my name.

And that’s the goal in a nutshell: “I’d love to reach as many people as possible,” she says. “I’d love to see what it feels like to play on bigger stages. I’d love to go on tour — that’s one of my next goals. I’d love to take it as far as I can — take it to the masses,” she laughs.

In “Like a Star” Musk sings, “I’m dusting my feathers off/Watch me as I take off.”

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music CLASSICAL Join Sound Music musical director and conductor Martin Piecuch and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra for Mostly Mozart. MOZART Concerto for Bassoon in Bb Major (K. 193) with soloist Cynde Iverson, Symphony No. 41 (“Jupiter,” K. 555); TCHAIKOVSKY Mozartiana Suite No. 4 in G Major (Op. 61). 8 p.m. (preconcert talk 7:15) August 1 at Harkness Park, Waterford. $38-$19. 860-447-1050, newhavensymphony.com.

POPULAR Drum Circle. Bring any hand percussion, large or small, and a chair and join this improvised ensemble.

Noon every Sunday at the summit of East Rock, New Haven. Free. jef@ eastrockstudio.com.

Jazz saxophone legend Hamiet Bluiett has spent the summer of 2009 as a special guest teaching artist at New Haven’s Neighborhood Muic School.

But it wouldn’t be right to let him leave town without performing at least one lively concert. 5:30 p.m. August 4 at the Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. $10. 203-6245189, nmsmusicschool.org.

Damn good songwriter, award-winning guitar player and break-yer-heartstrings singer, Rosie Flores whips up the best of rock ‘n’ roll, honky tonk, early rockabilly, blues and jazz with the traditional sounds of her roots in San Antonio. With openers the Defibulators.

8 p.m. August 5 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $10. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Over the course of a 20-plus-year career, Dream Theater has become one of progressive metal’s most influential bands. In concert supported by Zappa Plays Zappa, Pail of Salvation and Beardfish, the band is renowned for never playing the same show twice.

6:30 p.m. August 5 at the Chevrolet Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $48-$38. 203-265-1501, livenation.com.

Slovakian-born trumpeter, composer and bandleader Laco Deczi (NHM, October 2008) came to the U.S. in 1985 (he lives Branford) and has played with some of jazz’s finest players — Elvin Jones, Bill Watrous and Sonny Costanzo among them. 6-8 p.m.

August 6 on the Branford Green. Free. branfordjazz.com Fronted by rock goddess Chrissie Hynde, Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famers The Pretenders have been performing legendary, hit-filled (“Brass in Pocket,” “Back on the Chain Gang”) live shows for, like, three decades now. 7:30 p.m. August 7 at the Chevrolet Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $48-$38. 203265-1501, livenation.com.

The band Mikata performs a full repertoire of hard-hitting salsa, merengue, bachata, bolero, cha-cha and Latin jazz. The band is renowned for its contemporary arrangements of great mambo and salsa classics from the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s — the era when the dynamic, percussive quality of Latin music reigned supreme. 6-8 p.m. August 13 on the Branford Green.

Free. branfordjazz.com.

Stars of Nickelodeon’s hugely popular show The Naked Brothers Band, Nat & Alex Wolff have released the infectious

If you had as many nickels as the Moody Blues have had hits (“Nights in White Satin,” “Your Wildest Dreams”), you’d be doing pretty darned good. 7:30 p.m. August 15 at the Chevrolet Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $65-$45.

203-265-1501, livenation.com.

For 2009’s final offering of Branford Jazz on the Green, Rohn Lawrence & Jay Rowe serve up an evening of acid jazz. Guitarist Lawrence has played with Najee, Freddy Jackson, Pieces of a Dream and Angela Bofill. Here he teams up with frequent collaborator, pianist and keyboard whiz Rowe. 6-8 p.m. August 20 on the Branford Green.

Free. branfordjazz.com.

The band that with singer Bob Marley ignited a stateside reggae explosion, The Original Wailers rock Toad’s in an all-ages show opened by Live Now. 9:30 p.m. August 20 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $22 ($20 advance). 203624-8623, toadsplace.com.

New England’s favorite Grateful Dead tribute band, Shakedown returns to the site of many past triumphant shows. All-ages show with Wavy Dave & the Wave Ryder Band, Me My Friends & I and Candy Mantra. 8:30 p.m.

August 7 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $12 ($8.50 advance).

203-624-8623, toadsplace. com.

Talented students from “[Music] is exercise for the brain so you can stop the Neighborhood thinking about what dumb people told you, so the Music School’s summer brain can think how it thinks,” says Hamiett Bluiett. jazz program perform “This is the food for it.” fusion, bop, Latin, traditional and jazz/rock in their Summer Jazz pop/rock albums The Naked Brothers Concert. 5:30 p.m. August 7 at NMS, Band and I Don’t Want To Go To School 100 Audubon St., New Haven. Free. 203to wide acclaim. Their second tour, 624-5189, nmsmusicschool.org.

“Summer Road Trip Tour,” will see the duo rocking out on favorites from their The daughter of Broadway star John show and albums. 7:30 p.m. August 14 Raitt, Bonnie Raitt traveled a different at the Chevrolet Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike path to stardom, first as a toughRd., Wallingford. $25 ($50 VIP package). edged country blues mama and later 203-265-1501, livenation.com. as a highly successful rock and R&B singer/songwriter/guitarist. For her De La Soul brings its “Twenty Years Chevy appearance in support of her 18th High & Rising Tour” to York Street, album, Souls Alike, Raitt is paired with celebrating two decades if hit sounds. country-blues revivalist Taj Mahal & the 10 p.m. August 15 at Toad’s Place, 300 Phantom Blues Band. 7:30 p.m. August York St., New Haven. $25 ($20 advance).

9 at the Chevrolet Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike 203-624-8623, toadsplace.com.

Rd., Wallingford. $75-$55. 203-265-1501,

Paul Burch & the WPA Ballclub. The D.C.-born Burch is a songwriter and producer who moved to Nashville in the early ’90s where he began singing in the city’s ’50s-era honky tonks, attracting the attention of Marianne Faithfull and Chet Atkins. Burch’s shows and the Lower Broadway scene garnered national attention and a feature in Billboard, which led to a record deal. 9 p.m. August 20 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. 203789-8281, cafenine.com.

Old-school pop/punk hell-raisers The Queers return to the Nine for an evening of high-energy debauchery with openers the Black Noise Scam. 9 p.m.

August 26 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. 203-789-8281, cafenine. com.

Heaven & Hell reunites the Ronnie James Dio lead lineup of Black Sabbath to once again play heavy metal hits from the classic albums Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules and Dehumanizer.

Voted Classic Rock magazine’s “2007 Comeback of the Year,” H&H released Live from Radio City Music Hall, which went gold. Coheed and Cambria opens.

7 p.m. August 27 at the Chevrolet Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $65$39.50. 203-265-1501, livenation.com.

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Park Street Meets Tin Pan Alley B I B L IO F IL ES An original musical takes shape at Summer Cabaret

WOR D S o f M O UT H

By Brooks Appelbaum

Ê TE S

H

ow does one go about writing an original musical like Fly-by-Night, now playing through August 15 at Yale Summer Cabaret?

INSTYLE

Well, to begin with, “one” rarely does.

With the exception of rare pieces like The Music Man, in which the concept, book, music and lyrics were all created

by Meredith Wilson, musical theater almost always means collaboration, and frequently means adaptation as well.

O U T D O O RS

B O D YHowever, & Artistic SOU L Kim Director

Rosenstock and Managing Director Whitney Estrin both knew that they wanted an original musical for Summer Cab’s 2009 season and knew two people who could write it: Michael Mitnick, a third-year student in the School of Drama’s Playwriting Program, who has written many musicals, and Will Connolly, a third-year student in Yale’s Acting Program, who also writes music.

O N S CRE EN

Explains Rosenstock: “When Michael said he wanted to collaborate with Will, I was really excited because now it became not just an opportunity to produce a new musical but an opportunity to give two artists a chance to collaborate who might not have had the chance otherwise. A lot of people spend time dreaming about things, but we actually knew we could say, ‘We’ll give you guys a show.’”

Mitnick had one more idea for a cocollaborator: Rosenstock, his classmate in the Playwriting Program. “I’ve loved Kim’s plays since I first started reading

L-r: ‘Fly-by-Night’ writers Connolly and Mitnick with Summer Cab Artistic Director Rosenstock outside their Park Street lair. photograph:

Anthony DeCarlo

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them, and I thought, ‘I finally have the chance to put my name on something she wrote without disciplinary action being involved.’”

“I’d always wanted to work on a musical, but I’m not a songwriter,” says Rosenstock.

Since Mitnick and Connolly were eager to work with her, this was a chance for them all.

Welcome to the magic of true collaboration and creative chemistry. Observes Estrin: “A lot of times the word ‘collaboration’ is used incorrectly in theater because there is a certain level of hierarchy in the rehearsal room.

What’s so exciting to me about this piece is that everyone’s going to be wearing a hat of leadership at one time or another.”

Mitnick, Connolly and Rosenstock started talking months ago, throwing around rough ideas and writing songs.

Rosenstock drafted three plays, and together they decided on the script that would become Fly-by-Night.

Mitnick points out that “Original musical theater is difficult because you could have several people thinking they’re writing the same thing when really they all have different ideas of what it is. So it’s been useful not only that all of us are like-minded but also that we had so many discussions and Kim wrote a rough idea of the entire story.”

© 2008 Hospitality 3

All rights reserved

Rosenstock says that one of their play’s themes “is this idea of how we get stuck in these boxes we create for ourselves and how we break out of them.”

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A second theme is connected with the fact that Connolly (who is writing much of the music, plays the guitar and sings) is also cast in Fly-byNight’s leading role. “We were all interested in having a story about somebody who realizes that he can make music,” says Rosenstock. “That was a theme I kept hearing: not just the fact that Will’s going to be in the

show, but this idea of somebody who discovers part of himself through music.”

“We’re looking at these very solidly middle-class people who live ordinary lives,” Rosenstock says. “There’s nothing spectacular about their lives in any way. But music, particularly, elevates their existence and fills them with hope: either the ability to listen to it or the ability to make it.”

In lyrics that Connolly and Mitnick wrote together, Connolly’s character voices his discontent and dreams: I would have never dared to think Myself courageous or distinct But when my clock did not alarm this morning as it always does The tangled thread within my head Unraveled and it spread And pulled me up and out the crummy coffin That I call my bed And I fin’ly felt alive.

Connelly points out that these characters don’t break into song because their feelings have overwhelmed them beyond words. They have nothing to sing about, and they are desperately searching for the music in their lives.

Rosenstock is also interested in “how each parent hopes that his child’s life will be better than his was. And that means that your story is not just your own story — but that you’re part of a much bigger story.”

As the actor amongst them, Connolly soon will literally be part of a bigger story than the one unfolding in the cozy Cab attic. He’s clear, though, about which story he’s in now.

“Until rehearsals start, I’m just considering myself a part of this team,” he says. “And this is part of what I’ve learned at Yale: that it doesn’t serve you to be juggling four or five balls at once, even though sometimes you have to.”

“The most exciting part,” says Rosenstock, “is when we get to be in this room together, fully immersed in the show.” v

rules of love and social behavior were changing forever. 8 p.m. August 1, 1 p.m.

August 2 at Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $30-$25. 203-755-4700, palacetheaterct.org.

CRITIC’S PICK: Holiday

For its tenth anniversary production, Connecticut Free Shakespeare presents one of the Bard’s best-loved comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed

by Ellen Lieberman. Attendees are encouraged to bring picnic dinners, blankets and chairs to enjoy theater under the stars. Thirty minutes before each night’s performance, the Starship Dance Theater will perform a dance interpretation of the same play under the artistic direction of Joyce DiLauro. 7:30 p.m. August 5-9 on the Guilford Green. Free. 203-393-3213, bridgeportfreeshakespeare.org.

Entering its second decade of presenting free, al fresco professional productions of classic plays, New Haven’s Elm Shakespeare Co. for the first time does not present a work by the company’s namesake. Instead, we get Philip Barry’s witty, pre-Depression comedy about the trivial problems of the seriously rich, Holiday, directed by ESC Artistic Director James Andreassi.

Holiday is performed in repertory with Moliere’s timeless knockabout comedy of eccentricity, disguises, trickery and 17th-century medical malpractice, The Imaginary Invalid.

Bring blankets, picnics and lawn chairs for this al fresco delight under the stars at gracious Edgerton Park.

Holiday is performed 8 p.m. August 13-16, 26, 28, 30 and September

CABARET Fly-By-Night, a brand-new musical written by Will Connolly, Michael Mitnick and Kim Rosenstock. Who has the power when the lights go out?

Indie rock meets The Twilight Zone in this musical story of a group of New Yorkers whose lives fatefully intertwine on the night of a blackout. Erik Pearson directs. Through August 15 at Summer Cabaret at Yale, 217 Park St., New Haven. $30-$25 (senior, student discounts). 203432-1567, summercabaret@yale.edu, summercabaret.org.

1, 3 & 5; The Imaginary Invalid performed 8 p.m. August 20-23, 25, 27, 29 and September 2, 4 & 6 5at Edgerton Park, 75 Cliff St., New Haven.

Free. 203-393-1436, elmshakespeare.org.

James Andreassi and Tamara Hickey in the Elm Shakespeare Co.’s production of Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid, performed in repertory with Philip Brry’s 920s comedy of manners, Holiday.

of the same name, this Tony Awardwinning musical tells the story of smalltown girl Millie Dillmount, who comes to New York City to marry for money instead of love — a thoroughly modern aim in 1922, a time when women were entering the workforce and the

‘Til Death Do Us Part: Late Nite Catechism 3. Maripat Donovan’s latest “class” in this sinfully funny series. After teaching countless students about the saints, venial sins, limbo and more, Sister now offers up hilarious lessons on the Sacraments of Marriage and Last Rites, including her own wacky version of The Newlywed Game.

Through August 16 on Stage II, Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $27-$22. 203-7874282, longwharf. org.

Steve Solomon’s award-winning oneman Broadway show, My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish & I’m in Therapy is one part lasagna, one part kreplach and two parts Prozac. August 5-9 and 19-30 on Long Wharf Theatre Mainstage, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $32-$27. 203-7874282, longwharf.org.

Widely acclaimed as one of the funniest American plays ever written, Neil Simon reportedly based The Odd Couple on his friend Mel Brooks, who lived with Speed Vogel after separating from his first wife. Vogel

onstage later wrote that Brooks had insomnia, “a brushstroke of paranoia,” and “a blood-sugar problem that kept us a scintilla away from insanity.” In the play, compulsive neatnik Felix Unger is thrown out of his house by his divorce-bound wife and gravitates to the apartment of his best friend, incorrigibly sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison. Worried that Felix will try something desperate, Oscar, himself in the process of being divorced by his wife, invites Felix to move in with him.

Within a few days, this mismatched pair is on the verge of mutual murder: Felix cannot abide Oscar’s slovenliness, while Oscar is driven insane by Felix’s obsession with tidiness. Larence Thelan directs. August 5-30 at Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Ivoryton. 860767-7318, info@ivorytonplayhouse.org, ivorytonplayhouse.org.

Experience the “one brief shining moment” that is the legendary LernerLoewe musical Camelot. Relive the enduring legend of King Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot and the Knights of the Round Table in an enchanting fable of chivalry, honor and brotherhood. Dazzling and spellbinding with sweeping romance and historic grandeur, this classic musical speaks to our time and for all time. The celebrated score includes the classics “If Ever I would Leave You,” “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood,” and “Camelot.” Winner of four Tony Awards. Directed by Rob Ruggiero, with choreography by Ralph Perkins.

Through September 19 at Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. $73-$31. 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.

Join Summer Cabaret creative staff in the Cabaret Garden for culminating readings of the “In Progress” new play development workshops. Written by Reese Castro Smith and directed by Jesse Jou, Earth Hearts [Sky People] is a play about cocoons, explosions, the ghost of Ernest Hemingway and how to tell if the world is new or just rearranged. 7 p.m. August 16 at Summer Cabaret at Yale, 217 Park St., New Haven. Free (reservations required). 203432-1567, summercabaret@yale.edu, summercabaret.org.

THEATER The second annual Seven Angels Theatre/Palace Theater Community Summer Stock collaborative, Thoroughly Modern Millie brings a community cast of all ages to the Palace stage. Based on the 1967 film

Under the artistic direction of Joyce DiLauro, the Starship Dance Theater will perform a dance interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at 7 p.m. August 5-9, 30 minutes before Connecticut Free Shakespeare’s production of the Bard’s romantic comedy on the Guilford Green

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calendar BELLES LETTRES The Mystery Book Club meets the first Wednesday of each month to discuss a pre-selected book. Books available for loan in advance of discussion. 3-4 p.m. August 5 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-4836653, events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org/booktalk.htm.

New members are welcomed to the Blackstone Library Book Group. The group meets on the second Tuesday of every month to discuss a pre-selected book. Books available for loan in advance of discussion. 6:45-8 p.m.

August 11 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-488-1441, ext. 318, events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org/booktalk.htm.

Hagaman Library hosts a Contemporary Books Discussion on The Legend of Edgar Sawtelle. Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar’s lifelong friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar’s paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles’ once peaceful home. 3 p.m.

August 17 at Hagaman Library, 227 Main St., East Haven. Free. 203-468-3890.

The Blackstone Library hosts its “first annual” Books, BBQ & Blues fest. Live

music by RoundTrip, kids’ events and eating contests, males swimsuit competition, watermelon seed-spitting contest, library tours, lots to eat! 3-7 p.m. August 23 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. $25 ($12.50 ages 9-12; free 8 and under). 203-488-1441, ext. 318, events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org/booktalk.htm.

CINEMA Following a successful 2008 debut, the Milford Independent Film Festival returns for a second year showcasing the works of filmmakers of all ages.

Finalist judging will take place on Saturday, August 1 at the Milford Public Library and is free and open to the public. An awards ceremony will take place on Thursday, August 13 at the Center for the Arts, where winning entries will be screened along with discussion and refreshments. August 1 at Milford Public Library, 57 New Haven Ave., Milford. Free. 203-878-6647, 203-783-3290. Also 7-10 p.m. August 13 at Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Ave., Milford. $5. 203-878-6647, milfordfac@optonline.net, milfordarts. org.

Human Heart Explodes (USA, 2008), the story of a kindergarten project for Gypsy people in Macedonia. Discussion with filmmaker Helder Mira, founder of Hartford’s Rabbit Ears Media, follows screening. 6-7:45 p.m. August 4 at New Haven Free Public Library, 155 Elm St., New Haven. Free. Registration. humanheart.eventbrite.com, 203-9467431.

How To Marry a Millionaire (USA, 1953, 96 min.). Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable play three models of modest means who rent an expensive Manhattan penthouse apartment and pose as women of wealth. It’s all

part of a scheme hatched by Bacall to snare rich husbands for herself and her roommates. Notably, first Hollywood comedy to be lensed in Cinemascope. 2 p.m. August 7 at New Haven Free Public Library, 155 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

203-946-7431.

Carmen Jones (USA, 1954, 120 min.).

Oscar Hammerstein Jr. took Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, rewrote the lyrics, changed the characters from 19th-century Spaniards to World War II-era African-Americans, switched the locale to a Southern military base, and the result was Carmen Jones. Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte star.

Otto Preminger directs. 2 p.m. August 14 at New Haven Free Public Library, 155 Elm St., New Haven. Free. 203-946-7431.

Hatari! (USA, 1962, 158 min.). Hatari is Swahili for “danger” — and also the word for action, adventure and broad comedy in this red-blooded Howard Hawks effort. John Wayne stars as the head of a daring Tanganyka-based group that captures wild animals on behalf of the world’s zoos. Hardy Kruger, Gérard Blain and Red Buttons are members of Wayne’s guy-only contingent, all of whom are reduced to Jell-o when the pulchritudinous Elsa Martinelli enters the scene. 2 p.m.

August 21 at New Haven Free Public Library, 155 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

203-946-7431.

Flying Down to Rio (USA, 1934, 89 min.). Top-billed stars in this extravagant RKO musical were Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond. Forget all that: This is the movie that first teamed Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Moment that made Hollywood history: Staging of the title song, which takes place thousands of feet in the air with hundreds of chorus girls shimmying and swaying while strapped to the wings of a fleet of airplanes — one of the most outrageously brilliant numbers in movie musical history. 2 p.m. August 28 at New Haven Free Public Library, 155 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

203-946-7431.

COMEDY Test your knowledge and have fun doing it at Anna Liffey’s Trivia Night. Teams of one to five members 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.

August 4, 11, 18 & 25 at Anna Liffey’s, 17 Whitney Ave., New Haven. $10 per team.

203-773-1776, annaliffeys.com.

It’s John Madden — no! George W. Bush? Uh-uh. Bill Clinton? Pas du tout. It’s comedian/impressionist extraordinaire Frank Caliendo, and he’s coming to the Brass City’s Palace Theater August 29.

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Perhaps the most uncanny impersonator/comedian of our time, Frank Caliendo brings to life iconic politicians (Bush, Clinton), broadcasters (Leno and, famously, John Madden) and actors (Pacino, Robin Williams, DeNiro). His show Frank TV debuted last autumn on the TBS network.

Onstage, his high-energy act is a blend of observations, impressions, characters and anecdotal stories that build to a frenetic pace. 8 p.m. August 29 at Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St.,

Waterbury. $58.75-$41.50. 203-755-4700, palacetheaterct.org.

A multifaceted performer with a rapidfire wit, Kathy Griffin has won backto-back Emmys for her reality show, My Life on the D-List, which chronicles her life as one of America’s favorite comedians. A brilliant standup, Griffin’s fearless For Your Consideration album recently topped the Billboard comedy charts. 8 p.m. August 30 at the Chevrolet Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $39.50-$29.50. 203-265-1501, livenation. com.

CULINARY The Connecticut Wine Festival celebrates the bounty and diversity of Connecticut wines. Sample fine local wines from vintners statewide, including area faves such as Chamard, Gouveia, Jones Winery and Bishop’s Orchards, as well as delectable specialty foods. Peruse fine arts and crafts while relaxing to the sounds of local musicians. Admission includes commemorative festival wine glass and tote bag, 20 wine-tasting tickets, specialty food samples, entertainment and the opportunity to purchase bottles/cases of wine and artisan crafts. Noon-7 p.m. August 1, noon-6 p.m. August 2 at Goshen Fairgrounds, Rt. 63, Goshen. $25 ($10 designated drivers/ under 21; $40 both days). 860-677-5467, ctwine.com.

City Farmers Markets New Haven.

Enjoy food from local farms including seafood, meat, milk, cheese, organic greens, root vegetables, handcrafted bread and baked goods, honey, more. DOWNTOWN: 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Wednesdays through November 25, Church St. at the Green. WOOSTER SQUARE: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays through December 19 at Russo Park, corner Chapel St. and DePalma Ct. FAIR HAVEN: 3-7 p.m. Thursdays July 9-October 29 at Quinnipiac River Park, corner Grand Ave. and Front St. EDGEWOOD PARK: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays through November 22 corner Whalley and West Rock Aves.

203-773-3736, cityseed.org.

Chamard Vineyard’s Farmers Market.

Local producers gather on Cow Hill Road with some of the region’s freshest fruits, vegetables, eggs, cheese, flowers, maple syrup, honey, gourmet foods, breads and baked goods. Bring a big basket to fill with everything you need for the week, including “Connecticut’s Best Wine” (Connecticut magazine 1998-2007). Live music, too. Noon-3 p.m. Sundays through October 25 at 14 at Chamard Vineyards, 115 Cow Hill Rd., Clinton. 860-664-0299, chamard.com/ events.html.

Lyman Orchards’ Peach Fest celebrates peach season with fun-family activities!

Enjoy fresh-baked peach pies in the Apple Barrel, contests and prizes, live music and bushels of family fun. 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. August 15 at Lyman Orchards, 32 Reeds Gap Rd., Middlefield.

860-349-1793, lymanorchards.com.

Lyman’s Clambake. Celebrate a New England summer tradition with an evening of great music and of course

music, food, revelry, more. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. August 2 at Walnut Beach, Milford.

Free. walnutbeachfestival.com.

lobster, steamers, mussels, clam chowder, corn on the cob, potatoes and other treats hot off the grill. (Hotdogs and hamburgers are also available.)

Seatings 4, 4:45, 5:30, 6:15, 7 & 7:45 p.m. August 22 at Lyman Orchards, 32 Reeds Gap Rd., Middlefield. $32.95 ((ages 6-12 $16.95, under 6 free). Reservations required. 860-349-1793, lymanorchards. com.

Last year some 13,000 visitors enjoyed the North Branford Potato & Corn Festival — this year you could be one of them! Tons o’ food (and not just potatoes and corn), live music, carnival rides, vintage auto show, crafts, a cow-chip raffle (think of the possibilities) and much more. 4-11 p.m. August 7, 9 a.m.-11 p.m. August 8, 9 a.m.-8 p.m. August 9 at Augur Farm, Rt. 22, North Branford. Free. 203-315-6017, nbpotatofest.com

The New Haven Food & Wine Festival affords attendees the opportunity to sample the finest culinary fare of 19 participating Elm City eateries as well as meet one of America’s best-known chefs, Jacques Pepin. Admission includes ticket to Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament at the site. Noon-2 p.m., 57:30 p.m. August 26 at Connecticut Tennis Center, 45 Yale Ave., New Haven. $105 day, $125 evening sessions. 888-99-PILOT, pilotpentennis.com.

Odyssey: A Greek Festival is one of Connecticut’s largest Hellenic festivals celebrating Greek food, music and culture. Festivities include live music, dancing, marketplace vendors, kids’ area, church tours and lectures. Noon-10 p.m. August 29-31, noon-8 p.m. September 1 at St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, 480 Racebrook Rd., Orange. Free. 203-795-1347, saintbarbara.org.

EXCURSIONS Join Connecticut Audubon Society trip leader Bob Kuchta for this popular trip to the world-famous New York Botanical Gardens. On view this month is the exhibition The Edible Garden, where visitors will discover the origins of many common foods and discover how food choices can be sustainable and healthy. All-day event.

August 19 sponsored by the Connecticut Audubon Society. $65 members, $75 others. Registration. ctaudubon.org

FAMILY EVENTS Be among the first to explore Lyman Orchards’ newly designed Sunflower Maze, carved among three acres and 235,000 sunflowers. What better way to spend a summer day than to navigate through a field lush with beautiful, multi-colored sunflowers. (Flowers are ornamental sunflowers, without pollen to attract bees or stir up allergies.)

Enjoy a bird’s eye view of the maze from the viewing platform, and from the peaks of the surrounding orchard hillsides. Ticket sales help support the kids of Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. August 1-September 7 at Lyman Orchards, 32 Reeds Gap Rd., Middlefield. 860-349-1793, lymanorchards.com.

Howl at the Moon features singer/ songwriter Tom Sieling, who leads this participatory family program of humorous songs about, well, the world. 7-8 p.m. August 3 at North Haven Memorial Library, 17 Elm St. Free. 203239-5803.

Each Tuesday the Yale Astronomy Department hosts a Planetarium Show.

Weather permitting there will also be public viewing of planets, nebulae, star clusters and whatever happens to be interesting in the sky. Viewable celestial objects change seasonally. 7 & 8 p.m.

August 4, 11, 18 & 25 at Leitner Family Observatory, 355 Prospect St., New Haven. Free. cobb@astro.yale.edu, astro. yale.edu.

Book Jeopardy. Known the name of every High School Musical cast member,

MIND, BODY & SOUL

Flying hither and yon 40 feet above the stage, the daredevil Aerial High Bars thrill audiences of Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria arena tour, which comes to Bridgeport August 20-23. but don’t know that Dorothy’s ruby slippers were actually silver in the book The Wizard of Oz? Young people ages nine to 14 can brush up on their book knowledge and win prizes including movie tickets and more. 10:30 a.m.

August 5 at North Haven Memorial Library, 17 Elm St. Free (advance registration). 203-239-5803.

Friday Family Campfire: Moths and Other Night Fliers. Soft, fluttering butterflies of the night will fly over the campfire. Larry Gall, Westport’s resident moth hunter, will lure them in with a yummy-for-moths bait so you can see the moths up close. For the two-legged creatures, s’mores will be provided.

Bring a blanket or folding chair. 7:309:30 p.m. August 7 at Earthplace, 10 Woodside La., Westport. $8 members, $10 non-members. Registration. 203-2277253, info@earthplace.org, earthplace. org.

Seashore Day. Explore the world of the beach with exhibits, crafts and games. Learn how to identify seashells and beach critters. Perform scientific water tests just like a real marine scientist. Make fish prints. There will be something to do all day. 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

August 8 at Earthplace, 10 Woodside La., Westport. $7 ($5 ages 12 and under and seniors). 203-227-7253, info@earthplace. org, earthplace.org.

Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria arena tour comes to Connecticut for seven shows in the Park City. Alegria is a Spanish word that means happiness, joy and jubilation. This Alegria features and international cast of 55 performers and musicians and showcases breathtaking acrobatics, including the Synchro Trapeze and the highspeed, high-energy Aerial High Bars, in which daredevil aerialists fly to catchers swinging more than 40 feet above the stage. The vibrancy of youth comes alive in Power Track, a display of synchronized choreography and tumbling on a trampoline systems concealed beneath the stage floor.

Come see the production that has thrilled more than ten million people worldwide since its 1994 début.

7:30 p.m. August 20, 3:30 & 7:30 p.m.

August 21-22, 1 & 5 p.m. August 23 at Arena at Harbor Yard, 600 Main St., Bridgeport. $95-$45 (under 13 $76-$36). arenaatharboryard.com, cirquedusoleil. com.

FESTIVALS The 11th annual Walnut Beach Arts/ Crafts Festival returns to Milford.

Juried festival with wide range of works including painting, woodworking, metalwork, pottery, ceramics, clothing, jewelry, quilting and more from artisans from throughout southern New England and metro New York. Plus,

Led by Nelie Doak, Yoga promotes a deep sense of physical, mental and emotional well-being. Classes are designed to help cultivate breath and body awareness, improve flexibility, strengthen and tone muscles, detoxify the body and soothe the spirit. All levels welcome. Bring a yoga mat. 56:15 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.

NATURAL HISTORY Darwin: 150 Years of Evolutionary Thinking. The Peabody commemorates to 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his Origin of Species with an original exhibition of archival material from the Peabody’s collections. Exhibition illustrates how two of Darwin’s contemporaries at Yale, James Dwight Dana and Othniel Charles Marsh, were influenced by his work, and how they in turn influenced Darwin. Exhibition also showcases current research that is the legacy of Darwin’s discoveries. Through August 23 at Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave., New Haven.

Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, noon-5 p.m.

Sun. $7 ($6 seniors, $5 ages 3-18). 203432-5050, peabody.yale.edu

SPORTS/RECREATION Canoeing Join the Connecticut Audubon Society for a guided Family Canoe Tour of Milford’s 840-acre Charles Wheeler Salt Marsh. Steeped in local history, the marsh offers an abundance of birds and other wildlife, beautiful vistas and a chance to paddle and relax. Bring water and sunscreen and wear shoes that can get wet. Noon-2:30 p.m. August

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8, 11:45 a.m.-2:15 p.m. August 22, 12:30-3 p.m. August 23 at Connecticut Audubon Society Coastal Center, 1 Milford Point Rd., Milford. $19 members/$29 others (canoe rental $25/$35 per person, $65/$95 per canoe). 203-878-7440, ctaudubon.org.

Outlets, 314 Flat Rock Pl., Westbrook. $20 advance ($25 after 8/15). 336-834-6821, tangeroutlet.com/tangerstylefitness.

Over 18 years, Stratford’s MADD Dash 5K has raised more than $125,000 for the Fairfield County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Another beneficiary is the runners themselves — the Short Beach course is absolutely flat, fast and scenic. 9 a.m. August 22 (8:15 kids fun run; 8:50 two-mile walk) at Shirt Beach, Stratford. $17 advance, $20 day of race ($5 fun run). msrunningproductions@yahoo.com

Cycling 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. Sundays at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203-773-9288, elmcitycycling.org.

All proceeds from West Haven’s Hope Is Coming 5K will benefit the Smilow Cancer Center at Yale-New Haven Hospital. USATF-certified out-and-back course along Capt. Thomas Boulevard and Ocean Avenue is scenic and (even better) flat. 9 a.m. August 8 at West Haven High School, 1 McDonough Plz., West Haven. $20 ($25 race day). 203-9270672, sullivantracey@snetglobal.net.

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. 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. 5:30 p.m. August 28 at Temple and Chapel streets, New Haven. Free. elmcitycycling.org.

Hikes Join the Connecticut Audubon Society for a fabulous Full Moon Walk. As the heat of the summer day dissipates and the cool of the evening comes on, walk the trails with Trail Wood Caretaker Vern Pursley and watch for the glow of the strawberry, buck and green corn moons. 7:30 p.m. August 7 at Trail Wood Sanctuary, 93 Kenyon Rd., Hampton. Free.

860-928-4948, ctaudubon.org.

Spectator Sports

The No. 9 player in the world, Caroline Wozniacki returns to New Haven to defend her 2008 Pilot Pen Tennis crown.

Road Races If free ice cream isn’t enough to induce you to run 3.1 miles, probably nothing will. The fourth annual Walnut Beach Ice Cream 5K, held in conjunction with Milford’s Walnut Beach Festival (see above), features free ice cream cones for all runners. 8:30 a.m. (kids’ one-mile fun run 8 a.m.) August 2 at Walnut Beach, Milford. $20 (kids free). 203-876-2737, hitekracing.com/walnutbeach5k JB Sports, LLC presents the Sound Runner Sea Legs Shuffle, a ten-mile and 5K race. Awards to top three finishers in each age group in both races. Asics Technical Running T-shirts to first 600 entrants. 8 a.m. August 2

IT’S YOUR NEW HAVEN MARCH

THE NEW STREAKERS Running for MARLEY & MOM

O n e Ye a r $ 2 4 . 9 5 Two Ye a r s $ 3 9 . 9 5

A family copes with cancer

august 2009

Proceeds from the Tanger Fit for Families 5K Run/Walk will benefit Middlesex Hospital and the American Red Cross. T-shirts to first 350 registrants; goody bag and medal to all finishers. 8:30 a.m. August 22 at Tanger

their lives

Jack M. Levine, D.D.S.

LIVING THE DREAM

HIGH SC

HO CO NFIDENTIOL AL Teenage tribula tions — in their own words

85 Willow Street New Haven, CT 06511

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A fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity’s Sleeping Giant Build, the West Rock Challenge is really three events in one: a nine-mile and 5K road race, and a twomile walk. Races start and finish from the Lake Wintergreen parking area. 7:30 a.m. (5K starts 7:45; walk 9:30) August 16 at West Rock State Park, New Haven. $30 ($35 day of race) 9-mile, $20/$25 5K, $15/$20 walk. sleepinggiantbuild.org.

www.newhavenmagazin

A hockey hopeful tastes the NHL

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2009

at Seaside Ave., Guilford. 203-481-5933, jbsports@snet.net.

One of Connecticut’s premier sporting events is the Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament, an Olympus US Open Series event on the ATP (men’s) tour and Sony Ericsson WTA (women’s) tour.

2008 women’s champ and current top-ten player Caroline Wozniacki has committed to defend her New Haven title, to be joined by former world No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo. On the men’s side Taylor Dent, Mardy Fish and Tommy Robredo had committed to play at press time. The 48 men and 32 women in the main singles draw (and 16 teams in each main doubles draw) will be playing for a total $1.35 million in prize money. Day & evening sessions August 21-29 at Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale, 45 Yale Ave., New Haven. 888-99PILOT, pilotpentennis.com.

375 Orange St • New Haven

203-624-7571 www.orangestreetsmiles.com

WO RD S o f MOUT H

By Liese Klein

photograph:

FNEW Ê T ES EATS: Ibiza Tapas

Anthony DeCarlo

I NS TYL E OU TD O ORS BO D Y & S OUL O NS C R EE N

Juan Garcia (l), with Jay King, partner and general manager.

L

ower Dixwell Avenue in Hamden has long been a good place to pick up auto parts or a fast-food burger — but a budding restaurant row? With the opening of Ibiza Tapas on a stretch of Dixwell that’s also home to notable Thai, Chinese and Japanese restaurants, foodies are going to have to get used to the hair-raising excitement of driving this major Hamden thoroughfare.

Just a mile or so past Thai Awesome, the Terrace, Sushi Palace and consistent favorite Sono Bana, Ibiza opened earlier this summer with a sure crowd-pleaser: free booze. While the owners waited on their liquor license, patrons were treated to the fizzy Ibiza variation on sangria, sweetened with lemon soda and chunks of fruit. A nice crisp white and an earthy red from Rioja were also on tap, boding well for the wine list to come. The restaurant space, a former Colombian eatery, was packed and cacophonous

on a holiday weekend, enlivening the somewhat forlorn interior.

bread was also underwhelming both in portion size and texture.

Tapas restaurants are great for summer weather, with small portions (most in the $8 range) and a choice between cold and hot dishes. We started with the cold: a creamy gazpacho filled with chunks of cucumber, onion and pepper and served in a martini glass for maximum impact.

It was the perfect, vegetal introduction to a menu on which many cold dishes shone. Best of all was the Salpicon de Mariscos, a seafood salad from the north of Spain featuring, citrusy bites of shrimp, squid and scallops in a flavorful mélange with marinated vegetables.

The larger plates, in the $10 range, offered more substantial helpings of treats like Fideua, a Catalan dish of crispy noodles with seafood in a lobster aioli. The noodles with their crunchy texture take some getting used to but harmonized well with the sauce and ended up winning me over.

A successful end to the meal was the Croquetas de Chocolate, coconutcrusted explosions of pure chocolate decadence — plus a few more glasses of that sangria.

Under the “modern tapas” heading, a marinated bluefin tuna also scored with a combination of fresh fish, tangy marinade, olives and green onion. The steamed octopus, was a bit overwhelmed by creamy potato foam and the portion was skimpy. A soggy Catalan tomato

So pile in the car and head up Dixwell — just brace yourself for multiple stoplights and the occasional daredevil cutting across lanes to turn. Ibiza and its counterparts on this new restaurant row are worth the trip.

Ibiza, 1832 Dixwell Ave., Hamden (203-909-6512).

new haven

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Anthony DeCarlo photograph:

JUST A TASTE: Adriana’s Restaurant & Wine Bar

But first take in the new interior: an airy, refined space benefiting from details like a patterned ceiling, wood flooring and granite bar. Even the bathrooms impress with Tuscan-style ceramic tile. Pick a seat either in the bar area, designed to minimize noise, or one of two dining rooms which seat up to a total of 125 for Adriana’s signature holiday parties.

Choose from the several dozen Italian wines by the bottle, most in the $30 range, or splash out with “Reserve List” bottles that go up to $500. Seven good wines are available by the glass, most $6 or $7 each.

A refreshing antipasto of marinated peppers and onions is first to arrive, along with crusty Italian bread. Start your order with the stunning carpaccio antipasto, slices of pounded and marinated beef accented by peppery arugula and slabs of Parmesan. Each bite combines textures and flavors in testament to Valentino Stakaj’s skill.

Tuna tartare also scores with a citrusy vinaigrette and briny slabs of black olive in endive leaves. Also winning is the Ostriche Ripiene antipasto: fresh, plump oysters enhanced but not overwhelmed by spinach, crabmeat and buttery Hollandaise sauce.

Cousins (l-r) Valentino, Francesco and Federico Stakaj have brought Wooster Square legend Adriana’s back from the brink.

A

Wooster Square-area institution for decades, Adriana’s Restaurant suffered a devastating fire last year and remained closed for seven months. The eatery has reopened with a bright new interior, a re-imagined menu and some of the best Italian food to be found in the Elm City — all at moderate prices.

Owners Valentino, Francesco and Federico Stakaj, cousins who honed

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their restaurant chops in Italy and New York, have retained the best of the old Adriana’s in their stylish new space. All the eatery’s signature veal favorites are available on demand, whether on the menu or not. But the menu’s new additions, including flavorful seafood and fresh pastas in creative combinations, are what make the new Adriana’s worth a visit for the uninitiated.

Main dishes range from classic osso bucco with saffron risotto to new offerings like branzino and swordfish with capers and onions. Fettuccine con Porcini blends feather-light noodles with a delicate brandy truffle sauce, prosciutto, fresh peas and nice-sized chunks of earthy sautéed mushroom. The heartier ropes of bucatini, a hollow, spaghetti-like pasta, set off a more assertive sauce of pancetta, onions, basil and Romano cheese.

(Vegetarians should be vigilant: Pancetta and prosciutto turn up in many dishes.)

Side orders include sautéed broccoli rabe, wild mushrooms and escarole, but you won’t have much room with Adriana’s generous portions.

“After the fire, we trusted our customers would come back,” Francesco Stakaj says.

“We really care about our customers and we run our restaurant with passion.”

With its fine food and welcoming new space, Adriana’s deserves lots of new customers, as well.

Adriana’s Restaurant & Wine Bar, 771 Grand Ave., New Haven (203-865-6474).

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EDITOR’S PICK: Midori Restaurant

B

ibimbap — a Korean rice-meat-andvegetable dish mixed up in a hot stone bowl — is one of those delicacies that’s worth a long drive — even one up one of the New Haven area’s most stoplight-infested streets. You may burn up a few gallons of gas and your last nerve getting all the way up Whitney Avenue to Midori, but this crispy, savory and delicious dish will make your aggravation worthwhile.

Midori, in a pleasant plaza near Sleeping Giant State Park, has become a local favorite for its tasty takes on Korean and Japanese favorites. With its bright interior mostly free of Asian restaurant kitsch, Midori allows for a relaxed dining experience. Adding to the ambiance is a flat-screen featuring Korean TV and a sound system playing Asian-style remixes of the Beatles and Bach.

Be sure to start with a cup of Korean tea, with its refreshing and earthy roasted-barley flavor. If you yearn for beer and wine, you’ll have to bring your own as the eatery has no liquor license.

A good bet for a starter is the seafood pancake, eggy and satisfying with chunks of octopus, shrimp and scallion and served with soy dipping sauce. It came to the table nicely crisp with an appealingly tender interior. Less

successful were the vegetable mandoo dumplings, a bit mushy and smelling of the fryer.

Korean cuisine stars in the main dishes, with a noodle entrée mixing spicy sauce, vegetables and hearty strands of buckwheat pasta to good result.

The bibimbap brings together beef, vegetables, fresh mushrooms and a spicy sauce. Everything is piled into the hot bowl for you to mix yourself with a long spoon. Don’t mix too frantically — you want the rice on the bottom to crisp up a bit into a tasty crust.

There are several good versions of bibimbap available at Asian markets near downtown, but all I’ve tried are served warm or at room temperature.

The logistics of heating up a goodsized stone bowl, plopping in the right ingredients and then getting it to a customer without incurring thirddegree burns are best left to a full-scale restaurant.

The resulting mix of texture, flavor and spice at Midori is sure to bring me back up Whitney for a warming meal as the cool weather approaches.

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

1,000 Chapel St • New Haven 203.562.3888 • clairescornercopia.com

Adriana’s

RESTAURANT & W INE BAR

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Anthony DeCarlo photograph:

JUST A SIP: The Ivy Lounge

At the Ivy Lounge, (l-r) Marisa Pilek, Gregory Martell, Michael Grappone and Brian Sturtz serve up (also l-r) a spicy tuna tostada, strawberry Cilantro margarita, short rib panini and the ‘L-word’ martini.

T

he Temple Plaza Courtyard is a sliver of brick behind the Shubert Theater that borders on New Haven’s nightlife district. But you don’t have to yearn for Jagermeister and dance parties to enjoy the city’s newest late-night watering hole, the Ivy Lounge.

With its welcoming interior and inventive drinks, the Ivy is a good alternative for a casual drink or light meal as it expands its food offerings this summer.

Walk in on a midweek evening and the

Body & Soul Continued from 27

hard-to-see areas. If a tick has bitten you, monitor yourself carefully for the next three to four weeks, watching for the bull’s eye rash and any flu-like symptoms. Most infected patients start to show symptoms about eight to ten days after being bitten, but it can take a month or longer in some cases. If you do become ill and there is a possibility of a tick bite, see a physician

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mood is relaxed, with Jimi Hendrix on the sound system as the night’s band tests mics up front. Tea lights, ironwork and a marble bar add to the slightly louche atmosphere that seems more New York than New Haven.

Infusing liquors sit on a shelf by the bar and give a kick to drinks like a Cucumber Rose Collins with vegetableand-flower-spiced gin. The Mango Lavender Mojito has a floral nose and goes down easily. The Pineapple Caipiroska nicely melds pineapple

immediately, because you can begin taking antibiotics before a blood test can detect an infection.

“The problem is that most people who get Lyme disease don’t recall being bitten by a tick,” says Fish, “because they’re very small and can easily feed for several days on a person if it’s in a place that’s not easily visible. In about 95 percent of Lyme disease cases, people have the rash, but most of them don’t notice it.”

vodka and sugarcane without overdoing the sweetness.

Manager Marisa Pilek says the Ivy plans to add food this month and open a patio overlooking the Temple Plaza Courtyard. Expect crowds on Wednesday’s salsa nights and dance parties. But before the kids come out to play, grownups will find much to enjoy at this new spot.

The Ivy Lounge, 956 Chapel Street (Rear Temple Plaza courtyard), New Haven (203-562-5566).

“The earlier you catch it, the easier it is to diagnose and treat the infection,” adds Magnarelli. “When people get into the later stages, it becomes very difficult to treat. It can still be done, but it’s harder.”

Indeed, Lyme disease gone untreated or misdiagnosed can have lasting effects, including neurological problems and memory loss. So get out and enjoy the summer, but remember to be mindful of the tiny, hungry threats lurking outdoors.

v

One2One

Continued from 11

I see churches going up like bank branches, though.

What’s going up is the ‘born again,’ the newer churches and the megachurches.

They market themselves in two ways: where you have affinity groups, you have a nursery, a coffee hour that is better than any Starbucks. The other model is the highly emotional ‘born again.’ The church [often] has a huge auditorium, video screens, rock music, and it appeals to people in their 30s and 40s.

If you’re in one of those renewal churches you leave your brains at the door — there is no critical thought.

Black churches in New Haven seems to have sprung up all over the community.

Where do you put that movement?

Storefront churches really represent the community. The preacher doesn’t have to have a seminary degree. All he or she has to have is the ability to move people and some sense of authenticity. If those are the requirements it is a great market because you don’t need a lot of capital.

If you were looking at everything under the Christian brand, what would you say is occurring?

I would say the baby-boomers have lost connection to the church. So their children didn’t know what religion was, they had no experience growing up in any religious tradition. They are a little confused and in some ways vulnerable to almost Jim Jones kind of cult things.

Which their parents were definitely drawn to.

The pattern in the early ‘70s was the child of non-religious parents joined the Children of God, or one of those cults.

There is an absence of spiritual depth and understanding in two generations in a row: the baby-boomers and the babyboomers’ ‘echo’ [offspring]. And now entering a third generation.

Does that translate into young people having no interest either?

It is a real challenge to reach people in their 20s — they don’t even realize the language of traditional religion. They’re just as likely to believe in ghosts as the Holy Ghost. Or as into astrology, as were their parents, as theology.

One has to work pretty hard to avoid ghost shows on television today.

And vampires. People are hungry for something that is otherworld. The lowest common denominator of spirituality is something about ghosts or vampires.

It can be fun, but that is not religion.

What I see as sort of tragic is that people who should know better don’t value or remember the historic religious truth or history.

Well, isn’t this a battle with folks that don’t believe what you believe, who believe what can’t been seen with the naked eye doesn’t exist?

If you took people who are raised Catholic, Jewish, Episcopalian, Methodist who are age 50 and ask them what do you think about life after death, you’re not going to get anybody to say there is heaven and hell, or the resurrection of the body, which is in the creed of the Catholics and the Episcopalians. They might consider it childlike: They learned it as a child. They also learned about Santa Claus.

You can retire from the church, but what’s next? You’re still relatively young.

I’m 66, which is the new 56 [laughs].

When you’re leading a congregation you’re always on call. And even though the phone hardly ever rings at three in the morning, you know it might. And that when it does it might be someone whose child has died or marriage has just fallen apart. And you feel responsible for healing.

A lot of adult children of alcoholics become clergy because they want to fix what they couldn’t as kids. That’s not my experience…

[Interrupts] But you had an atheist and an agnostic.

Now I get to convert the unfaithful: ‘Thank you doctor, I had a breakthrough today. What do I owe you?’ I needed a diversion and running was a beautiful diversion — it’s a way to achieve that moment of Zen. Now that I’m no longer under that stress [of being rector] I will say I felt that weight lift immediately. It is nice to be able to be a consumer of what the world has to give, and not always be a provider. v

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WOR D S o f M OUT H

Aloft and Alive F Ê T EFully S Even acrophobes warm up to the peace and tranquility of hot-air ballooning

I NS TY L E

By Susan E. Cornell

Y

ou might be surprised to learn that 120 years before Orville and Wilbur flew the world’s first successful airplane, two other siblings — the Montgolfier brothers of France — created the oldest successful humancarrying flight technology: the hot air balloon. Joseph-Michel and JacquesÉtienne prudently conducted their first experiments by sending farm animals aloft; Orville and Wilbur, on the other hand, may have foreseen PETA.

If you want to go from point A to a specific point B, hot-air ballooning is not the way to go. If you book a flight, count on learning the location of the launch site the night before, as the site is weather-dependent based on wind direction and speed. Even post-launch, the pilot won’t know where the vehicle will end up. Ballooning is much like life — you may set out in a particular direction but you really never know where you’ll land. But if hot-air ballooning is on your “bucket list,” find just under $300 in your checkbook and book it.

Hot air balloon rides are usually scheduled at sunrise and can be conducted throughout the year. “Most people don’t realize that we fly in the winter, or the misconception is that it’s a lot colder in the air than it is on the ground when that’s not the case; there’s only a five- or at most ten-degree temperature difference at the altitude we fly at,” explains Jim Regan, chief pilot at CT Ballooning, LLC

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Because the balloon moves with the air, first-time riders are often surprised by the sound of silence.

in Kensington.

Acrophobia is not an issue for most. It’s much different in a balloon than on a ladder, a roof or a ledge. In fact, the pilot admits that although he can take the balloon to 14,000 feet, “I’m literally shaking when I get to the edge of my roof!” Once the balloon leaves the ground, the basket is extremely stable — it doesn’t rock, spin or shift. The close proximity to other bodies (four or five in a basket) also seems to mitigate the fear of heights.

While the actual flight lasts only about an hour, plan on an adventure lasting between three and four hours. There’s setup by the chase crew beforehand, deflating and re-packing afterwards, the tradition of a champagne and/or apple cider toast to celebrate the landing and then transportation back to the original site.

Regan says the most frequently expressed comment from riders is that they never realized how many trees there are in Connecticut. Agreed, although the aerial view also makes the contrasts between back yard junkyards and manicured McMansions with in-ground pools more apparent. “Everybody is always amazed at how gentle and quiet it was,” says the pilot. “It wasn’t how they expected it.”

If you book a flight for a special occasion with CT Ballooning, they will do something “above and beyond.” Says Regan, “We don’t like to tell people exactly what it is, but there will always be a little something extra.”

For more information or to book an adventure, CT Ballooning, LLC can be reached at 860209-0351, ctballooning@yahoo.com and online at ctballooning.com.

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