New Haven magazine August 2008

AUGUST 2008

www.newhavenmagazine.com

BOUNTY Elm City chefs champion the best locally grown fare

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS A love story on 0.3 acres

FRONTMAN ON A MISSION

Ten Shekel Shirt wants to save the world while rocking it

LITERARY LION IN WINTER

85 Willow Street New Haven, CT 06511

Pre-sort Standard U.S. Postage PAID New Haven CT Permit No 375

Yale’s titanic Harold Bloom

new haven

1

Blue collar. White collar. Any collar.

No matter what type of small business you manage, it just got easier to offer employees the health benefits they want.

Presenting BlueOptions®, a package of health plans that: • Lets each of your employees choose the coverage they want • Has great vision benefits built into each plan • Offers affordable rates for small businesses in Connecticut To learn more, talk to your insurance agent/producer, or call Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield at 1-866-637-2537.

MEDICAL

D E NTA L

VISION

LIFE

DISABILITY .com

In Connecticut, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the trade name of Anthem Health Plans, Inc., an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. ® Registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Life and disability products are underwritten by Anthem Life Insurance Company.

AD-8 Rev. (9/06)

Inspiring Solutions For I n s p i r i n g Ta s t e s Embrace the Experience

we create customers for life

www.lbcct.com

9 Segar Street, Danbury, CT 87 Union Street, New Haven, CT 633 Hope Street, Stamford, CT 100 North Elm Street, Waterbury, CT

877 589 8796 Toll Free In-home design service available

New Haven I August/2008

PHOTOGRAPH:

10 One2One Will Ginsberg lays the foundation for a greater New Haven by tapping community spirit

Anthony DeCarlo

10 Bright Lights, Big City A child actress from New Haven treads the Great White Way

16 From Market to Plate City chefs turn to locally grown fare from the state’s farmers to liven up menus

21 Net Gain Pilot Pen tennis tournament courts crowds with star lineup and a new food festival

25 Literary Lion in Winter Legendary man of letters Harold Bloom shapes a new generation of readers

29 Where the Heart Is The transformation of a tumbledown Branford farmhouse figures in a bicoastal romance

35 Go Figure The compelling, disturbing vision of New Haven sculptor Robert Taplin

45 Boyz Will Be Boys Frivolous but enjoyable ‘Altar Boyz’ at Long Wharf showcases some rising stars

OUR COVER Cover design by Terry Wells.

4

august 2008

62

+HDG

Free Swing Table

IRU WKH

with the purchase of a Stressless ® recliner

+LOOV

7KH /LWFKILHOG +LOOV

As seen on TV! Comfort, function and style—the patented Stressless® system gives you optimum neck & lumbar support in any position, while keeping your body in perfect balance. Purchase any Stressless® recliner and receive a FREE Swing Table. True to its name, it swings away when not in use—it’s all about comfort. Visit our website for details: fairhaven-furniture.com

Consul recliner starting at $995 Hurry, offers end Sept.1 available at:

Fairhaven Furniture The Alternative Home Store

www.fairhaven-furniture.com 72 Blatchley Ave., New Haven exit 6 off I-91, left to end 203 776-3099 Mon, Thu, Fri: 9-6 | Sat: 10-6 | Sun: 12-4

$ &RQQHFWLFXW *HWDZD\ QHYHU VHHPHG V R ´ I D U D Z D \µ

8SVFDOH ORGJLQJ GLQLQJ

/DNHV 5HFUHDWLRQ

1HDUE\ %HUNVKLUHV

$ VKRUW GULYH IURP DQ\ZKHUH &DOO IRU PRUH LQIRUPDWLRQ DQG RXU EURFKXUH

ZZZ LQWHUODNHQLQQ FRP

/DNHYLOOH &RQQHFWLFXW

new haven

5

New Haven I August/2008

48 Frontman on a Mission Ten Shekel Shirt wants to save the world while rocking it by tackling child sex slavery

56 Words of Mouth Liese Klein discovers a gastronomic diamond in the rough (just kidding, Ansonia!)

62 Discovered Keeping on truckin’ in Middlebury

New Haven Vol. I, No. 11 | August 2008 Publisher Mitchell Young, Editor Michael C. Bingham, Design Manager Larissa Wigglesworth, Design Consultant Terry Wells, Contributing Writers Brooks Appelbaum, Elvira J. Duran, Joyce Faiola, Michael Harvey, Brittany Galla, Liese Klein, Cindy Marien, Melissa Nicefaro, Tashema Nichols, Ron Ragozzino, Steven Scarpa, Cindy Simoneau, Margaret Waage Photographers Steve Blazo, Anthony DeCarlo, Margaret Waage Administrator Jill Perno Advertising Director Laura Whinfield, Senior Publisher’s Representatives Mary W. Beard, Ronni Rabin, Publisher’s Representatives Cynthia Carlson, Paula Thompson 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.

6

august 2008

56

Joseph A. Conte

A higher standard within reach

Jewelers, Inc. 38 Years of Jewelry Manufacturing

Specializing in antique restorations.

Set while you watch by Joseph A. Conte personally.

Though spacious apartments and countless conveniences suggest otherwise, the Tower One/ Tower East lifestyle is attainable by older persons with a range of financial means. Tower One/Tower East residents enjoy a host of amenities including:

www.josephacontejewelers.com

• Studios and one-bedroom apartments • Fine Dining • On-site primary care • Free health screenings • Cultural and recreational activities • On-site convenience store and banking • Secure reserved parking

203.248.9853 or 203.248.9852

2582 Whitney Ave, Hamden

50% off

UO

Summer Maternity URBAN OBJECTS & Baby Clothes URBAN BABY

Mon - Sat: 10-6 Sun: 11- 5 1022 Chapel St. New Haven (203) 865-5236 www.urbanobjects.com

• Barefoot Dreams • Pinecone Hill PJs • Thymes •

Fleurville & Petunia Pickle Bottom Diaper Bags • Robeez • Kissy Kissy

Mariposa • Baggallini Bags • M. Aram • Archipelago • Hanky Panky

• Manhattan Toy • PJ Salvage • Mat & Natt Bags •

Would you like to look ten years younger without surgery?

• Do you struggle with lines that make you look tired?

• Do you wish your jaw line had more definition?

• Do you feel like your face has changed overnight?

If you can answer YES to any of these questions, we need to talk.

I’ll show you how you can reduce lines and wrinkles, replace lost volume and tighten sagging jowls without surgery, pain or downtime.

Visit my site, check out my before & after pictures, download my report and then give me a call.

Susan O’Malley, M.D.

It’s Your Face, Take It Back! nosurgeryzone.com • 203 488-8266

shoreline aesthetic care

A No Surgery Zone™

Stony Creek Medical Center, 6 Business Park Dr, Suite 301, Branford New You Fitness, 1856 Boston Post Rd, Westbrook new haven

7

EDITOR’S L E T T E R

I

t’s August. We’re hot, and we’re hungry.

Only Al Gore can save us from the heat, but we can take hungry into our own hands. In this issue Liese Klein uncovers the culinary treasure trove readily available to us all at local farmers’ markets — especially in this, peak harvest month in Connecticut.

Harveys are at idiom!

NHM’s foremost “foodie” (her term), Klein is likewise responsible for the WORDS OF MOUTH section of the magazine, which is extremely difficult to edit without leaping up from one’s desk and dashing out to one of her culinary finds. This month she discovers an Ansonia eatery whose name certainly hits embarrassingly close to home for food-lovers (that would include just about all of us): Crave. We can’t wait to go.

The SEATBELTBAG is lovingly built in the USA

1014 Chapel Street New Haven • 203-782-2280

One of the magazine’s most popular features is the “ATHOME” department (which surprises at least a little bit: With the residential real-estate market in the doldrums, we supposed a lot of people would getting sick of living in houses they can’t sell — but apparently not). Part of the reason for its popularity, we suppose, is house envy; the other component certainly is voyeurism — the ability to peer through doors and curtains to see how people really live (the same motivator that has made HGTV a cable-TV powerhouse).

Nearly all of the houses we’ve written about since we launched this magazine nearly a year ago have been take-your-breath-away beautiful, but to date only one of them — 12 Indian Neck Avenue in Branford, the subject of this month’s ATHOME feature — has played a central role in a transcontinental love story — one with a very happy ending.

This month an unusual New Haven band, led by a highly unusual frontman, celebrates the release of its latest and greatest CD. That band would be Ten Shekel Shirt, and lead singer Lamont Hiebert is noteworthy not for his songwriting alone, but for what he does in his “spare” time (irony intended). Raised as a Mennonite in British Columbia before emigrating to New Haven, Hiebert co-founded Love146, an international non-profit group whose mission is to rescue children from forced prostitution and other forms of enslavement. An unusual and inspiring person on a mission of mercy.

FEATURING: Pandora • Alessi • Sticks Story People • Alexis Bittar Silver Seasons • Jamie Joseph Troll • Jeanine Payer Nava Zahavi

Also in this issue, NHM art critic Michael Harvey brings to life the work of New Haven sculptor Robert Taplin, whose figurative works small and large (really large) are at once compelling and somewhat daunting — as great art, of course, should be.

As the poet said, You be cool, fool. v

open everyday

WAVE New Haven • 1046 Chapel St. New Haven CT • 203-624-3032 8

august 2008

— Michael C. Bingham Editor

I NT EL

A Maze Thing Lyman Orchards’ mind-boggling maze made up of 235,000 sunflowers will be open through September. See the three-acre pinwheel design up close and personal or hike the orchard hill for the full view. The design is a tribute to the Cure Kids Cancer Coalition and a dollar from the admission charge ($5 for kids and $9 for adults) will go to the group. For more information on Lyman Orchards events, go to www.lymanorchards.com

Bad News, Good News Last fall Intel reported that the Journal Register Company, parent of the New Haven Register, was seeing a precipitous stock decline. Now, with the stock at 4 cents per share, the company is delisting itself and will be

found only the “pink sheets” if you want to place a bet on the newspaper group. Use caution: Times are tough at many dailies and worse for Journal Register thanks to millions in debt from acquisitions that didn’t pan out.

The company’s bank, JPMorgan Chase, is giving it a break on interest payments till October.

Bankruptcy looms – let’s hope for more forbearance.

the needy, with a goal of raising $25,000 for the Elm City shelter.

Visit www.nonathon.kintera.org for more information and check out the event’s logo: “Don’t walk for the homeless!”

New Haven’s Mad Man

Fair Thee Well Couch Potato Philanthropy Now you can help some of the more than 30,000 homeless people in Connecticut without buying pricey gear or breaking a sweat. The 2008 “Non-AThon” to benefit New Haven’s Columbus House was created as an alternative to all the athletic fundraisers out there. You can click to support a “non-a-thoner” or start training to become one yourself. The concept trims expenses and allows more of your donation to go toward helping

Connecticut’s agriculture fairs get going in earnest in August.

If you love goats, pigs, roosters and prized vegetables, they’ll be taking center stage in Brooklyn Chester, Bethlehem, Durham, North Haven and more than a dozen other towns across the Nutmeg State. Support local farms and get the best value in family entertainment around.

For information and dates at www.ctfairs.com. The 2008 Association of Connecticut Fairs listings are also available by mail for a dollar. Send a self-addressed envelope to the Association of Connecticut Fairs, 103 Anthony Road, North Stonington 06359.

One of Connecticut’s most creative ad men has earned plaudits in an entirely different creative dimension. Russ Madison, president and creative director of Lone Wolf Advertising in Woodbridge, has earned first prize (and $100) in the Milford Fine Arts Council’s annual national poetry contest for his verse “Prayer to Software.” Oddly, Madison — who also penned the novels Chapter 11, The Man Who Watched Trash and Victory Among the Insane — has never used a computer, preferring to write on paper towels. So one wonders how he knows what “software” is. Madison has also received a Lannan Fellowship to work on a “fantasy-biography” of Norman Mailer. The Wolfman co-founded one of the area’s largest ad agencies, then known as Mason & Madison (today just Mason).

LE TT ERS Untrue Gritty This letter is in regards to the article in the July NHM entitled “One Year After” by Liese Klein.

Although it was a well-written article about the citizens of Cheshire attempting to adjust to life after the unspeakable tragedy at the Petit home, Ms. Klein made an egregious, prejudicial comment that requires immediate retraction.

She stated, “Of course evil has always found its way to Cheshire, which borders on the comparatively gritty communities of Wallingford, Meriden and Waterbury.” I would certainly welcome the opportunity to compare Ms. Klein’s data with the information I was able to attain. I could find no correlation between the town of Wallingford’s median income, average home values or crime

statistics compared with the cities of Meriden and Waterbury.

If not for these reasons, how is she defining “gritty”? Was Ms. Klein somehow able to obtain statistics from the Cheshire Police Department regarding crimes committed in Cheshire by Wallingford citizens? Since Ms. Klein’s statement is obviously not based on statistics, the only reason for such a comment is

ignorant prejudice, which any responsible author must not show and any decent editor must now allow.

In my 14 years as a resident, raising a family in the town my wife and I chose to live in, I have never heard anyone refer to “the mean streets of Wallingford.”

—Bob Ransom Wallingford

new haven

9

10

august 2008

PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

‘New Haven has always felt like the right place.’

JUST RITE COMFORT SHOES, LLC Naot... comfort without compromising style.

W

illiam W. Ginsberg, a Manhattan native, first came to Connecticut to attend Trinity College in Hartford.

After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1980, he took a position with the law firm once run by former New York Mayor John Lindsay, where he got a taste of economic development in the public arena. It was this experience that would take him to New Haven in 1984, where he served in a variety of economic development posts until President Bill Clinton named him assistant secretary for economic development in 1994. Ginsberg came “home” to New Haven in 2000 to head the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. New Haven publisher Mitchell Young interviewed Ginsberg for One to One.

vvv You served in the Clinton administration, but did working with Lindsay’s firm make you a Republican?

[Lindsay] was originally elected as a Republican but he was reelected a second time as an Independent. In 1980, before I went to work for Webster & Sheffield, he had his last political hurrah, which was a run for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, which he lost to Elizabeth Holtzman. [Holtzman lost in a threeperson race to Al D’Amato.]

You chose Trinity?

I think it was the interesting choice, beyond the fact that I met my wife there. I studied history and loved it. My worldview is through a historical lens; I seriously considered becoming a historian.

The advice I was given was the academy had just exploded in growth, there were a lot of people 15 to 20 years older who were occupying tenured positions and it wasn’t going to provide a lot of room for people my age. I went to law school instead.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

Did you have a goal as a lawyer?

I wasn’t committed to spending my life as a practicing lawyer, although I worked on a lot of interesting transactions. We did a lot of public-private projects like the South Street Seaport in New York; we did work

for city, states, school districts, airports, all around the county. But I felt there was a big interesting world out there that one got glimpses of from inside of a Rockefeller Center law office. I felt I wasn’t doing the interesting work.

You have this really beautiful view from your office of a wonderful street (Audubon), but after 25 years at a major New York law firm at Rockefeller Center, you would have had a really nice view. Was it a good trade?

For me it was absolutely the right choice; that is to come to New Haven. I’ve never felt for a moment that the decision by my wife and I and wasn’t the right decision.

From a professional standpoint and a personal standpoint, New Haven 25 years ago very quickly felt like home in a way that New York never did and the six years we lived in Washington D.C. never did.

New Haven — because of its intimacy, which is a function in part of its size, the kind of people who are here, because of the issues — has always felt like the right place.

How did you find your way here the first time?

Tom Appleby, who had been development administrator for former New Haven mayor Dick Lee. Appleby had many close friends in New Haven and one was Newt Schenck. Looking out on Audubon Street — this was Newt’s thing. Newt and Appleby had worked together on Long Wharf’s urban renewal plan, including the Long Wharf Theater, which became one of Newt’s great contributions to New Haven. Newt was on Mayor Ben DiLieto’s search committee for a new economic development administrator. He called Appleby, who recommended me.

60 Temple Street, New Haven, CT 203-772-3884 • Hours: Open daily M-F

Ready To Make a Move?

Search All Homes For Sale In CT or Get Your Home’s Market Value!

www.GuerraRealtors.com 203-466-7653 • 866-281-4956 232 Main St. East Haven

distinctive eyewear contact lenses eye exams

Twenty-five years ago you would have been a kid. Why did they pick you?

I was 29. I walked in the room with 17 search committee members. I was on the other side of the table, but I saw this fantastic opportunity.

There were people in the law firm that didn’t understand why one would exchange a job as a lawyer in Rockefeller Center for

FRITZ & HAWLEY VISION CENTER

248-8224 2313 WHITNEY AVE, HAMDEN new haven

11

Steve Blazo

economy was in a terrible funk.

PHOTOGRAPH:

What did being in this new environment teach you?

First it taught me a lot about economic development, I was only there for a little over a year, because Secretary [Ron] Brown asked me to become chief of staff.

It gave me a broader perspective: I traveled around the country, giving grants to the top economic development projects in country.

Ron Brown was an extraordinary leader; he had very unusual leadership charisma.

During the year that I was his chief of staff, he was under investigation, there was a special counsel appointed. It all dated to his business dealings when he was a private citizen. I learned a lot about leadership, I learned a lot about politics.

Why did you leave Washington?

It’s an interesting and terrible story. We spent 1995 defending — preserving — the Commerce Department, in a pitched battle with the new Congress which was run by (Newt) Gingrich and Bob Dole. Ron, having saved his department, was stepping into a new role in the campaign and then he and 12 of my colleagues, 35 people altogether, were killed in a plane crash in Croatia in April ’96. It was a terrible tragedy.

You weren’t going?

‘There is this powerful sense, even for newcomers, of what has come before here.’

a job in City Hall in New Haven – to me it made all the sense in the world.

That instinct was quickly vindicated: There was a lot of development going on, Ben DiLieto was very popular, he was a wonderful person to learn this community from. He had been a cop for 30 years in New Haven, he literally knew everyone. He had 13 brothers and sisters; he was related to nearly everybody in New Haven. People loved him because they knew he loved New Haven. I got to know this community from top to bottom.

You switched over to run Science Park?

I was on the search committee to find a successor to Sam Chauncey Jr., who left to run Gaylord Hospital, and they picked me.

It grew significantly; we brought a lot more space on line. It was really the moment; for the first time some of the leading biotech companies in the state were Science Park companies.

12

august 2008

A friend I met through Science Park, Michael Crow (chancellor of Arizona State University) , was in line for a technology post at the U.S. Commerce Department; he gave my name. The then-chief of staff looked at my resume. I was there about a technology job, but he said, ‘What about economic development?’

So the job you got?

Assistant secretary for economic development. I was nominated and confirmed by the Senate in February 1994. The job was running the Economic Development Administration, which is the domestic economic development agency for the U.S. government. At that time we had $400 million in grants around the country.

We were working on defense conversion — the ‘peace dividend’ — the government was closing bases all over the country, more in California than anywhere else. At the start of the Clinton administration, California’s

I was going on the trip until two days beforehand; we had some things going on in the office, two new staff starting, and I took myself off the trip and put someone in my place.

It was a very tough moment, I went to 17 funerals in two weeks. And it changed everything professionally. Mickey Cantor came in (as commerce secretary) , I took a position as an acting assistant secretary on the international side, and I worked primarily in Panama on the conversion of the Canal Zone, right before we gave it back.

I worked in Northern Ireland promoting Clinton’s ‘commercial diplomacy’ effort.

Do you think Northern Ireland might be seen some day as his biggest success?

Supporting the peace process through commercial development and working in Belfast was fascinating. In many ways it reminded me of New Haven, the industrial history, the economic development challenges.

So back to New Haven?

I went to work for (former New Haven congressman) Bruce Morrison from 1997 to 2000. The Bruce ran for governor in 1990 and lost to [Lowell] Weicker in a three-

In 2000, the [Community] Foundation was looking for a new executive. It felt like a good match, I knew a lot of people on the board and a lot of people in the community.

I had no background in philanthropy but I had background in community economic development, in community banking.

Community philanthropy was a different aspect, but the common thread was community.

What were they looking for?

The foundation had a difficult period in the ‘90s. The board was looking for me to stabilize things and to enhance presence in the community, on both the impact side and donor development. Coming in, it was the sense that ‘community’ is an essential value and an underappreciated value in American life and that New Haven always seemed to me to have a powerful sense of it.

It’s New Haven’s core competency.

How to capitalize on that was the challenge, it is till this day. How to turn that into philanthropy and how to focus local philanthropy on things that happen here.

Is New Haven a generous place?

I think the answer is yes. The Community Foundation is this community’s charitable endowment. That is fundamentally what we are.

That endowment today is about $300 million. The foundation is turning 80 years old this year. That’s three generations of generous New Haveners whose gifts and bequests have defined the answer to that question. It’s almost 700 funds. Where they came from and what the intent of the donor was reflects what was going on at that time in the community.

and I date this from the early 1980s. It has been about serving oneself, but I wouldn’t say that about New Haven. New Haven’s not always representative; it has a different kind of ethos.

The watchword of our time is that this is a globalizing world and people have a sense of being part of the global whole.

How has that impacted philanthropy?

The challenge, therefore, for anyone who cares about this place, is to keep focused on local challenges and opportunities,

the communal life and what we can be by working together. I think there is this powerful sense, even for newcomers, of what has come before here. Understanding how this community sees itself and identifies itself and building on those assets.

The arts is a key part: This community defines itself by the rich cultural life. That’s something that brings people together. In some places it’s sport teams; here the arts plays that role.

Continued on 40

6YkVcXZ

ndjg XVgZZg I]Z Jc^kZgh^in d[ CZl =VkZc d[[Zgh 6XXZaZgViZY <gVYjViZ egd\gVbh i]Vi VgZ iV^adgZY heZX^Ò XVaan id ldg`^c\ VYjaih Vi bjai^eaZ 8I adXVi^dch PROGRAMS INCLUDE

way race with [John] Rowland. Both my wife and I kept up our relationships in New Haven. We loved living in Washington, but New Haven felt like home.

MBA FOR EMERGING LEADERS – Through this 22-month program, students develop the skills, knowledge, and values today’s manager must possess for success. Classes are held on Saturdays or weeknights in West Haven, New London, Waterbury, or Shelton.

MS IN INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY – This 20 month program is geared toward professionals looking to enter or grow in the fields of human resources, organizational development, general management and consulting. Classes are held on Saturdays in West Haven or New London.

EXECUTIVE MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION – This 24-month program is designed for the experienced professional looking to enhance the application of business concepts and tools of management. The program fosters a direct connection between what is learned in the class and what is applied in the workplace. Classes are held on Saturdays or weeknights in West Haven.

We are the trustees not only in the sense of the money, but also in the sense of the aspirations of those people.

MS IN ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT – This 24-month program allows experienced managers and supervisors in technical professions to bridge the gap between engineering and management. Classes are held weeknights in West Haven or New London.

Do we have the next generation of Newt Schencks coming, people who have made real commitment?

MS IN TAXATION – This program is an intensive course of study covering virtually all aspects of taxation law and practice for accountants, CPAs, attorneys, businesspeople and is of special interest to individuals who need to complete the 150 academic credit hours to sit for the CPA exam. Classes are held weeknights in West Haven.

It’s a central question. In general, our society has been more about individual achievement and satisfaction then communal issues for a long time.

Well he was an example for both.

He came out of an earlier era and he was one of many. The American ethos [changed],

For more information call 203 932-7386 or rdewarga@newhaven.edu.

University of New Haven 300 Boston Post Road | West Haven, Connecticut 06516 | www.newhaven.edu

new haven

13

Bright Lights, Big City An 11-year-old Elm City actress treads the Great White Way

By Cindy Simoneau

F

inding the precise word to describe actress Alexandra Berro and her Broadway debut is probably best summed up by saying: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

It may be the made-up word of a fictitious British nanny, but for Berro it’s become her watchword. It’s simply a fun way to describe her life in the footlights of the New Amsterdam Theatre on the Great White Way.

Berro at the New Amsterdam Theatre: ‘Every night I get excited all over again.’

She is usually partnered with one of the three boys playing the part of Michael Banks, and has a rotating schedule for evening and matinee performances.

Berro at the New Amsterdam Theatre: ‘Every night I get excited all over again.’

screenwriter Julian Fellowes and the composing team of George Stiles and Anthony Drewe.

Since October, 11-year-old New Havener Berro has followed the silliness of this mantra each week as one of three girls Berro says the best part of being in the show playing Jane Banks in the Disney and The first point she learned was how is seeing the reaction of the audience to the Cameron Mackintosh production of important it is to stay focused on stage. constantly moving set and high-stepping Mary Poppins on Broadway. Dancing, With the constantly changing sets and dance numbers. “I like to see the kids’ faces remembering pages and pages of dialogue, endless string of new and old songs adapted [in the audience]. I like to see them smiling mastering a British accent and belting out from the movie version, Berro says actors with their parents and grandparents,” says the show tunes, Berro appears on stage in must always “stay in the moment” onstage. Berro. all but four scenes of the show’s two hours “It’s not only important to keep focused, and 45 minutes, hitting her marks like a but it can be dangerous if you don’t. You She also enjoys signing autographs for young theatergoers who line up outside seasoned professional. always have to be prepared for anything to the stage door after a show. “They tell me “I love it. I love everything about it,” she happen.” how special the show is to them,” she says. said after a recent performance, while She says she loves being with the cast “It’s really cool being able to meet them.” If showing children her own age around the members backstage and credits many of Berro looks relaxed in the autograph mode, backstage of the theater. “I’m having a lot them with teaching her many acting tips. it’s likely because she has spent so much of fun.”

Starring in the show are actors Ashley time collecting autographs herself from When asked about her favorite part of Brown as Mary Poppins and Gavin Lee as actors in other Broadway shows. making it to Broadway, Berro belies her pro Bert.

Her advice to aspiring young actors is to, status and bubbles over with enthusiasm, The stage version, based on the 1964 “Keep believing in your dream. If you love “Oh, everything.” classic movie, was created by Mackintosh, doing it, make sure you’re also having fun.

14

august 2008

That’s most important.”

Before making her debut, Berro put in six weeks of rehearsal time both in the studio and onstage.

Even at her age, Berro realizes that she has been given a rare opportunity. But she’s quick to add that she has been working toward this goal since the tender age of 3.

It was then she attended a production of Julius Caesar and enjoyed it.

Her parents, Neil and Mackie Berro, seeing their daughter’s interest combined with early memorization skills, started to expose her to a variety of activities. She has taken dance at New England Ballet School in Orange and Jared Andrews Dance Studio in North Haven and music lessons from Barbara Zanowiak at Bethwood Suzuki in Woodbridge.

Before Broadway, her credits included parts in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Hartford’s Bushnell Memorial and Gypsy at the Ivoryton Playhouse.

While she misses her friends at the Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School in Hamden, she made many new ones this year at the Performing Arts School in New York City. When Berro started in the

musical, the family leased an apartment in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York near the theater, making it easier for her to attend school, do homework and make it to the New Amsterdam 90 minutes before curtain. Her mother, a former teacher at Fairfield Country Day School, has placed her own career on hold to manage Alexandra’s busy life, while her attorney father shuttles back and forth between Connecticut and New York.

A typical school and performance day can be long: Berro rises about 7 a.m. and heads off to school, then returns home after 3 p.m. with just enough time to do homework, nap, eat and shower before heading to the theater. After an 8 p.m. show ended on one recent evening, she excitedly showed children around the backstage workings of the show. She demonstrated all the specialeffects tricks with the props, including the many umbrellas used by Mary Poppins and the trap doors in the stage floor.

Living in New York City has been a dramatic change from her Connecticut home near Yale University. “There’s a lot more noise

here than there is in Connecticut,” she allows. “My first night in the apartment I couldn’t sleep well hearing all the noises in the street. There are also a lot of lights on all night long. It really is the ‘city that never sleeps.’”

For her future, Berro says she would “like to be an actress for as long as possible.”

When and if that ends, she has a long list of other careers she plans to pursue: casting director (“They have a lot of power”) , veterinarian (“I love animals”) or crime scene investigator (“It looks interesting”).

If none of those work out, or perhaps even if they do, she would like to become President of the United States, where she would help schools, seek cures for diseases and “make sure everybody has shelter and food. People shouldn’t have to live on the streets.”

Berro is signed for the show through December and then hopes to go on the road with the planned touring company for Mary Poppins. “It would be a lot of fun for me. I would like to see other cities.” For now, she says she will enjoy her remaining time playing Jane Banks, before she takes her next “step in time.” v

new haven

15

YXi [\j Xik`jk\j

From Market t

is proud to present the work of

AXe :lee`e^_Xd# )''/%'(# f`c fe c`e\e# +) o +) `eZ_\j

Jan Cunningham

May 22–October 31, 2008

1032 Chapel Street, New Haven www.unionleaguecafe.com 203 562 4299

By Liese Klein

H

e’s only just arrived, but the Frenchman is already in love.

Wine flights and “small plate” tasting menu

Jean Pierre Vuillermet strokes the fleshy leaves, admires the vivid color and decides to commit — to a bunch of watercress.

Photography

“Something like this, you can build a dish around it,” says Vuillermet, chef at downtown New Haven’s celebrated Union League Café. He admires the firm texture and fresh bite of the herb, used in salads and sandwiches and grown hydroponically by the Two Guys From Woodbridge organic farm in Hamden.

Bar menu available Mon–Fri 11:30 a m til’ close

Weddings & Family Events Your Location or Ours 203-882-9424

213 New Haven Avenue, Milford 16

City chefs champion locally grown food

august 2008

“It’s much pepperier than supermarket watercress; it has a better texture that stands up to cooking.”

Still in his chef’s whites and planning for the evening rush, Vuillermet is pillaging the high-summer produce at the Downtown Farmers’ Market, a half-dozen or so stands set up Wednesdays in the shadow of City Hall. Here, surrounded by hotdog carts and concrete baking in the afternoon sun, Vuillermet visualizes his watercress tossed in a warm vinaigrette and served atop salmon with chanterelle mushrooms in the Union League’s elegant dining room.

New Haven’s farmers’ markets have been going strong for four years now, but new cooperation between the city’s chefs and the region’s farmers is sending more local produce than ever before to restaurant plates. Chefs like Vuillermet and Denise Appel of Zinc are also taking Connecticutgrown foods in new directions and inspiring home cooks to do the same: This summer cards will be handed out at CitySeed farmers’ markets printed with recipes created by local chefs using locally grown food.

A visit to a farmers’ market with Vuillermet and the Union League Chef de Cuisine Matt Redington offers insight into how chefs think and use products at their peak of flavor to enliven a dish.

Redington, a 27-year-old Westport native who has cooked with some of New York’s top chefs, gravitates immediately to a tangle of greenery toward the back of a farmer’s table at the downtown market.

Stacked upright in a container are the surrealistic scrolls of garlic scapes, the green shoot of a maturing garlic bulb.

Farmers routinely trim to the shoot to enhance growth, but only in the last few years have home cooks discovered the herbaceous flavor and versatile nature of the scapes.

The watercress, its dangling roots still cloaked in dirt, gets set aside for purchase “Something like this you’re so much later. The woman minding the table for the better off buying at the farmers’ market,” Two Guys from Woodbridge farm is quick Redington says, explaining that the scapes to turn the chef’s attention to a container are best used at their peak of freshness. He of salad spiked with edible flowers and a plans to take the shoots back to the Union jewel-bright jar of raspberry jam, made League’s kitchen, peel off the tough skin, with freshly picked berries. then slice them thin and braise them for use as a garnish.

t to Plate

Matt Redington’s culinary training at top restaurants helps him appreciate New Haven’s farmers’ markets.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

new haven

17

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

“If you see something like that, you should take advantage of it,” Redington says, sorting through the bunch for the bestlooking scapes. Don’t worry if you don’t have time to cook them right away, he says: The scapes can be processed into a zesty pesto or even pickled in a solution of white wine vinegar, sugar and salt.

During the brief season for ramps, the wild leeks of early spring prized for their garlicky pungency, the chef also pulls out his preserving supplies. “I pickle them and then I can have them for half the year,” he explains.

The ingenuity of New Haven’s chefs has helped to develop a new market for farmers in the region as they expand their acreage and plantings to meet a surge of demand, says Jennifer McTiernan, executive director of CitySeed, which runs New Haven’s four farmers’ markets.

“Chefs are so close to the foods they prepare; if it was grown locally the quality tends to be much higher,” McTiernan explains.

“There’s sort of a natural connection there for chefs, to know where their main ingredients are coming from.”

It’s also good business: Appel, chef at Zinc, has had overwhelming response to her “Market Menu,” which showcases produce found at Wednesday’s downtown market.

Recent dishes on the menu included linguine with littleneck clams from Dolan Brothers Shellfish in Branford and a fruit crostada with goat cheese from Beltane Farm in Lebanon and fruit from Rose’s Berry Farm in South Glastonbury.

For Chef Jean Pierre Vuillermet, a bunch of fresh watercress becomes the centerpiece of a meal at the Union League Café.

The embrace of chefs and home cooks, plus environmental awareness and incidents like the recent nationwide salmonella scare, has helped spur the growth of the “locavore”

Eggplant and Fresh Goat Cheese Bruschetta Instructions

Ingredients 1 medium to large eggplant, diced into 1-inch cubes 1 small wheel or log of goat cheese 1 red onion, diced thin 1 tsp minced garlic 1 large fresh tomato, peeled and diced small

18

august 2008

By Chef Denise Appel, Zinc

2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped

1. Heat a medium-sized sauté pan on high.

1/4 cup of canola oil

2. Add the canola oil and quickly add the eggplant.

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil salt and pepper 4 pieces ciabatta or Italian bread, sliced and grilled with olive oil

3. Let oil absorb into the eggplant and sear each piece. Try not to overcrowd the pan; do two batches if needed.

4. Keep moving the eggplant around, searing each side until tender, about 5-7 minutes.

5. Place finished eggplant in a strainer.

6. In the same sauté pan, add the extra-virgin olive oil and sauté the onion and tomato.

7. Add the garlic and return the eggplant to the pan.

8. Add the basil and season with salt and pepper.

9. Serve mixture of fresh grilled bread and add dollops of fresh goat cheese.

movement, which stresses eating locally grown food. More local produce at home and in restaurants has pushed demand almost to the capacity of local farms this year.

“We are bumping up against an initial feel of limited supply,” McTiernan says. “There’s a lot of opportunity to scale up farming.”

In response to surging demand, farmers are building greenhouses and doing their best to expand acreage in the face of high land prices. They are also working with restaurants and suppliers to grow specialty produce on a larger scale.

“You end up with these relationships where farmers will put things in the ground for chefs,” McTiernan says.

CitySeed has stepped in this summer to act as an intermediary between farmers and chefs to organize morning deliveries of local food to restaurants. The program started in July with restaurant-sized deliveries of produce like dandelion greens and blueberries going to Union League, Claire’s Corner Copia, Caseus, Zinc and Chow.

“Often it is tricky — chefs would have to make lots of different relationships with lots of different farmers,” McTiernan says.

“We’re trying to help bridge that gap. It’s a real opportunity to connect chefs with farmers.”

Visit.

Exit 15 to Rt 68E to Rt 157, Middlefield

lymanorchards.com

We’ve Been Waiting For You

Just one mile from 1-95 • Exit 59 575 Clapboard Hill Road

All Ages, All Levels, All Year

www.grsriding.com (203) 453-8768

Along with the chefs’ program, CitySeed is expanding its outreach through the “Buy CT Grown” marketing campaign and efforts to teach preschoolers in city schools about farming and local food. Chef Claire Criscuolo of Claire’s is taking the educational process a step further through the Growing Connection program, which teaches kids how to grow their own food at home in containers with help from schoolchildren around the world.

“The real point here is that local food is fresher, healthier and better tasting,” says McTiernan. “Why wouldn’t a chef want to put it on their plate?”

Back in the narrow Union League kitchen, the garlic scapes have been peeled and sliced, then sautéed with young heirloom leeks in chicken stock. Chefs Vuillermet and Redington then huddle to plan the evening’s specials as the kitchen staff bustles around them, sautéing mushrooms, slicing vegetables and constructing desserts.

Redington steps behind the counter to pick new haven

19

PHOTOGRAPH:

Prosecco & Cinnamonpoached Apples

Anthony DeCarlo

By Claire Criscuolo, Basta Trattoria/Claire’s Corner Copia Ingredients 1/4 cup maple syrup 2 1/2 cups Prosecco 1/2 cup apple cider 1 cinnamon stick 2 tablespoons mascarpone cheese 5 apples, cored, cut in half, and each half cut into 4 wedges

Vuillermet and Redington showcase their farmers’ market finds in the Union League kitchen.

Instructions 1. Measure the maple syrup, Prosecco and cider into a medium pot. Add cinnamon stick.

2. Cover and bring to boil over high heat.

3. Stir in the mascarpone cheese.

4. Add the apple wedges, and lower heat to medium. Stir to combine.

5. Cover and cook at a low boil for about ten minutes, until tender to your preference, stirring occasionally.

6. Using a slotted spoon, transfer apples to a shallow bowl.

7. Raise heat to high and cook the remaining liquid, uncovered, at a rapid boil for about five minutes, stirring frequently, until it has reduced to thicken slightly.

8. Pour this over the apples and enjoy!

Serves 4-6.

Betsy Grauer Realty, Inc. Specializing in Greater New Haven www.betsygrauerrealty.com 787-3434 • betsygrauer@aol.com

20

august 2008

up a black-steel sauté pan and gently sear a New Haven area. He recalls one worker at serving of sweetbreads, the calf’s thymus the restaurant recoiling when a shipment gland much prized in French cooking for of poultry came in with heads and feet its subtle taste and texture. To the scapes attached — the cook had never seen and leeks he adds lime juice and the white unprocessed meat. heart of green almonds, which add a “When you come from France to the States crunchy texture and vegetal brightness to that’s the first thing you notice: You have the sauce. to order everything by phone,” Vuillermet The final dish blends the firm texture of says. “That was a big change.” the scapes and almonds with the pillowy But since farmers’ markets started sprouting softness of the protein, the herbal tang of around the region about a decade ago, the garlic and leek with the rich meatiness of chef has seen changes both in the quality stock and sweetbreads. It’s a French classic of his raw materials and the tastes of his enlivened by New World touches and a customers. Union League patrons expect farmer’s freshest bounty. the best, Vuillermet says, and increasingly Vuillermet grew up around farmers’ that means items grown nearby. markets in his hometown in the Savoie “People are much more sophisticated about region of France, known for its hearty food than 20 years ago,” he says. “They’re food and artisan cheeses. When he helped learning about the better flavor of market open the Union League Café in 1993, there produce.” v were no local markets to be found in the

NEWLY RENOVATED

The perfect setting for a wedding of unsurpassed elegance Our experienced staff will assist you in planning your perfect event 441 Clark Lane, Orange

795-3100

www.grassyhillcountryclub.com

e v h o L atc M

dle n i k re y ers ourne v o s-l nt nni lot Pe e t t i ticu with P c e n ir Con ir affa aro the cef B

s eli yM

sa

Ni

E

ach August, New Haven gets its chance to shine on an international stage. The Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament, presented by Schick, is an Olympus US Open Series event on the ATP and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. This year’s event, slated for August 15-23 at the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale, features some of the best in the sport.

The Pilot Pen is the first combined men’s and women’s summer tournament leading into the US Open. The 2007 Pilot Pen, won by Svetlana Kuznetsova and James Blake, drew nearly 100,000 spectators.

Former No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam champion Amelie Mauresmo (No. 36) , along with six of the top 20 players in the world, promise for dynamic on-court action.

Also scheduled to play in New Haven this year are No. 10 Agnieszka Radwanska, No. 14 Agnes Szavay, No. 13 Fernando Verdasco and No. 19 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Veterans Marion Bartoli and Ivan Ljubicic will also play.

“Having six of the top 20 players in the world commit early, in an Olympic year, is a very positive position for the Pilot Pen to be in at this point,” says Anne Worcester, director of the event. “What’s even more exciting is that these players are all young, rising stars that will be the face of the tour for many years to come. It’s a great opportunity for fans to see veterans like Amelie Mauresmo compete against rising

Agnes Szavay — World No. 14 and a finalist last year — plans another try at this year’s Pilot Pen tennis tournament.

new haven

21

stars like Radwanska and Szavay for the coveted Pilot Pen Tennis title.”

A few of the up-and-coming players that further strengthen the field are 19year-old Marian Cilic of Croatia, who this year has reached the fourth round of Wimbledon, the semifinals of Chennai and Nottingham and the quarterfinals of Munich; Simone Bolelli of Italy, who this year reached the finals of Munich and the semifinals of Zagreb; and Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina, who this year reached the semifinals in the Netherlands and the quarterfinals of Munich.

Americans rising stars include Mardy Fish and John Isner. Fish had one of the biggest wins of his career earlier this year when he upset No. 1 Roger Federer at the Masters Series event in Indian Wells, Calif., before falling in the finals to Novak Djokovic.

Isner burst onto the ATP circuit last summer after completing an All-American career at the University of Georgia. He took a wildcard into his second ATP event, in Washington, D.C., and promptly reached the finals. Donald Young, the youngest player in the top 100 at age 18, collected his first ATP win at New Haven last summer and continued his strong play by reaching the third round of the US Open the following week.

Top American contenders include Mardy Fish, who was a Pilot Pen finalist last year.

The top men’s seed at press time was No. 11 Fernando Verdasco.

Mauresmo, who won the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006, will be making her eighth trip to the Pilot Pen, where she has had tremendous success, reaching the quarterfinals five times (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006) , the semifinal (2003) and the final (2005). This year she has reached the quarterfinals of Gold Coast, Paris, Dubai and Amelia Island.

Radwanska, a personable 19-year old enjoying a magical season that has propelled her to a career-high ranking, reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon last week. It was her second appearance this year in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam, with the first coming at the Australian Open. In addition, this year she has won as much as anyone on the WTA Tour, adding titles to her resume at Pattaya City, Istanbul and Eastbourne.

Szavay, another 19-year old who had a strong run at Wimbledon to the fourth round, had an amazing run to the finals at Pilot Pen Tennis last year that included grinding her way through the qualifying draw, playing nine matches in eight days and battling a back injury all week that would eventually force her to retire in the finals, even thought she was leading 6-4, 0-3, against then world No. 2 Svetlana

22

august 2008

Chefs To Serve Up Gourmet Food

The festival, starring 19 of New Haven’s finest restaurants, will serve up a showcase of the city’s international and eclectic cuisine and also offer a tasting with representatives from Australia’s Wolf Blass wines.

In addition, world-renowned chef, cookbook author and teacher Jacques Pepin is scheduled to preside.

116 Boston Post Rd, Orange 203-799-6400 • audioetc.com

Experience B&W’s Zeppelin, the ultimate ipod playback system.

“This is a terrific opportunity for Pilot Pen Tennis to showcase that New Haven is a foodie destination,” says Worcester. “Fans will be able to experience New Haven’s extraordinary and international cuisine while also enjoying some of the best tennis the world has to offer.”

Participating in the festival are some of New Haven’s finest establishments, including Barcelona (Spanish cuisine), Basta Trattoria (Southern Italian) , Bentara (Malaysian), Bespoke (modern American ) , Caseus (fromagerie/ bistro) , Central Steakhouse (steak/ seafood) , Chow (dim sum) , Claire’s Corner Copia (vegetarian) , Foster’s (modern American ), Geronimo (Southwestern ) , Ibiza (Spanish ), Miso (Japanese) , Pacifico (Nuevo Latino ) , Sabor (Nuevo Latino ), Thali (regional Indian) , Thali Too (Indian vegetarian) , Union League Café (French) and Zinc (modern American).

“What a marvelous idea to bring together, in one place, all of the top food of this truly dynamic city,” Pepin said when the event was announced.

“The restaurants in New Haven are remarkable and this is a fantastic way for them to showcase the fact that they produce some of the best food anywhere in the world. I cannot wait to attend this event!”

Tickets for the festival, which will run from 5-8 p.m., cost $105 and include food, wine, bottled water, beer, a box seat for the evening session matches, a wine glass and a bottle-stopper from Lux Bond & Green. For more information, visit pilotpentennis.com.

— M.N.

Does Your Vet See More Dogs Than Cats?

483-7900

By Am

214 Main Street, Branford CT • By Appointment • Amy Hinc, VMD

BECAUSE CATS ARE NOT SMALL DOGS

Arons Plastic Surgery

203-865-8315 www.drarons.com

Dr. Jeffrey Arons

Board Certied by The American Board of Plastic Surgery

Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) for: • aging skin • skin rejuvenation • hair reduction • rosacea • acne

Botox • Juvederm • Restylane Radiesse • Breast Augmentation Tummy Tucks • Face Lifts Liposuction • Microdermabrasion Plastic & Cosmetic Procedures Obagi Skin Care Products Now affiliated with,

*not actual patient

The action at Pilot Pen this year won’t all be on the court: The New Haven Food and Wine Festival is slated to debut on August 20.

Amplify your iPOD!

glow face and body of Branford 203-481-6222 www.glowfaceandbody.com Orchard Medical Center • 330 Orchard Street, Suite 205 • New Haven new haven

23

Kuznetsova. This year she has continued her ascent in the rankings and has had impressive results including reaching the finals of Paris and the quarterfinals of Amelia Island, Charleston and Berlin.

Another Pilot Pen rising star is expected to be Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, an Australian Open finalist earlier this year.

Victoria Azarenka and Alize Cornet, both 18-year old sensations that just reached career-high rankings, have had terrific campaigns on the circuit this year. Azarenka reached two finals at Gold Coast and Prague and the semifinals of Berlin, while Cornet has reached the finals of Acapulco and Rome and the semifinals of Amelia Island and Charleston.

Ticket packages range from weeklong box seats (the best seats in the house for all 15 sessions, starting at $400 a seat), to the all new “Weekender Flex” plan (attend three of the four semi-final and/or final sessions for $185), to the Family Four Pack (four middle-tier tickets for the session of your choice, four hot dogs, four sodas and two tournament posters starting at $64) . Day tickets are also available. v

We Have You

covered!

Get the Coverage You Need at a Price You Can Afford with the Buying Power of Connecticut’s Chambers of Commerce

Health, Dental and Life Insurance Long Term Care Long Term Disability Medicare Advantage HRA • HSA Retirement Solutions

HY’S LIMOUSINE & CHAUFFEURED TRANSPORTATION Serving New Haven County Since 1951 • Over 100 vehicles

• Serving all airports

• SUVs, sedans

• Weddings, proms, events

• 6 & 9 person limousines

• 24 hour service/dispatch

• 10 person luxury vans

• All major credit cards

Hy’s

800.255.LIMO

325 Boston Post Road Suite 3F • Orange, CT 06477

480 Island Lane, West Haven CT For more information, contact: Sally Glick • sallyglick@cfr-cit.com 1-800-953-4467 • www.citrust.com

24

august 2008

203.934.6331 800.255.5466

Owned & Operated by Robert Levine CT DOT #1594, ICC #136740

www.hyslimo.com

PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

Yale Professor Harold Bloom has helped shape a generation of teachers and readers with his interpretations of classic literature.

A Literary LioninWinter

By Liese Klein

Yale’s Harold Bloom turns his back on academia to embrace the general reader

I

f you crack a book by the pool or the strand this year — especially if it’s something more challenging than chick lit or pulp mysteries — Harold Bloom will be right there with you.

The legendary Yale professor and literary critic will urge you to try something complex, something that will illuminate the “sovereignty of the solitary soul, the reader not as a person in society but as the deep self, our ultimate inwardness.”

Something like Shakespeare or Dante would be best, but living writers like Jose Saramago, Margaret Atwood and Gloria Naylor will do, as long as you select their best work. If length is an issue,

read deeply into the poetry of Rita Dove or 2007 U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic, or dig into Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America.

Bloom will then urge you to “clear your mind of cant” — all the politics, ideology and personal history that may cloud your appreciation of a work of the imagination. Also abandon any desire to use literature to improve, enlighten or elevate anyone but yourself: “The mind should be kept at home until its primal ignorance has been purged,” he warns in his 2000 best-seller How To Read and Why. Your immersion in great literature will inspire by example, he assures the reader. new haven

25

PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

Bloom: ‘I’m a literary critic and I interpret that in the old-fashioned Johnsonian way: “Is this good, what is it better than, what is it not as good as, what does it mean?”’

But most of all, you will be urged to read, read deeply and read with full concentration, even in an era when consciousness is increasing fractured into digital fragments.

“Try to confront the literary work directly,” he advises, “always asking the question — quite explicitly, even: ‘Who do you think you are, anyway?’ One says that to everything one reads.”

Reading is Bloom’s passion, along with writing and teaching, and he cares not a whit that the art of reading has been pronounced dead or on life support in American culture.

He could also care less that many of his academic colleagues consider him out of fashion and overly commercial, with a string of bestsellers and literally hundreds of reader’s guides and literary anthologies to his name.

“Real readers as I’ve learned are like mushrooms: They spring up everywhere,” Bloom says. “I think reading is in the end a solitary, not a social, activity. And it’s as eternal a human reality as human affection is, death, all the things one doesn’t like to think about. I think there’s no crisis in reading. Perhaps there never really was a large public audience, a large mass audience for reading real books. So perhaps things haven’t changed that much. But there are 26

august 2008

always the saving remnants of readers out unashamed to court a general readership there.”

— and generous book advances — even as many of his academic colleagues retreat into polysyllabic jargon and self-referential journals.

Overgrown trees and brush push out into the sidewalk on this stretch of the street, a patch of untamed wilderness in a tweedy section of East Rock. A splash of PeptoBismol pink trim marks the house, along with a tangle of untrimmed shrubbery and worn lawn furniture. If ever a house looked like the lair of an eccentric professor of a literary bent, this is it.

Only this isn’t it.

Often compared to the rotund and vital Falstaff in middle age, Bloom at 78 now resembles more a mortality-haunted Lear than Plump Jack. He is recovering slowly from an annus horribilus, a year in which he suffered a major fall that broke several vertebrae as well as a series of debilitating illnesses. Crucial to his recovery has been the care of his wife Jeanne, who sits in an adjacent room during an interview tethered to an iPod and working on the New York Times crossword puzzle.

Harold Bloom and his wife, Jeanne, live a few houses down, in a neatly landscaped, “It’s been a very disorienting year,” Bloom carefully tended Victorian that could be says, the first in decades in which he featured in a magazine’s home section. hasn’t taught a single class at Yale. “It’s a Inside are the expected piles of books year that has left me with, I don’t know, and papers, but they look like they’ve a kind of surrealistic sense of things. The been lovingly stacked in precise order breakdown in continuity this year — not and dusted, if such a thing were possible. in what matters most: one’s marriage, one’s Stacks of classical music CDs lie gleaming friends, one’s home — but it’s very difficult in the leaf-dappled sunshine of the living for me to get used to spending the whole room and expensive-looking paintings and year without teaching. I don’t think it will sculptures adorn the public spaces. happen again. I don’t think I’m even going Bloom seems to relish confounding to take off whole semesters from now on; expectations in his life and work, I’ll just let them accumulate.”

He’s planning to teach two discussion sections on Shakespeare in the upcoming semesters, both for senior undergraduates at Yale College, and another undergraduate course on the 20th century poets “who have always meant most to me” — Wallace Stevens, William Butler Yeats, Hart Crane and D.H. Lawrence.

With thoughts of mortality must come consideration of Bloom’s legacy, which he is entrusting to the reading public, not his peers in academia. “All you can do is teach your own students and set your sights beyond the academy in my case. They’re out there; they’re my audience. I’m just not happy with what has happened to what used be called the study of literature in the English-speaking world.”

literary works with little consideration of an author’s life story or social trends. T.S. Eliot, William Empson and Yale’s Cleanth Brooks were prominent New Critics, who used a work’s structure and elements like meter and rhyme to explore concepts like internal ambiguity.

By the 1970s, 20 years into Bloom’s career as a Yale professor of English, the fashion in academic literary theory had shifted to Structuralism and Post-Structuralism,

which used the work of European theorists to analyze the underlying mechanics of literary works with the help of linguistic and mathematical concepts. Along with the work of Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault came an avalanche of arcane terminology and wordplay that has made much subsequent literary theory completely unintelligible to the general reader.

Bloom, by contrast, has forged his own

The distain is mutual: Bloom has been lambasted both for his loyalty to the traditional canon as well as his strong opinions. “There’s a histrionic quality about the Bloomian persona strutting in these pages, now raging, now lamenting, now shaking his fist at those he sees as the enemy of his canon, now embracing the role of martyr-esthete,” Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in his New York Times review of The Western Canon.

He has also come under fire on much more personal grounds: in 2004, author Naomi Wolf accused Bloom of putting his hand on her thigh when she was a Yale student 20 years before. Bloom denied the charge and Wolf never pursued her allegations in court.

But age and tribulation have scarcely mellowed his disdain for what he has dubbed “the School of Resentment” — the multiculturalists, feminists and theorists with a capital T who he says are trying to destroy the study of literature.

“I’m sort of the pariah of the profession in some respects,” Bloom says, explaining his decision to no longer teach graduate students.

“I discovered that a recommendation for getting a job for a graduate student, if it came from me, would be the kiss of death for the students. So I decided that enough was enough. I don’t write for academics and haven’t for 20 years now.”

BENDER SHOWROOMS To understand Bloom’s exile in the wilderness, it helps to review the recent history of literary criticism, an art that by now has largely retreated behind ivied walls.

When Bloom graduated from Cornell in 1953, universities were immersed in New Criticism, which stressed close reading of

550 Grand Ave New Haven 203-787-4288

130 Scott Rd Waterbury 203-756-8013

197 Wawarme Ave Hartford 860-233-6606

395 James St Bridgeport 203-579-4499

www.bendershowrooms.com

new haven

27

path, arguing for an aesthetic standard for literature that would trump any political aims. He includes non-European and female authors in his canon, but maintains the primacy of greats like Shakespeare, Milton, Dante and Goethe. He admires Northrop Frye, Frank Kermode. Walter Pater and most of all, Samuel Johnson, as model literary critics.

Bloom’s most influential academic work to date has been 1973’s The Anxiety of Influence, which argued that literature comes into being in response to the assimilation of earlier works, “and that response depends on acts of reading and interpretation by the later writers, acts that are identical to the new works,” he explained in The Western Canon.

By 1990, Bloom had given up on writing for his peers and debuted on a wider stage with The Book of J, a literary analysis of sections of the Old Testament. Another hit came in 1998 with Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, a guide to the Bard and assessment of his impact on human personality. He has also stirred the pot in recent years by questioning the literary merit of everything from the work of early female dramatist Aphra Behn to the Harry Potter series, which he has repeatedly called “rubbish.”

CT Lic # 602486

GUTTER GUARDIAN

, LLC

He’s no less stinging in his assessment of the merits of the most recent Nobel Prize for Literature winner, in which he wonders at, “the peculiarity of the Nobel Prize Committee, which dredges up poor old Doris Lessing simply because she’s politically correct though she can no longer write her way out of a paper bag. It’s unreadable science fiction. I can’t imagine what they thought they were doing.”

semester: “For me reading, writing and teaching are the same activity. It’s just what I do and what I’ve done for 55 years now.

No doubt behind it is Talmudic tradition and the whole complicated chain of Jewish traditions.”

Unlike many academics, Bloom also finds hope for the future of literary study in the newer generations of students.

“They haven’t read as much as the earlier It’s not science fiction and fantasy as generations did simply because we are in genres that Bloom has a problem with: He the age of the screen... and reliance on the includes Russell Hoban, John Crowley and great ocean of the Internet has become a Ursula Le Guin in his modern canon. It’s norm for them. But of course by the time “cant” that he despises, even as he remains I get to see them here, my students have devoted to deepening his understanding of done an incredible amount of reading,” he Shakespeare and the core of his canon. says, adding, “It helps I think a great deal that they do reflect the demographic shifts “I’m writing this endless book — it’s been in the country.” driving me mad, the very title of which is a labyrinth, A Living Labyrinth, the subtitle He also takes time from his work to speak is “Literature and Influence.” I’ve been to journalists on topics like a Kabalistic take writing it for the past three or four years on New York Yankee Alex Rodriquez’s and there’s no daylight as yet — I’m lost in recent entanglement with Madonna, in the labyrinth. When you’ve published as a July 21 New Yorker “Talk of the Town.” many books as I have and written as many That article appeared in the same issue pages as I have, it becomes a real problem: that featured the controversial “Obamas How do you make it new, how do you as Terrorists” cover, which prompted a riff make it fresh?” on the death of irony in American culture.

His enthusiasm instead is for the upcoming

Continued on 55

Protecting Loved Ones & Beautifying Property Since 1940

• Transparent Design (reduces ice build-up)

• Fits Over Existing Gutters • Not Visible From Street • Closed System

203.439.0829 GutterGuardianLLC.com

SAVE $300 28

august 2008

FRANKSON FENCE CO. OFFICE • SHOWROOM • YARD 385 Sackett Point Road • North Haven 203-288-2588 • Fax 203-288-2580

Home is Where the Heart Is He planned to fix it, flip it and forget it. Then he fell in love (twice)

By MICHAEL C. BINGHAM

The previous owner of 12 Indian Neck Avenue lived there for a half century. After she died, her children decided that selling it to an architect was the best way to ‘honor’ their mother’s home.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

new haven

29

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

ATH OME

W

hen David Strong bought an 1890 farmhouse on Indian Neck in Branford, he figured he would fix it up (it was definitely a fixer-upper) and sell it for a tidy profit.

Then life, and love, intervened.

Today Strong, his bride of two years, Mary Pont, and ten-month-old daughter Zuzu (who has a sibling in the oven) share the lovingly restored Victorian that actually played a key role in the creation of their family.

Pont met Strong, a design/build residential architect, about two years after he bought the home. “He showed me all his plans for what he was going to do to this house and I said, ‘Yeah, right — I’ve heard that before.’”

The plot thickens.

“We broke up, and I moved to California,” she continues. “I came back [to Connecticut] for a party, and he had done it — he had 75percent completed the renovations. I was dumbfounded.” And smitten anew with a man who actually did what he said he was going to do.

“I did it all just to get her back,” Strong adds, planting a loud kiss on his bride.

When Strong first laid eyes on the 1,540square-foot farmhouse set on one-third of an acre near the Branford River in 1999, he knew “it needed a lot of work,” he recalls with measured understatement. For starters, he had to navigate his way around overgrown trees and shrubbery just to get a good look at the structure. The farmhouse, which had been placed on the market by the three children of the woman who had lived there for 50 years but had died several months before, was sheathed in asbestos.

Much of the interior plaster was crumbling, and ivy was growing into the house through the windows.

All of David Strong’s skills as an architectural designer were needed to transform his Branford farmhouse.

But, Strong notes, “It had a solid frame, a good location and, most important, it felt right.”

So he made a lowball offer ($130,000 against an asking price of $170,000) and the three siblings — figuring an architectural designer would respect and restore their mother’s home — accepted it. The house had been

30

august 2008

BEFORE: The Indian Neck Avenue home as Strong discovered it in 1999 — sheathed in asbestos, with ivy growing in through the windows.

PHOTOGRAPH:

on the market for exactly one day.

Anthony DeCarlo

Relocating from Newport, R.I., Strong moved into the house in October of that year. The first stage of the “development,” as he calls it, was clearing the brush and ivy and taking down nine trees. The house thus became alive with sunlight.

The next step, beginning in 2001, was building an adjoining white cedar-cladded studio/garage. That’s where Strong’s business runs out of; it provided a refuge from the purposeful chaos that would shortly engulf the main house.

In 2003, Strong began work in earnest on the house. And earnest it was.

“I basically gutted the whole interior,” he says, right down to the joists. “The exterior was asbestos siding, and I took that off.”

What Strong now consigns to a single sentence was in fact a major ordeal — and a pretty scary one at that.

In a first-person article for This Old House (the magazine companion to the PBS television show), Strong recounts donning a respirator to cover his nose and mouth

Ground-up remodeling has made the structure comfortable for Strong, wife Mary Pont and baby Zuzu.

Looking to Build, Remodel, or Add-On? HOME BUILDERS ASSOCIATION OF NEW HAVEN COUNTY

2008 Remodelor of the Year

Certified Graduate Remodeler, NAHB 2199 S TAT E S T , H A M D E N

203 7722453 W W W. L I T C H F I E L D B U I L D E R S . C O M

Home Improvement Contractor Registration #558048 New Home Construction Contractor Registration #00077 Major Contractor License # MCO 901419

new haven

31

PHOTOGRAPH:

to carefully remove the asbestos shingles, while a helper kept them wet with a garden hose so that no toxic particles could become airborne. “It was nasty,” he recalls.

Anthony DeCarlo

Over the course of many days of this, Strong began to glimpse many architectural and woodworking details he says he had only hoped would be there: offcut cedar shakes in the gables, horizontal banding in the trim and beadboard paneling. “Then and there I fell for the house and gave up any notion of flipping the place,” he says.

The winter of 1999-2000 was one of the coldest in Connecticut history. As a Christmas present to himself, Strong built a two-sided fireplace with a bluestone hearth between what is now the living room and library. “I burned the fire 24/7 to keep the workers happy, and me alive, literally sleeping in front of the blaze at night to keep warm,” he recalled in This Old House.

Like many fin de siecle Victorians, the Strong home originally had lots of little rooms — there were 11 doors on the ground floor alone when he moved in. Working with two gifted builders — Ralph Skaar of Old Lyme and Brian Cobb of Ledyard — Strong began rebuilding the home from the ground up.

Reclaimed eastern pine lath adds a warm glow to living spaces.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

Strong left trowel lines on the concrete kitchen countertops to echo the period character of his home.

32

august 2008

Actually, even lower than that. First, Strong poured a new concrete slab 18 inches deeper than the original basement, adding a foot of headroom under the beams to allow for a more usable storage space and laundry area.

Upstairs, the interior’s most distinctive feature — “maybe my claim to fame,” Strong says — is the generous use of reclaimed 1.25-inch yellow eastern pine lath that once formed the foundation for the plaster walls and ceilings but which Strong exposed and used throughout the first floor — an unusual form of adaptive reuse. “I believe in recycling,” he notes.

Largest selection of stair rods & runners!

Except in the kitchen, the first floor has quarter-sawn red oak flooring that Strong treated with a single coat of ebony stain — except for a distinctive L-shaped “runner” left unstained leading to the staircase.

In the kitchen, Strong replaced the flooring with mahogany-stained cypress, which he liked because “It nicks up a little easier than oak,” lending it a slightly distressed look sooner than a harder wood.

For the kitchen countertops (oddly, there were none; the previous owner used small tables for food preparation) , Strong considered splurging on Absolute Black granite, which he figures would have set him back about $10,000. For $9,000 less, he constructed 3/4-inch forms out of plywood, placed them atop St. Charles steel cabinets he reclaimed from another project and poured in a high-strength, fast drying concrete. He hand-troweled the mix for six hours, leaving trowel lines visible on purpose to reflect the old character of the house.

Strong also added a new entry and half-bath off the kitchen and wrapped the exterior in the same white cedar that adorns the workshop/garage. Above the kitchen he built what originally was a sleeping porch (“in the style of a California bungalow”) with large windows. That space has since been reassigned as a nursery for Zuzu (who, yes, was named after Zuzu Bailey in the 1946 Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life, her mother’s “all-time favorite” film, the title of which adorns the entryway to the nursery). However, in a matter of mere months Zuzu will surrender the space to her new brother or sister and move into a more “grown-up” bedroom of her own.

Also upstairs is the most “period-untrue” element Strong added — a master bath with an open shower (including the relocated original ceramic tub in the shower) tiled dramatically with 12-by-12-inch squares of honed black slate (“I’m not a big fan of

Paul’s Wall to Wall FLOOR COVERINGS, INC. C A R P E T • T I L E • V I N Y L • H A R DWO O D • RU G S

You’re Going to Love Coming Home C A R P E T S : C o u r i s t a n • M a s l a n d • M i l l i ke n • M o h aw k • S h aw • S t a n t o n L A M I N AT E & V I N Y L : A r m s t ro n g • M a n n i n g t o n H A R DWO O D : M i r a g e • B R – 1 1 1

RESIDENTIAL • COMMERCIAL Family Owned & Operated for 15 Years Visit our showroom or call 203-294-0871 163 North Plains Ind. Road • Wallingford

Join The Adventure...

Subscribe! w w w.newhavenmagazine .com new haven

33

PHOTOGRAPH:

shiny stone,” Strong allows) . A half-wall partition is capped with bluestone, and the shower is fitted out with two showerheads and three body sprays. Not exactly how they bathed during the administration of Benjamin Harrison.

Anthony DeCarlo

In May a crew from HGTV came and filmed the house for a yet-to-be-aired show called Beyond the Box, which Pont describes as “50 houses throughout the U.S. doing innovative, cost-saving green things to their homes.” The network has told them the show will likely air in spring 2009.

Today, eight and a half years and some $300,000 later, “We’re pretty close to being done, honey?” Strong asks his bride for approval. She assents: “The third floor is really the last thing.” Formerly an unfinished attic, the third story is now a family entertainment space/guest sleeping nook.

But as anyone with an older home will attest, the concept of “done” is a moving target. The next step for Strong and his family is the construction of a master suite that will connect the original farmhouse with the studio/garage 20 feet or so to the east. “So I guess we’re not done,” Strong corrects himself, a tad sheepishly.

Strong opened up the first floor which (typical of Victorians) once housed many small rooms.

This former sitting parlor has become a light-drenched library.

ELEGANT CUSTOM CABINETRY Relax. Itʼs Done

Authenticity of style, all-wood construction of unmatched quality – Now available at White’s Plumbing

Western/Northern New Haven County

203 272-8499 Greater New Haven & Shoreline

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

203 488-5977

www.merrymaids.com

In-Home Kitchen Design Consultation* • Complete kitchen assessment with professional measurements

& Realtors, LLP www.grlandrealtors.com

• Follow-up showroom presentation with computer-generated drawings

Professional Installation Available

Gena Ruocco-Lockery Owner/Broker

(203) 781-0000, x203 1435 State Street, New Haven 34

august 2008

* For a $200 fee. Fee will be waived upon purchase of designed kitchen

WHITE’S PLUMBING SUPPLIES INC. 582 Boston Post Road, West Haven | 203.934.9258 | 800.231.6114 Hours: M-T-W-F 8-6pm Th 8-8pm Sat 8-5pm Sun closed www.whitesplumbing.com

Go Figure For inspiration, sculptor Robert Taplin mines ‘the world that goes on in your head’

By Michael Harvey

S

culptor Robert Taplin feels that the real real world is the one that goes on in your head. So he looks for an art in the vernacular to confront heady ideas without getting lost in the cobwebs of pretentious obscurity. He likes digging through the culture and getting dirt on his hands.

”The Source” (1985, forged steel,).

His studio, part of an aged industrial building on a pitted West Haven street, has all the elegance of an old beer can squashed into the blacktop. It’s a big factory floor of concrete and steel and works in progress on sturdy benches littered with tools. Plywoodcrated sculptures are piled high along one wall, shelves stacked with cans and castings and models are everywhere. The floor is crowded with fabrication forms and buckets and bins and stools and steps and even a small crane. It’s all about work.

But it is not all physical work. Taplin came to the idea of the vernacular in the early 1970s as a student of medieval studies at Pomona (Calif.) College, where he also studied theater design. He learned Italian so he could read Dante in the original.

“Dante didn’t want to write in Latin; he wanted to write the way people spoke — in the vernacular. He invented his own religion, really,” Taplin laughs. “He put his girlfriend Beatrice in there — it’s about the world in your head.” It’s something he’s been grappling with ever since — “the way you perceive that other world out there.”

And one’s other self, that reflection, that other nature of shades and shadows.

Following college he left California with his wife-to-be, Nan Norene, for New England.

In 1976 they moved to New Haven, where she got a job working with autistic and developmentally disabled children at Benhaven. He found pickup work here and new haven

35

”The Five Outer Planets” (2004, reinforced gypsum, fiberglass and lights): “Jupiter”, “Saturn”, “Uranus”, “Neptune”, “Pluto” .

there — carpentry, welding, working at the Long Wharf Theater.

For a young artist interested in the handson making of sculpture, the Minimalists and the Conceptualists were not the place to look for inspiration. The best bet was another generation of abstract artists like Calder, David Smith, George Rickey or

36

august 2008

Di Suvero who made things themselves.

Taplin became a “straight-on modernist abstract sculptor — all welded steel,” he says. But abstract art aspires to a universal language, like music, and if doesn’t hit the spot, Taplin quotes Kandinsky: “If it fails it’s nothing more than necktie design.”

In 1977 Taplin collaborated with his friend,

the poet Daniel Wolff, on a project that set nine dioramas around New Haven for a month. Each box depicted a verse of a ballad with the refrain “This is the place.

It happened here” that was specific to the site of the box. It was new territory for Taplin — the model scale, the illumination, the staging, the narrative — but something he would return to in time.

Anthony DeCarlo

Only the women have hair; the men are bald with a similar shapes to their bullet heads, symbols rather than individuals. “I

PHOTOGRAPH:

In the 1980s abstraction receded and the figure emerged as the dominant force for Taplin. Already an expert welder, he consulted with a couple of blacksmiths and taught himself to forge life-size figures from sheets of steel. There is no pedestal: They are right there on the floor, caught in a moment of action, like desolate Beckett characters naked on an empty stage — crouching, dancing, pulling, about to jump or trip. There is always the expectation of before and after that engages the viewer in the figures’ enigmatic story. In “Walk Like a Man (Heavy Sledding) ,” a naked man carries a child on his shoulders. The child clings to his head clasping his hands tightly over the man’s eyes. With one hand the man reaches up to steady the child, clutching his knee, with the other hand he drags a heavy sled behind them. There is a stout metal box on the sled containing a head with bulging eyes. Is it father and son, game or struggle, burden or delight?

And whose head is that — a vanquished foe, his father, or what the Germans call his doppelganger — a “double goer”? The mythic quality of these figures and their actions charge all manner of speculation.

The artist with a new work: ‘She Turned Away (Beatrice Sends Virgil to Dante)’ (2008 wood, resin, lights).

Luxury & Style – Together Again

CAMBRIDGE OXFORD APARTMENTS

LISA J. CAPPALLI, ESQ., LLC FAMILY LAW & MEDIATION

Educating and empowering divorcing or separating clients to make the right choices for themselves and their families.

Studios, 1, 2, 3 & 4 bedroom apartment homes Within walking distance to theatres, cafes, art galleries, gourmet grocers & Yale University!

32 HIGH STREET, NEW HAVEN TEL: (203) 772-4940

Serving the Greater New Haven Area 203-271-3888 attorney@lcappalli-familylaw.com Please visit my website at: www.lcappalli-familylaw.com

RESPECTF UL • PRIVATE • CREAT IVE new haven

37

made ‘em up,” explains Taplin. “It wasn’t until the ‘90s that I started to use models.”

And in the process several things happened: The figures were reduced in size, they were modeled in clay and then cast rather than forged, and they became recognizable as contemporary individuals.

In a series of small bronzes Taplin made tabletop tableaus of possible incidents, curious little scenes that were more like scraps of events — a youth being arrested, a book burning, a lap dance — incomplete figures and ambiguous situations. “They set up narrative expectations, but what’s left out makes them interesting,” he notes.

”Heide Twice” (1999, polychromed concrete on wood base).

At the same time he was modeling a series of “Double Portraits” — two images of the same person side by side: one clothed, one nude or one full-length, one head. “It’s like film,” Taplin explains. You have the long shot then you get a close-up. You zoom in; it introduces the element of time.”

And with time the narrative, but always the enigmatic narrative, the hint, the suggestion, the half-told story that leaves room for endless possibilities.

Toward the end of the 1990s Taplin conceived an ambitious project of ideas, symbolism, sculpture, materials and staging. The Five Outer Planets is an installation in which the planets appear as the mythological characters they are named after. Their relative size, rotation and distance from one another is based on the actual planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The figures themselves defy any Greek ideal. These are no “ripped” athletes with god-like bodies but mostly overweight balding guys with love-handles. “I was playing the classical against the anticlassical,” he laughs.

Each figure was cast twice, once in opaque gypsum and again in translucent fiberglass.

That “second self” again, that doppelganger.

The two were then partnered with each other in their whirling, tumbling dance through space — one the dark side, the other illuminated from within.

Originally constructed in 1999 at tabletop scale, a full-size version was completed in 2004. Standing on a low base, Jupiter is more than 11 feet tall. The others figures are suspended proportionally throughout the gallery illuminated only by the planets themselves. An installation of the large version was shown at the Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan University in 2004.

“Punch Stopped at the Border” (2005, urethane resin).

38

august 2008

After such a large commitment, Taplin in 2005 returned to tabletop scale when he made a series featuring an alter ego he calls Punch. There is young Punch going

shopping with his mother or being arrested at the border. “He’s a figure of guilt and shame on one level, and all bets are off on another level,” Taplin says. Much like a painter’s sketchbook, the small size and the ease of modeling in clay allow him the freedom to play with new ideas.

And now, in his latest work, many of the thoughts and explorations of the past — the medieval studies, the street dioramas and the variety of materials — have gelled into a rich experience he calls Everything Imagined Is Real (After Dante).

This work in progress depicts moments from the first nine cantos of Dante’s Inferno.

And immediately in the first tabletop tableau, “Thus My Soul Which Was Still In Flight,” Dante, that inspiration for the vernacular, can be seen as a contemporary everyman, a little heavy around the middle, getting out of bed while his wife sleeps on. In the second tableau, a diorama called “She Turned Away,” Dante is slumped, head down, at one end of a dining room table while Beatrice and Virgil (as allwhite shades) sit taking coffee at the other end. The French plunger coffee pot is a sly reference to stylish sexuality.

So far six of the nine cantos have been completed and, stepped back from the group, they appear as large black, mausoleum-like cabinets standing seven or eight feet tall.

Moving in, you are either peering into a dimly lit scene of intimacy or confronted with wide-screen mythic drama.

Taking on such a classic as source material offers an immediate problem that Taplin is well aware of: “I know,” he says, anticipating the question, “‘is it just illustration?’”

He turns his hand this way and that. “If it’s Gerome, it is. If it’s Ingres, it’s not.”

He plucks a pair from art history to make his point that the better the art, the less the pejorative label “illustration” is likely to be applied. And in these pieces he has avoided illustration, giving a personal, contemporary interpretation of the cantos.

“In my hell everyone is innocent,” Taplin says. And the vernacular is very close to home: The scene in Canto Four, he points out for example, “That’s an exact replica of my old house. And the shade, that’s David Smith, carrying a David Smith sculpture.”

All nine pieces of the complete Everything Imagined Is Real (After Dante) will be shown next January at the Winston Wachter Gallery in Chelsea, New York. Following that, in March 2009, they will be included in an exhibition, Modern Elegies, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) in North Adams, Mass.v

AN

JB LONDON LTD

ECLECTIC SELECTION OF GIFTS AND GIFT BASKETS FOR EVERY OCCASION

lis-à-lis a salon 1209 CHAPEL ST, NEW HAVEN 203.787.4496

116 north main street branford, ct 06405 203.481.9934

Smiles By Design Jack M. Levine, D.D.S.

375 Orange St • New Haven

203-624-7571 www.orangestreetsmiles.com

UR

You don’t need to be a Àrst time home buyer!

..New HaveHome New Haven Is your primary employment in New Haven?

Do you want to buy a house in New Haven?

If You Answer Yes You May Be Eligible to Participate The CHFA’s UR (Urban Renewal) program can lend you 100% of the purchase price plus closing costs at a reduced rate. You can also receive $20,000 for a single family or $25,000 for a multifamily as a forgivable grant to repair/improve the property.

Call Now!

Blake l k Financial, i i l

se Habla Espanol

LLC

29 High Street, East Haven 230-468-8683 203-468-8683 www.chfabroker.com new haven

39

one2one Continued from 13 What is the foundation’s community and what is its central challenge?

We serve 20 towns from Milford in the west to Madison in the east, to Wallingford, and we go into the Valley.

I see it in economic terms: This community grew as a port and grew as an industrial center. For the last half-century it has been searching for an economic reason for being.

Directly related is connecting to the needy population, people who don’t have the skills and training to thrive in the economy of today and tomorrow.

That is the central challenge. Education is a critical part of that. There are many social challenges, but fundamentally if we can build prosperity and connect people that have been left out to it, then that’s the way to address them.

I don’t know if the ‘egghead economy’ can produce for the masses.

I’m not sure I agree. Look what’s happening in New Haven today. There’s a half-billion dollars of medical-related development going on at Yale-New Haven

Hospital, expansions at Saint Raphael, Griffin Hospital. These have become the major employment centers in the heart of the cities. The Yale purchase of the Bayer facility — you can see where the economy is going. For a long time we thought we had to choose between Ph.D. scientists and making guns. Look where the job creation is: the medical economy and the biotech sector.

If that’s the environment, no one without a successful education can make it.

That the No. 1 job has to be education, I wouldn’t argue with that, and an education with a sense of where the economy is going.

I just heard that there was huge new group of young workers coming into the workforce and they would change all our assumptions.

Connecticut is losing its young people.

Why do you think they’re leaving?

I’ll distinguish Connecticut from New Haven. New Haven is a powerful magnet for young people. In Connecticut there is a sense that Connecticut is standing still while the world is moving forward. The

idea that Connecticut is the land of steady habits in a world of change, the zeitgeist of Connecticut doesn’t embrace that. That’s not all bad – go to places that are growing much more rapidly, it doesn’t mean the growth is handled well. Try to get around metro Atlanta, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

If you look out to when you retire, what will be different?

I hope that this community appreciates what it has and builds on it. To do that requires bridging old divisions. I think philanthropy has a critical role to play.

What we talk about at our board meetings is that the challenges are changing. The old assumptions that philanthropy would come from the same institutions, the same families that it has always come from – the world is a very different place. Many of the institutions are not locally controlled anymore. In many cases the families that supported this institution, the next generation isn’t here anymore.

As we turn 80 [later this year] we’ll be talking about how to do what our predecessors did, which is building this endowment for the community. v

Perfection in Color & Style!

287.1919

NEW HAVEN’S PREMIER PLASTIC SURGERY CENTER & MEDSPA

B

Salon

ellezza

4133 Whitney Ave. Hamden

• Laser Hair Removal • BOTOX® Cosmetic • Restylane® • Vein Therapy • Microdermabrasion • Chemical Peels • Clinical Facials • IPL Photo Facials • Cosmetic Surgery BEST MEDSPA BEST COSMETIC SURGERY

SUMMERTIME SPECIAL Buy 1 large area, get 1 small area free Special offer is on any Laser Hair Removal package.

Up to a $700 value. May not be combined with any other promotion. Other restrictions may apply.

Offer Expires 08/31/2008

Deborah Pan, MD & Javier Davila, MD — Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons

1 AUDUBON ST • NEW HAVEN • 203.562.7662 • ESANAMEDSPA.COM 40

august 2008

ART

CRITIC’S PICK Topsy Turvy Abelardo Morell’s photographic series plays tricks on your eyes. What you think you see is not always what you get.

Studio Tuesday is an informal, non-instructional “paint-in” that meets each Tuesday. Come work in a creative environment along with other artists. 9 a.m.-noon August 5, 12, 19 & 26 at Margaret Egan Center, 35 Matthew St., Milford. Free. 203-8786647, milfordarts.org.

The exhibition Pretty Things: Confronting Sensuousness explores the role of sensuousness in contemporary art. Ten artists employ diverse materials in innovative ways to entice viewers with artworks that project a seductive allure. While exploring the potential of rich colors, patterns and surfaces, these works also promote unexpected encounters with subject matter that ranges from the attractions of consumer products to the realms of biography, science and geopolitics. The work of Kelly Bigelow Becerra, Phyllis Bramson, Mia Brownell, Oliver Herring, Grant Lincoln Johnston, Joyce Kozloff, Christi Rinklin and Ben Weiner is on view in Gallery 1, while works by Jane Rainwater and Cheryl Yun are in Gallery 2. Through August 9 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven.

Open noon-5 p.m. Tues., noon-8 p.m.

Wed.-Sat. 203-772-2709, artspacenh. org.

The exhibition Behind the Seen: Photographs of Abelardo Morell provides an in-depth look at the role that artworks and monuments play in

Abelardo Morell’s major photographic series.

Some 40 images are on view, featuring Morell’s work in black and white alongside his newer color photographs,

772-2709, artspacenh.org.

Student curator Simeon Durham of the Hyde Leadership Academy selected the work of two artists, Andrew Hogan and Robert Knight, from the Artspace Flatfile for his exhibition Things I’ve Seen on view in Artspace’s Gallery 6.

and including 20 of his camera obscura images.

Relish in trying to figure out which side is up and which is down. His overlaying of images makes quite a feast for the eyes and mind.

The exhibition also features a special camera obscura room, which invites visitors to enter the space of one of the artist’s photographs.

Hogan pushes the standards of lighting practices in documentary photography in his series, 12 Images of New Haven at Dusk and After.

Knight’s colorful photographs playfully expose the personal space of the bedroom. Through August 9 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven.

On view in Artspace Gallery 3 is an installation by Fredo Conde: In Case of Loss Please Return to Paradise.

Conde combines painting, drawing and sculpture to collectively form a narrative. The work is the product of Conde’s disillusionment with the excesses of consumerism and subsequent regression into escapism. This mixed-media installation chronicles a fabricated utopia guarded from the advances of consumption and its susceptibility to inevitable fragmentation. Through August 9 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven. Open noon-5 p.m. Tues., noon-8 p.m. Wed.-Sat. 203-772-2709, artspacenh.org.

Put Together. Last fall Jeffrey Walkowiak, director of New York’s Sara Meltzer Gallery, visited more than 400 artist studios during Artspace’s Citywide Open Studios event in New Haven. He selected five artists who articulate concurrent and relevant issues in today’s art world. In Galleries 4, 5 and 7 view the work of those five artists: Brian Huff, Phil Lique, Kari Britta Lorensen, Drew Nemetz and Dorothy Powers.

Through August 9 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven. Open noon-5 p.m. Tues., noon-8 p.m. Wed.-Sat. 203-

Matthew Fletcher’s “Classic Batman” is only one of the redesigned superheroes on display in Identity Theft: Reinventing the Comic Hero at the Guilford Art Center through August 14.

Morell is the current Happy and Bob Doran Artist-in-Residence at the Yale University Art Gallery and is creating new work based on the YUAG collections.

Several recent photographs made at the museum are on view for the first time. Happy viewing.

— Elvira J. Duran Through August 10 at the YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon., 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free.

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

Open noon-5 p.m. Tues., noon-8 p.m.

Wed.-Sat. 203-772-2709, artspacenh.org.

Contemporary artistic interpretations of classic comic book heroes will be on view in identity theft: reinventing the comic hero. identity theft poses the question of what happens when Spiderman, Superman, Wonder Woman and other iconic characters are reimagined by some of today’s best underground and emerging artists.

Through the artworks on view — paintings, watercolors, foundobject sculpture, digital renderings and more — the exhibition explores its subject as a means of connecting and complicating the relationship between hero and viewer. Artists on view include Gris Grimley, Gus Fink, Aaron Kraten, Celeste Rapone, Laura Klein, Dustin Oswald and many more. Through August 14 at Guilford Art Center, 411 Church St., Guilford. Open noon-6 p.m. daily, noon-5 p.m. Sat. Free. 203-453-5947, mbelden@guilfordartcenter.org, guilfordartcenter.org.

Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection brings together more than 80 outstanding works spanning a century of British artistic output, the emergence of watercolor painting in the mid18th century to its flowering in the early 19th century. The exhibition highlights the diversity of British watercolor painting, showing both landscapes and figurative works by some of the principal artists who worked in the medium, including Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Sandby, John Robert Cozens, William Blake, Thomas Girtin, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. Through August 17 at the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-

new haven

41

5 p.m. daily except Mon., noon-5 p.m.

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

Weather has served as an inspiration to artists throughout the ages.

Many artists have extolled the virtues of a sunny day, but this month’s exhibition explores the opposite of clear skies with artwork depicting Stormy Weather. A wide range media and artistic styles will be on display. Brec Morgan, who specializes in studio painting and murals, seascapes, landscapes and figure work in acrylic, watercolor and pastel, will juror the exhibit. Through August 23 at Firehouse Art Gallery, 81 Naugatuck Ave., Milford. Open noon-5 p.m. Thurs.-Sun. Free. 203306-0016, FHGallery@optonline.net, milfordarts.org.

Visual Therapy. Eclectic group show presenting new works from artists Eduardo Guiannattasio of Italy, Iona Citrin, Matthew Hale, Marjorie Jacobs, Katia Levanti, Guido Garaycochea, Jean Alexander Kandalaft, Jane Dell, Karen Racor and several other local and international artists and sculptors.

Also, new works by resident artist Denise Parri. Through August 30 at White Space Gallery, 1020 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-6

p.m. daily (until 7 p.m. Thurs.); Sun. by appt. Free. 203-495-1200, whitespacegallery.com.

Works by Seth Anderson, Thaddeus Beal, Charlie Goodwin, Elizabeth Gourlay, Sarah Gustafson, Vaune Hatch, Jerome Hershey, Janet Lage, Mitch Lyons, Pamela Marks, Kelly Jean Ohl, Meg Brown Payson, Thomas Stavovy and Malcolm Wright are displayed in Group Dynamics. August 1-30 (opening reception & panel discussion 6-9 p.m.

August 1) at EO Art Lab, 69 Main St., Chester. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue.Wed. & Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Thurs.-Fri., noon-6 p.m. Sun. or by appointment.

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

Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) is one of the most significant and admired British artists of the 18th century. Prized by his contemporaries for the originality of his “candlelight” paintings, Wright was also a distinguished portraitist.

From 1768 to 1771 he lived and worked in Liverpool. Wright’s success in Liverpool made him the first great British artist to establish a career outside of London. Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool is the first major exhibition to examine

Mari Gyorgyey’s silky rendition of being Lost Above the Banners is on display in the group show Visual Therapy at White Space Gallery in New Haven.

42

august 2008

Explore new Routes created by Martha Lewis and nine others in the multimedia group exhibition put together by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and the Yale Program for Recovery and the Community Health and Community Services Network of Greater New Haven.

Wright’s creative development in Liverpool at the dawn of the city’s cultural renaissance and growing status as a major world port. The exhibition features some 80 works, including more than 40 paintings and drawings by Wright, as well as works by his circle of friends and pupils in Liverpool. It also provides a look at the city during a period of economic expansion and political change. Through August 30 at the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.5 p.m. daily except Mon., noon-5 p.m.

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

Still Life of the Living Matters: An Installation by Mikhael Shevelkin. This installation features a monochromatic group of three-dimensional simplified and abstracted structures of varying sizes constructed of wood and branches covered in plaster and textured fabric. Still Life of the Living Matters seeks to renew living substances through art. For Shevelkin, a refugee from the former Soviet Union, this installation appears after years of careful thought and progression of creative explorations and discoveries in work with different media. Shevelkin hopes the viewer will observe the “interactions between organic and geometric form, stripped of any symbolic implications; simple objects creating their own unique environment and inner world that are presented to us to observe and challenge our imagination and our habits of seeing and interpreting [subject matter].”

August 1-31(reception 5-7 p.m. August 1) at Creative Arts Workshop, 80 Audubon St., New Haven. Viewable 24 hours daily. Free. 203-562-4927, CreativeArtsWorkshop.org.

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven, in collaboration with the Yale Program for Recovery and the Community Health and Community Services Network of Greater New Haven, presents Routes, a multimedia group exhibition, which brings together ten artists whose works explore actual and metaphorical maps, networks and pathways. Featured artists include Brooklyn’s Scott Andresen; Naomi Darling and Leila Daw of Branford; Jennifer Jane, Martha Lewis, Lawrence Morelli, Meena Negishi and Steve Tarquino of New Haven; Derek Leka of West Haven; and Jonathan Waters of Stony Creek. Through September 5 at the Parachute Factory Gallery, 319 Peck St., Bldg. 1, New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wed.-Thurs. 203-772-2788, karsenault@newhavenarts.org, newhavenarts.org.

Everyday Monuments: Photographs of Jerome Liebling.

Monographic exhibition features approximately 50 photographs

by American artist Jerome Liebling. Active since the 1940s, Liebling has explored a variety of photographic themes including social-documentary photographs of people and places, poetic images of the relics and physical remnants of literary figures, and photographs of mannequins and corpses. The

body of work on display includes representative examples from the many facets of Liebling’s practice.

Through September 7 at YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.), 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

The Dutch post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh is well known for being a fou roux (redheaded madman). Even with a piece of his ear lobe missing, his works

Jennifer Davies and Lisa Keskinen make paper do incredible things. See their creations at Gallery 195 through September 26.

include some of the world’s most recognizable, popular and expensive pieces. Some of those works will be on display in New Haven this summer. The Yale University Art Gallery exhibits two of van Gogh’s most renowned paintings, “Cypresses” and “The Starry Night,” side by side for the first time in Van Gogh’s ‘Cypresses’ and ‘The Starry Night’: Visions of Saint-Rémy.

CONNECTICUTS SUPERCENTER FOR PILATES

Completed in June 1889 during his year-long confinement at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, these two paintings exemplify the work of this modern master at the height of his creativity. Together, they reveal the artist’s vivid and tender vision of Saint-Rémy as he observed the French countryside from his window — by day and night. To ensure a pleasant and unrushed experience

for YUAG visitors, free timed tickets will be available at artgallery.yale.edu.

Through September 7 at the YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.), 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

Sculptures. Susan Clinard’s sculptures of stone, wood, wire, figurative sculpture and mixed

JoBrunoHair.com 203.787.9171

A Fine Skin Care Boutique 693 Boston Post Rd Downtown Madison

* * * *

Specializing in Curls and European Styles

203.245.8822

Amazing Face

One Whitney Ave, Suite 203

New Haven, CT 06510

A noted scholar of eminent American photographer Alfred Stieglitz, Doris Bry is perhaps best known as the agent and confidant of Stieglitz’s wife, the painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Her collection includes photographs by renowned masters such as Irving Penn and Berenice Abbott, as well as intriguing works by lesser-known artists, and includes examples of a wide range of styles and photographic media. From Any Angle: Photographs from the Collection of Doris Bry celebrates the remarkable collection of more than 200 photographs brought together by Bry and currently on loan to the Yale University Art Gallery.

Through September 7 at YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Thurs.), 1-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

 hhhhh

Fleur de Lys FLORAL & GIFTS

When the ordinary just won’t do Now offering online purchasing of our seasonal collection.

Sign up online for our monthly newsletter and special offers

562-5459 • www.fleurdelysfloral.com Voted New Haven’s best florist 2006, 2007 & 2008 new haven

43

media express her strong affinity for nature and human beings. Whether she is sculpting from models or from memory, she employs nature’s raw forms to narrate the struggles and joys of her subjects. Clinard often finds beauty and truth in life’s most challenging times. August 9-September 20 (reception 6-8 p.m.

August 9) at River Street Gallery, 72 Blatchley Ave., New Haven. Open 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Thurs.-Fri., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-7763099, kerry@fairhaven-furniture.com, fairhaven-furniture.com.

In Works by Jennifer Davies and Lisa Keskinen, Branford resident Davies showcases new prints and handmade paper works, while Keskinen’s constructed pieces, informed by her career as an architect, draw inspiration from the transformative possibilities of everyday objects. Davies earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has taught dozens of classes in handmade paper at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven and the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk. Keskinen received a BA in psychology from UConn before completing a master’s in architecture at North Carolina State.

Her work has been showcased extensively throughout the region, including at Erector Square in New Haven, the Cornwall Library and Earl Lindgren Architects Office in Naugatuck. Through September 26 (reception 5-7 p.m. September 9) at Gallery 195 at NewAlliance Bank, 195 Church St., 4th floor, New Haven. Free.

The Open Doors of Milford.

Throughout downtown Milford artists will display original design interpretations on plain recycled doors. This six-week outdoor event culminates with a lively auction of the doors in September, with a portion of the proceeds donated to a local charity. August 16-September 28 throughout downtown Milford. downtownmilfordct.com.

More than 150 crosses and crucifixes collected from around the world (where they were used in churches or by individuals) are on loan from the extensive Yvonne Shia Klancko Collection of religious items and displayed for the first time in Crosses & Crucifixes. Exhibition includes an artifact from the Balkans made more than 800 years ago. At Knights of Columbus Museum, 1 State St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Free. 203-865-0400, museum@ kofc.org, kofc.org/museum.

CRITIC’S PICK Pencil Marks Run Deep

The Knights of Columbus’ newest exhibition, Etchings of the Eternal City: Piranesi’s Rome, examines firstedition prints by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. In the 18th century, Piranesi was the premier Italian printmaker, world famous for his magnificent topographical works titled Vendute di Roma (Views of

The New York Times ranks Gateway Community College among Connecticut’s TOP FIVE public colleges & universities for incoming freshmen.

Rome). Twentytwo of these views are the subject of this show. The show also includes Mallio Falcioni’s contemporary photographs of the Roman sites represented by the antique etchings. Also on display are two original plates used in the printmaking process.

— Elvira J. Duran

Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s detailed sketch of the View of the Bridge and Castel S. Angelo gives one the feel of looking at a photograph.

Through November 9 at Knights of Columbus Museum, 1 State St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.

Free. 203-865-0400, museum@kofc.org, kofc.org/museum.

Your education

Choose from over 95 affordable, accredited degree and certificate programs and find the courses you need to accomplish your academic goals. Classes are designed with YOU in mind. Attend during the day, evenings, on weekends or on-line.

Your career

We’re All About YOU !

The Corporate and Continuing Education division offers state-of-theart credit and non-credit programs in the latest technology and best practices. Learn from the experts in your field of interest for professional development or personal enrichment.

Your future

Whether you’re taking college classes for the first time, returning to school to complete your studies, or making a career change, the respected faculty and caring staff at Gateway Community College can help you prepare for the future of your dreams.

New Haven 44

august 2008

(203) 285-2000

North Haven

For a full schedule of courses and program offerings, visit us online at

www.gwcc.commnet.edu

The Boyz are back in town: Even as it skewers the ‘boy band’ phenomenon, Altar Boyz celebrates its boundless and engaging energy.

The Boyz in the Band LWT imports witless but winning summer fare Altar Boyz, book by Kevin Del Aguila.

Music and lyrics by Michael Patrick Walker and Gary Adler. Through September 13 at Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven.

203-787-4282, longwharf.org.

By BROOKS APPELBAUM

I

n its big, smoke-and-light-filled opening number, Altar Boyz promises that it will “alter your minds.” The first of Long Wharf Theatre’s imported summer offerings, Altar Boyz keeps this promise, but with a few twists. The production itself brings some surprises. But the real twist is seeing this long-running off-Broadway musical at the Long Wharf, where experiencing a rock-concert-as-theater is a bit of a jolt. It’s natural for Long Wharf to craft a fun summer season. Considering last year’s stunning offerings, though, it’s also natural to hope that we would find something here that combined Altar Boyz’ fresh charm with a bit more challenge.

Altar Boyz is great fun: Its five performers’ boundless and engaging energy nearly makes one believe in the supernatural. Its

songs — while derivative (that’s part of the joke) — are tuneful and, in most cases, marvelously clever. Its story (yes, there is one)almost satisfies. This “almost,” though, keeps Altar Boyz from being top-notch. The concept of theater gets lost in an over-thetop lighting and sound design and a couple of numbers that go on too long. The faux rock concert is a tricky genre; at the least, director Stafford Arima might trust his audiences and his remarkable performers a little more and cut back the lights so the actors could shine more brightly.

That said, Altar Boyz succeeds in unabashedly entertaining us while gently but pointedly satirizing religious dogma.

On the surface, we get heaven, hell, abstinence and the power of prayer and faith; below that, the musical emphasizes new haven

45

friendship, tolerance and all-encompassing love. The skill with which these two are blended, the manipulation of innuendo, is the show’s strongest element. For that, kudos go to authors Kevin Del Aguila and Ken Davenport and composer and lyricists Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Weller.

The story — as much as will be revealed here — is simple enough: The band has come to New Haven — as it has come to so many sinful cities before — in its quest to save souls. However, New Haven is the final stop, and to succeed the five boys must know, by the last number, that every soul in the audience has been cleansed. To this end we learn, through some energetic and marvelously executed songs, that it’s easy to follow the “Church Rulez”; how each boy heard “The Calling” (“Jesus called me on my cell phone”); and just what made it possible for Jesus to turn water into wine, (“The Miracle Song”).

The choreography (by Christopher Gattelli and Lou Castro) at times feels adorably anachronistic: part of what is funny here is that these good Christian boys cling to the 1980s and early 1990s (with some notable exceptions) : They yearn to take us back to what they imagine was a simpler, purer time.

A brand new studio One On One Training

Then, to strengthen the slender Aristotelian Mark. His very performance demonstrates arc, the boys take us through the story of that God loves everyone; as Scott plays the band’s beginnings: a story told from Mark, it would be impossible for anyone the dueling perspectives of its members: not to love him.

Matthew (Philip Drennen) , Mark (Dan When his big number comes — “Epiphany” Scott) , Luke (Anton Fero) , Juan (Andres — Mark takes the stage alone, and after a Quintero) and Abraham (Tim Dolan) , a soliloquy about growing up with ritual confused Jewish friend. Abe, replete with humiliations at the hands of his classmates yarmulke, who learns to cross himself and hiding his private truth, he rips out, at by making the sign of the Star of David, last, with a song celebrating his glorious stumbled into the church one day and pride. The song delivers a double punch for discovered, as one of the more charming gay rights and religious tolerance, and Scott songs says, that “Everybody Fits” in God’s sweetens both punches with a charisma family. that could have stopped the show.

Abe’s song leads us to insights into each Scott is one of those performers amongst member of the band. The leader, Matthew terrific performers (and the whole cast is — a handsome, Elvis-like crooner — terrific) who clearly loves to be onstage proclaims his belief in abstinence, singing more than anything else in the world. In “Something About You” to his beloved that sense, with the applause overwhelming (“Girl, you make me want to wait”). even the nearly overwhelming sound The standout performance, though, is easy system, Aristotle might have been almost to spot from the outset, and it’s all the more as pleased as God. We all know that theater, laudable since the role could be disastrous. no matter what the show, can create a As Mark, the diminutive and graceful Dan kind of communal spiritual conversion.

Scott not only sings and looks like an angel, When the script is great, we are changed but he nails every stereotypical gesture forever; when it is just fun, we may only be — vocal and physical — of a swishy young changed for a night — or a number — but gay man. The miracle here (all man-made) the experience is still magic. v is that Scott so clearly is not making fun of

CareSource: A Premier Provider of Private Duty Care • RNs & LPN’s • Nurse’s Aides/Live in Aides • Homemakers/Companions

40 Classes Per Week* For Women

By Women

No Contracts Beautiful Shower/ Locker Room

*can be purchased individually

317 Foxon Road, East Haven

203.469.7500 Monday-Friday: 5:30a - 8p • Saturday-Sunday: 8a-1p

46

august 2008

An Affiliate of the Visiting Nurse Association of South Central Connecticut

203-891-8270 1-800-305-2273

CareSource Baby • RN’s - Assesment/Baby Care Instructions • Nurses Aides -Baby Care & Overnights • Homemaker Services

CareSource Geriatric Care Management • Guidance and Support to Caregivers • Assesments and Recommendations • Development of Custom Care Plans • Healthcare System Navigation

www.caresourceinc.org

Accredited

Center Podiatry Foot Pain Specialists

Pain & Emergencies Seen Immediately Custome Made Orthotics

Dr. Gary N. Grippo

Dr. Sean Lazarus

Board Certified Foot Surgeon Bone & Joint Specialist

Sports Injuries - Biomechanics Pediatric Footcare

www.centerpodiatry.com 1-800-676-FOOT (3668) • Sat. Appts. Available Guilford, East Haven, Higganum, West Haven, Clinton

directed by James Andreassi. All performances take place in Edgerton Park, a magnificent 22-acre park that was once the private estate of the inventor extraordinaire, Eli Whitney. Audiences are encouraged to bring blankets or lawn chairs and picnics. 7:30 p.m. August 7-31 at Edgerton Park, 75 Cliff St., New Haven.

Free (donations accepted). 203-3931436, elmshakespeare.org.

Late Nite Catechism, by Vicki Quade and Maripat Donovan, is back for a return engagement on Stage II after a highly successful summer run in 2007. Designed as part catechism class, part improv, Late Nite Catechism is hysterical entertainment for any Catholic, non-practicing Catholic, ex-Catholic, Catholic under

ONSTAGE consideration, or even Catholic by association! Lauded by the New York Times as “uproarious interactive theater,” Late Nite proves that when it comes to the Catholic religion it is possible to be both reverent and hilarious, but don’t expect to sit quietly at the back of this Catholic classroom, because in Sister’s class audience participation is a requirement. Through September 13 on Long Wharf Theatre Stage II, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $25-$20.

203-787-4282, 800-782-8497, info@

CRITIC’S PICK A Penniless Nirvana

Allyn Burrows plays the revenge-seeking Prince Hamlet in The Elm Shakespeare Company’s summer production in Edgerton Park.

BY ELVIRA J. DURAN

THEATER The legendary musical Hello, Dolly! is an cheery and irresistible story (book by Michael Stewart) of the joy of living, glittering with unforgettable Jerry Herman songs, shining with loving scenes, and alive with the outsized personality of one of the most fabulous characters ever to grace the musical stage, Dolly Gallagher Levi. The perfect inaugural production for Seven Angels Theatre and the Palace Theatre Community Summer Stock production, with a community cast of all ages adorning the Palace stage. Directed by Seven Angels Artistic Director Semina De Laurentis with music direction by Richard DeRosa. 8 p.m. August 2 & 1 p.m. August 3 at the Palace Theatre, 100 East Main St., Waterbury. $35-$25.

203-755-4700, palacetheaterct.org.

The Opera Theater of Connecticut presents a fully staged opera, Puccini’s Tosca, with orchestra featuring pre-opera talks and al fresco suppers. 7:30 p.m. August 5, 7, 9 & 6 p.m. August 10 at Andrews Memorial Hall, 54 East Main St., Clinton. $37.50 ($35 seniors, $30 students); $15 dinner; $5 talk. 860669-8999, OTCsings@aol.com, operatheater-ct.org.

Shakespeare on the Shoreline.

The Shoreline Arts Alliance brings the Connecticut Free Shakespeare company back to the Guilford Green

this summer to perform William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. This adaptation of the romantic comedy is set in the 1970s and comes complete with music.

The story is loaded with mismatched lovers, squabbling brothers and a verbally challenged constable. The Watergate scandal provides a perfect backdrop for this story of mistaken identity, deception, and trickery. 7:30 pm August 7-10 on the Guilford Green, Guilford. Free. 203-453-3890, info@ shorelinearts.org, shorelinearts.org/ shakespeare.cfm.

The Missoula Children’s Theatre Co. returns for the Quick Center for the Arts Summer Theatre program with weekly shows presented as the culmination of an intense week of work with a different group of participating children each week.

The shows for August will be The Princess and the Pea (August 4-8) and Hansel and Gretel (August 11-15).

At Quick Center for the Arts, Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Rd., Fairfield. $12 ($10 seniors & children).

203-254-4000, ext. 2969, quickcenter. com.

In its 13th season of presenting free, al fresco professional theater productions — and third season of presenting two plays in rotating repertory — the Elm Shakespeare Co. will be performing The Matchmaker (August 7-10, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28 & 30), by long-time Hamden resident Thornton Wilder, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet (August 14-17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 29 & 31). Both productions

Half a Sixpence is a bouncy, romantic quintessentially British musical that will leave audiences laughing and wanting more.

Adapted from the 1905 H.G. Wells novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul, it premiered in London’s West End in 1963.

Enjoy the antics of young Arthur Kipps — a Cockney shop clerk who inherits a

fortune, flirts with “society,” loses everything and ends up happier without a penny.

Chock full of lively dancing, memorable tunes (“Party’s on the House,” “If the Rain’s Got To Fall,” “Flash Bang Wallop”) and more.

Great for the entire family.

— Elvira J. Duran Performances 2 & 7:30 p.m. Wed.,

Arthur Kipps and his friends really know how to party it up and bring the house down with laughter.

7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri., 3 & 8 p.m.

Sat. and 2 & 6:30 p.m. Sun. Through September 19 at Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. $71.50-$29.50.

860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.

new haven

47

OF NOTES Lamont Hiebert and Ten Shekel Shirt want to save the world while rocking it

By Michael C. Bingham

L

amont Hiebert is a musician on a mission.

Talk to the singer/songwriter, who fronts the New Haven-based band Ten Shekel Shirt, and a number of uncommon words keep popping up.

One is “abolitionist.” No, he’s not looking to fight the Civil War all over again. Instead, he’s on a mission to make great music, yes, but also to combat the sexual enslavement

of young children around the world, which some estimate may affect as many as 27 million young people, mainly (but not exclusively) in the developing world.

Hiebert is himself as a survivor of child abuse. And although he declines to elaborate, he does allow that the experience “instilled something in me to protect others.”

Hiebert and his band are in publicity mode to promote a new CD, Jubilee, which will

be released August 19 by Burlington, Mass.based Rounder Records, and deals directly with the weighty issue of child abuse and exploitation. It’s the band’s third release (the label says the first two sold 150,000 units), and represents a welcome return to performing for the 35-year-old Hiebert.

During the making of the band’s previous record, 2003’s Risk, Hiebert embarked on a “life-changing” trip to southeast Asia. He accompanied undercover investigators into

Lamont Hiebert deals with child exploitation in Asia on his new CD with band Ten Shekel Shirt.

48

august 2008

brothels where children as young as nine years old were enslaved and exploited. On returning, he and a small group of friends founded Love146 (formerly Justice for Children International).

Summer Specials

Love146’s work has earned the non-profit group a MySpace Impact Award for Social Justice, and the group was named an “Agent of Change” by GQ magazine.

Every Fri & Sat

“Rescue agencies informed us that more child slaves could be rescued if there were more aftercare services,” Hiebert explains.

“Thankfully, we have been able to make room for many more of these precious children by expanding the number of safe homes and trauma counselors. Love146 also funds effective prevention efforts in southeast Asia making it harder for human traffickers to abduct children.”

YellowFin’s Seafood Grille

2 lb Lobsters

Fried Seafood Platters

Nightly thru the Summer Where OLD New England Meets NEW New England yellowfinsseafoodgrille.com

203-250-9999

1027 South Main Street • Cheshire

the blue pearl

Which points to another word that figures prominently in the Hiebert lexicon: “restore” — restoring children who have been victimized by sexual exploitation or forced into slave labor in developing countries.

Not “save.” Not “heal.”

RESTAURANT & LOUNGE New Haven’s Tastiest Hideout Happy Hour • Thurs & Fri, 4-6 pm Martini Specials • Late Night Menu

Restore. And Hiebert has made it a central focus of his life’s work.

130 COURT STREET • NEW HAVEN 203.789.6370 • THEBLUEPEARLNEWHAVEN.COM

“I took a number of years off [from music] to help start Love146,” he explains. I wasn’t really planning on pursuing music fulltime again; I was content with putting out little CDs on the side and focusing on the charity. But when Rounder [A&R guy Troy Hansbrough] called and said, ‘We want to sign you,’ it was really out of the blue. Actually, it made me laugh.”

PMAC Workshops

As in: I should be so lucky.

“I had written four or five songs with various themes [from] my work, so I got back to Rounder and said, ‘Let’s do this.’

Luckily [at this point] the charity has enough quality people here in New Haven and in southeast Asia, where most of practical work is.”

Most of the tracks on Jubilee were co-written with longtime collaborator Jonny Rodgers, best known as co-prime mover (with his brother Steve) of legendary New Haven band Mighty Purple and someone “whose melodic prowess I coveted,” says Hiebert.

Hiebert and Rodgers recorded a number of demos in Hiebert’s basement, and after that the pair went to Nashville to record the bulk of the tracks, with additional recording taking place at Firehouse 12 in New Haven over the better part of a year.

“We actually recorded 18 songs,” Hiebert says, ten of which made the cut. “So we have a head start on the next record,” he adds.

Theater Saturdays

(Grades 3-8) Session I: Saturdays September 13–November 15, 2008 Session II: Saturdays, March 7–May 9, 2009 Children learn acting technique, improvisation, musical theater, dance and more! The program culminates with a recital for family and friends.

Visual Arts Saturdays

(Grades 3-8) Session I: Saturdays September 13–November 15, 2008 Session II: Saturdays, March 7–May 9, 2009 Children learn to paint landscapes, the basics of drawing, comic strip creation, or building and glazing pottery!

Ends with an informal art exhibit.

Act It Out!

(Grades 1-2) Session I: Saturdays September 13–October 18, 2008 Session II: Saturdays, March 7–April 11, 2009 Using favorite stories from classic books, children will act them out using props and costumes made during class.

For more information about these programs, please contact Carol Jones at (203) 697-2035.

Christian Street, Wallingford, CT

Free Parking

new haven

49

Ten Shekel Shirt “is basically Jonny and I and a community of friends,” Hiebert explains. Current drummer Colin Meyer and bassist Tim Sway round out the current lineup, which will debut Jubilee at a recordrelease party August 12 at Crash Mansion in New York City. The band’s next local show is September 17 at SCSU.

While rejecting the ‘Christian rock’ label, Hiebert cites the ‘revolutionary way Jesus led his life.’

Jubilee was co-produced by Hiebert and Nashville producer Brent Milligan, who also plays bass on the disc. What does it actually sound like? The record company refers to its “Coldplay/David Gray-esque sound,” but I’m not so sure. The music is lush, dense and almost orchestral. There are hooks there, but they are subtle ones that surface only after repeated listenings.

Child abuse and exploitation is one theme of Jubilee, though not the only theme. Of the album’s ten tracks, five address the issue directly, while the remainder, including the first radio single “Spark,” have “restorative” themes, Hiebert says.

offerings: “Wartime Lullaby,” fueled by a martial drumbeat. “There have been so many songs about war; I wanted to put to put myself in the place of someone who was in a city that’s being bombed,” he says.

Hiebert explains that his songwriting approach doesn’t necessarily begin with lyrics, melody or chord changes. “I usually start with an idea,” he explains.

In the powerful “You Rescue,” Hiebert writes of his rescuer — who may be temporal or not — “I will boast of your saving deeds/ And I will rave of your glory”) whose language recalls Psalm 22 (“They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn/ The saving deeds that he has done”) .

Speaking of which, some in the media have tagged Ten Shekel Shirt a “Christian” rock band — an appellation Hiebert is not entirely comfortable with.

Hiebert/Rodgers know their way around a catchy melody, and a lot of the songs have killer bridges that would do any really excellent pop stylist proud (with its hypnotic repeating piano figure, the bridge For example, the title track (“Jubilee”) represents “a merger of two ideas: One is to “En Garde” stands out). The production the ancient meaning of the word ‘jubilee,’ is pretty dense, although many of the songs “We are a band, and not everyone who which has to do with the emancipation of employ dynamic contrasts utterly beyond travels with us is a Christian,” he says. “I slaves,” Hiebert explains. “I also had in the ken of most pop/rock practitioners. As liked the revolutionary way Jesus led his mind the story of a girl who was in one a song stylist Hiebert sometimes phrases life, and that kind of sums up my faith. But of our safe homes in southeast Asia, and things oddly (what a classical choir director I don’t really prefer” the Christian label. it’s about the first moments of girl’s time would deride as “false accents”), but almost Still, his faith is central to both Hiebert’s in a safe home — her learning that sense always manages to make it work. music and his mission — he wants to save of belonging again, and freedom and peace That’s the music. But it’s the message that the world, while rocking it at the same time. and love.”

Hiebert wants to stick with listeners. In the He grew up in a Mennonite household in metal-charged “It’s Slavery,” Hiebert puts Grand Forks, B.C. — “a home where faith Long ago I felt this love himself in the place of a child prostitute: was important,” he says. When Lamont And now I have a second chance was 19 his 21-year-old guitar-playing And I’m taking it.

Is that what you want? brother died, so he took up the instrument Hiebert and Rodgers also co-wrote the Right here just like that? as his own partly in tribute. music for one of Jubilee’s most powerful I’ll give you what you want ‘Cause if I don’t I’ll be beaten.

Continued on 55

Find Yourself in New Haven

ROMEO & CESARE’S GOURMET SHOPPE

$24.95 One Year $39.95 Two Years

Subscribe 203.781.3480 x 102 or www.newhavenmagazine.com

50

august 2008

Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner To Go Open Daily: 7-7, Sun: 7-4

776-1614

771 Orange St, New Haven

Fruits & Vegetables • Flowers • Prepared Foods • Hot/Cold Subs • Catering • Delivery

BY ELVIRA J. DURAN

Sing: A Performance by Siggy Davis. Davis is a truly eclectic artist who has toured and recorded with jazz greats; portrayed numerous notable roles for the stage and in film; and performed musical theater repertoire including Nunsense, Hair, Butterfinger’s Angel, Beehive and Let’s Pop. In 1996 Davis released her first self-produced album, Siggy Davis Live in Berlin, which inspired a trend of live performance CDs from the Berlin music scene. For this show she will perform her interpretation of jazz and soul standards, a show tune or two and a blues medley.

12:10 p.m. July 8 in Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown.

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

Jaheim will serenade the crowd with his sensuous vocals at the Palace Theater on August 23.

Classical Join Music Director William Boughton and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra for a summer celebration of all things American in American Earth, including: BERNSTEIN Overture to Candide, SOUSA Liberty Bell March, COPLAND Rodeo, ANDERSON Horse & Buggy and Fiddle Faddle, BARBER Knoxville Summer of 1915.

Soprano soloist Samantha Talmadge.

There is also be an audience play-along at the conclusion of the concert in which community performers will be invited to join in with their rehearsed musical parts on patriotic favorites including The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful and Pomp & Circumstance.

6 p.m. July 12 on the New Haven Green (rain location: Hillhouse High School Auditorium). Free. 203-8650831, newhavensymphony.com.

Water, Water, Everywhere! Bring all the little ones plus Dad, Aunt Sally and Grandma, too. The New Haven Symphony Orchestra Woodwind Quintet will take listeners on an imaginative journey from Handel’s Water Music to traditional sea chanties. Everyone will have opportunities to participate in the fun, sing along with the ensemble, and even try the instruments.

Following a brief intermission, the quintet will perform “A Little More Water Music” including works

by Arnold, Handel, Debussy and more — a program sure to delight the senses. 6-8 p.m. July 15 at

Camp Laurelwood, 463 Summer Hill Rd., Madison. Free. 203-865-0831, newhavensymphony.com.

Popular Kwaku Kwaakye (Martin) Obeng from Ghana, West Africa, is a composer, master drummer, dancer and educator who has performed all over the world for the past 25 years.

He toured as a drummer and dancer with Ghana’s National Arts Council Folkloric Company and in 1981 relocated to the U.S. where he joined the New England-based Talking Drum Ensemble. His ensemble performances marry traditional instruments and rhythm patterns with original compositions, creating a fresh new sound. Joining Obeng in the Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng Band are bassist Wes Brown, guitarist Domine Kanza, drummer Toma Fujiwara, trombonist Bill Lowe and saxophonist Jimmy Green. 7 p.m.

July 2 in CFA Courtyard, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860685-3355, boxoffice@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Afternoon Jazz Jam hosted by Dave Dana, Brian Buster and Ken Aldrich.

4:30-7:30 p.m. July 5 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. Free. 203-7898281, cafenine.com.

Sunday evening concert on the Guilford Green with the Rob Zappulla Quintet. Bring blankets, chairs and a picnic. 6:30 p.m. July 6 on the Guilford Green, Guilford. Free.

203-453-3890.

Aeroplane 1929 with The Mountain Movers and Jay Russell. Making their Café Nine debut, Aeroplane 1929 breathes new life into an passel of genres that have stubbornly remained bland over the past few years. A wonderful take on acoustic indie-rock/alternative country, defying easy classification. July 10 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $5. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Afternoon Jazz Jam hosted by Gary Grippo. 4:30-7:30 p.m. July 12 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. Free.

203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Green Street’s monthly guest artist series broke attendance records over the past year with Latina Voices last the fall and Red Hot Blues & Jazz this spring. Now, savor favorites from the big-band era with a few modern classics thrown in. String of Pearls features a rotating cast of up to 15 musicians and a vocalist. There will be room to swing, waltz and tango. 8 p.m. July 18 at Green Street Arts Center, 51 Green St., Middletown. $8 ($5 students & seniors). 860685-7871, gsac@wesleyan.edu, greenstreetartscenter.org.

Afternoon Jazz Jam hosted by Jovan Alexandre Quartet. 4:30-7:30 p.m. July 19 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. Free. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

The hip, young band the Squirrel Nut Zippers, performs their signature fusion of Delta blues, jazz and 1930s-era swing that defies categorization. 6 p.m. July 19 on the New Haven Green, New Haven. Free. infonewhaven.com.

Experience an American rock ‘n’ roll fest and CD release party with perfprmers Seth Adam, Mountain Movers (acoustic) and the Rick Landino Trio. 10 p.m. July 19 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $5.

203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Blues Jam hosted by Rocky Lawrence. 8 p.m. July 20 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. Free. 203-

MUSIC 789-8281, cafenine.com.

Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul.

Eileen Ivers will change the way you think about the violin. Ninetime All-Ireland Fiddle Champion, soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, Boston Pops, musical star of Riverdance and founding member of Cherish the Ladies are only a few of Ivers’ many distinctions. She has established herself as the pre-eminent exponent of the Irish fiddle in the world today.

8 p.m. July 24 in Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $22 ($17 seniors, $12 students). 860685-3355, boxoffice@wesleyan.edu, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Traditional jazz is the cornerstone of modern American popular music.

The Great Connecticut Traditional Jazz Festival is the largest festival in all of the Northeast featuring classic jazz. Great bands from around the world perform under four tents/ venues providing entertainment for the whole family and friends. The Sugarfoot band will perform on all three days. July 25-27 at Sunrise Resort, 121 Leesville Rd., Moodus. 800-4683838, sunriseresort.com/jazz.html.

Afternoon Jazz Jam hosted by guitarist George Baker. 4:30-7:30 p.m. July 26 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. Free. 203-789-8281, cafenine.com.

Grammy-nominated singer Oleta Adams takes the stage with a performance of her popular hits including the chart-topping “Get Here.” 6 p.m. July 26 on the New Haven Green, New Haven. Free. infonewhaven.com.

For 14 years, Summer Festival Chorus (SFC) members have displayed a passion for the choral arts while exploring a rich assortment of compositions.

Members have captivated audiences with their inspiring performances and individual talents under the dynamic direction of Carol Ann Maxwell. The focus of this summer’s repertoire American composers working in the media of pop, Broadway and spirituals: BASS Gloria, HALLEY Wondrous Love, IVES Circus Band, as well as a sparkling array of American spirituals. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s greatest tunes for the Broadway stage will also be performed, as well as several new selections. 7:30 p.m. July 26 at Quick Center for the Arts, Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield. $20. 203-254-4000 ext. 2577, info@ quickcenter.com, quickcenter.com.

new haven

51

BY ELVIRA J. DURAN

BELLES LETTRES Who isn’t smitten with Curious George? Whether you’re 70, 37 or four years old, the curious little simian who always seems to get into one scrape or another has in all likelihood captured your heart.

Perhaps his popularity lies in the predictability of his unpredictability.

You know that the second the Man in the Yellow Hat leaves the house, warning George to be careful, George is going to get into trouble.

And when George starts getting into trouble, he only digs himself deeper.

He appeals to both the young and the young-at-heart’s desire to break the rules just a little and, well, satisfy your curiosity. Curious George is on tour to visit his fans of all ages.

He will make two appearances at the Yale Bookstore’s Children’s Story Hour. There will be stories, activities and photo ops for all. 1 p.m. August 2 & 2 p.m. August 3 at the Yale Bookstore Children’s Dept., 77 Broadway, New Haven. Free. 203-7778440, yalebookstore.com.

BENEFITS Multiple Sclerosis Motorcycle Ride. Last year more than 1,200 riders saddled up, uniting tires to pavement and hearts to a worthy cause. This year’s ride traverses a 50-mile route through Connecticut’s breathtaking countryside and quaint back roads. The ride features a down-home barbecue and finishline activities including live music, vendors, drawings for prizes and much more. Funds raised through the state chapter of the national Multiple Sclerosis Society, such as the MS Motorcycle Ride, support ongoing scientific research to find a cure. Funds also provide for the continuation of vital programs and services offered by the chapter to more than 6,000 state residents diagnosed with MS. 9:30 a.m. August 3 with the start and finish at Cadillac Ranch, 45 Jude La., Southington. $30 per biker & $20 per passenger in advance, $35/$25 day of event; $10 per person for non-riders. 1-800-

52

august 2008

Tie your hair back and get ready to ride. The MS Motorcycle Ride may be roaring through your town a thousand riders strong on August 3.

FIGHT-MS, rabend@ctfightsms.org, ctfightsms.org.

CINEMA Milford will unveil its first Independent Film Festival this month. The Milford Independent Film Festival showcases the works of filmmakers of all ages. Finalist judging will take place on Saturday, August 2 at the Milford Public Library and is free and open to the public. An awards ceremony will take place on Thursday, August 14 at the Center for the Arts, where winning entries will be screened along with discussion and refreshments. August 2 at Milford Public Library, 57 New Haven Ave., Milford. Free. 203-878-6647, 203783-3290. Also 7-10 p.m. August 14 at Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Ave., Milford. $5. 203-8786647, milfordfac@optonline.net, milfordarts.org.

The New Haven Free Public Library continues its Summer Travel Series with Syria: Between Iraq and a Hard Place (Syria, 2004, 30 min.). Directed by Saul Landau.

Discussion follows film. Samples of Syrian cuisine will be provided by Mediterranea Restaurant. 6-7:30 p.m.

August 6 at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

203-946-7431.

Memories of Underdevelopment (Cuba, 1968, 96 min.). Directed

by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. Sergio, a bourgeois aspiring writer, decides to stay in Cuba even after his family and friends flee to Miami. Sergio looks back over the changes in Cuba from the Castro revolution to the Cuban missile crisis, the effect of living in an underdeveloped country and his relations with his girlfriends Elena and Hanna. Written by Will Gilbert. 6-7:30 p.m. August 21 at New Haven Public Library, 133 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 people compete for prize money. Topics range from music to movies, politics to Shakespeare, geology to sports and everywhere in between. Twenty-one and older. 9 p.m. August 8, 15, 22 & 29 at Anna Liffey’s, 17 Whitney Ave., New Haven. $10 per team. 203-7731776, annaliffeys.com.

CULINARY City Farmers’ Market Downtown boasts food from local farms, including organic and pesticidefree salad greens, herbs, flowers, honey, artisan bread and more. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. August 6, 13, 20 & 27 at 165Church St., New Haven. 203-773-

3736, cityseed.org.

Chef and co-owner Denise Appel of Zinc and Chow restaurants will discuss technique and ingredients while leading guests through a light dinner and wine selection at her monthly Chef’s Table Dinner. 6 p.m. August 6 at Zinc, 964 Chapel St., New Haven. $55 inclusive. 203-624-0507, elizabethciarlelli@zincfood.com, zincfood.com.

City Farmers’ Market at Wooster Square. Enjoy local food from local farms including seafood, meat, milk, cheese, organic greens, root vegetables, handcrafted bread and baked goods, honey and more. 9 a.m.-1 p.m. August 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30 at Russo Park, corner Chapel St. and DePalma Ct., New Haven. 203-7733736, cityseed.org.

Chow’s Wine + BBQ event will feature Chef Denise Appel’s international flavors in barbecue including: Korean barbecue chicken with red curry-coconut milk sauce and southwestern slow-roasted pork on fried tostadas with hot tomatillo sauce along with a selection of wines from around the world. 67:30 p.m. August 7 at Chow, 966 Chapel St., New Haven. $33 inclusive (reservations required). 203-624-0507, elizabethciarlelli@zincfood.com, chownewhaven.com.

The Downtown Milford Business Association will host the Milford Farmers’ Market on Saturdays through October 25 in the heart of downtown. Fresh produce, breads, cheeses, seafood and other Connecticut-grown and -raised produce. 9 a.m.-1 p.m. August 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30 in downtown Milford on River St. between Railroad Ave. and Darina Pl. 203-874-0115, downtownmilfordct. com.

Enjoy local food including organic and pesticide-free salad greens, herbs, all-natural meat, eggs, honey, handcrafted bread and more. City Farmers’ Markets, New Haven are Connecticut-grown, producer-only marketplaces featuring organic and pesticide-free food. City Farmers’ Market at Edgewood Park takes place Sundays through November 23.

10 a.m.-2 p.m. August 3, 10, 17, 24 & 31 at Edgewood Park, Corner Whalley and West Rock Ave., New Haven. 203773-3736, cityseed.org.

The annual Milford Oyster Festival has something for everyone: arts and crafts, children’s entertainment and rides, music, kayak and canoe races, a classic car show and plenty of food. 5-9 p.m. August 15, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. August 16 at Milford Town Green, Broad St., Milford. Free. 203-878-5363, milfordoysterfestival.org.

Lyman Orchards will host its annual

Peach Fest on the grounds of its 1,100-acre family farm in Middlefield.

The Peach Fest features many fun family activities, such as picking your own peaches, Frisbee golf, a sunflower maze, a peach scavenger hunt, peach pie-eating contests, horse-drawn wagon rides and a performance by Connecticut rock band Bus 13. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. August 16 at Lyman Orchards, 7 Lyman Rd., Middlefield. Free. 860-349-1793, lymanorchards.com.

CRITIC’S PICK Soaring Low If you’re a Lepidoptera lover, be sure to have your list of burning questions ready for Dr. Antonia Monteiro, assistant curator of Entomology at Yale’s Peabody Museum.

Shoreline Wine Festival. Sample wine from Connecticut vineyards.

Eat food from local restaurants.

Visit local businesses and sample their goods and services. Listen and dance to live music and entertainment. Fun activities for kids including face painting, moon bounce and more. Food and wine seminars led by local experts. 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

August 16-17 at Bishops Orchards, 1355 Boston Post Rd., Guilford. 203-4532338, shorelinewinefestival.com.

Clam Bake. Enjoy a seafood extravaganza with lobster, clams, mussels, Connecticut grown corn on the cob, potatoes and more. 4-8 p.m. August 23 at Lyman Orchards, 7 Lyman Rd., Middlefield. $29.99 ($16 children under 13).

Reservations required. 860-349-1793, lymanorchards.com.

assistant curator of entomology at Yale’s Peabody Museum.

The New Haven Free Public Library celebrates bugs this summer and all ages are invited to find

out Why Butterflies Have “Eyes” On Their Wings, an exploration led by Antonia Monteiro,

EDUCATION/COURSES American Sign Language instruction for all ages. Learn how to speak using your hands. 4-5 p.m.

August 12 at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

203-946-8131 ext. 230.

6-7 p.m. August 7 at New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

946-8835, nhbulletin. blogspot.com.

— Elvira J. Duran

The New Haven Public Library offers a seminar with consultant Robert Bronson on Web Sites for Beginners.

5:30 p.m. August 14 at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free. 203-946-8835.

Housatonic Community College

Enjoy August in Style

Assaggio Al fresco Fine Dining with Martini Specials on the Patio

Buy one Martini — get the second one free!

And be sure to try our local lobster and soft-shell crab while sipping on one of our fine wines.

203-483-5426 • 168 Montowese St, Branford new haven

53

CRITIC’S PICK I Think I Can, I Think I Can Kids will put on a happy face when Thomas the Tank Engine pulls into the station this month. Take your little one to meet this friendly, go-getter engine and you won’t be disappointed.

Classic storybook locomotive Thomas the Tank Engine will roll into the Railroad Museum of New England for the Day Out With Thomas 2008: The Great Discovery Tour. This funfilled event offers preschoolers and their families the

opportunity to take a ride with a 15-ton replica of Thomas the Tank Engine.

Now in its 13th year, the tour will make stops in more than 45 U.S. cities and is expected to welcome more than one million passengers in 2008.

offers a two-day Safe Boating/PWC Certification course that provides students with an diploma and state certificate application upon successful completion of the course.

The certificate allows holders to operate recreational vessels up to 65 feet in length, including Jet Skis.

Class covers choosing the right boat, equipment requirements, state boating laws, safety regulations, navigation rules, buoy systems, safe fueling, weather and accident prevention. 5:30-9:30 p.m. August 18 & 20 at 900 Lafayette Blvd., Room A221, Bridgeport. $99. 203-332-5150, 203-332-5057.

FAMILY EVENTS The Yale Astronomy Department hosts a Public Stargazing Session.

Twice monthly the department runs a public night during which astronomy buffs can come and peer through one of the department’s many telescopes and have questions answered about the wonders of the night sky. Viewable celestial objects change seasonally, and range from the moon to the planets to nearby star clusters and galaxies. 9 p.m.

August 5 & 19 at the Leitner Family Observatory, 355 Prospect St., New Haven. Free. cobb@astro.yale.edu, astro.yale.edu.

The ninth annual Corn Maze will open at Lyman Orchards on Saturday, August 30. This year’s maze takes the form of a ladybug carved into a four-acre cornfield.

Walk through the maze just for fun, use the map to plot your route or

54

august 2008

Participants will take a 25-minute ride and have the opportunity to meet Sir Topham Hatt, controller of The Railway.

Activities for the whole family including arts and crafts, storytelling, video viewing, live music, model railroad, Thomas

moonbounce, hay-bale maze and temporary tattoos.

Thomas is hoping to make his way to the National Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play, in Rochester, N.Y., which recognizes toys that have achieved icon status, having

answer a series of trivia questions along the way that point you in the right direction. Lyman’s corny Corn Cops can also guide you through the maze. A portion of the proceeds benefit the American Cancer Society.

10 a.m.-6 p.m. August 30 at Lyman Orchards, 7 Lyman Rd., Middlefield. $9 ($5 children ages 4-12). 860-3491793, lymanorchards.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. 203-7951347, www.saintbarbara.org.

LECTURES/ DISCUSSIONS As part of the library’s two-part series on Cuba, Cheryl Roby will give a travel talk on Discovering Cuba. Roby recently returned from a humanitarian trip to Cuba. 6-7 p.m.

August 20 at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

203-946-8835.

Impressions of Iran: Reflections on the People, Culture and Politics, a discussion with recent travelers Patty Nuelsen and Allie Perry. 6-7 p.m.

August 27 at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven.

Free. 203-946-8835.

The New Haven Happiness

enjoyed popularity across multiple generations. Fans may nominate Thomas to the Hall of Fame when he steams into Thomaston Station. Attendees can add their name to the petition for the National Toy Hall of Fame.

8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

August 1-3, 8-10 at Thomaston Station, 242 East Main St., Thomaston. $18 ages two and up. 860-283RAIL, rmne.org, ticketweb.com/ thomas.

— Elvira J. Duran

Club hopes to help change your experience from overwhelmed to empowered to living your best life. Karen Senteio will teach simple and practical techniques to handle daily stress based on the Oasis in the Overwhelm system by Millie Grenough. Senteio has more than 20 years of experience developing and coaching individuals and groups to achieve outstanding results, enhance communication, promote teamwork, migrate through change management and successfully manage emotionalintelligence capabilities. 6:30-8 p.m.

August 28 at City Hall, 165 Church St., Meeting Rooms 1 & 2, New Haven. allisonaboud@gmail.com, newhavenhappinessclub.ning.com.

NATURAL HISTORY Small Things Considered. From a nutmeg to a strand of George Washington’s hair to the classic Wiffle Ball, discover the big impact small objects have made on history and our lives. Through November 29 at the Connecticut Historical Society, 1 Elizabeth St., Hartford. Open noon-5 p.m. Tues-Sat. $6 ($3 seniors, students). 860-236-5621, CHS.org.

SPORTS/RECREATION Boating Join a Guided Canoe Tour of the 840acre 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. Sign up early as these are popular tours.

Bring drinking water and wear shoes that can get wet. Trip routes subject to change due to weather. Advance registration required. 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. August 2, 4:30-7 p.m. August 9, 3:15-5:45 p.m. August 23, 4:15-6:45 p.m.

August 24 and 9:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

August 30 at Connecticut Audubon Society Coastal Center at Milford, 1 Milford Point Rd., Milford. With canoe rental: $25/person, $65/canoe members; $35/$95 non-members.

Without rental: $19 member, $29 non-member. Advance registration.

203-878-7440, ctaudubon.org/visit/ milford.htm.

Farm River Paddle. Bill and Janet Blaha will lead a trip on the Farm River. 9:30 a.m. August 2 meet at Farm River State Park, Mansfield Grove Rd., East Haven. 203-453-4277, nhhc.info.

Cycling Night Ride on the Canal. Enjoy the warm weather and get those base miles up with a weekly two- to three-hour ride up the Farmington Canal Trail. Riders maintain a very moderate (15-17 mph) pace.

Participants should bring lights (some may be available for loan) and helmets. 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays August 5, 12, 19 & 26 at the Devil’s Gear Bike Shop, 433 Chapel St., New Haven.

Free. 203-773-9288, thedevilsgear.com.

Elm City Cycling organizes Lulu’s Ride, weekly two- to four-hour rides for all levels (17-19 mph average). Cyclists leave 10 a.m. from Lulu’s European Café as a single group; no one is dropped. 10 a.m.

Sundays August 3, 10, 17, 24 & 31 at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203-773-9288, elmcitycycling.org/.

Critical Mass. Participants meet at the flagpole on the New Haven Green at 5:30 p.m. on the last Friday of each month for a slow-paced ride through New Haven streets. The ride ranges from 30 minutes to over an hour depending on weather.

Critical Mass is not an organization; it’s an “unorganized coincidence” — a movement of bicycles in the streets as traffic. After the event, everyone is invited to a potluck dinner at the Devil’s Gear Bike Shop. 5:30 p.m. August 29 at Temple and Chapel streets, New Haven. Free. elmcitycycling.org/.

Hikes Join the New Haven Hiking Club for a three- to four-mile Class C hike.

Trek through the Woodbridge & Bethany Trails. Hike led by Elizabeth Buckley. 10 a.m. August 3 meet at

leader’s home, 4 Spring Valley Rd. Woodbridge. 203-393-0141, nhhc.info.

New Haven Hiking Club will meet for a three-mile Class C Friday night hike in West Rock. Hike led by Glenn Fehrs. Dinner to follow hike. No dogs. Rain cancels. 6:30 p.m. August 8 at footbridge behind Blake St. Center, 495 Blake St., West Rock Ridge State Park, New Haven. 203-380-2428, gf@ nhhc.info, nhhc.info.

The New Haven Hiking Club will explore the West Rock Loop on a three- to four-mile Class C hike led by Elizabeth Buckeley. Rain cancels. 10 a.m. August 24 at West Rock Nature Center parking lot, Wintergreen Ave. (just south of parkway overpass), West Rock Ridge State Park, New Haven. 203-393-0141, nhhc.info.

Road Races The Connecticut Chapter of USA Track and Field named the Sea Legs Shuffle the Connecticut ten-mile championship race for 2008 and 2009, one of the shoreline’s most scenic athletic events. Participants will enjoy a ten-mile race and 5K and post-race beach party while helping fund children’s programs and summer camp scholarships administered through the Guilford

Parks Department. 8 a.m. August 3 at Jacobs Beach, Guilford. 10-mile: $25 advance, $30 day of race; 5K: $20 advance, $25 day of race. 203483-8222, sound.runner@snet.net, sealegsshuffle.com.

Bloom Continued from 28

Of Notes Continued from 50

“The country is deaf to it now,” But the seed of social activism Bloom says. “That cover was was present from the beginning. perfectly plain, whom it was As a young adult he joined a satirizing, what it was being faith-based Peace Corps-like Spectator Sports ironical about, but it backfired. group, Youth with a Mission.

They should have realized that The Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament He traveled the world to is an Olympus US Open Series that irony, that mode of satire build clinics in places like the event on the ATP Tour and Sony could not be absorbed even by Amazon. It was on that mission Ericsson WTA Tour. The tournament liberal-minded people.” will be held at the Connecticut that he discovered that life for Tennis Center at Yale. The Pilot But political commentary aside, young people in the developing Pen is the first ever combined Bloom shrugs off the title of world could be a far cry from men’s and women’s summer “public intellectual,” of which the sheltered childhood he had tournament leading into the US he may be among the last. After known in British Columbia.

Open boasting past players like James Blake, Tommy Haas, David all, how many living professors Today, both his band and the Ferrer, Lindsay Davenport, Amelie can most people name? non-profit he helped to found Mauresmo and Daniela Hantuchova.

August 15-23 at Connecticut Tennis “I’m not a public intellectual; are working to improve and, Center at Yale, 45 Yale Ave. $130-$5.

I’m a literary critic, pure and yes, restore the lives of those 888-99-PILOT, pilotpentennis.com. simple. Maybe not so simple, victimized by what some maybe not so pure, but still estimate to be a $32 billion Please send CALENDAR information — beginning, middle and annual industry of enslavement to CALENDAR@conntact.com no end — I’m a literary critic and exploitation. And whether later than six weeks preceding calendar and I interpret that in the old- you want to call Lamont month of event. Please include date, time, location, event description, cost fashioned Johnsonian way: ‘Is Hiebert a “Christian” rocker and contact information. Photographs this good, what is it better than, or not, surely he’s doing God’s must be at least 300 dpi resolution and what is it not as good as, what work—both onstage and off. v are published at discretion of NEW does it mean?’ Very naïve, but HAVEN magazine. in the end, crucial questions.” v

Open 7 days a week

20% Off Entire Check

Open for Lunch and Dinner

With this ad – Dinner only Cannot be combined with other offers Exp. 6/30/08

7 Elm Street, New Haven: 203-562-6688 (Corner of State & Elm Street) 218 Skiff Street, Hamden: 203-281-3166 new haven

55

W O RD S of MOUT H

By Liese Klein

B

efore the opening of Kumo Hibachi Steakhouse on the corner of Elm and State streets earlier this year, downtown choices for food-as-entertainment had been limited to the deft handwork of sushi chefs. At Kumo, you get the sushi artistry plus Benihana-style chef pyrotechnics in front of the teppan, a large griddle also known as a hibachi in the U.S.

NEW EATS: Kumo Hibachi Steakhouse

In an expansive space once occupied by the restaurant Fire, Kumo serves up a comprehensive menu of Japanese, Japanese-American and pan-Asian dishes in one of three spaces. In the room facing Elm Street, diners can cluster around the teppan and watch the chef slice, dice and cook meat and vegetables to order. Another room centers around a 13-person sushi bar and a third provides a bird’s-eye view of State Street.

Owner Irene Zheng also operates the popular Kumo on Skiff Street in Hamden with a similar theme and range of dining experiences.

As at the Hamden location, best bets are the sushi platters with ample amounts of fresh fish. Hand rolls are also inventive and tasty, including the “New Haven Roll,” which brings together shrimp tempura and flying-fish roe.

56

august 2008

Anthony DeCarlo

Kumo Hibachi Steak House, 7 Elm St., New Haven (203-562-6688).

Irene Zheng showcases a variety of dining experiences and Japanese specialties at her new Kumo Hibachi Steakhouse on Elm Street.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Also new at the New Haven Kumo are specials like sea bass and Miso Salmon and a larger hibachi menu.

“The atmosphere is different, but the food is same quality,” Zheng says. Elm City diners can also enjoy a lounge area with a tenseat bar and downtown-oriented cocktails. Drinks like the signature Litchi Martini and Scorpion Bowl pack a wallop, so make sure to eat up while indulging!

Anthony DeCarlo PHOTOGRAPH:

Libby Meissner blends Caribbean and Mediterranean flavors at her outstanding Ansonia eatery, Crave.

483-9995

LaLuna Join us every Sunday

for the largest Buffet Brunch on the Shoreline

168 North Main St Branford

“A treat for the Senses” – Hartford Courant “Amid elegance, a variety of Indian dishes” – New York Times

Fine Indian Cuisine

JUST A TASTE:

Crave Restaurant & Wine Bar

148 York Street, New Haven, CT 203.776.8644 www.zaroka.com

W

hy fight the traffic and crowds at sangria makes for a refreshing coda to the beach when you can take a the drive, or go for the sweet kick of the scenic drive to a great meal in the Valley? “Stoli-Doli” mix of vodka infused with Crave Restaurant & Wine Bar in Ansonia pineapple. would be worth a trip even if the landscape An appetizer of shrimp in plantain weren’t so lush as the summer wanes. “baskets” shone more in the saucing as Not that your view from Crave’s dining the crustaceans were a bit overcooked, but room will be pastoral: On a recent visit a seared scallop entrée did better by its the only greenery in sight was sumac in protein, preserving the tender texture and a vacant lot and the main activity on the briny flavor of the seafood. street was a man digging through a trashcan The standout of a recent meal was the for empties. Crave’s location on Ansonia’s tilapia, expertly cooked with a crisp outside Main Street is among the new signs of life and tender inside. Piled on a fork with in the town’s struggling downtown. beautifully seasoned potatoes, spinach and But owner Libby Meissner brings to her onions with a tang of vinegar, the dish eatery not only a pioneering spirit but also a makes for one of the more sublime seafood truly masterful touch with ingredients and entrées in the region. A luxurious chocolate the dining experience. A former waitress torte was the perfect ending to a great meal, with roots in Puerto Rico, Meissner along with a green apple apéritif that the opened Crave last August after eight years restaurant serves gratis. A well-executed of running a boutique next door. “With tres leches cake also showed off the kitchen’s the restaurant business, you either hate it Latin bona fides. or you love it and you’re a lifer,” she says.

Unfussy but unfailingly attentive service Crave’s style is “eclectic, with Spanish and a friendly greeting from the owner add Caribbean flair,” she adds. to the pleasure of this Naugatuck Valley Start by your meal by relaxing into Crave’s gem, well worth an excursion no matter exposed-brick interior, enlivened with what the season. decorative touches that only hint at the Crave Restaurant & Wine Bar, 102 Main St., cuisine’s Latin influences. A nicely tart Ansonia (203-735-3300).

- EST. 1974 -

GREAT MEXICAN FOOD 161 Park Street New Haven, CT 203-562-2499

new haven

57

Anthony DeCarlo

on Wooster Street

Shilmat Tessama brings a home-style flair to the Ethiopian cuisine at downtown’s Lalibela.

patio dining available 776-4825

(203) 776 - 4825 127 Wooster St • New Haven AnastasiosRestaurant.com

Shilmat Tessama, Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant

S

ince she took over as chef eight months ago, Shilmat Tessama has taken Lalibela’s Ethiopian food in a new direction, adding more “home-style” dishes and expanding vegan and vegetarian offerings. Tessama, 37, learned to cook at her mother’s side in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and brings her own flair to the African nation’s cuisine, celebrated for its complex mix of flavors and unusual ingredients.

The Best of New Haven’s Restaurants For Advertising Call Laura WhinÀeld, Ad Director 203-781-3480 x 106

58

august 2008

Does Ethiopian food have influence from other parts of Africa?

It’s unique. You will not find it in other parts of Africa. We bake our own bread called injera, a sour bread. We eat that every day, with tea. In Ethiopia, for a typical meal we might eat red lentils, collard greens, chickpeas.

Do your customers generally know much about Ethiopian food?

I grew up cooking. We had a big family so my mother, she cooked, and me and my sisters always cooked with her. In Ethiopia, the women do all the cooking; it’s passed through the generations. The mom is cooking, and if you have a daughter, she learns how to cook.

Well, the restaurant has been here for a while — I took over [in January] but my brother-in-law opened Lalibela in 1999. We have a lot of regular customers. We have a lot of people coming now who have been to Ethiopia and know Ethiopian food and ask for special dishes. We also have people now who have adopted Ethiopian kids and they want to have the food and learn about the culture.

How would you describe Ethiopian cuisine?

What would you like people to know about Ethiopian food?

Ethiopian food is unique and very healthy, with a lot of vegetarian dishes. We have a unique spice called berebere — it’s a mix of a lot of different spices. It’s very different.

It has sun-dried pepper, ginger, garlic, cumin and other spices; you grind them together. In Ethiopia you always have to make it from scratch. You get the whole family together and take the whole day to make it.

It’s unique, it’s healthy, we have a lot of vegan and vegetarian dishes, as well as we have beef, lamb, spicy chicken, fish, shrimp.

We have a variety, but most of our food is vegetarian. We try to make it both spicy and mild; you can find something that you like. Come experience Ethiopian food. It has everything.

How did you become a chef?

PHOTOGRAPH:

THE Place to Eat

CHEF ON THE GRILL

Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant, 176 Temple St., New Haven (203-789-1232).

EDITOR’S PICK

PHOTOGRAPH:

BEST OF:

The Wharf at Madison Beach Hotel

Anthony DeCarlo

BAKERIES Marjolaine, 961 State St., New Haven (203-7898589). Buttery croissants and creamy pastries showcase the quality ingredients used by this East Rock neighborhood favorite.

Lucibello’s Italian Pastry Shop, 935 Grand Ave, New Haven (203- 562-4083) . Cannolis to die for are the specialty here but also try the delicately flavored pignoli and other Italian cookies.

4 and Twenty Blackbirds, 610 Village Walk, Guilford (203-458-6900) . A Shoreline star for wedding cakes, cheesecakes, pies and cookies.

Libby’s Italian Pastry Shop, 139 Wooster St, New Haven (203-772-0380) . Top off your pizza excursion with a cannoli or Italian ice at this Wooster Square institution.

A panoramic view of the Madison beachfront adds savor to the Wharf ’s expansive menu of seafood specialties.

Take the Cake, 2458 Boston Post Rd., Guilford (203-453-1896). Brides and sugar fiends flock to this bakery’s tasty mousse cakes, fruit tarts and innovative spice cookies.

Bread and Chocolate, 2457 Whitney Avenue, Hamden (203-907-4079). Breads and pastries made fresh along with coffee drinks, soups, salads and sandwiches.

Edge of the Woods, 379 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-787-1055). The best spot in town for kosher, gluten-free and vegan baked goods--the chocolate babka and linzer cookies are outstanding.

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

Le Petit Café 225 Montowese St., Branford (203483-9791). Prix-fixe menu features beautifully prepared classics with a modern twist in a casual setting.

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

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

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

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

Sage American Grill & Oyster Bar, 100 S. Water St., New Haven (203-787-3466) . The tranquil

A sunset perch on the balcony at the Wharf at the Madison Beach Hotel, with its panorama of sailboats, seabirds and wooded islands in the Sound, makes food almost an afterthought.

But a new chef at the Wharf, and the upstairs bar area once known as the Crow’s Nest, gives the view new savor.

Start wth a glass of Prosecco, the citrusy Italian sparkling wine that can cut through the most oppressive summer heat. (Tuesday is halfprice wine night.) The full bar also features cocktails and several microbrew beers on tap.

The bar’s also the place to do some eavesdropping on the Madison lifestyle — lots of talk about golf, Chef Brendan Treyball the banking system and revamped the Wharf’s the politics of sharing a menu earlier this year family beach house. Wear while sticking to Shoreyour madras or designer line staples like steamers, sunglasses to fully blend in. lobster and gourmet burgers. An outdoor raw bar When it’s time to eat, and tasty new appetizers select from appetizers expand the Wharf’s range including crab cakes, a and make the trip worth- smoked seafood platter while even on an overcast and a range of soups. For day. a main dish, the Wharf

lobster roll hit all the marks: creamy lobster meat, a light dressing and a nice soft roll. Sadly the same roll was wrapped around the bulkier filling of a shrimp po’ boy and the bread disintegrated in short order.

Best to stick to the basics, like steamers with a rich clam broth and melted butter on the side. Or raw oysters eaten on the patio as rabbits frolic in the shrubbery and waves crash on the rocks. For everything that makes Connecticut’s Shoreline special, you can’t beat an evening at the Wharf.

The Wharf at the Madison Beach Hotel, 94 West Wharf Rd., Madison (203245-1404).

harborfront view sets off skilled seafood and raw bar selections. Excellent seasonal specials and a full bar add to the attractions of this favorite.

cured tuna with wasabi oil is a good choice, along with the drink specials and seasonal desserts.

Foster’s, 56-62 Orange St., New Haven (203-8596666). The chef himself is likely to bring over your meal at this acclaimed newcomer in Ninth Square. Comfort food with cutting-edge flair like llama burgers on toasted brioche.

FUSION CUISINE

Zinc, 964 Chapel St., New Haven (203-624-0507) .

Consistently excellent food, drinks and service in a central location. Innovative seafood like tamari-

Mickey’s Restaurant & Bar, 2323 Whitney Ave., Hamden (203-288-4700) . This eatery’s sophisticated interior and artful blend of Israeli and Italian flavors bring big-city flair to downtown Hamden. Sip a Mickey’s margarita with your Marrakech salmon and Israeli couscous and you’ll swear you’re on the beach in Tel Aviv

new haven

59

Bespoke, 266 College St., New Haven (203-5624644). High-end Latin fusion with a flair, wit and excellent service. Try the lobster arepa and duck-confit empanada upstairs at Sabor, the inhouse Latin lounge. Fixed-price pre-theater menu serves up three courses for only $29.

Friend House, 538 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203795-6888). In a plaza next to Trader Joe’s, Friend House brings together stylish sushi and Chinese and Thai favorites. Best bets are the inventive hand rolls with ingredients like mango, tempura flakes and mint.

Formosa, 132 Middletown Ave., North Haven (203239-0666). Creative and beautifully presented dishes with pan-Asian panache. Don’t miss the Szechwan “ravioli,” tender chicken dumplings in a delicate peanut sauce, or Taiwanese seafood specialties.

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

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

HOT DOGS With the closing of the Yankee Doodle, New Haven fans of the premium hot dog have to hit the road for their fix.

Blackie’s Hot Dog Stand, 2200 Waterbury Rd., Cheshire (203-699-1819) . It’s all about the relish at Blackie’s, a Cheshire institution since 1928.

Simple pork and beef dogs are all they make--just tell them how many you want and get a birch beer on the side.

Glenwood Drive-In, 2538 Whitney Ave., Hamden (203-281-0604). Top-quality Hummel meat make the dogs sing at Glenwood, a Hamden favorite since 1955. Spicy relish and thick-cut fries complement the toothsome wieners.

Mr. Mac’s Canteen, 2004 Bridgeport Ave., Milford (203-874-1515). Chili’s the specialty at Mr. Mac’s, with locations in both Milford and Monroe. The meatless, beanless chili’s spicy goodness plays off the perfectly cooked dog for fast-food bliss. Fries and other toppings are also excellent.

Al’s Hot Dog Stand, 248 S. Main St., Naugatuck (203-729-6229). Wieners with all the toppings plus shakes, fries and fountain drinks are the draw at this regional favorite. Open late in the summer for al fresco dining after the ball game.

Chick’s Drive Inn, 183 Beach St., West Haven (203934-4510). The perfect snack after a day at the beach, a Chick’s dog benefits from charbroiling and excellent condiments

INDIAN Thali, 4 Orange St., New Haven (203-777-1177) .

Downtown’s best Sunday buffet, with ample meat and vegetarian selections as well as fresh masala dosa crepes and unusual treats like goat curry and carrot pudding.

Zaroka Bar & Restaurant, 148 York St., New Haven (203-776-8644) . Opulent setting for one of the city’s most popular Indian buffets. Enjoy 60

august 2008

the birayani pilafs, crunchy pappadum crackers and fluffy desserts. Buffet is $7.95 daily ($9.95 on Sunday).

Royal India, 140 Howe St., New Haven (203-7879493). Tasty North Indian fare in an intimate setting on Howe’s mini-restaurant row. Nice variety at lunch buffet with fresh bread. Weekday buffet is $7.95, Friday-Saturday is $8.95 and Sunday $9.95.

Darbar India, 1070 Main St., Branford (203-4818994). Award-winning shoreline favorite with excellent atmosphere and north Indian classics, run by Royal India owner. Spicy vindaloos and tandooris are a good bet. Friday-Sunday lunch buffet is $9.95.

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

Try the shrimp in coconut sauce and unusual lentil dessert. Weekday lunch buffet $9.95 ($11.95 on weekends).

Swagat, 215 Boston Post Rd. West Haven (203-9310108). A tiny outpost of south Indian favorites near the University of New Haven. Best bets are the masala dosa and many vegetarian dishes, plus the friendly service. No buffet, but open all day and very affordable.

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

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

Also open for lunch.

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

Outstanding modern Italian in an intimate setting. You can’t go wrong with the pasta specials and perfectly cooked and seasoned steaks.

Roseland Apizza, 350 Hawthorne Ave., Derby (203735-0494). Don’t let the casual pizzeria decor fool you — this Valley favorite makes some serious Italian food. Look for the daily specials and enjoy.

Adriana’s Restaurant, 771 Grand Ave., New Haven (203-865-6474). Meat is the thing at this Grand Avenue favorite, especially veal and sausages.

Fresh pasta and classics in a formal setting.

MEXICAN Baja, 63 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203-799-2252). An expansive salsa bar and fish taco entrée appeal to homesick Californians and big eaters.

Guadalupe la Poblanita, 136 Chapel St., New Haven (203-752-1017) . Simple, authentic cuisine from Puebla in a down-home atmosphere.

Jalapeno Heaven, 40 N. Main St., Branford (203481-6759). Tasty Americanized fare in a cozy setting with excellent margaritas.

Long Wharf Taco Trucks, Long Wharf Drive near Veterans Memorial Park, weekdays at lunch. Tacos as they’re served in Mexico — just corn tortillas, meat, cilantro and a spicy sauce — eaten al fresco

by New Haven Harbor.

Mezcal, 14 Mechanic St., New Haven (203-782-4828).

Big portions and wide-ranging menu with lots of surprises. No liquor license.

Taqueria Mexico No. 1, 850 S. Colony Rd. Wallingford (203-265-0567) . The best tortas — or small sandwiches — in the area, filled with spiced meat and accompanied on the weekends by a lipsmacking posole hominy soup.

Viva Zapata, 161 Park St., New Haven (203-5622499). Toothsome classics and a killer sangria in a festive pub atmosphere. Open for lunch.

MIDDLE EASTERN Mamoun’s, 85 Howe St., New Haven (203-5628444). Cheap plates of falafel and Syrian-style specialties like stuffed eggplant keep this student favorite hopping late into the night.

Istanbul Café, 245 Crown St., New Haven (203-7873881). This critics’ favorite has the best ambience in town and consistently flavorful food. A grilled octopus salad and red lentil soup are standouts, along with lamb dishes.

Turkish Kebab House, 1157 Campbell Ave., West Haven (203-933-0002) . Every kind of kebab imaginable, from doner to minced chicken to cubes of lamb, is on tap at this neighborhood eatery. Also vegetarian and seafood options.

Kasbah Garden Café, 105 Howe St., New Haven (203-777-5053) . Moroccan-style lamb and vegetable dishes prevail on the limited but tasty menu. Savor mint tea and baklava outside on the idiosyncratically landscaped patio.

SEAFOOD Lenny’s Indian Head Inn, 205 S. Montowese St., Branford (203-488-1500) . Fried clams praised by national critics and the freshest steamers around make Lenny’s a local favorite. The Shore Dinner covers all the bases with cherrystones, corn on the cob, lobster and steamers.

Lenny & Joe’s Fish Tale, 1301 Boston Post Rd., Madison (203-245-7289). What it lacks in formality it makes up for in taste — the freshest, crispest fried seafood around. The perfect spot for quick eats after beach or a coastal drive, with an ice cream stand onsite.

Guilford Mooring, 505 Whitfield St., Guilford (203458-2921). Pasta dishes, a stellar chowder and a full range of grilled fish set this Shoreline favorite apart. And where else can you savor Lazy Man’s Stuffed Lobster as you watch lobstermen at work on the Sound?

YellowFin’s Seafood Grille, 1027 South Main St., Cheshire (203-250-9999) . Flavors are light and bright at this fusion eatery, with a menu that ranges from cioppino to Asian scallop salad to Tilapia St. Tropez. A raw bar and house-brewed beer round out the offerings.

Jimmie’s of Savin Rock, 5 Rock St., West Haven. 9343212. Take the family out and enjoy the boardwalk view at this West Haven institution, known for its moderate prices and casual atmosphere. All the fried favorites, a full menu of broiled fish and lobster and the famous split hot dog.

Open Seven Days

Lunches $5 & Up

SUSHI Wasabi, 280 Branford Rd., North Branford (203-4887711). Good quality rolls and sashimi at reasonable prices, along with Korean specialties like mandu dumplings and bibimbap rice bowls. The sake flows freely on Monday nights, a favorite with students.

Akasaka, 1450 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-3874898). Unusual specials like baby octopus and blowfish make this veteran eatery worth a visit.

Live sea urchin roe and scallops are also a best bet, along with tasty pickled vegetables.

Hibachi • Sushi • Pan-Asian Catering & Parties Welcome Happy Hour! M–TH, 3-6: All Beer 1/2 price, Premium Drinks $5

Sono Bana, 1206 Dixwell Ave., Hamden (203-2819922). Fresh fish, inventive rolls and extensive combo options make this a neighborhood favorite.

Try a fruity saketini with your sashimi “boat” and ask the chef to load up on the catch of the day.

Miya’s Sushi, 68 Howe St., New Haven (203-7779760). Unusual combinations like rolls with cheese and Ethiopian spices are the draw at this Elm City institution. Let go of your preconceptions about sushi with help from some of the beguiling infused-sake cocktails.

Number 1 Fish Market, 2239 State St., Hamden (203-624-6171). Make your own sushi at home with fresh seafood from this market, which supplies many area restaurants. The helpful staff will steer you toward the best quality tuna, salmon, scallops and red snapper; items like sea urchin roe are available.

514 Bridgeport Avenue, Shelton • 929-8666 451 Kings Highway, East Fairfield • 610-6888

www.KobisRestaurant.com

VEGETARIAN Ahimsa, 1227 Chapel St., New Haven (203-7864774). Wide-ranging vegan fare is featured at this (kosher) eatery that uses no animal products.

South Indian-style dals and curries star at the daily $10 lunch buffet, with more offerings at Sunday brunch.

Edge of the Woods, 379 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-787-1055). The natural market offers a superb selection of vegetarian products in addition to a lunchtime buffet with salad bar, hot entrées like lasagna and seitan stir-fry and a colorful array of main-dish salads.

Shoreline Diner & Vegetarian Enclave, 345 Boston Post Rd., Guilford (203-458-7380) . Non-veg diner fare along with vegan favorites like a tempeh Reuben with sauerkraut on grilled rye and “Twin Towers” of vegetable strudel. Great place for groups with different dining preferences.

It’s Only Natural Restaurant, 386 Main St., Middletown (860-346-9210) . Worth the ride up I91 for award-winning entrées like sweet potato enchiladas, tempeh “crab cakes” and a generous macrobiotic plate. Full slate of vegan desserts including chocolate mousse couscous cake.

Mediterranean Cuisine Entire Lunch Menu Under $10

2323 Whitney Ave, Hamden 203.288.4700 mickeysgroup.com

New Happy Hour On the Patio!

12 Item $6 Appetizer Menu 7 Wines for $5 & Lots of Drink Specials Monday thru Friday 3:00 – 6:30

Live Music on the Patio Every Wed Night Live Music Every Weekend in the Lounge

Catering Available Closed Sundays new haven

61

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

Keep on Truckin’ Big wheels, good deals at offbeat Middlebury attraction

By Joyce L. Faiola

W

ho would have thought that four, six or even eight wheels could be so fascinating? Trucks, no less! Thankfully, the late Richard Guerrera did and he spent his whole life hypnotized by trucks of all sizes, shapes and purposes.

His passion resulted in the Golden Age of Trucking Museum, which opened in 2002.

The enormous 32,000-square-foot building feels like a prop warehouse at MGM Studios. It’s packed not only with impeccably restored trucks (including Guerrera’s favorite, a 1974 bright-red Dodge Bighorn tractor-trailer, which is displayed proudly, impeccably clean and shining as every other vehicle is) but also loads of other wonderful vehicles.

The non-profit museum is lovingly tended

by Dick’s widow Fran, daughter and director Kathleen Jones and family friend and assistant director Pamela Palmer, my enthusiastic tour guide. She let me wander and dream away a solid hour imagining myself driving off in what I wished was my sweetheart — a 1939 Chevrolet woody station wagon cute as a button and on loan by owner John Toland of New Canaan.

In addition to the permanent collection of trucks and displays there are ever-changing vehicles on loan from enthusiasts from throughout New England. During my visit there was a wonderful 1879 Moyer buggy complete with vintage picnic basket and all the trimmings. I met up with Jack Hesen 62

august 2008

Will Jones, 17, volunteers at the Golden Age of Trucking Museum in Middlebury, where big rigs are a family affair.

visiting the museum from West Virginia and we marveled at the pristine, pale-green 1924 Ford Model T pickup designed to allow the driver to peddle wares from its covered flatbed.

Visitors can make this a whole-day excursion if they stop at Rich Farm, a few miles down Route 67, for the best darn ice cream ever. Say howdy to Sara McVay, who was making a fresh batch of heaven when I stopped by. Also nearby is the time-warped Quassy Amusement Park with water rides, carnival stuff, a lake and the unmistakable aura of 1951!

There’s a fabulous century-old birchbark canoe accompanied by an old photo showing it hanging from the ceiling of a hunting lodge in Seymour. Don’t miss the 1948 DeSoto coupe recently driven by Leonardo Also close by is a glorious new restaurant, DiCaprio in the film Revolutionary Road, on 121, tucked at the end of a winding road loan from author Dennis David. There’s a at Waterbury-Oxford Airport. With its fantastic kids’ playroom with old-fashioned panoramic view of landing planes, the artifacts. Nearby are the “Wiggle Cars,” horizon, open kitchen and the wood-fired pint-sized vehicles that wiggle as you drive pizza area, this is a wonderful end to a them. Kids also have their own course here. marvelous day spent back in time.

(There’s a 90-pound limit for drivers, so I Golden Age of Trucking Museum, 1101 didn’t push my luck.)

Southford Rd., Middlebury (203-577-2181, Everyone will enjoy the terrific birthday goldenagetruckmuseum.com) . August 16 is and party room with picnic tables, a truck Drive-In Night with movies and popcorn. cut in half that kids can sit and play in and Dick and Fran’s 1955 wooden Chris Rich Farm Ice Cream, 691 Oxford Rd., Oxford Craft speedboat looking like it’s ready to (203-881-1040) zoom away! This cheery room also has a Quassy Amusement Park, Rt. 64, Middlebury wall of quotable license plates including (203-758-2913, quassy.com) my favorites, “Live Free or Diet” (New Hampshire), “Fly By” (Texas), “Toothbiz” 121 Restaurant & Bar, 7 Juliano Dr., Oxford, (New York) and lots more.

(203-262-0121, 121atOXC.com) v

Downtown downtownmilfordct.com

Milford

Saturday Night at the Movies on the Green – Shown at Dusk. Beethoven:

Aug. 9th, Lost Boys: Sept. 13th.

Farmers’ Market – Through Oct. 18th.

All CT grown produce and food stuffs. From 9–1pm every Sat., River & Railroad Ave.

34th Annual Oyster Festival – August 16th 10–5pm.

Every Bead Tells A Story

Collected Stories Bookstore RARE • USED • NEW 12 Daniel Street Milford, CT (Downtown near Cafe Atlantique) Open 7 days a week

16 Broadway Walnut Beach Milford, CT (Specializing in books of regional interest)

203-874-0115 • collectedstory@optonline.com www.collectedstoriesbookstore.com

new haven

63

$FFHOHUDWHG 0 % $ IOH[LEOH Ã&#x201A; EOHQGHG Ã&#x201A; FRQYHQLHQW

i i i i i

)LYH VWDUWLQJ SRLQWV SHU \HDU )RXU GLIIHUHQW FRQFHQWUDWLRQV 6WXG\ IXOO WLPH RU SDUW WLPH &ODVVHV RQ JURXQG DQG RQ OLQH )LQDQFLDO DLG DYDLODEOH

Ã&#x201A; DGS DOEHUWXV HGX

$/%(5786 0$*186 &2//(*( 35263(&7 675((7 Ã&#x201A; 1(: +$9(1 Ã&#x201A; &7 Ã&#x201A;

ZZZ DOEHUWXV HGX 7KH VPDUW FKRLFH